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
Quantic Dream is up to something
According to the amazing information sleuth superannuation, Quantic Dream is up to something. The creators of Heavy Rain have registered seven new domain names, all with the words Play Series and Five (written as Fiv5): playseries.fr, playseries.net, playseries.de, fiv5.net, fiv5.co.uk, fiv5.de, and fiv5.fr.
Fiv5 has been trademarked in Europe by Sony Computer Entertainment Europe as well. To top it all off, Benoit Godde, recently hired by Quantic Dream, has both Five and Infraworld listed on his resume on LinkedIn (Infraworld was a title the company was working on back in 2006 that was canceled due to disinterest by publishers).
While I’m excited to hear Quantic Dream is working on another game – I love Heavy Rain – it saddens me to find out this way. I do respect (and fear) superannuation’s amazing sleuthing skills, but at the same time, I really prefer to hear about games when they’re more fleshed out – and when the company is ready to tell us about them. Nothing gets me more excited for a game than a sexy trailer or some steamy screenshots, and while I do love information, it’s almost anti-climactic to read about it on LinkedIn. Talk about a boring way to find out about a game. Either way, hopefully David Cage releases some more information now that this has surfaced.
Posted in News
Tagged Heavy Rain
Prey 2 purported to be a mash-up of lots of popular games
On the heels of the live action Prey 2 trailer, UK magazine Game Reactor has even more details for us. According to MTV’s Multiplayer Blog, the game will feature parkour like Mirror’s Edge, environmental scope akin to Assassin’s Creed 2, combat similar to Killzone, a loot system kindred to Borderlands, and thankfully that’s all they said in the article, because I’m out of synonyms for “like” at this point. Oh, and a Human Head Studios producer said, “If the first ‘Prey‘ was the Luke Skywalker version of the story, ‘Prey 2‘ is Boba Fett’s story.”
So we’ve got parkour in a giant environment with bad-ass combat and loot systems, and we’re also going to be switching gears from the equivalent of the whiny farmer to the bounty hunter? It sounds too good to be true, until you consider they’re canning any multiplayer in favor of focusing everything on a “more robust single-player campaign.” The idea there is they don’t want to compete with all the other great multiplayer games out there – but can they compete with the single-player campaigns? With this intense amount of video game culture all tossed together like the Prince rolling up a giant Katamari ball, it’s either going to be a beautiful star in the sky or a complete disaster.
EA applies bracketology to Madden NFL 12 cover athlete
Did Marquette kill your Final Four bracket yesterday? Or maybe it was Florida State. Or maybe, like President Obama, your bracket is still relatively pristine.
Whatever your bracket looks like, EA Sports is giving gamers a second chance to prove their bracket prowess with the Madden NFL 12 Bracket Challenge. EA has selected 32 players (one from each team) to compete in a single elimination tournament to determine the cover athlete of Madden NFL 12. That’s right, the recipient of the curse is on us now.
EA will reveal the full bracket on ESPN’s “SportsNation” today at 4 PM (Eastern Time) today. But they did say that Super Bowl XLV MVP Aaron Rodgers, Madden NFL 11 cover athlete Drew Brees (who won a three-way fan vote), Madden NFL 2004 cover athlete Michael Vick, Maurice Jones-Drew, Adrian Peterson and Julius Peppers are among the finalists.
Madden fans can create their own bracket by using the Madden NFL Bracket application on Facebook. The winners of each matchup will be chosen through daily voting at ESPN.com/maddenvote.
The top two bracketologists will win the Grand Prize of $2,000 and two tickets to Super Bowl XLVI. Eight 1st Place winners will receive four tickets to an NFL game of their choice. “Group Winners” will receive a copy of Madden NFL 12 when it’s released in August.
We’ll be back with the full bracket later today.
Hitman 5 ARG points to E3 reveal
The users at the Hitman Forum have apparently cracked the barcode code from IO Interactive’s alternate reality game and discovered the first screenshot for Hitman 5. While the game’s publisher (Square Enix) has yet to confirm that the image to your left is an authentic screenshot, it does feature Agent 47’s signature gloves and silencer.
Further manipulation of the barcodes also reveal a number that looks suspiciously like a date: 06-07-11. And surprise surprise, that’s the first day of the E3 expo.
So it looks like Hitman 5 is coming (which we knew) and it’ll be announced at E3 (which is nice to know, but kind of obvious). But why didn’t IO/Square Enix just come out and announce it? This viral marketing stuff is annoying.
Posted in News
Tagged E3 2011, Hitman: Absolution
Natsume Championship Wrestling on VC this week
Back before every wrestling game had to have a WWE (or WCW or ECW or TNA) license to be successful, Natsume released Natsume Championship Wrestling during the Super NES-era and wrestling fans everywhere seemed to enjoy it. With WWE All-Stars scheduled for release next week, this new addition to the Virtual Console might be a good warm-up. It’s joined this week by the WiiWare release Arcade Essentials, “a collection of five classic arcade games.”
The DSiWare Shop will also receive two new titles this week: Shapo, a balancing puzzle game; and G.G. Series: D-Tank, a shooting game where players control a tank.
More information on all four games can be found after the break. (more…)
First Person Mario gives a new perspective on Super Mario Bros.
Here’s something awesome for a lazy, 3DS-less Sunday afternoon. If you’ve ever wondered what World 1-1 of Super Mario Bros. would look like from a first person perspective, you’ve got your answer.
The video’s creator also has Real Life Mario Kart for your viewing pleasure.
Posted in Etcetera, News
Tagged Super Mario Bros.
Weekly Warp-Up: Post PAX East Edition
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!
We’re still sifting through all the awesomeness we saw at the second annual PAX East show, but in a special edition of our podcast, Mike Gutierrez, Nicole Kline, and Ryan Littlefield recorded from PAX East to talk about the games they saw, the games they played, their favorite games, and – well – GAMES!!
We got a chance to sit down with Deus Ex: Human Revolution‘s Game Director Jean-Francois Dugas for an in-depth interview. He talked about the development process, the influences on the team and Warren Specter’s thoughts on the game. We visited Bethesda and took their booth to the Brink with a hands-on preview. We also invaded the Capcom booth and played a lot of Okamiden, Super Street Fighter IV and Resident Evil: The Mercenaries 3D. Finally, we played Bastion Supergiant Games’ action RPG and talked to studio head Greg Kasavin.
Back home from PAX East, we examined the winners and losers during the 2010-2011 Video Game Awards Season. It was a good year to be Rockstar and you’ll be surprised to see who came out on top of the Alan Wake/Heavy Rain showdown.
Hit the jump for the rest of the Weekly Warp-Up. (more…)
Posted in News
New Releases: 3DS, Crysis 2, Lego Star Wars III, More
The wait for Nintendo’s handheld is almost over as the Nintendo 3DS arrives in stores this week. Available in both Cosmo Black and the awesomely two-tone Aqua Blue, the system will be available on Sunday, March 27 along with a launch lineup of 18 titles.
However, if you prefer to do your gaming on a big screen, one of the biggest first person shooters of the year, Crysis 2, will be released for the PC, PS3 and Xbox 360. More aliens can be had in the latest Lego Star Wars, which is also available this week. Lego Star Wars III: The Clone Wars will be coming to the 3DS, DS, PC, PS3, PSP, Wii and Xbox 360.
Other new releases this week include Square Enix’s Dissidia 012: Final Fantasy (PSP), Sony’s Ratchet, Jak and Sly crossover PlayStation Move Heroes (PS3) and the medieval people management of The Sims Medieval (PC)
The full list of the rest of this week’s new releases can be found after the break. (more…)