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
Shovel Knight: Plague of Shadows release date is “imminent”
Yacht Club Games has announced that Shovel Knight: Plague of Shadows, their free expansion to Shovel Knight, will be available to download very soon.
According to the latest Kickstarter update, development was completed on August 5 and Plague of Shadows is now going through the submission process with Sony, Microsoft, and Nintendo. So while a final release date is still up in the air, Yacht Club is confident that the expansion’s launch can be considered “imminent.” To celebrate, they’ve released a brand new trailer for the expansion, which gives us a glimpse at some of the new areas and the wide array of potions that Plague Knight has access to.
However, if you’d prefer to hobnob with the development team on the eve of their next triumph, you can. Yacht Club Games is planning to attend Nintendo’s pre-PAX Prime party, Nindies@Night. If you’re in the Seattle area this Thursday, be sure to stop by the EMP Museum at 8:00 PM (Pacific Time) to give Shovel Knight’s Challenge Mode a whirl.
Yacht Club Games will also have a booth at PAX Prime proper as well, so you can test out Shovel Knight: Plague of Shadows in Seattle all weekend long.
Posted in 3DS, News, PC, PS3, PS4, Vita, Wii U, Xbox One
Tagged PAX Prime 2015, Shovel Knight, Shovel Knight: Plague of Shadows
Hyper Light Drifter gets a new trailer as Spring 2016 release date is confirmed
First, the bad news… Hyper Light Drifter won’t be released before the end of the year as originally planned. Instead, Heart Machine announced today that their dreamy action RPG will be released for the PC in Spring 2016 with a console release to follow “as quickly as possible” after that.
So what’s the good news? Well, the developer did release a beautiful new trailer for the game, which has been embedded above. They’ve also confirmed that a playable demo of Hyper Light Drifter will be available in the Indie Megabooth at this weekend’s PAX Prime expo.
It’s always disappointing when a game is delayed, but you can read more about Heart Machine’s reasons behind the decision in the latest Kickstarter update from Lead Developer Alex Preston.
Posted in News, PC, PS4, Vita, Wii U, Xbox One
Tagged Hyper Light Drifter, PAX Prime 2015
Super Mario Maker’s coolest player-created courses include a wild roller coaster, a shooter, a puzzle platformer, and more
Super Mario Maker‘s release is about three weeks away, but many press outlets have already gotten their hands on it and created a variety of amazing levels. Polygon collected their five favorites, and if this is just the start of the community’s creativity, I think we’ll all be playing Super Mario Maker for a very long time.
Out of these five, I think my personal favorite is “Super Shmup Bros.,” which transforms Mario’s traditional platforming antics into an auto-scrolling shooter. Apparently, all you need is a Koopa Clown Car for flight, a Fire Flower for ammunition, and a neverending stream of Flying Spinies. It actually reminded me quite a bit of the shooting sections of Super Mario Land, and I love that someone brought the idea back to the Mario series.
Other courses that made the list include “Enjoy Mr. Blue Bones’ Wild Ride,” a wild roller coaster that requires players to stand absolutely still; “The Riddler: Prologue,” a fiendish puzzle platformer take on Mario; “Vertical Bowling,” a level that asks players to kick an enemy into ten other enemies to score points; and “Winners Don’t Do Shrooms,” a course that requires players to stay small.
Super Mario Maker will be available exclusively for the Wii U on September 11.
Posted in News, Wii U
Tagged Super Mario Maker
Nintendo plans to reissue rare Amiibo figures (Little Mac, Villager, Marth, more) this Fall
It looks like several previously rare Amiibo figures will be reissued this Fall, including Little Mac, Villager, Marth, and many others. A re-release for these figures was confirmed after they were included in a list of “Certificates of Compliance” that Nintendo recently filed in accordance with the Consumer Product Safety Improvement Act.
The full list of certificates available on Nintendo’s website also includes a number of figures announced as part of the company’s next wave of Amiibo figures. So it’s safe to assume that the restocked rarities will also appear on store shelves sometime in the next two months.
So which figures should Amiibo hunters be on the lookout for in the coming days? Here’s the complete list:
- Bowser (Super Mario series)
- Captain Falcon (Super Smash Bros. series)
- Charizard (Super Smash Bros. series)
- Inkling Boy (Splatoon series)
- Inkling Girl (Splatoon series)
- Ike (Super Smash Bros. series)
- King Dedede (Super Smash Bros. series)
- Little Mac (Super Smash Bros. series)
- Luigi (Super Mario series)
- Marth (Super Smash Bros. series)
- Pac-Man (Super Smash Bros. series)
- Peach (Super Mario series)
- Pikachu (Super Smash Bros. series)
- Splatoon 3-Pack (Splatoon series)
- Toad (Super Mario series)
- Villager (Super Smash Bros. series)
- Wario (Super Smash Bros. series)
Hopefully, these re-releases will satisfy the demand of Amiibo fans everywhere as a huge number of figures have become impossible to find on store shelves since Nintendo introduced Amiibo figures in 2014. Personally, I’m just thrilled that my own white whale, Little Mac, is on the list. But even with renewed stock, I still might have to dance like a fly and bite like a mosquito to get one.
Posted in 3DS, News, Wii U
Tagged Mario Party 10, Splatoon, Super Smash Bros. For 3DS, Super Smash Bros. For Wii U
New Releases: Madden NFL 16, Disney Infinity Star Wars, Until Dawn, More
Do you feel that nip in the air? And surely you’ve noticed that kids are gearing up for “back to school” time. And that can mean only one thing… the Fall gaming rush is upon us! While these tell-tale signs of the Fall are out there, the Summer’s not over quite yet. It’s still pretty warm in most of the United States and a majority of kids get to enjoy a few more weeks of Summer vacation.
And even though it’s still August, I think the Fall gaming rush has officially begun…
Everything begins, as it always does this time of year, with the release of Madden NFL 16 (PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One). The latest entry in EA’s long-running football simulation series features Odell Beckham on the cover and improved passing/receiver controls.
One of this Fall’s biggest “all ages” titles, Disney Infinity: Star Wars, will also be available this week. As the title says, Star Wars characters have been absorbed into the Disney Infinity universe for the first time. If you’ve already got a shelf of Disney’s popular figures, prepare to build a second one. And if you haven’t caught the Disney Infinity bug yet, you’re probably going to need a sturdy shelf to hold all your Star Wars figures.
On the complete opposite end of the age appropriateness spectrum is Sony’s Until Dawn. Available exclusively for the PS4, Until Dawn is one of the first games that attempts to recreate the horror (and excitement) of watching a slasher flick. Until Dawn’s star, Hayden Panettiere, even has plenty of experience running from crazed killers on screens both big (Scream 4) and small (Heroes).
Finally this week, a pair of remasters will give a new generation of players the chance to check out (or revisit) two PS3/Xbox 360 era classics. Dishonored: Definitive Edition brings its stealthy steampunk aesthetic to the PS4 and Xbox One, while Gears of War: Ultimate Edition upgrades the popular Xbox 360 shooter for the Xbox One. Microsoft will also release an Xbox One 500GB + Gears of War: Ultimate Edition Bundle if you haven’t picked up an Xbox One yet.
A complete list of all of this week’s new releases (which also includes the PS3/Vita debut of the SteinsGate visual novel) can be found after the break. (more…)
Posted in News, PC, PS3, PS4, Vita, Wii U, Xbox 360, Xbox One
Tagged Dishonored, Disney Infinity: Star Wars, Gears of War, Madden NFL 16, SteinsGate, Until Dawn
Pokken Tournament is coming to the Wii U in Spring 2016… anybody surprised?
About a year ago, Bandai Namco announced Pokken Tournament, a Tekken-styled fighting game that starred characters from the Pokemon franchise. At the time, the publisher said the game would only be available as an arcade machine, but we all knew that was a half-truth at best.
Today, the other Pokeball opened as The Pokemon Company announced that Pokken Tournament will receive a worldwide release on the Wii U in Spring 2016.
You can check out the announcement trailer above to get your fill of Pokemon-on-Pokemon violence, and be sure to stick around for the whole thing. The closing seconds of the trailer give us our first glimpse at “Pikachu Libre,” a never-before-seen evolution of Pikachu dressed in Lucha Libre garb. Pikachu Libre will make his debut in the Wii U version of Pokken Touranment.
Nintendo has been very quiet on the subject of Pokken Tournament ever since it was announced, but presumably they’ll have some part to play in publishing the game.
Posted in News, Wii U
Tagged Pokken Tournament
Lego Jurassic World Review: Spared (Mostly) No Expense
Jurassic Park holds a very special place in my heart. When I first read the novel at 12 years old, I remember closing it and saying to myself, “This needs to be made into a movie.” Little did I know that Stephen Spielberg was already filming the movie as I was reading it. And when the movie came out, it was an amazing experience. After seeing it in the theater, I remember being scared to death as I was riding my bike home, thinking that every noise was a Dilophosaurus hunting me down. Weeks later, I saved my Chuck E. Cheese tickets just to get a raptor stuffed animal and collected Jurassic Park trading cards. I even supersized my Extra Value Meals at McDonalds in order to get the collector’s cups. I was fully engulfed in the dino-mania that was sweeping the globe. Everything about Jurassic Park was amazing, with one exception… the video games.
The Jurassic Park games for the Super Nintendo and Sega Genesis were completely different, but unfortunately, neither hit that high standard set by the book and movie. I rented Jurassic Park for the Super Nintendo and found the mixture of overhead exploration and first-person shooter to be quite shallow. My friend had the Sega Genesis game, and while I did enjoy the graphics, animation, and 2D style, I found it too difficult to enjoy. Since then, I haven’t really found a Jurassic Park game that I enjoyed – that is, until Lego Jurassic World. Playing it brought back fond memories of growing up watching these movies, and while it isn’t perfect, Lego Jurassic World is still a fun romp. (more…)
Nintendo Download: The Bridge, LBX Little Battlers Experience, 3D Gunstar Heroes, more
It’s a big day for the Nintendo eShop as the publisher’s tiniest new heroes will make their digital debut.
LBX: Little Battlers Experience, a 3DS game developed by Level-5, follows a group of kids who pit “customizable palm-sized robots” against each other in a small-scale war. The 3DS is now also home to 3D Gunstar Heroes, a 3D-enabled version of Treasure’s famed side-scrolling shooter.
If you’d prefer to do your gaming on the Wii U, a number of new titles were released for Nintendo’s living room console today including The Bridge, a puzzle platformer inspired by M.C. Escher; Advance Wars 2: Black Hole Rising, a Virtual Console re-release of the strategy favorite; and Woah Dave!, a crazy platformer from the makers of the Bit.Trip series.
More information on all of these games (and a few other new releases) can be found after the break. (more…)
Posted in 3DS, News, Wii U
Tagged The Bridge