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Video Game Canon- Angry Birds, Dragon Quest, FIFA Soccer, and Silent Hill are the World Video Game Hall of Fame’s Class of 2026
- 2025 GOTY Scoreboard: In Progress
- BAFTA Games Awards: All the Winners from 2003 to Today
- Clair Obscur Completes the Sweep by Winning “Best Game” at 2025-2026 BAFTA Games Awards
- Boss Fight Books to Get a New Look for Richard Moss’s “Age of Empires”
Warp Zoned Presents
- Video Game Research Library
- How a Second-Grade Teacher Revived a Beloved Video Game – The New York Times (2026)
- Spore: An oral history – Design Room (2026)
- 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)
Most Recent: News
Bungie co-founder wants to rethink mobile game controls with Industrial Toys
“The innovation is all on mobile,” claims Bungie co-founder Alex Seropian. Of course, the creator of the Halo franchise would say that, as his new studio, Industrial Toys, is focused on mobile platforms. The new company is attempting to bring a hardcore gaming experience to your phone and/or tablet with the help of Unreal Engine 3 and new thinking on the control interface for these devices. Yet for all the innovation, their first effort will be a sci-fi themed FPS… just like Seropian’s biggest hit.
The unnamed project, which is being written by sci-fi author John Scalzi, is gearing up to offer gamers a world on their phone that is as expansive as World of Warcraft, and are focusing on two things that Seropian feels is missing from current mobile games: unique controls and fully integrated community.
“The whole design paradigm about designing for dual sticks is all about creating a software interface for hardware that makes it feel like you have more control and have better skill curves, That’s all about getting closer to how a mouse works. There’s no sense to emulate a relative control scheme, like a controller… We have been designing a control scheme that’s all about putting our controls in the game space, as opposed to the screen space.”
As well as these thoughts on the interface, the company is trying to envelop its social features and functionality into the very mechanics of the game, rather than the default option utilised by most mobile games of creating a separate community space on a linked website.
Industrial Toys plans to officially announce their first game soon, possibly even as early as later this month.
[Source: Joystiq]
Posted in Mobile, News
Tagged Morning Star
Majesco goes mobile with Sci-Fi Heroes
Majesco Entertainment, the publisher responsible for the Mama series of games (you know, Cooking, Babysitting, Crafting, etc) and Jillian Michael’s fitness range, has revealed screenshots (which can be found after the break) and a trailer (which can be viewed above) of their first internally developed mobile game.
Sci-Fi Heroes, a free-to-play RPG, will feature over forty levels and allow you to take charge of eight unique characters including a space marine, an animal trainer, a Serenity-inspired space cowboy, a priest, an ID Master, an Exxo, a healbot, and a technomancher. With its cutesy graphics and fun humour, it comes across as a tongue-in-cheek version of the likes of Star Wars and Mass Effect.
Piloting the Starship Aphelion, players will take command of up to eight misfit warriors as they go up against the Calimar Space Horde to free four planets in a once peaceful solar system. You can look forward to kicking some Space Horde butt later this summer. (more…)
TrU or False: Retro Studios developing Star Fox United for Wii U
Over the weekend a rumour spread like wildfire across the internet, that Retro Studios, the geniuses behind the Metroid Prime trilogy, were making a new entry into Nintendo’s furry Star Fox universe, entitled Star Fox United.
It started on the 4Chan imageboards, where several dubious screenshots were posted, along with a retro-looking logo. The story was first picked up by Go Nintendo and others quickly followed suit.
However, the images disappeared almost as soon as they arrived, like a giant explosion in the vacuum of space. Most seem to believe it was a hoax, but there is a little part of me praying this is true. I would love a Nintendo version of Mass Effect, mixing flying missions with third or first-person shooter quests. I can imagine seeing the HD detail of Fox’s fur blowing in the kickback from his gun.
For the moment though, it looks to be a dream upon the stars.
Posted in News, Wii U
Tagged Star Fox Zero
New features, bug fixes coming soon to Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition
Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition was always designed as an ongoing project. And it looks like Mojang and port developer 4J Studios are getting ready to deploy the first major update to the game soon. Microsoft didn’t say when soon would be, but they did announce what features (Autosave!) and bug fixes (Clay!) we can look forward to.
You can find the complete list after the break. (more…)
Weekly Warp-Up: The A-Z of E3 2012
No, that’s not a typo. Welcome to the Weekly Warp-Up, your weekly wrap-up of the biggest and the best articles posted at Warp Zoned this week…
The 2012 E3 Expo is over! While the ESA doesn’t know when (or where) the 2013 edition will happen, it should be a corker of a show. E3 2013 promises to include the second wave of Wii U titles as well as our first look at the PS4/Orbis and the Xbox 720.
While this year’s E3 wasn’t quite that action-packed, it did include a number of promising games, and you can read all about them after the break. (more…)
IO Interactive apologizes for Hitman: Absolution’s “Assassin Nuns” trailer
My question is, apologize to who?
Hitman: Absolution Game Director Tore Blystad spoke to IGN during this week’s E3 Expo and the subject of the “Attack of the Saints” trailer naturally came up. It’s true, Blystad did apologize, but it was the kind of non-apology apology that the public usually finds infuriating. However, in this case, I think it was the right thing to say.
“We’re sorry that we offended people – that was truly not the intention of the trailer,” Blystad said.
Of course that wasn’t the intention of the trailer. Yes, they were nuns. And yes, they were wearing stripper heels and leather bodysuits underneath their habits. I can understand how that could offend someone. But the fact that the discussion looped around to “IO hates women,” when the scene is clearly aping imagery Quentin Tarantino has been putting in his films for decades was just bizarre. Blystad even says as much later in the interview:
“The Hitman games as a series has always been extreme in many ways. The religious themes have been there from the very beginning, along with outlandish party scenes. And there are a lot of movie influences in Hitman: Absolution, like Tarantino and Rodriguez. The grindhouse theme is something that we’re using throughout the game. It tends more towards sixties exploitation movies – these were a fascination [for us] because they were so extreme.”
Hitman: Absolution will be available for the PC, PS3, and Xbox 360 on November 20.
In case you missed it, this is Ubisoft’s Watch Dogs
Did Ubisoft’s Watch Dogs steal E3 2012? Depending on who you talk to, yes, yes it did. The PC, PS3, and Xbox 360 game currently doesn’t have a release date, but it does offer an interesting hook for an open world game: A hero who does more damage with his hacking skills than with a gun.
But he definitely also knows how to handle a machine gun, as you can see in the extended gameplay demo above. Want more Watch Dogs? Hit the jump to view the game’s rather stylish announcement trailer. (more…)
ZombiU puts the “survival” back in survival horror
While Nintendo affixed a “U” on the end of all their Wii U games, Ubisoft’s ZombiU has to take the prize for the most ridiculous reference to Nintendo’s next console. Say it real fast. Sounds kind of like Zom-Wii U doesn’t it?
Wacky title aside, ZombiU also looks to put the “survival” back in the survival horror genre. Using the Wii U GamePad, every time a player looks into their bag or attempts to access an in-game computer, the camera will shift to the tablet controller, ensuring players split their attention between both screens to live.
I’ve got to admit, that’s a pretty great use of the Wii U GamePad. If you missed the E3 trailer above, be sure to give it a watch now.