Warp Zoned Presents
Video Game Canon- Silent Hill, Dragon Quest, Skyrim, and More Announced as Finalists for the World Video Game Hall of Fame’s Class of 2026
- Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 Has Another Big Night and Wins “Game of the Year” at the 2025-2026 DICE Awards
- 2025 GOTY Scoreboard: In Progress
- The Game Awards: All the Winners from 2003 to Today
- Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 Racks Up Nine Wins, Including “Game of the Year”, at the 2025 Game Awards
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: Wii U
3DS, Wii U retail games to be sold digitally… starting with New Super Mario Bros. 2
The 3DS eShop just got a whole lot cooler. Nintendo has announced that, beginning this August, the online store will offer downloadable versions of retail games. First on the list… New Super Mario Bros. 2.
Like current 3DS eShop downloads, downloadable retail games must be stored on an SD card and will only be playable on the handheld they were purchased on. If you’re one of those people who are still uneasy about using a credit card on the Internet, brick-and-mortar retailers will also sell download codes for 3DS digital downloads. Best of all, retailers can set the price for a download code just as they can for a cartridge game, so we might see some big sales for downloadable 3DS games.
Nintendo also announced that “Onitore,” the game more popularly known as Brain Age: Devil Training, will receive a US release and that it too will be available sometime this year as both a retail release and a digital download.
Finally, Nintendo confirmed that the same retail/digital download deal will apply to Wii U games when the system launch’s this Fall. So shoppers will be able to download any Nintendi-publisher Wii U title at the same time the game is released in stores.
Hey! Nintendo can finally say they’ve one-upped Sony and Microsoft in the online arena for something!
Posted in 3DS, News, Wii U
Tagged Brain Age: Devil Training, New Super Mario Bros. 2
More on Mario for Wii U; Pikmin 3 to debut at E3 too
After confirming that Mario would make his Wii U debut at this year’s E3 Expo, Eurogamer has dug a bit deeper, revealing a not-too-surprising detail about the game.
According to a Nintendo representative, the Super Mario Bros. game for the Wii U that the publisher plans to bring to E3 2012 will be heavily based on the New Super Mario Bros. Mii tech demo they displayed at E3 2011. If you recall, New Super Mario Bros. Mii was very similar to New Super Mario Bros. Wii, but it added Miis as playable characters and bumped the graphics up to HD quality. Not exactly groundbreaking, but if it’s half as fun as New Super Mario Bros. Wii, I’ll take it.
Pikmin 3 will also appearing at this year’s E3 Expo for the first time. Originally announced by Shigeru Miyamoto as a Wii title back in 2008, the game has been kept hidden by Nintendo ever since. With the jump to the Wii U, it looks like they’re finally ready to show if off.
Posted in News, Wii U
Tagged E3 2012, New Super Mario Bros. U, Pikmin 3
Super Mario Bros. Wii U to debut at E3 2012
This is both the biggest surprise in the history of surprises and a news story so yawn-inducing in its obviousness that it almost doesn’t need to be said. But here goes.
An interview with Shigeru Miyamoto was published in the Spanish newspaper El Mundo this morning. During the interview, Miyamoto confirmed that a new Super Mario Bros. game for the Wii U will make its debut at this year’s E3 Expo. But since it’s not official until it’s in English, Eurogamer asked Nintendo to reconfirm the news… and they did!
“In a recent interview, Mr. Miyamoto confirmed that a new Super Mario Bros. game for the Wii U system will be shown at this year’s E3 Expo,” a Nintendo spokesperson said. “We’ll have more to announce about our plans for the E3 Expo at a later date.”
In addition to the unnamed Super Mario Bros. game for the Wii U, Nintendo has another Mario game, a 2D sidescroller for the 3DS, in the works as well.
Posted in News, Wii U
Tagged E3 2012, New Super Mario Bros. U
Aliens: Colonial Marines Hands-On Preview: The Xenomorphs Say “Game Over, Man!”
One of the longest lines at PAX East was the one for the Aliens: Colonial Marines booth, which had one of the best experiences on the show floor. No, they weren’t offering free mohawks, but they were hosting a developer-led demonstration of the single-player campaign, followed by a hands-on preview of the multiplayer… against those same developers. Sadly, we didn’t get to play as the xenomorphs, but that didn’t detract from the experience at all. And it’s scarier being hunted down by killer aliens when you know they’re far smarter than AI could ever be. (more…)
Posted in PC, Previews, PS3, Top Story, Wii U, Xbox 360
Tagged Aliens: Colonial Marines, PAX East 2012
Aliens: Colonial Marines is officially part of movie canon; Wii U version “is not a port”
We learned two very interesting things about Aliens: Colonial Marines at this weekend’s PAX East.
One, the Sega-published shooter has been inducted into the “official canon” of the Alien universe by 20th Century Fox. Chris Faylor, the Community Manager for developer Gearbox Software, told us that all previous expanded universe material (including the novels, the comics, and all the Alien vs Predator stuff) has been thrown out. The only productions currently considered canon are the first four films (yes, even Alien 3), Aliens: Colonial Marines, and maybe Ridley Scott’s Prometheus (since there’s still the possibility it’s not a prequel).
We also chatted with Matt Powers, a Senior Producer on the game for Sega, about the Wii U version of the game. Powers initially referred to the game as “the Wii U port” and Faylor rushed back over to scold him, telling us: “I hate that word. The Wii U version is not a port. Remove it from your vocabulary.”
After that rather tense exchange, we tried to get Powers to talk more about how the Wii U controller would come into play. With the Community Manager standing over his shoulder, he would only say that “there are interesting things you can do with the Wii U controller” and “for an Aliens game, you can probably guess what some of those things are.”
For the non-diehards in the audience, Powers was (wink, wink) likely referring to the famous radar display Sigourney Weaver, Michael Biehn, and the rest of the Colonial Marines used to track the xenomorphs in the film.
Aliens: Colonial Marines is expected to launch sometime this Fall.
Posted in News, PC, PS3, Wii U, Xbox 360
Tagged Aliens: Colonial Marines, PAX East 2012
Anonymous devs say Wii U isn’t as powerful as PS3/Xbox 360
Here’s a shocker… developers are unhappy with the processing power of the Wii U! Speaking anonymously to GamesIndustry International, several developers laid out their concerns about Nintendo’s next console:
“No, it’s not up to the same level as the PS3 or the 360,” said one developer who’s been working with the Wii U. What does that mean? “The graphics are just not as powerful,” reiterated the source.
Another developer at a major company confirmed this point of view. “Yeah, that’s true. It doesn’t produce graphics as well as the PS3 or the 360,” said the source. “There aren’t as many shaders, it’s not as capable. Sure, some things are better, mostly as a result of it being a more modern design. But overall the Wii U just can’t quite keep up.”
If what they say is true, it could certainly hurt the Wii U’s standing among hardcore gamers. The PS3 and Xbox 360 will be six and seven years old, respectively, when the Wii U launches, so the public is expecting it to pack a decent processing punch. Nintendo has said they plan to publicly reveal the final form of the Wii U at this year’s E3 Expo. So we should learn just how powerful the “next-gen” system is then.
However, I think the real crime here is that neither complaint has the artistry of former Maxis developer Chris Hecker saying, “The way you manufacture a Wii is you take two GameCubes and duct tape.”
If you’re going to slam Nintendo, you better be creative about it!
Battlefield developer DICE is hiring for a next-gen game
Who wants to work in Stockholm?
DICE, the EA division of mad programmers that play with the Frostbite 2 engine and brought you titles such as Battlefield 3 and Mirror’s Edge, is looking for a senior software engineer to help them craft their next-gen titles. Next-gen as in PlayStation 4 (AKA Orbis), Xbox 720, and Wii U.
What do you need to work at DICE? Hit the jump to find out, complete with translations for those unfamiliar with video game employment vernacular. (more…)
Rumor: Wii U will launch on November 18
It’s probably best not to consider this a rumor. Instead, look at it as a really obvious prediction.
Wii U Daily is reporting that the Wii U will launch on November 18, 2012. The site claims that they’re in possession of an internal email from Japanese retailer Media Land that confirmed the North American launch date as well as a November 25 launch for Japan.
The questions start piling up when you read some of the site’s other highlighted stories, such as Grand Theft Auto 5 coming to Wii U in 2013. In that article, Wii U Daily cites a “Rockstar financial report” that not only confirms a Wii U version of Grand Theft Auto V, but a 2013 release date. Needless to say, no financial report was issued by Rockstar (or parent company Take-Two) recently and no release date for GTA5 was announced.
But the Wii U launch date might not be bogus. The Wii launched on November 19, 2006 and the GameCube launched on November 18, 2001. Nintendo just loves that weekend for launching new consoles in North America.
So whether or not the email exists, November 18 is probably the real launch date for the Wii U.