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
Batman: Arkham Origins multiplayer mode pits The Joker vs Bane vs the Dynamic Duo
Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment has announced that an online multiplayer mode will be available in Batman: Arkham Origins, courtesy of Splash Damage, when it ships this October. The team behind Enemy Territory: Quake Wars has created a unique three-faction free-for-all that pits The Joker versus Bane versus Batman and Robin.
Each rogue will be able to command a squad of three henchmen as they battle each other and our caped heroes. The henchmen can use guns, rocket launchers, melee weapons, and other implements of destruction during the fight, adding third-person shooter mechanics to the traditional Arkham-style fighting employed by Batman and Robin. But don’t think the supervillains will just be sitting on the sidelines, players can call in The Joker or Bane as the “ultimate reinforcement.”
Sadly, Wii U owners won’t be able to take the fight online as the multiplayer mode will only be available for the PC, PS3, and Xbox 360 versions of the game. Batman: Arkham Origins will be available for all four on October 25. A companion game, Batman: Arkham Origins Blackgate, will be released for the 3DS and Vita on the same day.
Call of Duty: Ghosts multiplayer reveal set for August 14
Activision and Infinity Ward have announced that gamers around the world will get their first glimpse at Call of Duty: Ghosts‘ multiplayer mode on August 14 at 10:30 AM (Pacific Time). The Los Angeles-based event will be livestreamed through the official Call of Duty website, so be sure to bookmark it now.
Call of Duty: Ghosts will be available for the PC, PS3, Wii U, and Xbox 360 on November 5. The game will also be available for the PS4 and Xbox One during each system’s launch.
PSN Today: Cloudberry Kingdom, PixelJunk Monsters: Ultimate HD, Narco Terror, more
Welcome to another week of PlayStation Store releases, this time starring Cloudberry Kingdom, the ultra-hard procedural platformer developed by Pwnee Studios. It’s available on the PSN today alongside twin-stick shooter Narco Terror, live action lightgun game The Last Bounty Hunter, and PS2 Classic P.T.O. IV. A fixed version of another PS2 Classic, Fatal Frame II: Crimson Butterfly, is also available today.
And if you own Sony’s handheld system, you’ll be happy to know that a pair of new downloadable Vita games were added to the PS Store today. There’s the tower defense favorite, PixelJunk Monsters: Ultimate HD, and another puzzle game from Nikoli, Puzzle by Nikoli V: Slitherlink.
You want more information on each of these titles? You can find that after the break. You want a list of this week’s new game add-ons? That’s at the PlayStation Blog. (more…)
Posted in News, PS3, Vita
Tagged Cloudberry Kingdom
BioShock Infinite DLC, Clash in the Clouds, available today
As promised, 2K and Irrational Games have announced the first details of BioShock Infinite‘s downloadable content schedule. Actually, the first DLC expansion, “Clash in the Clouds,” is available today. That’s a nice surprise.
BioShock Infinite: Clash in the Clouds is a set of wave-based maps that “presents players with a series of unique, intense challenges and a whole new gambit of combat opportunities.” Players will be able to access four new areas in Clash in the Clouds and if they complete all 60 Blue Ribbon Challenges, they’ll be able to view a batch of new new Voxophones, Kinetoscopes, and concept art in the Columbian Archeological Society. BioShock Infinite: Clash in the Clouds can be downloaded now for $4.99 (or 400 Microsoft Points).
But Clash in the Clouds is just an appetizer before BioShock Infinite’s downloadable main course. “Burial at Sea” is a noir-like two-part expansion to the game that will bring Booker and Elizabeth to the underwater city of Rapture before its fall. Priced at $14.99 apiece, both parts of Burial at Sea are currently without release dates.
If you’re looking to save a little money, all of BioShock Infinite’s DLC can be yours as part of the game’s Season Pass, which is still available for $19.99, a significant discount over buying each piece individually.
You can find the first trailers for Clash in the Clouds and Burial at Sea after the break. (more…)
Posted in News, PC, PS3, Xbox 360
Tagged BioShock Infinite
Reggie Fils-Aime on Super Smash Bros. 4 petition: “My body is ready”
Leave it to Jimmy Fallon to get to get Nintendo of America President Reggie Fils-Aime to comment on fan petition requesting his inclusion in Super Smash Bros. 4. Late Night‘s resident game fan pelted Fils-Aime with a few Twitter questions from fans and after talk about third parties on the Wii U and how Reggie goes to bed every night dreaming of Link, we got to the big one: “What are the chance we may see you as an unlockable character in Super Smash Bros. for 3DS and Wii U?”
Fils-Aime very diplomatically stated that the final decision is up to Masahiro Sakurai, the game’s Director. But he followed it up by saying, “If he wants, my body is ready.” Any fan of the man knows that this is a callback to his famous declaration before stepping on a Wii Balance Board for the first time at E3 2007.
It’s also the perfect answer to that question.
Posted in 3DS, News, Wii U
Tagged Super Smash Bros. For 3DS, Super Smash Bros. For Wii U
Madden NFL 25 brings together the the best players of the last 25 years with All-25 Team
Boom! John Madden will return to the sidelines of an NFL game next month in Madden NFL 25. The bombastic coach (and turducken fan) will manage the All-25 Team, a collection of the best players of the last 25 years.
EA Sports plans to unveil the All-25 Team over the next two weeks on the official Madden website. So far, only two players have been revealed as part of the All-25 Team: running back Marshall Faulk (formerly of the St. Louis Rams) and fullback Mike Alstott (formerly of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers).
Madden NFL 25 will be available for the PS3 and Xbox 360 on August 27. The All-25 Team will also strut their stuff on the PS4 sometime this Fall and on the Xbox One this November.
LucasArts canceled at least 20 Star Wars games over the years… here are their logos
The book Rogue Leaders: The Story of LucasArts was first published in 2008, but I guess no one bothered to look at the appendices until All Games Beta did today. There, in Appendix C, they found concept logos from 20 canceled Star Wars games. Wow!
It’s likely that most of the logos were designed for games that only existed as part of a collection of pre-production documents, but some of them have interesting stories behind them…
- Star Wars: Vader was an early version of Star Wars: The Force Unleashed (players could still play as Darth Vader during the game’s tutorial level). “The Force Unleashed” was originally a working title and it’s likely many of the logos pictured (Jedi Hunter, Dark Jedi, Rebel Fury, Jedi Rebel, Rebel Jedi, etc.) were alternate titles for the story of Vader’s Dark Apprentice.
- Star Wars Jedi Knight III: Brink of Darkness (or the similarly logoed Star Wars: Jedi Outlaw) would have been been the fifth game in the extremely popular Dark Forces series.
- Star Wars: Underworld shares a name with the long-in-development Star Wars live action television show. It was eventually announced as Star Wars 1313, which was canceled after LucasArts was purchased by Disney.
Personally, I’d love to know what kind of game Star Wars: Scum and Villainy was being developed as. You can find the complete list of canceled titles after the break. (more…)
Posted in News
Fez II canceled as Phil Fish quits game development
Phil Fish is one half of Polytron and the outspoken developer behind Fez, a highly acclaimed puzzle platformer released on the Xbox 360 and PC last year. During this year’s E3 Expo, Fish announced that he had begun work on a sequel, Fez II. But over the weekend, things between Fish and the gaming public turned ugly and he has canceled Fez II. In fact, Fish has decided to get out of game development completely. In a statement on Polytron’s webiste, he wrote:
FEZ II is cancelled. i am done. i take the money and i run. this is as much as i can stomach. this is isn’t the result of any one thing, but the end of a long, bloody campaign.
you win.
The dustup started after Marcus Beer, the “Annoyed Gamer,” tore into Fish on the latest episode of Invisible Walls, his show on Game Trailers. Beer was angry at Fish for refusing to comment on Microsoft’s recent Xbox One policy change allowing indie developers to self-publish their games on the system. Actually, describing Beer’s tirade as “angry” might be underselling it. It was much closer to verbal abuse.
Fish, quoting a line said by Bender on Futurama, told Beer (via Twitter) to kill himself and promptly canceled Fez II. Phil Fish has endured a lot of criticism from gamers over the years. Some of it is fair and some of it isn’t. But it looks like his battle with Beer was the straw that broke the camel’s back.
Unless Fish changes his mind and tries to play the whole thing off as a PR stunt.