Author: John Scalzo

John Scalzo is Warp Zoned's Editor-In-Chief and resident retro gaming expert. You can email him at john AT warpzoned DOT com.

Who’s Next? Mortal Kombat X officially announced

“It has begun!”

After years of rumors and speculation (and one wild countdown), WB Games and NetherRealm Studios have officially announced Mortal Kombat X. The tenth game in the long-running fighting franchise will be released sometime in 2015 for next-generation platforms.

According to NetherRealm, Mortal Kombat X will “[combine an] unparalleled, cinematic presentation with dynamic gameplay to create an unprecedented Kombat experience.” You can get your first taste of this cinematic presentation in the game’s debut trailer, which features Sub-Zero and Scorpion (who else?) battling in a snowy forest. The trailer is scored with an original track from Wiz Khalifa titled “Can’t Be Stopped.”

A more in-depth official announcement will likely be released later today and we’ll surely hear more about Mortal Kombat X at this year’s E3 Expo.

Posted in News, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One | Tagged

Weekly Warp-Up: T-Minus One Week to E3 2014 Edition

No, that’s not a typo. Welcome to the Weekly Warp-Up, your weekly wrap-up of the biggest and the best articles posted at Warp Zoned this week…

Do you hear that crackle and excitement in the air? It’s the coming of the 2014 E3 Expo and the rush of the new game announcements that will accompany it. Announcements that are happening this week because publishers are an impatient lot. Even developers like NetherRealm’s Ed Boon are getting in on the early announcements. After a leaked poster seemingly confirmed the existence of Mortal Kombat 10, Boon went ahead and admitted as much to the world by revamping the Mortal Kombat website and posting about it on Twitter. Two other high-profile pre-E3 announcements from this past week included EA’s game of cops-and-robbers, Battlefield Hardline, and Bethesda’s game of team-based meleeing, BattleCry.

Of course, if you’d rather hide from the upcoming onslaught of AAA games, we’ve published a new edition of Kickstart This! for your perusal.

What else happened this week? You should read the rest of the Weekly Warp-Up after the break. (more…)

Posted in News |

New Releases: Tomodachi Life, Murdered: Soul Suspect, WildStar, More

newreleases060314

The new releases have begun to dry up as we roll towards the Summer and (in eight days time) the 2014 E3 Expo. Thankfully, Nintendo, Square Enix, NCSoft, and NIS America are here to give us a quartet of new games this week.

Nintendo’s 3DS life simulator, Tomodachi Life, will be available on June 6. Whether you’ve followed the debate over the game’s exclusion of same-sex relationships or not, Tomodachi Life looks like a skewed take on Nintendo’s already-established Animal Crossing franchise. Plus, it features Shaquille O’Neal as himself. If you’re looking for something a little less lighthearted, Square Enix and Airtight Games will release Murdered: Soul Suspect on Tuesday for the PC, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, and Xbox One. The game follows Ronan O’Connor, a detective who has been murdered by The Bell Killer. As a ghost, Ronan has to deal with demonic spectres and solve the mystery of his own death. So like Ghost, but with less Whoopi Goldberg (Unless…).

Also available this week is WildStar, a new MMO from NCSoft that eschews the dark and gritty aesthetic of most MMOs and replaces it with colorful locales and anthropomorphized animals. And speaking of colorful, NIS America will release Hyperdimension Neptunia Producing Perfection, a diva simulator for the Vita.

Finally, Microsoft will roll out the $399 Kinect-less Xbox One this week. So if you’ve been thinking about adding a new-generation console to your entertainment center, perhaps now is the time.

Posted in 3DS, News, PC, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One | Tagged , , ,

Comcept closes out “Mighty May” with Mighty No. 9 gameplay trailer

Comcept has released a handful of trailers showcasing their progress on Mighty No. 9 since the completion of the Kickstarter campaign last Fall. But today’s new gameplay trailer, released to celebrate the end of “Mighty May,” is the most impressive yet. You might even say it is mega cool, man.

The trailer focuses on the icy locale that Mighty No. 2 calls home and the more industrial digs of Mighty No. 5. And unlike the previous “work-in-progress” trailers, this one features some beautiful backgrounds and gorgeous graphical effects, as well as a ton of enemies and environmental objects. Basically, it’s starting to look like a finished game.

According to Comcept, development on Mighty No. 9 will be completed over the course of the next 12 months and we should all be able to get our hands on it in Spring 2015. And I do mean all as Mighty No. 9 is in development for the 3DS, PC (Windows, Mac, Linux), PS3, PS4, Vita, Wii U, Xbox 360, and Xbox One.

Posted in 3DS, News, PC, PS3, PS4, Vita, Wii U, Xbox 360, Xbox One | Tagged

Walking Dead S1/2, Wolf Among Us collections coming to PS4, Xbox One, PS3, Xbox 360

telltale-logoSeveral retailers let the cat out of the bag a bit early, but Telltale Games officially announced today that The Walking Dead Season 1, The Walking Dead Season 2, and The Wolf Among Us will soon be available for the PS4 and Xbox One. According to Telltale, a disc-based compilation of each episodic series will be available “later this year.” PS3 and Xbox 360 owners will also get a chance to purchase The Walking Dead Season 2 and The Wolf Among Us on disc as well to join the previously released disc-based version of The Walking Dead Season 1.

Telltale has promised to announce a release date for the compilation discs soon, and this news lends further credence to the belief that Tales From the Borderlands will also be available for current-generation and new-generation platforms (and the PC) when it launches sometime this Summer or Fall.

Posted in News, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One | Tagged , ,

Quantum Break gameplay teaser promises full reveal at Gamescom 2014

Remedy is hard at work on Quantum Break and the latest trailer confirms that their time-twisting action game will be released in 2015. While a 2014 release date was never officially announced, many hoped they’d get their hands on the game this year. It looks like that’s not to be and, according to Remedy’s Sam Lake, Quantum Break will skip the 2014 E3 Expo as well.

In the video above, Quantum Break’s Creative Director teases a tiny sliver of gameplay footage from the game with the promise that we’ll get more at this year’s Gamescom show. The video game show, which is based in Cologne, Germany, will be held from August 13 through the 17th.

Quantum Break will attempt to blend a third-person action game with a Hollywood-style live-action television show. According to Lake, “The game is about heroes, the show is about villains.” The game will follow Jack Joyce, the hero we’ve gotten to know a little bit about in two earlier trailers (at the “Next Xbox Reveal” and VGX 2013). Meanwhile, the show will follow the corporate intrigue within Monarch Solutions, the evil entity at the center of Quantum Break.

Hopefully, one of the villains will give us a “muwhahaha” at some point in the show.

Posted in News, Xbox One | Tagged ,

Mortal Kombat website goes dark ahead of Mortal Kombat 10 reveal

mortalkombat10-dragonlogoThe Mortal Kombat 10 teaser train just keeps rolling. This morning, the official Mortal Kombat website went dark. When it came back to life, the page was blank except for the redesigned Mortal Kombat dragon logo that appeared on the leaked “Who’s Next” poster.

Ed Boon’s Twitter countdown will expire on June 2, one week ahead of this year’s E3 Expo, so I think we’re definitely in store for a Mortal Kombat 10 announcement next Monday (can we call it “Mortal Monday”?).

And then there’s this…

Thanks, Ed Boon! (Unless he’s trolling us.)

Posted in News | Tagged ,

Plants vs Zombies: Garden Warfare spreads like a weed to PS3, PS4 in August

After launching Plants vs Zombies: Garden Warfare on the Xbox One and Xbox 360 this past February, Electronic Arts and PopCap Games have announced plans to bring the game to the PS4 and PS3 on August 19.

In case you missed Plants vs Zombies: Garden Warfare during its first planting season, let me shower you with some details. PopCap has taken their popular tower defense game and morphed it into a team-based shooter that includes the 12v12 modes “Garden & Graveyards” and “Team Vanquish,” along with the “Garden Ops” co-op mode. Players who are interested in purchasing Garden Warfare on the PS3 or PS4 will gain access to a variety of special Hat Packs allowing their Plants or Zombies to don Ratchet & Clank, Sly Cooper and Fat Princess headgear. Vita Remote Play will also be included.

“Our players have already vanquished more than 400 million plants and zombies, and we can’t wait for PlayStation gamers to add to this total,” said Brian Lindley, a Producer on Plants vs Zombies: Garden Warfare. “They’ll see how accessible, yet deep, the gameplay is, and will get endless hours of fun out of the game.”

Posted in News, PS3, PS4 | Tagged