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
Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo, Valve, others teaming up for The Game Awards 2014
Geoff Keighley is leaving the familiar confines of the Spike TV-sponsored VGX Awards to launch a brand new game industry event: The Game Awards. The VGX Awards polled a wide range of game journalists to select the best games of the year, but The Game Awards will take a different tack. Their advisory board will instead be made up of some of the industry’s biggest executives and developers:
- Reggie Fils-Aime (Nintendo of America)
- Yves Guillemot (Ubisoft)
- Hideo Kojima (Kojima Productions)
- Shawn Layden (Sony Computer Entertainment America)
- Peter Moore (Electronic Arts)
- Phil Spencer (Microsoft)
- Martin Tremblay (Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment)
- An unnamed representative from Rockstar Games
- An unnamed representative from Valve
The nominations for this year’s Game Awards haven’t been announced yet, but we do know that the ceremony will take place on December 5 at the AXIS Theater in Las Vegas. Tickets will go on sale tomorrow and those of us that aren’t planning to attend the live show will be able to watch an online stream of the events through the PlayStation Network, Xbox Live, Nintendo Network, Steam, and “many other sites and platforms.”
And you’ll probably want to pay close attention as, just like the VGX Awards, the show will feature a series of trailers promoting a variety of upcoming games. Musical performances and appearances by “game developers, eSports players and online content creators” will round out the 2014 Game Awards agenda.
Spike TV has yet to announce whether the VGX Awards will be held this year.
StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void will be a standalone game
It’s been more than six years since Blizzard split StarCraft II into three games, but it looks like we’re finally reaching the end of the line with this first look at StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void. A release date for Legacy of the Void wasn’t announced, but we do know that it’ll be a standalone expansion, and will not require players to have previously purchased StarCraft II: Wings of Liberty or StarCraft II: Heart of the Swarm.
Legacy of the Void will complete the StarCraft II saga by focusing on the telepathic race of aliens known as the Protoss. Perhaps owing to the unique team-based abilities that telepathy would give you, Blizzard has announced a pair of cooperative gameplay modes will be included in Legacy of the Void, a first for the StarCraft series:
Archon Mode, a competitive multiplayer mode unveiled at BlizzCon, is a new way to enjoy StarCraft II with friends. In Archon Mode, two players share control over a single base and units as they take on an enemy duo in multiplayer action. By sharing the responsibility of commanding troops and managing resources, players can focus on their own areas of the battle and execute more intricate strategies.
Allied Commanders is another gameplay mode new to StarCraft II. In this objective-based, cooperative experience, players can team up and take on the roles of powerful commanders from the StarCraft saga. Each commander offers unique abilities and upgrades and bestows special bonuses on their armies. Players are able to battle through a series of special scenarios together, leveling up their commanders’ capabilities as they progress.
You can visit Blizzard’s official site for Legacy of the Void to get a look at some of the game’s new characters as well as to sign up for a chance to be included in next year’s multiplayer beta test.
Posted in News, PC
Tagged StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void
New Releases: Halo Master Chief Collection, AC: Unity/AC: Rogue, Lego Batman 3, More
With Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare‘s launch behind us, game publishers have moved forward with a massive amount of mid-November releases. Chief among them (that’s right, I went there) is Microsoft’s Halo: The Master Chief Collection, an Xbox One repackaging of Halo: Combated Evolved, Halo 2, Halo 3, and Halo 4. More Achievements than you could ever ask for and four of the best shooters to ever grace a gaming system. Not a bad deal. Also available this week is a double shot of Assassin’s Creed from Ubisoft. Assassin’s Creed: Rogue (PS3, Xbox 360) closes the book on the franchise’s “Americas” saga while Assassin’s Creed: Unity (PC, PS4, Xbox One) shifts the series to the French Revolution.
The remaining new releases can also be slotted into several long-running franchises including WB’s Lego Batman 3: Beyond Gotham (3DS, PC, PS3, PS4, Wii U, Xbox 360, Xbox One), Sega’s Sonic Boom two-fer (Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric on the Wii U and Sonic Boom: Shattered Crystal on the 3DS), Bandai Namco’s Tales of Hearts R (Vita), and Konami’s Pro Evolution Soccer 2015 (PC, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One).
Finally this week, Blizzard is back with another World of Warcraft expansion… World of Warcraft: Warlords of Draenor.
A complete list of this week’s new releases can be found after the break. (more…)
Don’t Leave… Take This Interview With the Developers of Guns, Gore & Cannoli
At first glance, zombies, mobsters, and a wonderful cheese-filled dessert don’t seem like they’d have much in common. But while Clemenza instructed a young mafioso to leave his gun and take the cannoli in The Godfather, players will need both if they’re going to find any success against the rampaging zombie hordes of Guns, Gore & Cannoli. Belgium-based Crazy Monkey Studios is currently seeking funding for the game through Kickstarter, and we recently talked to Benjamin Claeys, one of the game’s artists, about the Prohibition era side-scrolling shooter and its unique art style.
Naturally, the conversation drifted away from the cartoonish violence of the game towards an appreciation for really good cannoli… (more…)
Posted in Features, Interviews, PC, PS4, Top Story, Wii U, Xbox One
Tagged Guns Gore & Cannoli
Blizzard debuts team-based shooter Overwatch at BlizzCon 2014
Titan may be dead, but Blizzard marches on. To show that they’re not dwelling on the past, the developer announced a new game during the opening festivities of this year’s BlizzCon. Titled Overwatch, it’s a team-based shooter for the PC that has a very Disney/Pixar vibe to it. Or at least, as Disney/Pixar as a game about futuristic arena warfare can be.
The action of Overwatch takes place in a technologically advanced, highly stylized future earth. In a time of global crisis, an international task force of soldiers, scientists, adventurers, and oddities known as Overwatch had come together to restore peace to a war-torn world. After many years, the group’s influence waned, and it was eventually disbanded. Overwatch might be gone now . . . but the world still needs heroes.
With an emphasis on accessibility and pure fun, Overwatch brings Blizzard’s signature easy-to-learn, hard-to-master gameplay to the FPS genre. Harnessing the power of their hero of choice, players will join forces in teams of six and battle each other across a range of futuristic global locations, from the hologram-lit streets of London to a bazaar in the shadows of a high-tech Egyptian pyramid. Every battlefield is iconic and built to highlight each character’s unique abilities, and fights can shift from streets to rooftops to open skies within the span of a breath.
Overwatch is already in a playable state and Blizzard announced that a beta test will take place sometime in 2015. You can sign up for a chance to join the beta (and learn a bit more about the game’s ragtag group of heroes) at the Overwatch offcial website. I’d also recommend checking out Overwatch’s first gameplay trailer, which is available after the break. (more…)
Insert Quarter: A History of (Video Game) Violence
Insert Quarter is our showcase for some of the best and most interesting writing about video games on the Internet.
The video game industry’s fiercest critics will always say that games have never been more violent and that it is doing horrible damage to our children. But the game industry’s fiercest critics have always been saying that. In fact, many of them were children themselves when the first round of panic gripped parents during Death Race‘s 1976 heyday.
Vice’s Mike Diver examines this legacy of violence, citing everything from the obvious (Mortal Kombat and Carmageddon) to the obscure (Barbarian: The Ultimate Warrior and Battle Chess). I never thought of Battle Chess as particularly gruesome, but your primer on pixelated gore awaits:
If you came to games fresh during the previous console generation, where once-grainy graphics made the switch to full HD, you don’t know how easy you’ve had it. There was a time, long before the gushes of crimson coloring contemporary offerings of extreme violence–Gears and God of War, Dead Rising, and the more recent Resident Evils, Max Payne 3, the Dead Space series, Bulletstorm, and BioShock (to name but a few)–where you had to lean on your imagination to bring scenes of disgusting dismemberment to life.
You can read the rest of the article at Vice.
PS4 version of Secret Ponchos will be released in December
We’ve been big fans of Secret Ponchos, an isometric arena shooter that takes place in a stylized Old West setting, since its PAX East 2013 debut. Ever since, we’ve been waiting for its release on the PS4 and PC but, according to a post on the PlayStation Blog, we won’t have to be waiting much longer.
If you’re a PlayStation Plus subscribers, Secret Ponchos will be available in December as part of the Instant Game Collection on the PS4. All other PS4 owners will also be able to purchase it separately at that time. As one of the game’s banditos might say, yee haw!
Secret Ponchos is also currently available on the PC through Steam’s Early Access program. It’s possible the game’s “full version” will be released in December, but nothing has been officially announced by developer Switchblade Monkeys yet.
Posted in News, PC, PS4
Tagged Secret Ponchos
Grand Theft Auto V is getting a first-person mode on PC, PS4, Xbox One
Rockstar hasn’t been shy in letting the world know that the PC, PS4, and Xbox One upgrade to Grand Theft Auto V will be no mere port. From “across-the-board graphical and technical improvements” to the wide range of bonus content for players who already own the PS3 or Xbox 360 edition, the latest version of GTA5 will be jam-packed with never-before-seen stuff. But Rockstar wasn’t finished as they recently told IGN that the game will also include a first-person mode:
Police cars are stacking up in the cul-de-sac below and a helicopter is hovering somewhere overhead. I can’t really see where it is, but I feel its presence, and the cops open fire. So I make a run for it, vaulting over a fence into a parking lot, where I jack a car, climb in, and as I look down to hot-wire it, I see there’s a bullet hole in my in my forearm and blood is running out.
I’ve never had a GTA experience like this before, and that’s because it’s all playing out in the first-person.
We’ve said before that Rockstar rebuilt Grand Theft Auto V for the new-generation consoles, but they really mean it now. Each animation in the game had to be redone to work in first-person mode. That kind of attention to detail is Rockstar’s trademark and they weren’t going to ignore it now. Of course, if you’d rather play in third-person mode, players can switch between the two views at any time.
Grand Theft Auto V will be released on November 18 for the PS4 and Xbox One, with the PC version following on January 27, 2015.
Posted in News, PC, PS4, Xbox One
Tagged Grand Theft Auto V