Warp Zoned Presents
Most Recent: PS3
Zero Time Dilemma’s PS4 debut leads a packed announcement schedule from Aksys Games at Anime Expo 2017
The 2017 Anime Expo welcomed anime fans from around the globe to Los Angeles this weekend, and Aksys Games was there to announce a massive slate of upcoming games for release in 2017 and 2018.
The localization house started things off with confirmation that Zero Time Dilemma, the third game in the Zero Escape trilogy, will be released for the PS4 on August 18. The visual novel is currently available for the 3DS, Vita, and PC, but the PS4 re-release will be remastered with “impressive” high definition graphics. [Source]
Aksys is planning to bring several other visual novels to North America over the next year. During their Anime Expo panel, Aksys revealed a handful of such titles from Idea Factory including Psychedelica of the Black Butterfly, and Psychedelica of the Ashen Hawk. Both Psychedelica games are tangentially connected by haunted locales, and both will launch for the Vita in 2018. [Source]
The publisher will also team up with Idea Factory to bring 7 Scarlet to the Vita in 2018. 7 Scarlet features a story involving a mysterious town, a missing university student, and a search for the truth. [Source]
More ghostly tales will be told in Creeping Terror, a horror exploration game that’ll launch for the PC and 3DS this Fall. Players will travel through a haunted house, an old tunnel, and a shadowy cavern in search of a monster in Creeping Terror. [Source]
Players will also be in search of monsters in SG/ZH: School Girl/Zombie Hunter, a third-person shooter developed by D3 Publisher for the PS4. The goofy game follows five girls who attempt to save their school from a rampaging horde of zombies. [Source]
A different kind of “ghost” story is at the center of Jake Hunter Detective Story: Ghost of the Dusk. Developed by Arc System Works, Ghost of the Dusk is a hard-boiled detective story that’ll be released for the 3DS in North America in 2018. [Source]
Aksys announced plans to package together two games in the Code Realize franchise, Code Realize: Guardian of Rebirth and Code Realize: Future Blessings, as Code Realize: Bouquet of Rainbows. The bundle will be available for the PS4 next year. [Source]
Moving on (or rather, not moving on), the publisher will release Bad Apple Wars for the Vita on September 29. The visual novel takes place in a school (not surprising)… that’s located in Purgatory (whoa). Bad Apple Wars follows a battle for the soul of Purgatory between the Delinquent Team of Bad Apples and the Disciplinary Committee. [Source]
Under Night In-Birth, a 2D fighter from Arc System Works, will receive a major update this Fall with the release of Under Night In-Birth Exe: Late[st]. Set to be released for the PS3, PS4, and Vita, the Late[st] version of the game will include two new characters, Enkidu and Wagner, and a story-focused Chronicle Mode. [Source]
Finally, the craziest game on Aksys’s radar might be Drive Girls, which will be released for the Vita on August 11. In Drive Girls, players will control a team of superpowered girls who can turn into a fleet of speedy supercars. The girls will do battle with an invading alien force in a genre mashup that includes melee action and driving prowess. [Source]
That’s all for now, but new trailers for most of these games should be available online shortly.
Yacht Club continues to joke about Shovel Knight 64… and talks seriously about King Knight expansion
Developers from Yacht Club Games have joked about creating Shovel Knight 64 for a few years now. But the company’s “Pixel Artmancer,” Nick Wozniak, revealed that their fanciful daydreaming about a Shovel Knight sequel that uses the blocky polygonal style made famous by the N64 might be real during an E3 2017 interview with App Trigger:
App Trigger: I’ve seen a little bit of Yacht Club talking about working on more Shovel Knight, or more things besides Shovel Knight after all this is done. What would your personal preference be? If you could work on anything, what would it be?
Nick Wozniak: Anything? I think one of the things we want to work on in the far future is definitely like a Shovel Knight 64, a 3D platformer. We would all love that. We all love Mario 64 to pieces and would just love to be able to jump into that.
Of course, this wasn’t an official announcement for Shovel Knight 64. Wozniak said that Yacht Club doesn’t just want to be known as “the Shovel Knight company,” and that they’re currently hard at work on “something new.”
However, the developer is also putting the finishing touches on Shovel Knight’s King Knight expansion, and Wozniak also had a bit to say about the game’s final add-on:
App Trigger: [King Knight is] great. He’s the light-hearted guy. Even though you guys gave us choices at the beginning of Shovel Knight, your eye is drawn more toward King Knight, so I think that’s the one a lot of people start with.
Nick Wozniak: He’s great. He’s the first guy you probably encounter, and he sets the tone of the rest of the game. You know what to expect, kind of, when you see King Knight. He’s a joke, even in his name. He’s not a king, he’s a knight who’s kingly, and that’s ridiculous and stupid and it sets the bar for your expectations of what the game is and what the knights are. His campaign is going to be a big departure from the very tragic story that Specter Knight was, but it will be interesting and focused on his journey to becoming King Knight. I’m not sure what the timeline is now, we’re still working through what it is, but it’ll be goofy.
Yacht Club has previously said they want to release the King Knight campaign before the end of the year, so it shouldn’t be too long before we can all be royals.
Content Crash #3: Will New Games Always Cost $60?
Welcome everyone to the Content Crash podcast. I’m your host, Dan Hartnack, and with as always, Keno Eastmond.
Today’s topic… we’d like to talk about the pricing of games. The standard has forever been that a brand new AAA release comes out and it is $60. That happened way back in the 90s with Nintendo and the Super NES. And all the way to today, that number has not changed, for the most part.
But why is that? And will it ever change?
You can subscribe to the Content Crash podcast on YouTube or SoundCloud.
Justice was served as Injustice 2 was the best-selling game of May 2017
NetherRealm Studios has done it again… The NPD Group (via GamesIndustry.biz) has revealed that Injustice 2 was the best-selling game in May.
In the midst of Wonder Woman-mania, the one-on-one fighter beat out the Switch’s heaviest hitters (Mario Kart 8 Deluxe at #2 and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild at #4), as well as Prey (#5) and Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadow of Valentia (#7).
Grand Theft Auto V continues to sell well, landing at #3 in the monthly tally. And Blizzard’s Overwatch celebrated its first anniversary by squeaking into the top ten at #10.
A list of May 2017’s top ten best-selling titles can be found after the break. (more…)
PlayStation Store This Week: Cars 3 Driven To Win, Tour De France 2017, more
The E3 Expo is winding down, so the PlayStation Store is a little light on new releases this week…
Leading the pack is Cars 3: Driven To Win, a new racing game for the PS4 and PS3 that’s based on Pixar’s animated threequel. Produced by WB Games, Cars 3: Driven To Win includes more than 20 tracks, more than 20 characters, and six gameplay modes.
Speaking of racing, Le Tour De France 2017 brings the world’s premiere bicycle race to the PS4 on July 15. Players will be able to “attack, give orders to [their] teammates, choose the best trajectory, manage [their] stamina, and make the decisions” that lead to the Yellow Jersey.
Finally this week, Hamster Corporation will release two more SNK classics for the PS4. The Last Blade is a fighting game that was first released in 1997, and Sengoku 2 is a brawler that originally launched in 1993.
You can learn more about all of these games (and a few other new releases) after the break. (more…)
NBA 2K17 simulation scores as Warriors win NBA Finals… but Predators trash NHL 17 prediction with loss
It didn’t take seven games, but NBA 2K17‘s playoff simulation became a reality last night, and the Golden State Warriors won the NBA Championship.
It was a high-scoring series, and the Warriors closed it out in Game 5 with a 129-120 win over the Cleveland Cavaliers. The two teams have been trading championships over the last three years, with the Warriors winning it all in 2015, and Cleveland claiming victory last year. The difference this time appeared to be Kevin Durant, who signed with the Warriors in the offseason. Durant averaged 35.2 points per game in the series, and was named the Finals MVP.
Elsewhere in the sports world, EA’s NHL 17 simulation didn’t work out as well. As predicted, the Nashville Predators reached the Stanley Cup Finals, but they lost the series against the Pittsburgh Penguins.
Both franchises will get another chance this September with the upcoming release of NBA 2K18 and NHL 18.
Just Dance 2018 will launch for all current consoles (and the Wii) on October 24
I can’t believe it… someone is still producing Wii games in 2017. Ubisoft has announced that Just Dance 2018 will be available on October 24 for all current consoles (PS4, Switch, Xbox One, PS3, Xbox 360, and Wii U), as well as the original Wii.
The Just Dance 2018 soundtrack will include more than 40 songs, and Ubisoft delivered a sneak peek at the first 11 as part of the game’s first trailer:
Just Dance 2018 Tracklist… So Far
- Ariana Grande (featuring Nicki Minaj) – “Side To Side”
- Bebe Rexha (featuring Lil Wayne) – “The Way I Are (Dance With Somebody)”
- Beyonce – “Naughty Girl”
- Big Freedia – “Make it Jingle”
- Bruno Mars – “24K Magic”
- Clean Bandit (featuring Sean Paul & Anne-Marie) – “Rockabye”
- Groove Century – “Daddy Cool”
- Hatsune Miku – “Love Ward”
- HyunA – Bubble Pop!”
- Jamiroquai – Automaton”
- Shakira (featuring Maluma) – “Chantaje”
Ubisoft also announced plans for an exclusive addition to Just Dance 2018 on the Switch that makes use of the console’s HD Rumble feature. Players will be able to grab two Joy-Con controllers and load up Double Rumble Mode to create “new Double Rumble choreographies that are tied to the game’s vibration system.”
But don’t worry, six players will still be able to bust a move in Just Dance 2018 with the mobile-friendly Just Dance Controller App on the PS4, Switch, Wii U, and Xbox One.
New Retail Releases: Arms, Cars 3 Driven To Win, Psychonauts In the Rhombus of Ruin
It’s common knowledge that game publishers try to avoid releasing big new games during the E3 Expo, but as we all know, Nintendo’s methods are anything but common.
This week, the consolemaker will launch their stretchy-armed fighting game, Arms, for the Nintendo Switch. Featuring support for motion controls with the Joy-Cons and standard controls with the Switch Pro Controller, Arms will give players plenty of options to battle it out with the its colorful characters.
Also set to launch this week is a game adaptation of Pixar’s Cars 3. Cars 3: Driven To Win was developed by WB Games and Avalanche Software, and will be available for the PS4, Switch, Xbox One, PS3, Wii U, and Xbox 360.
Finally this week, Double Fine will release a retail edition of the PlayStation VR-exclusive Psychonauts In the Rhombus of Ruin. All copies of the game will also come with a download code for the original Psychonauts.
While we’ll be preoccupied with the E3 Expo for most of this week, we’ll be back soon with a look at this week’s newest additions to the PlayStation Store, Xbox Games Store, and Nintendo eShop.