Warp Zoned Presents
Video Game Canon- Jordan Minor’s “Boss Fight Books: Super Mario Galaxy” is Now Available for Pre-Order
- Angry Birds, Dragon Quest, FIFA Soccer, and Silent Hill are the World Video Game Hall of Fame’s Class of 2026
- 2025 GOTY Scoreboard: In Progress
- 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
Warp Zoned Presents
- Video Game Research Library
- With Grand Theft Auto 6 poised to take over the world, I reached out to Jack Thompson and it did not go well – PC Gamer (2026)
- Vib-Ribbon: An oral history – Design Room (2026)
- How a Second-Grade Teacher Revived a Beloved Video Game – The New York Times (2026)
- Spore: An oral history – Design Room (2026)
- Diablo IV PC Cooled With Real Human Blood Is Still Going Strong Two Years Later, Says Guy Who Won It – Aftermath (2026)
Author: John Scalzo
Metallic Rose, Midnight Blue DSi XL bundles coming November 6
While the 3DS will be the hot handheld this holiday season (for those of us not holding off until the Slide Pad is integrated into a 3DS2), Nintendo is still pushing the DSi XL. In fact, they’ve announced two new colors for the jumbo-sized portable: Metallic Rose and Midnight Blue.
As you can see from the box art above, both bundles will include a copy of Mario vs. Donkey Kong: Mini-Land Mayhem!, as well as a trio of pre-installed titles: Brain Age Express Math, Brain Age Express Arts & Letters, and Photo Clock.
The bundles will be available on November 6 at a price of $169.99 apiece.
Posted in DS, News
Tagged Mario vs. Donkey Kong: Mini-Land Mayhem!
Your first GTA5 rumors: It’s set in Los Angeles, has multiple playable characters
Grand Theft Auto V has officially existed for just a few hours now, but rumors are already beginning to fly about its setting.
Kotaku is reporting that “a source familiar with the game” has told them the game will set in a fictionalized version of Los Angeles. The west coast was last seen in a GTA game in 2004’s Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas.
Kotaku is also hearing that the game will have multiple playable characters, a first for the series.
And don’t forget our own GTA5-flavored rumor, solid proof of a 2012 release date, courtesy of statements made by Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick.
Posted in News, PS3, Xbox 360
Tagged Grand Theft Auto V
It’s on like Donkey Kong in G4’s Kart Driver
The second movie in the G4 Films Epictober Film Festival, “Kart Driver,” doesn’t have anything to do with karts, driving or Taxi Driver, but Drew Daywalt’s film is also one of the coolest takes on Donkey Kong ever.
Protip: This one is packed solid with references to Donkey Kong and Super Mario Bros. Can you spot them all?
Posted in Etcetera, News
Tagged Donkey Kong
WB Games detects 4.6 million copies of Batman: Arkham City shipped
It looks like The Joker really does get the last laugh as WB Games has announced that 4.6 million copies of Batman: Arkham City have been shipped worldwide since its launch a week ago. The massive success of Arkham City likely gives it the highest first-week sales total for any game released in 2011.
“Batman: Arkham City is one of the best action adventure games, proven by the tremendous reviews, and it further establishes the Batman brand as a marquee franchise for our growing business,” said Martin Tremblay, President, Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment. “Rocksteady Studios went above and beyond in delivering an incredible game and the support of the entire team at Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment and DC Entertainment drove the excellent campaign a game like this deserves.”
“The true test for any game is what the players think and we have been thrilled by their reaction to Batman: Arkham City,” said Sefton Hill, Game Director at Rocksteady Studios. “The team at Rocksteady put every ounce of effort into making the best Batman experience we possibly could, so we are overwhelmed by the incredible feedback from the community.”
Batman: Arkham City is now available for the PS3 and Xbox 360. A PC version is also in the works and will be released November 15.
Posted in News, PC, PS3, Xbox 360
Tagged Batman: Arkham City
Grand Theft Auto V announced; trailer coming 11/2/11
I’ll bet this comes as a surprise to everybody! It’s not like we’ve known a sequel to one of the bestselling games of all-time was in the works for ages or anything.
OK, enough lame Internet comedy, Rockstar Games has officially announced Grand Theft Auto V! The developer’s homepage has been completely taken over by the GTA5 logo (and check out the five dollar bill-styled “V”) with a further announcement that the game’s first trailer will be released on November 2.
No other details were revealed, but I think we can infer a few things. It’s likely coming to the PS3 and Xbox 360 (and probably the PC as well). Also, previous statements by Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick point towards a 2012 release.
For everything else, I guess we’ll have to wait until next week.
Posted in News, PS3, Xbox 360
Tagged Grand Theft Auto V
The Duck Hunt dog makes Cujo look like a puppy in “The Hunt”
The G4 Films Epictober Film Festival may be the greatest thing ever. Or at least, the greatest thing ever this week. Taking three classic games and giving them the horror movie treatment, the short film series opens with “The Hunt,” a bloody riff on Nintendo’s Duck Hunt.
Who among us didn’t fire off a few bursts of invisible Zapper fire at the Duck Hunt dog after he snickered at our poor aim? It’s for that director Sam Balcomb created “The Hunt.” Who’s laughing now dog?
G4 will follow “The Hunt” with two more films including tomorrow’s “Kart Driver” and Wednesday’s “The Birds of Anger.”
Rumor: Microsoft trade show schedule dates new Kinect hardware, next Xbox for 2014
Take this one with a huge grain of salt, but tumblr blog MS nerd has posted a leaked trade show schedule for Microsoft that covers every expo from now until the end of 2014. This treasure trove of data reveals release dates for Windows 8 and Windows 9 as well as info on the next Xbox and a Kinect refresh (both scheduled for 2014).
The most important conferences/dates appear to be E3 2012 (“Xbox SDK, 3G Kinect games announce”), E3 2013 (Xbox “loop” announce), Build 2013 (Xbox “loop” launch), E3 2014 (Kinect HP2 announce, Xbox PU announce), and Nov 2014 (Kinect HP2 launch, Xbox PU RTW).
While these acronyms go unexplained, allow me to take a stab at it. The short timeframe between the Xbox “loop” announcement and its launch likely points to another Xbox Live refresh or some other rebranding scheme. The 2014 dates are much more interesting as Kinect HP2 may possibly stand for “Hardware Profile 2” (meaning a redesign/upgrade for the Kinect sensor) and the Xbox PU may refer to a “Powered Up” Xbox (also known as the Xbox Next among rumormongers). Of course, this is all just speculation on my part.
The full Microsoft conference schedule can be found after the break. (more…)
Console version of Diablo III in production, but no official announcment yet
Here’s your big news for the day: Blizzard has begun development on Diablo III for the PS3 and Xbox 360! Except they’re not ready to announce it. In fact, the developer may not even release it if they don’t believe it’s as good a game as the PC version. What? Allow me to explain.
During one of the many panels at this weekend’s BlizzCon, Diablo III Game Director Jay Wilson revealed that a small team has begun work on developing console controls for the game. In fact, Wilson told panel attendees that “The movement actually feels better on the controller.”
So done deal, right? Not so fast. Destructoid spoke to Josh Mosquiera, Lead Console Designer, who revealed that development is still pretty preliminary: “We’re not announcing anything because, literally, there’s three of us on the team right now,” he said. “But that’s what we’re trying to do. We’re trying to build the best console team at Blizzard. Blizzard is really serious about going back to the console.”
The non-announcement announcement of Diablo III on consoles was further put into perspective by Wilson, who added, “[W]e don’t want to announce something until we’re sure.” So there’s a possibility the game may never escape the testing stages. But something tells me parent company Activision will be pushing hard to put Diablo III on the PS3 and Xbox 360 sometime in the future.
The PC version of Diablo III still has a vague “Early 2012” release date, so making a guess on when the console version might be released would be a fool’s errand at this point.
[Source: Joystiq, Destructoid]
Posted in News
Tagged Diablo III, PC, PS3, Xbox 360