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
Capcom has a “big surprise” planned for E3 2013
Capcom has announced that they’re bringing four games to this year’s E3 Expo, which begins this Tuesday, June 11. The company has also promised that they have a “big surprise” to share with fans.
Here’s Capcom’s E3 2013 lineup (sans the big surprise):
- DuckTales: Remastered (PC, PS3, Wii U, Xbox 360)
- Dungeons & Dragons: Chronicles of Mystara (PC, PS3, Wii U, Xbox 360)
- Lost Planet 3 (PC, PS3, Xbox 360)
- Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Dual Destinies (3DS)
What do you think Capcom’s “big surprise” will be?
Nintendo Download: Animal Crossing: New Leaf, Yoshi, more
Welcome to this week’s Nintendo Download, which includes two new titles to download today and two more later this week.
Available today on the Wii U eShop is Spelunker, a Virtual Console console game originally released for the NES. The Wii Virtual Console has also been updated today with Sengoku 3, a side-scrolling brawler originally available for the NeoGeo.
The biggest game in this week’s Nintendo Download will be available in three days as 3DS owners will be able to download Animal Crossing: New Leaf on Sunday, June 9. Three days after that, on June 12, Yoshi, a puzzle game originally released for the NES, will be added to the Wii U eShop.
More information on all of these titles can found after the break. (more…)
Posted in 3DS, News, Wii, Wii U
Tagged Animal Crossing: New Leaf
Xbox One must make online connection at least once a day to play games
If you were interested in an Xbox One, I hope you have a broadband Internet connection at home. If not, you’re going to need one as Microsoft has confirmed that the Xbox One must connect to the Xbox Live servers at least once per day before it’ll let you access your games. That even goes for single-player games that you have the discs for. Oh Microsoft, I hope you have the bandwidth ready to handle this influx of connections.
Here’s the official statement from Microsoft, which was posted today on Xbox.com:
While a persistent connection is not required, Xbox One is designed to verify if system, application or game updates are needed and to see if you have acquired new games, or resold, traded in, or given your game to a friend. Games that are designed to take advantage of the cloud may require a connection.
With Xbox One you can game offline for up to 24 hours on your primary console, or one hour if you are logged on to a separate console accessing your library. Offline gaming is not possible after these prescribed times until you re-establish a connection, but you can still watch live TV and enjoy Blu-ray and DVD movies.
Microsoft clarifies Xbox One game licensing policy
A few days ahead of E3, Microsoft has finally clarified how game licensing and used games will work on the Xbox One. In an FAQ posted on Xbox.com, Microsoft broke it down for prospective Xbox One buyers:
*** All games must be registered with your Xbox Live account. But once registered, all of your games can be downloaded to any Xbox One system as long as you’re logged in with your Live account.
*** “Your friends and family, your guests and acquaintances get unlimited access to all of your games. Anyone can play your games on your console–regardless of whether you are logged in or their relationship to you.”
*** You can designate ten “family members” who can log in and download any of your games from any Xbox One.
*** Your friends can borrow your games with two conditions: “[Y]ou can only give them to people who have been on your friends list for at least 30 days and each game can only be given once.”
As for used games, Microsoft has confirmed that all Microsoft-published disc-based games can be traded in or transferred without a fee. However, how the game is removed from your account remains still a mystery. Here’s the kicker, though. Third party publishers can choose to “opt out” of this system and charge a fee for game transfers or entirely disallow Xbox One owners from trading in their games.
So there you have it. Microsoft’s game licensing policies for the Xbox One aren’t quite as bad as we feared, but allowing publishers to deny used game sales is pretty terrible. And it will definitely cost Microsoft at least a few Xbox One sales this holiday season.
PC, Xbox One, Xbox 360 shooter TitanFall is Respawn’s first game
The digital edition of the July 2013 issue of Game Informer was uploaded to the Google Play store a might early and, thanks to NeoGAF user cartman86, we’ve gotten our first look at Respawn Entertainment’s first title: TitanFall. The game, which will be published by Electronic Arts, will be available in Spring 2014 for the PC and Xbox One. An Xbox 360 version is also in the works at an outside development studio.
As expected, TitanFall is a futuristic first person shooter that throws ground troops and mechs (known as Titans) onto the same battlefield and asks them to duke it. The game will be centered around its Multiplayer Campaign mode, while also including additional multiplayer modes and a “One-Player Mode.”
Titans are not your traditional lumbering mechs. They’re fast and powerful, with the ability to jump and scale walls. Titans can also be programmed to remotely follow a ground troop like a giant robotic dog. But ground soldiers can take down a Titan by climbing atop the head and shooting out the brain a la Johnny Rico in Starship Troopers. On the technical side of things, TitanFall is being built with a modified version of Valve’s Source engine and will make use of the Xbox One’s cloud processing feature in some way.
A more official announcement for TitanFall will surely appear at next week’s E3 Expo (or perhaps earlier thanks to this leak).
Kiefer Sutherland is the voice of Snake in Metal Gear Solid V
Ever since we heard his voice in the GDC 2013 trailer, we’ve known that Kiefer Sutherland was connected to Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain in some way. Today, Konami and Hideo Kojima have confirmed that he will be voicing Snake in the upcoming open-world game.
In addition to lending his voice to the character, Sutherland will also perform the motion capture for Snake. Appearing on Konami’s Pre-E3 2013 Show, Kojima revealed that he is very excited about Sutherland’s motion capture performance and plans to develop the script around his acting, making the dialogue more succinct and hoping Snake’s facial expressions can convey the rest.
David Hayter, who previously Snake in every previous Metal Gear Solid game, won’t be involved with Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain. According to Kojima, he wanted a new voice actor for Snake that would more closely match the character’s age in the game (which is 49). Apparently Hayter, who is 44, was just a bit too young for the part (Sutherland, by the way, is 46).
Posted in News, PS3, Xbox 360
Tagged E3 2013, Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes, Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain
Diablo III to be released for PS3 and Xbox 360 on September 3
Today, Blizzard announced that Diablo III will make the jump to consoles on September 3. Yes, consoles, plural. Surprising no one, the developer revealed that the game will be released for the Xbox 360 in addition to the previously announced PS3 version.
“Playing Diablo III on a big screen with your friends brings a whole new level of intensity to the game, and with all of the control and interface adaptations we’ve made, it’s extremely fun to play on PS3 and Xbox 360,” said Mike Morhaime, CEO of Blizzard Entertainment. “In addition to the fine-tuning we’ve done for the console versions, we’re also including major content and design updates we’ve made to the PC version over the past year, so players can expect an epic Diablo gaming experience when the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions launch in September.”
Players who pre-order Diablo III for the PS3 or Xbox 360 (which will retail for $59.99) will receive a special in-game item: the Infernal Helm. Any character wearing the Infernal Helm will receive an experience point boost, “accelerating their progression as they rise in power.” Retailer-specific pre-order bonuses will also be available.
Diablo III is also in development for the PlayStation 4 and will presumably be available as a launch title for Sony’s next system. After today’s announcement of the game for the Xbox 360, I also fully expect an Xbox One edition to be announced soon.
Posted in News, PS3, Xbox 360
Tagged Diablo III
Square Enix will release Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII in February 2014
Square Enix has released an E3 2013 trailer for Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII and you can check it out above. In addition to showing Lightning at her Matrix-y most (and re-introducing us to Snow), the trailer also pins a North American release date on the PS3 and Xbox 360 game for the first time: February 11, 2014.
European gamers will get it three days later on February 14.
Posted in News, PS3, Xbox 360
Tagged E3 2013, Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII