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
Dontnod’s Life Is Strange Episode 1 will be available on January 30
Dontnod’s upcoming episodic game series, Life Is Strange, could easily be described as Gone Home meets Heavy Rain. Hey, look at that, that’s just what a variety of critics say in the trailer above. But in Life Is Strange, you can rewind time and change the past, which can have disastrous consequences.
The first episode of Life Is Strange will be released on January 30 on PC, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and Xbox One. Like most episodic titles, there will be five episodes in all.
NIS America will release The Awakened Fate Ultimatum on March 17
The Awakened Fate Ultimatum will be coming to PlayStation 3 on March 17, and you can order it now at the NISA Online Store. There’s the regular edition, and then three exclusive sets to choose from – “Angelic,” “Devilish,” and “Ultimate Fate,” the last of which is pictured above and will include everything from the other two sets plus more. NISA knows how to treat its fans!
The complete details on the contents of all four editions of the game can be perused at the NIS America Store.
For those of you unfamiliar with the game, it follows a human boy who gets stabbed by devils, and is saved by a mysterious girl. He’s had the “Fate Awakening Crystal” implanted into his chest, which turns him into God. “He finds himself thrust into the middle of the war between angels and devils,” which is sort of to be expected at this point. “He must harness his newly awakened powers, choose how to use them, and ultimately decide which of the two new girls in his life he will do anything to save.”
Check out The Awakened Fate Ultimatum when it releases on March 17 for PlayStation 3.
Posted in News, PS3
Tagged The Awakened Fate Ultimatum
Metal Gear Solid 4, Tetris Ultimate, Super Mega Baseball, more added to PS Store
The PlayStation Store is about to get a little more ordered as Tetris Ultimate is now available to download on the PS4. There’s just something about a steady stream of falling Tetris pieces that makes me want everything organized, so here are the rest of this week’s addition to the store in handy list format:
- Guilty Gear Xrd Sign (PS3, PS4) – Arc System Works’ latest entry in the popular fighting franchise brings the Guilty Gear universe to the PS4 for the first time.
- Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots (PS3) – Hideo Kojima’s masterpiece is finally available to download from the PlayStation Store.
- Super Mega Baseball (PS3 + PS4 Cross-Buy) – A Baseball Stars-like return to the diamond. Everybody remember Baseball Stars, right?
- Oddworld: Munch’s Oddysee HD (Vita) – The second Oddworld game has been remastered and remade for the Vita.
- Loadout (PS4) – A free-to-play shooter that tasks you with building your character via the types of guns they carry.
You can read more about all of these games after the break. And, as always, a complete rundown of this week’s new game add-ons and temporary discounts is available at the PlayStation Blog. (more…)
Posted in News, PS3, PS4, Vita
Tagged Guilty Gear Xrd Sign, Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots, Super Mega Baseball, Tetris Ultimate
Insert Quarter: How Did 2014 Treat Indie Developers?
Insert Quarter is our showcase for some of the best and most interesting writing about video games on the Internet.
It is a precarious time to be an indie developer. Steam’s Greenlight and Early Access initiatives are producing just as many misses as hits and discoverability is still a problem on the Xbox Games Store, the PlayStation Store, and mobile storefronts. Matthew Handrahan examined the squeeze that indie developers are feeling from all sides as part of GamesIndustry.biz’s roundup of 2014’s major stories. The picture he paints is one of gloom and doom, but also one that can be overcome with the right level of talent and a genuinely groundbreaking idea:
So are indies heading towards a “mass extinction event”? Overcrowding is certainly a key aspect of the overall picture, but the act of making and releasing a game is only getting easier, and the allure of development as a career choice seems to grow with each passing month. It stands to reason that there will continue to be a huge number of games jostling for position on every single platform – more than even a growing market can sustain – but there’s only so much to be gained from griping about the few remaining gatekeepers. If the days when simply being on Steam or Kickstarter made a commercial difference are gone, and if existing discovery tools still lack the nuance to deal with all of that choice, then it just shifts the focus back to where it really belongs: talent, originality, and a product worth an investment of time and money.
The full article is available for your perusal at GamesIndustry.biz.
Rockstar will add Heists to Grand Theft Auto Online in early 2015
Grand Theft Auto Online players will feel the Heat next year as Rockstar has announced that they’re finally ready to release the “Heists” update for Grand Theft Auto V‘s multiplayer component. “Heists,” a cooperative mode that requires each player to complete multiple objectives to complete the job, will be available in early 2015:
GTA Online Heists are coming early in 2015 – check out the new trailer for the four-player co-op mode for Grand Theft Auto Online that allows players to plan, prepare and execute multi-tiered Heists across Los Santos and Blaine County. These will require tight communication and coordination, with players taking on specified roles at each point to accomplish multiple objectives on the way to each Heist’s epic finale. Featuring new gameplay, new vehicles, new weapons, new clothing and much more.
Rockstar has been talking about the “Heists” update for a long time and Lead Mission Designer Imran Sarwar sat down with IGN this morning to talk about why the mode has taken a little more time than originally expected.
Creative Assembly discusses the possibility of Alien: Isolation 2 “daily”
This article includes MASSIVE SPOILERS for Alien: Isolation.
For a long time, it has felt like a curse has become attached to game adaptations of the Alien franchise… you could say like a facehugger on John Hurt. But it looks like Alien: Isolation has finally lifted the bad juju on the series with acclaim from both critics and the gaming public. Naturally, this has lead to speculation about a sequel, so AvPGalaxy went directly to the source. They recently sat down with Gary Napper, Lead Designer at Creative Assembly, and asked him about his thoughts on Alien: Isolation 2.
Napper responded that the possibility of a sequel is discussed within the walls of Creative Assembly “daily” and that the team has considered taking a prospective sequel in several different directions:
AvPGalaxy – The end of the game is left very open for a sequel. There’s quite a lot of fan speculation about what really happened. Did Amanda get infected in the hive, did she die in space? How much thought has Creative Assembly put into continuing Amanda’s story after the events in Alien: Isolation?
Gary Napper – The plot for a sequel is a daily topic in the studio sometimes. People have their own ideas for where it should go, our writers have some solid concepts and yes, we do have a great opportunity to continue her story. I personally think that Amanda did not get infected in the hive, as when she wakes, the closest egg remains closed…
What do you think happens at the end of Alien: Isolation? And are you excited for a sequel? Hopefully, Sega and Creative Assembly will figure out where they want to take their successful series soon.
New Releases: Guilty Gear Xrd Sign, MGS5: Ground Zeroes PC, Divinity: Original Sin
The video game industry continues its slow march towards the end of the year with three new releases this week…
- The latest Guilty Gear game from Arc System Works, Guilty Gear Xrd Sign, will be released for the PS3 and PS4.
- Konami will bring Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain‘s prologue, Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes, to the PC.
- And Larian Studios will released a boxed version of Divinity: Original Sin, their very successful turn-based RPG, for the PC.
That’s it for this week and that’s likely it for all of 2014 as no games are currently scheduled to receive a retail release during the remainder of the year.
Posted in News, PC, PS3, PS4
Tagged Guilty Gear Xrd Sign, Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes
Insert Quarter: The Rise and Fall of THQ’s Empire
Insert Quarter is our showcase for some of the best and most interesting writing about video games on the Internet.
Gamers often didn’t know what to make of THQ. The publisher built its empire on the backs of tie-in games based on Nickelodeon and Pixar properties such as SpongeBob SquarePants and The Incredibles. But they also produced intriguing original games such as Saints Row: The Third and Darksiders. They were even the initial driving force behind Evolve, one of 2015’s most anticipated games. But that all changed when the company went bankrupt early last year.
So what happened? Tracey Lien, writing for Polygon, set out to discover the answer by talking to as many former THQ employees as she could including the charismatic (but possibly crazy) Danny Bilson. Her portrait of a publisher in free fall makes you wonder, could anything have been done?
Many blame the company’s fall on the licensed games well drying up. Some pin it on the commercial failure of the company’s uDraw tablet for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. Others point to poor management and too many risky bets.
“There isn’t any one, isolated event that killed the company,” says a former THQ executive who asked to not be named. “This was one of the most successful video game businesses in America. We were a billion dollar company. It was complicated.”
THQ suffered a “death by a million spider bites,” the executive says.
The full article is available for your perusal at Polygon.
Posted in 3DS, DS, Insert Quarter, Mobile, PC, PS2, PS3, PSP, Retro, Wii, Wii U, Xbox 360
Tagged Darksiders, Evolve, Saints Row: The Third