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)
- Diablo IV PC Cooled With Real Human Blood Is Still Going Strong Two Years Later, Says Guy Who Won It – Aftermath (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)
Most Recent: Articles
Michael Jackson: The Experience moonwalks onto PS3, Xbox 360 on April 12
Michael Jackson: The Experience was a big hit for Ubisoft this holiday season. How big? The game sold two million copies across the Wii, DS and PSP in North America, Europe, the Middle East and Asia. But Ubisoft was quick to point out that those numbers don’t include Japan, “which has one of the largest and most passionate concentrations of Michael Jackson fans anywhere.”
The publisher also revealed that the King of Pop will be moonwalking his way onto the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 this April. The Kinect and Move-enabled Michael Jackson game will be released on April 12 in the US and April 14 in Europe. It will include several bonus tracks not found on the Wii version including “Blood on the Dance Floor” and “I Just Can’t Stop Loving You.”
Ubisoft CEO Yves Guillemot is very excited about the upcoming PS3 and Xbox 360 version of Michael Jackson: “As the leader in the dance game genre, our teams have worked enthusiastically to build an experience that recreates the magic worlds of Michael Jackson’s videos and performances. We’re looking forward to bringing Michael Jackson The Experience to Kinect for Xbox 360 and PlayStation Move so an even bigger audience can enjoy playing the game with their friends and family too.”
Malcom McDowell joins Killzone 3, blows my brains to bits
If you plan on having an ongoing relationship with Warp Zoned, you should know I’m a die-hard fan of the Killzone series; I have the platinum trophy in Killzone 2, and had to be in the top 1% of worldwide weekly players to get it. Suffice to say, I’m utterly stunned at just how beyond epic the new story trailer is for Killzone 3. While many developers sadly use live action trailers with intensity and drama the final product never lives up to, Guerrila Games gives us an inside look at the political and military turmoil on Helghan, in the astounding visual fidelity the studio is famous for.
There seems to be a power struggle between the arms industry and the Helghast navy for control of the planet’s destiny. Malcolm McDowell voices Jorhan Stahl, CEO of Stahl Arms and Ray Winstone plays Admiral Orlock. Safe to say these guys aren’t the best of friends, and the actors have their work cut out for them in living up to Brian Cox’s performance of Scolar Visari, arguably the best portrayal of a dictator in gaming. Unfortunately Sev and Narville seem to have new voice actors, but with production values like these, it’s hard to imagine the story will be anything short of amazing.
I came.
Posted in News
Tagged Killzone 3, PS3
Donkey Kong Country Returns Review: Swingin’ Into Greatness
Watch out! Phew, that was a close one. Who’s throwing barrels, anyway? Oh wait, is that… Donkey Kong? He’s back! This time, he’s finally not flying a barrel jetpack, playing bongos, or brawling with other Nintendo characters. Do you know what this means? Donkey Kong finally has his own full game on the Wii! Now, dodging Nintendo’s legal department, it’s safe to say: It’s on like Donkey Kong! (more…)
Posted in Reviews, Top Story
Tagged Donkey Kong Country Returns, Wii
The 8 Bits of Christmas
What happens when Arthur Rankin, Jr.-esque stop-motion films join The White Stripes video for “Fell In Love With A Girl” and the most wonderful time of the year? It results in Andrew Jive’s “8-Bit Holiday” on YouTube, where Mario, Mega Man, Galaga and Ms. Pac-Man sneak out to spread some holiday cheer. The best part? They’re all made out of Legos.
With only 19,770 views as of this writing, it’s surprising that “8-Bit Holiday” hasn’t gone completely viral (maybe it was the post-Christmas posting date), though stop-motion software company Dragon posted the video on their Facebook page. Since his Tumblr is sprinkled with Pac-Man-related posts on every page, perhaps we’ll see more 8-bit tributes from Jive in the future.
Torchlight, Beyond Good & Evil, Hard Corps included in XBLA House Party 2011
Last year’s Xbox Live House Party brought Perfect Dark, Scrap Metal and the Xbox Live Game Room to the Arcade. Microsoft is attempting to top it in 2011 with the Diablo-like RPG Torchlight, an HD remake of Beyond Good & Evil, Konami’s Contra sequel Hard Corps: Uprising, the XBLA/Windows Phone 7 poker show Full House Poker and PopCap’s addictive Bejeweled Blitz Live.
The House Party begins on February 16 with Hard Corps: Uprising, Konami’s latest reimagining of the Contra series and a direct sequel to 1994’s Contra: Hard Corps. It will be followed by a new game every week until the party ends on March 16.
More details on all of this year’s party guests can be found after the jump. (more…)
Posted in News
Tagged Bejeweled Blitz Live, Beyond Good & Evil, Full House Poker, Hard Corps: Uprising, Mobile, Torchlight, Xbox 360
CES 2011: 8 million Kinect units sold; Avatar Kinect, Windows Phone 7 games announced
The 2011 Consumer Electronics Show is in full swing and Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer used the company’s keynote last night to unveil some new toys for the Kinect owner.
Avatar Kinect is a virtual chat room with Avatars, powered by Kinect, that brings “[facial] recognition, body tracking [and] even facial expressions” to your living room. As you can see from the screenshot above, Kinect-owning Xbox 360 players will be able to circle the lawn chairs and have an awesome conservation in a trailer park. OK, those Avatars are tailgating, but they’re still in a parking lot surrounded by RVs.
Ballmer also threw out some numbers during this bull session and revealed that 8 million Kinect sensors were sold this holiday season. And if these users weren’t on Xbox Live before, they are now, as Ballmer announced the online service’s total user population recently surpassed 30 million users (out of 50 million Xbox 360 systems sold worldwide).
Ballmer closed out the game portion of Microsoft’s CES discussion with a Windows Phone 7 presentation. You can check out the video below for a closer look at Microsoft’s de facto handheld system after the jump. (more…)
GameFly reports 2010’s best, raises questions on 2011
Early Wednesday morning, GameFly released several Top Ten lists, documenting the rental service’s most popular titles of 2010. As expected, GameFly’s most-rented games closely match up with the most purchased games of 2010, logging titles like Take Two’s Red Dead Redemption and the latest game in Activision’s ever-popular Call of Duty series, Call of Duty: Black Ops. GameFly’s co-founder Sean Spector states: “The GameFly community is comprised of active and dedicated gamers and we view their preferences, requests and favorites as a great barometer for what’s hot in gaming.”
Though the aforementioned shooters dominated consoles in 2010, GameFly’s handheld rental numbers seemed to thrive with RPG titles such as Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep and Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies. Could this predict an emergence of the RPG genre exclusively among handheld systems, leaving consoles solely for action games?
The cross-platform list and all of the platform-specific lists can be found below. (more…)
Posted in News
Tagged Call of Duty: Black Ops, DS, PS3, PSP, Red Dead Redemption, Wii, Xbox 360
Sony CES 2011 Keynote: 3D, TV, and Qriocity, oh my!
Sir Howard Stringer, Kaz Hirai, and the rest of the gang took the stage at CES and presented Sony’s unified strategy going forward in 2011, with bold claims that it will be the premier consumer electronics manufacturer in the US by 2013. As the title suggests, the highlights were 3D, Bravia televisions, and Qriocity, Sony’s video and music cloud-based service. The company is implementing 3D into every device imaginable, from TVs and PS3s (including Gran Turismo 5 and Uncharted 3 demos) to camcorders, Vaio laptops, and Ericsson Xperia smartphones.
Consumers looking for a new TV will have many options with the Bravia line, including choices in 3D and/or Internet TV, the latter of which includes partnerships with Google and Time Warner. Qriocity also takes a multiple device approach, allowing you to sync your music library across multiple devices to take with you.
Notably absent from the keynote was any talk of the all-but-officially-confirmed PSP Phone or PSP2. The PSP Phone is rumored to have the Xperia branding, but all that was shown was an extremely slim Android-running phone. Hopefully when these devices do get announced, they’ll carry some of the 3D, Internet, and Qriocity features we heard about tonight, provided Sony can maintain some pricing discipline.
Posted in News
Tagged Gran Turismo 5, PS3, Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception