505 Games to publish next two titles from Starbreeze Studios

Posted on September 10, 2012 by Andrew Rainnie

In an example of European partnership, Italian outfit 505 Games, best known for releasing the likes of Naughty Bear and MiCoach, will be publishing the next two titles from Swedish developer Starbreeze Studios. Following up their remake of Syndicate, the developer is currently working on action-adventure game P13 in collaboration with filmmaker and fellow Swede Josef Fares, whose most recent film was the Swedish comedy Farsan.

While it may seem an odd fit, Starbreeze’s CEO Mikael Nermark stated, “When we started to plan the next steps for Starbreeze we wanted to find a partner, not just a traditional publisher, and 505 Games fit that criteria. We feel that this collaboration can grow into a long-term partnership.”

In addition to P13, Starbreeze and 505 Games will produce and publish Payday 2, a sequel to Payday: The Heist, currently in development at Starbreeze’s Overkill Studios. Both games are due to be released as downloadable titles sometime in 2013.

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Weekly Warp-Up: Fall Starts Now Edition

Posted on September 9, 2012 by John Scalzo

No, that’s not a typo. Welcome to the Weekly Warp-Up, your weekly wrap-up of the biggest and the best articles posted at Warp Zoned this week…

Our long Summer is finally over. The kids have gone back to school and the completely barren new release shelves are finally filling with life. So now is the perfect time to talk about The Games of September 2012. For most of the gaming world, the next four weeks will be all about Borderlands 2. But this is also the month for Double Dragon: Neon, so be sure to get your bro-tastic beat ’em up buddies ready for that one too.

If you’re looking for more news about this Fall’s biggest games (and beyond), check out the rest of the Weekly Warp-Up after the break.

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Posted in News |

New Releases: NHL 13, Tekken Tag Tournament 2, Battlefield 3 Premium, More

Posted on September 9, 2012 by John Scalzo

A pair of fighting games lead this week’s new release slate. There’s EA’s NHL 13 (available for the PS3 and Xbox 360) and then there’s Tekken Tag Tournament 2 (also available for the PS3 and Xbox 360). See, it’s funny because there’s a lot of fighting in hockey and… eh, moving on…

EA hasn’t annualized the Battlefield series (yet), but for those of you who missed last year’s Battlefield 3, it’s now available in a “Premium Edition” for the PC, PS3, and Xbox 360.

Speaking of re-releases, Nintendo will make Kirby’s Dream Collection available on Sunday the 16th. And in honor of Finding Nemo‘s 3D re-release, Disney is bringing Finding Nemo: Escape to the Big Blue to the 3DS and DS. Seems appropriate.

Finally, also available this week is the Kinect-powered basketball dribbling sim NBA Baller Beats and the PC adventure game Eternal Journey: New Atlantis.

Posted in 3DS, DS, News, PC, PS3, Xbox 360 | Tagged , ,

Dev porting Mass Effect 3 to Wii U working on two additional Wii U games

Posted on September 8, 2012 by John Scalzo

Straight Right, the development team behind the Wii U port of Mass Effect 3, is taking their job very seriously. Speaking to Eurogamer, CEO Tom Crago said, “We’re very conscious of not wanting to mess up.”

While the executive has high hopes for his Wii U launch title, he also revealed that Straight Right has two unannounced games for the system in development, an original title and another port, for 2013:

“We’ve made a number of bets on the Wii U, so we’re certainly hoping that the platform comes strongly out of the gate. We’ve got two other titles in development. One of them is original, our own IP, and another is based on another big franchise that will come out in 2013. It’s a big title and you will have heard of it,” he teased.

Nice to know, but that could be anything!

Posted in News, Wii U | Tagged

Killzone Trilogy coming to PS3 in October… no one surprised

Posted on September 8, 2012 by Andrew Rainnie

In a move that should surprise no-one, Sony has announced that the Killzone Trilogy will join the HD collection lineup on October 23rd. The Killzone Trilogy will feature all three games, including the original Killzone, now in HD and with full Trophy support. The collection also comes locked and loaded with three multiplayer maps for both Killzone 2 and Killzone 3.

While the front cover artwork suggests the trilogy is Move and 3D compatible, it is more than likely this only applies to the third entry, which already had those features (and is dangerously close to false advertising).

Sony also confirmed (via the PlayStation Blog) the games will be available separately on the PlayStation Network (including the never-before-released Killzone HD), but there were no other details about when that’ll happen or what the pricing of the individual games will look like.

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Wii U version of Ghost Recon Online is “on hold”

Posted on September 8, 2012 by Andrew Rainnie

Despite Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemont praising the Wii U numerous times this year, and with the company developing the very promising ZombiU as well as bringing Assassin’s Creed III to Nintendo’s new console, it seems work has stalled on the Wii U version of Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Online. The official line from the game’s producer, Theo Sanders, is that the team wants to focus all of their energy on the PC version before work begins on any console version. His full statement can be read here:

“As of right now, the entire Ghost Recon team is focused on the PC version only. The Wii U version is on hold. If in the future we have an opportunity to address it again, we’ll make future announcements. But as of right now we’re focused completely on the PC version. It’s not a reaction to anything specific happening to Wii U. It was a really fun, cool platform to develop for. But you realise once you launch an online service that it’s an all-consuming effort, so we really wanted to have all hands on deck. It was the same dev team working on both SKUs, and we really wanted to focus on doing the PC version right.

It’s hard to say how the future will go for Ghost Recon Online. I think in the future, as different platforms evolve towards service models and towards being really online-driven, community-driven platforms, then we’ll definitely be looking at what our options are… I think it’s one of the strengths of the PC platform and I believe it’s something that all console manufacturers understand to be a strength of the PC platform, and will definitely be looking for interesting and innovative ways to bring their own experiences to.”

Despite the meek promise that the company may return to the project in the future, reading between the lines suggests something else is afoot, especially given all the references to online play in the PC market. It sounds as if Ubisoft is going to wait until after the launch of the Wii U to see if Nintendo’s new online system attracts the numbers deemed necessary to move forward with a free-to-play game.

With Nintendo due to make a major Wii U announcement next week, hopefully with more specific details on the system’s price and its launch date, lets hope it attracts more positive word of mouth than their E3 showing this year.

[Source: Video Gamer]

Posted in News, PC, Wii U | Tagged

Daily Scoop: September 7, 2012 – Get ready to rock!

Posted on September 7, 2012 by Nicole Kline

We made it! We survived to the weekend. Great job, everyone! Another work week in the rear-view mirror. Time to go home and game myself silly.

Speaking of silly gaming, have you seen the Borderlands demake? No? Well go do it. Don’t worry, I’ll wait.

Back? Great! Sad to say there aren’t really any deals going on today. Well, no new deals. Old deals from earlier this week are still happening, so go scope those out!

Some shirts and a cool bonus after the break!

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Posted in Daily Scoop, Etcetera, News |

Dust: An Elysian Tail Review: Usagi Yojimbo Would Be Impressed

Posted on September 7, 2012 by John Scalzo

Dean Dodrill’s Dust: An Elysian Tail was announced as the winner of the second annual Dream.Build.Play Challenge in 2009 and, after securing a publishing deal with Microsoft, he spent the next three years designing and coding it himself. With the game finally complete, it recently took its place as the finale to this year’s Summer of Arcade promotion.

So… one man development team… critical acclaim… and a big push from Big Redmond itself… can a side-scrolling action RPG really live up to all that?

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Posted in Reviews, Top Story, Xbox 360 | Tagged