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
- 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)
- In 2005, games started rewiring our brains – The AV Club (2025)
Most Recent: PS3
New Releases: Sunset Overdrive, WWE 2K15, Lords of the Fallen, More
Sunset Overdrive, Insomniac’s wild hipsters vs mutants shooter, leads this week’s new release report. With no new Halo or Gears of War game in the pipeline, Microsoft is promoting Sunset Overdrive as one of the biggest Xbox One exclusives of the Fall. To that end, they have also teamed up with Insomniac to offer the Sunset Overdrive Xbox One System Bundle which will include the game itself and a snazzy all-white Xbox One.
Also available this week is WWE 2K15 (PS3, Xbox 360), the first game in the series fully produced by 2K Games; Lords of the Fallen (PS4, Xbox One), Bandai Namco’s attempt at entering the medieval hack and slash market; and NBA Live 15 (PS4, Xbox One), EA’s latest entry in their basketball simulation series.
More new releases from the upcoming week can be found after the break. (more…)
Posted in 3DS, News, PC, PS3, PS4, Vita, Xbox 360, Xbox One
Tagged Lords of the Fallen, NBA Live 15, Sunset Overdrive, WWE 2K15
Insert Quarter: The History of Music Games
Insert Quarter is our showcase for some of the best and most interesting writing about video games on the Internet.
Almost 50 years ago, Paul and Art Garfunkel asked, “Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio?” in their hit song, “Mrs. Robinson.” DiMaggio would later tell Simon that he hadn’t gone anywhere, even though his playing days were long behind him. Likewise, today’s gamers have probably asked themselves, what happened to all the music games? The conventional wisdom says that they just don’t sell anymore, but who can turn down an invitation to rock out with your plastic guitar out?
IGN’s Chris Reed dug in to the history of the music from its humble roots (1996’s PaRappa the Rapper) all the way through the Guitar Here/Rock Band rivalry and into the future of the genre:
Music/rhythm games have run a surprisingly dynamic path through gaming history. Some genres drift into popularity and gradually fade out as technology and popular taste change. You might not even realize it’s happened until one day you look around and wonder, for instance, where all the 3D platformers went. Music games, on the other hand, moseyed along under the radar for the better part of a decade before taking off like a shot, attaining meteoric success before drying up nearly all at once.
You can read the rest of the article at IGN.
Dead or Alive 5: Last Round will be released in February 2015
Koei Tecmo has announced that the third, and final, re-release of Dead or Alive 5 will be released in February. Dead or Alive 5: Last Round will be available on February 17 for the PS4 and Xbox One (as a digital download and a retail disc) and the PS3 and Xbox 360 (as a digital download only).
Last Round will also be available on the PS4 and Xbox One as a free-to-play version known as the “Core Fighters” edition. “Core Fighters” on the PS4 will launch with four fighters freely unlocked (Ayane, Hayate, Kasumi, and Ryu Hayabusa) with additional fighters, modes, and other features available as paid add-ons. The Xbox One edition will be expandable in the same way, but first players must purchase an extended character pack (including Hitomi, Tina, Jann Lee, and Bass) priced at $4.99.
For those looking to pre-purchase the entire game, Koei Tecmo will offer three pre-order packs through GameStop, Amazon, and Best Buy. GameStop will offer buyers the “Ninja Costume Pack” (for Ayane, Hayabusa, Hayate, and Kasumi) and the “Aloha Costume Pack” (for Ayane, Hitomi, Kasumi, and Mila). Amazon will give purchasers access to the “Showstopper Costume Pack” (for Christie, Helena, Lisa, and Tina) while Best Buy will offer the “Beach Party Costume Pack” (for Kokoro, Leifang, Momiji, and Rachel).
Dead or Alive 5: Last Round will be priced at $29.99 on the PS3 and Xbox 360 and $39.99 on the PS4 and Xbox One.
Warner Bros. is creating a Mortal Kombat X tie-in web series
It’s unlikely we’ll ever get to see Mortal Kombat: Legacy III now that Kevin Tancharoen has departed the web series that became an Internet sensation after the director publicly released a proof-of-concept short by accident. But Warner Bros. is picking up the slack with the creation of a new Direct-To-Internet production house, Blue Ribbon Content.
Blue Ribbon’s first project will be a live-action web series that ties in to the story of the upcoming Mortal Kombat X. Like the game, it will pick up after the events of 2011’s Mortal Kombat and “[showcase] some of the franchise’s most storied characters, [as well as] introducing a new generation of fighters.” As of now, Warner Bros. isn’t ready to reveal who they have in mind for the cast or the director’s chair.
Mortal Kombat X will be released for the PC, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, and Xbox One on April 14, 2015. Presumably, this new web series will be released in a similar timeframe.
Posted in Etcetera, News, PC, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One
Tagged Mortal Kombat X, Mortal Kombat: Legacy
The Legend of Korra, Just Dance 2015, Samurai Warriors 4, more added to PS Store
It’s another full week for the PlayStation Store as more than a dozen games are now available to download across the PS3, PS4, and Vita through Sony’s digital storefront:
- The Legend of Korra (PS3, PS4) – Activision and Platinum Games have teamed up to release the first game based on the popular animated series.
- Just Dance 2015 (PS3, PS4) – Ubisoft’s popular dancing franchise is back for another encore. Now with even more Ariana Grande.
- Samurai Warriors 4 (PS3, PS4, Vita) – Koei Tecmo is cranking out a ton of new entries in their Warriors series and another one is now available for the PS3, PS4, and Vita.
- Shadow Warrior (PS4) – A reboot of the wild FPS from the 90s, now available on consoles for the first time.
- The Walking Dead Season 2 (PS4) – The second season of Telltale’s post-apocalyptic saga makes the leap to the PS4.
- F1 2014 (PS3) – Codemasters is back with another Formula One simulation.
More information about all of these games (and many more) can be found after the break. And, as always, a complete list of this week’s new game add-ons can be found at the PlayStation Blog. (more…)
Posted in News, PS3, PS4, Vita
Tagged Just Dance 2015, Samurai Warriors 4, Shadow Warrior, The Legend of Korra
First Alien: Isolation add-on, Corporate Lockdown, will be available on October 28
Just in time for Halloween, Sega has announced that the first Alien: Isolation add-on, Corporate Lockdown, will be released on October 28. Priced at $7.99, the add-on will add three new Challenge Maps and a brand new character in an arc that takes place before the events of Isolation:
In Corporate Lockdown, Seegson Executive Ransome has learnt that he has been abandoned by his paymasters. Knowing that the Torrens is on the way, he decides to make his escape and hitch a ride on board, taking decoded Nostromo data with him. However, while escaping he wants to tie up a few loose ends…
Across three new Challenge Maps (“Severance,” “Scorched Earth,” and “Loose Ends”), players are challenged to compete against others through Alien: Isolation’s online leaderboards, to escape the station in the fastest possible time or attain the top score through numerous side quests and hidden bonus objectives. New to Corporate Lockdown is the addition of Gauntlet Mode where players are challenged to top the Gauntlet Mode leaderboards by completing all three Challenge Maps back-to-back without dying.
Corporate Lockdown will also be available as part of the Alien: Isolation Season Pass, which can be purchased for $29.99, a 25% discount versus purchasing all give planned add-on packs separately.
US, European release of Atelier Shallie: Alchemists of the Dusk Sea planned for 2015
Koei Tecmo has confirmed that the third game in the “Dusk” sub-series of Atelier RPGs from Gust, Atelier Shallie: Alchemists of the Dusk Sea, will be released for the PS3 in the US and Europe in 2015. The publisher wouldn’t get any more specific than that, but the previous two games in the series took about nine months to go from Japan to the west. If the pattern holds for Atelier Shallie: Alchemists of the Dusk Sea, so we should see it on store shelves sometime in April.
Here we confirm that Atelier Shallie is coming in 2015. You can buy the items at our @MCMExpo sales desk! #KTfamily pic.twitter.com/NrRy0WVbhL
— KOEI TECMO EUROPE (@koeitecmoeurope) October 20, 2014
Once its released, Atelier Shallie: Alchemists of the Dusk Sea will be the 16th entry in the overarching Atelier series.
Posted in News, PS3
Tagged Atelier Shallie: Alchemists of the Dusk Sea
Activision releases CoD: Advanced Warfare launch trailer two weeks before its launch
Activision is not bound by your plebeian idea of a calendar with its rigid structure of months and days… they’ve got a new Call of Duty to sell. So if they want to release Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare‘s “Launch Trailer” more than two weeks before its actual launch, then they can. This trailer, like all the others released for the game so far, opens with a snarling pronouncement from Jonathan Irons (Kevin Spacey), the head of Private Military Contractor that seems to be equal parts Tony Stark and Ernst Stavro Blofeld.
Advanced Warfare was developed by Sledgehammer Games and is the first game to be released as part of Activision’s new three-team development rotation. Treyarch will get their turn next year with Infinity Ward coming back around in 2016.
Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare will be released on November 4 for the PC, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, and Xbox One.