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: Articles
NBA 2K13 slams it home on October 2; tips off at Wii U launch too
It’s bad luck to change anything in the middle of a hot streak. Your favorite headband, your driving route to the court, even your underwear. It all has to stay the same. Every athlete knows this.
It looks like the people at 2K Sports are a superstitious bunch as well. Just as they’ve done every year since 2007, the publisher plans to release NBA 2K13 for the PC, PS3, PSP, Wii, and Xbox 360 during the first week of October (October 2 to be exact). A Wii U version is also in development and will ship during the “holiday season.”
NBA 2K13 is, as always, in development at Visual Concepts. This year, the developer plans to include a new downloadable NBA All-Star content package with every pre-order of the game. Buying early on the PS3 and Xbox 360 will net fans a trio of star-studded bonuses:
[The NBA All-Star] add-on content will be set in Houston, the site of the 2013 NBA All-Star Game and will allow fans to stage their own NBA All-Star Game, including three NBA All-Star events – the Foot Locker Three Point Shootout, BBVA Rising Stars Challenge, and the Sprite Slam Dunk Contest featuring all-new intuitive, pick-up-and-play controls.
Gamers can pit the NBA’s current superstars against classic players in both the Foot Locker Three Point Shootout and Sprite Slam Dunk Contest. Rosters for both the BBVA Rising Stars Challenge and 2013 NBA All-Star Game will feature the 2012 All-Stars, with dynamic updates to the 2013 rosters once the participants are announced.
“The NBA All-Star package is our way saying ‘thank you’ to fans for their ongoing love of the NBA 2K series,” said Jason Argent, Vice President of Marketing for 2K Sports. “This content provides a ton of depth and value to our fans, and it’s just the beginning of a lot of big news about NBA 2K13.”
Square Enix’s E3 2012 lineup features Tomb Raider, Hitman, Sleeping Dogs, a lot more
Square Enix is using this year’s E3 Expo to show off all the shiny new toys it acquired from Eidos and Activision over the last few years.
Those toys include the rebooted Tomb Raider; Hitman: Absolution, Agent 47’s next mission; and Sleeping Dogs, the Activision open-world game that was previously known as True Crime: Hong Kong.
Also on hand will be a slew of handheld titles (correction… 3DS titles) including Theatrhythm Final Fantasy, Heroes of Ruin, and Kingdom Hearts 3D: Dream Drop Distance. A new Final Fantasy game for iOS and Android, Final Fantasy Dimensions, will also make its debut at this year’s big show.
Finally, the publisher plans to showcase Quantum Conundrum, one of my favorite games from PAX East.
Hit the jump for Square Enix’s complete E3 lineup. (more…)
XBLA Today: Mad Riders, Golden Axe, Streets of Rage
It’s Wednesday and three new games have been added to the Xbox Live Arcade today. The lone new title this week is Mad Riders, an off-road racer from Dead Island developer Techland. It’s been priced at 800 Microsoft Points ($10) and promises 45 “stunning” tracks:
Mad Riders is an adrenaline-fueled off-road arcade racing game, that will let you perform amazing aerial stunts and race on over 45 stunning tracks from all over the world, at breathtaking speeds.
Also available this week are two Sega collections from the Genesis era: the Golden Axe Collection and the Streets of Rage Collection. Both compilations also carry a price of 800 Microsoft Points ($10) each.
Posted in News, Xbox 360
Tagged Golden Axe Collection, Mad Riders, Streets of Rage Collection
Doom 3: BFG Edition coming to PC, PS3, Xbox 360
While the development of Doom 4 continues to be ignored by Bethesda, the publisher has announced that id Software plans to go backward before they go forward with Doom 3: BFG Edition. The remastered game will be available for the PC, PS3, and Xbox 360 this Fall.
The BFG Edition brings together almost every piece of Doom content every released by id including Doom 3, the Resurrection of Evil expansion, and a new set of levels known as “The Lost Mission.” The collection also includes Doom and Doom II: Hell on Earth in their original hellish glory.
You could easily call the BFG Edition the ultimate edition of Doom 3 as it’ll also include “support for 3D TVs, 5.1 surround sound, improved rendering and lighting, Achievements, Trophies, and a new check point save system.” According to Bethesda, the controls have been fine-tuned to make Doom 3 a better experience on consoles. And for PC gamers, Carmack is promising that the DFG Edition will be compatible with “head-mounted displays.”
As part of that fine-tuning process, id is also adding an “armor-mounted flashlight” so players can wield a gun and shine a flashlight at the same time. It only took about a decade.
Resistance: Burning Skies, Pure Chess, more added to PS Store
Sony has performed their weekly update on the PlayStation Store and added a pair of new Vita games, a pair of new PSN games, and a pair of new full PS3 games.
This week’s Vita update features Sony’s new FPS for the handheld, Resistance: Burning Skies. Also available is a chess simulator, Pure Chess.
And speaking of Pure Chess, the game is also available on the PSN. Both versions include PS3/Vita cross-platform play, but sadly, each version of the game is a separate download. So if you want it on both the PSN and the Vita, you’ll have to buy it twice. If you’d prefer something a little less cerebral in your PSN downloads, also new is the off-road racer Mad Riders.
On the PS3 Full Game front, Sony has added Assassin’s Creed: Revelations and Rayman Origins to the store this week.
Finally, there’s more Rayman in the PS2 Classics section as Rayman Arena has also been added as well as a Vita demo of Gravity Rush.
Hit the jump for a complete rundown on all of these titles, and head over to the PlayStation Blog for a look at this week’s new game add-ons. (more…)
Posted in News
Tagged Assassin's Creed: Revelations, Mad Riders, PS3, Rayman Origins, Resistance: Burning Skies, Vita
Snapshot puzzling its way onto PSN, Vita this Fall
Indie developer Retro Affect have announced that their debut game, Snapshot, a 2D platform-puzzler, will be heading to the PlayStation Network and PS Vita this Fall, and will handily feature cross-platform saves. Nominated for an IGF Award back in 2009, developers Kyle Pulver and David Carrigg have since been expanding and polishing the game for a console release.
In what sounds like a simple yet brilliant idea, the game features an amnesiac robot named Picon on an adventure to discover his origins. He has in his possession a powerful camera that can take photos of the surrounding landscape, and to paste that photo elsewhere. Players will then be able to manipulate the photographs in order to overcome obstacles or solve puzzles.
As Retro Affect told the PlayStation Blog, “Our goal is to make awesome games that resonate with the feel of classic gaming flavor, but with a splash of something fresh.” With the current Fall schedule oversaturated by sequels and first-person shooters, Snapshot could very well follow in the footsteps of Journey, offering something fun and unique.
Retro Affect have plans to push the game onto Windows PC, Mac OSX, and Linux after the release on Sony’s systems.
Castlevania: Lords of Shadow – Mirror of Fate outed by Nintendo Power
After last month’s tease, Nintendo Power has finally revealed their exclusive first look at the new entry into the Castlevania franchise. With an overly long subtitle, Castlevania: Lords of Shadow – Mirror of Fate is a sequel to the 2010 reboot of the franchise that launched on the PS3 and Xbox 360. Best of all, Mirror of Fate is being developed by the same studio, Spanish-based Mercury Steam.
Little else is known thus far, although it has been revealed that the main protagonist is not Gabriel Belmont from Castlevania: Lords of Shadow, but rather a veritable Belmont Bunch. Mirror of Fate will feature four protagonists including Simon Belmont, the original vampire killer, and Trevor Belmont, who first appeared in Castlevania III: Dracula’s Curse on the NES. The remaining two characters have yet to be revealed.
As the original Belmont, we all know Simon’s story. Wielding the “Vampire Killer” whip, he stormed Castlevania and whupped Dracula. But he was not alone. In the NES timeline, Trevor was the first Belmont to defeat Dracula. However, as this new entry is set in the reimagined universe, it remains to be seen how Simon or Trevor will fit into the new history.
In addition to the return of the Belmonts, Mirror of Fate will be a return to the “Metroidvania” style of play the franchise made famous. The game will focus more on exploration than combat with a 2.5D view throughout most of the game. But there will be plenty of fighting as Trevor will wield the Combat Cross and various magical spells while Simon cracks his whip and brings back other NES items like throwing axes and holy water.
Given the end scenes of Castlevania: Lords of Shadow, it would be a safe bet that they’ll be meeting Gabriel soon enough. More information will undoubtedly be revealed at Konami’s pre-E3 event tomorrow.
[Source: Nintendo Power via Go Nintendo, About]
Posted in 3DS, News
Tagged Castlevania: Lords of Shadow - Mirror of Fate, E3 2012
DeadSpace.com confirms Dead Space 3 with hidden text, graphic novel-style trailer
A few weeks ago, EA revealed that a new entry in the Dead Space series will be released during the company’s current fiscal year (which ends March 31, 2013). Today, the publisher revealed a new teaser trailer for the game and confirmed that it’s definitely Dead Space 3.
While the trailer (which you can find above) doesn’t come out and say it belongs to Dead Space 3, the source code of DeadSpace.com is littered with hidden text revealing the title as well as confirmaing the existence of a co-op mode. But one thing EA is willing to publicly show us is the first details of the game’s plot, which do not include everyone’s favorite necromorph hunter, Isaac Clarke:
While patrolling the planet Uxor, Earthgov Sergeant John Carver witnesses an attack on the Marker Site he guards which changes his life forever. John must now fight his way through a colony now in complete chaos as he begins to discover how important he is in fighting the Necromorph plague.
This is just the start of John Carver’s saga in the Dead Space Universe.
A countdown clock on the site further confirms that Dead Space 3 will receive a proper debut during next week’s E3 Expo.
Posted in News
Tagged Dead Space 3, E3 2012