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
- 2025 GOTY Scoreboard: In Progress
- 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”
Warp Zoned Presents
- Video Game Research Library
- With Grand Theft Auto 6 poised to take over the world, I reached out to Jack Thompson and it did not go well – PC Gamer (2026)
- Vib-Ribbon: An oral history – Design Room (2026)
- How a Second-Grade Teacher Revived a Beloved Video Game – The New York Times (2026)
- Spore: An oral history – Design Room (2026)
- Diablo IV PC Cooled With Real Human Blood Is Still Going Strong Two Years Later, Says Guy Who Won It – Aftermath (2026)
Most Recent: Switch
New Retail Releases: Super Mario Maker 2, Judgment, F1 2019, More
Are we in a Summer games drought? Not if Nintendo and a few other publishers have anything to say about it.
This week, Nintendo will bring Super Mario Maker 2 to stores for the Switch. The course-creation sequel will add a full Story Mode, as well as a huge number of new creation tools, and a new game style based on Super Mario 3D World.
Also set to launch this week is Sega’s Judgment, a spinoff to the Yakuza franchise that’ll launch exclusively for the PS4. In Judgment, players will investigate the seedy Red Light District of Kamurocho in “the dramatic tale of a disgraced lawyer seeking redemption in a world rife with corruption and despair.”
Elsewhere on store shelves this week, gamers will be able to check out F1 2019 (PS4, Xbox One), latest racing simulation from Codemasters; The Sinking City (PS4, Xbox One), a Lovecraftian mystery from Frogwares; and Samurai Shodown (PS4, Xbox One), a rebooted new entry in SNK’s Samurai Shodown franchise.
And for RPG fans, Idea Factory will bring back the Neptunia series with Super Neptunia RPG for the PS4 and Switch.
A complete list of this week’s new retail releases can be found after the break. (more…)
Blazing Chrome will be released on July 11
JoyMasher has been working on Blazing Chrome, their retro-styled homage to Contra and Metal Slug, for a few years now. But the Brazilian developer has finally confirmed, alongside publisher The Arcade Crew, that the game will be released for the PC, PS4, Switch, and Xbox One on July 11.
With just a few weeks to go before Blazing Chrome’s launch, JoyMasher unveiled a new trailer today that gives prospective players a peek at a pair of hidden characters:
JoyMasher’s Blazing Chrome harkens back to the golden days of side-scrolling shooters with modern touches ensuring its gameplay feels as precise as it does authentic to the era it channels. Fans who unlock the new characters within the game will be treated to fast-paced, side-scrolling and vertical gameplay action as Suhaila, a razor girl with a robotic arm or the skilled and deadly ninja Raijin you try to out-fire, out-maneuver, and out-wit your various metal-encased AI enemies.
JoyMasher has also partnered with Limited Run Games to produce a physical edition for Blazing Chrome. It’ll be available to pre-order sometime this year for the PS4 and Switch.
Friday the 13th: The Game will arrive on the Switch in August on Tuesday the 13th
Jason Voorhees will get the chance to stalk teenagers on the go beginning in August. During the latest episode of Gun Media’s Tales From the Stream show, the publisher announced that Friday the 13th: The Game will be released for the Switch on August 13th… which is actually a Tuesday.
I’m sure fans will appreciate being able to play the game in August, but I think it’s funny that Gun Media could have released Friday the 13th: The Game on Friday the 13th if they had just waited until September.
The full episode of Gun Media’s Tales From the Stream has been embedded above, so be sure to watch the hosts play a Friday the 13th match on the Switch for the first time.
Posted in News, Switch
Tagged Friday the 13th
Mortal Kombat 11 wins back-to-back rounds as the best-selling game of May 2019
Analyst Mat Piscatella came out of hibernation last night to share a look (via Twitter) at The NPD Group’s report on the best-selling games from May 2019. Once again, NetherRealm’s Mortal Kombat 11 landed on the top of the list, and it’s now the best-selling game for all of 2019.
Days Gone managed to hold its position as the runner-up for the month of May, fighting off PC-exclusive Total War: Three Kingdoms (which proved popular enough to slide into the #3 spot) and fellow new release Rage 2 (#4). Perennial favorite Grand Theft Auto V rounded out the Top 5 in the #5 slot.
This year’s most popular titles played musical chairs throughout the remainder of last month’s Top 20. Some went up (Minecraft went from #14 to #9) while some were trending down (Tom Clancy’s The Division 2 dropped from #4 to #12).
The Switch was the best-selling console platform in May and as the PS4 and Xbox One continue to ride off into the sunset, it’s also remained the best-selling for the 2019 calendar year.
Overall, total industry sales were done 11% versus May 2018, but that can probably be chalked up to a paltry selection of new releases last month. You can find a full list of best-selling games from May 2019 after the break. (more…)
Super Crush KO gets a new trailer at E3 2019
Vertex Pop has unveiled a brand new trailer for their pastel-colored brawler, Super Crush KO, as part of this week’s E3 festivities. Currently in development for the PC and Switch, the short clip aims to give prospective players a peek at the game’s powerups:
Super Crush KO has players take control of Karen, a tough and fashionable brawler in a colorful world overrun by frantic robot enemies. Karen must wipe them out using punches, kicks and long-range combat in fluid combos on the way to save her cat Chubbz and (while she’s at it) humanity.
The trailer demonstrates special ground and aerial moves that players can obtain by visiting various food carts across the city. A pizza slice gives them the “Uppercut Slice”, a salty pretzel grants the “Twister Drill,” while salty sweet popcorn awards players with the “Air Pop” maneuver.
Super Crush KO offers exhilarating fast-paced shoot-and-beat-em-up action, where players mix different moves into various easy-to-execute combos to launch waves of robots into the sky, juggle them and smash them into pieces. Featuring delightful hand-drawn graphics, a pastel color palette and a catchy soundtrack, this is an easy-to-pick-up, feel-good action game complemented with bright and stylish aesthetic.
Super Crush KO is currently on track to be released sometime in 2020.
Posted in News, PC, Switch
Tagged E3 2019, Super Crush KO
Nintendo officially announces The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild 2 at E3 2019
All the way back in 2000, you might recall that Nintendo followed up the groundbreaking The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time with The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask. It was the quickest turnaround time between major entries in the Zelda series, and it allowed Nintendo 64 owners to go on two adventures with The Hero of Time.
Why all this preamble? Because the consolemaker is going to do it again with The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild 2, which is now in development for the Nintendo Switch.
A trailer for the direct sequel was unveiled at the end of Nintendo’s E3 presentation, and it depicts Link and Zelda discovering Ganon’s desiccated corpse in a dungeon deep beneath the castle. Unfortunately, some kind of malevolent energy has attached itself to Ganon and its about to make things unpleasant (once again) for the people of Hyrule.
Nintendo wasn’t ready to announce a release date for The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild 2, but let’s hope like Majora’s Mask, it’s sooner rather than later.
Posted in News, Switch
Tagged E3 2019, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild 2
Konami surprise-launches Contra Anniversary Collection at E3 2019
In addition to unveiling Contra: Rogue Corps during today’s Nintendo Direct presentation, Konami has surprise-launched the Contra Anniversary Collection for the PC, PS4, Switch, and Xbox One.
Like Konami’s previous 50th Anniversary Collections, the Contra Anniversary Collection will include a digital book detailing the history of the series, as well as seven games (Contra [Arcade], Contra [NES], Super Contra, Super C, Contra III: The Alien Wars, Contra: Hard Corps, and Operation C). Three regional variants (Contra [Japan], Probotector [Europe], and Super Probotector [Europe]) will also be included.
A post-launch update to the compilation will add six more Japanese variants at a later date.
But for now, be sure to relive some of the greatest action games of the 80s and 90s with Contra Anniversary Collection’s Launch Trailer, which has been embedded above.
Konami brings the Contra franchise back this September with Contra: Rogue Corps
Start flexing those “Up, Up, Down, Down” muscles, because Konami has announced that Contra: Rogue Corps will be available this Fall.
Eschewing the franchise’s traditional side-scrolling view, Contra: Rogue Corps is an overhead twin-stick shooter that takes place in Damned City, a place that was decimated by the alien invasion from the previous games and is now full of monsters and mutants:
Two years after the Alien Wars had ended, a mysterious area called the Damned City arose from the grounds where the final battles took place. Ruthless Fiends roamed the area, bringing a world full of madness. In the midst of chaos, five scoundrels emerge… they are the Rogue Corps.
They do not look anything like heroes of justice, but have they come to save humanity, or maybe they are looking to hit the jackpot by searching the Damned City for treasures… either way, the fate of the world is in their hands.
While the view might be a bit different from what fans are used to, the people behind the project will be the same, as Konami has tapped Nobuya Nakazato (the Director of Contra III: The Alien Wars, Contra: Hard Corps, and Contra: Shattered Soldier) to lead the development team. Rogue Corps will also feature multiple playable characters who can be customized with improved organs and cybernetics in the Operation Room, local and online cooperative multiplayer, and an “irreverent” tone (which is pretty obvious from the first trailer).
Contra: Rogue Corps is currently in development for the PC, PS4, Switch, and Xbox One, and it’ll be released on September 24.