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
FEAR 3 delayed again; new trailer dives into story
Are we sure Alma’s last name isn’t really “Nukem?” WB Games has delayed FEAR 3 again.
OK, maybe that’s a tad harsh. But the PC, PS3 and Xbox 360 shooter will miss its May release date and instead ship to stores on June 21. This is the third or fourth delay for the game (I’ve lost count), which was originally scheduled to ship last Fall.
To soften the blow, WB Games has released a new trailer detailing the FEAR story so far (spoiler warning: Alma is a crazy spirit ghost thing).
Daily Scoop: April 27, 2011 – Princess Games!
It’s Wednesday, yay! And Amazon’s having a sale on Princess games! Disney’s Tangled is $13.99 on the DS and $19.99 on the Wii, and Disney Fairies: Tinkerbell and The Lost Treasure is $13.99. As the page says, “It’s noble entertainment at commoner prices.” Who writes this stuff???
Today’s Amazon Deal of the Day in video games is Square Enix’s Bust-A-Move Universe for the 3DS. It’s $19.99 from $29.99, and is a “whole universe of fun!” Can’t beat that!
Amazon’s got loads of other deals, today, too, like the black Wii hardware bundle for $149.99 and 3D Dot Game Heroes for $13.16. Check out the whole video games clearance section for more hot deals.
No game-related shirts, but Qwertee might make you weepy today:
D:.
Nintendo blaming earthquake for slow 3DS sales
The Nintendo 3DS has sold well, really well in fact, pushing over 3.6 million units worldwide so far. But that’s shy of the 4 million Nintendo projected, leading President and CEO Satoru Iwata to conclude, “the great earthquake largely affected the sales.”
That’s some confusing logic right there, considering more 3DS units have been sold in Japan than any other region. If the entire 3DS shipment sold out in a day, how many more units could they hope to sell?
Iwata seems just as confused, changing his analysis to a lack of marketing. “We are in a situation where we need to step up our efforts to further promote the spread of Nintendo 3DS… it has become clear that we need to do a lot more to convey the value to consumers.”
Nintendo has another marketing push planned for May, when a lot of those borderline insane features become available, like the eShop, Netflix, and free access to AT&T Hot Spots. If you ask me, Nintendo’s uncharacteristic lack of a killer app upon launch is to blame, such as The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 3D and the bewildered little guy you see above.
The Witcher 2 opening level actually looks really cool
If you listen to the Warp Zoned Podcast, you’ll know I’m not a big fan of Western RPGs. So it’s saying something when even I have to admit that The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings is looking pretty awesome. CD Projekt released the dev diary above, narrated by some guy with a vague European accent. Regardless, it does a great job showing off the opening sequence, as well as the character progression and variety thereof. They even give you a taste of bar-room brawling!
The Witcher 2 will be available on PC May 17, 2011.
Posted in News, PC
Tagged The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings
LucasArts licenses Unreal Engine 3
LucasArts and Epic Games have announced a long-term contract licensing LucasArts to utilize Unreal Engine 3, across all their studios and for multiple titles. This seems kind of late in the game, especially considering the Ronin engine for The Force Unleashed games looks pretty solid on its own. But I guess it could be a great solution for multiplatform games, especially going into the future.
Mark Rein, VP of Epic Games said, “LucasArts is now primed to capitalize on Unreal Engine 3’s ability to scale across platforms, from mobile, through PC and console all the way up to the next generation of games.”
So anybody want to take a guess what these new multiplatform titles will be? Star Wars: Battlefront III, anyone?
Posted in News
Tagged Star Wars 1313
Jurassic Park delayed on PC/Mac, multiplatform launch coming Fall 2011
Last month we posted an in-depth dev diary and confirmed that Jurassic Park: The Game would have an April release date for the Mac and PC, with console versions coming later in the Fall. Telltale is scrapping that schedule, instead opting for a simultaneous multiplatform release later this year. This doesn’t seem to be an arbitrary decision, with the company genuinely wanting to make the best game possible:
We see a ton of potential in the game’s exciting mechanics and style and feel we can take what we already have in place to an even more thrilling level, so we’ve decided to continue work on the game and launch the PC/Mac version of Jurassic Park: The Game to coincide with the our multiplatform release in fall 2011.
As an apology to those who pre-ordered the first full season on Mac or PC, Telltale will refund your money and send you a voucher for a copy of any Telltale game you wish, regardless of whether you want to wait and use it for Jurassic Park later in the year.
Jurassic Park: The Game is coming to PC, Mac, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 3.
Posted in News, PC, PS3, Xbox 360
Tagged Jurassic Park
Sony says “we didn’t know hackers stole info” as CT Senator goes after company
It looks like gamers aren’t the only ones that can’t believe Sony waited as long as they did to inform consumers about their lost personal information. Connecticut Senator Richard Blumenthal has written a letter to SCEA President and CEO Jack Tretton demanding that consumers be compensated for the security breach and Sony’s failure to notify PlayStation Network users in a timely manner.
The Senator is asking Sony to provide PSN users with free access to credit reporting services for two years (this service is actually already provided by the federal government) and asked that “affected individuals [..] be provided with sufficient insurance to protect them from the possible financial consequences of identity theft.”
While I’m sure gamers everywhere appreciate Blumenthal going to bat for them, Sony is actually claiming that they just learned of the user information theft on Monday, April 25th. A Sony spokesman posted the following timeline of events on the PlayStation.Blog late last night:
There’s a difference in timing between when we identified there was an intrusion and when we learned of consumers’ data being compromised. […] It was necessary to conduct several days of forensic analysis, and it took our experts until yesterday to understand the scope of the breach.
The forehead-slapping stupidity of that statement makes me think the Senator might have a point. Sony’s failure to admit it was a strong possibiliy that hackers accessed the personal information of 77 million PSN users on the 19th is inexcusable.
Maybe it really is the “ApocalyPS3” for Sony…
Posted in News, PS3, PSP
Tagged ApocalyPS3 2011
Sony admits hackers stole personal info, possibly credit card numbers as well
First, the good news. Sony has “a clear path” to bringing the PlayStation Network back online. The software giant expects some services to be back online within a week. It’s not much, but a preliminary timetable is more than we knew before.
Now the bad news… HACKERS HAVE STOLEN YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION FROM SONY! According to Sony, during the intrusion, an outside party obtained the following information from PSN users:
[N]ame, address (city, state, zip), country, email address, birthdate, PlayStation Network/Qriocity password and login, and handle/PSN online ID. It is also possible that your profile data, including purchase history and billing address (city, state, zip), and your PlayStation Network/Qriocity password security answers may have been obtained. […] If you have provided your credit card data through PlayStation Network or Qriocity, out of an abundance of caution we are advising you that your credit card number (excluding security code) and expiration date may have been obtained.
While Sony states they are still investigating the security breach, I can’t believe they just learned what personal information (and possible credit card information) the hackers gained access to today. Sony should have notified PS3 owners about this possibility a week ago and I’m shocked that they, quite literally, said nothing over the holiday weekend.
More information is available at the PlayStation.Blog.
Posted in News, PS3, PSP
Tagged ApocalyPS3 2011