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)
Most Recent: 3DS
Nintendo Download: Shantae and the Pirate’s Curse, Duck Hunt, Super Mario World, more
Exactly 26 years ago, I unwrapped an NES “Action Set” complete with the original Super Mario Bros. and Duck Hunt. This Christmas, Nintendo wants to recreate one of my earliest childhood memories by adding Super Mario Bros. Deluxe, a Game Boy Color port of the original Super Mario adventure, to the 3DS eShop and Duck Hunt to the Wii U eShop. Someone tell the Duck Hunt Dog that I will have the last laugh this year…
Two other Nintendo classics are now available to download today, both on the Wii U eShop. Mario Party Advance was the first Mario Party to be released for a Nintendo handheld. And Super Mario World: Super Mario Advance 2 brought Super Mario World, possibly the greatest Super Mario game ever, to the Game Boy Advance when it was originally released.
Also available this week is the Wii U debut of WayForward’s strong>Shantae and the Pirate’s Curse. Already available for the 3DS, Wii U owners can now take control of the feisty genie in her latest side-scrolling adventure.
More information on all of these games (and a few others) can be found after the break. (more…)
Posted in 3DS, News, Wii U
Tagged Duck Hunt, Shantae and the Pirate's Curse, Super Mario Bros.
Watch this fan-made Shovel Knight Holiday Special right now
In just a short time, Shovel Knight has captured the hearts of gamers everywhere. After being created by Yacht Club Games, the character has gone on to cameo in a whole host of games and will make the jump to the PS3, PS4, and Vita in 2015. But first, you should watch Shovel Knight’s Holiday Special, a fan-made animated short created by Wind-Up Dog Animation that features a special appearance from Shield Knight.
I gotta admit, I’d watch an entire series of animated adventures starring Shovel Knight. Especially one from this creative team.
Check out the first trailer for Theatrhythm Dragon Quest
Square Enix doesn’t have the best track record when it comes to bringing Dragon Quest spinoffs to North America. But perhaps that’ll change with next year’s Theatrhythm Dragon Quest.
The publisher released the first trailer for the 3DS rhythm game over the weekend during the Jump Festa convention. Theatrhythm fans will surely appreciate a new entry in the series while Dragon Quest will jump for joy at the NES-themed level and all the recognizable monsters.
Theatrhythm Dragon Quest will be released for the 3DS in Japan on March 26. Hopefully an American release date will be announced soon.
Posted in 3DS, News
Tagged Theatrhythm Dragon Quest
Nintendo Download: Mega Man Zero, Metal Gear Solid: Snake Eater 3D, more
Nintendo is saving the majority of their eShop surprises for Christmas Day, but there are a few interesting odds and ends making their way to the company’s digital storefront today.
For example, Wii U owners can now tackle Mega Man Zero through the Virtual Console. Mega Man Zero was originally released for the Game Boy Advance in 2002 and is considered by fans to be one of the hardest games in the entire series. Retro gaming fans who own a Wii U might also want to check out Natsume Championship Wrestling, a Super NES game that was also added to the Virtual Console service today.
Elsewhere on the eShop, Konami has finally made Metal Gear Solid: Snake Eater 3D available to download. The 3DS port of Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater was originally released for the handheld in 2012.
More details on all of these games (as well as a few more) can be found after the break. (more…)
Posted in 3DS, News, Wii U
Tagged Metal Gear Solid: Snake Eater 3D
Shovel Knight will be available on PlayStation platforms “early next year”
In a new update to their Kickstarter backers, Yacht Club Games has revealed that Shovel Knight will be released for the PS3, PS4, and Vita in early 2015:
Maybe you haven’t heard the exciting news, but Shovel Knight is branching out on to other platforms for adventure. Early next year, Shovel Knight will make his debut on Playstation platforms: PS3, PS4, and PSVita! Along with this extremely exciting development in the legend of Shovel Knight, a guest character that you are all familiar with will be meeting our stalwart, blue knight: Kratos from the God of War series!
Yes, that’s right. Steel will strike against steel as Shovel Knight’s Shovel Blade challenges Kratos’ Blades of Chaos in a battle for the ages. The team is also hard at work on the Plague Knight campaign, which will be available to all owners of the game as a free downloadable update:
The pedal is to the proverbial metal on Plague Knight! We are working full time on update content (Plague Knight, Body Swap Mode, and Battle Mode!), and it’s shaping up to be amazing. The Plague Knight campaign will be the first content released, and it’s feeling like a whole new adventure already! A new relic system! New characters and bosses! Remixed content! On that subject, we’re going to share a little detail. Mona, who runs the potion minigame in the village, will have a vastly expanded role…
There’s no ETA on when the Plague Knight campaign will be released, but you can head over to Kickstarter for a peek at a few design sketches featuring Mona.
Shin Megami Tensei Devil Survivor 2: Record Breaker will be released for 3DS in early 2015
Shin Megami Tensei Devil Survivor 2: Record Breaker is coming to the 3DS in early 2015, and with it comes almost twice the content of the original Devil Survivor 2. Fans of this strategy RPG will be happy to know that the plot has been expanded, continuing from the original ending, and adding in a new character. You can opt to start the game from this new content, or play it from the beginning. For those of you new to the series, you don’t need to have played the first game.
Shin Megami Tensei Devil Survivor 2: Record Breaker “also includes fully voiced English story dialogue, giving new depth to the cast of Devil Survivor 2’s original story.” Other features include Demon Fusion, multiple endings, and new character abilities.
I would try to describe the game, but I don’t know if I could do it justice: “The world of Record Breaker is on the brink of non-existence. Just before the heralding of the apocalypse, when life was normal, some thrill-seekers were registering on a website that promised to deliver fake videos of their friends being killed. As people wondered what these videos could mean, an invasion began and humanity was forced to face a struggle to survive in an unprecedented catastrophe. For the main character and his friends, they stand up for humanity when the very same website uploads an application on their cell phones, summoning demons. From there, newly minted demon tamers begin the fight to survive and save the future of mankind, but the protagonist’s decisions aren’t without consequences. What he chooses may save the lives of his friends, or seal their fate.”
Shin Megami Tensei Devil Survivor 2: Record Breaker will be out in early 2015 digitally and physically for the Nintendo 3DS for $49.99.
Posted in 3DS, News
Tagged Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor 2 Record Breaker
Insert Quarter: How Did 2014 Treat Indie Developers?
Insert Quarter is our showcase for some of the best and most interesting writing about video games on the Internet.
It is a precarious time to be an indie developer. Steam’s Greenlight and Early Access initiatives are producing just as many misses as hits and discoverability is still a problem on the Xbox Games Store, the PlayStation Store, and mobile storefronts. Matthew Handrahan examined the squeeze that indie developers are feeling from all sides as part of GamesIndustry.biz’s roundup of 2014’s major stories. The picture he paints is one of gloom and doom, but also one that can be overcome with the right level of talent and a genuinely groundbreaking idea:
So are indies heading towards a “mass extinction event”? Overcrowding is certainly a key aspect of the overall picture, but the act of making and releasing a game is only getting easier, and the allure of development as a career choice seems to grow with each passing month. It stands to reason that there will continue to be a huge number of games jostling for position on every single platform – more than even a growing market can sustain – but there’s only so much to be gained from griping about the few remaining gatekeepers. If the days when simply being on Steam or Kickstarter made a commercial difference are gone, and if existing discovery tools still lack the nuance to deal with all of that choice, then it just shifts the focus back to where it really belongs: talent, originality, and a product worth an investment of time and money.
The full article is available for your perusal at GamesIndustry.biz.
Insert Quarter: The Rise and Fall of THQ’s Empire
Insert Quarter is our showcase for some of the best and most interesting writing about video games on the Internet.
Gamers often didn’t know what to make of THQ. The publisher built its empire on the backs of tie-in games based on Nickelodeon and Pixar properties such as SpongeBob SquarePants and The Incredibles. But they also produced intriguing original games such as Saints Row: The Third and Darksiders. They were even the initial driving force behind Evolve, one of 2015’s most anticipated games. But that all changed when the company went bankrupt early last year.
So what happened? Tracey Lien, writing for Polygon, set out to discover the answer by talking to as many former THQ employees as she could including the charismatic (but possibly crazy) Danny Bilson. Her portrait of a publisher in free fall makes you wonder, could anything have been done?
Many blame the company’s fall on the licensed games well drying up. Some pin it on the commercial failure of the company’s uDraw tablet for the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. Others point to poor management and too many risky bets.
“There isn’t any one, isolated event that killed the company,” says a former THQ executive who asked to not be named. “This was one of the most successful video game businesses in America. We were a billion dollar company. It was complicated.”
THQ suffered a “death by a million spider bites,” the executive says.
The full article is available for your perusal at Polygon.
Posted in 3DS, DS, Insert Quarter, Mobile, PC, PS2, PS3, PSP, Retro, Wii, Wii U, Xbox 360
Tagged Darksiders, Evolve, Saints Row: The Third