Warp Zoned Presents
Most Recent: Features
The Games of August 2015
It’s been a slow Summer, and while August is still technically a part of the season, a lot of intriguing games will be available this month. From a ton of retro classics to a handful of remakes to several wholly original titles, there’s going to be a lot to play in August. And you can find out exactly what the Warp Zoned staff is most interested in after the break. (more…)
Warpback: What We Played in July 2015
Can this lazy Summer get any lazier? Probably… but the Warp Zoned staff is keeping busy with their backlogs and playing a variety of games on their phones. Can’t you just feel the excitement in the air? Maybe you need to know exactly what we’re playing, and you can find that after the break. (more…)
Kickstart This! Soul Keepers, XO, The Wizards of Trinity Bellwoods
It’s been a hair over three years since we published the first edition of Kickstart This! here at Warp Zoned. In anticipation of the July 30th anniversary, we got in contact with many of the developers behind the campaigns we highlighted in these last three years. We figured now was a good time to find out what happened to the successful developers and if the failed campaigns were able evolve into something else (or were simply never meant to be). So look out for a wide array of features and articles coming in August.
But before that birthday bash, let us turn our attentions to three fantastic new games vying for your cash. This time we have haunting action RPG Soul Keepers, space RTS XO, and lastly, the quirky Toronto-based The Wizards of Trinity Bellwoods.
Let’s keep those hipsters at bay! Um, that will make more sense later (more…)
Kickstart This! Defect, Disciples of the Storm, The Nascent: An Anecdote of Aetherholme
During E3 2015, Sony used its press conference to announce that the long-awaited sequel, Shenmue III, would be coming to the PlayStation 4. In the days since, the consolemaker has confirmed they will be helping with development costs, though the game was initially launched on Kickstarter by Ys Net, the studio responsible for the game’s development. The team, led by director and producer Yu Suzuki, could not have asked for a better setting to make the announcement. The game set a new record for reaching the $1 million mark on a crowdfunding platform, managing to hit that figure in 102 minutes, and then passing by its $2 million target in a little over nine hours. It has now gone on to become the second most-funded game ever.
Of course, this stunt has once again raised ethical questions about large corporations testing the waters with crowdfunders. Yu Suzuki was forced to clarify how the Kickstarter funds would be used once it was revealed Sony would be stumping up a sum of cash to complete the game.
Regardless of whether you believe it was morally dubious or not, let us now turn our attentions to a trio of gaming projects that cannot rely on a big E3 announcement to secure funds. We start with ship-building shooter Defect, before revisiting an old classic in Disciples of the Storm, and finishing with the cel-shaded, self-referential side-scrolling platformer The Nascent: An Anecdote of Aetherholme. (more…)
Interview: Looking at Geometry Wars 3 From All the Angles With Creative Director Craig Howard
I thought the Geometry Wars series had gone dark forever after Bizarre Creations closed its doors in 2011. It was a surprising end for the developer that had created Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved, a simple twin-stick shooter that many people consider the first great Xbox 360 game. Retro Evolved was followed by a well-received sequel in 2008, which lead Bizarre’s Craig Howard to admit to the MTV Multiplayer Blog that a third game in the series was already in the works.
Howard moved on after Bizarre’s closure and he’s now the Creative Director at Lucid Games, which teamed up with Activision’s Sierra Games imprint to finally release Geometry Wars 3: Dimensions last year. The game was an instant smash hit was fans of the series, as it expanded the playing field into the third dimension and added a wide variety of new weapons and modes to the franchise’s standard formula. But rather than jump right into Geometry Wars 4, Lucid doubled the size of Dimensions earlier this year with the Evolved expansion. The developer also wanted to take Geometry Wars 3 on the road with portable ports for iOS, Android, and the Vita.
I recently got the chance to talk with Howard about Geometry Wars 3: Dimensions, which will be available for the Vita beginning today, and Lucid’s journey to bring the franchise back. (more…)
Posted in Features, Interviews, Mobile, PC, PS3, PS4, Top Story, Xbox 360, Xbox One
Tagged Geometry Wars 3: Dimensions
The Games of July 2015
You can almost hear the tumbleweeds going by out there! There’s so little coming out in the month of July, which is for the best, as that Steam sale, and this great succession of amazing Wii U games, have really made us all broke. So let’s talk about what we think has potential coming out this July! (more…)
Warpback: What We Played in June 2015
We were all over the map this month here at Warp Zoned! While most of us were on our Wii Us getting our Nintendo on, some of us were also digging into some other games from our backlogs, or revisiting old favorites. Some of us have even discovered we are… gasp… mobile gamers! Read on to find out everything we played in the month of June. (more…)
The Games of June 2015
With a few small exceptions, we’ll all mostly be digging into our backlogs this month. Why? Well, it’s not necessarily because nothing new is coming out, but it is because there’s not much new coming out that we feel like paying full price for. We’re not united on this front, though, so you should read on to see what we will and won’t be playing this month here at Warp Zoned! (more…)