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: PS3
XCOM: Enemy Within, Injustice: Ultimate Edition, more added to PS Store
The last pre-PS4 PlayStation Store update is full of this Fall’s biggest PS3 releases…
- 2K Games released the alien invasion expansion XCOM: Enemy Within.
- WB Games released a bigger Injustice: Gods Among Us package with the “Ultimate Edition.”
- Ratchet & Clank rode off into the sunset in Insomniac’s Ratchet & Clank: Into the Nexus.
- And Sony expanded the Wonderbook line of games with Diggs Nightcrawler and Walking With Dinosaurs.
Also available this week is a Cross-Buy version of Flower that will add the title to the game library on your PS3, Vita, and PS4.
More information on all of these games (and a few others) can be found after the break and a complete rundown of this week’s new game add-ons is available at the PlayStation Blog. (more…)
Posted in News, PS3, Vita
Tagged Diggs Nghtcrawler, Flower, Injustice: Gods Among Us, Ratchet & Clank: Into the Nexus, XCOM: Enemy Within
Ratchet & Clank: Into the Nexus Review: One Last No Frills Ride
It can be a little intimidating to jump into the epilogue of a series when you’ve only sparingly dabbled in the franchise throughout the years. But Ratchet & Clank: Into the Nexus offers everything one would expect it to; steady gameplay with outlandish upgradeable weapons and some wise-cracking humor to go with a no frills sci-fi adventure. A few new mechanics have been added to spice up the mix to make Into the Nexus a solid but brief final entry that doesn’t go out of its way to be great as Ratchet and Clank ride off into the sunset with the PS3. (more…)
Posted in PS3, Reviews, Top Story
Tagged Ratchet & Clank: Into the Nexus
WB Games announces Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor
Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment is returning to Middle-Earth with a new game inspired by the Lord of the Rings saga. Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor is in development for the PC, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, and Xbox One at Monolith Productions. If the Monolith name sounds familiar, it should, the team was also responsible for 2012’s Guardians of Middle-Earth.
In the game, players will control a Ranger named Talion as he ventures into Mordor during the time between The Hobbit and The Fellowship of the Ring. Shadow of Mordor will also appear on the cover of Game Informer‘s December 2013 issue and here’s what they had to say about the game:
While many previous games set in Middle-earth have revolved around the major events or characters depicted in Tolkien’s books, Shadow of Mordor offers a new chapter that fits comfortably between The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Players control a lone Ranger by the name of Talion as he journeys deep into the heart of Mordor in the days before it transforms into a blasted hellscape. Along the way, developer Monolith is exploring a fascinating next-gen approach to enemies, encounters, and storytelling, one in which every player shapes their own story through the choices they make. The Nemesis System assures that every enemy you fight is a named foe, and if they survive their battle with you, they continue to grow, improve, and act in the world, even as you attempt to do the same with Talion. Our cover story recounts our extensive look at the game in action, from combat and leveling to story and setting.
Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor doesn’t currently have a release date, but I’m guessing “soon” is out of the question. One doesn’t simply develop a “fascinating” next-generation game quickly.
New Releases: PS4, XCOM: Enemy Within, Ratchet & Clank: Into the Nexus, More
Part One of this year’s next-generation console extravaganza begins this week with the launch of PlayStation 4. If you haven’t already ordered one, Sony’s new machine may be hard to find, but peripherals like the PS4 Camera are plentiful. However, if you have the next-gen plunge, here’s what gaming opportunities you can expect to see on store shelves this week:
- Angry Birds Star Wars
- Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag
- Battlefield 4
- Call of Duty: Ghosts
- FIFA 14
- Injustice: Gods Among Us – Ultimate Edition
- Just Dance 2014
- Killzone: Shadow Fall
- Knack
- Lego Marvel Super Heroes
- Madden NFL 25
- NBA 2K14
- Need Foe Speed: Rivals
- Skylanders Swap Force
If the next-generation of consoles is still a bit too expensive for you (or you’re waiting for the impending Xbox One launch), there’s also a few current-generation games to keep us busy this week. XCOM: Enemy Within, the expansion to last year’s massively well-received XCOM: Enemy Unknown, will be released for the PC, PS3, and Xbox 360. And the possibly final voyage of Ratchet & Clank, Ratchet & Clank: Into the Nexus, will be released for the PS3. Finally, Mario & Sonic square off again in Mario & Sonic at the Sochi 2014 Olympic Winter Games on the Wii U.
There’s more new games where those came from and you can find a complete list of this week’s new releases after the break. (more…)
Posted in 3DS, DS, News, PC, PS3, PS4, Vita, Wii U, Xbox 360, Xbox One
Tagged Mario & Sonic at the Sochi 2014 Olympic Winter Games, Ratchet & Clank: Into the Nexus, XCOM: Enemy Within
Infinity Ward’s Mark Rubin “won’t rule out” Call of Duty IN SPACE
While they were riding high off the success of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 in 2010, Activision filed a trademark application for Call of Duty: Space Warfare. The publisher let the trademark lapse last year, but with the genie out of the bottle, fans and the press have been asking about a sci-fi-tinged Call of Duty ever since.
Infinity Ward’s Mark Rubin had to field another of these queries while speaking to the Metro newspaper about the recent launch of Call of Duty: Ghosts. The question is especially relevant now as Ghosts featured several missions on a space station high above the Earth. While it looks like Call of Duty: Space Warfare isn’t happening right now, Rubin wouldn’t rule it out completely:
Metro: The space levels got me thinking about all the rumours that you or Treyarch were going to do a space marine type game and this really convinced me it would work. You could play it straight, it doesn’t need to be Warhammer or have aliens even. But you could have levels with different gravity, different weapons and it would still be perfectly grounded in realism. Perhaps ironically, more so than the current games.
Rubin: Yeah. It makes sense. I wouldn’t count it out. Everything’s on the table. When we start a new game every possibility’s on the table. If we think that it’d be cool to have a battle over Jupiter, sure. Why not?
The rest of the interview is definitely worth a look as Metro’s David Jenkins spends his time hammering Rubin with more questions about “Call of Duty IN SPACE” and about the perceived graphical differences between the PS4 and Xbox One. Rubin doesn’t say anything about that, but it’s a fun read all the same.
Until Dawn is still in development at Supermassive Games
Like a masked killer stalking nubile teens in a wooded area, Until Dawn creeps around the corners of Sony’s future plans for the PS3. Sony hasn’t made an official announcement concerning the game in over a year, but the development team at Supermassive Games has assured Polygon they are still hard at work on the horror title:
“Until Dawn is very much still in development, going really well, and without any deliberations of possible cancelation that I’m aware of,” Supermassive’s Pete Samuels said. “We’re very pleased with the way it’s going. I’m sure that there will be more news soon, but I couldn’t say exactly when.”
Back in April, Sony released Until Dawn’s official box art. The image claimed that the title would be “Move Compatible” instead of “Move Required” as Sony originally announced. It’s unknown if that change is behind the release date delay (Until Dawn is still officially listed as a 2013 title on PlayStation.com) or if Supermassive is preparing to bring Until Dawn to the PS4.
Posted in News, PS3
Tagged Until Dawn
Activision shipped $1 billion worth of copies of CoD: Ghosts to stores
It’s another billion dollar day for the video game industry… sort of.
Activision has announced they shipped more than $1 billion worth of copies of Call of Duty: Ghosts to retail outlets across the world for the game’s launch yesterday. The $1 billion figure doesn’t include download revenues from Ghosts, which also launched on Steam, the PSN, and the Xbox Live Store yesterday. It’s unknown how many of those copies have been sold to fans (or even how many copies “$1 billion” represents), but I’m going to guess that both numbers can be rounded up to “a lot.”
The literal pile of money that Activision is sitting on right now will only grow in the next few weeks as CEO Bobby Kotick reported that Ghosts is GameStop’s “most pre-reserved next gen title.”
Not known for his humility, Kotick also told reporters, “The [Call of Duty] franchise has never been more popular.”
BlazBlue: Chronophantasma to be released in March 2014
The last installment in the BlazBlue series, BlazBlue: Continuum Shift Extend was released in the US in early 2012. But by the end of the year the next update, BlazBlue: Chronophantasma, was already available in Japanese arcades.
It took awhile, but Aksys Games announced that not only would BlazBlue: Chrono Phantasma be released in North America next year, but that the game would also be available in a special Limited Edition that includes lots of extra merchandise. Not only does BlazBlue: Chronophantasma progress the incredibly complex and deep story of the BlazBlue world, it also features all that players would expect from an expansion, including rebalanced characters, new additions to the roster, and much more.
The Limited Edition will feature all the updated game content of the standard version, but it will also come with a 40-page “Full Color Art Book,” the game’s official soundtrack CD, a Rachel Alucard figurine, a “Fighting Moves” poster, and an exclusive Blu-ray disc of behind-the-scenes interviews.
Both versions of BlazBlue: Chronophantasma are set to be released for the PS3 in March 2014, with the Limited Edition priced at $79.99.
Posted in News, PS3
Tagged BlazBlue: Chronophantasma