This week on Zed Games, Paul and Maylee swap more than PAX tales before Zahra brings us the week in psychically enhancing #GamingNews and the team talk Game Freak freaky leaky news.
Paul gets the feels playing Neva from Nomada Studio. And Alexis drops in and the team talks the indie presence at this year’s PAX Aus. Plus some extra interviews in between from the developers from Away From Home (Squishy), Drăculești (Fine Feathered Friends), and Game Over (Jacob Houston)
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!)
July 19th
July 23rd
July 25th
PAX Australia had plans on a big return after last year’ s event was cancelled due to the worldwide Covid 19 epidemic. Unfortunately, the event’s organisers have had to pull the plug, releasing the following statement
An update on PAX Aus 2021 pic.twitter.com/xnq2Hwu7nA
— PAX Australia (@PAXAus) August 10, 2021
While PAX is cancelled this year, GCAP the Asia Pacific focussed development conference that kicks off games week in Melbourne each year leading into PAX has announced it will be an all-digital event again. Tickets will be available soon for interested developers.
Knock, knock….#SonicMovie2 #Knuckles pic.twitter.com/N1PW5XaCEd
— Idris Elba (@idriselba) August 10, 2021
Idris Elba, People Magazine’s Sexist Man Alive recipient for 2016 has been revealed as the voice of none other than Knuckles the Echidna in the sequel to 2020s Sonic the Hedgehog movie. The Actor made the announcement on twitter with a picture of the character’s clenched fist and the words “Knock Knock”. Sonic the Hedgehog 2 is set to hit theatres on April 8th, 2022.
This week saw indie showcases by both Nintendo and Microsoft. Nintendo’s latest Indie World revealed a number of game coming to the console in the near future including a new Shovel Knight game taking the series into the genre of puzzle games. They also surprise dropped 7 games that launched instantly on the eshop. Garden Story, Boyfriend Dungeon, Curious Expeditions 2, Islanders, Slime Rancher: Portable Edition, Australia’s very own Necrobarista and the long-anticipated Axiom Verge sequel.
Microsoft also showed off a number of indie games for its Xbox platforms at this week’s ID@Xbox event. A new sci fi co-op farming sim called Lightyear Frontier was announced along with Xbox version of games such as The Wandering Village, Lab Rat, Inked: A Tale of love and Sam & Max Save the World Remastered. We also got deeper dives into the upcoming skateboarding game OlliOlli World, showing off the customization options, and the Melbourne developed psychedelic rock platformer The Artful Escape which launches on September 9.
The Amiga 500 mini has been announced. This miniature version of the classic 1980’s PC based platform will ship with 25 games including Another World, The Chaos Engine, Speedball 2 and Worms. It will launch in 2022 with a retail price of $139USD. No Australian price has been announced at this point.
Hades [XSX, XBO] – August 13
Road 96 [Switch, PC] – August 16
Greak: Memories of Azur [PC, PS5, XSX, Switch], Humankind [PC, Stadia] – August 17
Mortal Shell: The Virtuous Cycle DLC [PC, PS5, XSX, PS4, XBO], Out of Line [Switch], Skydome [PC] – August 18
Monster Train First Class [Switch], Recompile [PC, PS5, XSX], RiMS Racing [PC, PS5, XSX, PS4, XBO, Switch], The Vale: Shadow of the Crown [PC, XSX], Twelve Minutes [PC, XBO] – August 19
Our PAX Australia 2016 Special! We give our impressions of the convention held at the Melbourne Convention centre earlier this month. We also hear interviews from several game developers including Papers Please creator Lucas Pope!
Subscribe to the Zed Games Podcast on iTunes
The Queensland Government has passed complimentary legislation allowing R18+ rated games to be legally sold in Queensland. The changes to the legislation were enacted at a federal level in January and were passed by all other states and territories at the same time. The delay means that Queensland was officially the last western territory to create an adult rating for video games. The first R18+ rated game expected to hit the shelves will be God of War: Ascension for the PS3.
A lawsuit filed against Activision by Guns N Roses frontman Axl Rose has been thrown out of court. Rose filed the claim in 2010, stating that he licensed the song “Welcome To The Jungle” to Activision for use in the game Guitar Hero 3 on the condition that the game did not feature former Guns N Roses guitarist Slash, or his new band Velvet Revolver. When Guitar Hero 3 was released, not only was Slash in the game, he also appeared on the cover, and the soundtrack contained three Velvet Revolver songs. The judge dismissed the lawsuit because it was filed too late, almost three years after the release of the game.
Rayman Legends has been delayed for a second time. Originally slated to be a launch title for Nintendo’s Wii U late last year, the game was previously delayed until April but has now been pushed back again and is set for release in September this year. First announced as a Wii U exclusive, it’s been revealed that the cause for the delay is so that the game can be simultaneously released for the Wii U, the XBox 360 and the PS3.
Ron Gilbert, the creator of Monkey Island, will open the first ever Australian Penny Arcade Expo in July this year. Gilbert will deliver a keynote address on the first morning of the expo, which is commonly known as PAX and is being held in Melbourne. This year will mark the first time that PAX has been held outside of the United States.
Journey, the acclaimed PS3 exclusive, missed out on a Grammy award. It was nominated in the category of Best Score Soundtrack for Visual Media but lost out to the Girl With The Dragon Tattoo. Journey is the only game to have ever received a Grammy nomination.
Candi’s Quickies:
Brett Ratner, director of the Rush Hour films and X-Men 3, has signed on to produce a television series based on Farmville.
Greg Zeschuk and Ray Muzyka, founders of Bioware (responsible for Dragon Age and Mass Effect) are set to receive a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Game Developers awards next month.
A Youtube app for the PS3 has been released in Europe and Australia. The app will allow users to view their subscriptions and control the app using a smartphone or tablet.