Warp Zoned Presents
Most Recent: Retro
BRACE YOURSELF… This is what Sonic will look like in Sonic the Hedgehog: The Movie
The teaser poster for the live-action Sonic the Hedgehog movie was WEIRD. Sega’s long-running mascot was only shown in silhouette, but Sonic’s gargantuan size and ridiculously muscular thighs were a far cry from the portly cartoon character we all grew up with.
Well strap in, because things are about to get EVEN WEIRDER.
Hamagami/Carroll, one of the marketing agencies working with Sega and Paramount on Sonic the Hedgehog: The Movie, recently uploaded the first image of the character’s cinematic counterpart to their official website. This version of Sonic doesn’t seem as nightmarish as the shadow figure from the original poster, and it looks like the film’s producers even listened to fans and toned down his bulging muscles. But that said, something still seems really off about this image… even if I can’t quite put my finger on what that something is.
Sonic the Hedgehog: The Movie will star Ben Schwartz as the voice of Sonic, James Marsden as a sheriff who introduces him to the real world, and Jim Carrey as Dr. Robotnik. The movie will open in theaters on November 8, and Paramount is likely getting ready to release the first trailer soon.
Posted in Etcetera, News, Retro
Tagged Sonic the Hedgehog
The Video Game Canon: Tetris Remains the Best Game of All Time in Version 3.0 Update
The Video Game Canon is a statistical meta-ranking of dozens of “Best Video Games of All Time” lists that began in 2017 with Version 1.0, and the ranking has been updated several times since then. Which game is #1? There’s only one way to find out…
Once again, Alexey Pajitnov’s puzzle masterpiece, Tetris, stands atop the Video Game Canon.
If you’re unfamiliar with the Video Game Canon, it’s a statistical meta-analysis of 53 “Best Video Games of All Time” lists that were published between 1995 and 2018. To qualify for inclusion, each list had to include at least 50 games, as well as some form of editorial oversight in the process (lists made up solely of reader polls or fan voting were excluded), and no restrictions on release dates or platforms.
After feeding each “Best Games” list into the Video Game Canon machine, the games were ranked against each other using the C-Score, a formula that adds together a game’s “Average Ranking” across all lists with the complementary percentage of its “Appearance Frequency.” Combining these two factors allows us to create a list of games that have universal appeal across a long period of time without punishing any game for being too old or too new.
Five new lists were added to the Video Game Canon in the Version 3.0 update, bringing the total number of games to be selected by at least one list up to 1,182. The most expansive new list came from Game Informer, which published The Top 300 Games of All Time in April of last year. Hyper (The 200 Games You Must Play), IGN (Top 100 Video Games of All Time), and Slant Magazine (The 100 Greatest Video Games of All Time) also published new lists in 2018.
I was also able to reach back into the history books a little bit after stumbling upon a list from 2009 by Benchmark.pl, one of Poland’s largest technology blogs. Aside from a handful of titles (most notably, 2015’s The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt), most of the games created in Eastern Europe or played by Eastern European players aren’t on the radar of your average gamer, so digging through The Top 100 Best Games of the Twentieth Century gave me an interesting window into a population of gamers that I probably don’t think about as often as I should.
Even with these new additions to the dataset, Version 3.0 didn’t signal any huge changes to the Video Game Canon over last year’s Version 2.0 update, but the movement amongst the games in the top ten does bring to mind a round of musical chairs. And after the music stopped, nearly all the titles scrambled to find a new place to sit.
Visit VideoGameCanon.com for all future updates to this project and to explore the complete Top 1000.
The first poster for the Sonic the Hedgehog movie is WEIRD
The idea of a live-action Sonic the Hedgehog movie has always seemed a little weird, but knowing that the “Blue Blur” would be voiced by Parks and Rec‘s Ben Schwartz eased the worry somewhat.
Then Paramount Pictures had to go and release the first poster for Sonic the Hedgehog.
Sonic himself is shown in silhouette, but you can clearly make out his extremely muscular arms and legs. The character also seems to be impossibly tall, and his head is freakishly large compared to the rest of his body (which, again, includes an extremely muscular pair of arms and legs).
The movie also has a new tagline, and I’m not ashamed to admit that it took me a very long time to realize that “A Whole New Speed of Hero” is just a particularly bad pun and not some random gibberish.
Sonic the Hedgehog, which also stars Jim Carrey as Dr. Robotnik, will open in theaters on November 15, 2019. I honestly can’t wait.
Posted in Etcetera, News, Retro
Tagged Sonic the Hedgehog
Stan Lee, the legendary co-creator of many of Marvel’s superheroes, has died
From behind his typewriter, Marvel’s Stan Lee used to answer fan mail with that authoritative declaration when he really wanted to drive home a point in his “Stan’s Soapbox” column. But there’s never enough that can be said about the man who helped define pop culture as we know it today.
Along with Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko, Lee created many of Marvel’s most famous characters… The Spectacular Spider-Man… The Mighty Thor… The Incredible Hulk… The Fantastic Four… “Stan the Man” had a way with adjectives. Sadly, he passed away this morning at the age of 95.
After shepherding his comic creations towards the silver screen in the 80s and 90s, Lee lent his voice to more than a dozen video game adaptations starring Marvel’s mightiest heroes. Most often playing himself (starting with 2000’s Spider-Man), Lee closed the book on his voiceover career with an appearance in Insomniac’s Spider-Man earlier this year as a Short Order Cook.
Lee was awarded the National Medal of Arts in 2008 for “his groundbreaking work as one of America’s most prolific storytellers.” The National Endowment for the Arts’s advisory committee also recognized Lee’s fight against injustice in his comics, adding, “His complex plots and humane super heroes celebrate courage, honesty, and the importance of helping the less fortunate, reflecting America’s inherent goodness.”
As Lee would say, “Nuff said!”
The NPD Group shares list of best-selling games on PS4, Xbox One, and Vita… also the Saturn, PS1, N64, GBC, and Dreamcast
The NPD Group has never been too keen on sharing their historical lists of best-selling games, but that might be changing. Using data from the analyst firm’s vast archive, Mat Piscatella recently tried to pull back the curtain a little bit by sharing the list of best-selling games on several legacy consoles (the Saturn, the original PlayStation, the Nintendo 64, the Game Boy Color, and the Dreamcast) and a nearly defunct handheld (the Vita). He also examined the best-selling games through September 2018 on two modern consoles (the PS4 and Xbox One) and published a list of the top-selling titles for each year from 1995 to 2017.
It’s a very interesting collection of information, and the lists provide our best window yet into what games were considered popular in the United States in the 1990s and into today. (more…)
Posted in News, PS4, Retro, Vita, Xbox One
Tagged Crash Bandicoot, Grand Theft Auto V, NPD, Super Mario 64, Uncharted: Golden Abyss
Full PlayStation Classic lineup includes a lot of the platform’s earliest hits
When Sony first unveiled the PlayStation Classic, they said their microconsole would feature a total of 20 games, including Final Fantasy VII, Jumping Flash, R4: Ridge Racer Type 4, Tekken 3, and Wild Arms. Today, the consolemaker confirmed the identities of the remaining 15 titles.
Culled mostly from the early days of the console (likely due to the lack of analog sticks on the included controller), the PlayStation Classic will include another early 3D fighter (Battle Arena Toshinden), a pair of car combat games (Destruction Derby and Twisted Metal), and a few 3D action games (Syphon Filter, Metal Gear Solid, and Resident Evil: Director’s Cut), all of which helped define the PlayStation’s style in its fight against the Nintendo 64. But Sony will also reach way back and resurrect Take-Two’s Grand Theft Auto and Atlus’s Revelations: Persona for the PlayStation Classic as well.
The microconsole’s lineup is so heavily skewed towards the PlayStation’s 1995-1997 era, that I wouldn’t be surprised if Sony is planning to release an updated edition of the PlayStation Classic for fans in the future. But that’s just speculation on my part, so for now, here’s a look at all 20 titles set to be included on the microconsole:
PlayStation Classic’s Full Lineup of Games
- Battle Arena Toshinden
- Cool Boarders 2
- Destruction Derby
- Final Fantasy VII
- Grand Theft Auto
- Intelligent Qube
- Jumping Flash
- Metal Gear Solid
- Mr. Driller
- Oddworld: Abe’s Oddysee
- Rayman
- Resident Evil: Director’s Cut
- Revelations: Persona
- Ridge Racer Type 4
- Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo
- Syphon Filter
- Tekken 3
- Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six
- Twisted Metal
- Wild Arms
The PlayStation Classic will be priced at $99.99 when it launches on December 3, and will comes packed with two controllers. A new trailer for the microconsole, showcasing all 20 games, has been embedded above.
Posted in News, Retro
Tagged Final Fantasy VII
The Game Console is a new book that’ll look at the “grisly innards” of your favorite consoles
No Starch Press has announced that they will publish The Game Console, a new book that promises to depict “A Photographic History from Atari to Xbox,” on November 6.
Authored by Evan Amos, and featuring an extensive collection of full-color photos and notes about 86 different consoles, The Game Console might just be the most complete catalog of game consoles ever published:
The Game Console is a tour through the evolution of video game hardware, with gorgeous full-color photos of 86 consoles and their grisly innards. You’ll start your journey with legendary consoles like the Magnavox Odyssey, Atari 2600, Nintendo Entertainment System, and the Commodore 64. The visual nostalgia trip continues with systems from the 1990s and 2000s, ending with modern consoles like the Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and Wii U.
Throughout the book, you’ll also discover many consoles you never knew existed, and get a rare peek at the hardware inside some of history’s most iconic video game systems.
You can find a few preview images from The Game Console at No Starch’s official website, and they do look absolutely amazing.
Kosmic completes a nearly perfect Super Mario Bros. speedrun of 4 minutes and 55.96 seconds
The speedrunners competing to complete a “perfect” Super Mario Bros. run got a little closer earlier this week when “KosmicD12” set a new world record of four minutes and 55.96 seconds.
Thanks to pixel-perfect platforming and a series of glitches (including running through the wall to find the Warp Zone in World 1-2), this “Any Percentage” run is nearly identical to the “Tool Assisted Run” of four minutes and 55 seconds. In a “Tool Assisted Run,” a computer calculates the optimal path through the game using all known glitches, so to see an actual human person nearly match it is rather astounding.
“KosmicD12” was rather tongue-tied after his record-setting feat, but he did manage to croak out, “I don’t know what to say.” This run definitely speaks for itself, so I’m not sure anything else needs to be said.
Congratulations to “KosmicD12” from the entire Warp Zoned staff, and you can look here, here, here, here, and here to find previous record-setting Super Mario Bros. runs.
Posted in News, Retro
Tagged Super Mario Bros.