Warp Zoned Presents
Video Game Canon- Angry Birds, Dragon Quest, FIFA Soccer, and Silent Hill are the World Video Game Hall of Fame’s Class of 2026
- 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”
- GDC Awards: All the Winners from 1996 to Today
Warp Zoned Presents
- Video Game Research Library
- 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)
- Shadow of the Colossus: An oral history – Design Room (2025)
Most Recent: News
Batman: Arkham Origins “Cold, Cold Heart” DLC available April 22
After a New Year’s tease, WB Games has announced that the first downloadable campaign content for Batman: Arkham Origins will reveal the story of the first time Batman and Mr. Freeze met. The DLC expansion will be known as “Cold, Cold Heart” and it’ll thaw your heart this Spring.
Priced at $9.99, and available for free to Season Pass subscribers) the “Cold, Cold Heart” add-on will take place within the walls of Wayne Manor during an awards banquet that Mr. Freeze decides to crash. Batman will be able to use a variety of new toys including the new Extreme Environment (XE) suit, as well as Thermal Gloves and Thermocharged Batarangs. Maybe this is a stupid question, but if “Cold, Cold Heart” is the first time Batman will tangle with Mr. Freeze, why does he even have Thermal Gloves and Thermocharged Batarangs?
The “Cold, Cold Heart” DLC will be available for the PC, PS3, and Xbox 360 on April 22.
Posted in News, PC, PS3, Xbox 360
Tagged Batman: Arkham Origins
XBL Store Today: Thief, Castlevania: LoS2, PvZ: Garden Warfare, Pac-Man Museum
The Xbox Live Game Store is now home to four new games, and two of them will be available for the Xbox One in addition to the Xbox 360.
Thief, for the Xbox 360 and Xbox One, marks the return of the stealthy Garrett. The adventures of the titular thief have been rebooted by Eidos Montreal, the developer that gave the Deus Ex franchise a similar makeover in 2011 with Deus Ex: Human Revolution.
Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2, the conclusion to Mercury Steam’s Lords of Shadow 2 saga, has also been added to the Xbox 360 section of the store today. And if getting bloody with Dracula isn’t your thing, there’s also PopCap’s cartoony shooter, Plants vs Zombies: Garden Warfare, which is available on both the Xbox 360 and Xbox One.
Finally, Bandai Namco has compiled many of Pac-Man and Ms. Pac-Man’s earliest adventures in Pac-Man Museum for the Xbox Live Arcade. But the collection doesn’t just highlight their 80s heyday, the pack also includes newer releases such as Pac-Man Championship Edition and the never-been-released Pac-Man: Battle Royale. (more…)
Posted in News, Xbox 360, Xbox One
Tagged Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2, Pac-Man Museum, Plants vs Zombies: Garden Warfare, Thief
Beatbuddy will be swimming onto consoles and tablets soon
Beatbuddy: Tale of the Guardians, one of our favorite games from 2013, won’t be confined to the PC for much longer. The game’s developer, Threaks, has exclusively told us that Beatbuddy will soon be swimming onto “tablets and consoles.” Which tablets? Which consoles? Threaks’ Wolf Lang wouldn’t say, but I’m hoping the answer will eventually be “all of them.”
Lang would go on to say that the tablet version will appear first as development on the console edition continues. Threaks is very proud of the touch controls they’ve developed for Beatbuddy as he also said, “The touch controls we developed almost play better then the game pad!”
If you want to see what all the fuss is about right now, Beatbuddy: Tale of the Guardians was recently added to Humble Indie Bundle 11 and it can be yours if you pay more than the average (currently $4.64). In addition to Beatbuddy, the bundle includes a ridiculous number of great games including Dust: An Elysian Tail, Fez, Monaco, Guacamelee, and many others.
More details on the tablet edition of Beatbuddy: Tale of the Guardians will be released ahead of this year’s GDC conference.
Posted in Mobile, News, PC
Tagged Beatbuddy: Tale of the Guardians, GDC 2014
Thief, Tales of Symphonia, Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2, more added to PS Store
Sony updated the PlayStation Store last night and added almost all of February’s biggest releases to their digital storefront.
Leading the way are the PS4 titles Thief and Basement Crawl. One is the reboot of a beloved franchise and the other is a Bomberman-inspired in the scariest basement this side of The Evil Dead. Thief is also available to download on the PS3.
Also available on the PS3 this week is Konami’s conclusion to the Lords of Shadow saga, Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2. Dracula’s modern day adventure is joined by Tales of Symphonia Chronicles, a high definition remake of the popular action RPGs. Bandai Namco has also released the two games in the compilation, Tales of Symphonia and Tales of Symphonia: Dawn of the New World, as individual downloads. Finally, the publisher is compiling several games from another of its favorite franchises with this week’s Pac-Man Museum.
More details about all of these games (and a few others) 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, PS4, Vita
Tagged Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2, Pac-Man Museum, Tales of Symphonia, Thief
Candy Crush creators King officially abandon their “Candy” trademark
In a move that makes all the sense in the world, King, creators of the massive mobile hit Candy Crush Saga, withdrew their trademark for the word “Candy,” per the US Patent and Trademark Office. When word got out last month that the developer had filed a trademark application for the word, it sparked a furor in the gaming community. Is this sudden change of heart due to all the bad press King has received due to their actions? They aren’t willing to say, but they did release this statement to Kotaku:
King has withdrawn its trademark application for Candy in the U.S., which we applied for in February 2013 before we acquired the early rights to Candy Crusher. Each market that King operates in is different with regard to IP. We feel that having the rights to Candy Crusher is the best option for protecting Candy Crush in the U.S. market. This does not affect our E.U. trademark for Candy and we continue to take all appropriate steps to protect our IP.
Our long national nightmare is over (for now).
Posted in Mobile, News, PC
Tagged candy crush saga
Twitch streaming hits Xbox One on March 11
Microsoft’s own Major Nelson announced today that Twitch streaming will finally make its way to the Xbox One in two weeks. Using the Kinect camera, players can also broadcast picture-in-picture, as is common among streamers.
The Xbox One’s Twitch app also allows you to view other’s streams regardless of where they happen to be streaming from. To make things even easier, a simple vocal command, “Xbox. Broadcast,” is all that is needed to start showing off your skills to the world.
Defuse a bomb with Oculus Rift in Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes
Pop quiz, hotshot: you’ve got three minutes to defuse a bomb, and the only way to do so is to listen to your friend’s suggestions as they try to make sense of the puzzling instruction manual.
What do you do?
A new cooperative game for the Oculus Rift, aptly named Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes, looks like it’s an absolute riot – and more than likely will cause quite a few arguments. No concrete information has been released on the title, but the video pretty much speaks for itself.
Posted in News, PC
Tagged Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes
It’s ‘Personarama’ as Atlus announces four Persona games for North America
Atlus today revealed that four new titles in the highly popular Persona universe will be making their way to the North America over the next two years.
First on the list is Persona 5, set to hit the PlayStation 3 in 2015. Persona 5 will be a traditional RPG, but details are slim. The game’s director, Katsura Hashino, only provided us (via the PlayStation Blog) with one cryptic hint of what to expect: “The storyline will be about throwing off the chains of oppression to find one’s true self.’
Second is the next installment of Persona’s fighter, Persona 4 Arena Ultimax. A direct sequel to last year’s Persona 4 Arena, Ultimax will host several new features, including new characters, story, and fighting modes. Expect P4AU to hit the PS3 and the Xbox 360 in Fall 2014. You can take a look at Ultimax in motion on Atlus’ YouTube page.
Next, Persona 4: Dancing All Night is a rhythm action game, using tunes from the series. This PlayStation Vita title features 30 tracks, along with a full story mode. Not many details were given about this title, other than that instead of traditional attacks, characters combat each other with dance moves. Hey, why not? It’s worked before. Hold on to your dance shoes, though; this one won’t hit the Vita until 2015.
Finally, Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth will unite the Persona users across space and time on the 3DS this Fall. A teaser trailer is available through Atlus’ YouTube page.