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
Shovel Knight will break ground in 2014
I am very thankful for Shovel Knight, the upcoming NES-styled platformer from Yacht Club Games. You might even say (bad pun incoming) that I dug the time I got to spend with the game at this year’s PAX East expo. But sadly, it looks like the game’s release (on the PC, Wii U, and 3DS) has been pushed into 2014.
Yacht Club’s Sean Velasco has informed us that Shovel Knight will definitely be released in 2014. While he couldn’t pinpoint an exact release date, the development team is hoping to release their first game in the Winter months.
Winter… snow… Shovel Knight. It all makes perfect sense to me.
Posted in 3DS, News, PC, Wii U
Tagged Shovel Knight
Lego The Hobbit announced for Spring 2014 release
You didn’t think WB Games and TT Games were going to stop making Lego games did you? The publisher and developer announced the latest Lego adaptation, Lego The Hobbit, today. Based on the first two movies in Peter Jackson’s Hobbit trilogy, the game will is in development for the 3DS, PC (and Mac), PS3, PS4, Vita, Wii U, Xbox 360, and Xbox One.
In Lego The Hobbit, players will go on a quest with Bilbo Baggins, Gandalf the Grey, Thorin Oakenshield, and many others as they travel to the Dwarven Kingdom of Erebor. Those many others will include all of the Dwarves (Thorin, Fíli, Kíli, Óin, Glóin, Dwalin, Balin Bifur, Bofur, Bombur, Dori, Nori and Ori), each of which has their own special ability.
“We are thrilled to depict the characters and environments of Peter Jackson’s Middle-Earth in Lego form with the Lego The Hobbit video game,” said Tom Stone, Managing Director, TT Games. “Our family-friendly take on these thrilling adventures will have kids and parents playing and laughing together as they build and explore in Lego Middle-Earth.”
Lego The Hobbit will be released Spring 2014, probably just in time for Blu-ray/DVD release of The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug.
Play this timey-wimey Google Doodle game to celebrate 50th anniversary of Doctor Who
We’re just a few minutes away from the worldwide debut of “The Day of the Doctor,” the 50th Anniversary special celebrating Doctor Who, everyone’s favorite two-hearted alien with the delightful British accent. The Doctor’s longevity has also earned him a place in an interactive Google Doodle that is now available on Google’s homepage. The Doodle takes the form of an isometric platform game that allows players to choose their Doctor (choices include David Tennant and ten other guys) and reclaim the letters in “Google” from the Daleks.
After today, the Doodle will be added to the Google Doodle archive soon and “The Day of the Doctor” begins in… checks watch… 18 minutes!
John Carmack leaves id Software
The “Master of Doom” himself, John Carmack, has left id Software. Studio Director Tim Willits announced that Carmack and the studio he helped found in 1991 have parted ways. In a statement to GamesIndustry International, Willits revealed that the split was due to Carmack’s desire to expand his duties as Oculus VR’s Chief Technology Officer:
“John Carmack, who has become interested in focusing on things other than game development at id, has resigned from the studio. John’s work on id Tech 5 and the technology for the current development work at id is complete, and his departure will not affect any current projects. We are fortunate to have a brilliant group of programmers at id who worked with John and will carry on id’s tradition of making great games with cutting-edge technology. As colleagues of John for many years, we wish him well.”
Carmack’s tenure at id (alongside co-founders John Romero, Tom Hall, and Adrian Carmack [curiously, no relation]) was chronicled in the amazing book Masters of Doom. 2010’s Rage will be the final id Software title to carry Carmack’s stamp. It is widely assumed the developer is currently working on Doom 4, but Quake V may also be in the works.
Kickstart This! The Pre-Christmas Whopper Edition
It’s that time of year again…. When everyone gets anxious about having enough money to afford Christmas presents and keep the heating on… When Z-list celebrities are invited to flick a switch and cast sparkly lights on towns and cities across the globe… When pine trees shudder in fear and reindeer wonder why there are hundreds of cameras pointing at them. But it need not be so glum and terrifying. In the run-up to what has become a period of immense profit for companies, yet an unnecessary burden on the growing number of Scrooges in the world (myself included), it is important to keep everything in check, and offer help to those who need it. Buy gloves for the homeless. Invite your lonely neighbour around for a cup of egg nog or mulled wine. And if you are still in the spirit to bring good tidings, check out the latest Kickstarter game campaigns that need your support.
We have a whopping seven projects to share this month, including the super cute P.A.W.S. – Prime Alien Watch Squad, oddball survival game Dyscourse, the eccentric steampunk detective adventure The Dead Flowers Case, and 2D turn based monster shooter MODUS. Halfway through, things get a little more intense with a throwback to 80s action films in Bullet Bros, tactical FPS assassin title Lonewolf, and finally, the beautifully rendered isometric sci-fi adventure Stasis.
Let’s jingle those bells. (more…)
EA’s Star Wars deal doesn’t include movie tie-in games
Electronic Arts wasted no time in tasking top men (“TOP. MEN.”) from DICE LA and Visceral to create two games in the Star Wars universe after signing a deal with Disney earlier this year. DICE LA is hard at work on a reboot of Star Wars: Battlefront while the subject of Visceral’s project is still a mystery. But now we know what it won’t be about.
Speaking at the UBS Global Technology Conference earlier this week, Blake Jorgensen, EA’s CFO, has confirmed that the publisher has no plans to release any games based on the upcoming Star Wars movies such as 2015’s Episode VII.
“We’ve done movie games over the years and we wanted to make sure that we weren’t doing a movie game, i.e., game based on the movie,” Jorgensen said.
He continued: “We have [a] team in DICE building some early stages of various games and building them in Frostbite, so it will be a very exciting gameplay and you’ll hear more about it in the years to come. And so, we’re excited and we think that it will be a great 2015 and 2016 when we’ll start to see the emergence of possibly the Star Wars titles along with the Star Wars movies that will start to come out in late calendar 2015 or fiscal 2016.”
Jorgensen also confirmed that EA’s deal with Disney will last for ten years and will include “games in many different genres across multiple types of platforms.”
Posted in News, PC, PS4, Xbox One
Tagged Star Wars: Battlefront, Star Wars: Visceral
Plants vs Zombies: Garden Warfare will be released on February 18
Electronic Arts and PopCap Games have announced that Plants vs Zombies: Garden Warfare will be released for the Xbox One and Xbox 360 on February 18. A PC version will also be available “at a later date.”
Garden Warfare turns the popular tower defense series into a third-person shooter with three distinct modes: Garden & Graveyards, a 12v12 base-capturing mode; Team Vanquish, a 12v12 deathmatch mode; and Garden Ops, a four-player cooperative mode that tasks players with dispatching wave after wave of zombies.
If you plan on getting Garden Warfare for the Xbox One, you’ll open up two new modes including a cooperative splitscreen mode and Boss Mode, a mode that allows players to use their Kinect and/or SmartGlass device to drop health, intel, and airstrikes onto the battlefield.
“Gamers across the world have fallen in love with the Plants vs Zombies characters and now they’ll get to see them in an entirely new light, said Brian Lindley, Producer on Plants vs Zombies: Garden Warfare. “Plants vs Zombies: Garden Warfare give the series’ fans and shooter players a fun, new experience that they’ll both enjoy as they blast, chomp and laugh their way through co-op and head-to-head online action.”
Posted in News, PC, Xbox 360, Xbox One
Tagged Plants vs Zombies: Garden Warfare
Spike TV announces the nominees for 2013 VGX Awards
The nominees for the 2013 VGX Awards (previously known as the Video Game Awards) have been announced by Spike TV and it looks like this year’s show will be dominated by Grand Theft Auto V, BioShock Infinite, The Last of Us, and Tomb Raider. Those four games, along with Super Mario 3D World, will duke it out for this year’s “Game of the Year” honor.
Grand Theft Auto V lead all games with four additional nominations (“Best PlayStation,” “Best Xbox,” “Action Adventure,” and “Soundtrack”) as well as a “Best Studio” nomination for Rockstar North, “Best Actor” nomination for Steven Ogg, and two “Best Song” nods. The Fulbright Company’s Gone Home leads this year’s indie charge with two nominations (“Best PC” and “Best Independent”) and a “Best Studio” nomination for the developer.
And in a fun twist, Troy Baker will be competing against himself in the “Best Actor” category as his Joel (from The Last of Us) will do battle with his Booker DeWitt (from BioShock Infinite).
The 2013 VGX Awards will air on Spike TV on Saturday, December 7. A complete list of this year’s nominees can be found after the break. (more…)
Posted in 3DS, Mobile, News, PC, PS3, Vita, Wii U, Xbox 360, Xbox One
Tagged BioShock Infinite, Grand Theft Auto V, Super Mario 3D World, The Last of Us, Tomb Raider, VGX 2013