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
Nintendo Download: Super Mario Kart, Mega Man V, Cybernator, more
This week’s Nintendo Download is a great day for fans of the Virtual Console as four classic titles have been added to the eShop.
The biggest name in today’s batch is clearly Super Mario Kart. The Super NES game is considered the forefather of all kart racing games and is still beloved by gamers the world over. So celebrate the 22nd anniversary of its release by downloading it to your Wii U. Joining Super Mario Kart on the Wii U eShop today is Mega Man V, one of the last Mega Man games to be released for the NES, and Cybernator, a shooter originally released for the Super NES.
One Virtual Console title was added to the 3DS eShop as well today, and it’s The Mysterious Murasame Castle, an NES game that was previously only available in Japan. You might recognize it as the basis for Nintendo Land‘s “Takamaru’s Ninja Castle.”
And if you’re looking for more Virtual Console blasts from the past, Nintendo has confirmed that Double Dragon II: The Revenge will be added to the Wii U eShop on August 14 with Life Force following the week after on August 21.
More details on all of these games (as well as two more) can be found after the break. (more…)
Latest BioWare teaser asks you to feel the “Impact”
BioWare has released another teaser trailer in their “You’ve Been Chosen” series of adverts ahead of the game’s Gamescom 2014 reveal next week. This one is titled “Impact” and it depicts a terrified girl whispering that something isn’t her fault over and over again. A quick cut later and we realize that she has somehow created a magical-looking sinkhole under her house. The trailer closes with this teaser’s tagline, which asks, “Can You Control Your Power?”
After careful consideration, I think we’re dealing with mutants here. Or possibly modern day folks dealing with mystical powers that they never knew existed. Something like that.
We’ll find out for sure next week during BioWare’s Gamescom presentation, which is scheduled to take place on Wednesday, August 13 at 10:00 AM (Eastern Time). If you can’t make it to Cologne, Germany, BioWare will livestream the announcement on Twitch.
Posted in News, PC
Tagged Gamescom 2014, Shadow Realms
Sony is teasing a bloody snowflake for Gamescom 2014
Sony has released a ten-second trailer of a blood-covered snowflake falling toward the ground to promote an upcoming Gamescom 2014 announcment. Right now, this trailer is the entirety of Sony’s Gamescom 2014 tease, so who knows what they’re attempting to promote. But we can take a few guesses.
The consolemaker has several games in development that focus heavily on blood including Bloodborne, The Order: 1886, and the supposedly still-in-development Until Dawn. Is it teasing one of these titles? Or something else entirely? We’ll all find out together when Sony delivers their Gamescom 2014 keynote on Monday, August 11 at 1:00 PM (Eastern Time).
Posted in News, PS3, PS4, Vita
Tagged Gamescom 2014
XBL Store Today: Sacred 3
Deep Silver’s hack and slash sequel, Sacred 3, is the sole addition to the Xbox Live Games Store this week. It’s available for the Xbox 360 and it’s been priced at $49.99:
Sacred 3 ($49.99)
Sacred 3 is an arcade Hack ‘n’ Slash game for up to four players, set in the war for Ancaria. Choose from legendary heroes and fight together against the rise of evil. You will face hordes of grimmocs, brute beasts, legions of mercenaries and undead wizards. Develop your character’s skills and abilities and band together to use powerful co-op abilities and tactics. Victory is Ours. Glory is Mine.
Shovel Knight sells 180,000 copies in first month as Yacht Club breaks down budget/sales
When Yacht Club Games created their Kickstarter campaign for Shovel Knight last Spring, they didn’t just set out to create a retro-styled platformer. They also wanted to make the development process more transparent by regularly releasing budget figures and sales numbers.
To that end, the team revealed that their initial budget for Shovel Knight was $1.44 million. So what’s a developer to do when their Kickstarter campaign only brings in $328,000? In Yacht Club’s case, they deferred the salary of their outside composer, split off the Stretch Goals into post-release content, and forgoed paychecks for the last five months of development.
“It was a difficult period, where some of us were awkwardly standing in front of cashiers having our credit cards declined, drawing from any possible savings, and borrowing money from our friends and family,” a Yacht Club team member said.
But it appears to have paid off as the team sold more than 180,000 copies of Shovel Knight during the game’s first month of availability. Amazingly, it’s selling at exactly the same pace on each platform as the 3DS, PC, and Wii U versions all account for about a third of the sales.
With a success on their hands, Yacht Club is ready to embark on creating those promised Stretch Goals. If you’d like to read more about Shovel Knight’s wild ride from Kickstarter darling to beloved game, head over to Yacht Club’s website.
Posted in 3DS, News, PC, Wii U
Tagged Shovel Knight
Mario Kart 8 August update includes Mercedes DLC, on-screen map, more
That bizarre Mercedes-Benz DLC will soon be available for Mario Kart 8. Nintendo of Japan has announced that an August 27 update for Mario Kart 8 will include three Mercedes-Benz karts and a comprehensive set of gameplay tweaks… including the return of the course map!
Aside from putting the course map back on your television where it belongs, Mario Kart 8’s August update will include a “Last Used Configuration” for each character and kart combination as well as a Scoreboard screen for each user that lists their total number of coins collected and online win-loss records. The update will also include an increase in the stability of online races and the ability for opponents to copy and edit the Mario Kart TV highlight videos.
As for the Mercedes-Benz DLC, the free kart has now become a trio as the car manufacturer has provided players with the GLA, the W25 Silver Arrow, and the 300 SL Roadster. You can see them all in action in the trailer above.
Nintendo of America has yet to confirm when Mario Kart 8’s first update will be available on our side of the Pacific, but it’s likely we’ll receive it around the end of August as well.
[Source: Nintendo Life]
UPDATE: Nintendo of America has announced that the Mario Kart 8 update will be available on August 27.
Posted in News, Wii U
Tagged Mario Kart 8
2K pushes Evolve’s release into February 2015
The Fall 2014 game calendar lost another one last night when 2K Games announced that Turtle Rock’s “4v1” shooter, Evolve, will miss its October 21 release date. The game, which was a huge hit at both PAX East and the E3 Expo, will now be released on February 10, 2015.
Posting on Turtle Rock’s official forums, co-founder Chris Ashton revealed that the team is “painfully close” to matching their vision for Evolve and asked for the extra time to polish the game:
As we got closer to the October date, we were able to look at where the game was going to be, and compare that to where we all dreamed it would be. In a meeting with the top brass I described it as “painfully close.”
Fortunately 2K feels the same way and is willing to put extra time into the game so that we can make our dream a reality. That’s huge for us, and for the future of Evolve. We want to be proud of every aspect of the game on release day.
The public will next get a chance to play Evolve during next week’s Gamescom convention in Cologne, Germany.
Killzone: Shadow Fall Intercept, Ultra Street Fighter IV, Swapper, more added to PS Store
Sony has dropped eight new games onto the PlayStation Store, so get for another punching, platforming, and shooting good time. This week’s big new releases include…
- Killzone: Shadow Fall Intercept (PS4), a standalone shooter based on the “Intercept” co-op mode from Killzone: Shadow Fall.
- Ultra Street Fighter IV (PS3), is the fourth (and presumably final) update for Street Fighter IV. It adds five new fighters to the game as well as a variety of balance tweaks.
- The Swapper (PS3/PS4/Vita Cross-Buy), is this week’s “PlayStation Store Play” selection and it tasks players with navigating a sci-fi world by cloning themselves into new locations.
- Metrico (Vita), is another puzzle platformer, but this one is set in a world of charts and graphs.
- Sacred 3 (PS3), the latest entry in the hack and slash franchise, which has shifted over to a new developer in Keen Games.
More information on all of these games can be found after the break and a full rundown of this week’s new game add-ons is available at the PlayStation Blog. (more…)
Posted in News, PS3, PS4, Vita
Tagged Sacred 3, Street Fighter IV, The Swapper