Warp Zoned Presents
Video Game Canon- Clair Obscur Completes the Sweep by Winning “Best Game” at 2025-2026 BAFTA Games Awards
- Boss Fight Books Gets 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
- Silent Hill, Dragon Quest, Skyrim, and More Announced as Finalists for the World Video Game Hall of Fame’s Class of 2026
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: 3DS
New Releases: Thief, Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2, Layton: Azran Legacy, More
Square Enix Montreal will attempt to go two-for-two in the reboot department this week with the release of Thief for the PC, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, and Xbox One. After masterfully resurrecting the Deus Ex franchise a few years ago with Deus Ex: Human Revolution, gamers are optimistic about the first Thief game in a decade.
Also available this week is Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2 (PC, PS3, Xbox 360), the concluding chapter in the “Lords of Shadow” saga. Know one knows what’s next for the Castlevania franchise, but its future looks bright on home consoles once again. Over in the handheld realm, another final chapter will be written as Nintendo and Level-5 will release Professor Layton and the Azran Legacy for the 3DS. The Layton series will live on, but Azran Legacy will be the last game to star the good Professor himself.
Jumping from lasts to firsts, PopCap Games will release their first shooter game this week, the Xbox One/Xbox 360-exclusive Plants vs Zombies: Garden Warfare. Finally this week, a pair of classic game collections will be available to purchase with your gaming dollar, both from Bandai Namco: Tales of Symphonia Chronicles (PS3) and Pac-Man Museum (PC, PS3, Xbox 360).
A complete list of this week’s new releases can be found after the break. (more…)
Posted in 3DS, News, PC, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One
Tagged Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2, Pac-Man Museum, Professor Layton and the Azran Legacy, Tales of Symphonia, Thief
Nintendo Download: Donkey Kong: Tropical Freeze, Weapon Shop De Omasse, more
Even though Sochi is in the middle of a heatwave, this week’s Nintendo Download is packed with ice and snow.
Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze for the Wii U leads this week’s new releases. The most famous gorilla in gaming has escaped the jungle and will be climbing snow-capped mountains in his latest adventure. And the entire Kong family (including Diddy, Dixie, and Cranky) is along for the ride.
Also available for the Wii U this week is a true NES classic, Ice Hockey. The American women may have missed out on the Gold Medal game in this year’s Winter Olympics, but it’s always a good time for Ice Hockey.
Over on the 3DS eShop, four new games are now available to download this week. Level-5’s Weapon Shop De Omasse, the last game in the “Guild01” collection to make it to America, leads the way. If taking on the responsibilities of a rhythmic weaponsmith doesn’t appeal to you, this week’s new releases also include Kung Fu Rabbit (a side-scrolling platformer), Quell Reflect (a puzzle game), and Sky Kid (another NES classic).
More details on all of these games can be found after the break. (more…)
Posted in 3DS, News, Wii U
Tagged Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze, Weapon Shop De Omasse
Transformers: Rise of the Dark Spark will be released this Summer
The continuity snarl that is the Transformers franchise makes the last half-century of Marvel and DC storytelling look neat and ordered by comparison. The series is rife with alternate universes and the executives in charge of this narrative morass have attempted to merge, split, and remerge the storyline since the 1980s.
The latest attempt at building an all-purpose Transformers universe is Transformers: Rise of the Dark Spark, the latest game adaptation of the long-running series from Activision. According to GameSpot, Rise of the Dark Spark will merge High Moon’s War For Cybertron/Fall of Cybertron continuity with Michael Bay’s Transformers films to tie-in with this Summer’s Age of Extinction. Sadly, High Moon won’t be developing the game. Instead, Activision has enlisted Edge of Reality to create the PC, PS3, PS4, Wii U, Xbox 360, and Xbox One game. WayForward Technologies will develop a handheld version of the game for the 3DS.
Transformers: Rise of the Dark Spark will be released this Summer to coincide with the theatrical opening of Transformers: Age of Extinction.
Level-5’s Weapon Shop De Omasse will be available for 3DS next week
Level-5’s “Guild01” and “Guild02” collections have produced six quirky (and quirkily entertaining) 3DS titles that have helped make the 3DS eShop a very interesting place. On Thursday, Nintendo announced, finally, that the seventh “Guild” game, Weapon Shop De Omasse, would be released in America and Europe.
Like its predecessors, Weapon Shop De Omasse is a wacky new take on a familiar gaming trope. In this case, the weaponsmiths that populate every RPG produced in the last 25 years. In Omasse, this duty falls to an apprentice armorer that has to create a wide variety of monster-killing implements. Manning the shop counter, the apprentice also has to decide which heroes are worthy of the legendary weapons he creates. Always staying in his shop, the young apprentice proves that the hero of your favorite RPG didn’t slay the dragon on his own… he or she had lots of help. Weapon Shop De Omasse will be available to download from the 3DS eShop on February 20 for $7.99.
To prepare yourself for all the rhythm-based weaponsmithing it includes, you can watch the debut trailer above or you can avail yourself of a huge sale on the rest of the “Guild” series. From now through February 23, all six “Guild” games (Aero Porter, Crimson Shroud, Liberation Maiden, The Starship Damrey, Bugs vs Tanks!, and Attack of the Friday Monsters) are available to download for $2.99 apiece.
Posted in 3DS, News
Tagged Weapon Shop De Omasse
Gonna Fly Now! Little Mac joins Super Smash Bros. 4
After taking out Mike Tyson, putting Mr. Dream to sleep, bashing Nick Bruiser, and saying night-night to Mr. Sandman, Little Mac has made quite the name for himself in the World Video Boxing Association. Naturally, he needs a new challenge, so he’s gonna fly now to Super Smash Bros. 4 for the 3DS and Wii U.
Super Smash Bros. 4 still doesn’t have a release date, but with the inclusion of Little Mac (and Mega Man), it now has my pre-order money.
Posted in 3DS, News, Wii U
Tagged Super Smash Bros. For 3DS, Super Smash Bros. For Wii U
Nintendo Download (Part 2): Steel Diver: Sub Wars, Inazuma Eleven
Now we know why this week’s Nintendo Download felt a little light. Apparently, Nintendo wanted to save a pair of 3DS games until after the first Nintendo Direct presentation of the year. But now that President Satoru Iwata has given his speech, the publisher is ready to reveal…
- Steel Diver: Sub Wars, a sequel to a very interesting 3DS launch game and Nintendo’s first free-to-play game.
- Inazuma Eleven, Level-5’s wacky soccer RPG, which is already a hit in Japan and Europe.
Are you interested in either of these titles? Then I recommend reading more about them after the break. (more…)
Posted in 3DS, News
Tagged Inazuma Eleven
CoD: Ghosts is the best-selling game of the month for the third straight month
The results are in and, according to The NPD Group, Call of Duty: Ghosts is once again the best-selling game of the preceding four weeks. After reigning supreme during November and December, the military shooter has emerged victorious against a particularly weak January release slate.
In fact, the only other new release in this month’s top ten is the “Definitive Edition” of Tomb Raider, which, along with sales of the “Game of the Year Edition” on the PS3/Xbox 360, helped Lara Croft’s latest adventure take the #10 spot.
Post-Christmas gift cards likely played a role in determining January’s biggest moneymakers as many of 2013’s biggest games staked out the remaining eight spots. NBA 2K14, lead by a strong performance on the PS4, landed at #2 and Battlefield 4, despite its continued online woes, was the #3 best-selling game of the month. And what about the next-generation consoles? Well, the NPD revealed that the PS4 is currently the #1 next-generation console in the US with the Xbox One close behind.
A complete look at last month’s top ten best-selling games can be found after the break. (more…)
Posted in 3DS, News, PC, PS3, PS4, Vita, Wii U, Xbox 360, Xbox One
Tagged Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag, Battlefield 4, Call of Duty: Ghosts, FIFA 14, Grand Theft Auto V, Lego Marvel Super Heroes, Madden NFL 25, Minecraft, NBA 2K14, NPD, Tomb Raider
The Last of Us, GTA5 lead 2014 BAFTA nominees
The nominees for the 2014 BAFTA Awards have been announced and… drumroll please… The Last of Us and Grand Theft Auto V both racked up a ton of nominations.
Both games will be competing for the coveted “Best Game” award against Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag, Tearaway, Super Mario 3D World, and Papers Please. Due to its British origins, GTA5 is also competing in the “British Game” category against Tearaway, The Room Two, Lego Marvel Super Heroes, Gunpoint, and DMC: Devil May Cry.
In addition to “Best Game,” The Last of Us was nominated for nine awards including “Artistic Achievement,” “Audio Achievement,” “Game Design,” “Original Music,” “Story,” “Action and Adventure,” and “Multiplayer.” Two “Performer” nominations (one each for Troy Baker and Ashley Johnson) round out the game’s honors. As for GTA5, it received seven additional nominations including “Audio Achievement,” “Game Design,” “Game Innovation,” “Story,” “Action and Adventure,” “Multiplayer,” and “Performer” (for Steven Ogg as Trevor Phillips).
The 2014 BAFTA Awards will be awarded on Wednesday, March 12. The complete list of nominees can be found after the break. (more…)
Posted in 3DS, News, PC, PS3, PS4, Vita, Wii, Wii U, Xbox 360, Xbox One
Tagged Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag, Grand Theft Auto V, Papers Please, Super Mario 3D World, Tearaway, The Last of Us