Warp Zoned Presents
Video Game Canon- 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
- Boss Fight Books to Get a New Look for Richard Moss’s “Age of Empires”
- GDC Awards: All the Winners from 1996 to Today
- Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 Wins “Game of the Year” at 2025-2026 GDC Awards
Warp Zoned Presents
- Video Game Research Library
- We Pitched a Museum a 1993 Game Hint Line (And They Actually Said Yes) – Yarn Spinner (2026)
- The History Of The Word “Metroidvania” And How It Spread – A Critical Hit (2025)
- Creator of Hit Game Shovel Knight Is at a ‘Make or Break’ Moment – Bloomberg (2025)
- Shadow of the Colossus: An oral history – Design Room (2025)
- In 2005, games started rewiring our brains – The AV Club (2025)
Author: John Scalzo
L.A. Noire: The Collected Stories announced
Rockstar will be expanding upon the noirish tales told in L.A. Noire with L.A. Noire: The Collected Stories, a short fiction collection from some of the biggest names in the mystery game. Published in conjunction with Mulholland Books, The Collected Stories will feature characters and cases from the game, but all of the “emotionally torn protagonists, depraved schemers and ill-fated victims” will be cast in a new light by the awesome Duane Swierczynski (read Severance Package right now, I demand it!), Megan Abbott, Lawrence Block, Joe Lansdale, Joyce Carol Oates, Francine Prose, Jonathan Santlofer and Andrew Vachss.
The first story available will be “The Girl” by Megan Abbott. The titular girl is June Ballard, one of the many characters from L.A. Noire. An excerpt of the story is available at the Rockstar Games website with the full-length tale coming soon.
Many of the stories will be released on Rockstar’s website before the game’s May 17th release. The Collected Stories will be available at eBook retailers everywhere on June 6th. A print copy doesn’t appear to be in Rockstar’s plans at this time, but it’s seems wrong to read hardboiled fiction on a computer screen.
Yeah, like that’s going to stop me.
Posted in Etcetera, News, PS3, Xbox 360
Tagged L.A. Noire
Microsoft hosting Halo Fest at PAX Prime 2011
This year is the tenth anniversary of the Halo series and Microsoft plans to celebrate in a big way. They haven’t told us exactly what they have planned yet (*cough* Halo: Combat Evolved HD *cough*), but I’m sure it’ll be spectacular.
We’ll learn more about those plans at this year’s PAX Prime. It’s there that Microsoft will host Halo Fest, a three day celebration of everything Halo:
Packed with tournaments, exclusive panels, and sweet prizes, Halo Fest is the place to be for Halo fans attending PAX Prime 2011
This event commemorates ten incredible years of Halo, looking back at the amazing stories that forged a diverse community and redefined gaming for two entire console generations. Join us […] and see why the last ten years of Halo were just the beginning.
PAX Prime (and Halo Fest) will be held August 26-28 at the Washington State Convention Center in Seattle.
Bethesda bringing three more DLC packs to Fallout: New Vegas
Bethesda has announced that they plan to bring three additional DLC packs to Fallout: New Vegas this Summer. The expansions will be released simultaneously on the PC, PS3 and Xbox 360 (for $9.99 each) and, according to Bethesda, they will “raise the stakes” of the series. While they didn’t announce one, I’d bet good money that a Fallout: New Vegas Game of the Year Edition is in the works for this Fall.
But Fall is so far away. Especially when we’ve got all the details on the downloadable packs, straight from Bethesda:
Available on May 17, “Honest Hearts” takes you on an expedition to the unspoiled wilderness of Utah’s Zion National Park. Things go horribly wrong when your caravan is ambushed by a tribal raiding band. As you try to find a way back to the Mojave, you become embroiled in a war between tribes and a conflict between a New Canaanite missionary and the mysterious Burned Man. The decisions you make will determine the fate of Zion.
In “Old World Blues,” releasing in June, you will discover how some of the Mojave’s mutated monsters came to be when you unwittingly become a lab rat in a science experiment gone awry. You’ll need to scour the Pre-War research centers of the Big Empty in search of technology to turn the tables on your kidnappers or join forces with them against an even greater threat.
“Lonesome Road,” available in July, brings the courier’s story full circle when you are contacted by the original Courier Six, a man by the name of Ulysses who refused to deliver the Platinum Chip at the start of New Vegas. In his transmission, Ulysses promises the answer as to why, but only if you take one last job –a job that leads you into the depths of the hurricane-swept canyons of the Divide, a landscape torn apart by earthquakes and violent storms. The road to the Divide is a long and treacherous one, and of the few to ever walk the road, none have ever returned.
Posted in News, PC, PS3, Xbox 360
Tagged Fallout: New Vegas
Buy Battle: LA Blu-ray, get Resistance 3 demo
G4 has the news that a 30-minute Resistance 3 demo will be included with all Blu-ray copies of Battle: Los Angeles. The Sony Pictures blockbuster will make its way to Blu-ray on June 14, three months ahead of Resistance 3’s September 6th release on the PS3.
This isn’t the first time Sony has placed a PS3 demo on a Sony Pictures Blu-ray disc. A God of War III demo was included with District 9 back in 2009. The Battle: Los Angeles/Resistance 3 connection makes even more sense when you consider some of the background scenery in the film.
Posted in News, PS3
Tagged Resistance 3
Explore Outworld in fourth Mortal Kombat: Legacy episode
Using a combination of animation and live action, director Kevin Tancharoen has turned the clock back on the Mortal Kombat saga in the latest episode of Mortal Kombat: Legacy. Mortal Kombat mainstays Baraka, Shao Kahn and Sindel appear alongside Kitana and Mileena to tell the tale of how Edenia was consumed by Outworld.
Departing from current MK canon, the episode brings back Mileena’s original origin story. The recently released reboot on the PS3 and Xbox 360 shows Mileena was created after Liu Kang defeated Shang Tsung for the first time. But in Mortal Kombat II (and now Legacy), Kitana and Mileena were raised as twin sisters, with Mileena’s demonic lineage a secret.
Hopefully we’ll see more of Outworld when the story of Kitana and Mileena continues next week.
Posted in Etcetera, News, PS3, Xbox 360
Tagged Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat: Legacy
Nintendo Download: Bingo Party Deluxe, Rival Turf!, more
It’s Monday morning and the weekly Nintendo Download is here, on schedule and as uneventful as ever.
This week sees the release of Bingo Party Deluxe on the Wii Shop Channel and Rival Turf! (formerly of the Super NES) on the Virtual Console.
The DSiWare Shop has received a trio of new games: priate puzzle-action game Ikibago; the action RPG Anonymous Notes: Chapter 2 – From The Abyss; and the slef-explanatory Picture Perfect Pocket Stylist.
More information on all of these games can be found after the break. (more…)
Weekly Warp-Up: May Day! Save Our PSN!
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…
Get Warp Zoned!
May Day! May Day! It’s May Day! To celebrate the beginning of a new month, the Warp Zoned editors looked back on what we played in April in the latest installment of Warpback.
But this week was also a “mayday” for PlayStation Network users as Sony’s investigation into the outage turned up some bad news. On Monday, Sony announced that they were analyzing the extent of the damage and were unsure if credit card data had been compromised. On Tuesday, the analysis was complete and all hell broke loose. Sony admitted that hackers had stolen names, addresses, passwords, everything. OK, not everything, your credit card information only “may” have been stolen. Thanks Sony! On Wednesday, the gamemaker swore they didn’t know the extent of the compromised data until they announced it on Tuesday, but that wasn’t good enough for one US senator, who had some harsh words for Sony. Maybe he’ll get his wish as the company was investigating a “goodwill gesture” for affected PSN users on Friday. Finally, just today, Sony revealed that the PSN would be back online next week.
But this week wasn’t all doom and gloom… we did post Episode 9 of the Warp Zoned Podcast after all. Mike Gutierrez, Nicole Kline, and Ryan Littlefield waxed poetical on all the games they’ve been playing. Afterwards, they were joined by West Coast Editor Adam Woolcott for a round table discussion about sequels. We also dived into the Gears of War 3 beta and declared it awesome.
Finally, our LittleBigPlanet 2 contest is winding down. A winner will be picked on Monday, so there’s still time to enter!
Hit the jump for the rest of the Weekly Warp-Up. (more…)
Posted in News
PSN to be restored next week; Sony offers “Welcome Back” gifts
As promised, Sony held a press conference on the state of the PlayStation Network and announced that the PSN/Qriocity music service will be back online next week. An exact date for the service’s return was not revealed, but the initial phase of the rollout will include restoration of online play, Qriocity’s Music Unlimited service, account management options (including password resets), PlayStation Home, the Friends List and chat. It looks like the PlayStation Store will come back online later.
Sony spent the last week examining the network infrastructure and investigating how the breach occured. In order to prevent something like this from happening again, the company has created a new position: Chief Information Security Officer. In addition to a new executive that reports directly to the highest levels of Sony, the gamemaker has beefed up the PSN’s security with automated software monitoring to defend against attacks, tougher encryption and new firewalls.
A mandatory PS3 update will also require all PSN users to change their passwords before logging in to the restored system. To further enhance security, this password change can only be performed on the same PS3 in which that account was activated or through a validated email confirmation.
To apologize for gamer’s patience during The Great PSN Outage of 2011, Sony has launched a “Welcome Back” program. The “Welcome Back” program will supply PSN users with free “entertainment content” (specific content will be announced soon) and a 30-day subscription to PlayStation Plus (or a 30-day extension for current subscribers). Current Qriocity users will receive a 30 days of free service. Sony plans to announce additional “Welcome Back” offerings over the next few weeks.
The full text of the press statement can be read at the PlayStaton.Blog.
Posted in News
Tagged ApocalyPS3 2011, PS3, PSP