Warp Zoned Presents
Most Recent: Features
Warpback: What We Played in December 2011
With the busy busy holiday season, the only hardcore gaming some members of the Warp Zoned staff did in December involved the office Secret Santa gift exchange. But others still did plenty of playing and that’s what we’re here to talk about today. (more…)
The Official Mega-Super-Awesome Video Game Release Calendar for 2012
Dick Clark is in Times Square and the big ball will drop in less than 36 hours. That’s right folks, 2011 is coming to an end. But all that means is that 2012 is (quite literally) right around the corner. And with it comes a huge new year of gaming. In 2012, we’ll witness the launch of the PlayStation Vita and Nintendo Wii U. We’ll also welcome back the bullet-time action of Max Payne, the knee-cracking excitement of NFL Blitz, and a rousing return to the world of BioShock. There’s also the tomb raiding rebirth of Lara Croft, another count of Grand Theft Auto, the first Kid Icarus game in over two decades, and the gravity-defying feats of Inversion.
And that’s just the tip of the iceberg. Here’s what else we’ll be playing in 2012 (Did we miss any? Let us know in the comments)… (more…)
The Golden Pixel Awards 2011: Gaming’s Best, Worst, and Everything Else
Welcome to Warp Zoned’s first ever Golden Pixel Awards. Sit back and relax as we reward the best (and worst) games of 2011 with accolades based on their rather unique accomplishments.
The Apocalypse List
The bombs have fallen, the zombies have horded, food is scarce, and you’ve boarded yourself up in a bunker that’ll stand for a hundred years. What better way to spend your time in “The Vault” than by playing Warp Zoned’s favorite games from 2011? It doesn’t matter if you call it a “Top Ten List” or “Our Favorites From 2011,” but these are the games we plan to keep playing even if there was no game industry to keep making games. (more…)
Posted in 3DS, Etcetera, Features, PC, PS3, Top Story, Wii, Xbox 360
Tagged Bastion, Batman: Arkham City, Catherine, Dark Souls, Dead Space 2, Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Duke Nukem Forever, Earth Defense Force: Insect Armageddon, Gears of War 3, Killzone 3, L.A. Noire, Mortal Kombat, Portal 2, Resistance 3, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword
New IPs to Play Before the End of Days
The Mayans and film director Roland Emmerich would have us believe that the end of the world is nigh. Really nigh. Knee nigh almost. But despite the warnings, it seems most game designers shirked off the warning that was Emmerich’s masterpiece 2012 and decided to roll out the same old stuff. We have Final Fantasy XIII-2, Guild Wars 2, Borderlands 2, Darksiders II, The Darkness II, Mass Effect 3, Max Payne 3, Soul Calibur V, and Street Fighter X Tekken (I know the X doesn’t equal 10, but it might at well). I am sure some of these games will be amazing (and I have my £40 saved for Borderlands 2 already), but if it really, truly is the end of life, the universe and my games consoles, then is it too much to ask to play something new before we’re all burned, drowned, stabbed or frozen to death (depending on which mood Emmerich is in) instead of say, another instalment of Call of Duty or, hypothetically, taking an isometric political espionage strategy game from 1993 and turning it into yet another First Person Shooter?
Thankfully no. (more…)
Posted in Features, PC, PS3, Top Story, Vita, Xbox 360
Tagged Binary Domain, Dishonored, Inversion, NeverDead, Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch, Sound Shapes, The Last Guardian, The Last of Us
Warpback: What We Played in November 2011
Ah, November. We hardly knew ye! You were here and gone so quickly, leaving us with a whirlwind of Black Friday sales as you went. You came in like an adventurer with Drake and Sully, then went out like a sword-swinging Link, and in the middle was Skyrim, Skyrim, Skyrim. With so many great games to choose from, what was the Warp Zoned staff playing? Read on to find out! (more…)
5 For $5: Adventures In Xbox Live Indie Games
It’s easy to understand why some people would completely ignore the Xbox Live Indie Games channel in the Xbox Live Marketplace. After all, the once-promising service has been completely overrun by tons of silly zombie/vampire/ninja games, puzzling avatar-based titles, awkward Angry Birds clones, games clearly made for extremely horny teenagers, and pretty much the entire Silver Dollar Games catalog. However, there are some very solid needles in that haystack, and some of them are as little as one dollar! That’s why we’re here, in fact – if you were to, say, purchase 400 Microsoft Points for $5, you could get five Indie Games for that five dollar transaction. You’d be supporting small, independent developers, and finding some fun takes on popular genres without going broke. Everyone likes getting good stuff for cheap, right? (more…)
The Madden Curse Strikes Back: A Midseason Report on All 32 Cover Finalists
The 2011 NFL season is only at the halfway point and the Madden Cover Curse has already claimed another victim. Fans selected Cleveland Browns running back Peyton Hillis as the Madden NFL 12 cover athlete, and while some joked about the curse at the time, few gave it much thought as the lockout consumed all NFL news. But here we are: the lockout is over and it’s safe to say that few players have been victimized by the curse like Hillis has.
The running back has missed the last three games with a hamstring injury and he has already been ruled out for this weekend’s upcoming game against the St. Louis Rams. Hillis also missed the Browns’ week three game against the Dolphins with a serious strep throat infection. Some reports say he lost as much as ten pounds in a single week.
As if these injuries weren’t bad enough, Hillis has only had one breakout game the entire season. In week two, against the Colts, Hillis ran for 94 yards and scored two touchdowns in a 27-19 Browns win. He even managed to catch four passes as well. It’s a disturbing return to form for the Madden Cover Curse, which spared Vince Young, Brett Favre, Larry Fitzgerald, and Drew Brees in recent years. Troy Polamalu (who shared the cover of Madden NFL 10 with Fitzgerald) was the last victim of the curse, missing 11 games in 2009.
But what about the other 32 players that Hillis defeated in EA’s single-elimination tournament to select the Madden NFL 12 cover athlete? Have they been cursed by association? All told, seven players besides Hillis have succumbed to the Madden Cover Curse, even though they were never on the cover! Two more are currently nursing injuries and may join their ranks.
I’m not sure if I believe in curses and superstitions. But the Madden Cover Curse has affected nine of the 13 cover athletes chosen since John Madden gave up his spot on the box, and while a regression to the mean is to be expected for the top players of the previous season, the curse seems to go beyond that. I’m sure some statistics grad student could create an interesting paper out of the percentage of NFL players that suffer a statline reduction from season to season. But until then, this study is the best we have. (more…)
The Next Level: The Games of November 2011
November is going to be an unforgiving month for the wallets of the Warp Zoned staff! We’re doing everything from figuring out what the hell “Drake’s Deception” really is, to getting your dragon on in the new Elder Scrolls game. The video game companies are throwing everything but the kitchen sink at us! We have no choice but to clear our schedules, open our wallets, and pray our thumbs don’t give out. Read on to find out just what exactly it is we plan on playing this month, though our intentions might get overridden by the first games we get addicted to. (more…)