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: PC
A quartet of new novels will fill in the story between Mass Effect 3 and Andromeda
EA and BioWare will help produce a quartet of novels that will bridge the gap between the events of Mass Effect 3, and those of its upcoming sequel, Mass Effect: Andromeda.
The novels were outed by a “Rights Guide” from Titan Books, and the first, Mass Effect Andromeda: Initiation, will be written by N.K. Jemisin and released this August. Jemisin is an award-winning fantasy author, and her first novel, The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, was nominated for a Hugo, a Nebula, and a World Fantasy Award.
Titan plans to sell the novel series to readers by promising to “answer the many questions fans have been asking”:
While earlier Mass Effect games focused on the defense of the Milky Way galaxy, with humans pitted against a race of ruthless mechanical invaders known as the Reapers, the new story will take the game in a dramatic new direction and is set in a new region of space, with a new and deadly enemy.
The novels will act as prequel and sequels to the events in the games and will become part of the overarching Mass Effect saga. They will focus on key characters and answer the many questions fans have been asking.
The series will continue with Novel 2 in March 2017 and Novel 3 in September 2017, though an author wasn’t announced for either book. The concluding volume, Novel 4, will be written by BioWare’s Mac Walters, and will be published in March 2018.
New Retail Releases: Lego Star Wars: Force Awakens, Star Ocean 5, Grand Kingdom, More
We’re closing out the month of June with a big batch of new releases…
The biggest is most definitely the game with the planet-sized laser gun, Lego Star Wars: The Force Awakens, which will be available this week for the 3DS, PC, PS3, PS4, Vita, Wii U, Xbox 360, and Xbox One. Players will be able to relive all the action from the 2015 space opera, as well as “New Adventures” that fill in details you may have been wondering about. (Just how did C-3PO get that red arm?).
A pair of RPGs will also be available this week to fans of the genre busy for a long time. Square Enix will launch the fifth game in the Star Ocean franchise, Star Ocean: Integrity and Faithlessness, exclusively for the PS4, while NIS America has strategized a plan to release tactical RPG Grand Kingdom for the PS4 and Vita.
Players looking for something a bit off the beaten path may want to explore Zero Time Dilemma, the third and final entry in the Zero Escape franchise. The adventure game will be released for the 3DS, PC, and Vita, and takes place between the events of Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors and Zero Escape: Virtue’s Last Reward.
Finally this week, Wii U owners will finally get the chance to try out Terraria, the side-scrolling crafting and exploration title from Re-Logic.
A complete list of this week’s new releases can be found after the break. (more…)
Posted in 3DS, News, PC, PS3, PS4, Vita, Wii U, Xbox 360, Xbox One
Tagged Grand Kingdom, Lego Star Wars: The Force Awakens, Prison Architect, Star Ocean: Integrity and Faithlessness, Terraria, Zero Escape Volume 3
MachineGames created a new episode for Quake and John Romero shared an historical FAQ on the game’s 20th anniversary
It’s a good week for video game anniversaries.
Sonic the Hedgehog grabbed the silver ring yesterday, marking 25 years since his North American debut on the Sega Genesis. But nostalgia-minded gamer also stared down the barrel of Quake‘s 20th anniversary this week, and everyone seems like they’re doing something to celebrate.
The revelers include the developers at MachineGames, one of Bethesda’s internal studios and the team behind Wolfenstein: The New Order, who wowed fans by creating a brand new episode for Quake in honor of the game’s anniversary. They shared the free download on Twitter this morning, while also congratulating id Software, Quake’s developer…
Happy 20th to Quake @idsoftware! As a gift to the fans, we created a new episode of the game https://t.co/BTgju8tLuI pic.twitter.com/gHlxBgjcBU
— machinegames (@machinegames) June 24, 2016
Meanwhile, designer John Romero was also in a celebratory mood on Wednesday. He shared some early screenshots from Quake on his official blog, along with a fascinating pre-release FAQ that explored the game’s origins as a fantasy game that would’ve starred a god-like warrior who wields Thor’s Hammer.
Yeah… Once upon a time, Quake was a very different game.
Pac-Man Championship Edition 2 approved by Korean Game Rating Committee
The South Korea Game Rating and Administration Committee (GRAC) has approved a rating of “Everyone” for Pac-Man Championship Edition 2, the heretofore unannounced third entry in the series.
Designed by Toru Iwatani, and released for the Xbox 360 in 2007, the first game in the Pac-Man Championship Edition series rejuvenated the iconic character by adding a neon-infused visual style and a rocket-propelled increase in speed. It was followed by Pac-Man Championship Edition DX, a sequel with additional mazes and game modes, in 2010.
If the GRAC listing is legitimate, Pac-Man Championship Edition 2 is in development for the PC, PS4, and Xbox One at Bandai Namco. Unfortunately, there’s no release date information as of yet, but fans were warned they’ll need to “avoid the ghosts in the maze” to find success in the third game in the series. So we know it won’t stray too far from Pac-Man’s familiar formula.
Posted in News, PC, PS4, Xbox One
Tagged Pac-Man Championship Edition 2
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutants in Manhattan Review: A Kodak Moment
When talking about quality, the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles franchise is filled with anomalies. It’s a veritable roller coaster of highs and lows, of amazing stories and embarrassing character designs. It’s kind of a love-hate relationship. Kids of the 80s have fond memories of the original comic, cartoon, and movie. Opinion on the early 2000s cartoon was kind of split, as it is for the current iteration on Nickelodeon. The ongoing IDW comic, which recently released its 50th issue, has been incredible. The 2014 live-action movie resulted in a collective eye roll from the dedicated TMNT fan community, while this Summer’s sequel had many diehards enamored with its representations of favorites Bebop and Rocksteady. And let’s not even talk about The Next Mutation or the Out of Their Shells concert tour.
Yes, the Ninja Turtles actually went on tour back in the day.
Much like the other facets of the franchise, the TMNT video games range in quality from amazing to downright boring. The original arcade game and Turtles in Time are arguably two of the best beat ’em ups ever made. The game based on the 2007 computer-animated feature is also a decent title. On the flipside, the first game based on the 2013 cartoon series was pretty much universally panned, and the first NES game was downright awful. Electric seaweed? Really? Even with the Game Genie, I couldn’t beat that damn game.
Which brings us to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutants in Manhattan, the latest game in the ever-popular Turtles universe. Knowing the reputation of the franchise, I started this one up with a bit of understandable trepidation, as history shows that these games have potential to fall anywhere on the TMNT quality bell curve. After giving it my full attention, I can safely say that this one falls right there in the middle. Not quite a Cowabunga, but not a Shell Shock, either. (more…)
Yacht Club sails in with an update on Shovel Knight’s Specter Knight campaign
Yacht Club Games is still toiling away at Shovel Knight‘s heaping helping of post-launch content, and after giving us a quick glimpse at the King Knight campaign a few weeks ago, the developer has returned with an extended profile of Specter Knight’s upcoming adventure.
Using a series of GIFs to illustrate Specter Knight’s moveset on their official website, Yacht Club Games seems to be mining another 8-bit classic, Ninja Gaiden, for inspiration. Specter Knight can slash with his trusty scythe, be he also has a lightning quick dash that can be performed on the ground or in the air. The character’s nimble form will also allow him to wall run to reach greater heights.
Yacht Club Games is developing the add-on campaigns for Specter Knight and King Knight simultaneously, though Specter Knight’s will launch first. The team isn’t ready to talk release dates just yet, but both campaigns will be available for free, alongside the also in-development Body Swap Mode and Battle Mode.
Finally, Yacht Club announced that Shovel Knight will be available on store shelves for the Vita soon. The limited physical version is in production at FanGamer and will be released in early October.
Kickstart This! Transmission
Sometimes a game comes along that just speaks to your soul before you have even played it. You fall in love with this game through its character design and music, and marvel at its art style in screenshots and trailers. You eagerly anticipate an exciting new adventure come release day. Of course, many of these games are backed by a studio and publisher that have a budget to spend on PR and marketing, with many coders cracking out footage needed to whet the appetites of potential players. To find a game on Kickstarter that manages to create a trailer so moving, so near to perfect as you could hope for, is remote, and yet, that is exactly what Paper Unicorn has achieved with Transmission.
Prepare for contact. (more…)
Kylo Ren angsts up the latest Character Trailer for Lego Star Wars: The Force Awakens
Exactly a week from today, Lego Star Wars: The Force Awakens will be available on store shelves for the 3DS, PC, PS3, PS4, Vita, Wii U, Xbox 360, and Xbox One. So WB Games has released one last Character Trailer, this time focusing on Kylo Ren’s exploration of “the lighter side of the Dark Side.”
Featuring new dialogue from Adam Driver, be sure to pause Kylo Ren’s vignette after seven seconds to get a great look at his bedroom. It looks like something of a college comedy, but I think the Warhol-inspired Darth Vader portrait is an especially nice touch.
And in case you missed it, a Lego Star Wars: The Force Awakens demo is now available to download through the PlayStation Store and Xbox Games Store for the PS4 and Xbox One.