Warp Zoned Presents
Most Recent: Wii
New Releases: CoD: Advanced Warfare, Wolf Among Us, Harvest Moon: Lost Valley, More
It’s the first full week of November, so you know what that means, don’t you? Activision is rolling out the latest entry in their Call of Duty franchise, Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare. Starring Kevin Spacey as Jonathan Irons, the head of a massive Private Military Contractor, the near-future shooter will be released for the PC, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, and Xbox One.
Naturally, this also means that all of the other publishers are ducking Advanced Warfare and holding their big November games until later in the month. Sometimes Nintendo bucks the trend with a big game, but not this year. Instead, we get the 3DS game Harvest Moon: The Lost Valley (the first in the series to be developed in-house at Natsume) and Telltale’s collected edition of The Wolf Among Us (PS3, PS4, Vita, Xbox 360, Xbox One). And speaking of collections, 2K Games bundled together BioShock Infinite: The Complete Edition for the PS3 and Xbox 360 this week.
The full list of this week’s new releases can be found after the break. (more…)
Posted in 3DS, News, PC, PS3, PS4, Vita, Wii, Wii U, Xbox 360, Xbox One
Tagged BioShock Infinite, Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare, Harvest Moon: The Lost Valley, The Wolf Among Us
Insert Quarter: A Profile of the Video Game Archivists at the Library of Congress
Insert Quarter is our showcase for some of the best and most interesting writing about video games on the Internet.
With more than 6,000 titles, the Library of Congress is home to one of the largest video game archives in the world. But the curation and management of the collection is in the hands of just four part-time employees. BuzzFeed’s Joseph Bernstein reached out to these four men to learn how the Library of Congress is attempting to preserve America’s gaming heritage and how much more still needs to be done:
No, the work of game copyrighting and archiving at our country’s signal institution for cultural preservation is not done by a dedicated full-time staff. Instead, it’s the passion project of a handful of archivists who want to be the new standard-bearers in the preservation of video games. Indeed, the state of video game collection at the Library is something of an expression of the liminal state of video games in American popular culture writ large. The Library recognizes the cultural importance of video games, but only devotes four people part-time to their archiving; Game companies insist that their products are the medium of the future, but don’t trust archives with their source code; Collectors sell their troves on Craigslist and eBay rather than considering donation.
Even to get to this point, though, has been a journey in and of itself.
You can read the rest of the article at BuzzFeed.
Insert Quarter: The History of Music Games
Insert Quarter is our showcase for some of the best and most interesting writing about video games on the Internet.
Almost 50 years ago, Paul and Art Garfunkel asked, “Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio?” in their hit song, “Mrs. Robinson.” DiMaggio would later tell Simon that he hadn’t gone anywhere, even though his playing days were long behind him. Likewise, today’s gamers have probably asked themselves, what happened to all the music games? The conventional wisdom says that they just don’t sell anymore, but who can turn down an invitation to rock out with your plastic guitar out?
IGN’s Chris Reed dug in to the history of the music from its humble roots (1996’s PaRappa the Rapper) all the way through the Guitar Here/Rock Band rivalry and into the future of the genre:
Music/rhythm games have run a surprisingly dynamic path through gaming history. Some genres drift into popularity and gradually fade out as technology and popular taste change. You might not even realize it’s happened until one day you look around and wonder, for instance, where all the 3D platformers went. Music games, on the other hand, moseyed along under the radar for the better part of a decade before taking off like a shot, attaining meteoric success before drying up nearly all at once.
You can read the rest of the article at IGN.
New Releases: Bayonetta 2, Civilization: Beyond Earth, Just Dance 2015, More
The third phase of Nintendo’s attempt to dominate the Fall gaming season arrives this week in the form of Bayonetta 2 for the Wii U. Platinum’s stylish witch has been given a second life by The Big N and the developer returned the favor by packaging the original Bayonetta with the sequel. Nintendo will also release a pair of smaller 3DS titles this week: Fantasy Life, an RPG/life simulation hybrid, and Pokemon Art Academy, a drawing game starring Pikachu.
Also available this week is the futuristic Civilization: Beyond Earth for the PC. Firaxis designed the game as a spiritual successor to the popular Alpha Centauri, which is something fans of the franchise have been asking for for a long time.
Speaking of franchises we haven’t seen in a long time… Ubisoft will bring Just Dance 2015 to the PS3, PS4, Wii, Wii U, Xbox 360, and Xbox One this week. That “long time” comment was a joke, by the way. What’s not a joke is the return of Harmonix, who are back with a new music game of their own, the Disney-inspired Fantasia: Music Evolved for the Xbox One and Xbox 360.
Finally this week, Telltale Games will release The Walking Dead Season 2 for the PS4 and Xbox One. Get your cleaning cloth ready, those tear-stained controllers won’t clean themselves.
A complete list of this week’s new releases can be found after the break. (more…)
Posted in 3DS, News, PC, PS3, PS4, Wii, Wii U, Xbox 360, Xbox One
Tagged Bayonetta 2, Civilization: Beyond Earth, Fantasia: Music Evolved, Just Dance 2015
Destiny was destined to be the best-selling game of September 2014
After selling more than five million copies in its first week of availability, Bungie’s Destiny easily took the top spot as the best-selling game of September 2014. New releases ruled last month as The NPD Group’s latest report revealed that seven games cracked the top ten.
At #3, EA’s FIFA 15 challenged Destiny for the crown, but came up short. It was followed by Super Smash Bros. For 3DS (#4), Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor (#5), NHL 15 (#6), The Sims 4 (#8), and Disney Infinity: Marvel Super Heroes (#9). The only holdovers were Madden NFL 15 (#2), Minecraft (#7), and Diablo III: Reaper of Souls (#10).
According to Joystiq, despite Destiny’s massive success, game industry sales only grew by 2% over September 2013. Of course, September 2013 featured the release of Grand Theft Auto V, a singularly special event, and downloadable titles are constantly eating into retail’s market share. But good luck getting The NPD Group to admit to that.
This months top ten can be found in a handy list format after the break. (more…)
Posted in 3DS, News, PC, PS3, PS4, Vita, Wii, Wii U, Xbox 360, Xbox One
Tagged Destiny, Diablo III, Disney Infinity: Marvel Super Heroes, FIFA 15, Madden NFL 15, Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor, Minecraft, NHL 15, NPD, Super Smash Bros. For 3DS, The Sims 4
New Releases: Alien: Isolation, NBA 2K15, DriveClub, More
After a relatively quiet September, the Fall gaming rush has begun to kick into high gear now that we’ve reached October.
Sega plans to take another crack at the Alien universe with the Creative Assembly-developed survival horror game Alien: Isolation (PC, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One). Players will attempt to help Amanda Ripley search for her missing mother while she’s stalked by a singular Xenomorph. After nearly a dozen games starring the Colonial Marines, it’s definitely a new take (on an old idea) for the franchise.
Also new this week is…
- NBA 2K15 (PC, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One), 2K’s latest basketball sim.
- DriveClub (PS4), Evolution’s long-in-development racing game.
- Skylanders: Trap Team (3DS, PS3, PS4, Wii, Wii U, Xbox 360, Xbox One), the latest toy/game hybrid from Activision.
- Project Spark (Xbox One), Microsoft’s game-building game.
Finally, Microsoft is reliving the Xbox One launch with newly expanded and updated versions of Dead Rising 3: Apocalypse Edition, Forza Motorsport 5: Game of the Year Edition, and Ryse: Son of Rome – Legendary Edition.
A complete list of this week’s new releases can be found after the break. (more…)
Posted in 3DS, News, PC, PS3, PS4, Wii, Wii U, Xbox 360, Xbox One
Tagged Alien: Isolation, DriveClub, NBA 2K15, Project Spark, Skylanders: Trap Team
Ubisoft unveils complete Just Dance 2015 soundtrack
Ubisoft is putting out another Just Dance game this Fall and today they’ve unveiled the game’s complete soundtrack. The enture track list can be found after the break and you’ll probably be quite happy if you like musicians such as Ariana Grande, Iggy Azalea, Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, Icona Pop, and Charli XCX. Oh, and Pharrell’s “Happy” is on the list too.
Just Dance 2015 will be released for the PS3, PS4, Wii, Wii U, Xbox 360, and Xbox One on October 21. (more…)
Square Enix: “We’d love to bring Dragon Quest X to the West”
Square Enix has expressed interest in bringing Dragon Quest X to western countries ever since the game first launched in Japan in 2012. Originally available for the Wii, Dragon Quest X’s reach has expanded to include versions for the Wii U, PC, and 3DS (which just launched last week). But is Square Enix still interested in trying to bring the game west? The answer is most certainly yes.
Siliconera recently spoke to Yuu Miyake, Dragon Quest X’s Executive Producer, and has response was an enthusiastic, “We’d love to do it!” He further elaborated that cultural differences between Japan and western countries have made this a difficult process:
“In terms of this being an MMO, again, we have to consider the operation and logistics of how to make that feasible,” Miyake elaborated. “We also have to think about it from a business standpoint. With Final Fantasy XI and XIV, it’s a global-scale endeavor. In terms of Dragon Quest, the way it’s perceived in the different countries is very, very different. How it’s perceived in Japan is different than how it’s perceived in the United States.”
Finally, Miyake said that business considerations could further complicate a North American launch for Dragon Quest X as a new data center would have to be constructed to serve a North American playerbase. But with the success of Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn, this might not be as large a hurdle for the publisher as it has been in the past.
Posted in 3DS, News, PC, Wii, Wii U
Tagged Dragon Quest X, PAX Prime 2014