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: Mario Kart 8 (Friday), Ittle Dew, Mega Man Xtreme 2, more
Vroom! Vroom! It’s Mario Kart 8 time as the latest entry in Nintendo long-running racing series will be available to download from the Wii U eShop beginning tomorrow. And don’t forget, every Wii U owner who purchases Mario Kart 8 will also be able to download one of the following games for free: New Super Mario Bros. U, Pikmin 3, The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker HD, or Wii Party U. Not a bad deal at all.
Also available to download from the Wii U eShop this week is Ittle Dew, an overhead adventure game that bears more than a passing resemblance to The Legend of Zelda. Joining Ittle Dew is Klonoa: Empire of Dream, a platformer originally released for the Game Boy Advance; Luv Me Buddies Wonderland, a minigame collection starring a bunch of cuddly puppies; and Gravity Badgers, a puzzle game that combines gravity-based physics puzzles and badgers. Hey… why not?
Mega Man Xtreme 2 is the only new game available on the 3DS eShop this week. The game, which was originally released for the Game Boy Color, was Mega Man’s second and final release for Nintendo’s first color handheld.
More information on all of these titles can be found after the break. (more…)
Posted in 3DS, News, Wii U
Tagged Mario Kart 8
Super Smash Bros. 4 will include GameCube controller support
Well, this is an interesting development. Nintendo has announced that they’re working on an adapter that will allow GameCube controllers to be used with the Wii U version of Super Smash Bros. 4:
Get excited! The #WiiU version of #SmashBros. will be playable with GameCube controllers. pic.twitter.com/nmyj9QMsuU
— Nintendo of America (@NintendoAmerica) May 29, 2014
Super Smash Bros. 4 will be available for the Wii U by the end of the year, but it’s currently unknown if the adapter will launch alongside it or at a later date. Hopefully, we’ll learn more about it during this year’s E3 Expo, which begins on June 9.
Posted in News, Wii U
Tagged Super Smash Bros. For 3DS, Super Smash Bros. For Wii U
CoD: Ghosts next DLC, Invasion, coming to Xbox One, Xbox 360 next week
Activision and Infinity Ward have unveiled the Invasion Map Pack, the next downloadable expansion for Call of Duty: Ghosts. As always, the Invasion Map Pack will add four new maps and the next chapter of Extinction Mode to the game. This time, players will be able to battle killer mariachis in “Departed,” trigger booby-trapped pyramids in “Pharaoh,” and unearth angry pirate ghosts in “Mutiny.” The final map, “Favela,” is a recreation of the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 map of the same name.
The Invasion Map Pack will be available to download from the Xbox Live Store this Tuesday, June 3, for the Xbox One and Xbox 360. As with all Call of Duty DLC, Season Pass owners will be able to grab the pack for free while everyone else will have to shell out $14.99. The Invasion Map Pack will likely be made available to PC, PS3, and PS4 players sometime in early July.
Check out the trailer above for a sneak peek at the new maps found in the Invasion Map Pack. We’ve also got an in-depth description of each map, straight from Activision, available after the break. (more…)
Ed Boon quasi-confirms Mortal Kombat 10 after possible poster leak
Ed Boon has been running a very unorthodox countdown with his Twitter account all month. If all goes according to plan, whatever Boon has in the hopper will be revealed on June 2. But it looks like a Reddit user may have beaten him to the punch by leaking the poster to your right.
The poster depicts a broken spine with the words “Who’s Next” and a slightly modified version of Mortal Kombat’s dragon logo. In 2011’s Mortal Kombat, NetherRealm Studios encouraged players to perform X-Ray Moves, which frequently involved the breaking of an opponent’s bones. But I’m a tad concerned about the validity of the poster as the logo and the “Who’s Next” wording seem to just float there. The way the poster is oriented in the image, they should be at more of an angle. There’s also the matter of the fact that the Redditor who posted the poster, “ItsHappening24,” is a brand new user (and on that note, 24‘s Kiefer Sutherland has previously been linked to the next Mortal Kombat game).
However, Boon himself has endorsed the image by installing the “Who’s Next” text as his header image on Twitter and adopting the dragon as his user icon. And a quick Google Images search confirms that Boon is the only person to ever use that exact version of the Mortal Kombat dragon logo… oh my god, what does it mean?
Right now, it doesn’t mean anything. But the stars seem to be aligning and I’m pretty confident that Mortal Kombat 10 will be officially announced in just a few short days.
Posted in News
Tagged E3 2014, Mortal Kombat X
XBL Store Today: Watch Dogs
It’s time to talk about Watch Dogs again as Ubisoft’s highly anticipated open-world is now available through the Xbox Live Games Store for both the Xbox One and Xbox 360. Can you hack it?
Watch Dogs (Xbox One: $59.99, Xbox 360: $59.99)
In today’s hyper-connected world, Chicago has the country’s most advanced computer system – one which controls almost every piece of city technology and holds key information on all of the city’s residents. You play as Aiden Pearce, a brilliant hacker but also a former thug, whose criminal past lead to a violent family tragedy. Now on the hunt for those who hurt your family, you’ll be able to monitor and hack all who surround you while manipulating the city’s systems to stop traffic lights, download personal information, turn off the electrical grid and more. Use the city of Chicago as your ultimate weapon and exact your own style of revenge. In a world led by technology, hacking is our weapon!
Posted in News, Xbox 360, Xbox One
Tagged Watch Dogs
Mario Kart 8 director “not ruling out” Smash Bros.-like expansion of franchise’s roster
Nintendo is all set to give Mario Kart 8 the green light this Friday, May 30. But before you dig in to the Wii U debut of the series, you should check out this Nintendo Life interview with the game’s director, Kosuke Yabuki. Yabuki is proud of his work on Mario Kart 8, but he’s already thinking ahead to Mario Kart 9. And there’s a strong possibility that the racer lineup in the next entry could be expanded to include characters from other Nintendo franchises, Super Smash Bros.-style.
“We’re always considering ways to make the Mario Kart games more appealing, but I don’t think that just increasing the number of characters would make the game better,” Yabuki said. “Of course, I’m not ruling out the possibility of [a Super Smash Bros. approach to the roster] in the future though.”
Obviously, this is far from a done deal. If development on the next Mario Kart game has even begun, it’s likely still in the very early stages. But a Nintendo-wide expansion to the game’s character roster, a “Super Smash Kart” if you will, would be very interesting.
Yup… Very. Interesting.
Bethesda unveils BattleCry, a team-based melee combat game
Many people believe that kings of old used to wage war not with swords and soldiers, but on the battlefield of the chess board. Bethesda’s BattleCry Studios has taken this idea and expanded upon it with their debut project, a 32-player team-based melee combat game also known as BattleCry.
BattleCry’s distinctive visual look was created by Viktor Antonov, the Art Director responsible for Half-Life 2‘s futuristic locales and Dishonored‘s medieval steampunk vibe. For BattleCry, Antonov has created a world where “gunpowder [was] banned following a cataclysmic world war at the dawn of the 20th century.” Like the chess-playing kings, “traditional warfare is now a relic of the past and all conflicts are settled head-on by elite teams of chosen warriors in sanctioned WarZones.” However, unlike the carved chessmen, these battles take place between trained warriors that live for battle.
Be sure to check out some of BattleCry’s characters in the trailer above (and especially be on the lookout for a pair of mustachioed circus strongmen) as well as a stylized look at the game’s melee combat system:
Choose your faction and progress your warrior through the ranks. Each rank unlocks new abilities and effects allowing deep strategic builds for your warrior on every level. Risk life and limb as the powerful Royal Marines or the fearless Cossacks in imaginative WarZones each designed to combine positioning, spacing and verticality to redefine your core combat experience. Fight with transformative melee and ranged weapons that harness iron and energy and eviscerate your opponents with swords that transform into shields, bows that can punch an arrow straight through an armored skull or electrocute your foes with high-powered blades crackling with electro-static energy.
Bethesda will release BattleCry as a free-to-play title for the PC sometime in 2015 and will reveal more details about the game’s world at this year’s E3 Expo.
Watch Dogs, The Sly Collection Vita, Wolf Among Us Episode 4, more added to PS Store
This is not your typically massive update to the PlayStation Store. But this week’s new batch of games does include one of the most highly anticipated games of 2014: Ubisoft’s Watch Dogs. Players will be able to take control of hacker Aiden Pearce on the PS3 or PS4 as he hacks his way across Chicago performing hacks against the dangerous group of hackers that hacked up his family. Oh, and Pearce can also put his hack license to good use by hijacking a cab and driving it around. He does a lot of hacking is what I’m saying.
Also available this week is the latest episode of Telltale’s Fables adaptation, The Wolf Among Us: In Sheep’s Clothing. Bigby is huffing and puffing in search of a killer but he doesn’t even realize that he’s joined on the PlayStation Store this week by one of the greatest thieves of all time as Sly Cooper comes to the Vita in The Sly Collection. Sly Cooper and the Thievius Raccoonus, Sly 2: Band of Thieves, and Sly 3: Honor Among Thieves have all been remastered, remade, and compiled for Sony’s handheld at a nice price ($29.99).
Speaking of the Vita… three other games are also available for Sony’s handheld this week. There’s the dungeon-crawling RPG Mind Zero from Aksys Games, the grid-based RPG Monster Monpiece from Idea Factory, and the lovable hijinks of Lemmings Touch.
More information about all of these games can be found after the break. And a full rundown of this week’s new game add-ons can be found at the PlayStation Blog. (more…)
Posted in News, PS3, PS4, Vita
Tagged Mind Zero, The Sly Collection, The Wolf Among Us, Watch Dogs