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
First wave of Xbox Originals include Atari landfill dig documentary, Halo TV series, more
A film crew from Microsoft’s Xbox Originals production studio was knee-deep in refuse this past weekend as part of their search for the fabled burial site of “millions” of unsold E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial cartridges. The excavation of the New Mexican landfill will serve as the centerpiece to Atari: Game Over, one of the first films in development for Microsoft’s streaming video service. With the excavation a success, Microsoft has decided to unveil all 12 projects that are currently in production within the Xbox Originals office.
The first two Xbox Originals productions will be available for your viewing pleasure this June. They are Bonnaroo, a “live concert destination” for those who cannot attend the annual festival, and Every Street United, a documentary series on street soccer that will culminate in a championship match held during the World Cup this July.
Atari: Game Over will air sometime this year as part of the Signal To Noise documentary series, which will focus on “little known stories of how modern technology has radically altered the way we interact with our world.” And don’t forget, Microsoft still has Steven Spielberg’s Halo Television Series and Ridley Scott’s Halo Digital Feature in production as well.
Looking further out, the studio plans to produce Humans, a series set in a world where life-like robots co-exist with humanity; Deadlands, which is based on the popular pen-and-paper campaign; Extraordinary Believers, a new show from the Robot Chicken team; Fearless, a reality series that follows “individuals who risk their lives to make the world a better place;” Gun Machine, a series based on Warren Ellis’ hardboiled detective novel; Winterworld, a post-apocalyptic series set in an icy future; and an untitled show from the JASH comedy collective.
Every Xbox Original will be viewable through the Xbox Video app, which is available for the Xbox One, Xbox 360, Windows 8, and Windows Phone 8. Complete details on all 12 projects can be found after the break. (more…)
Sportsfriends will bring multiplayer mayhem to PS3, PS4 on May 6
The Die Gute Fabrik collective (which is German for “The Good Factory”) has announced that their manic multiplayer game, Sportsfriends, will be released for the PS3 and PS4 on May 6. The game, a retro-styled collection of four distinct games, is priced at $14.99 and if you purchase the PS3 version through the PlayStation Store, you’ll receive an additional PS4 download for free. Strangely, it doesn’t work the other way around).
Each game in the Sportsfriends collection focuses heavily on local multiplayer play in ways that you’ve never seen before:
- “BaraBariBall” is a Smash Bros./basketball hybrid where players attempt to keep a ball away from the other team, scoring points when the balls hits the ground on their side.
- “Super Pole Riders” is competitive pole-vaulting (and yes, you can make pole-vaulting competitive).
- “Hokra” is a two-on-two soccer-style game that places four goals on the field and gives extra points for how long you keep the ball in the net.
- Finally, “Johann Sebastian Joust” is a party game that encourages players “to jostle your opponents’ controllers while protecting your own.”
Sportsfriends is also in the works for PC platforms (Windows, Mac, Linux) and will be available to download through Steam soon.
Posted in News, PC, PS3, PS4
Tagged Sportsfriends
Challenge Carnage in this Launch Trailer for The Amazing Spider-Man 2 game
The Amazing Spider-Man 2 will launch for the PC, PS3, PS4, Wii U, and Xbox 360 tomorrow (a 3DS version is also in the works), so Activision has one more trailer to show us. In addition to appearances from the Green Goblin, Black Cat, Electro, Kraven the Hunter, and a surprisingly spry Kingpin, the Launch Trailer confirms that Carnage, the Symbiote-infected alter-ego of serial killer Kletus Cassidy, will tangle with Spider-Man in the game.
The film the game is adapted from, which is also known as The Amazing Spider-Man 2, will open in theaters on Friday.
Weekly Warp-Up: Star Wars EU RIP + ET in the Desert 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…
Our PAX East 2014 coverage continues with an analysis of Bethesda’s demo presentation of The Evil Within. We’ve also filed our first “Seen At PAX East 2014” entry with a quick look at the excellent twin-stick shooter We Are Doomed.
The Warp Zoned staff even got together to discuss PAX East 2014 in Continue Countdown #2. Our chat began with The Evil Within and quickly drifted into a discussion about Beyond Good & Evil 2, Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel, Disney Infinity 2.0, The Last of Us Remastered, Super Mario Bros. 20, Super Smash Bros. 4, and The Behemoth’s Game 4. Finally this week, Mike Ryan dusted off Ubisoft’s next-gen upgrade of Rayman Legends and gave it a review.
That’s it for the big stores, but more news from the week that was can be found after the break. (more…)
Posted in News
New Releases: Mario Golf: World Tour, Kirby: Triple Deluxe, Amazing Spider-Man 2, More
Spider-Man, Spider-Man, does whatever a spider can… except not on the Xbox One. Activision will not release their game adaptation of The Amazing Spider-Man 2 on Microsoft’s next-gen console this week due to unforeseen (and currently unknown) production problems. But the game will make it to nearly every other platform including the 3DS, PC, PS3, PS4, Wii U, and Xbox 360. A mobile version for iOS and Android devices will also be available.
Also set to be released this week is a pair of 3DS games from Nintendo. Kirby: Triple Deluxe brings the pink puffball to the 3DS for the first time while Mario tees it up on the links one more time in Mario Golf: World Tour.
Finally this week, Ubisoft will release Child of Light on the PC as well as through every console download service (PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One, Wii U).
A complete list of this week’s new releases can be found after the break. (more…)
Posted in 3DS, News, PC, PS3, PS4, Wii U, Xbox 360
Tagged Child of Light, Kirby: Triple Deluxe, Mario Golf: World Tour, The Amazing Spider-Man 2
E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial Atari cartridges found in New Mexico landfill
While it was long suspected that millions of E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial cartridges were buried in an Alamogordo, New Mexico landfill after the great “Video Game Crash of 1983” an Xbox-sponsored dig has finally proven that the failed console company did indeed bury a variety of unsold cartridges in the desert. Historical sources (such as The New York Times) stated the mass burial as fact at the time, but over the years, a number of former Atari executives denied (and occasionally, confirmed) that the cartridges had been discarded.
Today’s dig is part of a planned documentary due to be distributed through Xbox Live by the newly-formed Xbox Entertainment Studios. Zak Penn, the co-writer of X-Men: The Last Stand and The Incredible Hulk is leading the dig as well as directing the documentary.
Before the dig began, Penn told IGN: “Other than garbage and the truth, I have no idea what we’ll find. I think that’s what’s exciting, we won’t know exactly what’s down there until they start digging.”
Well, now we know (knowing is half the battle). One of video gaming’s great urban legends is a legend no more. It is truth. And that’s kind of awesome.
Star Wars EU wiped clean; All future movies, books, games to be part of one continuity
We all expected it, but Lucasfilm made it official yesterday by doing away with the existing Star Wars Expanded Universe in preparation for Episode VII. Originally infamous for the multiple levels of canonicity it imposed on the franchise, going forward, every Star Wars project produced by Lucasfilm (including all movies, games, and books) will hold an equal place in franchise’s continuity. This includes both of EA’s in-production games: DICE LA’s Star Wars: Battlefront and Visceral’s “open world” game.
“We have an unprecedented slate of new Star Wars entertainment on the horizon,” said Kathleen Kennedy, Lucasfilm’s President. “We’re set to bring Star Wars back to the big screen, and continue the adventure through games, books, comics, and new formats that are just emerging. This future of interconnected storytelling will allow fans to explore this galaxy in deeper ways than ever before.”
In addition to the six movies, two previous Star Wars television productions will remain valid in the new continuity: The Clone Wars and the upcoming Rebels. But that doesn’t mean that your favorite Star Wars novels will fall into the Holiday Special hole. Many of the books, including the Thrawn Trilogy, will be republished under the “Legends” banner. However, Lucasfilm was quick to point out that “the universe that readers knew is changing, it is not being discarded.” New writers may use previously published EU material in the new continuity, with the approval of the new Lucasfilm Story Group, of course.
And about those future books… io9 has revealed that the first Star Wars book in the new continuity will be September’s A New Dawn, which will serve as a prequel to Rebels. It will be followed by Tarkin on November 11, and Heir to the Jedi and Lords of the Sith in early 2015.
So say farewell to the characters from all the fantastic Star Wars games over the years. Shadows of the Empire, Jedi Knight, Rogue Squadron, Knights of the Old Republic, The Force Unleashed, and many others… they may be gone, but they’ll all live on in our memory banks.
Posted in News, PC, PS4, Xbox One
Tagged Star Wars: Battlefront, Star Wars: Visceral
XBL Store Today: Dustforce
Dustforce, Capcom’s janitorial platformer, is now available to download on the Xbox 360 through the console’s Xbox Live Game Store. Previously released for the PS3 and Vita in February, Dustforce carries the same $9.99 price on the Xbox 360.
Here’s what it’s all about, in case “janitorial platformer” didn’t tip you off:
Dustforce ($9.99)
Clean up the world with style! As an acrobatic janitor, you are an adept force against dust and disorder. Leap and dash off walls and ceilings, and deftly traverse precarious environments. Cleanse each level swiftly and thoroughly to achieve mastery in this 2D sweep-’em-up platformer.