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
COD Black Ops goes grindhouse: Buffy, Freddy, Machete battle zombies
Treyarch promised “something special” for the new “Call of the Dead” mode included in the Call of Duty: Black Ops Escalation Map Pack and they definitely made good on their promise.
Taking a page from Quentin Tarantino/Robert Rodriguez’s Grindhouse, the developer has enlisted a quartet of the biggest names from zombie films and television. Sarah Michelle Gellar (“Buffy the Vampire Slayer”), Danny Trejo (Machete), Robert Englund (A Nightmare on Elm Street) and Michael Rooker (“The Walking Dead”) have all performed voicework and supplied the use of their likenesses for the DLC pack. While they’re not officially playing Buffy, Machete, Freddy Krueger and Merle Dixon, they’ve definitely dressed the part.
The best part is who Treyarch got to play the leader of the Siberian zombies that the team encounters: George “The Godfather of the Zombie Movie” Romero! That’s just too awesome!
The Escalation Map Pack will be available to download from the Xbox Live Marketplace on May 3 with PC and PSN versions following soon after.
Posted in News, PC, PS3, Xbox 360
Tagged Call of Duty: Black Ops
Star Fox 64 3D gets Arrange Mode; free 3D Excitebike download; Mario Kart 3DS in 2011
Nintendo President Satoru Iwata revealed a little bit more about the upcoming 3DS remake Star Fox 64 3D during the publisher’s quarterly financial briefing.
According to Iwata, Star Fox 64 3D will include a new Arrange Mode to give gamers a new take on a classic game: “[W]e are planning to release […] a newly-arranged version of Star Fox 64, the most well-known game of all the 3D shooting games in the time of Nintendo 64.” He also revealed that the game will include motion controls for piloting an Arwing, though how this’ll square with the 3D display (which really needs to be steady) remains to be seen.
The President also revealed that Nintendo will have a free gift for gamers when the 3DS eShop opens in May, a downloadable “3D Classics” version of Excitebike.
Finally, Iwata reconfirmed that Mario Kart 3DS will be released in 2011. Presumably, we’ll learn more at E3.
Posted in 3DS, News
Tagged Mario Kart 7, Star Fox 64 3D
Sony announces PlayStation Suite-certified tablets
Are you looking for an iPad alternative? Sony has announced that they’ll be releasing the “Sony Tablet” this Fall.
The Android 3.0-powered devices will come in two form factors: the 9.4-inch “S1” and the dual-screened “S2.” Both tablets have been certified as PlayStation Suite compatible, which you can see for yourself with the awesome Crash Bandicoot demo in the trailer above.
The dual-screened S2 is very clearly patterned after Nintendo’s DS design, with content-specific control buttons overlaid on the bottom screen while the action takes place on the top screen.
Sony didn’t announce a retail price for the S1 or the S2.
Johnny Cage meets Shang Tsung in Mortal Kombat: Legacy episode 3
The third episode of Kevin Tancharoen’s Mortal Kombat: Legacy is here and we get our first glimpse of Johnny Cage (Matt Mullins) as he is convinced by Shang Tsung (Johnson Phan) to enter the Mortal Kombat tournament. The “inside look” at Cage’s career is a hoot and this episode is as ball-punchingly fun as the previous two.
I especially loved the Ed Boon cameo and I can’t wait for part four (which will star Mileena and Kitana!). Though I could have done without the muted swear words (an “uncensored” version will be uploaded on Friday, April 29).
Posted in Etcetera, News, PS3, Xbox 360
Tagged Mortal Kombat, Mortal Kombat: Legacy
Mortal Kombat Review: Bone-Breakingly Fantastic
It has been a long, bloody road to bring Mortal Kombat to the PS3 and Xbox 360. After Midway’s bankruptcy, almost none of the company’s franchises were able to escape from the financial fatality unscathed. Even in the middle of the company’s financial woes, Ed Boon and his team at Midway Chicago (now NetherRealm Studios) continued to toil away on the next entry in the series. With Midway’s bankruptcy settled and the franchise now in the hands of WB Games, Mortal Kombat is ready to inflict its signature brand of mayhem onto the world once again. (more…)
Posted in PS3, Reviews, Top Story, Xbox 360
Tagged Mortal Kombat
Nintendo Download: 4/25/11
Did the Easter Bunny hippity hop his way to your house yesterday? It may be a day later, but Reggie Fils-Aime has donned his bunny ears and added three new games to the DSiWare Shop and one game to the WiiWare shop.
Hit the jump to learn more about Airport Mania: First Flight, Inchworm Animation, Ubongo and Word Searcher Deluxe. (more…)
Nintendo confirms Wii 2 will launch in 2012
In a note to investors released this morning, Nintendo has confirmed that a “successor to the Wii” will launch in 2012.
The rumored code name of “Project Cafe” wasn’t mentioned in the statement, so it’s still just the “Wii 2” for now. But the publisher did confirm that we’ll all get our first look at the system (along with some hands-on time) at this year’s E3 expo, which will be held from June 7th through the 9th.
Nintendo didn’t narrow a release date down beyond “TBA 2012,” but they did say that “sales of this new system have not been included in the finanical forecasts announced today for the fiscal term ending March 2012” so don’t expect the “Wii 2” to appear before April 2012.
Weekly Warp-Up: Hop Hop Edition
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!
I hope you’re having a good day so far on this fine Easter morning. But I’ll bet it would be better after you check out our Mindjack contest and enter to win the Square Enix shooter. Now then, with the impending holiday, gamemakers kept their announcements pretty low key this week, but that didn’t stop the rumor mill from churning out some really good stuff instead.
To start out the week, American McGee revealed that American McGee’s Alice would be included with Alice: Madness Returns. EA confirmed this proclamation a few days later. Speaking of scary stuff, Capcom’s Masachika Kawata started talking about Resident Evil 6 and pledged that it would be “totally different.”
Kratos may be painting the town red (with blood!) soon enough as rumors point to a September 2012 release for God of War IV. And to finish up our theme, no matter what the rumors say, Freddy Krueger and Jason Voorhees aren’t going to be added to Mortal Kombat anytime soon.
But frightening future games wasn’t the only subject of rumors this week. Another Wii 2/Project Cafe rumor made the rounds, claiming that Rockstar was the first developer to be given a dev kit and that they plan to bring Grand Theft Auto V to the system. And it looks like Nintendo may have the next generation console space to themselves for a while as Kotaku revealed that they have multiple sources predicting the PS4 and Xbox 720 won’t be ready until 2014… at the earliest.
In non-rumor news, we got a chance to talk with Kierin Chase, the Brand Manger for Dungeons & Dragons, on the future of the tabletop game, upcoming video game adaptations and our own fond memories of rolling the dice.
Hit the jump for the rest of the Weekly Warp-Up. (more…)
Posted in News