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
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- 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
The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct coming to Wii U too; March release confirmed
Glenn Gamble, a Producer at Terminal Reality, has revealed that The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct, Activision’s first person shooter based on the popular AMC show, will be available for the Wii U in addition to the PC, PS3, and Xbox 360.
So what will the Wii U version bring to Survival Instinct? A more streamlined inventory system, according to Gamble:
“We didn’t want to change the game, because the game had already been established, so we tried to say, ‘What can we augment with the Wii U version?’ That’s where it’s basically a more elegant inventory management system. With the Wii U you have access to your backpack at all times, so you can tap what weapons you want, you can drop stuff. It’s a lot more streamlined.”
Finally, Gamble confirmed that the game will be released in Europe on March 29, just two days before the third season finale. Because of the close tie-in with the TV show, a North American release date is likely to be very similar.
UPDATE: As expected, Activision has announced The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct will be released in North America on March 26.
[Source: Digital Spy]
Treyarch officially unveils Revolution map pack for CoD Black Ops II
It appears that the rumors are true. Announced yesterday by Treyarch and Activision, Call of Duty: Black Ops II‘s first downloadable map pack will be known as Revolution.
Available to download from the Xbox Live Marketplace on January 29, Revolution will include four new multiplayer maps, a new Zombies map, a new Zombies gametype, and a new weapon (The Peacekeeper, a new SMG/assault rifle hybrid). You can watch the trailer above for all the details on the new maps or you can read about them yourself right here:
- “Downhill” – Set in the ski country of the French Alps, where players fight their way down the slopes and through a ski lodge, while avoiding the moving hazards of the mountain’s gondola system.
- “Grind” – Transports players to the historic birthplace of skateboarding, California’s Venice Beach, where they will battle it out through the ramps and half-pipes of this massive, epic skate park in a multiplayer environment comprised of unique curved architecture requiring players to adapt and learn new ways to take cover.
- “Hydro” – Opponents must dodge the floodwaters as they contend for dominance of this hydroelectric dam facility in Pakistan, filled with treacherous spillways.
- “Mirage” – Pits players in competition amidst the sand dunes of a dilapidated luxury resort in the sandstorm-devastated Gobi Desert, where a range of long-distance and close-quarters combat will mix up the action for all play styles.
- “Die Rise” (Zombies) – Transports players to the Far East, where they will attempt to overcome a zombie infestation inside a series of collapsed skyscrapers towering over the remains of an obliterated Chinese city.
“Die Rise” will be joined by “Turned,” a new Zombies gametype that lets players play as the undead for the first time.
The Revolution map pack will be available for 1200 Microsoft Points ($14.99) or as a free download for owners of the Call of Duty: Black Ops II DLC Season Pass. Revolution will be released on additional platforms (including the PC, PS3, and hopefully the Wii U) at a later date.
Posted in News, PC, PS3, Xbox 360
Tagged Call of Duty: Black Ops II
Call of Duty: Black Ops II Review: Let This Call Go To Voicemail
The Call of Duty franchise practically prints money for Activision shareholders. It is for this reason that an annual release in November is as certain as Thanksgiving. 2012 marked Treyarch’s turn in the development driver seat and they are looking to show that they aren’t just the Call of Duty “B-Team.” Unfortunately, Call of Duty: Black Ops II falls short of the lofty expectations set forth by the stellar World at War and the original Black Ops. (more…)
DayZ standalone version “overhauls” the zombie apocalypse with inventory, UI tweaks
Project Leader Dean Hall and his team at Bohemia Interactive missed their planned 2012 release date for the standalone edition of DayZ. But they’ve got a good excuse. Hall’s latest development update has revealed that Bohemia has used the extra time to rebuild the game engine and “[make DayZ] the game […] we all dreamed it could be.”
Besides changes to the game engine and the user interface, Hall’s main focus has been on overhauling the inventory system. From the sounds of it, this new system could change the way we look at surviving the post-apocalyptic landscape of your average zombie game:
You scavenge for items now, as individual parts, picking up pieces rather than piles, looking for cans on shelves or under beds. The new system opens the door for durability of items, disease tracking (cholera lingering on clothes a player wears…), batteries, addon components, and much more. If you shoot a player in the head to take his night vision, you will damage the night vision. The changes to this inventory system are huge.
Hall has also revealed that Bohemia is planning an internal test of DayZ and that we can expect a new release date only after any issues discovered during the test are fixed.
Lego Marvel Super Heroes assembles on every platform this Fall
The team-up you thought you’d never see! Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment (a sister-company to DC Comics) and Marvel have announced that Lego Marvel Super Heroes will be released this Fall for the 3DS, DS, PC, PS3, Vita, Wii U, and Xbox 360.
Like the other games in the “Lego _____” series, Lego Marvel Super Heroes will be developed by TT Games and include a huge number of characters from the source material. According to the publisher, more than 100 Marvel characters will appear in the game, including Spider-Man, Iron Man, Wolverine, Captain America, The Hulk, Thor, Black Widow, Hawkeye, Nick Fury, Deadpool, Loki and Galactus. And, as you might have guessed, the game’s story will ask players to save the Earth from Loki’s tricks and the hunger of Galactus.
“We’re very excited to bring a myriad of classic Marvel characters to life in Lego form for some fun, family-friendly gameplay in Lego Marvel Super Heroes,” said Tom Stone, the Managing Director at TT Games. “Players will brave the ultimate mission to save the world as they explore famous landmarks in Lego New York and take the adventure beyond Earth to iconic locations in the Marvel Universe.”
I bet The Hulk can do some excellent smashing when the entire world is made of Legos.
Telltale has sold 8.5 million episodes of The Walking Dead
Unsurprisingly, The Walking Dead has done very well for Telltale Games. The company has sold 8.5 million episodes of the adventure game, according to an interview with Telltale CEO Dan Connors in The Wall Street Journal. This number is across iOS (iPad/iPhone/iPod Touch), PC, PS3, and Xbox 360. Connors said that about a quarter of these sales are on iOS, which makes it “the fastest growth for The Walking Dead among platforms, underscoring how important mobile devices are becoming in the eyes of game publishers,” in the words of WSJ writer Matthew Lynley.
Touted as the Game of the Year for 2012 by multiple media outlets (and included in “The Apocalypse List” of our Golden Pixel Awards), The Walking Dead has been Telltale’s biggest success to date. I’m not sure if this in any way signifies that iOS devices have “come of age as true gaming platforms,” as Lynley suggests, but it’s certainly a big step for the tiny machines.
Be sure to hit up the Wall Street Journal for the full interview with Connors.
Bug fixes coming to Street Fighter X Mega Man in “Version 2” patch
The Mega Man Network recently sat down with Capcom’s Senior Community Manager, Brett “Brelston” Elston, to talk about Street Fighter X Mega Man and the future of the Mega Man franchise. During the course of their conversation, Elston revealed that a batch of bug fixes will be coming to the game as part of a “Version 2” update.
“[W]e can say we’re working on a V2 that will release soon and hopefully address some of those known issues. It’s not adding content, but we’ve been reading responses and can ‘tighten up’ a few things before the end of the year,” Elston said.
Elston would go on to say that “Version 2” of Street Fighter X Mega Man should be available sometime this month and will fix “a handful of performance issues” including problems with certain controllers and preventing the game from crashing when you press the ESC key.
Posted in News, PC
Tagged Street Fighter X Mega Man
City Interactive targets March 12 for Sniper: Ghost Warrior 2 release
It looks like Sniper: Ghost Warrior 2 won’t be released this month after all. Originally scheduled for an August 2012 release, the game was pushed back to January 2013 and now it won’t make that date either.
According to the game’s publisher, City Interactive, Sniper: Ghost Warrior 2 will now be available for the PC, PS3, and Xbox 360 on March 12.
Unless it gets delayed again, of course.
[Source: Eurogamer]
Posted in News, PC, PS3, Xbox 360
Tagged Sniper: Ghost Warrior 2