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
Weekly Warp-Up: Black Friday 2014 Approaches
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…
The past seven days have been rather quiet for the video game industry. However, we did get a huge batch of pre-Christmas releases and Black Friday is right around the corner. That’s something, right?
If you’re looking for the perfect Christmas gift, you might like to know that the first batch of E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial cartridges excavated from the Alamogordo landfill sold for as much as $1,500. Though unboxed copies went for as little as $500. As much as I’d like one, I think this is one collectible that is out of my reach.
If you’re looking for something a little more meaty, then I suggest heading over to Joshua Wise’s discussion of Shadow of Order‘s depiction of the desire for power in The Path Our Enemy Forges: Shadow of Mordor and Mimetic Desire.
And finally, the nominees for the first ever Game Awards have been announced. Dark Souls II, Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft, Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor, South Park: The Stick of Truth, Destiny, and Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare all lead the way with three nominations apiece.
More news from the week that was (though not much more) can be found after the break. (more…)
Posted in News
New Releases: Persona Q, Geometry Wars 3, Akiba’s Trip PS4, More
Black Friday (and the more-or-less unofficial end to the Fall game rush) is just a few days away, but there’s still a handful of new releases to talk about this week.
For example, Atlus will bring its popular Persona series of RPGs to the 3DS with Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth. The quirky Japanese publisher will also release Akiba’s Trip: Undead & Undressed, a brawler where teenagers strip down to battle vampires in the heart of Tokyo, for the PS4 this week.
But this week’s biggest new release (in my opinion, anyway) is Geometry Wars 3: Dimensions. Activision and Lucid Games will release the twin-stick shooter for the PC, as well as the PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, and Xbox One.
Finally this week, the Penguins of Madagascar will waddle over to the 3DS, Wii, and Wii U and IL-2 Sturmovik: Battle of Stalingrad, the latest game in the dogfighting sim series, will be released for the PC.
Posted in 3DS, News, PC, PS4, Wii, Wii U
Tagged Geometry Wars 3: Dimensions, Persona Q: Shadow of the Labyrinth
Xbox Store Today: Thomas Was Alone, Pier Solar and the Great Architects
Two new indie titles have made their way to the Xbox One today thanks to the ID@Xbox program.
First up is Thomas Was Alone, Mike Bithell’s strangely compelling story of rectangles and squares. You might not think that a platformer starring a “sentient AI” represented by a rectangle could be compelling, but then the narration hits you. Also available today is Pier Solar and the Great Architects, Watermelon’s Genesis-era RPG that was originally released in 2010 and is now available for new-gen consoles.
More information on both games can be found after the break. (more…)
Posted in News, Xbox One
Tagged Thomas Was Alone
Nominees for the 2014 Game Awards have been announced
Geoff Keighley’s VGX Awards replacement, The Game Awards, got a little more real as the show’s advisory board announced its inaugural list of nominees. Dozens of games were nominated in 16 categories, with six titles (Dark Souls II, Hearthstone: Heroes of Warcraft, Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor, South Park: The Stick of Truth, Destiny, and Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare) notching three nominations apiece. Dark Souls II, Hearthstone, and Shadow of Mordor are all competing in the Game of the Year category against Bayonetta 2 and Dragon Age: Inquisition.
A complete list of nominees can be found after the break. The 2014 Game Awards will take place on December 5 at the AXIS Theater in Las Vegas. (more…)
Nintendo Download: Smash Bros Wii U, Pokemon Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire, Watch Dogs, more
The final piece of Nintendo’s attempt to dominate the Fall 2014 gaming calendar is here as Super Smash Bros. For Wii U is finally upon us. OK, more accurately, it’ll be upon us tomorrow. But fans clamoring for the Nintendo fighter (which also includes Pac-Man, Mega Man, and Sonic) have less than 24 hours to go before its added to the Wii U eShop. It will be joined on Nintendo’s digital storefront by another major release tomorrow, Pokemon: Omega Ruby/Alpha Sapphire (3DS). The pair of Pokemon games are actually remakes of Pokemon Ruby and Pokemon Sapphire, both of which made their debut on the Game Boy Advance in 2003.
Another game that has been a long time coming is the Wii U version of Watch Dogs, which was also released this week. The hacky adventures of Aiden Pearce were originally released in May, but the Wii U version includes Off-TV Play and an interactive map of Chicago on the Wii U GamePad.
More information on all of these games (as well as a few more new releases) can be found after the break. (more…)
Posted in 3DS, News, Wii U
Tagged Pokemon: Alpha Sapphire/Omega Ruby, Super Smash Bros. For Wii U, Watch Dogs
Xbox Store Today: GTA5, Far Cry 4, Dragon Age: Inquisition, many more
Aside from LittleBigPlanet 3, today’s Xbox Games Store update looks like a copy-and-paste of yesterday’s PlayStation Store update. As such, here’s what Xbox One and Xbox 360 should definitely be looking forward to this week:
- Rockstar has released Grand Theft Auto V for the Xbox One, adding a first-person mode, extra missions, a graphical upgrade, and a few other tweaks.
- Ubisoft dives back into the Far Cry franchise with Far Cry 4 (Xbox One, Xbox 360), another whacked out first person shooter that takes the action to the Himalayas. And as the trailers keep reminding us, you can wreak havoc while riding on the back of an elephant.
- BioWare brings back the Dragon Age series with Dragon Age: Inquisition (Xbox One, Xbox 360), a huge new RPG that looks like it’ll dwarf the much smaller Dragon Age II.
Other games of note this week include Deep Silver Dead Island spinoff, Escape Dead Island (Xbox 360); the next-gen launch of 2K’s WWE 2K15 (Xbox One); and yet another Rabbids game froom Ubisoft, Rabbids Invasion (Xbox One, Xbox 360).
More details on all of these games (and a few others) can be found after the break. (more…)
Posted in News, Xbox 360, Xbox One
Tagged Dragon Age: Inquisition, Far Cry 4, Grand Theft Auto V
First batch of excavated E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial cartridges sell for $500-1500 apiece
The first batch of excavated Atari 2600 cartridges from the Alamogordo landfill have been auctioned off and checkbooks were opened wide to own a piece of history. The auctions were managed by the Tularosa Basin Historical Society and the priciest E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial cartridge (complete with an original box) sold for $1,537. Other E.T. cartridges sold for similar prices, though the ones without a box sold for closer to $500. Other games (including Defender, Asteroids, Centipede, and more) all sold for under $500 with a copy of Missile Command responsible for the lowest sale of $157.50. A complete list of every auctioned off game can be found at eBay.
The city of Alamogordo will continue to sell some of the excavated cartridges in the coming days, though it’s unknown when the next wave of auctions will begin.
Atari: Game Over, a documentary chronicling the dig, as well as Atari’s rise and fall, will be available to download through Microsoft’s Xbox Live service beginning tomorrow.
Insert Quarter: Video Game Titles Have Gotten Ridiculous
Insert Quarter is our showcase for some of the best and most interesting writing about video games on the Internet.
Video game titles have gotten ridiculous. I think I really noticed it earlier this year when Crystal Dynamics and Square Enix decided use Rise of the Tomb Raider as the title of the next game in the series. I’d gotten my fill of the word “rise” (and its variants) after being subjected to The Dark Knight Rises, Rise of the Planet of the Apes, G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, Hannibal Rising, and many others at the movie theater. Especially because very few of the people or groups who are supposed to rise in those movies actually do!
Destructoid’s Steven Hansen shares my pain and has put together his own list of words that need to be stricken from game titles. Unsurprisingly, it all loops back to Call of Duty:
Lords of the Fallen and Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare just came out and they should be laughed out the damn building for their horrible, generic videogames names.
I originally typed “Armored Warfare” and was confused when Google failed to bring up results for our “Call of Duty: Armored Warfare” review. Then I realized it was “Advanced Warfare” after remembering I kept getting it confused with Advance Wars originally.
DO YOU SEE THE PROBLEM?
You can read the rest of the article at Destructoid.