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
Daily Scoop: May 2, 2011 – Console deals!
Listen, people. The Internet really wants you to buy some consoles. Not only has the Wii seemed to have dropped to $169.99 (at least, black and white consoles on Amazon still are), but now there’s also a $50 promotional credit on the 160 GB PlayStation 3 consoles. On top of that, there’s a deal on Xbox 360 consoles – buy any of the new generation Xbox 360s and get $50 in promotional credit and 1600 Xbox Live points for free. This is a really great time to get that console you don’t have!
Let’s see, what else… Mortal Kombat is still $39.99 (and the Kollector’s Edition is $85.99), Portal 2 is still $34.99 on PS3 and Xbox and $29.99 on the PC, and today’s Amazon Deal of the Day in video games is Sega of America’s Aliens vs Predator for the Xbox 360, which is just $19.99. That’s a lotta good deals!
No game-related shirts today, but as a dinosaur lover, I feel like I should share the love of today’s Qwertee:
Too adorable. <3
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…)
Daily Scoop: May 1, 2011 – May I?
It’s May 1, and there are some good deals going on this Sunday. May I offer you some of these delicious deals?
There are two big deals for today – one of the big ones is Mortal Kombat! Get it today on Amazon for just $39.99 for both PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. Today’s Amazon Deal of the Day in video games is Valve’s Portal 2, another recent release. It’s $29.99 for PC and $34.99 for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. It’s also on the cheap over at GameStop, where it’s $29.99 for PC and $39.99 for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 – and it also comes with GameStop exclusive custom bots. I loved Portal 2, and I recommend you buy this game immediately – with extreme prejudice!
In addition to this awesome Lost Boys t-shirt, there’s a great video game shirt, adorably entitled “How to Catch Your Dragon,” available over at Ript:
CUTE.
Posted in Daily Scoop, Etcetera, News
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
New Tomb Raider art is survivor-tastic
Lara Croft and the Tomb Raider reboot will appear on the cover of the June issue of PlayStation: The Official Magazine. The preview marks the beginning of a worldwide media blitz for the Crystal Dynamics-developed game and you’ll likely become very familar with the image to your left (click it to see a larger version).
This newly released piece of art once again shows Square Enix’s decision to emphasize the reboot’s focus on survival. Lara is dirty, injured (check out those do-it-yourself stitches!) and carrying a makeshift bow and climbing gear. We still don’t have any idea what the tombs in the new Tomb Raider will look like, but the game clearly has the “gritty reboot” thing down.
Tomb Raider doesn’t have a release date just yet, but we do know it’s in development for the PC, PS3 and Xbox 360. Hopefully, we’ll learn more at E3.
Posted in News, PC, PS3, Xbox 360
Tagged Tomb Raider
Next Assassin’s Creed will offer Revelations
Do you love the Assassin’s Creed series? If so, then Ubisoft wants you to visit the game’s Facebook page and help spread the word about the fourth game in the series. Sharing the news on Twitter, Facebook and through email will increase a counter on the page. After the counter reaches 100%, Ubisoft plans to post an “exclusive sneak peek” about the currently unnamed game (it’s at 19% as of 2 PM, Saturday).
If you’d prefer not to wait, the Internet sleuths at NeoGAF (via Wired Game|Life) have dug through the Flash file and discovered the game’s title: Assassin’s Creed: Revelations. They’ve also uncovered the name “Altair” in Arabic script, so we may be returning to The Crusades after two adventures in Italy.
No other details about the game have been announced, but Ubisoft confirmed that a new Assassin’s Creed game would be released sometime in 2011.
Posted in News, PC, PS3, Xbox 360
Tagged Assassin's Creed: Revelations
Redbox to offer game rentals nationwide in June
Redbox, those ubiquitous red kiosks that offer DVD rentals for $1 per day, will begin renting games nationwide on June 17.
Redbox began a test of video game rentals in selected cities back in August and the company is now ready to expand video game availibility to 21,000 machines nationwide. The rental selection will include “top releases [and] popular family and kids titles” for the PS3, Wii and Xbox 360, so don’t expect them to stock the latest games from Atlus or XSEED. At $2 per day, game rentals will be slightly more expensive than DVD rentals.
“Redbox will make discovering the latest games as easy as a trip to the local grocery, convenience or drug store,” said Joel Resnik, Vice President of Games at Redbox.
You can check the game availability of your local Redbox machine at Redbox.com/games.