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
- 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”
- 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: Xbox One
The Simpsons Skin Pack now available for Minecraft on Xbox One, Xbox 360
Are you ready to rasta-fy your Minecraft experience by 10%? Microsoft has announced that “Simpsons Skin Pack” is now available to download through Minecraft: Xbox One Edition and Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition. The pack includes the five members of the immediate Simpson family (apologies to Grandpa Simpson) and 19 characters you’ll often find roaming the halls of Springfield Elementary School.
The full list of characters included in the “Simpsons Skin Pack” can be found right here:
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You’d think that going for the “Sherri, but not Terri” joke would be pretty obvious. And yet, there they both are at the bottom of the list.
Mortal Kombat X adds Mileena and three entirely original characters in new Story Trailer
The Mortal Kombat franchise has always included an extensive backstory that chronicles a mythology involving hundreds of characters and stretching back several millennia. This April’s Mortal Kombat X will push the plot 25 years into the future as Mileena attempts to control Outworld in the aftermath of Shao Kahn’s defeat.
Previously, NetherRealm Studios said that this flash-forward would involve the offspring of several Mortal Kombat favorites including Cassie Cage, the daughter of Johnny Cage and Sonya Blade. In this new “Story Trailer,” we’ve learned that Cassie will lead a new generation of heroes against the forces of evil. This new generation, who will be mentored by the older generation, includes Jacqueline Briggs (the daughter of Jax), Takashi Takeda (the son of Kenshi), and Kung Jin (a descendant of Kung Lao). With the story in place, as you might have guessed, Mileena has also been confirmed as a playable character.
I’d definitely recommend watching the trailer more than once as its chock-full of little details like blink-and-you’ll-miss-it cameos from Sindel, Rain, and Shinnok as well as an unmasked (and human) Scorpion. At this time, it’s unknown if any of these kombatants will be added to Mortal Kombat X as playable characters.
Yesterday, NetherRealm released a separate Mortal Kombat X trailer confirming Brutalities, so be sure to check that out as well.
NetherRealm is adding “more than 100” Brutalities to Mortal Kombat X
As part of today’s “Kombat Kast,” NetherRealm Studios has confirmed that Mortal Kombat X will feature the return of Brutalities, the ultra-bloody finishers that were first included in Ultimate Mortal Kombat 3. However, unlike the extra-long mega-combos of old, these Brutalities more closely resemble the classic Fatalities found in the first three Mortal Kombat games. More than 100 Brutalities will be included in Mortal Kombat X, so expect each character to have at least two-to-three different ways to dispatch their opponent.
If you’re interested in learning how Brutalities work in Mortal Kombat X, I recommend watching the “Kombat Kast” above. But if you’d rather skip straight to the blood and guts, GameSpot has taken every Brutality shown during the “Kombat Kast” and re-edited them into a concise three-minute trailer.
Mortal Kombat X will be released for the PC, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, and Xbox One on April 14. And expect the next character reveal, which might be Johnny Cage, to happen tomorrow.
Fable Legends will be Free-To-Play on Xbox One, PC
This is a bit of a surprise. Microsoft has announced that Fable Legends will be available as a free-to-play game on the PC and Xbox One.
According to the game’s online FAQ, Microsoft and the development team at Lionhead Studios have decided to make Fable Legends free-to-play to “open the exciting world of Fable to more players.” However, they’ve stressed that this will not make the game pay-to-win as players will be able to “play through it beginning-to-end without having to spend any money.”
So how will Microsoft make money off of Fable Legends? By selling a variety of customization options and permanent access to the game’s Heroes. Like Killer Instinct, a rotating set of characters will be available for free. But players may purchase any of the other offered Heroes at any time. And some Heroes will even be permanently unlockable through regular play. Purely cosmetic items to enhance the look of your Heroes will also be available through the Xbox Games Store or Windows Store.
If you prefer to play as the Villain, Creature characters, Traps, and Gates will also be available as separate purchases. As with Heroes, some Creature characters, Traps, and Gates can be unlocked by playing the game.
Fable Legends will be available for the PC and Xbox One sometime in 2015.
Posted in News, PC, Xbox One
Tagged Fable Legends
Insert Quarter: Did Batman: Arkham Knight Just Kill the Teen Rating?
Insert Quarter is our showcase for some of the best and most interesting writing about video games on the Internet.
The gaming world was a tad surprised when Batman: Arkham Knight was awarded an “M For Mature” rating by the ESRB earlier this week, but no one has taken up the “Won’t someone think of the children!” mantle just yet. And that’s probably because the way that gamers treat a Mature-rated game is much different from the way moviegoers react to an R-rated film (to say nothing of the dreaded NC-17).
You might even wonder if this has signaled a shift away from the ESRB’s Teen rating (which has always been considered equivalent of the much-more-popular PG-13 for films). Few games carry a Teen rating in 2015 and nearly every critically acclaimed title of the past decade (BioShock, Red Dead Redemption, Fallout 3, Skyrim, Grand Theft Auto V, and many others) has been slapped with a scarlet “M.” Paul Tassi of Forbes believes the “T For Teen” rating is dead and that it’s unlikely anyone will notice or even care:
Unlike the movie industry, however, a game being rated M is not all that big of a deal. Movies will bend over backward to cut themselves down to PG-13 from an R in order to have a chance at dramatically increasing their box office haul, and there’s only one R-rated movie in the top 25 highest grossing films of all time, The Passion of the Christ. There are 16 PG-13 movies, by contrast, including the first four of the top five.
Gaming is a much different story, with rating hardly seeming to matter at all. M-rated games are routinely best-sellers, and comparatively seven out of the top 25 highest selling video games of all time are rated M, all split between Grand Theft Auto and Call of Duty titles, with the non-M games mostly coming from Nintendo ’s E-rated stable. In fact, there isn’t a single T-rated game in the list.
The full article is available for your perusal at Forbes.
Posted in Insert Quarter, PC, PS4, Xbox One
Tagged Batman: Arkham Knight
Xbox Store Today: RE Revelations 2, Dragon Ball Xenoverse, Dynasty Warriors 8: Empires
If you’ve already perused this week’s PlayStation Store update, you’ll be pretty familiar with what Microsoft has added to the Xbox Games Store.
The first episode of Resident Evil Revelations 2 (Xbox One, Xbox 360), “Penal Colony,” puts Claire Redfield back in the spotlight as she attempts to escape from a mysterious island with the help of Moira Burton. It’s joined by Dragon Ball Xenoverse (Xbox One, Xbox 360), which is the latest Dragon Ball adaptation from Bandai Namco. Also available today is Dynasty Warriors 8: Empires (Xbox One), the latest game from Koei Tecmo in the strategic “Empires” sub-series.
More details on all of these games can be found after the break. (more…)
Posted in News, Xbox 360, Xbox One
Tagged Dragon Ball Xenoverse, Dynasty Warriors 8: Empires, Resident Evil Revelations 2
Forza Horizon 2 Presents Fast & Furious standalone expansion announced
I will never understand why the Fast and the Furious film franchise hasn’t been the subject of more video game adaptations. You’d think it’s ridiculous action setpieces and even more ridiculous car stunts would it perfect fodder for the adaptation machine. But aside from 2004’s Tokyo Drift game, 2013’s Fast & Furious: Showdown, and a handful of arcade cabinets, the series has been largely absent from the video game space.
That number will expand by one next month when Universal Studios, Microsoft, and the team behind Forza Horizon 2 team up to release Forza Horizon 2 Presents Fast & Furious.
Forza Horizon 2 Presents Fast & Furious will serve as a “standalone” expansion to Forza Horizon 2, so even if you don’t own the original game, you’ll be able to experience all the Fast & Furious content on the Xbox One and Xbox 360. Best of all, from March 27 through April 10, the game will be available as a free download to help promote the April 3rd theatrical debut of Furious 7.
So what can Fast and the Furious fans expect? According to a post on the Xbox Wire, players will have to reach ludicrous speeds:
In Forza Horizon 2 Presents Fast & Furious, you’ll be recruited by Fast & Furious expert mechanic Tej Parker, voiced by Chris “Ludacris” Bridges, to source cars for the Fast & Furious crew’s next big mission. You’ll take part in a series of thrilling car challenges set in the idyllic south of France, and inspired by both the “Fast & Furious” movies and Forza’s awesome, pulse-pounding gameplay. As you complete game challenges, you’ll unlock new cars that you can drive throughout the open world in free roam play.
Forza Horizon 2 Presents Fast & Furious will be priced at $10 after the promotional period ends.
Posted in News, Xbox 360, Xbox One
Tagged Forza Horizon 2 Presents Fast & Furious
Latest Mortal Kombat X trailer includes all you ever wanted to know about Kitana
Steve Brownback is a Quality Assurance Analyst at NetherRealm Studios and he hosts this latest trailer for Mortal Kombat X. But before Mr. Brownback took a job at the Chicago-based developer, he was a professional gamer on the tournament fighting circuit with an expertise in 2011’s Mortal Kombat and the character of Kitana. And now as a developer, he’s directly influencing Kitana’s design including her three style variations (the defensive “Royal Storm,” the offensive “Assassin,” and the Jade-like “Mournful”). All that and more can be found in this trailer showcasing everyone’s favorite Edenian princess… wait, does Mileena count? Because that would shake up the rankings.
Mortal Kombat X will be available for the PC, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, and Xbox One on April 14.