Weekly Warp-Up: Countdown to the Nintendo Switch

Posted on February 26, 2017 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…

We’re in the home stretch now… Nintendo will release their Switch console/handheld hybrid later this week. The company has also decided to beef up the launch lineup by confirming that Snipperclips: Cut It Out Together, as well as Shovel Knight, Shovel Knight: Specter of Torment, and FAST RMX will all be available to download for the Switch on March 3.

We’re also counting down to this year’s PAX East convention, especially now that the Indie Megabooth has announced they’ll have more than 80 games on display at the show.

Elsewhere on Warp Zoned this week, we looked at the unbelievable, and oftentimes ridiculous, origins of the Xbox in our latest Scientifically Proven Best Video Games of All Time essay, this time focusing on Halo: Combat Evolved.

You can find more news from this past week, including the announcement of a new Futurama game and another Injustice 2 trailer, after the break.

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Posted in News |

New Retail Releases: Nintendo Switch, Zelda Breath of the Wild, Horizon Zero Dawn, More

Posted on February 26, 2017 by John Scalzo

It seems like it really snuck up on us, but “Day One” for Nintendo Switch is less than five days away. Nintendo won’t have a ton of games available alongside the launch of their latest console, but The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (which is also coming to the Wii U this week) will surely keep most early adopters busy for quite a while.

However, a handful of other Switch titles will be available for those looking for a different kind of experience. Ubisoft and Activision will bring ports of Just Dance 2017 and Skylanders Imaginators to the Switch. Meanwhile, Nintendo themselves will also launch 1-2-Switch, a quirky multiplayer party game, and Konami will resurrect the Bomberman series with the SNES-inspired Super Bomberman R.

It’s rare to find new games for rival platforms during a new console’s launch period, but the Nintendo Switch will actually face some stiff competition on store shelves this week. Leading the way is Horizon: Zero Dawn, a visually-striking post-apocalyptic adventure from Guerrilla that’ll be released exclusively for the PS4.

Also available this week will be Story of Seasons: Trio of Towns (3DS), the latest farming sim from Marvelous; Torment: Tides of Numenera (PS4, Xbox One), a spiritual successor to Planescape: Torment; The Walking Dead: A New Frontier (PS4, Xbox One), a Season Pass Disc that’ll grant access to every episode of the zombie-themed adventure; and Pac-Man Championship Edition 2 + Arcade Game Series, a retail re-release of the retro reboot.

You can find a complete list of this week’s new retail releases after the break.

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Posted in 3DS, PS4, Switch, Wii U, Xbox One | Tagged , , , , , , , , ,

Microsoft will definitely include splitscreen multiplayer in Halo 6

Posted on February 25, 2017 by John Scalzo

Many fans were disappointed in Halo 5: Guardians‘s lack of splitscreen multiplayer, and it looks like Microsoft will remedy that in future installments of the franchise.

Bonnie Ross, the Head of Halo developer 343 Industries, spoke at the 2017 DICE Summit this week as part of a session highlighting the “Stewards of a Sci-Fi Universe.” According to GameSpot, Ross confirmed during her talk that all future entries in the Halo franchise, including the upcoming Halo 6, will include splitscreen multiplayer:

“For any FPS going out forward, we will always have splitscreen in,” she said.

Halo 5: Guardians was released in October 2015, and Halo 6 has yet to be officially announced by Microsoft, so it might be a while before we don the Master Chief’s armor for a sixth time.

Posted in News, Xbox One | Tagged

First poster from Netflix’s Castlevania series revealed by Producer Adi Shankar

Posted on February 25, 2017 by John Scalzo

A Castlevania television series will make its way to Netflix this year, and Producer Adi Shankar recently revealed the first poster for the animated adaptation on his Facebook page. We still don’t know when the series will debut, but the gothic vibe that Shankar is going for is certainly evident in this image.

According to Netflix, the first season will be comprised of four half-hour episodes:

Inspired by the classic video game series, Castlevania is a dark medieval fantasy following the last surviving member of the disgraced Belmont clan, trying to save Eastern Europe from extinction at the hand of Vlad Dracula Tepe himself.

Based on Castlevania III: Dracula’s Curse, the Castlevania series will be written by Warren Ellis, and a second season is said to be in production for release in 2018.

Posted in Etcetera, News, Retro | Tagged

The Video Game Canon – Halo: Combat Evolved

Posted on February 24, 2017 by John Scalzo

Dig deeper into the Video Game Canon with a look at Microsoft’s first attempt to enter the console market and the birth of Halo: Combat Evolved. Here’s a teaser…

Microsoft is usually portrayed as the stodgy suit in contrast to Apple’s hip turtleneck, but would you believe that the first Xbox prototype was built on a whim by a quartet of guys from the company’s engineering department?

Kevin Bachus, Otto Berkes, Seamus Blackley, and Ted Hase first took their “DirectX Box” to Ed Fries, the head of Microsoft’s video game division, in 1998. Even though everyone in the world had played a dozen hands (or more) of Windows Solitaire, Microsoft wasn’t a big player in the game development arena at the time. Similar to today’s line of console-like PCs, the original “DirectX Box” was an off-the-shelf Windows PC with a video card and a hard drive that hid the Windows-ness of the system from the player.

Before the “DirectX Box” could move forward, Fries and his team had to fight off a challenge from a separate team within Microsoft that had worked with Sega to produce some of the system software for the Dreamcast. They were pushing for the company to create a more traditional console (no Windows, no hard drive), and Bill Gates himself ultimately stepped in to give his blessing to Fries and his “DirectX Box.”

[…]

[Eventually,] Microsoft toted their Xbox prototype, which was a massive X-shaped silver box with a glowing green core, to the 2000 Game Developers Conference, and officially announced their intention to take over the living room (with an assist from Bill Gates and Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson). A few months after that, the company purchased Bungie Studios and their upcoming game, Halo: Combat Evolved.

Visit VideoGameCanon.com to continue reading this article and to explore the complete Top 1000.

Posted in Features, PC, Retro, Top Story, Video Game Canon, Xbox 360, Xbox One | Tagged

Graveyard Keeper brings medieval cemetery management to PC, Xbox One in 2017

Posted on February 24, 2017 by Brittney Williams

Have you ever wanted to play a game about graveyards and capitalism with a medieval twist? Yeah, neither did I, but then I learned about Graveyard Keeper, a strange new game in production at Lazy Bear.

Graveyard Keeper is a unique take on the simulation genre, challenging players to take control of a medieval graveyard and transform it into a booming business. In doing so, players will be faced with making tough, ethically compromising decisions, all in the name of capitalism.

You, the caretaker, will have the option to explore beyond the graveyard, venturing into mysterious dungeons and the surrounding area, in search of resources that will help to make your business better. You will also be faced with choices, both dark and comedic, such as whether to team up with the local vampire and provide him with the blood of those buried in your graveyard. Players can even go the extra mile by crafting poisons with the resources they’ve found, in order to murder villagers and fill up those empty plots.

To expand your graveyard business, players can even host a Witch Burning Festival and feed the villagers the recycled meat of their dead loved ones, in order to cut operation costs. Or you can take the opposite path and scare the locals into attending church.

Graveyard Keeper will be available on the Xbox One and PC sometime in 2017. It’ll also be playable within the TinyBuild booth at the 2017 PAX East convention, which begins on March 10.

In the meantime, check out the first trailer above, as well as a handful of screenshots and a GIF of some rather unsanitary body dumping, after the break.

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Posted in News, PC, Xbox One | Tagged ,

Daily Scoop: February 24, 2017 – Gods Eater 2: Rage Burst on sale

Posted on February 24, 2017 by Nicole Kline

It’s been a desperate race to get to the end of this week, which felt like it was four weeks rolled into one. Here’s hoping this weekend is relaxing and feels like four weekends!

Anyway, let’s talk about all the beautiful games on sale, shall we? Over at the Humble Store, the Daily Deal is Batman: Arkham Knight which is on sale for $7.99. Their other deals include Berserk and the Band of the Hawk for $53.99, Sky Sanctuary for $11.69, and Kingdom: New Lands for $7.49.

There are some great deals at Steam as well! The Weekend Deal is Gods Eater 2: Rage Burst, which is currently just $19.99. The Daily Deal is Styx: Master of Shadows, which is $5.99.

Hit the jump to check out the last of this week’s t-shirts!

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Posted in Daily Scoop |

Snipperclips: Cut It Out Together will launch alongside the Switch on March 3

Posted on February 24, 2017 by John Scalzo

We’re less than a week away from the launch of the Nintendo Switch, and Nintendo has announced that yet another game will be ready for the console’s debut on March 3. Snipperclips: Cut It Out Together, a co-op puzzle game starring a pair of anthropomorphic pieces of paper, will be available to download through the Nintendo eShop on Day One.

To better familiarize yourself with Snipperclips: Cut It Out Together, feel free to press Play on the latest episode of the consolemaker’s “Nintendo Minute” show. Hosts Kit and Krysta provide a pretty decent overview of the game as they work their way through three adorable puzzles.

Snipperclips: Cut It Out Together will be priced at $19.99 and offer three game modes including World Mode (which can also be played solo), Party Mode, and Blitz Mode.

Posted in News, Switch | Tagged