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
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Most Recent: Retro
The Strong announces finalists for the World Video Game Hall of Fame’s Class of 2015
The Strong National Museum of Play and the International Center for the History of Electronic Games have announced the finalists for the inaugural class of the World Video Game Hall of Fame. More than a dozen classic games passed this first test on their way to video game immortality, which were selected from thousands of nominations that poured in from gamers all across the world. Nominations for the Class of 2015 were accepted from February 17 through March 31, but in case you missed out, the Hall of Fame is already accepting games for next year’s class.
This year’s inductees to the World Video Game Hall of Fame will be chosen from the finalist pool by an “international selection committee” made up of journalists, scholars, and other individuals. The inaugural class will be announced on June 4 at 10:30 AM (Eastern Time) during a ceremony at The Strong.
The finalists for the World Video Game Hall of Fame’s Class of 2015 include:
- Angry Birds
- Doom
- FIFA International Soccer
- The Legend of Zelda
- Minecraft
- The Oregon Trail
- Pac-Man
- Pokemon Red/Blue
- Pong
- The Sims
- Sonic the Hedgehog
- Space Invaders
- Super Mario Bros.
- Tetris
- World of Warcraft
“The 15 finalists for the World Video Game Hall of Fame span decades, gaming platforms, and geographies… but what they all have in common is their undeniable impact on popular culture and society in general,” said Jon-Paul Dyson, the Director of the International Center for the History of Electronic Games.
Inductees into the World Video Game Hall of Fame will be selected based on the following criteria: “Icon Status,” “Longevity,” “Geographical Reach,” and “Influence.” All 15 finalists certainly qualify, but I know I’ll be rooting for Tetris.
Posted in 3DS, Mobile, News, PC, PS3, PS4, Retro, Vita, Wii, Wii U, Xbox 360, Xbox One
Tagged Angry Birds, Doom (1993), Minecraft, Pac-Man, Space Invaders, Super Mario Bros., Tetris, The Legend of Zelda, World of Warcraft, World Video Game Hall of Fame
Insert Quarter: The PlayStation’s Face Buttons Explained At Last
Insert Quarter is our showcase for some of the best and most interesting writing about video games on the Internet.
Have you ever wondered why PlayStation controllers use X-Circle-Square-Triangle for the face buttons instead of the more traditional B-A-Y-X that Nintendo has employed since the Super NES days or the mirrored A-B-X-Y that Microsoft overlaid on the Xbox controllers? It’s OK, it’s kept me up at night too. Why? Why? Why?
Thankfully, Kill Screen’s David Shimomura went looking for an answer and he found one by talking to Teiyu Goto, the developer who originally designed the PlayStation controller for Sony back in the mid 90s. Goto revealed that he named the face buttons what he did in a nod to symbolism and semiotics. However, American and European players didn’t have the same connection to Goto’s symbols as a Japanese player would and it caused all sorts of friction within Sony:
Goto wanted to be memorable but he also wanted to make sense, at least in his own mind. “I gave each symbol a meaning and a color,” he states in the same interview. “The triangle refers to viewpoint; I had it represent one’s head or direction and made it green. Square refers to a piece of paper; I had it represent menus or documents and made it pink.” So far so good, sort of. The triangle is reminiscent of an arrow or a direction. It has directionality to it and, even though it’s equilateral, it must point somewhere. The square is a little looser but the connection between a page and the square are strong, at least for Goto. One can construe it as a box and use it for inventory or some other kind of menus. But then things got weird.
The full article is available for your perusal at Kill Screen.
This parody is yours… watch 8-Bit Scarface now
First you collect the coins, then you get the power-ups, then you rescue the princess.
The most recent 8-Bit Cinema short features the classic 1983 film Scarface, which starred the once-amazing and now-terrifying Al Pacino as iconic drug lord Tony Montana. Fans of 8-Bit Cinema’s other works will know what to expect… Awesomeness. For everyone else, these shorts retell movies with 8-bit stylized graphics, appealing to both movie people and video game people, as well as lovers of cartoon violence everywhere.
“8-Bit Scarface” is modeled after the 1987 Tradewest game, Double Dragon, a side-scrolling beat ’em up with Tony in place of the Lee twins. Viewers familiar with the live-action Scarface will not be disappointed with the illustrious scenes included in this portrayal.
So say hello to his little friend, as well as the infamous chainsaw scene, and never forget, the world is yours.
Watch this guy beat Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!! while blindfolded
Jack Wedge was a man on a mission. During last year’s Awesome Games Done Quick marathon, he watched “Sinister1” attempt to complete Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!! while blindfolded. Sadly, after beating the game’s first 13 characters, “Sinister1” was TKOed by Tyson. But his performance inspired Wedge to make his own blindfolded run at Iron Mike and the champ was a bit less invincible this time.
That’s right, it’s all in the video above, but Wedge went 14-0 against the cast of Mike Tyson’s Punch-Out!! and emerged victorious with a decision against Tyson. Just beating Tyson at all is a huge accomplishment for most gamers, but doing it while blindfolded? I am just without speech.
Posted in News, Retro
Tagged Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!!
This is Bud Light’s “Real Life Pac-Man” Super Bowl XLIX commercial… and it is awesome
Budweiser isn’t waiting for Super Bowl XLIX to debut the next commercial in their “#UpForWhatever” series… and that’s alright with me. Titled “Real Life Pac-Man,” the commercial hands a giant quarter to a random Bud Light drinker and then drops it (and him) into the coin slot of life-sized simulation of the greatest arcade game of all time. There’s neon aplenty, pulsating techno music, and it looks like a good time was had by all.
I know it’s too early, but I think we may have already found the best commercial from this year’s Super Bowl.
Insert Quarter: A History of Fan-Made Mario Games
Insert Quarter is our showcase for some of the best and most interesting writing about video games on the Internet.
There’s no reason to hide it, Mario Maker is one of my most anticipated games for 2015. The ability to create my own Mario courses (and play courses created by others) has got me giddy with excitement. Writing for Joystiq, Lawrence Bonk has revealed that he’s just as giddy as I am. He is so giddy that he dove into the shadowy world of unauthorized ROM hacks of Super Mario Bros. and other games in the series. These fan-made creations are sometimes scary, but they’re always interesting:
Of course, long before there were dedicated toolsets, there was the humble game ROM. In addition to allowing people to finally brag about beating Ghosts N’ Goblins, NES game ROMs had/have the added bonus of being fairly easy to manipulate. What better title to screw around with than the original Super Mario Bros.? It didn’t have too many sprites and, oh yeah, there’s that whole “pretty much defined video games for an entire generation” thing.
The full article is available for your perusal at Joystiq.
Posted in Insert Quarter, Retro, Wii U
Tagged Super Mario Bros., Super Mario Maker
Insert Quarter: The Rise and Fall of THQ’s Empire
Insert Quarter is our showcase for some of the best and most interesting writing about video games on the Internet.
Gamers often didn’t know what to make of THQ. The publisher built its empire on the backs of tie-in games based on Nickelodeon and Pixar properties such as SpongeBob SquarePants and The Incredibles. But they also produced intriguing original games such as Saints Row: The Third and Darksiders. They were even the initial driving force behind Evolve, one of 2015’s most anticipated games. But that all changed when the company went bankrupt early last year.
So what happened? Tracey Lien, writing for Polygon, set out to discover the answer by talking to as many former THQ employees as she could including the charismatic (but possibly crazy) Danny Bilson. Her portrait of a publisher in free fall makes you wonder, could anything have been done?
Many blame the company’s fall on the licensed games well drying up. Some pin it on the commercial failure of the company’s uDraw tablet for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. Others point to poor management and too many risky bets.
“There isn’t any one, isolated event that killed the company,” says a former THQ executive who asked to not be named. “This was one of the most successful video game businesses in America. We were a billion dollar company. It was complicated.”
THQ suffered a “death by a million spider bites,” the executive says.
The full article is available for your perusal at Polygon.
Posted in 3DS, DS, Insert Quarter, Mobile, PC, PS2, PS3, PSP, Retro, Wii, Wii U, Xbox 360
Tagged Darksiders, Evolve, Saints Row: The Third
Insert Quarter: A Classic Interview With Ralph “The Father of Video Games” Baer
Insert Quarter is our showcase for some of the best and most interesting writing about video games on the Internet.
Ralph Baer passed away this weekend at the age of 92. After spending all his life as a self-described “tinkerer,” Baer claimed more than 150 patents on various gizmos and doodads including the beloved handheld game Simon. But Baer will probably best be known as the man who invented the home video game console. Game Informer’s Matt Helgeson sat down for an interview with Baer in 2009 and the publication re-ran an expanded version of the conversation today as part of a celebration of the developer’s life.
It is an interesting look inside the mind of a man who contributed so much to the game industry:
Game Informer: What’s your opinion of what games have evolved into?
Baer: It’s utterly amazing. It’s simply the result of the semiconductor industry going sky-high over the last 20 years. I have an early Apple computer; it had 32K of memory. You can go to the store and for $50 buy 10 gigabytes of memory on a semiconductor stick that plugs into a USB. It’s like going from bows-and-arrows to the space age in 20 years.
The full article is available at Game Informer.
Posted in Insert Quarter, Retro