Warp Zoned Presents
Video Game Canon- Angry Birds, Dragon Quest, FIFA Soccer, and Silent Hill are the World Video Game Hall of Fame’s Class of 2026
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- 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
Warp Zoned Presents
- Video Game Research Library
- Spore: An oral history – Design Room (2026)
- 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)
Most Recent: PC
First issue of Mortal Kombat X comic available today
DC Comics has announced (via their Read DC Entertainment portal) that the first issue of the Mortal Kombat X miniseries will be available digitally beginning today.
The comic series will serve as a bridge between 2011’s Mortal Kombat and this April’s Mortal Kombat X. Old favorites (Scorpion, Raiden, Kenshi), new friends (Cassie Cage), and characters that fit into neither category (Hsu Hao, Daegon) will all appear within its pages. Hopefully this is a hint that Kenshi will soon be announced as a playable character in Mortal Kombat X, but we know the comic series will include non-playable characters as well.
Mortal Kombat creator Ed Boon recently shared a few preview images from the comic through his Twitter account.
Inafune confirms that development on Mighty No. 9 is almost done in this New Year’s video
Keiji Inafune has posted a short “New Year’s” video to update fans of Mighty No. 9 on the game’s progress. According to the Mega Man creator, full development on Mighty No. 9 is almost complete and the only step left is porting the game to all the platforms it’ll be available on this Spring. But that’s a pretty important step as Inafune and his team at Comcept (and co-developer Inti Creates) plan to bring Mighty No. 9 to a boatload of platforms including the PC, PS3, PS4, Wii U, Xbox 360, Xbox One, 3DS, and Vita.
Hats off to the latest kombatant added to Mortal Kombat X… Kung Lao
GamesMaster, one of the United Kingdom’s most popular gaming magazines, had promised to reveal a brand new Mortal Kombat X character on or around the first of the year. But it’s very possible that Pelaaja, a Finnish gaming magazine, has scooped them by a single day.
According to Pelaaja (as translated by Test Your Might), the man with the razor-rimmed hat, Kung Lao, will take part in Mortal Kombat X’s far-future fight for the fate of the realm. Owing to the game’s time skip, this Kung Lao will be considerably older than the one that gamers are used to. Though how NetherRealm will explain away Kung Lao’s death during the events of 2011’s Mortal Kombat remains to be seen. But that didn’t stop Perlaaja from discussing Kung Lao’s three variations:
The differences between Kung Lao’s “Tempest,” “Buzz Saw” and “Hat Trick” variations happen to be the biggest ones yet. With “Tempest” Kung Lao uses more spinning attacks and has the ability to set his hat to spin around him as a shield of sorts. In his “Buzz Saw” variation his hat is sharpened with razor blade edges and allows the player to control his hat throws more. “Hat Trick” is the most experimental of the three, because you can throw and call back your hat at any point you want. This keeps the opponent on their toes, because the hat can extend combos.
The article also contains the first details about the game’s online faction system and the return of the Challenge Tower. Players will choose a faction when they first launch the game (Lin Kuei, White Lotus, Brotherhood of Shadows, Special Forces, or Black Dragon) and the system will control how the menus look based on the number Battle Points earned by players. How you earn Battle Points, and if they’ll have any impact on the game beyond the menus, is unknown. And as for the Challenge Tower, Pelaaja reports that “the towers and their challenges change constantly, even by the hour.”
Mortal Kombat X will be released for the PC, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, and Xbox One on April 14.
Insert Quarter: Publishers Need to be More Upfront About DLC
Insert Quarter is our showcase for some of the best and most interesting writing about video games on the Internet.
Downloadable Content. If you didn’t consider it the scourge of the gaming industry before, you probably do now. With games like Assassin’s Creed: Unity and DriveClub shipping to stores in a less-than-playable state, the downloadable content that publishers have planned begins to lose its luster. But that hasn’t stopped these publishers from asking for your money in the form of season passes. Sometimes, like in the case of 2K’s Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel, without detailing exactly what content these passes will include.
Game Informer’s Mike Futter believes that it is time for publishers to be more upfront with their DLC plans in an effort to rebuild a level of trust with the gamers of the world. Even though DLC has become a very important part of the business side of the industry:
I am guilty. I have pre-ordered games. I have purchased season passes without full details of the contents. I have done these things based on my enthusiasm for the medium and faith in the publishers. That time has passed.
The full article is available for your perusal at Game Informer.
Posted in Insert Quarter, PC, PS3, PS4, Wii U, Xbox 360, Xbox One
Tagged Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel
Bandai Namco will release Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 4 in 2015
After 700 volumes, the final entry in the Naruto manga series was released last month. While the comic adventures of the ninja and his friends may be over, Bandai Namco still plans to release new Naruto games. And they’ve just announced that Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 4 will be released for the PC, PS4, and Xbox One in 2015.
You can get a small taste of Ultimate Ninja Storm 4 in the trailer above or you can hit the jump to view an interview Bandai Namco conducted with CyberConnect2’s Hiroshi Matsuyama, the Director of the game series. (more…)
Posted in News, PC, PS4, Xbox One
Tagged Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 4
The Interview is now available to watch via Xbox Live and other streaming services
The movie that Kim Jong Un, North Korea’s Supreme Leader, doesn’t want you too see can now be viewed on your Xbox 360 or Xbox One. The Interview, which will open in theaters tomorrow thanks to a successful petition from a group of independent theater owners, is now available to watch through the Xbox Video service for $5.99 (to rent) or $14.99 (to buy). The film can also be viewed for the same price at other streaming services such as YouTube, Google Play, and SeeTheInterview.com (which is hosted by Sony Pictures).
Oddly, the film is not available through the PlayStation Store, which is owned and operated by Sony Computer Entertainment, Sony’s video game division. Apple has also come out and said the film will not be available through iTunes, though that may change in the future.
The Interview was at the center of the recent Sony hacking scandal, which the FBI believes was prompted by the North Korean government’s dislike of Kim Jong Un’s portrayal in the movie. Directed by Evan Goldberg and Seth Rogen, the movie stars Rogen and James Franco as two journalists who are recruited by the CIA to assassinate the dictator.
Rogen said on Twitter that “The people have spoken!” and “Freedom has prevailed!”
Shovel Knight becomes a Knightrider in Road Redemption
This morning you got to see the whimsical side of Shovel Knight in the fan-made Shovel Knight Holiday Special. But the character also carries around a giant shovel and he can dole out a few good whacks when need be. So this is the perfect time for the wandering knight to mount a motorcycle and deliver some “Shovel Justice” on the open road in Dark Seas Games’ Road Redemption.
Dark Seas had this to say about Shovel Knight in the latest Kickstarter update:
It’s really a great game. It’s the kind of game that actually lives up to the rose-tinted memories we have of playing NES, which, of course, means it’s actually far better than those games ever were. I’ll take Shovel Knight over Megaman any day. Blasphemy? Prove me wrong Capcom. Prove me wrong.
The Road Rash-inspired Road Redemption is currently available through Steam Early Access and will be released for the Wii U and Xbox 360 next Summer.
Summer 2015 release announced for One Piece: Pirate Warriors 3
Bandai Namco has announced plans to release a new game based on One Piece, a popular manga and anime that (believe it or not) has spawned more than a dozen game adaptations.
The next game in the long-running series will be known as One Piece: Pirate Warriors 3, which will be released for the PC, PS3, PS4, and Vita sometime next Summer. According to the publisher, Pirate Warriors 3 will give players the chance to “explore the origins of Luffy’s crew” and you can get your first look at it in the teaser trailer above.