Warp Zoned Presents
Video Game Canon- Clair Obscur Completes the Sweep by Winning “Best Game” at 2025-2026 BAFTA Games Awards
- Boss Fight Books Gets a New Look for Richard Moss’s “Age of Empires”
- GDC Awards: All the Winners from 1996 to Today
- Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 Wins “Game of the Year” at 2025-2026 GDC Awards
- Silent Hill, Dragon Quest, Skyrim, and More Announced as Finalists for the World Video Game Hall of Fame’s Class of 2026
Warp Zoned Presents
- Video Game Research Library
- We Pitched a Museum a 1993 Game Hint Line (And They Actually Said Yes) – Yarn Spinner (2026)
- The History Of The Word “Metroidvania” And How It Spread – A Critical Hit (2025)
- Creator of Hit Game Shovel Knight Is at a ‘Make or Break’ Moment – Bloomberg (2025)
- Shadow of the Colossus: An oral history – Design Room (2025)
- In 2005, games started rewiring our brains – The AV Club (2025)
Author: John Scalzo
Valve officially announces their living room PC initiative: “Steam Machines”
Here it is, your official “Steam Box” announcement from Valve… err, sort of.
Today, Valve announced “Steam Machines,” their SteamOS-powered living room PC initiative. Steam Machines won’t conform to a single hardware configuration like the current consoles from Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft. And Valve won’t produce any of the Steam Machines themselves. Instead, the company plans to partner with hardware manufacturers to produce several different Steam Machine form factors optimized for “size, price, quietness, or other factors.” The first Steam Machines will be available to purchase sometime in 2014.
According to Valve, each Steam Machine will be completely customizable. In an FAQ on their site, the question was raised, “Can I hack this box? Run another OS? Change the hardware? Install my own software? Use it to build a robot?” Valve’s one word response? “Sure.”
To test their new platform, Valve has created a prototype Steam Machine that they want to give away to 300 beta testers. Interested? Head over to the Official Steam Machines Page now and read up on what you need to do to become one of the lucky 300. The beta testers will be chosen on October 25 and the beta will begin before the end of the year.
South Park: The Stick of Truth will honestly be available on December 10
Oh my god! Ubisoft killed Kenny finally announced the official release date for South Park: The Stick of Truth! The Obsidian Entertainment-developed RPG will be released for the PC, PS3, and Xbox 360 on December 10.
The Stick of Truth began life as a THQ title and was originally scheduled to be released last Fall, but Ubisoft is in control now and they’re planning a big launch for game. Players who pre-order the game will receive the Ultimate Fellowship Pack, four exclusive costumes that come equipped with special abilities: The Necromancer Sorcerer will increase your fire damage, the Rogue Assassin can earn extra gold; the Ranger Elf can deal extra weapon damage, and the Holy Defender can raise your defense.
A special edition, known as the Grand Wizard Edition (Wait… really?), is also in the works at Ubisoft. The Grand Wizard Edition (Seriously, why?) will include the Ultimate Fellowship Pack in-game costumes, a six-inch Grand Wizard Cartman Figure from Kidrobot, and a Kingdom of South Park Map. The Grand Wizard Edition (Still?) has been priced at $79.99 and will also be available on December 10 for the PC, PS3, and Xbox 360.
Posted in News
Tagged PC, PS3, South Park: The Stick of Truth, Xbox 360
XBLA Today: Ascend: Hand of Kul, Girl Fight
Two long-in-development games have made it onto the Xbox Live Arcade today. First up is Signal Studios’ Ascend: Hand of Kul, which is a free-to-play action RPG that includes both single and multiplayer gameplay:
Wage war for your God as a brutal Caos warrior on a unique journey to Ascension. Destroy the spawn of the Titan, invade other players’ worlds, and tip the balance in the Crusade between the alliances. Ascend: Hand of Kul is a free-to-play third-person action RPG featuring innovative seamless single and multiplayer gameplay and multiplatform support.
Also available this week is Girl Fight, which is a fighting game that features a roster made up exclusively of women. Girl Fight is priced at $9.99:
Follow the journey of eight fierce females with psychic powers who battle each other within a secret government research facility! Fight using both hand-to-hand combat and supernatural psychic attacks in a wide variety of doomsday scenarios! Perform awesome moves in battle to earn virtual currency to unlock extra content, such as new psychic abilities, alternate costumes, in-depth backstory, and sexy illustrations of the girls! Psychic warfare starts here!
Posted in News, Xbox 360
Tagged Ascend: New Gods, Girl Fight
FIFA 14, Pro Evolution Soccer 2014, more added to PS Store
It’s soccer day on the PlayStation Network as Sony has added EA Sports’ FIFA 14 and Konami’s Pro Evolution Soccer 2014 to the PlayStation Store. EA Sports has kicked FIFA 14 onto all three Sony platforms (the PS3, Vita, and PSP) while Konami has focused on just the PS3 for Pro Evolution Soccer 2014. Though it should be noted that the PSP and Vita versions of FIFA 14 carry the “Legacy Edition” subtitle to let gamers know they’re the same game as FIFA Soccer 13, just with updated rosters.
Also available for the PS3 this week is From Software’s latest mech warfare title, Armored Core: Victory Day; the Kung Fu Factory-developed all-girl fighting game, Game Fight; and two PS2 Classics: The Mark of Kri and Tokobot Plus: Mysteries of the Karakuri.
Finally, Lone Survivor: The Director’s Cut, “a new kind of adventure where the choice of how to survive is up to you,” is available to download as a PS3/Vita Cross-Buy title.
More information on all of these games can be found after the break and a full rundown of this week’s new game add-ons can be found at the PlayStation Blog. (more…)
Posted in News, PS3, PSP, Vita
Tagged Armored Core: Verdict Day, FIFA 14, Girl Fight, Pro Evolution Soccer 2014
Three volume Grand Theft Auto V soundtrack now available on iTunes
Rockstar doesn’t do anything small. Everything has be big. The biggest thing ever if possible. And so it goes with the Grand Theft Auto V soundtrack, The Music of Grand Theft Auto V. The soundtrack is now available on iTunes, as a three volume attack of music (priced at $24.99) or as three distinct albums.
Volume 1: Original Music is a collection of songs created exclusively for Grand Theft Auto V. The album also includes The Chain Gang of 1974’s “Sleepwalking,” which was featured in GTA5’s “Official Trailer.”
Volume 2: The Score takes GTA5’s original score (a first for the series) and arranges it into a complete album mixed by DJ Shadow. Rockstar’s Woody Jackson worked with Tangerine Dream, and acclaimed producers The Alchemist and Oh No to produce the score.
Finally, Volume 3: The Soundtrack is a collection of previously released music that was played on GTA5’s in-game radio stations.
Complete tracklists for all three albums are available after the break. (more…)
Posted in Etcetera, News, PS3, Xbox 360
Tagged Grand Theft Auto V
Microsoft reveals first details of Xbox One exclusive D4 at TGS 2013
The Tokyo Game Show might just be a memory now, but did you know Microsoft used the Japanese games showcase to introduce Swery65’s episodic Xbox One game, D4, to the world? Briefly glimpsed at this year’s E3 Expo, Microsoft revealed that its full title will be D4: Dark Dreams Don’t Die and that the game will make extensive use of the Kinect sensor.
Microsoft’s Xbox Wire went straight to Swery65 to learn more about the enigmatic game:
Can you tell us a bit more about the story and core gameplay mechanics?
Swery65: The main character of the story is David Young, a private detective. Two years ago, someone killed his wife. He lost his memories of the incident, but in exchange, he received the ability to travel into the past. He uses this ability to crack cases to lead him closer to the truth about his wife’s death, and if possible, to find a way to save her life.
As I said, you’ll definitely want to hop over to the Xbox Wire if you want to learn how D4: Dark Dreams Don’t Die uses the Kinect sensor.
Sonic: Lost World to be released on October 29 after slight delay
Sega has released a new Extended Cut trailer showcasing “The Deadly Six,” the sextet of supervillainous opponents that will challenge Sonic in Sonic: Lost World.
However, the trailer does deliver a little bad news as the Wii U and 3DS game will now be released in stores on October 29, a slight delay from its original October 22 release date.
Posted in 3DS, News, Wii U
Tagged Sonic: Lost World
Valve unveils Linux-based SteamOS for living room PCs
Valve has taken the first steps towards making their long-rumored “SteamBox” a reality with today’s announcement of SteamOS. SteamOS will be a freely-available, Linux-based operating system designed for living room PCs.
SteamOS will add a variety of new features to the Steam platform, including game sharing across accounts, parental conrtols, in-home streaming, and a place to purchase movies, TV shows, and music. All of these feature will available soon on the desktop version of Steam as well.
Valve is also working with “AAA publishers” to make their games natively playable in SteamOS in 2014. According to the company, “hundreds” of games already support SteamOS.
Hit the jump for a look at the full feature set of SteamOS and keep an eye on the official SteamOS page for more details about the operating system’s impending release. (more…)