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
Activision: “True Crime would’ve been an 85”
Activision’s Head of Developer Relations, Dan Winters, recently sat down with GamesIndustry.biz to talk a little about the megapublisher’s developer culture and possibly refute some of that “evil empire” talk. He also touched on the recently canned True Crime: Hong Kong and revealed that Activision actually had great confidence in the quality of the title. Its cancellation appears to have been strictly business (specifically, it wouldn’t have done as much business as Red Dead Redemption):
We think that the game was tracking to be a very good game. The question was really the size of the prize based on how good it could be. We are confident that thing would of been eighty plus. Eighty five maybe. […] But…The challenges in the market place right now, when you’re talking about open-world games that are going to compete with titles like Red Dead Redemption, expectations for the consumer are really high.
Winters would go on to hint that Activision might be willing to offer the nearly complete game to another publisher: “[True Crime: Hong Kong] would have been, and still might end up being, a very successful mid-tier opportunity for someone.”
Who can say whether Activision is really the evil empire or not? But if they’re cancelling a nearly complete game that they think is worthy of some great review scores, I’d say that’s pretty frickin’ evil.
Posted in News
Tagged PC, PS3, Sleeping Dogs, Xbox 360
SSX to come down the mountain in January
Electronic Arts held a press event a few days ago where they revealed a little bit more about SSX. Most of the presentation should be familar to anyone who read the SSX team’s interview with Game Informer last week. But Creative Director Todd Batty did reveal one new bit of info about SSX: it’ll be released for the PS3 and Xbox 360 in January 2012.
Batty also confirmed that SSX will be playable at this year’s E3 Expo and that the game will feature “spontaneous avalanches,” which will no doubt make the descent down the mountain even deadlier.
I haven’t played an SSX game in ten years and this already sounds too awesome for words.
[Source: Joystiq]
World’s Biggest Pac-Man brings user-created mazes to your browser
Microsoft and Namco Bandai have teamed up with developer Soap Creative to bring The World’s Biggest Pac-Man to your Internet browser. Specifically designed for Microsoft’s Internet Explorer 9, the game will run in any HTML5-capable browser.
So how did The World’s Biggest Pac-Man become the biggest Pac-Man maze in the world? The game actually allows players to create mazes that can be attached to the title’s massive continuous maze. And each new maze is linked through the secret passageways that Pac-Man is famous for. The World’s Biggest Pac-Man has been live for a little over 24 hours and users have already created over 1,800 mazes.
“We are giving the world one of its favorite video games through the browser, in a fun and engaging way that truly showcases how developers can deliver a new class of web experiences by taking advantage of modern web standards and hardware acceleration,” Microsoft Australia “developer evangelist” Michael Kordahi said.
While the game is web-only for now, I would bet my last Power Pellet that a “best of” pack will make it’s way to the Xbox Live Arcade someday.
Final Fantasy V out on European PSN
We caught word a little more than a week ago that Final Fantasy V was being brought to the PSN with some additional cutscenes. It seems the European PlayStation Store has updated, bringing FFV to the PSOne Classics section.
First Vagrant Story, now this? Someone at SCE Europe must have a good connection at Square Enix. Maybe Sir Howard Stringer is a big fan of Ex-Death… Oh well, hopefully it just means we can expect it next week. If not, our PSPs can be occupied with Final Fantasy IV: The Complete Collection, coming out next Tuesday.
Posted in News, PS3, PSP
Tagged Final Fantasy V
Logos for Sonic Generations and next Mario & Sonic may have leaked
It’s nothing confirmed, but the Sonic Stadium forums have stumbled upon images for the anticipated multi-generational Sonic Generations as well as Mario & Sonic at the London 2012 Olympic Games. You can see the pic of the latter after the break.
I know it probably wouldn’t be the final box art, but I kind of like that image of the two Sonics with just a white background. It would be pleasantly simplistic and non-pretentious, and possibly get me more excited for the game (if that’s at all a legitimate reason). Sonic Generations will be coming out this year for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, while little information at all (technically, it hasn’t even been announced yet) is known about the next Olympic mash up of the Mushroom Kingdom and… the Zones. (more…)
Posted in 3DS, News, PS3, Wii, Xbox 360
Tagged Mario & Sonic at the London 2012 Olympic Games, Sonic Generations
Disgaea 4 special editions announced, pretty insane
NIS America is looking to get everyone pumped for the latest entry in their Strategy RPG series, Disgaea 4, by announcing the special edition options fans will be able to indulge in when the game hits stores.
In addition to the regular Blu-Ray, players will be able to get the Premium Edition and the Super Premium Edition. The former entails the game, a Fuka figure, the soundtrack, and an artbook. If you opt for the more super version, you get all that plus nine, you read that right, nine exclusive figures that NIS considers must haves for any hardcore Disgaea fan. You can check out six of them here, but the rest have yet to be revealed.
No word on pricing has been released, but I’d strongly recommend anyone looking to grab these to pre-order, which the site says starts July 2011, as niche titles like Disgaea sometimes have limited production runs. We’ll have more details on pricing as the game draws closer to its September 2011 release date for PlayStation 3.
Posted in News, PS3
Tagged Disgaea 4: A Promise Unforgotten
Daily Scoop: April 14, 2011 – A Game of Thrones
News Editor Mike Gutierrez and I are heading to a screening of “A Game of Thrones” tonight, and I’m pretty excited. Why? Not because of the upcoming video game, but because I read these books back in 2005 and I can’t remember much from them and I really, really don’t feel like re-reading them, but I think Boromir is going to do just great as Ned Stark. Also, I’m a little concerned about the video game development so far, because – SPOILER ALERT – there really aren’t dragons in the books. At least, not right away. And certainly not gigantic and threatening and village-destroying ones.
Speaking of spoilers and dragons and Boromir, today’s Amazon Deal of the Day in video games is Namco’s Active Life Outdoor Challenge for the Wii. It’s $34.99 down from $49.99, and promises to be “A fun and easy way to get off the couch and get hearts pumping!” That sounds really exciting! It’s sure to train your dragon and prepare you for a grueling, dragon-filled RTS.
I think a few people are going to be excited about today’s t-shirt over at Ript:
Super Sesame Street Fighter! Heyooooo!
Posted in Daily Scoop, Etcetera, News