Warp Zoned Presents
Video Game Canon- Meet the World Video Game Hall of Fame’s Class of 2025: Quake, GoldenEye 007, Defender, and Tamagotchi
- The BAFTA Games Awards Polled the Public and Shenmue is “The Most Influential Video Game of All Time”
- 2024 GOTY Scoreboard: Astro Bot, Balatro, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, More
- The Strong Museum of Play Acquires Prototypes and Development Documents from Volition’s 30-Year History
- Minecraft’s Volume Alpha Soundtrack Has Been Added to the Library of Congress’s National Recording Registry
Warp Zoned Presents
- Video Game Research Library
- It’s beginning to feel like gaming isn’t for everyone – Digital Trends (2025)
- 22 years later, modders are keeping SimCity 4 alive – The Verge (2025)
- The B-movies of Paul W.S. Anderson double as acts of devotion to his muse, Milla Jovovich – The AV Club (2025)
- Breakout, Ripoff, Genre: How Fiction Outgrows Originality – Uncanny Magazine (2025)
- ‘I Could Make “Fart Fart Boobie Fart: The Game” and Maybe It Would Eventually Get Taken Down’ – Devs Reveal Why the Consoles Are Drowning in ‘Eslop’ – IGN (2025)
Most Recent: 3DS
Shovel Knight is officially coming to Nintendo Switch; Yacht Club also plans to re-release the expansions as standalone games
Followers of the Code of Shovelry have quite a bit to celebrate today as Yacht Club Games uncovered a massive amount of new information about Shovel Knight on the game’s official site… including confirmation that it’ll be released for the Nintendo Switch.
Yes, the side-scrolling masterpiece will make its way to the Nintendo Switch sometime this year, along with each expansion and all the bonus content like Body Swap Mode and Co-Op Mode. Oh, speaking of Body Swap Mode, it’s finished and will be released alongside the Specter Knight expansion this Spring. And in the spirit of sharing, Co-Op Mode will no longer be exclusive to the Wii U (and the Shovel Knight Amiibo). According to the developer, it will soon be available for all consoles and the PC (but not the 3DS or the Vita) as a free update.
Here’s where it gets interesting.
Shovel Knight’s release structure will soon be undergoing some changes, though Kickstarter backers and other current owners won’t notice anything different. Yacht Club has decided to upgrade the game for current owners to the Shovel Knight: Treasure Trove on all platforms. Available this Spring, the Treasure Trove will include free access to all updates and expansions. But because the expansions have grown beyond being simple character swaps, Yacht Club has decided to raise the price of the Treasure Trove for newcomers once its available. The game’s new price has yet to be announced, but the current $14.99 price (and its promise of free updates and expansions) will remain in place until the Treasure Trove is released.
For everyone who has yet to purchase Shovel Knight (or for those who might want to rebuy the game on a new platform), Yacht Club has decided to split each of the expansions off into its own standalone game. So the original Shovel Knight campaign will receive a new subtitle (Shovel of Hope), and the expansions (Plague of Shadows, Specter of Torment, the King Knight campaign, and Battle Mode) will all be available as individual downloads (and for a lower price) on the PC, PS4, Xbox One, and Switch.
Finally, Yacht Club has begun to think about life after Shovel Knight, and will soon begin work on their “second” game (depending on how you count the Shovel Knight expansions). Writing in a new Q&A, the developer said, “[I]f you want something new outside of Shovel Knight… we have vowed to begin work on a new project this year!”
Posted in 3DS, Mobile, News, PC, PS3, PS4, Switch, Vita, Wii U, Xbox One
Tagged Shovel Knight, Shovel Knight Showdown, Shovel Knight: King of Cards, Shovel Knight: Plague of Shadows, Shovel Knight: Specter of Torment
You should watch this great Shovel Knight speedrun race from Awesome Games Done Quick 2017
Awesome Games Done Quick is hosting their first speedrunning marathon of the year this week, and some of the best players from all across the world have descended on the Washington D.C. area to play through a huge number of games as fast as they can. In addition to putting on an excellent show, the AGDQ2017 participants are also raising money for the Prevent Cancer Foundation.
It’s a pretty fun week of gaming, and for further proof, just look at this year’s Shovel Knight race. Not only is it an extremely competitive contest, but you can watch two experts masterfully pick apart the new side-scrolling classic. The two players going head-to-head are “Smaugy” and “Munchakoopas,” and they provide a great match featuring plenty of platforming acrobatics, multiple lead changes, and an amazing photo finish.
Yacht Club Games will release the next expansion for Shovel Knight, Specter of Torment, sometime this year.
Warp Zoned’s 2016 Golden Pixel Awards: A Look Back at the Year in Video Games
In a very real way, the game industry wiped the slate clean in 2016.
After nearly a decade of development difficulties, Square Enix unleashed Final Fantasy XV on the world. Fumito Ueda and Sony Japan Studio overcame similar troubles to finally release The Last Guardian. Id Software shook off the past and was reborn after the launch of the fourth game in the Doom franchise. Blizzard closed the book on their failed “Titan Project” with the release of Overwatch. Naughty Dog said goodbye to Nathan Drake, but gamers said hello to altered realities that were both “augmented” and “virtual.” Nintendo found new kingdoms to conquer with Super Mario Run. And the launch of No Man’s Sky taught us that while the hype machine sometimes fails to deliver, the chance for a brighter tomorrow is always there.
But before we venture off into that great unknown, let’s look back at some of gaming’s highlights from 2016. (more…)
Posted in 3DS, Etcetera, Features, Mobile, PC, PS4, Top Story, Xbox One
Tagged Dangerous Golf, Dark Souls III, Doom (2016), Dragon Quest Builders, Dragon Quest VII: Fragments of the Forgotten Past, Final Fantasy XV, Hyper Light Drifter, No Man's Sky, Overwatch, Pac-Man Championship Edition 2, Pokemon Go, Pokemon Sun/Moon, Superhot, The Last Guardian, Uncharted 4: A Thief's End
Nintendo Download: Pokemon Snap, Spheroids, and more
Before Pokemon Go let fans take pictures of their Pokemon in the real world, Pokemon Snap offered a similar “Pokemon on Safari” experience on the Nintendo 64. Originally released in 1999, players wandered the game’s countryside and used a camera to “capture” wild Pokemon on film. Pokemon Snap owners could even take their Memory Card to Blockbuster Video and print out a copy of their prize-winning photograph.
While you might be shaking your head at “Memory Card” and “Blockbuster Video,” Pokemon fans will probably be happy to learn that Pokemon Snap is now available to download through the Wii U eShop as part of today’s Nintendo Download.
Also available to download for the Wii U today is Spheroids, a side-scrolling platformer where blockheaded humans battle spherical aliens.
More information on Pokemon Snap, Spheroids, and the rest of this week’s new releases can be found after the break. (more…)
Inside leads the way with six nominations at 2017 GDC Awards
The organizers of the Game Developers Conference have announced the nominees for the 2017 Game Developers Choice Awards, which will be held on March 1 at 9:30 (Eastern Time). Playdead’s Inside tallied six nominations, including “Game of the Year,” “Best Narrative,” “Best Design,” “Best Visual Art,” “Best Audio,” and the “Innovation Award.”
Competing with Inside for “Game of the Year” honors this year is Naughty Dog’s Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End, Blizzard’s Overwatch, Arkane’s Dishonored 2, and Campo Santo’s Firewatch.
Double Fine’s Tim Schafer will host the GDC Awards this year for the sixth time. He previously hosted the ceremony in 2007, 2009, 2011, 2013 and 2015.
The full list of nominees, and a huge number of Honorable Mentions, can be found after the break. (more…)
Pokemon Sun/Moon were the best-selling games on Amazon in 2016
Earlier this week, Steam provided a quick glimpse at the best-selling games available through the storefront in 2016. Besides The NPD Group’s monthly reports on gaming’s retail sector, it might be the best window into what sells and what doesn’t that we have.
However, Amazon also published a list of best-selling games from 2016 earlier this week, and naturally, it features a considerably more console-centric bent. Nintendo’s Pokemon Sun and Moon reigned supreme, taking the #1 and #2 spots. Final Fantasy XV was the best-selling PS4 game (#3 overall), while Madden NFL 17 claimed the Xbox One’s highest ranking (#5).
You’ve got to go all the way down to #18 to find the best-selling Wii U game (The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess HD), and the only PC game on the list is Overwatch (#46). No Vita games managed to crack Amazon’s Top 100 (which also included console bundles and accessories), but the Wii version of Just Dance 2017 checked in at #21.
The complete list of Amazon’s best-selling games from 2016 can be found after the break. (more…)
The Video Game Canon: An Introduction and The Top 100 (Version 1.0)
The Video Game Canon is a statistical meta-ranking of dozens of “Best Video Games of All Time” lists that began in 2017 with Version 1.0, and the ranking has been updated several times since then. Which game is #1? There’s only one way to find out…
Is it possible to rank the greatest video games of all time in a “scientific” way? Do you just throw the question to so-called experts and let them hash it out in a no-holds-barred debate? Or is there some way to create a “Video Game Canon” that the wide-ranging community of developers, critics, and players can all agree on?
Probably not. But we can try.
Since gaming’s earliest days, dozens of publications have tried to sort through the noise and compile their own list of “The Best Video Games of All Time.” By analyzing all of these attempts at ranking the greatest games and combining them into a single list, we can apply a little scientific rigor to the process and possibly create a “Best Video Games of All Time” list that everyone can agree on.
Before we go any further, let me just say… no matter how we try to justify it, it’s impossible to prove, by “science” or otherwise, that one game is definitively better than another. My attempt at adding “science” to the mix is just a way to add some zing to the numerical formula doing all the work behind the scenes.
Ideally, this project will give us the chance to look back at the history of video games reflected through some the medium’s greatest titles. The list itself will serve as something of a road map to help us learn how the best games of all time are connected to each other, to better appreciate how players interacted with video games in the past, and to explore what video games might become in the future.
Visit VideoGameCanon.com for all future updates to this project and to explore the complete Top 1000.
Nintendo Download: Mario Kart 64, Castlevania Dracula X
Even though it’s Thursday, only two new games were added to the Nintendo eShop today. But Nintendo is definitely going with quality over quantity this week, as both can rightly be called stone-cold classics, and one would make an excellent party game for your New Year’s Eve bash this weekend.
Originally released for the Nintendo 64 in 1997, Mario Kart 64 was the second game in the Mario Kart franchise and the first time it achieved perfection. Now available to download through the Wii U eShop, Mario Kart 64 featured the debut of four-player Battle Mode, as well as the infamous Blue Shell.
New 3DS owners will be able download Castlevania: Dracula X beginning today. Serving as a precursor to Symphony of the Night, Dracula X was released in extremely limited quantities for the Super NES back in 1995, but that won’t be a problem with the 3DS eShop edition.
More information on both games can be found after the break. (more…)