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
New Releases: Aliens Colonial Marines, Brain Age 3, Omerta, More
First things first, Nintendo’s hard brain training game, Brain Age: Concentration Training, is available for the 3DS today. Dr. Kawashima, the master of brains himself, has promised that you’ll have a devilishly good time with the third game in the Brain Age series.
Moving on, this week’s other major release is Aliens: Colonial Marines. The Sega-published, Gearbox-developer continuation of the Alien saga has been in development for a long time, but if you’ve ever wanted a direct sequel to Aliens, this is your best chance. Pick it up on Tuesday for the PC, PS3, or Xbox 360.
Also available this week is Omerta: City of Gangsters. If you’ve ever thought, “a strategy RPG starring gangsters and set in the bootleggin’ Prohibition era would be a hoot-and-a-half,” then this PC and Xbox 360 game might be for you. It also might be for you if you regularly use the phrase “hoot-and-a-half” in regular conversation.
Finally, a pair of 3DS games make their belated debut on the portable platform. Both Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed and Pro Evolution Soccer 2013 3D are now available on Nintendo’s handheld.
Posted in 3DS, News, PC, PS3, Xbox 360
Tagged Aliens: Colonial Marines, Brain Age: Devil Training, Omerta: City of Gangsters
Activision confirms Call of Duty 10 will be released in 2013
Are you sitting down? You might want to sit down. Activision has announced something shocking at their quarterly financial conference.
A new Call of Duty game is in the works and will be released this Fall.
OK, that’s not very shocking. But Activision did announce Call of Duty 10 yesterday. That part’s true, however, we don’t know much about it at this point. Even the developer is a mystery. While 2013 is an “Infinity Ward year,” Activision has confirmed that Neversoft, Raven, and Sledgehammer are all working on Call of Duty-related projects. But here’s everything we know for sure, courtesy of Activision Publishing CEO Eric Hirshberg:
“The Call of Duty franchise continues to set the bar for innovation and we expect the new Call of Duty game in development for 2013 to raise that bar even higher.”
Even with that tiniest speck of confirmation, I will hazard a guess that Call of Duty 10 will be released for the PC, PS3, Xbox 360, and Wii U sometime this November.
[Source: GameSpot]
Bungie teases Destiny news soon; Activision reveals possible 2014 release date
Bungie, those dastardly minds behind the first Halo trilogy, have released a new video in their Bungie Community Theatre series that teases some imminent news about their next project, Destiny. Dubbed “Act Two,” the video suggests that we will be hearing more about the upcoming sci-fi/fantasy FPS in the coming weeks, most likely during Bungie’s panel at the Game Developers Conference. The video is made even funnier if you read the ridiculous credit sequence, which also includes a link to the outtakes.
Meanwhile, Eric Hirshberg, CEO of Activision Publishing, discussed the company’s upcoming portfolio of games during their recent quarterly financial report. Destiny is a major piece of that portfolio and, reading between the lines, Hirshberg (via Destructoid) suggests that Destiny may not be due until 2014 (it was tentatively set for a Fall 2013 debut):
“It will also be a year of significant continued investment in several new properties with long-term potential that are not factored into our 2013 financial outlook, including Activision Publishing’s new Bungie universe, Call of Duty Online for China and the new Blizzard MMO.”
Whatever happens, it seems we will have an official look at the game sometime in March.
Journey, The Walking Dead clean up at 2013 DICE Awards
A pair of downloadable games came away with almost half of all the awards handed out at last night’s D.I.C.E. Awards show. Journey, developed by thatgamecompany exclusively for the PS3, was the big winner of the night, nabbing eight awards including Game of the Year. Telltale’s The Walking Dead was also a multiple award winner, collecting four trophies.
Halo 4 (Visual Engineering and Connectivity) and XCOM: Enemy Unknown (Gameplay Engineering and Strategy/Simulation) were the only other games to win in more than one category.
Congratulations to the developers at thatgamecompany and Telltale Games. You can find a complete list of winners in all 25 categories after the break. (more…)
XBLA Today: Special Forces: Team X
Atari is in the midst of a Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing, but they still added the Zombie Studios-developed Special Forces: Team X to the Xbox Live Arcade today.
Special Forces: Team X is a third person team-based shooter with cartoony graphics (they remind me of Archer, actually) and “over 100 map variations.” Special Forces: Team X has been priced at 1200 Microsoft Points ($15) and is available to download now:
Special Forces: Team X (STX) is a team-centric third Person cover based shooter. The game features a unique map selection system, with the ability to shape the battlefield by selecting individual environmental pieces, resulting in over 100 map variations. STX supports asymmetric game play with 2-4 teams and five frenetic game modes. Cooperative play between team members is richly rewarded. Customize your skills, weapons and character to tailor your tactics and performance in battle. STX brings you the brutality of war as you take on the role of an elite soldier in a Special Forces squad.
Star Wars Pinball strikes back on digital platforms this month
Zen Studios will be bringing three Star Wars-themed pinball tables to a download service near you this month. Star Wars Pinball will be available as a standalone app on the Apple App Store and the Google Play Android Store. It’ll also be released as downloadable content for Pinball FX 2 (Xbox Live Arcade, Windows 8), Zen Pinball 2 (PlayStation Network, Vita, Mac App Store), and Zen Pinball (Apple App Store, Google Play).
“It’s been over 30 years since Star Wars, videogames, and solid state pinball all burst onto the entertainment scene, and their popularity endures today. We’re excited to be combining all three for the very first time,” said Neil Sorens, Zen Studios’ Creative Director. “Our designers are huge Star Wars fans, and you can expect every detail in every table to reflect their passion for the Star Wars universe.”
The three tables will be based on three of the biggest names in Star Wars history: The Empire Strikes Back, Boba Fett, and Star Wars: The Clone Wars. Screenshots and more details can be found at the game’s official site, StarWarsPinball.com.
Approve of this, I do.
Posted in Mobile, News, PC, PS3, Xbox 360
Tagged Star Wars Pinball, Zen Pinball 2
XCOM shooter still on track for 2013/2014 release
XCOM: Enemy Unknown was released to near universal critical acclaim last year. But you may remember that Take-Two also announced a first person shooter set in the XCOM universe (simply titled XCOM) at E3 2010. Repeatedly delayed, you’re forgiven if you don’t remember it.
But within the paragraphs of their quarterly financial report, Take-Two confirmed that XCOM is still in development for the PC, PS3, and Xbox 360 and that it’s still on track for a “fiscal year 2014” release.
Take-Two’s 2014 fiscal year runs from April 1, 2013 through March 31, 2014. Even though it’s possible the game could be released as early as this Spring, I’d guess that a late 2013/early 2014 release is much more likely.
Skylanders Swap Force brings customizable figures to the franchise
Skylanders Giants is less than four months old and Activision is already ready to announce the next game in the series. Skylanders Swap Force will make its worldwide debut this weekend at the 2013 Toy Fair. Taking up residence in booth 3061, Activision will unveil Swap Force’s 16 new customizable characters at the Javits Center in New York City.
Here’s some of the new features that the kiddies can look forward to in Skylanders Swap Force:
Swap Force builds upon the success of the franchise’s signature gameplay with an all-new innovative play pattern — swapability — that gives kids more choice than ever before by letting them swap the top and bottom halves of the toys to create their own characters. The game lets Portal Masters reconfigure 16 Swap Force characters into more than 250 unique combinations. Kids can mix and match characters’ powers and moves, and then bring them to life in the game. Fans of the franchise also can play Skylanders Swap Force with their entire collection of characters from both Skylanders: Spyro’s Adventure and Skylanders Giants, now with the added capability of jumping.
Skylanders Swap Force is in development at Vicarious Visions and will likely be released this Fall for every platform imaginable.