Warp Zoned Presents
Video Game Canon- Jordan Minor’s “Boss Fight Books: Super Mario Galaxy” is Now Available for Pre-Order
- Angry Birds, Dragon Quest, FIFA Soccer, and Silent Hill are the World Video Game Hall of Fame’s Class of 2026
- 2025 GOTY Scoreboard: In Progress
- 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
Warp Zoned Presents
- Video Game Research Library
- With Grand Theft Auto 6 poised to take over the world, I reached out to Jack Thompson and it did not go well – PC Gamer (2026)
- Vib-Ribbon: An oral history – Design Room (2026)
- How a Second-Grade Teacher Revived a Beloved Video Game – The New York Times (2026)
- Spore: An oral history – Design Room (2026)
- Diablo IV PC Cooled With Real Human Blood Is Still Going Strong Two Years Later, Says Guy Who Won It – Aftermath (2026)
Most Recent: PC
Broken Age available to all on January 28
Double Fine’s Broken Age: Act 1 is now available to backers of the highly successful Kickstarter campaign. But for those who took a wait-and-see approach, good news, the game will be available to the general public in just two weeks, on January 28. To celebrate, the developer has released a new trailer that shines a spotlight on the game’s second protagonist, Vella Tartine.
Tim Schafer, Double Fine’s President and the Writer/Designer behind Broken Age, is thrilled to return to the adventure genre after all these years:
“It’s been sixteen years since I’ve made an adventure game, almost twenty years since I’ve made a point-and-click, and just shy of two years since I dared the internet to force me to make one,” he said. “Coming back to the genre has been like finding an old jacket in a box in your garage that you haven’t worn in twenty years, but once you shake the dust off and put it on you realize it’s an amazing jacket and it still fits, and once you patch the holes in the pockets it could easily take a spot in your main jacket rotation.”
But Schafer is aware that Broken Age required a bit more than nostalgic memories to create. “In one of the pockets was three and a half million dollars,” he added.
Broken Age: Act 2 will be available as a free download to all owners of Act 1 later this year and Double Fine is working hard to bring the complete game to the Ouya (and other Android devices) and the iOS App Store.
Posted in Mobile, News, PC
Tagged Broken Age
Lego Marvel Super Heroes Review: Amazing, Spectacular, and Fantastic
I’m normally not one to get into the Lego games. I played Lego Indiana Jones and Lego Lord of the Rings, but I usually found myself moving on to other games after a few hours of play. But not so with Lego Marvel Super Heroes. I’ve been playing this game nonstop, without touching any of my other PS4 titles. It’s that much fun. I don’t know if it’s because I’m a huge Marvel fan or if I have a serious case of OCD, but I’ve put over sixty hours into this title – and I’m still only at 85% complete. And most importantly, it has kept my interest the entire time. (more…)
“Next-Gen Call of Duty” game in development at Sledgehammer Games
Sledgehammer Games was founded in 2009 and the currently have just one credited game to their name: 2011’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3. Six months after that game shipped, the developer announced that they were staffing up for their next project, which was to be a new game in the Call of Duty series. With Black Ops II and Ghosts released in the interim, its fair to ask, what happened to Sledgehammer’s CoD game?
Apparently, it’s still in the works and the company is still hiring new people to work on it.
Sledgehammer recently posted a large number of job announcements to their Careers page concerning a “next-gen Call of Duty game.” Details on the game are scarce, but several postings describe it as “hyper realistic.”
We know that Activision plans to release another Call of Duty game this Fall. Will Sledgehammer get their time in the spotlight? If history is any guide, we’ll find out for sure this Spring when Activision will officially unveil the next title in the Call of Duty series.
Posted in News, PC, PS4, Xbox One
Tagged Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare
Call of Duty: Ghosts Onslaught DLC Pack to be available on XBL Store on January 28
Activision and Infinity Ward have announced that the first map pack for Call of Duty: Ghosts, Onslaught, will be available to download from the Xbox Live Store (for both the Xbox 360 and Xbox One) on January 28.
The coolest map is clearly “Fog,” a love letter to the horror films of yesteryear. Players will even be able to become Halloween‘s Michael Myers and deliver the killing blow with a bloody axe. Players will also be able to frag their friends in the California boardwalk of “BayView,” the war-torn Mexican village of “Containment,” and the aging Florida space launch facility of “Ignition.”
Onslaught will also include a new weapon, a dual-purpose Assault Rifle/Sniper Rifle known as the Maverick, and “Nightfall,” a new chapter in humans vs aliens Extinction saga. In “Nightfall,” players will guide a small strike team to a snowy Alaskan base in search of the origins of the alien invasion (and to battle the biggest boss Infinity Ward has ever created).
Once again, Onslaught will be available to download through the Xbox Live Store on January 28 with a release on other platforms to follow. The DLC pack has been priced at $14.99 individually and will also be included as part of the $49.99 Season Pass.
More details about all of Onslaught’s maps can be found after the break. (more…)
SimCity Offline Mode will be included in next update
Even though EA claims that SimCity included as “always-online” requirement because it was developed as an MMO, the publisher plans to cut the online cord with the next update. According to a post on the official SimCity blog, when Update 10 is made available to players, it will add the ability to play offline in a new “Single Player Mode.”
Patrick Buechner, the General Manager of Maxis, had this to say about Single Player Mode:
Yes, Offline is coming as a free download with Update 10 to all SimCity players. When we launch it, all of your previously downloaded content will be available to you anytime, anywhere, without the need for an internet connection. We are in the late phases of wrapping up its development and while we want to get it into your hands as soon as possible, our priority is to make sure that it’s as polished as possible before we release it. So, until then… testing, testing and more testing. As one of the final steps, we’re putting Offline into the hands of some of our most hardcore players, the DevTesters. This group of volunteers is going to put Offline through its paces before we release it.
EA and Maxis plan to reveal more details about SimCity’s offline mode soon.
2014 Writers Guild Awards nominees announced
The Writers Guild of America has announced the nominees for this year’s Writers Guild Award. The award, which honors “Outstanding Achievement in Writing for Videogames,” will be given out on Saturday, February 1 during the 2014 Writers Guild Awards ceremony.
This year, the writers behind Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag, Batman: Arkham Origins, God of War: Ascension, The Last of Us, and Lost Planet 3 will all battle it out for the award. A full list of every nominated writer can be found right here:
Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag (Ubisoft)
Story by Darby McDevitt, Mustapha Mahrach, Jean Guesdon
Lead Scriptwriter: Darby McDevitt
Scriptwriter: Jill Murray
AI Scriptwriter: Nicholas Grimwood
Scriptwriter Singapore: Mark Llabres HillBatman: Arkham Origins (Warner Bros. Interactive)
Narrative Director: Dooma Wendschuh; Writer & Senior Narrative Designer: Ryan Galletta
Writer: Corey MayGod of War: Ascension (Sony Computer Entertainment)
Written by Marianne Krawczyk
Additional Writing: Ariel LawrenceThe Last of Us (Sony Computer Entertainment)
Written by Neil DruckmannLost Planet 3 (Capcom)
Head Writer: Richard Gaubert
Writers: Orion Walker, Matt Sophos
Posted in News, PC, PS3, PS4, Wii U, Xbox 360, Xbox One
Tagged Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag, Batman: Arkham Origins, God of War: Ascension, Lost Planet 3, The Last of Us
The Last of Us, Tearaway, Gone Home lead this year’s GDC Awards
The nominees for the 2014 Game Developers Choice Awards have been announced and The Last of Us, Gone Home, and Tearaway lead the field with five nominations apiece.
The Last of Us and Gone Home will be competing for this year’s Game of the Year award alongside Grand Theft Auto V, Super Mario 3D World, and Tomb Raider. Tomb Raider and Grand Theft Auto V are also in the running for multiple awards as each has been nominated in two additional categories.
Other multi-category nominees this year include The Stanley Parable, Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, Device 6, and Papers, Please.
This year’s Game Developers Choice Awards will be handed out on Wednesday, March 19 at the San Francisco Moscone Center during the 2014 Game Developers Conference. 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 GDC 2014, Gone Home, Grand Theft Auto V, Super Mario 3D World, Tearaway, The Last of Us, Tomb Raider
2014 Independent Games Festival finalists announced
The Independent Games Festival announced the finalists for their 16th annual awards yesterday. This year, six titles will vie for the Seumas McNally Grand Prize including The Stanley Parable (Galactic Cafe), Don’t Starve (Klei Entertainment), Jazzpunk (Necrophone Games), Papers, Please (Lucas Pope), Device 6 (Simogo), and Dominique Pamplemousse in “It’s All Over Once the Fat Lady Sings!” (Deirdra Kiai Productions).
The Festival jury found a lot to like about all six of those games as they show up again and again throughout the full list of finalists. You can find the complete list of finalists after the break, including the selections for the Nuovo Award, which honors “Abstract and Unconventional Game Development.”
The IGF Awards will be held on Wednesday, March 19 at the San Francisco Moscone Convention Center, directly preceding the disbursement of this year’s Game Developers Choice Awards during the 2014 Game Developers Conference. (more…)
Posted in Mobile, News, PC
Tagged GDC 2014, Papers Please