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
More details about the Retro VGS console revealed
Retro Media, the people behind the Retro VGS console, have updated their online FAQ and confirmed a few more details about the cartridge-based system.
On the hardware side, the Retro Media plans to eschew the use of Secure Digital (SD) cards or USB flash memory drives in the Retro VGS. Instead, the company has opted for an archival type of EEPROM cartridge that is rated to retain data for 100 years. This attempt to create a timeless console even bleeds into the system’s firmware, which will be locked and update free.
Developers will have the ability to take a Retro VGS cartridges and add additional functionality to them, similar to Nintendo’s use of the Super FX chip, to produce games not possible by the base system. This process will also allow developers to rewrite the console’s hardware configuration to more closely resemble a series of classic consoles:
The Retro VGS will have its own cool configurations (ways to make a game), and it can also be hardware-configured to be other old-school architectures that a lot of developers are used to developing for. Specifically, and at this current time, it’s an FPGA and ARM system. If a developer wants to make a Neo Geo game, they would include an HDL (Hardware Description Language) file that configures the FPGA to operate like a Neo Geo. The developer would code their game to run against the Neo Geo platform. This HDL code along with the actual Neo Geo game will be on the cartridge. Once that cartridge is placed in the Retro VGS, it will become a Neo Geo and play that game. So in this case, the language is: 68000 and Z80 code.
If you wanted to do a new Atari 2600 styled game, you’d include a 2600 HDL file that configures the FPGA to replicate the logic of the original 2600 hardware and then you’d include your new 2600 game on that cartridge too. These two files are then paired up on the cartridge and when plugged into the RETRO VGS, will turn the console into a 2600.
Finally, Retro Media confirmed that the system will come bundled with a pack-in game. Adventures of Tiny Knight, developed by CollectorVision, will be a RPG platformer that’s heavily inspired by Westone’s Wonder Boy series.
A retail price for the Retro VGS has yet to be determined, but the Kickstarter campaign to help fund the creation of the console will begin on September 14.
Sony will host PlayStation Experience 2015 in San Francisco this December
Sony packed the inaugural PlayStation Experience with a ton of announcements and gave attendees of the two-day convention a chance to play dozens of upcoming PS3, PS4, and Vita games for the first time. While many assumed the event would be a one-time thing to celebrate the platform’s 20th anniversary, Sony has other plans. Earlier this week, the consolemaker announced that PlayStation Experience 2015 will be held in San Francisco on December 5 and December 6.
The convention will be held at the Moscone West, a tri-level exhibition hall that’s about a mile from the Bay Bridge. So it’s safe to assume that a huge number of titles will once again be on display this year.
While Sony isn’t ready to talk about which game will be on display, they have begun selling tickets to the event at the official PlayStation Experience website. Two-day passes have been priced at $75 (discounted to $60 if you buy before September 20) while single-day passes are $45 (Saturday) and $40 (Sunday). A “Capcom Cup VIP Package Add-On” is also available for $75 if you’d like front row seats for the finale of the Capcom Pro Tour.
More information about this year’s PlayStation Experience can be found at the PlayStation Blog.
Posted in News, PS3, PS4, Vita
Tagged PlayStation Experience 2015
Activision reveals Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 5 soundtrack
As with the recent musical offerings from Guitar Hero Live and Rock Band 4, the majority of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 5‘s soundtrack looks fairly unfamiliar to me. I think I recognize maybe three or four of these bands… which is made much more difficult when none of them are Rage Against the Machine or The Ramones. But if you love Cloud Nothings, Connie Price and the Keystones, New Politics, and The Schitzophonics, there’s probably something for you to enjoy on the soundtrack.
Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 5 will be released for the PS4 and Xbox One on September 29 with the PS3 and Xbox 360 version scheduled to follow on November 10. The full soundtrack is available after the break. (more…)
Weekly Warp-Up: Summer Dead Zone 2015 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…
With the E3 Expo and Gamescom in the rearview mirror, it’s time to enter that dead zone where there’s very little news coming down the pike and even fewer new games ahead of the Fall rush. But a few things of note did happen this week.
For example, Our own Josh Griffiths helped produce an English adaptation of the Metal Gear Solid audio drama that was first released in 1998 in Japan. Also this week, Blizzard confirmed that they are hiring for an “Unannounced Diablo Project.” And Jonathan Nolan said that his HBO-bound Westworld remake looked to Red Dead Redemption and BioShock for inspiration. There’s even the rather scandalous news that a video of Fallout 4‘s Gamescom demo is now viewable on Pornhub.
The lengths some fans will go to. Thankfully, it’s easy to find the rest of this week’s important news. It’s available after the break. (more…)
Posted in News
New Releases: LBX Little Battlers Experience, Dungeon Travelers 2, Madden 16 Bundle, More
Just three new releases will be available on store shelves this week before we ask if you’re ready for some football.
This week’s biggest new game is also, in many ways, its smallest. LBX: Little Battlers Experience was developed by Level-5 and will be published by Nintendo for the 3DS. Based on the popular manga and anime series also created by Level-5, LBX: Little Battlers Experience follows a group of kids who create tiny palm-sized robots that do battle in slightly less-tiny arenas.
Also available this week is Dungeon Travelers 2: The Royal Library & The Monster Seal, a turn-based RPG for the Vita from Atlus. Taking place entirely in a first-person view, players will delve deep into a series of dungeons to battle “monster girls.” Meanwhile, Helldivers: Super Earth Ultimate Edition is a disc-based release of the popular PS4 twin-stick shooter. The “Super Earth Ultimate Edition” will include download codes for the PS3 and Vita versions of the game as well as all 11 expansion packs, the Bonus Weapons pack, and other extra content.
Finally, the Xbox One-exclusive Madden NFL 16 1TB System Bundle will give brand new Xbox One owners the chance to play EA’s yearly football simulation a week earlier than everybody else and a year-long subscription to EA Access. I suppose current Xbox One owners could also partake in this deal, but they’d have to purchase a second Xbox One system to do it…
Actually, I think Microsoft would be completely OK with that.
Posted in 3DS, News, PS4, Vita, Xbox One
Tagged Helldivers, Madden NFL 16
English adaptation of 1998’s Metal Gear Solid Audio Drama released
Hey everyone, I made a thing. In addition to being a multi-talented writer here at Warp Zoned, I’m also a connoisseur of the arts. Does that sound good, or is it too pretentious? Either way, I think I’ve outdone myself.
Introducing the first English adaptation of the Metal Gear Audio Drama, which I produced.
In 1998, longtime Metal Gear military adviser Motosada Mori wrote an audio drama for Japanese radio simply called Metal Gear Solid. Konami, together with Nippon Cultural Broadcasting, eventually released the 12 episodes of the show across two CDs. However, the series never left Japan, presumably because we Americans haven’t listened to a radio play after everyone thought War of the Worlds was a real alien invasion.
Actually, there’s some debate as to whether or not that happened, but you get the point.
Despite its name, the Metal Gear Solid audio drama wasn’t an adaptation of the original PSone game, but instead a series of totally original stories. You see, Mori was interested in becoming a writer, so he wrote the radio play to break into the business, and he used the Metal Gear franchise because that’s what he’d been working on and it was popular. He came up with his own plot, three loosely connected adventures actually, and all featuring new Metal Gear stories. As far as I can ascertain, Kojima himself had nothing to do with this series. In fact I can’t even find any evidence of him ever mentioning it.
A lot of care was put into translating the Metal Gear Audio Drama into English. Editing a translation provided by MetalGearSolid.net and mixing the episodes together took several weeks. And my voice actors, many of whom are Metal Gear fans, worked just as long to make sure they got every line right.
The series features the sterling voices of Kristyn Mass (Meryl Silverburgh), Stig Syntangen (Captain), Yui Hisiashi, Jimmy Cooper (Colonel Campbell), Terrance Nicholson, and Cliff Thompson (Solid Snake), as well as many more. Popular YouTuber and Metal Gear fanatic YongYea is also among the ranks of the performers. I even brought on composer Yui Hisaishi to create a brand new music track, which you can hear throughout the series, and briefly in the Animated Showcase Trailer.
You can listen to the series on YouTube for the subtitled version, or you can download individual episodes from Soundcloud. A new episode will be available every Friday for the next few months.
Treyarch wants to show you that CoD: Black Ops III is all about momentum in new trailer
It’s time to start running!
Treyarch has a released a new video tutorial for Call of Duty: Black Ops III that delves deep into the game’s movement system. Developers David Vonderhaar and Dan Bunting talk about unlimited sprinting, thrust jumping, and wall running as they discuss the ways that momentum can be used to your advantage in the game.
Are you ready to try it out yourself? You won’t have to wait long. The Call of Duty: Black Ops III beta test begins next week for players who’ve pre-ordered the game on the PS4. And don’t forget, the game will be available for the PC, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, and Xbox One on November 6.
Xbox Store Today: The Bridge, Super Mega Baseball: Extra Innings, Commander Cherry’s Puzzled Journey
“M.C. Escher meets Isaac Newton” is how developer The Quantum Astrophysicists Guild describes their puzzle platformer The Bridge. After debuting on the PC in 2013, the game eventually worked its way over to the Xbox 360 later that year. Now, its available for the Xbox One (through the Xbox Games Store) and its sure to please fans of puzzle platformers everywhere.
Also available today is Super Mega Baseball: Extra Innings, a comical baseball sim that actually offers “a deep baseball simulation with accurate physics and comprehensive statistics tracking.”
Finally, Commander Cherry’s Puzzled Journey is a Kinect-powered puzzle platformer that asks players to contort their bodies to create platforms for the titular Commander Cherry.
More information about all of these games is available after the break. (more…)
Posted in News, Xbox One
Tagged Super Mega Baseball, The Bridge