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
Insert Quarter: Publishers Need to be More Upfront About DLC
Insert Quarter is our showcase for some of the best and most interesting writing about video games on the Internet.
Downloadable Content. If you didn’t consider it the scourge of the gaming industry before, you probably do now. With games like Assassin’s Creed: Unity and DriveClub shipping to stores in a less-than-playable state, the downloadable content that publishers have planned begins to lose its luster. But that hasn’t stopped these publishers from asking for your money in the form of season passes. Sometimes, like in the case of 2K’s Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel, without detailing exactly what content these passes will include.
Game Informer’s Mike Futter believes that it is time for publishers to be more upfront with their DLC plans in an effort to rebuild a level of trust with the gamers of the world. Even though DLC has become a very important part of the business side of the industry:
I am guilty. I have pre-ordered games. I have purchased season passes without full details of the contents. I have done these things based on my enthusiasm for the medium and faith in the publishers. That time has passed.
The full article is available for your perusal at Game Informer.
Posted in Insert Quarter, PC, PS3, PS4, Wii U, Xbox 360, Xbox One
Tagged Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel
Insert Quarter: 2014’s Interesting Achievements and Trophies
Insert Quarter is our showcase for some of the best and most interesting writing about video games on the Internet.
I’m not going to lie, I love Achievements/Trophies. It just makes me giddy to hear that little ding after I’ve completed some endeavor. Especially if it’s a difficult one. Game Informer’s Kyle Hilliard feels the same way and he compiled a list of ten games released this year that include great Achievements/Trophies. He and I also agree that the weird ones are the best:
I fall into the love camp, and these are some of my favorites from 2014. The achievements and trophies I find most interesting aren’t the ones that mark your progress in a storyline or reward you for attaining a certain number of headshots. I like the ones that force you to think outside of the normal functions of the game or reward you for doing something weird.
The full article is available for your perusal at Game Informer.
The Interview is now available to watch via Xbox Live and other streaming services
The movie that Kim Jong Un, North Korea’s Supreme Leader, doesn’t want you too see can now be viewed on your Xbox 360 or Xbox One. The Interview, which will open in theaters tomorrow thanks to a successful petition from a group of independent theater owners, is now available to watch through the Xbox Video service for $5.99 (to rent) or $14.99 (to buy). The film can also be viewed for the same price at other streaming services such as YouTube, Google Play, and SeeTheInterview.com (which is hosted by Sony Pictures).
Oddly, the film is not available through the PlayStation Store, which is owned and operated by Sony Computer Entertainment, Sony’s video game division. Apple has also come out and said the film will not be available through iTunes, though that may change in the future.
The Interview was at the center of the recent Sony hacking scandal, which the FBI believes was prompted by the North Korean government’s dislike of Kim Jong Un’s portrayal in the movie. Directed by Evan Goldberg and Seth Rogen, the movie stars Rogen and James Franco as two journalists who are recruited by the CIA to assassinate the dictator.
Rogen said on Twitter that “The people have spoken!” and “Freedom has prevailed!”
Shovel Knight becomes a Knightrider in Road Redemption
This morning you got to see the whimsical side of Shovel Knight in the fan-made Shovel Knight Holiday Special. But the character also carries around a giant shovel and he can dole out a few good whacks when need be. So this is the perfect time for the wandering knight to mount a motorcycle and deliver some “Shovel Justice” on the open road in Dark Seas Games’ Road Redemption.
Dark Seas had this to say about Shovel Knight in the latest Kickstarter update:
It’s really a great game. It’s the kind of game that actually lives up to the rose-tinted memories we have of playing NES, which, of course, means it’s actually far better than those games ever were. I’ll take Shovel Knight over Megaman any day. Blasphemy? Prove me wrong Capcom. Prove me wrong.
The Road Rash-inspired Road Redemption is currently available through Steam Early Access and will be released for the Wii U and Xbox 360 next Summer.
CoD: Advanced Warfare’s Exo Zombies will star John Malkovich, Bill Paxton, Rose McGowan
Sledgehammer Games is currently hard at work on the first episode of the “Exo Zombies” cooperative mode for Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, which will be included in the Havoc Map Pack. And now we know which Hollywood heavyweights have been tapped by Activision to star in the downloadable expansion.
John Malkovich (!), Bill Paxton (!!), Rose McGowan (!!!), and Jon Bernthal (apparently he’s on The Walking Dead) will play four “unprepared and untrained” Atlas employees who suddenly find themselves face-to-face with the living dead. You can hear Malkovich monologue about their desperate situation in the trailer above.
Can they work together? Can they survive? Will Bill Paxton get killed in particularly gory fashion, as he is wont to do (and will he yell “game over, man” as it happens)? We’ll all find out together in January. Well, Xbox owners will. If you’re playing Advanced Warfare on the PC or PlayStation, you’ll have to wait until February.
Geometry Wars 3: Dimensions Review: The Natural Evolution of Retro Evolved 2
Geometry Wars 3: Dimensions had a lot to live up to. The last game in the series, Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved 2, dethroned Smash TV as the standard bearer of the twin-stick shooter genre. And the first game in the franchise, Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved, was considered by many to be the Xbox 360’s killer app for the first year. But Lucid Games proved to be more than up to the task with an excellent new entry in the series. After the closure of Bizarre Creations (the creator of Retro Evolved and Retro Evolved 2), Lucid became the new home for multiple members of the Geometry Wars development team. So we probably shouldn’t have been worried at all. (more…)
Telltale teams up with Mojang for Minecraft: Story Mode
After teasing some kind of “super secret surprise announcement” yesterday, Telltale Games has announced that they’re teaming up with Mojang to produce an episodic game series based on Minecraft. They were right, that is surprising!
The first episode of Minecraft: Story Mode will premiere sometime in 2015 and “introduce new characters” to the world of Minecraft whole exploring “familiar themes.” To that end, Telltale has also confirmed that they plan to enlist prominent members of the Minecraft community to help them craft the game’s story.
“People really like the idea of stories about Minecraft, but forcing a narrative into our core game experience would restrict players’ freedom to view the world in their own unique ways. Instead, letting them explore an alternate interpretation via Minecraft: Story Mode, driven by the proven might of Telltale, seems like a no-brainer,” said Owen Hill, the Chief Word Officer at Mojang. “We’re big fans of Telltale Games at Mojang, and we can’t wait to reveal more details on Story Mode soon.”
Minecraft: Story Mode is currently in development for the PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One, PC platforms (Windows and Mac), and mobile platforms (iOS and Android).
Telltale Games teases a “super secret surprise announcement”
Telltale Games has had a very busy year. They completed development on The Walking Dead Season 2 and The Wolf Among Us over the Spring and Summer before moving on to the launch of Tales From the Borderlands and Game of Thrones this Fall. And both of those episodic titles will be completed in 2015 before the developer rolls right into The Walking Dead Season 3. But they’re not done yet.
According to the Job Stauffer, their Director of Public Relations, the company has plans to make a “super secret surprise announcement” as early as today:
Super secret surprise announcements before the holiday break? Maaaaaybe.
…hashtag #subtle!
— Job J Stauffer (@jobjstauffer) December 17, 2014
Not only that, but Stauffer later said that the announcement isn’t “directly related” with anything they’ve released this year:
I'll also clarify – it's not directly related to anything else we've made in 2014.
— Job J Stauffer (@jobjstauffer) December 17, 2014
So what does Telltale have up their sleeve? Hopefully we’ll find out soon…