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
Stacking, Explodemon, Plants vs Zombies added to PlayStation Store
Microsoft may be planning a five-week blowout of big games beginning next week with the Xbox Live House Party, but Sony has decided to dump a massive amount of cool games onto the PlayStion Store in a single day.
Leading off this week’s PlayStation Store update is Double Fine’s Stacking, perhaps the finest (AKA the only) game about Russian stacking dolls. Best of all, it’s free to PlayStation Plus subscribers. What a deal!
Also available this week is Explodemon, a platformer with an exploding hero that is totally not at all similar to last year’s XBLA game ‘Splosion Man.
Finally, Sony has made Tales From Space: About a Blob available to all PSN users and PopCap has fertilized the service with their hit game Plants vs Zombies.
More details on all of these games can be found after the break with even more game add-on news available at the PlayStation.Blog. (more…)
Posted in News, PS3
Tagged Plants vs Zombies, Stacking
Release dates and prices for 2011 XBLA House Party games
With just a little over a week to go before we get this party started, Major Nelson has announced the prices and release dates for all of the games in this year’s Xbox Live Arcade House Party.
We knew that Hard Corps: Uprising would lead things off on February 16, but now we know it’ll be followed by Bejeweled Blitz Live on the 23rd, Beyond Good & Evil HD on March 2nd, Torchlight on March 9th and Full House Poker on March 16th.
You can find all of the release dates in list form right here, along with each game’s price:
- February 16: Hard Corps: Uprising (1200 Microsoft Points [$15])
- February 23: Bejeweled Blitz Live (800 Microsoft Points [$10])
- March 2: Beyond Good & Evil HD (800 Microsoft Points [$10])
- March 9: Torchlight (1200 Microsoft Points [$15])
- March 16: Full House Poker (800 Microsoft Points [$10])
Posted in News, Xbox 360
Tagged Bejeweled Blitz Live, Beyond Good & Evil, Full House Poker, Hard Corps: Uprising, Torchlight
Take-Two’s “000A” is probably just Duke Nukem Forever
The Internet is abuzz today with the news that Take-Two Interactive is working on a secret game dubbed “000A.” The game’s existance was leaked after a rating for the title was discovered on the Australian Classification Board. The game has received an OFLC rating of MA-15+ for “Strong violence, sexual references, crude humour and drug references.”
Speculation about what 000A could be has run rampant from the highly possible (the previously announced PS3-exclusive Agent) to the ridiculous (“Maybe it’s Grand Theft Auto V!”). But I think there’s a much more obvious (and mundane) explanation for 000A: it’s Duke Nukem Forever.
Think back to your experiences with Duke Nukem: there’s always lots of violence, Duke makes an overabundance of sexual references, the series is absolutely dripping with crude humor and I remember a drug reference or two. Plus, the content descriptors are stunningly similar to the game’s Mature rating from the ESRB (Intense Violence, Blood And Gore, Strong Language, Mature Humor, Nudity, Strong Sexual Content and Use Of Drugs And Alcohol).
And here’s the kicker: Duke Nukem Forever doesn’t have an OFLC rating yet. Put it all together and 000A spells Duke Nukem.
We’ve contacted Take-Two about 000A and we’ll update this story when we receive their response.
Posted in News
Weekly Nintendo Download features Spot the Differences!, SCAT, more
As a young kid in the 80s, I knew even then that S.C.A.T. was an… odd… name for a game. Thankfully, the NES game didn’t involve bodily waste and instead was a shooter in the Contra mold. Anyway, this is all just to say that S.C.A.T. (which stood for Special Cybernetic Attack Team) is available on the Virtual Console this week.
Spot the Differences!, a picture comparing game, is the lone WiiWare original this week. Although demo versions of Lit and Urbanix will be available to download from the Wii Shop Channel as well.
The DSiWare Shop will receive a quartet of new games this week: G.G Series: Dark Spirits, a side-scrolling shooter; Boom Boom Squaries, a puzzle game; 505 Tangram, another puzzle game; and Shawn Johnson Gymnastics, a gymnastics simulator.
More information on all of these titles can be found after the break. (more…)
Sony officially announces Xperia Play phone
The latest “worst kept secret in gaming,” the Xperia Play phone, was officially unveiled by Sony Ericsson yesterday.
Engadget has all the details on the so-called “PlayStation Phone,” including the date and time of the Xperia Play’s worldwide debut at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona on February 13th and the crazy Super Bowl ad.
Did you miss the Xperia Play commercial during yesterday’s Super Bowl? Check it out after the break below. (more…)
Massive savings on XBLA shooters this week
Major Nelson has announced that this week’s Xbox Live Deal of the Week is live. And I’m here to announce that it includes an awesome selection of games!
This week’s theme is “Retro Shooters” and Xbox Live Gold members with a hankering for more retro shooters will definitely want to pick up at least one of these titles:
- Duke Nukem: Manhatten Project – 400 Microsoft Points (Regular Price: 800 MSP)
- Space Invaders: Infinity Gene – 400 MSP (Regular Price: 800 MSP)
- Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved 2 – 400 MSP (Regular Price: 800 MSP)
- Serious Sam HD: The First Encounter – 400 MSP (Regular Price: 1200 MSP)
- Serious Same HD: The Second Encounter – 400 MSP (Regular Price: 1200 MSP)
- Galaga Legions – 400 MSP (Regular Price: 800 MSP)
Space Invaders: Infinity Gene was one of my favorite games of 2010 and if you love retro shooters it should be almost impossible to pass up at 400 Microsoft Points ($5).
Packers intercept Madden Super Bowl XLV prediction
For only the second time in the last eight years, the Madden NFL Football Super Bowl Simulation has been proven wrong. This year’s prediction picked the Steelers winning with a final score of 24-20. However, real life intervened, and the Packers emerged as Super Bowl XLV champs in a 31-25 victory.
Aside from the final score, the simulation’s accuracy is almost scary. In the simulation, Ben Roethlisberger threw two touchdowns (one each to Hines Ward and Mike Wallace) while Rashard Mendenhall ran one in. In real life, all of these events also occured. However, it’s the INT column that made all the difference as the simulation predicted Big Ben would throw one pick, but in real life, he threw two. The first of those interceptions was returned for a touchdown, putting the Packers up 14-0 early and ensuring their real life victory.
The other major difference between the simulation and real life is the performance of Aaron Rodgers. The simulation predicted he would toss two interceptions, including one in the final seconds that would have sealed the game for Pittsburgh. Instead, Rodgers was almost perfect on Super Bowl Sunday, throwing for three touchdowns and 304 yards. As you may have guessed, he was named the Super Bowl MVP at the end of the game.
And he’s likely the early favorite to appear on the cover of Madden NFL 12. Packer fans are no doubt preparing some kind of anti-Madden Curse ritual as we speak.
Posted in News
Tagged Madden NFL 11, PS3, Xbox 360
Weekly Warp-Up: Better Than Football 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…
I think there’s some kind of football match going on today in Dallas. Madden NFL 11 says that the Steelers are going to win it all, so if you need some last minute gambling advice, you could do worse than making a deal with the devil that is Peter Moore (and his maniacal Satan-like grin).
Michael Pachter is a name that needs no introduction among gamers. The man considers himself the world’s premier video game analyst, but his track record at reading the industry is probably partially responsible for investor’s continued wariness when it comes to game publishers. Watch him embarrass himself yet again by stating that the “Wii 2 will fail” even though Nintendo hasn’t announced the Wii 2 yet or even released a “failed” home console. Pack it up Pachter, we could provide better commentary on the game industry than you can. That said…
Get Warp Zoned!
The third episode of the Warp Zoned Podcast is live for your listening pleasure. Mike Gutierrez, Nicole Kline, and Ryan Littlefield talk about the games they’re playing, the games they’ve been busy reviewing, and the games they worked on at last week’s Global Game Jam. They also talked about the 3DS vs. the NGP and why they are – or aren’t – going to be buying those systems on launch day.
We also dug through hundreds of YouTube channels to creat the definitive list of official publisher/developer channels that we call the Guide to Gaming Videos on YouTube.
Hit the jump for the rest of the Weekly Warp-Up. (more…)
Posted in News