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 Walking Dead shambles onto XBLA today
Telltale has announced that the first episode of their zombie-riffic adventure series, The Walking Dead, is now available to download from the Xbox Live Arcade. To celebrate, the company has released a new trailer, “Choice Matters,” to highlight that… well… choice matters in a world full of walking dead.
The first episode of The Walking Dead can be downloaded from the XBLA for 400 Microsoft Points ($5).
Posted in News, PC, PS3, Xbox 360
Tagged The Walking Dead
Powers Boothe, Shannyn Sossamon added to Hitman: Absolution cast
Square Enix has announced that Powers Boothe (probably best known for his turn as Vice President Daniels in “24”) and Shannyn Sossamon (best known for naming her child Audio Science A Knight’s Tale) have agreed to lend their voices to Hitman: Absolution.
Boothe will play Benjamin Travis, a new handler for the International Contract Agency (ICA). His backstory is explored in the trailer above with imagery by comic artist Ben Oliver. Sossamon will voice a character named Jade that is currently a bit of a mystery, but it’s likely she’s a sassy brunette who doesn’t take any guff from anybody. That’s right, I said guff.
Hitman: Absolution will be released for the PC, PS3, and Xbox 360 later this year.
Posted in News, PC, PS3, Xbox 360
Tagged Hitman: Absolution
Portal 2 level editor coming May 8
Valve has announced that the long-awaited Portal 2 level editor, cleverly titled the “Perpetual Testing Initiative,” will be available to PC players on May 8.
The DLC will be available as a free download and it allows players to “easily create, share, and play Portal 2 puzzles.” After creating a puzzle, players will be able to “directly publish maps to the Steam Workshop where users can browse, vote on, and select to play them.” Certain maps will be automatically downloaded for players to try.
It’s unlikely this level editor will ever come to the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions of Portal 2, but we can always hope.
S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 has been C.A.N.C.E.L.E.D.
Back in December, there were rumblings that S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 had succumbed to cancellation. But developer GSC Game World shrugged off the rumors saying, “We will do our best to continue.”
Today, it looks like their continue clock ran down to zero.
In a sudden turn of events, GSC Game World has closed its doors and the remaining team members have formed a new development studio, Vostok Games. The team wanted to continue their work on S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2, however, the owners of the S.T.A.L.K.E.R. brand refused to sell, resulting in the game’s official cancellation.
But the team at Vostok isn’t wasting any time and have jumped right into their next project, a Free-To-Play MMOFPS titled Survarium.
Survarium is scheduled for a late 2013 release and, if the official website is anything to go by, the game is shaping up to be a spiritual successor to S.T.A.L.K.E.R.
First Crysis 3 gameplay trailer hunted down
Crysis 3 is still at least a year away, but the gameplay trailer that Crytek and EA have unveiled today is just astounding. Watch as Prophet traverses the “urban jungle” that is the New York Liberty Dome and watch as he lays waste to a squadron of alien scum with his awesome compound bow.
Crysis 3 will be available for the PC, PS3, and Xbox 360 sometime in 2013.
More clues point to next Call of Duty game being Black Ops 2
As if the entire world wasn’t already convinced that Call of Duty 9 is actually Call of Duty: Black Ops 2, Activision has planted a few hints within the redesigned CallofDuty.com.
The source code for the Call of Duty 9 splash page reveals the following trademark notice, which directly cites Black Ops, and no other game in the series:
2012 Activision Publishing, Inc. Activision and Call of Duty are registered trademarks and Black Ops is a trademark of Activision Publishing, Inc. All other trademarks and trade names are the properties of their respective owners.
And if you click “Continue To Full Site,” the trademark notice changes to only mention Call of Duty and the Modern Warfare series. Curious thing, that.
But if you want even more proof, check this out. The loading screen of the site includes morse code that, when translated, spells out “Black Ops Two.”
So yeah, I’d say Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 is as good as official.
[Source: MP1st]
Posted in News, PC, PS3, Xbox 360
Tagged Call of Duty: Black Ops II
Sledgehammer Games hiring for future Call of Duty title
Even though this is a “Treyarch year,” Activision is thinking long and hard about the future of the Call of Duty franchise. To that end, Sledgehammer Games has posted six job listings at Gamasutra looking for new bodies for its “Call of Duty development team.”
The developer is looking for an Animator, a Generalist Engineer, a UI Artist, a Lead Gameplay Engineer, a Senior Online Engineer, and a Lead Multiplayer Level Designer. Those last two might point to another multi-team development situation like we saw with Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3.
So is Sledgehammer assisting with Call of Duty 9? Or is this proof that Call of Duty 10 is in development? It’s hard to say. If Activision’s history is anything to go by, preliminary work has likely already begun on a Call of Duty game that’s scheduled to be released in 2013. As for Call of Duty 9, a multi-team approach clearly worked for Modern Warfare 3, so it just makes good business sense to try it again.
But I guess we’ll find out for sure whether Sledgehammer is involved with Call of Duty 9 in exactly one week. And if they’re not, then let the Call of Duty 10 speculation begin!
Posted in News, PC, PS3, Xbox 360
Tagged Call of Duty: Black Ops II
Max Payne 3 system requirements, new PC screens released
Even though it’s launching two weeks after the PS3/Xbox 360 versions, don’t think Rockstar is putting any less effort into the PC version of Max Payne 3. Today, the publisher released the system requirements for the game as well as a trio of dazzling new screenshots.
Here are the minimum and recommended system specifications for Max Payne 3:
- Operating System: Windows 7 32/64 Service Pack 1, Windows Vista 32/64 Service Pack 2, Windows XP 32/64 Service Pack 3
- Processor: Intel Dual Core 2.4 GHZ – i7 3930K 6 Core x 3.06 GHZ / AMD Dual Core 2.6 GHZ – FX8150 8 Core x 3.6 GHZ
- RAM: 2GB – 16GB
- Video Card: NVIDIA 8600 GT 512MB VRAM – NVIDIA GeForce GTX 680 2GB VRAM / Radeon HD 3400 512MB VRAM – Radeon HD 7970 3GB VRAM
- Sound Card: 100% Direct X 9.0 compatible – Direct X 9.0 compatible supporting Dolby Digital Live
- HDD Space: 35 GB
- DVD Drive: Required With Retail Version
And be sure to hit the jump for a look at the new screenshots. (more…)
Posted in News, PC
Tagged Max Payne 3