Tag: Olympics

PAX Aus 2024 Indie Showcase Winners

PAX Aus has announced the winners from this year’s Aus Indie Showcase, all made by independent creators around Australia. The showcase will be a part of PAX Aus 2024, from October 11-13.

The six winners of the Digital category:

Untethered by True Anomaly Entertainment

Anticitizen: Red by Queebly Software

Ascending Inferno by Oppolyon Studios

Rita by SporkTank

The Rewinder 2 by Misty Mountain Studio

And last, but not least, Max Mustard, the VR game developed by Queensland studio Toast Interactive.

The six winners of the Tabletop category:

Fight with Spirit by Storybrewers Roleplaying

Oracle by Oracle Games

Glade by Teafrog Games

Frayed Ally by Button Fox

Nimbus by Neural Forge

MEAN! by Mean Games

The Olympic Esports Games

The International Olympics Committee has announced a 12-year partnership with Saudi Arabia to host the Olympic Esports Games, a standalone event. Saudi Arabia had hosted the Esports World Cup, which did result in a number of people boycotting the event over human rights concerns.

Esports has been ramping up over the last couple of decades, with schools and universities creating their own teams, competitive events gaining more and more popularity and viewership, and the introduction of esports events in the 2022 Commonwealth Games and Asian Games, where people from the Olympic Committee attended and were like ‘ok, now we get it’ according to Alban Dechelotte, CEO of G2 Esports.

Keeping esports as a separate event is intended to ‘give more space for a celebration of gaming and esports’, rather than being one of the additional sports.

Rocket League, League of Legends, and Street Fighter are likely picks considering that they were a part of the Commonwealth and Asian Games.

Gotta’ Croc ‘Em All

If you are a wearer of Crocs, and a fan of Pokemon, listen up. We’re getting four new designs inspired by some generation one Pokemon: Charizard, with a flame-like marble print; Gengar, which is giving ghostly ‘glamoflage’; Snorlax, with a dreamy blue marble print; and finally Jigglypuff, all pink and pastel. Each pair of Crocs comes with some jibbitz, with the Pokemon the Croc is based off!

No Console Required

Amazon now has a handy-dandy Xbox “No Console Required” bundle, launching alongside their Fire TV Stick Xbox Cloud Gaming app. What this means is that Xbox Game Pass users can stream games straight to their TV without requiring a console.

Microsoft has also released an ad that parodies the Scream movies, promoting the rollout with “you don’t need an Xbox to play Xbox”, although some Xbox fans do feel that the console itself has been deprioritised by Microsoft, while expanding Game Pass, and their reach across PCs, mobile phones, and now TVs.

Remember that there have been a lot of changes made to Game Pass and the tiers available, as covered in the news last week by Paul. Only the Ultimate Tier will allow for Fire TV integration.

News Nibbles!

Axis Studios, the animation and VFX team, is officially going into administration, affecting 162 employees. The studio has worked on a variety of trailers and cinematics for Destiny, Halo, League of Legends, and more.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutants Unleashed, is the video game continuation of the film, TMNT: Mutant Mayhem, which was released last year. A Heartful of Games, the team developing the game, will be keeping that stylised art-direction from the movie!

If you’ve been participating in the early access period for EA Sports College Football 25, you might have encountered a placeholder bug when trying to select your game mode. Players were given two options: a placeholder image titled ‘Lorem Ipsum’, and a placeholder image titled ‘Lorem Ipsum’. Oops.

And now for some upcoming games!

July 18th (that’s today!)

• Flintlock: Siege of Dawn – PS5, XSX, PC
• Bo: Path of the Teal Lotus – Nintendo Switch, PS5, PC

July 19th

• Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess – PS5, PS4, Xbox S/X, Xbox One, PC

July 23rd

• Exophobia – PS5, PS4, Nintendo Switch, Xbox S/X, Xbox One, PC
• F1 Manager 24 – PS5, PS4, Nintendo Switch, Xbox S/X, Xbox One, PC
• The Star Named EOS – PS5, Nintendo Switch, Xbox S/X, Xbox One, PC, macOS

July 25th

• Arranger: A Role-Puzzling Adventure – PS5, Nintendo Switch, PC, macOS
• Frostpunk 2 – PC

First Oscar Win for Game Developers

Late last year Respawn Entertainment released Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond, a virtual reality first person shooter. To honour the theme of this game, the producers included a gallery mode directed by Anthony Giacchino featuring short films about the veterans of World War II. Included is Colette, the story of her family’s assistance to the French Resistance and her brother’s capture. This 25-minute short rose to fame after winning Best Short Film at the Big Sky Documentary Film Festival in 2020, and became the first film produced by a video game studio to win an Oscar at the 93^rd Academy Awards.

While not directly referenced by the award ceremony, Mr. Giacchino specifically thanked executive producer Peter Hirschmann the director of Medal of Honor: Above and Beyond and everyone at Electronic Arts and Respawn Entertainment, especially Vince Zampella, the Head of Respawn Entertainment, Dusty Welch, Chief Operating Officer also at Respawn Entertainment, and Laura Miele, Chief Studios Officer at Electronic Arts Worldwide Studios. The film was made in conjunction with Oculus and the team at Respawn Entertainment, a subsidiary of Electronic Arts.

Gaming Olympics coming in 2020… sort of.

The International Olympics Committee (IOC) have announced the first Olympic Virtual Series to take place before the Tokyo 2020 Games, running from the 13^th May to Jun 23. The series currently includes five different games, of which the physical games will be monitored by apps such as Zwift, an app for bike training, and an open format for rowing. For non-physical competitions, these will be run by their own platforms for the Series and include; Gran Turismo by Polyphony Digital, a car racing game available on PlayStation Consoles; Virtual Regatta, run by Virtual Regatta SAS, an app available on Android and iOS; and eBaseball Powerful Pro Baseball 2020, Konami Digital Entertainment’s highly customisable baseball simulator currently available on PS4 and Switch – and only in Japanese. The IOC’s announcement also made it clear that these events will be open to the public and in ways that will “maximise (sic) online mass participation and prioritise (sic) inclusivity and participation”.

Free to Play games on Xbox now Free to Play.

Microsoft announced on the 21^st of April that from that day, all Free to Play games will now no longer require an Xbox Live Gold Subscription for access to online play. This includes Looking for Group options and party chats for those games. The exceptions to this are trials, pre-order demos, or early access for paid games. These will still require membership to Xbox Live Gold to access online multiplayer content. If you currently are subscribed to Xbox Live specifically for this purpose, Microsoft is offering a one-time option to immediately cancel and receive credit based on the remaining time.

Now for some game releases.

On April 30^th, the exclusive horror roguelike shooter Returnal is coming to PS5 and New Pokemon Snap will be releasing to the Switch.

Then, for the May the 4^th be with you, The Colonists, a cute and relaxing building game is coming to PS4, Xbox One and Switch, and Dark Nights with Poe and Munro, the episodic Full Motion Video, choose your own adventure game, is coming to PS4 and Xbox One.