Most Recent: Retro

Viz Media will publish Super Mario Bros. Manga Mania compilation in Late 2020

Posted on April 2, 2020 by John Scalzo

Viz Media and Nintendo are teaming up to release the Super Mario-Kun manga series in the US for the first time.

Published in Japan’s CoroCoro Comics magazine since 1991, Super Mario-Kun will make its stateside debut as part of Super Mario Bros. Manga Mania, a 160-page compilation of “handpicked” story arcs from throughout its 30-year run:

Experience the zany world of Super Mario Bros. through manga!

Join Mario and pals in crazy adventures inspired by the hit video games! This collection of short stories showcases the fan-favorite characters of the Super Mario Bros. world in new, unconventional and hilarious ways. Handpicked from years of Mario comics in Japan, this compilation has never been available in English—until now!

Writing on Twitter, a spokesperson for Viz Media said that Super Mario Bros. Manga Mania would be available in Late 2020.

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Finalists for the World Video Game Hall of Fame’s Class of 2020 have been announced

Posted on March 19, 2020 by John Scalzo

The finalists for the World Video Game Hall of Fame’s Class of 2020 have been announced… and they’re on fire.

This year’s honorees include titles from every era of gaming, though the Star Power of Guitar Hero looms large over the competition. But that’s OK, because there’s a few other firestarters vying for a spot in this year’s class, including Midway’s NBA Jam, Mojang’s Minecraft, and Nintendo’s Super Smash Bros. Melee.

There’s also the groundbreaking GoldenEye 007, the unforgettable Nokia Snake, the edutaining Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?, and the addicting Bejeweled. Rounding out this year’s crop of finalists is Naughty Dog’s Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, and a trio of classics from the early 80s (Centipede, Frogger, and King’s Quest).

This isn’t the first opportunity to join the World Video Game Hall of Fame for some of these games, and fans will have the chance to make their voice heard by submitting a Player’s Choice Ballot. The public can vote once per day now through April 2nd, and the three games that receive the most votes will join the 29 other ballots submitted by members of the Hall of Fame’s International Selection Advisory Committee.

The Strong Museum’s International Center for the History of Electronic Games, the entity that oversees the World Video Game Hall of Fame, will announce the inductees from the Class of 2020 at a date to be determined in a special ceremony. For now, you can learn more about this year’s finalists after the break. (more…)

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The only known Nintendo PlayStation prototype is up for auction now through March 6

Posted on February 13, 2020 by John Scalzo

The failed collaboration between Nintendo and Sony to produce a CD-ROM add-on for the Super NES has become the stuff of legend. The details of the falling out have been documented pretty extensively over the years, and war stories from all the major players have appeared in both David Sheff’s Game Over and Blake Harris’s Console Wars.

While we all know the story, what became of the small batch of prototype consoles produced by the two companies has always been a mystery. More than 200 Nintendo PlayStations were reportedly produced, and it’s assumed that most were destroyed, but one managed to escape the trash heap by hiding out in “a box of junk” previously owned by former Sony Computer Entertainment CEO Olaf Olafsson.

After his stint at Sony, Olafsson would take a job with Advanta Corporation, and this “box of junk” went with him, but when the financial company went bankrupt in 2009, the Nintendo PlayStation was left behind. It was found by Terry Diebold, who worked in Advanta’s maintenance department, and eventually made its way into the hands of his son, Dan.

Now, after game historians have examined and repaired the one-of-a-kind artifact, it’s going up for auction. The Diebolds are selling the prototype through Heritage Auctions, and as of this writing, the current bid is sitting at $145,000. And it’s unlikely to stop there, as proxy bids will continue to be taken until the start of the live auction on March 6.

So what will you get for your money? According to Heritage, the console features a fully-functioning Super Famicom cartridge slot:

We at Heritage can attest the prototype is working, as we’ve played a couple of rounds of Mortal Kombat on it using a Super Famicom cartridge.

The CD drive is also functional, but as no software was produced for the Nintendo PlayStation, all it can do is play music CDs:

Though the CD-ROM drive was not currently working when it was found in 2009, it has since been repaired by Benjamin Heckendorn, a YouTube personality known for his console repair videos. It now has the ability to play music CDs like the commercially produced PlayStation, but there is no proprietary software that’s known to have been made during the prototype’s development.

Heritage refers to the Nintendo PlayStation as “one of the most notorious, mysterious, and controversial artifacts of the video game industry” and it’s hard to argue with that.

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Kosmic shaves less than half a second off his Super Mario Bros. “Any Percentage” world record… and then retires

Posted on January 19, 2020 by John Scalzo

“KosmicD12” has run his last “Any Percentage” speedrun of Super Mario Bros..

The Mario master has set multiple world records over the years, but his most recent feat of crackerjack platforming might just be unbeatable. Using a combination of Warp Zones, glitches, and his own tip-top thumbs, “KosmicD12” completed the game in an astonishing four minutes and 55.646 seconds. He then promptly walked away from any future “Any Percentage” runs:

“This is everything I have ever wanted to accomplish in this speedrun, and even a little bit more. It is still improvable but I am not interested in the ridiculous things required to beat this, so that’s history for someone else to write!”

“KosmicD12” is looking for a new challenge, but he’s still going to keep playing Super Mario Bros. The speedrunner said that he’d like to tackle some of the game’s other speedrunning categories, and you can follow along on his Twitch channel.

Congratulations from all of us at Warp Zoned!

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Paramount debuts Sonic’s redesign in a new trailer for Sonic the Hedgehog: The Movie

Posted on November 12, 2019 by John Scalzo

Paramount has been plugging away on a Sonic the Hedgehog movie for a few years now, and they gave us our first look at the Blue Blur’s cinematic debut back in April. While the clip was “endearingly goofy,” Sonic just didn’t look like Sonic… and the response from fans was brutal.

But rather than take their lumps and release the movie as is, Paramount delayed the theatrical release of Sonic the Hedgehog into next year and promised to rework the character’s design. This morning, the production company unleashed the first trailer featuring the redesigned Sonic… and it’s actually pretty great.

Sonic’s redesign gave the character his gloves back, and he now looks much closer to his Genesis counterpart in every way. Paramount even winked at their earlier misfire in the opening seconds of the clip (“I’m Sonic, a little ball of super-energy in an extremely handsome package.”). But best of all, the same goofy energy that pervaded the first trailer is still there in the new trailer, and Jim Carrey is still doing his crazy Jim Carrey thing as Robotnik.

Sonic the Hedgehog: The Movie will be out in theaters on February 14, 2020. I’m cautiously optimistic.

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Bandai Namco wants you to “Join the Pac” for Pac-Man’s 40th Anniversary with a new theme song

Posted on November 3, 2019 by John Scalzo

Pac-Man will be celebrating his 40th Anniversary in 2020, and publisher Bandai Namco wants to start getting fans involved now.

Way back in Pac-Man’s heyday, Buckner & Garcia borrowed a few blips and boops from the beloved mascot to rule the music charts with “Pac-Man Fever.” Well put on your dancing shoes, because Bandai Namco has commissioned a new theme song for Pac-Man from Japanese techno artist Ken Ishii. Known as “Join the Pac,” it combines some of Pac-Man’s signature sounds with a nice techno beat, and you can even check out a music video for the song embedded above.

Bandai Namco is also planning to host a series of “engaging events around the globe” in honor of Pac-Man’s anniversary, and you can keep track of all the big news at PacMan.com:

Born on May 22, 1980, Pac-Man immediately rose to meteoric popularity, first in video game arcades, then through an array of branding and entertainment appearances. With a brand recognition rate of 90% around the world, Pac-Man’s image is one of the most recognized on the planet and is as strong as ever as he enters his 40th year of entertaining fans of all ages.

The last time Pac-Man celebrated a milestone anniversary, Bandai Namco released Pac-Man 256 in 2015 for mobile devices… and it was awesome (or righteous or bodacious or any other synonym for “good” you want to pull out of your 80s dictionary). So let’s hope we’re in for another surprising new game launch in 2020, though nothing has been officially announced as of now.

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An animator is making a game based on the Super Mario Bros. Super Show with his kids

Posted on September 30, 2019 by John Scalzo

Jesus Lopez is a game animator with an extensive resume of impressive titles, including DuckTales Remastered, The Simpsons: Tapped Out, and Shantae: Half-Genie Hero. But the projects he works on in his spare time (with his kids) are equally impressive, as YouTube user SwankyBox recently discovered.

In the video embedded above, SwankyBox delves into Lopez’s hobby of remaking World 1-1 from Super Mario Bros. in the hand-drawn art style of the Super Mario Bros. Super Show. The late 80s/early 90s cartoon was well-loved partly because of each episode’s live-action introduction from Captain Lou Albano (as Mario) and Danny Wells (as Luigi). But the weird and wild animation of the main story segments also created new corners of the Mushroom Kingdom that the games would never explore, such as the Pasta Land that Mario and friends visit in the first episode.

It’s this locale (with its “trees” made of forks and spaghetti) that Lopez is attempting to recreate, and he’s been documenting his progress sporadically over the years in a five-part video series (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, and Part 5). While the game hasn’t progressed beyond World 1-1 just yet, Lopez would like to create a series of original levels after he perfects the animation.

Lopez has been working on this project (again, with his kids as co-developers) for the past three years and he has no plans to release it for public consumption. But I can’t wait to see what he comes up with next.

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Sega will bring “An All-New AAA Game” to Gamescom 2019

Posted on August 6, 2019 by John Scalzo

As usual, Sega will have a large presence at this year’s Gamescom convention in Germany, and that includes the promise of the public debut for an “All-New AAA Game.”

As far as announced titles go, Sega will also bring the console edition of Two Point Hospital to Gamescom, alongside a demo for Catherine: Full Body, and a massive Sega Genesis Mini installation:

Sega/Atlus will showcase the beautifully remastered update of the cult classic RPG/puzzle game, Catherine: Full Body (Launches 3 September 2019). Players will get the chance to try the demo which contains cutscenes that provide context to the title’s complex and nuanced narrative. Plus, there will be a playable segment from early in the game, which showcases several gameplay features; such as a variety of puzzles, character interaction/development and more.

Sharing the spotlight is the critically acclaimed Two Point Hospital on PS4, Xbox One, and Switch, developed by Two Point Studios. It’s the ultimate management sim where you play the role of hospital administrator who must build, cure, and improve in an ever-changing and atypical healthcare environment. Visitors to the stand will be the first in the world to experience Two Point Hospital on consoles by completing the first chapter.

Are you ready for a blast from the past? The long-awaited Sega Genesis Mini, coming to stores [19 September 2019 in North America], will be available to visitors of the stand and all 42 games will be playable using a GIANT, fully functioning Sega Genesis controller! The nostalgic console includes some of the most popular games released by Sega including the much-loved Sonic The Hedgehog and the iconic Streets of Rage series. Other glorious titles included in the Sega Genesis Mini include Darius, Road Rash II, Virtua Fighter 2, Ghouls and Ghosts, Strider, Kid Chameleon, and many more.

The 2019 edition of Gamescom will open its doors on Tuesday, August 20, and run through Saturday, August 24.

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