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
Reef Entertainment obtains Terminator license
Reef Entertainment obtained the license to produce games based on the Rambo films in 2011 and plans to release Rambo: The Video Game later this year. So what’s next for the UK publisher? Why, another 80s action franchise, of course.
Today, Reef announced that they’ve obtained the license to produce PC and console games based on The Terminator and Terminator 2: Judgment Day. A spokesman for the company said that developers at Reef are “studying all aspects and influences of the Terminator universe” and that the company wants to “create a game that does great justice to the motion pictures.”
The publisher plans to reveal more details about the first game to emerge from this agreement, which will be titled Terminators, at a later date.
Posted in News, PC, PS4, Xbox One
Tagged Terminator: Resistance
Xbox One’s launch day lineup includes 23 games
We know the Xbox One will be released this November and now we know which games will be available on the launch day.
During their Gamescom 2013 presentation, Microsoft announced that 23 games will be available to purchase on day one. Two of the titles, Watch Dogs and Need For Speed: Rivals, will be released for current generation consoles on November 19, so it’s probably safe to assume that the Xbox One will be released on or after that date.
In another interesting development, the 23 launch day titles might be the only Xbox One games released in 2013. Of the remaining announced titles, every other game is expected to release in 2014 or later.
Expect to see a lot of familiar names in the Xbox One’s launch day lineup including Forza Motorsport 5, Ryse: Son of Rome, and Dead Rising 3. But there is one unfamiliar title, Peggle 2, which is now a timed Xbox One exclusive. The full list of launch day games can be found after the break. (more…)
Posted in News, Xbox One
Tagged Gamescom 2013
WildStar introduces “play-to-pay” subscription model
If you haven’t yet heard of WildStar, I’d highly suggest visiting the game’s official website and just watching the “Flicks” introducing the two factions. It can sometimes be hard to get invested in the pre-release media and hype that developers try to throw at you, but I haven’t been this impressed by a trailer for an MMO since Illidan Stormrage informed me that I was not prepared.
It’s hard to quantify what is so good about the WildStar videos, but the best way to put it is simply that they’re overflowing with personality. Similar to Borderlands, this game has character rarely seen in modern titles, which have a propensity to take themselves entirely too seriously. Carbine Studios has opted for a more humorous approach, aided by good voice acting. I was pretty much done by the end of Kit’s explanation of the Exiles when she punched the camera man in a fit of emotion.
Of course, with the amount of MMOs going from subscription to free-to-play (or “pay-to-win”), one of the most important questions for any new MMO is what the business model will be. According to a recent announcement from Carbine Studios, WildStar will be a hybrid, with both a monthly subscription model and a “play-to-pay” option. The model is centered around an in-game item called C.R.E.D.D. (an acronym for “Certificate of Research, Exploration, Destruction, and Development”). C.R.E.D.D. can be purchased online with real money and sold for in-game money, which allows players wishing to play for free to grind out a pile of cash and purchase extra game time, effectively “playing to pay.” Meanwhile, players who want to save their in-game gold and can afford C.R.E.D.D. can simply pay a subscription fee. In fact, for extra in-game gold, players can buy C.R.E.D.D. and sell it to others and increase their own stash.
It’s a model that seeks to cater to both audiences who have disposable income but little time (such as people with jobs and/or families) and also players with little disposable income but lots of free time (such as high school or college students). Additionally, by offering C.R.E.D.D. to players who want extra in-game gold for legal purchase via Carbine Studios themselves, the developers hope to cut back on gold farming that is so prevalent in other MMOs. Whether this business model is going to work for WildStar or not, this is definitely a game to watch for in the future.
The closed beta is already underway, and if all goes well, WildStar will be released sometime in Spring 2014.
Dead Rising 3 cinematic trailer goes full Romero
Cinematic trailers are a mixed bag. Most of the time, they leave you shaking your head and asking, “Why can’t I do something that cool in the game?” But sometimes, they give you a nice taste of what a game has to offer in a beautiful computer-generated package. This cinematic trailer of Dead Rising 3 belongs to the latter category.
The trailer reintroduces us to the game’s protagonist, Nick Ramos, and introduces us to his “new best friend,” Annie. During the trailer’s four-minute running time, Ramos puts a buzzsaw and a sledgehammer to good use before modifying a motorcycle into a tank, similar to the main characters of the Dawn of the Dead remake. Other Romero touches abound including the memory theory of zombie behavior and the firearms proficiency hinted at in Day of the Dead.
Dead Rising 3 is currently scheduled as an Xbox One launch title and it’ll be released in November.
Posted in News, Xbox One
Tagged Dead Rising 3, Gamescom 2013
Castlevania: Mirror of Fate HD coming to PSN, XBLA in October
Earlier this year, 3DS owners got the chance to battle demons and vampires as part of the Belmont clan in Castlevania: Lords of Shadow – Mirror of Fate.
This October, PS3 and Xbox 360 owners will get their turn as Konami has announced plans to bring Castlevania: Lords of Shadow – Mirror of Fate HD to the PlayStation Network and Xbox Live Arcade on October 29. The publisher has yet to announce a price for the game.
A Play-Asia listing for Castlevania: Lords of Shadow (The Collection) (which includes the original game and both of its DLC updates) indicates that Mirror of Fate HD may be available as a retail release as well.
Posted in News, PS3, Xbox 360
Tagged Castlevania: Lords of Shadow - Mirror of Fate
Grand Theft Auto V Achievements give a closer look at life in Los Santos
Xbox360Achievements has done their thing again and discovered the complete list of Achievements for Rockstar’s Grand Theft Auto V. The game will include a total of 49 Achievements, though 11 are currently hidden behind the Secret Achievement text. Of the 38 remaining Achievements, 17 can only be earned through the game’s online mode, Grand Theft Auto Online.
Looking over the list, few of the Achievements seem to be story-based. Instead, Rockstar has given us a quick glimpse at what life in Los Santos will be like for Michael, Franklin, and Trevor. You can live the American dream by joining a cult, investing in the stock market, hunting sharks, becoming a bounty hunter, or exploring the San Andreas countryside outside Los Santos. You can channel your inner Fox Mulder and seek missing spaceship parts and return them to their extraterrestrial owners. You can even buy car insurance. Truly, the world of Grand Theft Auto V is just like our own.
Presumably the Trophies in the PS3 version will be the same as their Xbox 360 counterparts. You can see the complete list of Grand Theft Auto V’s Achievements after the break. (more…)
Posted in News, PS3, Xbox 360
Tagged Grand Theft Auto V
Disney Infinity cost $100 million to develop
Disney Infinity, Disney Interactive’s attempt to clone the success of Skylanders, is now available in stores. But you’ll never believe how much it cost to produce and just what effect is has had on Disney’s video game division.
The wall Street Journal recently published a behind-the-scenes look at Disney Infinity and, according to their sources, the game (and its associated toy line) cost more than $100 million to produce. Only Star Wars: The Old Republic can boast a higher production budget.
But this gargantuan project comes at a cost for Disney Interactive. Internal development within the company has ceased and all of their future projects (Fantasia: Music Evolved, Star Wars: Battlefront, the Visceral Studios Star Wars game, and Kingdom Hearts III) are co-productions with other publishers. According to The Wall Street Journal’s report, devotion to Disney Infinity also caused the axe to fall on several other titles including a tie-in game based on this Summer’s Iron Man 3 and an interanlly-developed Star Wars game.
But I think Robert Iger, Disney’s CEO, best summed up the importance of Disney Infinity’s launch: “If Infinity does well, it bodes very well for the bottom line of this unit. If it doesn’t do well, the opposite will be the case.”
Well said, Bob.
Weekly Warp-Up: Big Reveal Edition
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…
This was a week of big reveals and nothing was bigger than Marc Whitten’s revelation revealed that the Xbox One does not require the Kinect sensor. That means you can unplug it, stuff it in a closet, or smash it with a hammer and your $499 next-generation system will still function. It occurs to me that Microsoft wouldn’t be having such a problem selling the idea of the Xbox One to the public if that information had been known earlier this Summer.
This week’s other big reveals belong to two games will going toe-to-toe this Fall. Rockstar Games revealed Grand Theft Auto V‘s online mode, Grand Theft Auto Online, in an amazing new trailer that plays up the freedom of living in Los Santos. Meanwhile, Activision unveiled the multiplayer mode for Call of Duty: Ghosts in massive style, discussing the title’s new multiplayer gameplay features, Collector’s Editions/Season Pass, and Eminem song.
There were a few other smaller reveals this week, and you can read all about them after the break. (more…)
Posted in News