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
WB executive confirms Batman: Arkham Asylum 3 will be released in 2013
Time Warner is a massive company, so it’s not surprising that their video game division, Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, got short shrift during their most recently quarterly financial report. But the one bit of video game news we did get was a doozy.
John K. Martin, Time Warner’s Chief Financial Officer, confirmed that Batman: Arkham Asylum 3 is in development and will be released this year:
[W]e also have a strong games release this year, which will include the next release in the Batman Arkham franchise. So all in all, we expect Warners to post another very strong year in 2013.
Martin did not say if Rocksteady would be the team behind Arkham Asylum 3, but there’s plenty of previous rumors to fuel a little speculation on this one. That includes the possibility Arkham Asylum 3 will be set in the Silver Age or that it’ll feature a title from all those domains that WB Games registered last month.
Whatever it turns out to be, for now, we can all say, “Holy awesome announcement, Batman!”
New Releases: Aliens Colonial Marines, Brain Age 3, Omerta, More
First things first, Nintendo’s hard brain training game, Brain Age: Concentration Training, is available for the 3DS today. Dr. Kawashima, the master of brains himself, has promised that you’ll have a devilishly good time with the third game in the Brain Age series.
Moving on, this week’s other major release is Aliens: Colonial Marines. The Sega-published, Gearbox-developer continuation of the Alien saga has been in development for a long time, but if you’ve ever wanted a direct sequel to Aliens, this is your best chance. Pick it up on Tuesday for the PC, PS3, or Xbox 360.
Also available this week is Omerta: City of Gangsters. If you’ve ever thought, “a strategy RPG starring gangsters and set in the bootleggin’ Prohibition era would be a hoot-and-a-half,” then this PC and Xbox 360 game might be for you. It also might be for you if you regularly use the phrase “hoot-and-a-half” in regular conversation.
Finally, a pair of 3DS games make their belated debut on the portable platform. Both Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed and Pro Evolution Soccer 2013 3D are now available on Nintendo’s handheld.
Posted in 3DS, News, PC, PS3, Xbox 360
Tagged Aliens: Colonial Marines, Brain Age: Devil Training, Omerta: City of Gangsters
Activision confirms Call of Duty 10 will be released in 2013
Are you sitting down? You might want to sit down. Activision has announced something shocking at their quarterly financial conference.
A new Call of Duty game is in the works and will be released this Fall.
OK, that’s not very shocking. But Activision did announce Call of Duty 10 yesterday. That part’s true, however, we don’t know much about it at this point. Even the developer is a mystery. While 2013 is an “Infinity Ward year,” Activision has confirmed that Neversoft, Raven, and Sledgehammer are all working on Call of Duty-related projects. But here’s everything we know for sure, courtesy of Activision Publishing CEO Eric Hirshberg:
“The Call of Duty franchise continues to set the bar for innovation and we expect the new Call of Duty game in development for 2013 to raise that bar even higher.”
Even with that tiniest speck of confirmation, I will hazard a guess that Call of Duty 10 will be released for the PC, PS3, Xbox 360, and Wii U sometime this November.
[Source: GameSpot]
Journey, The Walking Dead clean up at 2013 DICE Awards
A pair of downloadable games came away with almost half of all the awards handed out at last night’s D.I.C.E. Awards show. Journey, developed by thatgamecompany exclusively for the PS3, was the big winner of the night, nabbing eight awards including Game of the Year. Telltale’s The Walking Dead was also a multiple award winner, collecting four trophies.
Halo 4 (Visual Engineering and Connectivity) and XCOM: Enemy Unknown (Gameplay Engineering and Strategy/Simulation) were the only other games to win in more than one category.
Congratulations to the developers at thatgamecompany and Telltale Games. You can find a complete list of winners in all 25 categories after the break. (more…)
J.J. Abrams and Gabe Newell tease possible game/movie collaboration
Star Wars Episode VII director J.J. Abrams and Valve CEO Gabe Newell spent the morning addressing the crowd at the 2013 D.I.C.E. Summit. Their talk, “Storytelling Across Platforms,” kicked off the conference and was heavily promoted before the four-day gathering of developers began.
Apparently, there was a good reason for that.
Abrams and Newell’s panel concluded a few minutes ago and they dropped a massive bombshell before they left. Are you ready? Abrams announced that he wants to partner with Valve on a video game and Newell announced that he wants work with Abrams (and his Bad Robot production company) on movies based on Half-Life and Portal:
Abrams: There’s an idea we [at Bad Robot] have for a game that we’d like to work with Valve on.
Newell: We’re going to find out if there’s a way we can work with you on a Portal and Half-Life movie.
Oh. My. God.
[Source: Kotaku]
Star Wars Pinball strikes back on digital platforms this month
Zen Studios will be bringing three Star Wars-themed pinball tables to a download service near you this month. Star Wars Pinball will be available as a standalone app on the Apple App Store and the Google Play Android Store. It’ll also be released as downloadable content for Pinball FX 2 (Xbox Live Arcade, Windows 8), Zen Pinball 2 (PlayStation Network, Vita, Mac App Store), and Zen Pinball (Apple App Store, Google Play).
“It’s been over 30 years since Star Wars, videogames, and solid state pinball all burst onto the entertainment scene, and their popularity endures today. We’re excited to be combining all three for the very first time,” said Neil Sorens, Zen Studios’ Creative Director. “Our designers are huge Star Wars fans, and you can expect every detail in every table to reflect their passion for the Star Wars universe.”
The three tables will be based on three of the biggest names in Star Wars history: The Empire Strikes Back, Boba Fett, and Star Wars: The Clone Wars. Screenshots and more details can be found at the game’s official site, StarWarsPinball.com.
Approve of this, I do.
Posted in Mobile, News, PC, PS3, Xbox 360
Tagged Star Wars Pinball, Zen Pinball 2
XCOM shooter still on track for 2013/2014 release
XCOM: Enemy Unknown was released to near universal critical acclaim last year. But you may remember that Take-Two also announced a first person shooter set in the XCOM universe (simply titled XCOM) at E3 2010. Repeatedly delayed, you’re forgiven if you don’t remember it.
But within the paragraphs of their quarterly financial report, Take-Two confirmed that XCOM is still in development for the PC, PS3, and Xbox 360 and that it’s still on track for a “fiscal year 2014” release.
Take-Two’s 2014 fiscal year runs from April 1, 2013 through March 31, 2014. Even though it’s possible the game could be released as early as this Spring, I’d guess that a late 2013/early 2014 release is much more likely.
New Releases: Dead Space 3, Sly Cooper 4, Fire Emblem: Awakening, More
This week’s biggest new release is the return of Isaac Clarke in Dead Space 3. Everyone’s favorite alien-hunting engineer (wait, was Ripley an engineer?) has help this time in the form of the appropriately named John Carver. Go grab a buddy for co-op and check out Dead Space 3 this week on the PC, PS3, or Xbox 360.
Also available this week is Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time returns in a new adventure available simultaneously for the PS3 and Vita. But remember, if you buy the PS3 version, you’ll get the Vita version for free as part of Sony’s Cross-Buy promotion.
Namco Bandai will be bringing Fist of the North Star: Ken’s Rage 2 to the PS3, Wii U, and Xbox 360 this week in a unique way. The Xbox 360 version will be available on store shelves as a disc-based game while the PS3 and Wii U versions will be released exclusively as digital downloads.
And speaking of digital downloads, you can obtain the 3DS strategy game Fire Emblem: Awakening on Monday as a download from the 3DS eShop or in stores.
Posted in 3DS, News, PC, PS3, Vita, Xbox 360
Tagged Dead Space 3, Fire Emblem: Awakening, Sly Cooper: Thieves in Time