Warp Zoned Presents
Video Game Canon- Silent Hill, Dragon Quest, Skyrim, and More Announced as Finalists for the World Video Game Hall of Fame’s Class of 2026
- Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 Has Another Big Night and Wins “Game of the Year” at the 2025-2026 DICE Awards
- 2025 GOTY Scoreboard: In Progress
- The Game Awards: All the Winners from 2003 to Today
- Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 Racks Up Nine Wins, Including “Game of the Year”, at the 2025 Game 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: Wii U
Nintendo Download: The Adventures of Bayou Billy, Hogan’s Alley, Wild Gunman, more
Dust off your Wii Remote, because Nintendo is bringing a trio of NES-era light gun games to the Wii U eShop today…
- Hogan’s Alley puts players on the shooting range opposite a bunch of old-timey gangsters. But watch out for those civilians!
- The Adventures of Bayou Billy does a great impersonation of a deranged 80s action movie as players will have to survive beat ’em up levels, light gun levels, and racing levels to rescue Billy’s girlfriend from Godfather Gordon.
- Finally, Wild Gunman transports players back to the Old West and asks them to compete in a series of high noon standoffs with a gang of outlaws.
More information on all of these games (and the rest of this week’s new releases) can be found after the break. (more…)
Warp Zoned’s 2015 Golden Pixel Awards: Honoring Our Favorite Games From Last Year
The conventional wisdom will tell you that 2015 was a down year for games and that all the good stuff got pushed back to 2016. But how can you trust the conventional wisdom when last year featured a ridiculously entertaining string of good games starring kid squids, gothic hunters, glitchy sci-fi heroes, and the lone survivor of a nuclear war. And all that’s before you dip into the millions of user-created levels from Super Mario Maker.
Yup, we think 2015 was a pretty great year for games, especially the ones that took home some hardware during our annual Golden Pixel Awards… (more…)
Posted in Etcetera, Features, Mobile, PC, PS4, Top Story, Wii U, Xbox One
Tagged Alphabear, Axiom Verge, Batman: Arkham Knight, Bloodborne, Broforce, Earthbound Beginnings, Fallout 4, Guitar Hero Live, Her Story, Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime, Mortal Kombat X, N++, Splatoon, Super Mario Maker, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception, Uncharted: Drake's Fortune, Until Dawn
Nintendo Download: 1080 Snowboarding, Molly Maggot
Snow has been in short supply this year, but that’s not going to stop the final Nintendo Download of 2015.
For those that love the white stuff, Nintendo is closing out the year with a Virtual Console re-release for 1080 Snowboarding on the Wii U. The N64 favorite lets players tear down a snow-packed mountain at top speed while performing dozens of tricks and spins. Also available on the Wii U eShop this week is Molly Maggot, a top-down action game where players take control of a maggot who needs to munch flesh to survive. Sure… why not?
More information on both games can be found right here:
Wii U eShop
1080 Snowboarding – Get ready to experience one of the first realistic snowboarding games ever created! In this Nintendo 64 classic, select from five characters, each with his or her own attributes and special tricks. Pick a snowboard that best suits your rider, and then head down the mountain and feel the sensation of speed that’ll make you forget all about the cold.
Molly Maggot – Play as Molly the Maggot as she begins her life of decay flesh munching. See how hard maggots have it as you defend yourself against other decay eaters and the corpse’s own body fighting back. Enjoy and explore an anatomy based map in Story Mode or try to make it through Extra Mode with randomly spawning exits.
Skylanders SuperChargers figures of Bowser and Donkey Kong now being sold individually
Amiibo hunters had to empty their wallets earlier this Fall when Activision partnered with Nintendo to package hybrid Skylanders/Amiibo figures of Donkey Kong and Bowser figures in the 3DS, Wii, and Wii U Starter Packs for Skylanders SuperChargers. Dedicated completionists were forced to purchase four copies of the game’s Starter Pack to obtain Hammer Slam Bowser, Turbo Charge Donkey Kong, and “Dark Edition” variants of each.
However, if you held out this long, it looks like Activision is getting ready to release the standard edition of each figure in much cheaper individual Dual Packs as readers of Nintendo Everything have found both figures on store shelves in recent days. Priced at $24.99 apiece, Hammer Slam Bowser is packaged with his Clown Cruiser vehicle, while Turbo Charge Donkey Kong rides into stores with his Barrel Blaster vehicle.
Online retailers have yet to begin selling these individual Dual Packs, but Nintendo Everything believes they’ll be widely available next week.
UPDATE: According to GameStop, the Hammer Slam Bowser and Turbo Charge Donkey Kong figures will be widely available in stores on or before January 9.
Posted in 3DS, News, Wii, Wii U
Tagged Skylanders SuperChargers, Skylanders SuperChargers Racing
The Pinball Arcade will finally be released for the Wii U in Early 2016
FarSight Studios has announced (via their Facebook page) that The Pinball Arcade will finally make its way to the Wii U in early 2016:
We know you won’t believe this one, but we are very proud to announce that the WiiU version of Pinball Arcade is coming soon! We are aiming for a very early 2016 release, so stay tuned!
This is great news for gamers who exist at the cross section of “pinball fanatics” and “Wii U owners,” as they’ve been waiting for The Pinball Arcade for a long time. And just how long have they been waiting? Rob Mann, FarSight’s former Community Manager, told us in a 2012 interview that The Pinball Arcade was originally scheduled to be a Wii U launch title. Better late than never, right?
Posted in News, Wii U
Tagged The Pinball Arcade
Excitebike Racer, Captain Toad, Birdo costumes coming to Super Mario Maker
Super Mario Maker course creators get ready, Nintendo is about to add three new Costumes to the game as part of a trio of new Event Courses.
A Costume for Captain Toad, the star of last year’s painfully adorable Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker, has already been added to Super Mario Maker. In addition to his explorer’s helmet, Captain Toad stops and holds up a star when crouching.
Meanwhile, Costumes for an Excitebike Racer and Birdo will be added to Super Mario Maker on December 31. Birdo is the same egg-spitting dinosaur you know (and tolerate) from Super Mario Bros. 2. But a platforming Excitebike Racer (complete with a crouching animation that pops a wheelie) is something I never knew I wanted until now.
Mini-trailers for all three new Costumes can be found after the break. (more…)
Posted in News, Wii U
Tagged Super Mario Maker
GalaxyTrail officially announces Freedom Planet 2
GalaxyTrail has announced that they will continue the story of their Genesis-inspired platformer, Freedom Planet, in the upcoming Freedom Planet 2. The scoop on the sequel comes to us via the game’s recently launched official website, which delves a bit into Freedom Planet 2’s story:
An ancient terror has emerged from the depths of the ocean. Merga, a water dragon from Avalice’s oldest and deadliest war, has been freed from her crystal prison as a consequence of the Kingdom Stone’s destruction. Through her acts of vengeance, she holds a dark and terrible truth about Avalice’s leaders that will change the history of the three kingdoms forever.
War is imminent once again, but this time, the heroes are split between sides. As friendships are tested, will the girls stand united when Bakunawa rises?
Main characters Lilac, Carol, and Milla will all return in Freedom Planet 2, which will also feature a redesigned art style, a difficulty modifying system that lets you “change the rules of the game temporarily to make certain stages easier or harder,” and several new special items including a shield block and a quick revival after losing a life.
Executive Producer Stephen DiDuro said these changes will help make Freedom Planet 2 stand on its own: “The original Freedom Planet was modeled as a tribute to Sega Genesis platform games. We’ve learned what works and what doesn’t, what’s fun and what’s frustrating, what we should expand on and what we can afford to lose. With all of this in mind, we feel that we are ready to bid farewell to nostalgia and create a sequel that will define Freedom Planet’s identity as a franchise.”
Freedom Planet 2 will be released for PC platforms in mid-2017, with a plan to bring it to Nintendo platforms (the Wii U or, more likely, the NX) sometime after that.
Posted in News, PC, Switch, Wii U
Tagged Freedom Planet 2
Nintendo Download: Super Mario Galaxy
A portly man in red is going to spend tonight flying across the sky on your Wii U… and I’m not talking about St. Nick. One of Mario’s greatest adventures, Super Mario Galaxy, is now available to download through the Wii U eShop.
According to Nintendo, the Virtual Console re-release of the Wii hit is the only new game scheduled to be released as part of today’s Nintendo Download. But if you’re somehow unfamiliar with Super Mario Galaxy, you can learn more about it right here:
Wii U eShop
Super Mario Galaxy – Become Mario as he traverses gravity-bending galaxies, traveling in and out of gravitational fields by blasting from planet to planet. Control Mario with the Wii Remote and Nunchuk controllers, power up to reach inaccessible areas and collect Star Bits to either stun enemies or feed Lumas in this Wii classic – now available from the Virtual Console service on the Wii U console!
However, Nintendo is making up for the lack of new releases with a ton of eShop sales including Yacht Club’s Shovel Knight and a slew of Capcom games.
Posted in 3DS, News, Wii U
Tagged Super Mario Galaxy