Warp Zoned Presents
Video Game Canon- Clair Obscur Completes the Sweep by Winning “Best Game” at 2025-2026 BAFTA Games Awards
- Boss Fight Books Gets a New Look for Richard Moss’s “Age of Empires”
- GDC Awards: All the Winners from 1996 to Today
- Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 Wins “Game of the Year” at 2025-2026 GDC Awards
- Silent Hill, Dragon Quest, Skyrim, and More Announced as Finalists for the World Video Game Hall of Fame’s Class of 2026
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)
Author: John Scalzo
Learn more about Menat’s fighting style ahead of her Street Fighter V debut
Yesterday, Capcom unveiled the first gameplay trailer for Menat during the Hong Kong eSports Festival. Today, the game publisher released a few more details about her fighting style on the Capcom-Unity blog:
Character Overview
Menat is an apprentice of a famous Fortune teller that lives in Italy. The techniques she was taught revolve around her crystal sphere, which she controls with her soul power. This power lets her extend the base of her attacks, giving her a fortunate advantage at longer ranges. She is also able to send it out at the opponent to disrupt attacks, where she can later call it back. While the crystal sphere is out, she can cancel any normal attack and her V-Skill into Soul Sphere: Ankh, calling the crystal ball back to her, greatly increasing her combo potential.V-Skill: Soul Reflect – Kamal
Produce a shock wave attack from her soul power. While the crystal sphere is retracted, this lets her reflect the average projectile back at the opponent. If the crystal ball was sent out into battle prior to using her V-Skill, this will absorb the projectile to help build up her v-gauge. This can also be used to launch the opponent into the air to help extend combos.V-Trigger: Wisdom of Thoth
Menat summons six spheres with her soul power andeach sphere is linked to her normal attacks. Pressing and releasing of a normal attack sends the sphere linked to that attack flying at the opponent.Critical Art: The Nefertem
Menat sends her crystal sphere to bind her soul power with the opponent to deal devastating damage.
Street Fighter V owners will be able to download Menat beginning tomorrow, August 29. And in case you missed it, her debut trailer has been embedded above.
Posted in News, PC, PS4
Tagged Street Fighter V
NetherRealm unveils Injustice 2 gameplay trailer for Black Manta
Black Manta will join Injustice 2 as part of the Fighter Pack 2 expansion, and NetherRealm Studios unveiled the Aquaman villain’s first gameplay trailer this morning.
Mortal Kombat fans will likely notice the similarity to robotic characters like Cyrax and Sektor, but Black Manta also has a few aquatic powers, as well as some ninja-like moves.
Injustice 2 owners will be able to download Black Manta sometime in September.
Posted in News, PS4, Xbox One
Tagged Injustice 2
New Retail Releases: Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle, Yakuza Kiwami, Everybody’s Golf, More
The Summer is coming to a close this week, but it looks like game publishers are getting a jump on the avalanche of new titles planned for this Fall for more than a half dozen new retail releases this week…
Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle caps off Nintendo’s “Summer of Switch” with a colorful and crazy tactical battler. The game was developed by Ubisoft, and Mario and friends will fight back against the invading Rabbids with a unique arsenal of weapons and “humorous fun.”
Also set to launch this week is Yakuza Kiwami for the PS4. Players will get the chance to relive the first adventure of Kazuma Kiryu, the Dragon of Dojima, in this “Extreme” remake of the original Yakuza.
Several other games will make their way to new platforms this week including Obsidian’s expansive RPG, Pillars of Eternity: Complete Edition (PS4 and Xbox One); Capcom’s seaworthy spinoff, Resident Evil Revelations (PS4 and Xbox One); and 34BigThings’s futuristic racer, Redout (PS4 and Xbox One).
Finally this week, Sony and Clap Hanz will bring back their wild and wacky golf simulation, Everybody’s Golf, on the PS4. It’ll be joined by Koei Tecmo’s Warriors crossover, Warriors All-Stars, and zombie-themed shooter Dead Alliance (PS4 and Xbox One).
That’s all for now, but we’ll be back later this week with an in-depth look at the new additions to the PlayStation Store, Xbox Games Store, and Nintendo eShop.
Posted in News, PS4, Switch, Xbox One
Tagged Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle, New Hot Shots Golf, Pillars of Eternity, Redout, Resident Evil Revelations, Warriors All-Stars, Yakuza
Menat is Street Fighter V’s next character and she’ll be available to download on August 29
Capcom revealed the next character set to join Street Fighter V during this weekend’s Hong Kong eSports Festival. Menat is an Egyptian character who is described as “The Eyes of the Future,” and her fortunetelling abilities are on full display in the trailer above.
The fortuneteller is extremely fast, and her electrically-charged crystal balls can pull opponents in closer, or push them away. If you look close, you’ll see she can also teleport.
Menat will be available to download as part of Street Fighter V’s Season 2 Character Pass, or as a standalone purchase, on August 29. Capcom will announce the final character from Season 2 later this year.
Posted in News, PC, PS4
Tagged Street Fighter V
Spry Fox released Alphabear for the PC earlier this week
You might have missed it (I know I did), but Spry Fox released an expanded and updated version of Alphabear for the PC earlier this week. Alphabear is available to download now as a special Hardcover Edition that ditches the free-to-play aspects of the mobile game for a one-time $9.99 price tag.
Alphabear is a simple wordbuilding puzzle game at heart, but it also encourages players to collect adorable stuffed bears to multiply their score:
In Alphabear, you spell words by selecting letters on a grid. When you use letters that are adjacent to each other, bears appear! The more letters you use, the bigger the bear gets, and the more points you earn! When your score is high enough, you’ll also win a bear for your permanent collection. These bears can be used as powerups in future games! They increase the points you earn, extend your timer, increase or decrease the frequency with which letters appear on the game board, and more. And your bears “learn” from the words you use in-game and will repeat them back to you in unexpectedly witty and horrible ways.
Alphabear’s Hardcover Edition adds a companion dictionary to help players build their vocabulary, as well as a Prestige difficulty mode for players who complete every Chapter, and a series of randomized daily boards.
Spry Fox is giving early adopters the chance to purchase Alphabear: Hardcover Edition on Steam for 10% off until August 30.
The Video Game Canon – Pong
Dig deeper into the Video Game Canon with a look at the birth of Pong and asks why early game developers were so obsessed with recreating table tennis on our TVs. Here’s a teaser…
Why were early game developers so fixated on bouncing a ball back and forth?
It’s hard to pinpoint the very first video game, but it most likely belongs to A.S. Douglas and OXO. This electronic version of Tic-Tac-Toe was created by Douglas in 1952 to support his doctoral thesis, Interactions Between Human and Computer. But after that, the only question early gamemakers wanted to ask was, “Tennis, anyone?”
William Higinbotham was probably unfamiliar with OXO when he unleashed Tennis For Two on the world on October 18, 1958. Presented to the public during an open house at the Brookhaven National Laboratory, the game harnessed the pulses of an oscilloscope to give players the illusion of a playing field with a net in the center and a ball bouncing back and forth. Unlike Douglas, Higinbotham was trying to wow a crowd with the possibilities of science and add a little pizazz to the BNL’s normally staid event:
“The instruction book that came with the computer described how to plot trajectories and bouncing shapes, for research. I thought, ‘Hell, this would make a good game.’ It took me four hours to design one and a technician a couple of weeks to put it together. Everybody stood in line to play. The other exhibits were pretty static, obviously. The game seemed to me sort of an obvious thing.”
After the open house, Higinbotham’s invention was dismantled, and his status as a game development pioneer was forgotten… until the early 70s when he was dragged into the legal battle between Table Tennis and Pong.
Visit VideoGameCanon.com to continue reading this article and to explore the complete Top 1000.
Posted in Features, Retro, Top Story, Video Game Canon
Tagged Pong
Xbox Store Today: Madden NFL 18, F1 2017, Mages of Mystralia, more
It’s a big day for the Xbox Games Store, as a dozen new releases are now available to download through the digital storefront.
We start things off with EA Sports’s annual football simulation, Madden NFL 18. This year, the publisher gave the Xbox One game a “significant visual leap” thanks to the use of EA’s proprietary Frostbite Engine. A brand new Story Mode, “Longshot,” will also give Madden fans something new to try out.
Sports fans will also get the chance to put the pedal to the metal in Codemasters’s F1 2017. The Xbox One racer will include a revamped Career Mode and other enhancements over previous entries.
The magic of sports gives way to actual magic in Mages of Mystralia, an overhead action RPG from Borealys Games. Players will be able to create their own spellbook to solve the puzzles and overcome obstacles “put in place by people who do not want you to succeed.”
Finally, Bandai Namco will re-release the first three games in the Naruto Shippuden series (Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm, Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 2, and Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 3 – Full Burst) for the Xbox One with improved graphics and sound.
You can learn more about all of today’s new releases after the break. (more…)
Posted in News, Xbox One
Tagged F1 2017, Madden NFL 18, Mages of Mystralia
Super Mario Odyssey takes home “Best of Gamescom” award at 2017 Gamescom expo
Hats off to Super Mario Odyssey…
Nintendo’s upcoming platformer took home five Gamescom Awards this year, including 2017’s “Best of Gamescom” title, as well as “Best Nintendo Switch Game,” “Best Action Game,” “Best Family Game,” and the fan-voted “Most Wanted Consumer Award.”
The only other game to capture multiple Gamescom Awards was Destiny 2, which won “Best Social/Online Game” and “Best Multiplayer Game.”
The international jury spread out the remainder of the Gamescom Awards and chose to honor Assassin’s Creed: Origins (“Best PS4 Game”), Middle-Earth: Shadow of War (“Best Xbox One Game”), Kingdom Come: Deliverance (“Best PC Game”), and Metroid: Samus Returns (“Best Mobile Game”) in the platform categories. Another wide variety of titles (including Project CARS 2, Ni No Kuni II: Revenant Kingdom, Pro Evolution Soccer 2018, and others) were big winners in the genre categories.
The complete list of nominees and winners for the 2017 Gamescom Awards can be found after the break. (more…)
Posted in 3DS, Mobile, News, PC, PS4, Switch, Xbox One
Tagged Destiny 2, Gamescom 2017, Super Mario Odyssey