Warp Zoned Presents
Video Game Canon- 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”
- GDC Awards: All the Winners from 1996 to Today
- Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 Wins “Game of the Year” at 2025-2026 GDC Awards
Warp Zoned Presents
- Video Game Research Library
- 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)
- Shadow of the Colossus: An oral history – Design Room (2025)
- In 2005, games started rewiring our brains – The AV Club (2025)
Most Recent: Top Story
Final Fantasy XIII-2 Review: Turn Back Time To Get Your 40 Hours Back
Final Fantasy XIII-2 is a game that has no idea what it’s doing or where it’s going. It’s full of time traveling, paradoxes, role-playing, platforming, and more than a few puzzles to solve. It’s full of changes and alterations, but at the core, it’s very much a sequel – and it shows. It feels like the game is experiencing growing pains, with short bursts of interesting moments infused with utter dullness. Should you take the plunge and go back to Pulse? Or would your money and time be better spent waiting for Operation Rainfall games to hit our shores? (more…)
Posted in PS3, Reviews, Top Story, Xbox 360
Tagged Final Fantasy XIII-2
Gamers At Work Review: Make Room on Your Bookshelf
Morgan Ramsay’s Gamers At Work delivers a lot of behind-the-scenes information about the video game industry right from the source: the mouths of some of the most powerful and influential people involved in starting and fueling it. Ramsay interviews Nolan Bushnell, Don Daglow, Trip Hawkins, Ted Price, Warren Spector, and a dozen other founders, developers, programmers, and entrepreneurs. More than just a dry question and answer session, Ramsay gets to the heart, asking pointed questions and drawing out interesting – and sometimes emotional – stories. (more…)
Developers From thatgamecompany Hold Court at GameFest
Thatgamecompany was on hand at this weekend’s GameFest at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. President Kellee Santiago, Core Engineer Martin Middleton, Lead Artist Matt Nava, Producer Robin Hunicke, and Community Manager Aaron Grommesh were at a table in the center of the courtyard on Saturday, March 17, signing books and posters and posing with fans. This friendly, down-to-earth group sat and talked with me and a friend of mine, Nikkolai Davenport, who works at indie developer Cipher Prime in Philadelphia, PA. But they did so much more than just sit and talk with us. What we got that day was a unique and memorable experience. (more…)
The Cross and The Controller: Mass Effect’s Picture of Faith
SPOILER WARNING: This article will talk about the death of a major character in Mass Effect 3 that takes place about a third of the way through the game… unless, of course, that character died in your playthrough of Mass Effect 2.
Prayer is a very strange thing. It takes numerous forms, from the recitation of memorized words, often ancient, to the spontaneous utterances of exuberant or anguished hearts. It can be practiced in deep silence, and it can be as informal as a muttered word for help before a surgery or a battle. Prayer flows out of human beings; we seem to be hardwired for it, either by some quirk of natural selection or through deep enculturation. The old saying “there are no atheists in foxholes” suggests the fact that, at our core, humanity is a praying species.
It’s important to note that none of this is an apologetic for the existence of God. One needs a particular understanding of the bare facts to interpret them in any particular way. Our penchant for prayer may be a quirk of genetic mutation; it may be a result of millennia of conditioning. Neither suggests that there is anyone listening to our prayer. So, while I do believe that our prayers are heard, I do not think the fact that we pray is somehow proof of that. (more…)
Nostalgia Goes A Long Way at Art of Video Games Exhibit
The Smithsonian American Art Museum was full of a new kind of art this weekend: “The Art of Video Games,” their newest exhibit. While many joked about the absence of Roger Ebert, mostly there was an atmosphere of awe and reverence. It was a relief to see this much-contested medium celebrated instead of seeing it as the dispute of some controversial legislature. To many gamers present that weekend, the nostalgia felt a lot like our childhoods: it felt like home.
The exhibit was developed by guest curator and longtime gamer Chris Melissinos, who worked hard for nearly three years on it. The exhibit begins with an introduction from Melissinos, who talks about his introduction to – and romance with – video games. A room to the side has dozens of televisions, showing games in different countries throughout history. Continuing into the exhibit is a montage of some of the industry’s greatest creations: from Marble Madness to Heavy Rain, Pitfall to Shadow of the Colossus. I let the images wash over me, remembering the countless hours I spent as a child on Marble Madness alone. (more…)
GameFest: Pioneers of the Gaming Industry Talk, We Listen
GameFest, a three-day festival to commemorate the opening of the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s “Art of Video Games” exhibit, was held last weekend. The exhibit itself will run from March 16th to September 30th, 2012, with a ten-city tour planned for 2012-2013. But all weekend long, excited participants were able to play games, go to talks by important members of the industry, and attend performances of video game-inspired music. It was inspirational, memorable, and most importantly, a complete blast. (more…)
Silent Hill: The Terror Engine Review: An Academic View of Survival Horror
Silent Hill: The Terror Engine is an academic text about the Silent Hill franchise that touches many aspects of that series as well as those of other frightening game franchises. It also goes into horror films and their influence on the survival horror genre of gaming. The author, Bernard Perron, also refers to many texts and articles, drawing from a huge reservoir of data on the horror genre across all media. But it’s more than just a dry academic text – it’s obvious that he is a fan of not just the series but also gaming in general. His voice is a critical one that comes from a place of dedication, passion, and affection. But is this enough to make the book one that is palatable to the non-academic reader? (more…)
Journey Review: A Trip You’ll Want to Take
Thatgamecompany’s latest creation, Journey, is more like a work of art than a video game. In fact, I’d go so far as to venture that this game is going to revive the whole “video games as art” argument all over again. Journey brings to life the story of a lone traveler, trekking across the desert to the source of a fallen star at the apex of a mountain. The trip is a spiritual one, something of a pilgrimage, and the symbiotic relationship the main character has with the fabric creatures creates a unique experience that is startlingly emotional for such a short game. (more…)