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
Nominees for 2012 Writers Guild Award for Outstanding Videogame Writing announced
The Writers Guild of America has announced the five nominees who will battle it out for this year’s Writers Guild Award for Outstanding Achievement in Videogame Writing.
The Assassin’s Creed team at Ubisoft is once again up for a Writers GUild Award thanks to their work on Assassin’s Creed: Revelations. The previous game in the series, Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood, won the award last year.
The writing teams behind Batman: Arkham City, Brink, Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception, and Mortal Kombat have also been nominated for the Writers Guild Award.
Turning the Mortal Kombat mythos into a coherent story was quite a feat, so I’m pulling for the team at NetherRealm Studios.
You can see the complete list of nominated writers after the break and check back on February 19 to find out who won. (more…)
Posted in News, PC, PS3, Xbox 360
Tagged Assassin's Creed: Revelations, Batman: Arkham City, Brink, Mortal Kombat, Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception
Modern Warfare 3 Content Season trailer hints at single-player expansion
Are you ready to go behind-the-scenes of the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 Content Season, specificially the new maps, “Liberation” and “Piazza?” Then you’re in luck, as Infinity Ward has released a video detailing all of the work the team is putting into the first of 20 content drops they have planned for Modern Warfare 3 in 2012.
Most interesting of all is the fact that Robert Bowling, Community Manager at Infinity Ward, strongly hinted that the team is planning at least one expansion to the single-player campaign when he summed up the new content that’ll be available for Modern Warfare 3: “Awesome multiplayer, new Spec Ops missions, extensions to the story, new game modes that we can add…”
The last (and so far, only) time a Call of Duty game received a single-player expansion was 2004’s Call of Duty: United Offensive.
Posted in News, PC, PS3, Xbox 360
Tagged Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3
Nine months of CoD Modern Warfare 3 DLC announced
You knew they were coming, and now, Activision has announced the details of the first two downloadable maps for Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3.
Scheduled to drop January 24 for Xbox 360-owning Call of Duty Elite subscribers, “Liberation” and “Piazza” will bring the war to Central Park and a serene Italian villa. In “Liberation,” players will find “a vast, militarized landscape, ripe for long-range sniper and LMG fire, with mounted turrets on either end that lend power to anyone brave enough to expose themselves in exchange for deadly firepower.” Meanwhile, “Piazza” is considered “the idyllic Italian getaway that is anything but, where tight corners and branching pathways pose great risk at every turn.”
Call of Duty Elite users will also receive a variety of content drops throughout 2012. At least once per month, Activision plans to unleash a new piece of content on the CoD Elite community. In addition to the maps, another piece of content will launch in mid-February with two more scheduled for March. All told, at least 20 pieces of DLC will be released for Modern Warfare 3 between now and September.
All of the CoD Elite content drops will be available first for Xbox 360 owners with PC and PS3 subscribers getting them “at a later time.”
But speaking of March, that’s how long non-Call of Duty Elite subscribers will have to wait to get their hands on these maps, when the first “Modern Warfare 3 Content Collection” will be made available for download.
That’s the sound of Activision selling many more CoD Elite subscriptions. Dismissed!
Posted in News, PC, PS3, Xbox 360
Tagged Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3
New Releases: National Geographic Challenge! for PS3, More (sort of)
Did I not warn you last week that the month of January would be an incredibly slow time for new releases? I hope you believed me, as this week the only new releases we’re going to get are…
National Geographic Challenge! for the PS3. A National Geographic-themed trivia game that has been available on the Wii and Xbox 360 for a few weeks now…
Play 101: Premium Games Collection, a budget collection of minigames for the PC…
And My Pet Puppy 3D, a pet simulator for the 3DS (yes, another one).
Once again, the download scene will supply us with several interesting new games this week including the helicopter sim Choplifter HD and the freaky horror show that is Amy. We’ll have more on those later in the week.
Scarygirl coming to PC, PSN, XBLA courtesy of Square Enix
Square Enix announced today that they’re bringing Nathan Jurevicius’ graphic novel, Scarygirl, to the PC, PSN, and XBLA. The game, developed by TikGames, is an action platformer, and will be available January 18 for the XBLA, January 24 for the PSN, and “early 2012” for the PC.
Scarygirl, which won the 2009 Aurealis Award for Best Illustrated Book/Graphic novel, features a tough girl who dresses like a pirate and has a tentacle for an arm. A strange man haunts her dreams, and Scarygirl sets out on a journey to find him. Blister the giant octopus and Bunniguru the mystical, kung-fu rabbit help her on her quest against dangerous monsters.
I don’t know about you, but this sounds like one of the most ridiculously adorable games I have ever heard of. Ever.
Want to see how adorable it can be? Check out the trailer after the break. (more…)
Skyrim, Portal 2, Bastion nab 5 nominations at 12th annual Game Developers Choice Awards
The Game Developers Conference has handed out nominations for their 12th annual Game Developers Choice Awards and, prepare to be shocked, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Bastion, and Portal 2 each scored five nominations apiece.
Wait a minute, that’s not shocking at all! Those three games have been sweeping every Game of the Year contest of 2011.
Skyrim and Portal 2 will be joined by Batman: Arkham City, Dark Souls, and Deus Ex: Human Revolution in the coveted GDCA Game of the Year category. Bastion will battle it out against From Dust, Frozen Synapse, Outland, and Stacking for the honor of Best Downloadable Game.
Skyrim, Bastion, and Portal 2 will fight it out in many of the same categories throughout the rest of the awards show. Skyrim and Portal 2 were both nominated for Best Game Design while Portal 2 and Bastion will go head-to-head for Best Narrative and the Innovation award. Meanwhile, all three games were nominated for Best Audio.
Bastion developer Supergiant Games is also up for Best Debut.
The Game Developers Choice Awards will be given out on March 7. You can check out the complete list of nominees after the break. (more…)
Game Informer reveals new Firaxis-developed XCOM RTS
When 2K Games announced that the next X-COM game would be a first person shooter developed by 2K Marin, the “WTF?” uttered by the franchise’s fans could be heard around the world. But it looks like 2K was listening as the publisher has given Game Informer the first look at XCOM: Enemy Unknown, a real-time strategy game developed by Firaxis.
“It’s been a dream of ours to recreate X-COM with our unique creative vision. We’re huge fans of the original game and it’s a once in a lifetime opportunity to re-envision a game that is as beloved as X-COM,” said Steve Martin, president of Firaxis Games. “We were careful to keep XCOM: Enemy Unknown true to the elements that made X-COM such a revered game while delivering an entirely new story and gameplay experience for both die-hard X-COM fans and newcomers to the franchise.”
XCOM: Enemy Unknown will appear on the cover of the magazine’s February 2012 issue, and the anti-alien invasion RTS will be available for the PC, PS3, and Xbox 360 this Fall. As if the game’s strategic bent weren’t enough, Firaxis has also promised that Enemy Unknown will feature “destructible tactical environments, the interaction between the real-time strategic view and the turn-based combat, how the XCOM organization improves its capabilities as the war rages on, and much more.”
The XCOM first person shooter is still scheduled to ship sometime this year (or early in 2013).
Posted in News, PC, PS3, Xbox 360
Tagged XCOM: Enemy Unknown
The Batmobile lost its wheel… Gotham City Impostors goes away into February
The Joker got away and sprayed seltzer in the eyes of everyone that was getting ready to buy Gotham City Impostors next week as WB Games announced it has been delayed. The PC, PS3, and Xbox 360 game will now be released in February.
No reason was given for the delay, but an online beta for game is currently ongoing. Perhaps the testers found some problem that Oracle has to fix.
No word on if Robin laid an egg or not.
Posted in News, PC, PS3, Xbox 360
Tagged Gotham City Impostors