Warp Zoned Presents
Video Game Canon- 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
- Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 Wins “Game of the Year” at 2025-2026 GDC Awards
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)
Most Recent: Top Story
Shovel Knight Interview: Sailing the PAX East Seas With Sean Velasco
Sean Velasco knows retro games. As the former Director of WayForward Technologies, he was the driving force behind Contra 4, A Boy and His Blob, and Double Dragon: Neon. And as the “Captain” of Yacht Club Games, Velasco is sailing off into the uncharted waters of an original property, Shovel Knight.
You can read all about Shovel Knight in our PAX East playthrough, which will be posted later today (UPDATE: Here it is!). But for now, let Captain Velasco guide you through his love of classic games, his thoughts on Kickstarter, Shovel Knight’s future, and the possibility of a PSN/XBLA version of the game. (more…)
Posted in 3DS, Features, Interviews, PC, Previews, Top Story, Wii U
Tagged PAX East 2013, Shovel Knight
The PAXpocalypse List: The Best of PAX East 2013
We don’t have the PAX pox, but what if the entire convention center was put under quarantine because of some mystery illness? What would you do? What would you see? We’d endure the PAXpocalypse by spending all of our time with the 13 games (nine playable, three developer-guided demos, and one board game) below. Though it would have to be after pushing the hordes of undead off our doorstep. Because any pox affecting PAXgoers would almost certainly have to lead to a zombie uprising. (more…)
Posted in 3DS, Features, Mobile, PC, PS3, Top Story, Wii U, Xbox 360
Tagged Beatbuddy: Tale of the Guardians, Delver's Drop, Diablo III, Legend of Dungeon, LocoCycle, Luftrausers, PAX East 2013, Saints Row IV, Secret Ponchos, Shovel Knight, Tabletop Games, Transistor, Watch Dogs
Castlevania: Lords of Shadow – Mirror of Fate Review: Whip It Good
Reboots are all the rage these days. Major titles such as Tomb Raider, Mortal Kombat and Devil May Cry went back to the drawing board and returned with a fresh coat of paint and new stories to tell. Reviews, and for that matter, sales, have also shown us that rebooting a franchise normally yields positive results. One of the earliest reboots this generation, Castlevania: Lords of Shadow wiped the slate clean and gave us an entirely new take on the revered franchise. Lords of Shadow was very well received, and was popular enough to spawn a sequel. Release information for Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2 has yet to see the light of day (It’s a vampire game, get it?), but until that day comes, we have Castlevania: Lords of Shadow – Mirror of Fate. (more…)
Posted in 3DS, Reviews, Top Story
Tagged Castlevania: Lords of Shadow - Mirror of Fate
Kickstart This! The Post-Veronica Mars Edition
Kickstarter has been receiving a lot of attention in the press this week, mostly due to cult TV show Veronica Mars. Rob Thomas’ 24-hour success story (currently sitting at 175% funded) has been perceived by some as a wake-up call to the film industry, and by others as the end of Kickstarter’s indie innocence. The latter group highlighted the fact that Warner Bros. still owns the rights to the franchise, and that the multi-million dollar company will reap the benefits of the charitable donation of others. Those who have donated will have unprecedented access to information on the film during production, and fans donating over $35 will receive a digital copy of the film. While my own opinion on the positives and negatives of this project fluctuate, there was one detail that seemed very worrying. All of the reward levels come with a disclaimer saying “AVAILABLE TO US AND CANADA (NEW!) BACKERS ONLY.”
Thomas does acknowledge the fact, saying “there are hoops to jump through” in order to include other territories. It could be this is inherent in the dangers of crowdfunding a project where the rights are held by an entity whose aims are not wholly aligned with the spirit of Kickstarter. We have seen this in the past with rewards that required attendance to an event, but even then, people were still allowed to donate, and had the option to travel. For a show that aired globally, this seems like a worrying, xenophobic trend, one that I hope does not translate to other industries.
In light of this, I thought this month I would focus more on smaller indie projects, including classic side-scrolling action-adventure Shovel Knight, euphoric exploration game SoundSelf, first-person survival horror Pulse, retro pixel-art adventure Bik, surfing sim Kahuna Surfer, and last but not least, sci-fi RPG Reflux: The New World. (more…)
Dollar Dash Review: No Honor Among Thieves
Candygun’s Dollar Dash owes a massive debt to the long-running Bomberman series. Instead of cartoony robots blowing each other to bits with comically large bombs, it features cartoony robbers blowing each other to bits with comical weapons to obtain large stacks of cash. This wholesale borrowing of Bomberman’s main theme isn’t highway robbery, but don’t expect Dollar Dash to make you an offer you can’t refuse. (more…)
Just Stop! Hey Kojima, WE KNOW You’re Behind The Phantom Pain
When the Internet decides to collectively believe something that’s just not true, we have to cry out… Just Stop! This is what’s making a Warp Zoned editor rip his computer from the wall in frustration today…
It’s not the Internet-at-large that’s bugging me today, but instead it’s one man: Hideo Kojima. Actually, it’s two men, as Joakim Mogren, the CEO of Swedish game developer Moby Dick Studio, is most definitely not Hideo Kojima. But who is he, really? Some say it’s Cliff Bleszinski in disguise. Is the man formerly known as CliffyB really behind Moby Dick’s first game, The Phantom Pain? Or is it just some actor keeping the world in suspense until Kojima reveals his connection to the game at this year’s Game Developers Conference? Whoever’s behind The Phantom Pain, they think they’re being clever.
No! Just Stop! YOU. ARE. WRONG. (more…)
Posted in Opinions, PS3, Top Story, Xbox 360
Tagged Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes, Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain
10 Actresses That Could Help Reboot the Tomb Raider Film Franchise
In March 2011, we reported that GK Films had acquired the film rights to the Tomb Raider franchise, and that a reboot of the film series was on its way. Now that the reboot of the game has launched, the good people at Crystal Dynamics, who have been developing the Tomb Raider games since 2006, are working closely with uber-producer Graham King’s outfit GK Films on a third cinematic outing for Lara Croft. The film will follow the game’s lead and reboot the series, possibly even using the plot of the new game. This is unlike the two previous films, which used plots that were entirely independent from any game in the franchise. It is perhaps for this reason that they are best described as “watchable.”
The Tomb Raider film reboot joins a slew of celluloid adaptations currently in development, including Assassin’s Creed, Deus Ex, Need For Speed, Hitman (again), Shadow of the Colossus, as well as Splinter Cell and Ghost Recon. But the big question on everyone’s lips is, “Who will play the new Lara Croft?” With the arrival of the game last week, we thought it might be a good time to have a look at ten potential actresses who could take the Tomb Raider baton from Angelina Jolie.
Retro City Rampage Review: Nostalgia Gone Wild
“What would Grand Theft Auto have been like on the NES?” It’s an interesting question, and one that Vblank’s Retro City Rampage attempts to answer by fusing the franchise’s original bird’s-eye viewpoint with a bucketful of 80s/90s nostalgia. The game never quite comes together, but designer Brian Provinciano definitely deserves points for trying. (more…)