Warp Zoned Presents
Video Game Canon- Jordan Minor’s “Boss Fight Books: Super Mario Galaxy” is Now Available for Pre-Order
- 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
Warp Zoned Presents
- Video Game Research Library
- With Grand Theft Auto 6 poised to take over the world, I reached out to Jack Thompson and it did not go well – PC Gamer (2026)
- Vib-Ribbon: An oral history – Design Room (2026)
- 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)
Most Recent: PC
The Aliens: Colonial Marines saga so far
By now, you’ve probably heard at least some of the sordid details surrounding the development process of Aliens: Colonial Marines. Did Gearbox push the majority of the development duties onto TimeGate Studios in order to have more time to work on Borderlands 2? Was the game rewritten and reworked multiple times in the six-year development cycle? What happened to the Wii U version?
Destructoid has compiled a pretty thorough timeline of the events so far and it makes excellent afternoon reading. It’s a much better use of your time than watching Alien 3, that’s for sure.
Aliens: Colonial Marines has turned out to be more than just a bad game. It’s a confusing story of allegations, outsourcing, and potential deception on a considerable level. The biggest mystery to come out of this debacle is the question of who actually made the game. Nobody’s entirely sure.
And sadly (or not, you know, because of all the bad reviews), it looks like the Wii U version of Aliens: Colonial Marines has been postponed indefinitely.
Jamie Fristrom’s Swingin’ Career, From Spider-Man to Energy Hook: An Interview
Jamie Fristrom is a name that you might not be familiar with, but you’ve certainly experienced his work. In 1996, Fristrom became part of the original team at Treyarch and had a hand in many of their earliest hits. But his biggest claim to fame is the creation of the webslinging engine found in Spider-Man 2 (and used in nearly every Spider-Man game since). In that dark period between GoldenEye 007 and Batman: Arkham Asylum, Fristrom’s work on Spider-Man 2 proved that licensed games could still be fun.
After his days at Treyarch ended, he went the indie route and created the acclaimed XBLA game Schizoid and founded his own one-man-studio, Happion Labs. His first game under the Happion Labs banner will be Energy Hook, a game that attempts to recapture the fun we all found in aimlessly webslinging around Manhattan.
Fristrom is readying a Kickstarter campaign to help fund the game, which will likely launch in a few weeks. In the meantime, I had a chance to talk to him about his career so far and where he plans to take it with Energy Hook. (more…)
Posted in Features, Interviews, PC, PS2, Top Story, Xbox 360
Tagged Energy Hook
CoD: Black Ops II Revolution map pack coming to PC, PS3 on February 28
The first Call of Duty: Black Ops II map pack, Revolution, was added to the Xbox Live Marketplace on January 29. As expected, Activision has confirmed that the DLC will be made available for PC and PS3 players a month later.
The Revolution pack will be added to the PlayStation Store and PC download services on February 28. Activision didn’t announce a price, but it’s a safe assumption it’ll carry the same $15 pricetag as the Xbox 360 version.
The Revolution pack adds four new multiplayer maps (“Grind,” “Hydro,” “Downhill,” and “Mirage”), a new Zombies map (“Die Rise”), and a new Zombies gametype (“Turned”) where players can play as the shambling undead.
A Wii U release date for Revolution was not announced, but the DLC is expected to be made available for Nintendo’s newest systems soon.
Posted in News, PC, PS3
Tagged Call of Duty: Black Ops II
Nicalis picks up Kickstarter project The 90s Arcade Racer
Nicalis is well known for bringing VVVVVV, NightSky, and Cave Story to Nintendo platforms over the past three years. And they’re likely going to to continue their goodwill streak with their first Wii U project, The 90s Arcade Racer.
The 90s Arcade Racer started life as a Kickstarter project that was originally headed to the three PC platforms (Windows, Mac, and Linux). Nicalis stepped in and offered to back the developer, Antonis Pelekanos, with additional resources and the ability to publish the game on iOS and Android devices as well as the Wii U eShop.
As you can see from the trailer above, The 90s Arcade Racer takes its cues from the classics of the 90s arcade including Daytona USA, Sega Super GT, and Indy 500.
Blending the best bits of those three games together, The 90s Arcade Racer will include stock cars, supercars, and open-wheel racers in a game that features three tracks and “a nice blend between reality and fantasy. All while keeping with the 90s theme.”
The 90s Arcade Racer is expected to be available in November or December of this year.
Posted in Mobile, News, PC, Wii U
Tagged 90s Super GP
WB executive confirms Batman: Arkham Asylum 3 will be released in 2013
Time Warner is a massive company, so it’s not surprising that their video game division, Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment, got short shrift during their most recently quarterly financial report. But the one bit of video game news we did get was a doozy.
John K. Martin, Time Warner’s Chief Financial Officer, confirmed that Batman: Arkham Asylum 3 is in development and will be released this year:
[W]e also have a strong games release this year, which will include the next release in the Batman Arkham franchise. So all in all, we expect Warners to post another very strong year in 2013.
Martin did not say if Rocksteady would be the team behind Arkham Asylum 3, but there’s plenty of previous rumors to fuel a little speculation on this one. That includes the possibility Arkham Asylum 3 will be set in the Silver Age or that it’ll feature a title from all those domains that WB Games registered last month.
Whatever it turns out to be, for now, we can all say, “Holy awesome announcement, Batman!”
New Releases: Aliens Colonial Marines, Brain Age 3, Omerta, More
First things first, Nintendo’s hard brain training game, Brain Age: Concentration Training, is available for the 3DS today. Dr. Kawashima, the master of brains himself, has promised that you’ll have a devilishly good time with the third game in the Brain Age series.
Moving on, this week’s other major release is Aliens: Colonial Marines. The Sega-published, Gearbox-developer continuation of the Alien saga has been in development for a long time, but if you’ve ever wanted a direct sequel to Aliens, this is your best chance. Pick it up on Tuesday for the PC, PS3, or Xbox 360.
Also available this week is Omerta: City of Gangsters. If you’ve ever thought, “a strategy RPG starring gangsters and set in the bootleggin’ Prohibition era would be a hoot-and-a-half,” then this PC and Xbox 360 game might be for you. It also might be for you if you regularly use the phrase “hoot-and-a-half” in regular conversation.
Finally, a pair of 3DS games make their belated debut on the portable platform. Both Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed and Pro Evolution Soccer 2013 3D are now available on Nintendo’s handheld.
Posted in 3DS, News, PC, PS3, Xbox 360
Tagged Aliens: Colonial Marines, Brain Age: Devil Training, Omerta: City of Gangsters
Activision confirms Call of Duty 10 will be released in 2013
Are you sitting down? You might want to sit down. Activision has announced something shocking at their quarterly financial conference.
A new Call of Duty game is in the works and will be released this Fall.
OK, that’s not very shocking. But Activision did announce Call of Duty 10 yesterday. That part’s true, however, we don’t know much about it at this point. Even the developer is a mystery. While 2013 is an “Infinity Ward year,” Activision has confirmed that Neversoft, Raven, and Sledgehammer are all working on Call of Duty-related projects. But here’s everything we know for sure, courtesy of Activision Publishing CEO Eric Hirshberg:
“The Call of Duty franchise continues to set the bar for innovation and we expect the new Call of Duty game in development for 2013 to raise that bar even higher.”
Even with that tiniest speck of confirmation, I will hazard a guess that Call of Duty 10 will be released for the PC, PS3, Xbox 360, and Wii U sometime this November.
[Source: GameSpot]
Journey, The Walking Dead clean up at 2013 DICE Awards
A pair of downloadable games came away with almost half of all the awards handed out at last night’s D.I.C.E. Awards show. Journey, developed by thatgamecompany exclusively for the PS3, was the big winner of the night, nabbing eight awards including Game of the Year. Telltale’s The Walking Dead was also a multiple award winner, collecting four trophies.
Halo 4 (Visual Engineering and Connectivity) and XCOM: Enemy Unknown (Gameplay Engineering and Strategy/Simulation) were the only other games to win in more than one category.
Congratulations to the developers at thatgamecompany and Telltale Games. You can find a complete list of winners in all 25 categories after the break. (more…)