Warp Zoned Presents
Video Game Canon- 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
- Boss Fight Books to Get a New Look for Richard Moss’s “Age of Empires”
Warp Zoned Presents
- Video Game Research Library
- How a Second-Grade Teacher Revived a Beloved Video Game – The New York Times (2026)
- Spore: An oral history – Design Room (2026)
- 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)
Most Recent: News
Awesomesauce! Chris Pratt stars in the latest Kinect Star Wars trailer
You know, I think I could used to Hollywood actors invading my video game trailers. Especially after this week’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 trailer featuring Rob Riggle and this “trailer” for Kinect Star Wars starring Chris Pratt of “Parks and Recreation.”
I say “trailer” because it’s just an excuse for Pratt to make a mockery of the Darth Vader/Obi-Wan Kenobi duel from Star Wars. Kinect Star Wars isn’t even hinted at until the tag at the end.
But so what? If this trailer were placed on Ron Swanson’s Pyramid of Greatness, it would be near the top.
Posted in News, Xbox 360
Tagged Kinect Star Wars
European publisher Rising Star Games opens a US office
Rising Star Games will be expanding beyond Europe in the coming days as they’ve announced the opening of a North American office. The publisher specializes in localizing quirky Japanese games, and mostly has that market to themselves in Europe. By jumping in to the American game market, they’ll now be competing against several established players in that space such as XSEED, Atlus, NIS America, and Aksys Games.
But as they say, more competition is always a good thing.
Rising Star plans to make a splash with their first North American release this Spring when the company will bring Cave’s Akai Katana to the Xbox 360 in both Europe and North America.
The publisher also plans to delve into downloadable games for the first time with the launch of their Rising Star Games Digital label. The digital group will work on bringing “the most engaging video games” to the Xbox Live Arcade, PlayStation Network, Steam, the Android Marketplace and the iTunes App Store.
Daily Scoop: January 26, 2012 – Danger! Danger!
D&D Encounters last night was a blast! We’re a few weeks behind since the store has been closed for a month, but we took the time to play two encounters last night (and get our butts seriously kicked). Good times, man. Good times.
The Deal of the Day in video games over at Amazon today is Cartoon Network: Punch Time Explosion XL. It’s got 26 playable Cartoon Network characters (Ben 10 versus the Powder Puff Girls? Whaaaat?) and boasts an expansive story mode. It’s on sale today for $29.21 on the PS3, $27.99 on the Xbox 360, and $22.99 on the Wii.
Today’s video game-related t-shirt makes me want to say “Danger! Danger!” (more…)
Nintendo Download: Mario & Sonic at 2012 Olympics demo, Mutant Mudds, more
Here’s your Nintendo Download for the week:
Mutant Mudds (3DS eShop) – Armed with a heavy-duty water cannon, Max must vanquish his nemeses, the Mutant Mudds, by blasting and hovering his way across the soiled landscape to seek out mysterious Water Sprites.
Nintendo has also uploaded a demo of Mario & Sonic at the London 2012 Olympic Games to the 3DS eShop.
Flipper 2: Flush the Goldfish (DSiWare) – A little boy has been kidnapped by an evil monster, there is no time to waste! Flush has to act quickly and resque his best friend and owner. Luckily Flush has a super secret robot suit… that will make things easier!
Lola’s Alphabet Train (DSiWare) – Learning the alphabet has never been more fun than in Lola’s Alphabet Train – the most exciting educational kids’ game! Designed for 3-7 year olds, The Alphabet Train is actually five exciting games in one.
Newton vs. The Horde (WiiWare) – Scientists are being attacked by a horde of vicious monsters. Use physics to squash, skewer and explode those nasty creatures and do whatever you can to help our scientist friends survive.
Netflix says “Game Over” to game rentals
Netflix CEO Reed Hastings has had a hard year. So let’s all be nice to him as he puts a stake through the heart of the company’s game rental plans and retreats completely from the scuttled Qwikster plan.
During the company’s quarterly financial report yesterday, he was asked, “Will you be adding video games […] to your product offering?” Hastings killed the idea by bluntly replying back, “[W]e have no plans to enter video games.”
So there you have it. GameFly executives can breathe easier and gamers can continue to wonder if Blockbuster or Redbox will ever rise up to challenge them.
THQ drops kid’s licensed games after Saints Row 3 ships 3.8 million
After struggling financially in 2011, THQ has announced a new focus for their game development divisions. From this point forward, the company will focus solely on “core games” by moving away from kid’s licensed games. THQ has published dozens of Nickelodeon-branded games over the years and, until 2010, published and developed games based on Pixar’s films.
This decision was likely spurred on by the huge sales of Saints Row: The Third, which has shipped 3.8 million copies since its release in November.
“THQ will be a more streamlined organization focused only on our strongest franchises. The success of Saints Row: The Third is an example of what our revised strategy and focus can achieve,” said Brian Farrell, THQ’s President and CEO.
Posted in News, PC, PS3, Xbox 360
Tagged Saints Row: The Third
Daily Scoop: January 25, 2012 – Encounters returns!
My favorite local board game store, Redcap’s Corner, re-opens today! That means D&D encounters returns tonight with a vengeance. I’m excited to see all my friends again and get back into the campaign! A campaign in which we are a party of pixies. We’re high-pitched and ready to wreck your day.
Lots of deals at Amazon following their ginormous Gold Box Event! The Deal of the Day in video games is the game of the year edition of Batman: Arkham Asylum. It’s just $14.99 today for both the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions. They’ve also got three PC download sales. The first two are both by Sega – Total War: Shogun 2 and Sonic Generations, both for $14.99. The last one is EA’s Battlefield: Bad Company 2 Vietnam expansion, and it’s on sale from $14.99 to… $14.95? What a deal?
Amazon also has their new weekly deals up. They’ve got a deal for $50 Off the Xbox 360 250GB Holiday Value Bundle with Kinect, and $30 Off the Kinect Sensor with Kinect Adventures!. They’ve also got Modern Warfare 2 for $19.99 on PC, PS3, and Xbox 360, as well as $24.99 for Call of Duty: Black Ops Used from Warehouse Deals. That’s a lot of deals!
Today’s shirt is all about Metroid: (more…)
Posted in Daily Scoop, Etcetera, News, PS3, Xbox 360
XBLA Today: Puddle, Quarrel
This week’s two new additions to the Xbox Live Arcade may sound familiar, but they also provide a unique take on their subject matter.
Puddle, which is available to download for 800 Microsoft Points ($10), won the Student Showcase prize at the 2010 Independent Gaming Festival and mixes the liquidity of Mercury with your average platformer:
What began as a student project that won a Student Showcase prize at Independent Gaming Festival at GDC 2010 is now a full-fledged downloadable game experience like nothing you’ve ever played before. Guide puddles of fluid through a variety of novel, themed environments (the human body, a garden, a foundry, and more). But to do so, you must tilt the environment, balancing each fluid’s unique properties with the environmental factors of gravity, friction, and each course’s obstacles.
Meanwhile, Quarrel, which carries a pricetag of 400 Microsoft Points ($5), crosses the word creation of Scrabble with the virtual warfare of Risk:
Quarrel is the most novel word game ever made. But don’t just take our word for it – grab it now and enter a universe where WORDS (11 points) literally speak louder than ACTIONS (8 points). Use a cool combination of word power and strategic cunning to crush your opponents and reign supreme. Come settle your differences with wordplay rather than swordplay; make verbal not chemical weapons; load up with letters not bullets and use chatter to batter your enemies into submission and rule the world. Compete to use your troops to make the highest-scoring word from the letters given then capture territories and conquer islands in this wholly original virtual board game.