This week on Zed Games Paul leads the team with Zahra And Caroline taking the to the mics to bring us all in gaming news, reviews, community and culture. But first, Cam brings us the week in old man #GamingNews, just so the team can clarify the Helldivers Misinformation Mixup and Paul talks the wholesome surprise stream of the Indie Brew Aussie Indi Showcase. Then Paul is confused at the lovely unique story of Highwater and its Pirate Radio DJ from Demagog Studio, and Zahra gets stuck climbing into the VR title The Pirate Queen from Singer Studios. Paul rounds things off to talk narrative games in the upcoming digital festival LudoNarraCon 2024.
Join us with Hazel, Caroline and Paul to talk this week in Gaming News with some Maple Story Karma & Fallout Fallout. Paul then takes the long way round to look at the stunning graphics of the early access title No Rest For The Wicked from Moon Studios. And Caroline gets religious in the Catholic guilt filled something something soulslike something something metroidvania games Blasphemous 1 and 2 from developer The Game Kitchen.
Twitch streamer niru spent April 25 grinding to become the first level 300 player in MapleStory, a free-to-play online multiplayer roleplaying game, originally launched in 2003. This stream was promoted by the developer Nexon, and had over 20,000 viewers.
After nearly 17 hours into the stream, niru then launched into an hour-long rant about the game’s economy, and how the game’s worlds differ.
“Over here [in Heroic] it’s free-to-play friendly… Pay-to-win is accepted here [in Interactive World] but the free-to-play experience is awful and that’s what needs to be improved right now.” niru explained.
He then goes into detail about the number of servers available, the cash shop, as well as a number of other concerns, before ending the stream at level 299. It is estimated that he has spent over 10,000 hours before stopping at 99.993% of the way to level 300.
Niru booted up The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time the next day, apologising for the way the stream ended the day before, but he certainly doesn’t regret how it ended.
“I genuinely think that that game is not worth playing anymore in Interactive World, and if I just jump ship over to Heroic, then it’s GG. I’m running from the problem, and I’m not doing that. And nothing wrong with Heroic World at all, I have nothing against you.”
Returnal Returns
It’s the three-year anniversary since Returnal, a roguelike shooter that follows Selene Vassos, an astronaut looking for a mysterious signal on the planet Altropos. If you enjoyed this game, then you might look forward to Dark Horse Comics teaming up with Housemarque, as they revealed an animated version of the first issue of an upcoming graphic novel, Returnal: Fallen Asteria.
It’s due to be published on October 22, 2024, with 88 pages of psychological-thriller-goodness.
There has also been an artbook teased, but a release date for that has yet to be announced.
Game Changer Made A Game
Game Changer is a game show that combines puzzle solving, improv comedy, a bit of pranking, and a lot of competition, hosted by CollegeHumor CEO Sam Reich. For the most part, the premise of the show usually involves the contestants trying to figure out the game being played, and the rules associated with the game, throughout the episode.
And now one of those games is a video game you can play, for free, right now. Based off the game ‘Deja Vu’, it has players navigating a maze by choosing to go left or right at junctions. Make the wrong turn and you encounter a silly death.
Starfield will be getting a big update in May, which will include new difficulty options for gameplay, ship-building customization options, and more quality of life improvements. Land vehicles were also announced to be in development, but we don’t know when those will join the game.
Roll7, responsible for Rollerdrome and OlliOllie World, and Intercept Games, responsible for Kerbal Space Program 2, will be closing down, as Take-Two Interactive announces its plans to lay off as much as 5% of its workforce in the coming months.
The Fallout TV show has hit 65 million viewers in two weeks.
On Zed Games this week Zahra, Hazel and Caroline discuss the recent Stardew Valley: Festival of Seasons performance at the Brisbane City Hall, then the team talks game reboots and their needs, wants, and desires for their faves. And not to forget the week in Gaming News brought to you in extended Tobi-Vision.
This week on Zed we promote Maylee for Mayor of Gaming City, and ask you to Atone for this years 4zzz April Atonement. The team, lead by the possible mayor-elect Maylee, heralds the excellent Zahra and superb Peter in their reviews after chatting the week in Gaming News. Zahra talks tinkering to relax in a review of Assemble with Care from ustwo games, then Peter digs a happy bug filled hole in Deep Rock Galactic: Survivor from Funday Games.
This week Paul leads the team with Zahra, Peter and Special Guest Tom from Netherworld to talk punching purple people in the new Prince of Persia roguelite in this weeks Gaming News. Paul praises new shooter Bears In Space from local dev team Broadside Games. Tom plays his cards right in a deck building review of Balatro from LocalThunk. And then Paul takes aim at speed run cult sniper Children of the Sun from René Rother.
Hazel and Zara take control this week talking AI controlled Doc Oct armchairs from Razor and the week in Gaming News, and a rundown of the great prizes available in this years April Atonement at 4ZZZ. Paul digs deep in the indi game Pepper Grinder from Ahr Ech, and Zahra starts the carcinisation process in Fight Crab 2 from Calappa Games.
This week on Zed Games, Maylee, Paul, and Peter talk couch party games. Then the team chats the week in Gaming News where Paul talks Xbox Layoffs, Pepper Grinder release, and other new releases. Then Paul goes to the MAX in VR to talk Max Mustard developed by Toast Interactive, before Maylee tries to romance the big bad as a bard in Bard Harder! from indi developer Shark and Pelican Games.
This week, Zahra, Hazel & Maylee talk Stardew Valley REVOLUTIONARY updates in Gaming News, Tobi and Peter double battle The Shroud™ in a review of Enshrouded from Keen Games, and Zahra relaxes while getting their life in order in A Little to the Left developed by Max Inferno.
During the regional finals of the Apex Legends Global Series two of the players (Genburten and ImperialHal) were hacked live, right in the middle of the tournament.
ImperialHal was given an aimbot (a cheat which helps a player aim more accurately) and Genburten was able to see the positions of all players. Rumors abound as to who or what caused this but there has been no definite source as of writing.
Due to this incident the finals of the tournament have been postponed and on the site formerly known as Twitter the Apex Legends Esports account has stated that they will have more information on the state of the finals soon.
At the time of writing this, Overwatch 2 is sitting as the 3rd worst-reviewed game on steam, with an average score of 1.71, possibly due to the scrapping of the promised PVE mode, the prevalence of microtransactions (with some skins costing the in-game currency equivalent of around $39), the downsizing of PVP teams from 6 to 5 and perceived issues with the balancing. Possibly also contributing to its poor reputation is the required purchase of the battle pass or intense amounts of grinding to unlock new heroes, unlike the original, where any new heroes were simply available to everyone.
Blizzard has announced with their most recent Developer Update Stream that they’ll be making several changes to the game, one of them being the return to having all heroes available for play. All new heroes introduced to the game will be free to play and any heroes that could be purchased or unlocked will also be made available. Blizzard has also stated in an interview with GamesRadar that there will be no compensation for players who previously spent money to acquire these characters.
And the greatly anticipated 1.6 update for the farming time sink that is Stardew Valley has been released on PC, and to tell you the truth I’m writing this here news as my character is standing outside Sebastian’s door waiting for him to wake up so I can give him this sardine he wanted. The update went live on the 20th of March at around 4.50 in the AM’s for us Australians and has already received a patch to fix a variety of bugs that came with it.
The update has added an extensive list of new content, balance changes, visual improvements, quality of life changes and bug fixes (alas now you can no longer equip a staircase to your pants slot to receive trimmed lucky purple shorts). New festivals, dialog, crops, items, fish, achievements, quests, secrets and a new farm type are just a small fraction of the content that is packed into this update.
