This week Zahra takes control, with Caroline and Peter to talk this weeks Gaming News, a Recap of last week’s Indi Dev Night and all their favs, and lastly Caroline battles through with a review of Knight Crawlers! 

EA Sports No Longer In The Game

Former local game developer and now ruler of all things Electronic Arts, CEO Andrew Wilson, has announced that EA Sports is splitting from EA Games. They’re going to be two completely separate companies competing for your gaming dollar. Not only that, but EA Games is no more, being rebranded as EA Entertainment. It’s a signal that Electronic Arts is
looking beyond video games for future releases, and trying to make everything they make a hit across movies, games and TV. After all, it’s a strategy that’s working for Sony of late.

I’m still waiting for the modern remake and HBO drama based on the best EA game ever made, Skitchin’.

We’re all Barbie Girls, in a Forza World

Look, I know this is a crass commercial cross-promotional ploy to get attention, and as the world’s best independent gaming radio show we should be above it all, but…the Barbie car is coming to Forza Horizon 5! How freakin’ cool is that! I can finally live out my dreams of driving the Barbie car at ridiculous speeds on Hot Wheels tracks without getting in trouble from mum. There’s really not much more to this story than that, I just wanted to share some joy.

Kojima’s in Space

Certified nutjob and the only man to escape working for Konami alive, Hideo Kojima, has announced that he’d like to go to space. Speaking to former Doritos spokesperson Geoff
Kieghley, he said ““I want to go to outer space. I want to go to outer space and create a game you can play In space… So please someone send me up to space.” As of press time
it’s not known if someone has volunteered to launch him up there or if he could fit the entire dev team on the International Space Station. It’s not the first time he’s spearheaded a game
that requires players to put themselves in unusual situations, as his Game Boy Advance game Boktai needed to be played outside in the sunlight.

NINTENDO DIRECT!!!!!!!!!

Anyway who cares about any of that other news Nintendo just dropped a new Direct! Among the highlights are the Hidden Treasure of Area Zero, new DLC for Pokemon Scarlet and
Violet which, yep I just checked, has lots of Pokemon in it so that’s good. Palia is a free to play multiplayer mix of the relaxed life of Animal Crossing and the adventuring aspect of Zelda which looks charming as all heck, Fae Farm is pretty much the exact same concept but you pay money for it, Mythforce is a four player first person roguelike adventure that resembles an ‘80s Saturday morning cartoon, and there’s a new Detective Pikachu!

And now exciting news for those of us who love buying games we already own – SUPER MARIO RPG REMAKE!!!!! Finally Australian gamers will be legally allowed to play this game
without breaking the warranty on their Super Nintendo.

Speaking of re-releases, Metal Gear Solid Master Collection Volume 1! Vampire Survivors is coming to Switch, surprising nobody. All of the Batman Arkham games are coming to the
Switch soon too. (I think Batman’s kind of stupid and I will not apologise)

Rounding out the release announcements are Pikmin 4 which looks cute as all heck and there’s a little Pikmin dog that you can teach tricks to and ohhh it’s so cute, it’s SO CUTE! A
new Wario Ware game! Some other stuff I wasn’t paying attention to because it was so late in the evening! I’m hyperventilating from HYPE!

Continuing the Mario mania, there’s a new Princess Peach game coming, a Switch remake of the 3DS Luigi’s Mansion, and a brand new 2D Mario game, Super Mario Bros Wonder! My
wife described it as if Jeff Minter made a Mario game, which is the best recommendation I could imagine. BEST DIRECT EVER!

And now here’s some upcoming releases!

Today sees the release of

Dr. Fetus’ Mean Meat Machine [PC, PS5, XSX, PS4, XBO, Switch]
Final Fantasy 16 [PS5]
Dragon’n Princess (C64)

Tomorrow sees the release of C-Smash VRS [PSVR 2]

And on June 27

Destroy All Humans! 2 – Reprobed Single Player Edition [PS4, XBO]
Little Friends: Puppy Island [PC, Switch]

In case you missed it, we hosted an Indie Dev Night at Netherworld in Brisbane’s Fortitude Valley on Thursday (June 15th). The event allowed local indie developers to bring demos of their upcoming games for the public to try out and get a first look at. Check out all the games below. Catch us at the 10th Queensland Games Festival (formerly known as GO423) at the Brisbane Powerhouse on July 22, we’d love to see you there!

Schrodinger’s Cat Burglar
https://abandonedsheep.com/
Join Mittens, cat burglar extraordinaire, as she ventures into a secret research facility and gains incredible quantum powers. Test your problem solving skills in devious puzzles, avoid detection by security robots and infiltrate top secret laboratories as you discover the truth behind an earth-shaking conspiracy.
Developer: Abandoned Sheep
Platforms: PC / Nintendo Switch
Release date: 2023

Asiramyth
https://asiramyth.com/
An upcoming expandable JRPG-inspired strategy card game.
Developer: Brenton Finkel
Platforms: Physical Card Game
Release date: TBA

Sea of Survivors
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2347940/Sea_of_Survivors/
In Sea of Survivors, you can sail in any direction but you can never stop moving. Dodge and destroy hordes of pirates and sea monsters to gain experience, level up, and upgrade your weapons and abilities. Earn gold and hire new crew members with every run. Discover mysterious curses, and unlock unique treasures as you fight for your survival.
Developer: Nah Yeah Games
Platforms: PC (Steam)
Release date: 2023

The Thief, the Witch, the Toad and the Mushroom
https://www.ashtowngames.com/thief-witch-toad-mushroom
You’re curled up in front of the fire reading a folk tale on a cold winter’s night. Something about it seems so familiar. Have you read this before? A Visual Novel of strange magic and lost secrets.
Developer: Jack McNamee, Ashtown Games
Platforms: PC (Steam, Itch)
Release date: TBA

Whatever Happened to Ruth MacArthur
https://changeling-interactive.itch.io/whrm
An interactive narrative experience where you are in search of a missing woman who left only a trail of audiotapes behind her.
Developer: Ivan Randall, Changeling Interactive
Platforms: PC (Itch, Gamejolt)
Release date: 24th of October 2019

Bears in Space
https://www.broadside.games/games/
Stranded and alone on a strange planet after a scientific experiment went wrong, Maxwell Atoms must come to terms with his new found abilities and embrace the power of the Bear. Now surrounded by enemy robots and armed with only his wits, paws and an abundance of weapons, he must blast his way out, find a way home and if there’s time… save his crew.
Developer: Broadside Games
Platforms: PC (Steam)
Release date: 2023

Sumorbit
https://www.sumorbit.com/
A physics based fighting game where planets sumo wrestle. Grab, throw, bounce and spin opponents out of the solar system.
Developer: Jett Williams, Tournameta
Platforms: PC (Steam)
Release date: TBA

Cosy Kingdom
A casual adventure game with puzzle elements.
Developer: Made By Fraser

SURPRISE EARLY PODCAST!
In celebration of our collaboration with Netherworld for the Indie Dev Night we’re releasing this weeks podcast EARLY! So listen in as Maylee, Hazel, & Paul talk gaming news, this years not E3 announcements and Hazel does a special In Memoriam for the online phenomenon Blazeball.
So gather your salutes, gird your tear ducts, and open your ear holes.

This past week was video game conference season and as such was packed to the brim with video game announcements and news.  Let’s take a look at some of the highlights.

Summer Game Fest

Sumer Game fest kicked off the week’s activities with gameplay for Mortal Kombat 1 taking place in a new canon created at the end of the last game. Alan Wake 2 showed off its pulpy scares and we saw a big chunk of Final Fantasy VII Rebirth.

Marvels Spider-Man 2 got a firm release date of October 20 this year. Capcom announced the upcoming Exoprimal will have cross over content with Street Fighter 6 so you’ll finally be about to throw a hadouken at a t-rex. A zombie shooting and driving game called Toxic Commando is coming from legendary film director John Carpenter built on the same engine as Snowrunner so you can expect some serious vehicle physics.

Perhaps the most exciting of all was this (and many of the other events) had a stage and a crowd which we haven’t seen since before the pandemic. Which means a return of awkward presenters and surprise celebrities. Nicholas Cage graced the stage to wild applause to help announce that he is an upcoming character in the horror game Dead By Daylight.

Xbox

Microsoft was the only platform holder to hold an event this year and they had a lot to prove after securing so many developers under their belt in recent years.  The show started with footage from the new Fable which showed very little that could be considered gameplay but did feature comedian Richard Ayoade as a giant you will be fighting in the final game.

Compulsion games of We Happy Few fame revealed South of Midnight a heavily stylised game exploring folklore of the American deep south. RPG studios Obsidian and inXile showed off Avowed and Clockwork Revolution respectively. Avowed is a first-person fantasy action RPG where you play a powerful magic wielder and is described as closer in scope to The Outer Worlds than Elder Scrolls while Clockwork Revolution is a departure from inXile’s usual rpg style and shares many similarities with Bioshock infinite.

The new Forza Motorsport is on its way with a release date of the 10^th of October and Microsoft Flight Simulator is adding a slew of new features for it’s 2024 update including content based on the modern Dune films.

Atlus was represented heavily at Xbox’s showcase showing off 3 games that will all come to gamepass on day one. A remake of Persona 3 subtitled Reload, a tactics game Persona 5 Tactica and a new IP Metaphor: ReFantazio which looks to share many similarities with the Persona and Shin Megami Tensei series.

Sea of Thieves is getting a new campaign based on Monkey Island!  It features many of the series characters and voices as well as recreated locations. The Legend of Monkey Island comes to Sea of Thieves on July 20^th

The show ended with a 45 minute deep dive into the incredibly ambitious Bethesda Sci Fi RPG Starfield.

Ubisoft

Ubisoft came out swinging with some big titles this year.  Star Wars Outlaws is a new open world 3^rd person action game based in the period between The Empire Strikes Back and Return of the Jedi. Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora based in James Cameron’s Avatar universe is a canon story that will fit in with the movies. You and a friend in co op can explore the world of pandora in first person, fighting the RDA and riding animals of the planet. It only looks a little bit like Far Cry.

While the remake of Prince of Persia Sands of time is still missing in action a new game in the series was revealed. Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown takes the series back to its side scrolling routes but also moves to a metroidvania style structure with a focus on combat, fast action and time based magic.

Being Ubisoft they also had not one, not two but three  Assassin’s Creed games present! Assassin’s Creed Mirage is the more traditional title set for release later this year. Assassin’s Creed Nexus VR is a new title being made for the meta quest and promises a full Assassin’s creed experience in VR. You must provide your own straw. Lastly the free to play title Assassin’s Creed Codename Jade will take players to China on their mobile device. You can register to be part of the playtest on the official website.

This is only a small amount of the games shown in the last week. If only there was a way to share more of them in a short time…

Game releases

Crime Boss: Rockay City (PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S), Layers of Fear (2023) (PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PC) – June 16

F1 23 (PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC), Park Beyond (PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PC) – June 17

Aliens: Dark Descent (PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC), Crash Team Rumble (PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 4, Xbox One) – June 21

That was some news I guess!

Grab your Master Sword, don your fused shield , & come listen to this weeks special Zelda themed episode with Paul taking the reigns. This weeks 4 person team talks The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom and all things Hyrule.

Apple Vision Pro is Vision… Oh…

Apple has unveiled their newest creation, their first spatial computer! What does this mean? Well, it’s a headset much like your typical VR headsets that is supposed to seamlessly blend digital content with the world around you. Imagine, being able to project your workspace onto a wall, while still being totally aware of the world around you thanks to the ability to see through the headset. It features 23 million pixels across two displays, and it tracks your eyes, hands, and voice.

Your monitor and keyboard can be set up anywhere, at any time, effortlessly, so you can partake in hustle culture for the low price of $5,250 or so for Aussies.

Speaking of Corporate Greed…

Eric Covington, a former Activision Blizzard designer, wrote a few cheeky lines for a World of Warcraft Venture Co. loot goblin. The lines were approved and implemented into the game, and the jokes were promoted on the official World of Warcraft Twitter account, but uhh, that doesn’t stop you from getting fired for allegedly “inserting inappropriate non-game related content into a game”.

The lines this Venture Co. loot goblin had? “Let’s call this a cost of living adjustment.” “No profit sharing!” and “Looks like another yacht for me!”

Blaseball is Done

Blaseball, best described as a ‘cultural event’, was a game that looks like a baseball stat-tracking page. You could pick your favourite team, such as “Kansas City Breath Mints”, bet with fake money, and even partake in voting for rule changes.

With weather events such as ‘jazz’, players being able to die and be resurrected, and something about a peanut god, it is clear that Blaseball will be missed. Unfortunately it was just too costly in terms of finances, time, and resources, meaning that the developer The Game Band has had to make the difficult decision to bring it to a close after 3 years of joy, heartbreak, and absurdity.

Duke Nukem Remastered: AI Art

Blaze Entertainment has revealed a remaster for Duke Nukem 1 and 2, including some album art with some… weirdness going on with the fingers, a typical sign that it was generated using an AI tool.

AI generated art has been facing a lot of controversy recently, as the tools often use original artists’ works to train, and are considered ‘lazy’ and ‘cheap’, whilst AI artists claim that it is nothing more than utilising a unique set of skills to create something ‘new’.

Blaze Entertainment initially double-downed, but has posted a statement acknowledging that the original image was AI-generated, and that they would be commissioning a new piece of art to replace it.

Gays? In My Overwatch?

Not if you’re in countries with intolerant laws towards the LGBT+ community. All Pride content will be opt-in, giving players control over how they want to express themselves, or if they’re rather not express themselves at all.

In selected countries, the option won’t be available at all, with Pride content being blocked.

“Our values are to protect players… You can equip a cosmetic in one country and travel to somewhere else with different rules and get in trouble. So we feel like it’s our responsibility to help protect people like that” says Aaron Keller, an Overwatch 2 developer.

And now for some upcoming games!

June 8

• Harmony: The Fall of Reverie (PC, PS5, XSX, Switch)
• Mask of the Rose (PC, Switch)
• Pro Cycling Manager 2023 (PC)
• Speed Crew (Switch)
• Tour de France 2023 (PC, PS5, XSX, PS4, XBO)

June 9

• Greyhill Incident (PC, PS5, PS4)

June 14

• Black Desert Online: Land of the Morning Light expansion (PC)
• WWE 2K23: Race to NXT Pack DLC (PC, PS5, XSX, PS4, XBO)

Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse is the second instalment in the Miles Morales saga, Sony Pictures Animation’s adaptation of Marvel’s Spider-Verse series of comics. It has big shoes to fill following 2018’s beloved Into the Spider-Verse which introduced cinemagoers to a very different Spider-Man from the ones that have graced their screens in the past.

Miles Morales is an academically and artistically gifted but awkward and deeply conflicted 14-year-old from Brooklyn whose life is turned upside down when he gains the powers of Spider-Man. After witnessing the original Spider-Man die at the hands of Kingpin he is quickly forced to take up the mantle and save the multiverse with the help of a ragtag group of Spider-People from other dimensions.

Across the Spider-Verse picks up a year after the events of the original. Miles is growing up and learning to be Spider-Man all on his own since being separated from the Spider-friends he made last year, who he still feels are the only people who truly understand him. He continues to struggle with the pressure of balancing his self-expression, the responsibility of being Spider-Man, and his parents’ high expectations for his academic talents. A chance encounter with a superpowered criminal named The Spot pulls him back into the dimensional chaos of the Spider-Verse, he finally gets the chance to see his friends again and meets a whole lot of new ones along the way. The storytelling is just as gripping and emotional as the first film but offers us deeper insight into Miles’ personality and internal conflict as he grows up and grows into his role.

The only thing that detracted from my experience of Spider-Verse was that it felt like it ended during its second act with a cliffhanger and a teaser for the sequel, Beyond the Spider-Verse, which is slated for release in March 2024. The story suffers from being used as the setup for its own story and feels like it’s supposed to be viewed back-to-back with next year’s sequel.

Having said all of that, I still encourage you to go see this film on the biggest screen you can find and crank the volume for the absolutely bangin’ soundtrack composed by legendary hip hop producer Metro Boomin and featuring the voices of Future, Lil Uzi Vert, Nas, and many other hip hop greats. The music sets the stage and pace for jawdropping action scenes that will have you on the edge of your seat from start to finish and animation fans screaming “How did they do that?!” at the screen.

Across the Spider-Verse somehow manages to surpass the unbelievably high bar of animation finesse and creativity set by its predecessor with a playful use of the multiversal concept to introduce a blend of animation styles seamlessly integrated into the same scene. This is best exemplified by Hobie Brown AKA Spider-Punk, a character drawn in the style of a collaged together DIY punk zine with different parts of his outfit hand-drawn on different layers of paper that move independently. Spider-Punk’s DIY style is effortlessly blended into fluid animations that let him interact with the sets and characters of the movie’s incredibly slick primary art style influenced by Marvel Comics, as well as other extradimensional characters who are drawn just as distinctly as him. Even gadgets and powers originating from different dimensions are animated in their native art style while being wielded by characters like Miles and Gwen.

Overall, Across the Spider-Verse is a masterpiece of animated filmmaking that could go down as one of the greatest comic book adaptations of all time, but its fate lies in the balance of whether Sony can execute on their own setup in March’s sequel.

We saw the film at a preview screening at Event Cinemas Chermside with press tickets provided to 4ZZZ by Sony Pictures Releasing.

Time to gather your infinite multiverse everything everywhere spider selves around the sparking gigabyte motherboard that is Zed Games.

Figgy delights have figgy ends

Fig, the unique crowd funding platform that allowed people to invest in projects for a share in profits has shuttered their website after merging with Republic. Republic is a platform that allows a wide variety of investments which are very cool such as real estate and crypto currency. Cool cool cool.

High profile projects such as Double Fine’s Psychonauts 2 which was still fulfilling backer rewards and Gearbox’s unreleased Homeworld 3 have scrambled to replicate their communication to backers elsewhere as the news of the shutdown appears to have come with  extremely short notice.

Least important News of the week!

In an awkward turn of events Blizzard and GamesRadar’s Future Game show have been caught red handed using fake community questions in a recent Q&A video.  Some inquisitive viewers quickly discovered that not everything seemed above board

“The Cutscenes in D4 are gorgeous, how important was is to get these as high quality as they are in game?” Tweeted @EmmaRocks, a twitter account that was last active 13 years ago.

“Will skill trees be further expanded with new branches/choices for existing abilities in future patches/seasons? I’d love skill clusters like the Necromancer’s Curse cluster to have some extra oomph!” asked Reddit user Heistmeister who has 1 karma and no posts.

Blizzard have denied the accusations leaving the rest of us to wonder why did any of this happen and what does it matter?

Game conference season is here!

It’s that time of the year we used to turn to E3 but those days are gone. No worries however as very little has changed and there will be announcements aplenty over the next few weeks. We’ve already had Humble Games, PlayStation and Marvelous Game’s Showcases as well as Warhammer Skulls which included a Warhammer 40K racing, car combat game called Speed Freeks. In the next week we will see the Meta Quest Gaming Showcase on June 2^nd 3:00 AM AEST and Guerrilla Collective Online Showcase on June 8^th 2:00 AM AEST. Then the week after everything kicks off with The Summer Game Fest.  To stay up to date with all the events you can follow the Zed Games event calendar at www.zedgamesau.net/events

Volvy is back

Devolver Digital has announced a return of Volvy the beloved classic video game character we all know from all our favourite Devolver Digital hits.  To check out Volvy’s return be sure to check out the Devolver Direct at 8am June 9.

Game releases

Street Fighter 6 (PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 4, PC), We Love Katamari Reroll + Royal Reverie (PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Switch, PC) – June 2

Diablo IV (PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC) – June 6

Harmony: The Fall of Reverie (Switch, PC) – June 8