Warp Zoned Presents
Video Game Canon- BAFTA Games Awards: All the Winners from 2003 to Today
- Clair Obscur Completes the Sweep by Winning “Best Game” at 2025-2026 BAFTA Games Awards
- Boss Fight Books to Get 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
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: PC
Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz HD rolls into stores on October 29
Sega has announced that Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz HD will be released for the PS4, Switch, and Xbox One on October 29 (a PC release through Steam will follow later this Winter).
Originally released for the Wii in 2006, this new version of the game features improved graphics and optimized controls (but no motion controls, not even on the Switch):
About Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz HD
Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz HD revitalizes this classic title with updated graphics (480p > 1080p at 60fps) and optimized controls for each platform. Motion controls from the original Banana Blitz have been removed in favor of tightened analog controls, making it a breeze to jump in and start rolling through the game’s 100 levels.Features
- Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz is Back in HD – Originally released on the Wii in 2006, Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz HD reinvigorates the original game with 100 single-player stages, 10 multi-player mini-games, revamped control schemes, updated graphics, and more.
- Online Leaderboards – A first for the series, players can now compete with others around the world through online leaderboards for single-player Time Attack and the all-new Mini-Game Decathalon Score Attack modes.
- No Monkey Business – Play Your Way: Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz HD is available on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Steam. With uniquely optimized control schemes for each platform, everyone from first-time rollers to world-record holders can jump right in to the fun.
Sega also uploaded a brand new Gameplay Trailer for Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz HD today, and it’s been embedded above.
Supergiant launches “The Big Bad Update” for Hades
Supergiant Games continues to tinker away at Hades, their roguelike dungeon crawler that was originally released in December, and the developer recently dropped the game’s sixth major update… “The Big Bad Update.”
“The Big Bad Update” finally adds a final boss to the game, as well new enemies, new story events, new environments, and new powerups. Here’s a look at all the highlights from “The Big Bad Update” as found on Supergiant’s official website:
Highlights From Hades’s “The Big Bad Update”
- Temple of Styx: An all-new, labyrinthine biome awaits at the very edge of the Underworld.
- Final Battle: There is no escape from the Underworld; at least not without a fight.
- Sinister New Foes: Beware of Gigantic Vermin, Satyr Cultists, and more; plus deadly new traps!
- Wrath Rework: Now you can call upon divine aid from Olympus much more often during battle.
- Pool of Purging: Rid yourself of the occasional unwanted Boon, in exchange for some coin.
- New Boons & ‘Duo’ Boons: The Olympians have a slew of powerful, new blessings on offer.
- New Story Events: More of the Underworld Prince’s story unfolds if you can reach the Temple.
- New Music: Not one but two blood-boiling new tracks to accompany the new setting.
Hades is now available in Early Access for the PC exclusively through the Epic Games Store.
Ghostbusters Remastered crosses the streams when it launches on October 4
After initially announcing it back in May, Saber Interactive has now shared the final release date for Ghostbusters Remastered with IGN. According to the developer, the game will be available for the PC, PS4, Switch, and Xbox One on October 4.
Ghostbusters: The Video Game was originally released in 2009 serves as something of an unofficial third entry in the film series because it was written by Dan Aykroyd and Harold Ramis (it also features vocal appearances from original busters Bill Murray and Ernie Hudson).
Because of that pedigree, there are plenty of callbacks to Ghostbusters and Ghostbusters II, including a massive boss battle against the Stay Puft Marshmallow Man, which you can get a glimpse of in the new trailer embedded above.
Gameplay Trailer for Nightwolf’s Mortal Kombat 11 debut (on August 13) is here
Mortal Kombat fans are decidedly mixed on most of the new fighters that were introduced in Mortal Kombat 3. But Nightwolf has managed to become something of a fan favorite over the years, and according to NetherRealm Studios, his addition to Mortal Kombat 11 is right around the corner.
The developer dropped a new Gameplay Trailer for the Matoka warrior today, and it gives players a closer look at his arsenal of weaponry, as well as his mastery of lightning and a trio of spirit animals:
Born as Grey Cloud, Nightwolf is a proud and fierce warrior dedicated to the cause of good and chosen by the Great Spirit to become the Matoka tribe’s champion and protector.
Kombat Pack owners on the PC, PS4, and Xbox One will be able to download Nightwolf beginning on August 13. All other Mortal Kombat 11 players will get their chance to select the fighter a week later as a standalone purchase for $5.99.
EA still plans to release Plants Vs Zombies: Garden Warfare 3 and a new Need For Speed game later this year
Back in February of this year, Electronic Arts CEO Andrew Wilson said that the publisher planned to launch Plants Vs Zombies: Garden Warfare 3 and a new Need For Speed game in 2019. And with Summer rapidly coming to an end, the executive made an appearance at Electronic Arts’s quarterly financial presentation yesterday to reconfirm that both games are still on track.
According to Wilson, the currently-untitled Need For Speed game will definitely make its public debut at next month’s Gamescom convention in Germany, and Plants Vs Zombies: Garden Warfare 3 shouldn’t be too far behind:
We’ll take the wraps off our new Need For Speed game heading into Gamescom in a few weeks. We have a Plants Vs Zombies shooter title coming to console and PC later this year.
Gamescom will throw open its doors on August 20, so we’ll likely learn more about Need For Speed 2019 and Plants Vs Zombies: Garden Warfare 3 then.
Posted in News, PC, PS4, Switch, Xbox One
Tagged Gamescom 2019, Need For Speed 2019, Plants Vs Zombies 2019
Zombieland: Double Tap – Road Trip is a twin-stick shooter coming this October
It took ten long years for a Zombieland sequel to finally make its way to theaters, but fans of the franchise will be able to double up on the further adventures of Tallahassee, Columbus, Wichita, and Little Rock in Zombieland: Double Tap – Road Trip, an upcoming interquel from GameMill Entertainment and High Voltage Software that picks up right where the first movie ends.
Road Trip will follow the film’s foursome as they romp across the remains of the United States in a top-down twin-stick shooter. In addition to a cooperatively-inclined four-player Campaign Mode, players will also be able to partake in a wave-based Horde Mode and ongoing Daily and Weekly Challenges:
Zombieland: Double Tap – Road Trip is the wild, twin-stick cooperative shooter that tells the story of how the characters you love found their way from Pacific Playland at the end of Zombieland to the start of the sequel. With mayhem, irreverence, and more gore than the ESRB recommends you witness, we’re bringing you an untold chapter in the lives of our heroes. Take the role of one of the classic four heroes, or even one of the new faces, and combat an endless horde of over-the-top zombies!
Zombieland: Double Tap – Road Trip is currently in development for the PC, PS4, Switch, and Xbox One. It’ll launch on October 15, just three days before Zombieland: Double Tap arrives in theaters.
Open Beta begins for top-down battle royale Watchers
If you’re a fan of dystopian sci-fi like The Running Man or The Hunger Games, you know the scene. A group of contestants will be fighting to the death at the behest of some horrible overlord, but the action will constantly cut back to the faceless workers in “The Control Room,” who tirelessly work to add chaos to the arena (usually while some plucky resistance group plots to take them down).
Now, Alawar Premium and Blindfold have taken this pretty established locale and tweaked it for their new top-down battle royale, Watchers.
In Watchers, players will do battle with their friends and neighbors in an “arena” that looks a lot like a suburban housing development. But combatants eliminated from the game will be able to return as “Watchers” who can change the course of a match by deploying anomalies against the remaining players:
Watchers is a free-to-play Battle Royale top-down shooter where killed battlers enter a unique Watcher game mode. Watchers bet on their favorite battlers and influence the course of battle through experiments. The fewer battlers remain on the map, the more Watchers are out there ready to execute different experiments and turning the tide of the battle.
An Open Beta for Watchers is now available to download for the PC through the game’s official website, and interested participants can jump into a match everyday (at specified times) between now and August 4.
The first trailer for Watchers has been embedded above.
Super Mario Maker 2 builds its way to the top of June 2019’s list of best-selling games
It was only available on store shelves for a handful days during the month, but Nintendo’s Super Mario Maker 2 has been crowned the best-selling game of June 2019 by The NPD Group.
According to the analyst firm’s rankings (as posted by NPD’s Mat Piscatella on Twitter), Super Mario Maker 2 fended off a challenge by fellow new release Crash Team Racing: Nitro Fueled (which took the #2 spot) to come out on top, as well as surging sales from Mortal Kombat 11 (#3), Grand Theft Auto V (#4), and Minecraft (#5). No other new release managed to break into the Top 20, but more mainstays filled out the rest of the list, including Super Smash Bros. Ultimate (#6), Mario Kart 8 (#9), Red Dead Redemption 2 (#12), and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (#13).
However, without a robust new release slate, overall sales for the gaming industry dropped slightly in June 2019 versus a year ago. According to NPD, total sales of hardware, software, and accessories reached $959 million last month, a 13% decline from June 2018.
Unsurprisingly, the Switch was the best-selling hardware platform last month, and that’s unlikely to change throughout the year as the launch of the Switch Lite approaches and as gamers continue to save their pennies for the PS5 and Xbox Scarlett.
You can find a full list of best-selling games from June 2019 after the break. (more…)