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: Xbox 360
CoD: Black Ops II “Apocalypse” DLC coming to XBLM on August 27
A day after Treyarch released a new Call of Duty: Black Ops II teaser with a giant mecha, Activision has announced “Apocalypse,” the game’s final downloadable map pack. The Apocalypse Pack will be available for the Xbox 360 on August 27. A PC and PS3 release will presumably follow a month after that.
Like the game’s previous DLC, the Apocalypse Pack will include four new multiplayer maps:
- Pod: A failed utopian community from the 70’s has left stacks of dilapidated residential pods nestled into an abandoned cliff side in Taiwan. Its residents long gone, the modernist compound now hosts frenetic combat as players must run atop the pods, as well as navigate their multi-tiered interiors for a strategic edge.
- Frost: Fresh snow meets explosive gunpowder in this snow-capped European city, where the bridge over a frozen canal separates it into two sides, requiring players to employ multi-level traversal strategies to outsmart and ultimately outshoot their enemies.
- Takeoff: Fans of Stadium from the original Call of Duty: Black Ops First Strike DLC will find themselves at home on Takeoff. Marooned in the middle of the Pacific Ocean, this remote launch site is all about close-quarters combat, combining tight corners with open spaces for intense encounters.
- Dig: An adaptation of the fan-favorite Courtyard from Call of Duty: World at War, where two archeological dig sites in Afghanistan become the perfect playground for combatants eager for hectic, unceasing confrontations. Treyarch, has retained the spirit of Courtyard with two major chokepoints, a wide open layout and raised platforms, but has provided fans with a fresh take on the multitude of paths.
Oh, and about yesterday’s teaser. The Apocalypse Pack will also include a new Zombies Mode scenario known as “Origins.” In “Origins,” players will be able to play as the four original Zombies characters during a “Dieselpunk-themed First World War.” The scenario will also come complete with a new Avenged Sevenfold song (“Shepherd of Fire”) and original art by Alex Ross.
Microsoft’s Major Nelson “unboxes” the Xbox One
Even though the launch of the Xbox One is still over three months away, Microsoft’s Larry “Major Nelson” Hyrb has put together the above video showcasing the contents of the console’s box.
Feel free to ohh and ahh over the “Day One Editon” as Hyrb unpacks the Kinect sensor, a headset, a controller, a “4K-rated” HDMI cable, an owner’s manual, an Xbox One sticker, a power cord, a power brick, and the console itself.
The Xbox One will be available sometime in November.
NetherRealm pulls Zatanna out of a hat as the next Injustice DLC character
NetherRealm Studios’ Ed Boon promised that we’d get a first look at the next downloadable character for Injustice: Gods Among Us and he has delivered. It’s everyone’s favorite DC Comics magician… Zatanna!
You didn’t think I meant John Constantine, did you?
You can check out Zatanna in action against Solomon Grundy in the trailer above. Like the previous DLC characters, she will be available to download soon (actually, on August 13) through the PlayStation Store, Xbox Live Marketplace, and Wii U eShop for $5 (or 400 Microsoft Points).
Posted in News, PS3, Wii U, Xbox 360
Tagged Injustice: Gods Among Us
XBLA Today: Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons
Starbreeze is best known for action-heavy shooters like Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay and the recent Syndicate reboot. What they’re not known for is lyrical fairy tales inspired by Swedish filmmakers. They hope to change that with the release of Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons, the first offering from the 2013 edition of Microsoft’s yearly Summer of Arcade promotion:
Guide two brothers on an epic fairy tale journey from visionary Swedish film director, Josef Fares and top-tier developer Starbreeze Studios. Control both brothers at once as you experience co-op play in single player mode, like never before. Solve puzzles, explore the varied locations and fight boss battles, controlling one brother with each thumb stick. This is one journey you will never forget.
Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons is available to download for 1200 Microsoft Points ($15).
Posted in News, Xbox 360
Tagged Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons
Ubisoft, Hasbro strike deal to bring Monopoly and other board games to next-gen consoles
Get up and go to your game closet. Chances are you’ll have a well-worn copy of at least one of the following board games in there: Monopoly, Scrablle, Trivial Pursuit, Risk, Battleship, and Cranium. What do they all have in common? First of all, they’re all published by Hasbro.
Also, new versions of each game are coming to current-generation and next-generation consoles courtesy of Ubisoft.
“Hasbro makes games that we all know and love, and we’re thrilled to be able to work with them to create video game experiences based on some of their most popular brands,” said Tony Key, Senior Vice President of Sales and Marketing at Ubisoft.
Electronic Arts previously held the Hasbro board game license for console games. They will still be able to publish and develop apps based on Hasbro board games for mobile devices.
Treyarch explores the “Origins” of Call of Duty: Black Ops II in new trailer
Treyarch, the developer of Call of Duty: Black Ops II, recently uploaded a new video for fans to dissect. Titled “Origins,” is it meant to tease the final DLC pack for Black Ops II? Probably, but I think the important question is, what’s up with the giant mecha that appears at the end?
The video tells us that “Every story has a beginning… and an end.” Presumably, we’ll learn more about the end of the Black Ops saga soon.
Posted in News, PC, PS3, Xbox 360
Tagged Call of Duty: Black Ops II
Capcom producer says Street Fighter V is likely at least five years away
Capcom plans to release the next major revision to Street Fighter IV update, Ultra Street Fighter IV, in early 2014. As the third update, Ultra follows in the footsteps of 2010’s Super Street Fighter IV and 2011’s Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition. 1997’s Street Fighter III only received two updates, so fans have begun asking the question, “When are we going to get Street Fighter V?”
Sadly, it may be quite a while before Capcom learns to count to five. Speaking to VG247, Capcom’s Tomoaki Ayano revealed that the next numbered game in the series may not be released until the end of the decade:
“Game development is a long and arduous process,” he continued. “If you look at the history of the series, it took six years to go from Street Fighter II to Street Fighter III, and nine years to go from Street Fighter III to Street Fighter IV. Purely based on that it would probably take us until the year 2018 before Street Fighter V comes out. So I hope everyone will play Ultra Street Fighter IV for a long time.”
So… Street Fighter V for the PS5 and Xbox OneTwo confirmed!
Posted in News, PC, PS3, Xbox 360
Tagged Street Fighter IV, Street Fighter V
Ubisoft knows how the Assassin’s Creed series will end
With the always impending release of a new Assassin’s Creed title, it’s hard to tell just what Ubisoft has planned for the franchise. After the ending of Assassin’s Creed III, gamers thought that perhaps they’d finally reached the end of the story. But with the announcement of Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag, there was a collective gasp, followed shortly by a cry of excitement, as the gaming world realized that the blockbuster franchise was not over yet.
Of course, with Ubisoft releasing a new Assassin’s Creed game every year and continuing on beyond what appeared to be a very conclusive ending to the story of Desmond Miles, it’s hard not to wonder if they aren’t just milking the Assassin’s Creed name for as much money as they can. While it’s definitely true that they are seeking to capitalize on the success of the Assassin’s Creed name, a recent interview with Assassin’s Creed IV game director, Ashraf Ismail, revealed that the powers that be behind the franchise do have an idea of how they want the story to end. Each installment in the series is carefully placed within the framework to progress the story along while still providing a unique, inclusive experience within the game itself.
According to Ismael, one of the key advantages of working with a yearly title franchise is being “able to seed stuff earlier and earlier.” He cited Edward, the protagonist of Assassin’s Creed IV who was seeded in Assassin’s Creed III, as a good example of this. He also claims that this leads to many advances in gameplay, as things that are touched on in early installments become more fleshed out in later installments. For example, the team behind Assassin’s Creed III wanted ship boarding to happen in real-time, but had to be implemented as a cutscene. In Assassin’s Creed IV, the mechanic has been perfected and ship boarding will be happening in real-time. It’s comforting to know that the team behind Assassin’s Creed actually has a plan they are following rather than just releasing a completely insane amount of titles in the hopes of milking their target audience dry.
Of course, this just means we’ll all have to keep buying Assassin’s Creed installments every year if we want to know how the story ends.