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: Xbox One
Microsoft will offer monthly Car Packs for Forza Motorsport 5
Microsoft has announced that Forza Motorsport 5 will continue the franchise’s tradition of peerless post-release support. The game will receive new Car Packs every month that feature ten different cars each.
The first add-on, the LaFerrari Car Pack, will be released on November 22 alongside the game and the Xbox One console. Subsequent packs will be added to the Xbox Live Store in January through March during the first week of the month with additional packs planned for release later in 2014. But if you’re only interested in a particular car, don’t worry, Forza 5 owners will be able to purchase individual cars “a la carte.”
For those of you who are avid car fans and already know you’re going to want to test out every car available, you can pick up the Forza Motorsport 5 Car Pass. The Car Pass will give you access to the first six Car Packs for $49.99, or 18% cheaper than purchasing them individually.
[Source: Xbox Wire]
Posted in News, Xbox One
Tagged Forza Motorsport 5
The AAA Game: Where It’s Been, Where It’s Going, and Did It Kill the Mid-Tier Game?
An edited and updated version of this article is now available at Video Game Canon.
With a new generation of consoles almost upon us, there is the worry that the spiraling budgets and massive teams required to create AAA games is hurting the industry. But for all the hand-wringing about how the AAA game is detrimental to mid-size developers, no one can seem to agree on what exactly a AAA game is or when the AAA designation was even first used. In attempting to solve this etymological mystery, I found that the AAA designation shares much in common with Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart’s obscenity test from a 1964 case: “I know it when I see it.” But I also found out that “Will the AAA game survive?” is probably the wrong question to ask. (more…)
Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes will be available in Spring 2014
No more tricks and no more subterfuge, Konami has officially announced a release date for Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes. Better known as the prequel chapter to Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, Ground Zeroes will be available for the PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, and Xbox One in Spring 2014.
Hideo Kojima, the creator of the Metal Gear Solid saga, had this to say about the Ground Zeroes prequel: “The advanced capabilities of the Fox Engine have allowed me to tell the new story in a new way. There will be a significant difference in what Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain brings to the series, so we want to ease players into the new open world environment and its potential. As such, Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes has been designed to introduce key elements, allowing them to fully benefit from all that the new game will offer.”
Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes will receive a retail release on the PS3 and Xbox 360 (priced at $29.99) as well as a digital release (priced at $19.99). The next-generation PS4/Xbox One version will also be priced at $29.99 and will only be available as a digital download.
As for Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain, it currently has no official release date.
Posted in News, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One
Tagged Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes, Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain
Orchid and Spinal have a bone to pick with the latest Killer Instinct trailer
With less than three weeks to go before the Xbox One is available in stores, Microsoft continues to tease characters from their upcoming free-to-play reboot of Killer Instinct. In the latest trailer, B. Orchid puts the moves on Jago through a combination of high kicks and her tonfas. And be sure to stick around until the end as Spinal, the living skeleton, makes a quick appearance.
Killer Instinct, and the Xbox One console, will be available on November 22.
Posted in News, Xbox One
Tagged Killer Instinct
2K has “more than 10” next-gen games in development; next Borderlands 2 DLC set for November
Take-Two Interactive published their quarterly financial report yesterday and while revenues were down, the company expects to post a very healthy profit by the end of the year thanks to Grand Theft Auto V.
Looking to the future, Take-Two announced that they have a wide variety of next-generation games in development. According to Take-Two’s President, Karl Slatoff, the company has “more than 10” next-generation titles in the works including Turtle Rock’s co-op shooter Evolve and an unannounced game at 2K’s recently opened Bay Area studio. And before you get your hopes up, Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick adamantly refused to talk about the company’s next-gen plans for the Grand Theft Auto series.
The publisher plans to begin unveiling some of these titles “during the next several months” and plans to release several of them during their 2015 fiscal year (April 2014-March 2015).
But in the more immediate future, Take-Two also confirmed that the next Headhunter Pack for Borderlands 2, “Wattle Gobbler,” will be released in November.
Posted in News, PC, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One
Tagged Borderlands 2, Evolve, Grand Theft Auto V
Angry Birds Star Wars warps to PS4, Xbox One next month
If you had told me in 2009, when the first Angry Birds game was released for iOS, that this little mobile game about slingshotting birds would be a gigantic cultural phenomenon, I would not have believed you. If you had gone a step further and told me that it would one day be on the same pop culture plane as Star Wars, I likely would’ve outright laughed at you. Yet despite its simplistic nature, Angry Birds has taken much of the world by storm and spawned a respectable franchise, including merchandise like Halloween costumes, t-shirts, and even golf balls. Yes, Angry Birds golf balls.
Yesterday, Angry Birds made another significant jump… Rovio and Activision released Angry Birds Star Wars on the PS3, Xbox 360, Wii, Wii U, Vita, and 3DS. The pair of publishers also announced that the game will be hitting the PS4 and Xbox One next month. Complete with all of the lovable features from the current-gen editions, Angry Birds Star Wars on next-gen systems will also include a few additions. PS4 players will gain touchpad controls while Xbox One owners will experience “improved Kinect functionality.” The game will also support each system’s video capture features.
Posted in News, PS4, Xbox One
Tagged Angry Birds Star Wars
EA’s next PGA Tour game won’t star Tiger Woods
EA Sports has announced they’re hard at work on their first next-generation PGA Tour golf game. But they’ve also confirmed that when it releases, it won’t include a Tiger Woods endorsement.
Tiger Woods and EA first teamed up for 1998’s Tiger Woods PGA Tour 99 and a new entry in the series was released every year for the next 15 years (culminating with this year’s Tiger Woods PGA Tour 14). It’s unknown if EA will enlist another athlete to be the game’s featured golfer or if they’ll revert to the “PGA Tour [Year]” styling.
However, EA was willing to share the first screenshot of the in-progress game. As you can see, the game includes considerably more detail than the screenshot from current-generation consoles. The publisher has also hinted that the next PGA Tour game may be offered through a DLC or free-to-play model:
EA Sports golf fans have always loved authentic courses and players, but they’ve also asked for more choice and customization in how and where they play. We’re working on a new approach to deliver the best golf experience to our fans — we think you’ll love it.
EA has promised that more information about the next PGA Tour game will be released soon.
[Source: The Beat – EA’s Blog]
Posted in News, PS4, Xbox One
Tagged Rory McIlroy PGA Tour
Halo: Spartan Assault is bound for Xbox 360, Xbox One in December
Tell me if this makes sense…
You’re a massive publishing company and you own one of the biggest and most-beloved brands in all of gaming. You want to create a spinoff game, a twin-stick shooter, for your popular franchise. You have multiple platforms both available and in development that it could be released for. So what do you do? You release it on the one that doesn’t support twin-stick controllers.
Sounds crazy, right? Yet, that’s exactly how Microsoft has handled Halo: Spartan Assault. The top-down shooter was released for Windows 8 tablets and smartphones back in July and didn’t include controller support. It was later patched in, but why not release a game like that on the Xbox 360 or the upcoming Xbox One?
Thankfully, Microsoft has come to their senses and plans to bring Halo: Spartan Assault to the Xbox 360 and the Xbox One in December. The console version will include everything found in the tablet/smartphone version as well as the “Operation Hydra” expansion and an exclusive online co-op mode.
Sadly, online play between the two consoles will not be supported.
Posted in News, Xbox 360, Xbox One
Tagged Halo: Spartan Assault