Warp Zoned Presents
Video Game Canon- Meet the World Video Game Hall of Fame’s Class of 2025: Quake, GoldenEye 007, Defender, and Tamagotchi
- The BAFTA Games Awards Polled the Public and Shenmue is “The Most Influential Video Game of All Time”
- 2024 GOTY Scoreboard: Astro Bot, Balatro, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, More
- The Strong Museum of Play Acquires Prototypes and Development Documents from Volition’s 30-Year History
- Minecraft’s Volume Alpha Soundtrack Has Been Added to the Library of Congress’s National Recording Registry
Warp Zoned Presents
- Video Game Research Library
- It’s beginning to feel like gaming isn’t for everyone – Digital Trends (2025)
- 22 years later, modders are keeping SimCity 4 alive – The Verge (2025)
- The B-movies of Paul W.S. Anderson double as acts of devotion to his muse, Milla Jovovich – The AV Club (2025)
- Breakout, Ripoff, Genre: How Fiction Outgrows Originality – Uncanny Magazine (2025)
- ‘I Could Make “Fart Fart Boobie Fart: The Game” and Maybe It Would Eventually Get Taken Down’ – Devs Reveal Why the Consoles Are Drowning in ‘Eslop’ – IGN (2025)
Most Recent: Top Story
The Games of January 2016
January is typically a slow month for new game releases, but this January might be slower than ever. But a huge number of highly-acclaimed indie games will be making their way to the PS4 and Xbox One this month, so that’s something to look forward to. Read on to find out what other games will be available this month… (more…)
Warpback: What We Played in December 2015
Another year is in the books and so is another month of gaming with your friendly neighborhood Warp Zoned staffers! In addition to hiding from the (not-so) wintry weather to work on our backlogs, we also found our stockings overflowing with new games after hanging them from the chimney with care. If you’re looking for a few end-of-year recommendations, look no further than after the break. (more…)
Warp Zoned’s 2015 Golden Pixel Awards: Honoring Our Favorite Games From Last Year
The conventional wisdom will tell you that 2015 was a down year for games and that all the good stuff got pushed back to 2016. But how can you trust the conventional wisdom when last year featured a ridiculously entertaining string of good games starring kid squids, gothic hunters, glitchy sci-fi heroes, and the lone survivor of a nuclear war. And all that’s before you dip into the millions of user-created levels from Super Mario Maker.
Yup, we think 2015 was a pretty great year for games, especially the ones that took home some hardware during our annual Golden Pixel Awards… (more…)
Posted in Etcetera, Features, Mobile, PC, PS4, Top Story, Wii U, Xbox One
Tagged Alphabear, Axiom Verge, Batman: Arkham Knight, Bloodborne, Broforce, Earthbound Beginnings, Fallout 4, Guitar Hero Live, Her Story, Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime, Mortal Kombat X, N++, Splatoon, Super Mario Maker, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception, Uncharted: Drake's Fortune, Until Dawn
Kickstart This! Deserted, Wanda: A Beautiful Apocalypse, Night City Assault
Kickstarter recently released a long-awaited Fulfillment Report, an independent analysis of its crowdfunding activities by Professor Ethan Mollick of the University of Pennsylvania. While the report contains a lot of interesting data, the number many media outlets are focusing on is the 9% failure rate of fully-funded projects. The report has this to say about the numbers:
Is a 9% failure rate reasonable for a community of people trying to bring creative projects to life? We think so, but we also understand that the risk of failure may deter some people from participating. We respect that. We want everyone to understand exactly how Kickstarter works — that it’s not a store, and that amid creativity and innovation there is risk and failure.
Let’s look at this another way. 91% of projects across all categories succeed and deliver. What industry can say that? There is an old adage in the film industry that mentions that 7 out of 10 features lose money, two break even, and one film makes enough money to cover the loss. This is almost the opposite.
Personally I have yet to support a successful project, video game related or otherwise, that has not delivered after receiving my funds (or at least been on course to do so). Yes, I practise what I preach and donate on crowdfunding sites. I recently had an update from lead developer James Fletcher about his long-gestating project Knite and the Ghost Lights. In a nutshell, he had to put the project on hiatus to work for six months so he could support his family and then return to the game. Despite waiting longer than I thought I would for the game, James’ commitment to do six months of commercial work in order to realise his dream keeps my faith alive in the crowdfunding community. There are people out there who seek to con others, but that’s why we have columns like Kickstart This!
So what games are we urging you to back this time around? We start off with RPG action-adventure Deserted, before shining a light on not one but two games from Australia. The first is cutesy robot puzzler Wanda: A Beautiful Apocalypse, while the second is the Streets of Rage-inspired RPG beat ‘em up Night City Assault. (more…)
The Games of December 2015
Other than Xenoblade Chronicles X, there’s not a lot we’re hyped up for this month at Warp Zoned. That’s is probably a good thing, since most of us have picked up quite a few new games during this year’s Black Friday sales. And we also need to hit up that backlog as well! Read on to see what else we’re talking about playing in this cold month of December. (more…)
Warpback: What We Played in November 2015
We played a little bit of everything here at Warp Zoned this month, from brand new heavy hitters like Fallout 4 to freemium games in the 3DS eShop like Nintendo Badge Arcade. We were busy little gamers and we loved every second of it! Read on to see the full list of what we played in November. (more…)
PictoParty Review: Drawing Up Good Times
To say that the Wii had a wealth of party games would be an understatement. Nintendo’s motion-controlled system stood out as as a veritable Mecca for games that required a large group of people to play. Unfortunately, as the Wii aged and software sales dried up, so did the party games. That, coupled with the rather unsatisfying sales of the Wii U, meant that those types of games became a rare commodity on the system. But a few party games, including the recently-released PictoParty, do still make it onto the Wii U through the eShop. It’s a lone survivor in a wasteland of long-forgotten party games, and a title billed as “fun for the whole family.” And after playing it with the family, I wholeheartedly agree with that sentiment. (more…)
Posted in Reviews, Top Story, Wii U
Tagged PictoParty
Knight Squad Review: Bomberman Goes Medieval
Let me tell you a story…
It’s 1993. You dust off an old Gauntlet cartridge and proceed to spend a few weeks marvelling at its overhead style and bashing monsters with your big barbarian’s sword. After that, someone hands you a copy of Super Bomberman and a Super Multitap, a small plastic brick with four controller ports. Gathering together three of your buddies, you blow each other up with bombs while laughing yourselves silly.
Now jump back to the present. Chainsawesome’s Knight Squad, which was released earlier this week on the PC and Xbox One, perfectly fuses those two games into a medieval-themed party game that drops up to eight players into its single-screen arena at the same time.
If it had been released in 1993, Knight Squad would have gone down as one of gaming’s classics. It doesn’t have the same impact 22 years later, but it’s still a ridiculously enjoyable romp. (more…)
Posted in PC, Reviews, Top Story, Xbox One
Tagged Knight Squad