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
- 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
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: Retro
Metroid: The Sky Calls is a fan film that calls back to 60s/70s sci-fi like Alien and 2001
A good fan film will often result in a lot of nodding as you think to yourself, “Yes! Yes! Yes! Someone gets it!” While it’s definitely not how a major Hollywood studio would adapt Metroid today, I think Metroid: The Sky Calls might produce a few approving nods.
Produced by Rainfall Films, and starring Jessica Chobot as Samus Aran, Metroid: The Sky Calls harkens back to the science fiction from the 60s and 70s that inspired the creation of the franchise in the first place. Combining the psychedelic visuals of 2001: A Space Odyssey with the loneliness and isolation of Alien and Solaris, the short film is both very familiar and like nothing I’ve ever seen before.
Nintendo partnered with John Woo to develop a movie based on the Metroid series back in 2004. Sometime in the years that followed, the deal fell through and no movie was produced. But if they ever try again, I’d like to think that Nintendo would find some inspiration in Metroid: The Sky Calls.
Latest Super Mario Bros. speedrun shaves 0.063 seconds off the world record
There’s a new champion in town as the Super Mario Bros. speed record has fallen once again. Last June, “Blubbler” posted a time of four minutes and 57.69 seconds, nearly a half second than the previous best time. But earlier this week, “Blubbler” was dethroned by “Darbian,” who managed to beat Super Mario Bros. in four minutes and 57.627 seconds.
That’s a difference of just 0.063 seconds!
A press conference of sorts was delivered by “Darbian” after his run on Reddit. If you’re interested in speedruns and the people who do them, it’s well worth a read. If you can believe it, “Darbian” admits he made a few mistakes in his run, so it’s possible the world record may fall again in the near future.
Posted in News, Retro
Tagged Super Mario Bros.
Witness this 8-Bit Cinema adaptation of Mad Max: Fury Road
You don’t have to think Mad Max: Fury Road is the greatest movie of all time to enjoy this 8-Bit Cinema adaptation of George Miller’s latest masterpiece… but it certainly helps. Though the question is kind of pointless as Mad Max: Fury Road is definitely the greatest movie of all time.
The 8-Bit Cinema adaptation turns Fury Road into a side-scrolling beat ’em up, but it’s so indescribably awesome that you just have to watch it yourself. How does one even attempt to describe the guitar-playing Doof Warrior to someone? See? Aren’t you intrigued now? So go watch it already and then follow it up with your first (or fifth) viewing of Mad Max: Fury Road.
So shiny! So chrome!
Watch the Legend of Zelda: Symphony of the Goddesses performance from The Late Show With Stephen Colbert right here
Nintendo’s promotional push for The Legend of Zelda: Tri Force Heroes began last night with an appearance by the Symphony of the Goddesses orchestra on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert. In addition to performing music from the upcoming 3DS title, the orchestra ripped through a medley of music from the entire series including The Legend of Zelda, Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, A Link to the Past, Ocarina of Time, The Wind Waker, Twilight Princess, and Skyward Sword.
The producers even transformed Colbert’s famous “stained glass” ceiling into a fresco depicting Link and Zelda over the years. “Rejoice, nerds! This is the music that awaits you in heaven,” Colbert added when a video of the performance was uploaded to YouTube.
The Legend of Zelda: Tri Force Heroes will be released for the 3DS on October 23.
Posted in 3DS, Etcetera, News, Retro
Tagged The Legend of Zelda, The Legend of Zelda: Tri Force Heroes
Stephen Colbert will welcome The Legend of Zelda: Symphony of the Goddesses to The Late Show on October 13
Get ready to program your DVRs, the orchestra behind The Legend of Zelda: Symphony of the Goddesses will be appearing on The Late Show With Stephen Colbert next week. Scheduled to appear alongside Sarah Silverman and Elijah Wood on Tuesday, October 13, the musical troupe will promote the upcoming release of The Legend of Zelda: Tri Force Heroes with a medley of songs from the game.
You know what… I betcha Elijah Wood and Sarah Silverman would both work really well as Link and Zelda if a live-action adaptation of The Legend of Zelda ever gets produced.
Posted in 3DS, Etcetera, News, Retro
Tagged The Legend of Zelda, The Legend of Zelda: Tri Force Heroes
Here’s the first trailer for The Gamechangers, a behind-the-scenes look at the making of GTA
Embedded above is the first trailer for The Gamechangers, a made-for-TV movie that’s set to depict Rockstar’s rise and the development of Grand Theft Auto III, Vice City, and San Andreas. Starring Daniel Radcliffe as Sam Houser, the movie will also showcase the developer’s legal battle with the dreaded, and now disbarred, Jack Thompson (played here by Bill Paxton). Scheduled to air in the UK on BBC Two on September 15, the film’s plot description seems to play a bit fast and loose with the truth:
[T]he game’s violent gameplay leads to fierce opposition: from parents worried about its impact on children; from politicians, fearful of its influence; and, above all, from campaigners fighting to prevent the game being played by minors.
At the vanguard of this crusade is the formidable Christian lawyer Jack Thompson, a man determined to do whatever he can to stop the relentless rise of the game and its influence on children. The Gamechangers tells the story of how British game designers pushed boundaries into uncharted territory, of how those fighting GTA became consumed by a battle which overwhelmed their lives, and how the subsequent fallout threatened to bring down leading players on both sides.
While I suppose that all of that is technically accurate, it gives Thompson a much bigger role than he had in the real-life tale. However, I’ve got my fingers crossed that the film ends with Harry Potter yelling “Game over, man!” at Hudson after his courtroom defeat.
Posted in Etcetera, News, Retro
Tagged Grand Theft Auto III, Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, Grand Theft Auto: Vice City
More details about the Retro VGS console revealed
Retro Media, the people behind the Retro VGS console, have updated their online FAQ and confirmed a few more details about the cartridge-based system.
On the hardware side, the Retro Media plans to eschew the use of Secure Digital (SD) cards or USB flash memory drives in the Retro VGS. Instead, the company has opted for an archival type of EEPROM cartridge that is rated to retain data for 100 years. This attempt to create a timeless console even bleeds into the system’s firmware, which will be locked and update free.
Developers will have the ability to take a Retro VGS cartridges and add additional functionality to them, similar to Nintendo’s use of the Super FX chip, to produce games not possible by the base system. This process will also allow developers to rewrite the console’s hardware configuration to more closely resemble a series of classic consoles:
The Retro VGS will have its own cool configurations (ways to make a game), and it can also be hardware-configured to be other old-school architectures that a lot of developers are used to developing for. Specifically, and at this current time, it’s an FPGA and ARM system. If a developer wants to make a Neo Geo game, they would include an HDL (Hardware Description Language) file that configures the FPGA to operate like a Neo Geo. The developer would code their game to run against the Neo Geo platform. This HDL code along with the actual Neo Geo game will be on the cartridge. Once that cartridge is placed in the Retro VGS, it will become a Neo Geo and play that game. So in this case, the language is: 68000 and Z80 code.
If you wanted to do a new Atari 2600 styled game, you’d include a 2600 HDL file that configures the FPGA to replicate the logic of the original 2600 hardware and then you’d include your new 2600 game on that cartridge too. These two files are then paired up on the cartridge and when plugged into the RETRO VGS, will turn the console into a 2600.
Finally, Retro Media confirmed that the system will come bundled with a pack-in game. Adventures of Tiny Knight, developed by CollectorVision, will be a RPG platformer that’s heavily inspired by Westone’s Wonder Boy series.
A retail price for the Retro VGS has yet to be determined, but the Kickstarter campaign to help fund the creation of the console will begin on September 14.
English adaptation of 1998’s Metal Gear Solid Audio Drama released
Hey everyone, I made a thing. In addition to being a multi-talented writer here at Warp Zoned, I’m also a connoisseur of the arts. Does that sound good, or is it too pretentious? Either way, I think I’ve outdone myself.
Introducing the first English adaptation of the Metal Gear Audio Drama, which I produced.
In 1998, longtime Metal Gear military adviser Motosada Mori wrote an audio drama for Japanese radio simply called Metal Gear Solid. Konami, together with Nippon Cultural Broadcasting, eventually released the 12 episodes of the show across two CDs. However, the series never left Japan, presumably because we Americans haven’t listened to a radio play after everyone thought War of the Worlds was a real alien invasion.
Actually, there’s some debate as to whether or not that happened, but you get the point.
Despite its name, the Metal Gear Solid audio drama wasn’t an adaptation of the original PSone game, but instead a series of totally original stories. You see, Mori was interested in becoming a writer, so he wrote the radio play to break into the business, and he used the Metal Gear franchise because that’s what he’d been working on and it was popular. He came up with his own plot, three loosely connected adventures actually, and all featuring new Metal Gear stories. As far as I can ascertain, Kojima himself had nothing to do with this series. In fact I can’t even find any evidence of him ever mentioning it.
A lot of care was put into translating the Metal Gear Audio Drama into English. Editing a translation provided by MetalGearSolid.net and mixing the episodes together took several weeks. And my voice actors, many of whom are Metal Gear fans, worked just as long to make sure they got every line right.
The series features the sterling voices of Kristyn Mass (Meryl Silverburgh), Stig Syntangen (Captain), Yui Hisiashi, Jimmy Cooper (Colonel Campbell), Terrance Nicholson, and Cliff Thompson (Solid Snake), as well as many more. Popular YouTuber and Metal Gear fanatic YongYea is also among the ranks of the performers. I even brought on composer Yui Hisaishi to create a brand new music track, which you can hear throughout the series, and briefly in the Animated Showcase Trailer.
You can listen to the series on YouTube for the subtitled version, or you can download individual episodes from Soundcloud. A new episode will be available every Friday for the next few months.