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
- 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: Mobile
Lucid’s followup to Geometry Wars 3 is an “exciting” arcade action game
Liverpool’s Lucid Games has been very busy in the last three years. Since their founding in 2011, the studio has produced a wide variety of mobile titles (including Grand Theft Auto V‘s iFruit companion app), as well as the Xbox One/Xbox 360 port of Goat Simulator. But they’re perhaps best known as one of the many studios to emerge from the closure of Bizarre Creations. In 2014, Lucid tapped the mathematical knowledge of their founders to create Geometry Wars 3: Dimensions, the third entry in the wildly beloved twin-stick shooter series.
On the eve of Geometry Wars 3’s Vita launch, I got the chance to talk with Lucid’s Creative Director, Craig Howard, about the game. In addition to discussing Dimensions, Howard was also eager to talk about the team’s next game. If you’re a fan of the “arcade action” found in Geometry Wars 3, you’ll want to pay close attention to what he said: “Our core console/PC teams are working on a very exciting action game at the moment which will really appeal to a lot of our arcade action fan base. I hope we can announce more details of that game very soon as it’s really exciting.”
Be sure to read the rest of the interview to learn more about the development of Geometry Wars 3: Dimensions. And don’t forget, it’s available to download today from the PlayStation Store for the Vita. The Evolved update is also now available for iOS and Android devices.
Interview: Looking at Geometry Wars 3 From All the Angles With Creative Director Craig Howard
I thought the Geometry Wars series had gone dark forever after Bizarre Creations closed its doors in 2011. It was a surprising end for the developer that had created Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved, a simple twin-stick shooter that many people consider the first great Xbox 360 game. Retro Evolved was followed by a well-received sequel in 2008, which lead Bizarre’s Craig Howard to admit to the MTV Multiplayer Blog that a third game in the series was already in the works.
Howard moved on after Bizarre’s closure and he’s now the Creative Director at Lucid Games, which teamed up with Activision’s Sierra Games imprint to finally release Geometry Wars 3: Dimensions last year. The game was an instant smash hit was fans of the series, as it expanded the playing field into the third dimension and added a wide variety of new weapons and modes to the franchise’s standard formula. But rather than jump right into Geometry Wars 4, Lucid doubled the size of Dimensions earlier this year with the Evolved expansion. The developer also wanted to take Geometry Wars 3 on the road with portable ports for iOS, Android, and the Vita.
I recently got the chance to talk with Howard about Geometry Wars 3: Dimensions, which will be available for the Vita beginning today, and Lucid’s journey to bring the franchise back. (more…)
Posted in Features, Interviews, Mobile, PC, PS3, PS4, Top Story, Xbox 360, Xbox One
Tagged Geometry Wars 3: Dimensions
Video Game Release Calendar Changelog: Post-E3 2015 Update
Don’t Forget! This is just a changelog of recently announced release dates. Warp Zoned’s complete Video Game Release Calendar includes every title we could find with a 2015, 2016, 2017, or unannounced release date.
This year’s E3 Expo was, by almost any measure, one of the biggest ever. It was so big that we’re still sorting through all the announcements, trailers, and gameplay demos. But time marches on and the Video Game Release Calendar Changelog must be updated. So in case you missed them, here’s a few important dates to circle on your calendar:
- Gears of War: Ultimate Edition is real and its spectacular. It’ll also be available on the Xbox One on August 25 and on the PC sometime in the future.
- Forza Motorsport 6 will race on to the Xbox One on September 15.
- Rock Band 4 and Guitar Hero Live will battle it out on October 6 and October 20, respectively.
- Fallout 4 will blow up the world on November 10.
- Just Cause 3 will blow up the world in a slightly different way on December 1.
- Xenoblade Chronicles X will make the Wii U a more RPG friendly place on December 4.
- Hitman is targeting a December 8 release on the PC, PS4, and Xbox One.
And that’s just games we can expect to see this year. Even more new release dates from this edition of the Video Game Release Calendar Changelog can be found after the break. (more…)
Indiependence Day non-sale asks gamers to pay full price for indie games
It’s no secret that independent developers often have to struggle to make ends meat, especially in this world of deep discount Steam sales and bundles (both Humble and not). Cue the “Indiependence Day” movement. Today, a number of indie developers have banded together to not put their games on sale. Instead, they’re asking gamers to pay full price on this 4th of July (and to spread the word with the #IndiependenceDay hashtag):
We encourage fans of indie games to support their favorite developers by buying their games at full price. If you bought a game on sale and wound up really loving it, perhaps buy a copy at full price and gift it to a friend. Or pick up that game that’s been on your wishlist for a long time. (Steam’s new refund policy makes that a lot less risky!) Whatever your platform of choice, we’d love your support.
Dozens of games are included in the Indiependence Day including a few Warp Zoned favorites, such as Tom Happ’s side-scrolling Axiom Verge, Dejobaan’s wordy adventure Elegy For A Dead World, and Vertex Pop’s twin-stick shooter We Are Doomed.
A complete list of participating developers can be found after the break. (more…)
Telltale reveals first trailer, story details, voice cast for Minecraft: Story Mode
As promised, Telltale Games unwrapped our first look at Minecraft: Story Mode during this year’s Minecon expo. The episodic series (which will be spread out over five episodes) nails the look and feel of Minecraft with the added bonus of Patton Oswalt as the main character:
You’ll control protagonist Jesse throughout the season, as portrayed by actor Patton Oswalt. Jesse and his group of friends revere the legendary Order of the Stone; four adventurers who slayed an Ender Dragon. The Order are the very best at what they do: Warrior, Redstone Engineer, Griefer, and Architect. While at EnderCon, Jesse and his friends discover that something is wrong… something dreadful. Terror is unleashed, and they must set out on a journey to find The Order of the Stone if they are to save their world from oblivion.
An all-star cast of vocal talent will join Oswalt on his Minecraft adventure including Brian Posehn, Ashley Johnson, Scott Porter, Martha Plimpton, Dave Fennoy, Corey Feldman, Billy West, and Paul Reubens. You can hear a few of them in the game’s debut trailer, which has been embedded above.
Minecraft: Story Mode will be released this Fall for PC, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One, and mobile devices (iOS and Android).
Indiana Jones, Darkwing Duck, and others could be added to Disney Infinity in the future
Disney Infinity was released to fairly universal acclaim in 2013, but gamers everywhere hoped the Mouse House would add Marvel characters to the mix in a sequel. Disney listened to their requests, and released Disney Infinity: Marvel Super Heroes a year later. This same cycle of fan feedback eventually led Disney Interactive to begin production on Disney Infinity: Star Wars, which will be released sometime in the Fall.
But what other characters from the Disney Vault will eventually make their way into a future Disney Infinity game? How about… all of them?
Disney Interactive’s John Blackburn and John Vignocchi recently spoke to Polygon about the franchise, revealing that every character from Disney’s vast empire has the chance to be added to a future Disney Infinity project. They couldn’t make any promises on which characters might make a future appearance, but Lucasfilm’s Ada Duan said that Howard the Duck has been asked for by a lot of fans. Other characters name-dropped by the trio include Indiana Jones, Darkwing Duck, and LucasArts’s stable of adventure games (especially Secret of Monkey Island and Day of the Tentacle).
Though it might be a while before any of these characters make it into Disney Infinity, as Duan said the company is “looking forward” towards new content. That’s disappointing, but the full interview at Polygon is still a riot, so be sure to read the whole thing.
Posted in Mobile, News, PC, PS3, PS4, Wii U, Xbox 360, Xbox One
Tagged Disney Infinity, Disney Infinity: Marvel Super Heroes, Disney Infinity: Star Wars
Star Wars: Battlefront, Fallout 4 lead the way in Game Critics Awards Best of E3 2015 nominees
The Force is strong with DICE’s Star Wars: Battlefront as the game collected five nominations, more than any other title, from the Game Critics Awards in their annual Best of E3 competition. The Star Wars shooter is up for “Best of Show,” “Best Console Game,” “Best PC Game,” “Best Action Game,” and “Best Online Multiplayer.”
Bethesda’s Fallout 4 and Guerrilla’s Horizon: Zero Dawn can also be considered contenders after collecting four nominations apiece. Both games will battle each other (and Battlefront) for “Best of Show” and “Best Console Game,” but their path will split for the remaining nominations. Fallout 4 is up for “Best PC Game” and “Best RPG,” while Horizon: Zero Dawn was nominated for “Best Original Game” and “Best Action/Adventure Game.”
Two other nominees will compete for this year’s “Best of Show” award including Naughty Dog’s Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End and the Oculus Touch motion controller.
The group behind the Game Critics Awards is comprised of representatives from 38 media publications, and they plan to announce this year’s winners on July 7. The full list of nominees can be found after the break. (more…)
Posted in 3DS, Mobile, News, PC, PS3, PS4, Vita, Wii U, Xbox 360, Xbox One
Tagged E3 2015, Fallout 4, Horizon: Zero Dawn, Star Wars: Battlefront, Uncharted 4: A Thief's End
Beatbuddy will swim onto the Xbox One and Wii U this Summer
Beatbuddy: Tale of the Guardians continues to find new oceans to explore. The rhythm side-scroller will be released for the Xbox One, alongside the previously announced Wii U version, this Summer.
If you’d rather not wait that long, developer Threaks has also informed us that Beatbuddy is available now for the Android-powered Nvidia Shield microconsole. Priced at $5.99, its available through the Google Play Store.
Beatbuddy for everybody!