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

On Zed Games this week we lock it down, Cage style. Firstly chatting this weeks gaming news brought to us by Maylee, then taking the zen moment with a parrot in Zahra’s review of Bird Alone, and lastly a going toe to toe in a discussion on the PlayStation Showcase and locking down Q!

New Games announced in the world of Dead by Daylight

Behaviour Interactive’s asymmetric horror Dead by Daylight is one of the most popular horror games around. It recently celebrated its 7^th anniversary with a stream where they announced a huge amount of content for the future, including two new games set in the same world as Dead by Daylight.

The first new game will be a single player story-focused experience developed by Supermassive Games who are known for creating gripping narrative games like The Quarry or Until Dawn. More information on this game will be coming out later this year.

The second new game will be “a multiplayer PvE experience where instead of facing off against each other, up to four players can team up, enter another one of the Entity’s realms, and take on a host of deadly enemies that occupy it”. This is being developed by Midwinter Entertainment and is not as far along in development as the first, so we don’t know yet when we will hear more about it.

The anniversary stream also featured announcements for new content coming to the base game. A new chapter “End Transmission” will take Dead by Daylight to the stars on June 13. New cosmetic packs inspired by the bands Iron Maiden and Slipknot are coming soon. And, strangest of all, Nicholas Cage is becoming a survivor and joining the game on July 5^th. He even does his own voice over, as discussed by the game director:

“He’s got such an iconic voice and delivery. We couldn’t do this without him…In some cases, for the screams and grunts, we have used different people sometimes because these are extremely strenuous exertions, and they can take a toll on people. But in this case, Mr. Cage told us there has never been a voice sound-alike for Nic Cage, and we will not have one now. So, he was generous enough to record every single grunt, scream, and exertion that you will hear in Dead by Daylight.”

Kid sues Nintendo over loot boxes, after spending $170 on dad’s credit card.

An unnamed kid has filed a lawsuit against Nintendo over the “immoral” loot boxes within Mario Kart Tour. This mobile game came out in 2019 equipped with loot box microtransactions, and while this is fairly standard for mobile games it does seem egregious coming from a company like Nintendo. While Nintendo did remove microtransactions from the game in later 2022, lawsuits like this one are only now making it to the courts.

With a single draw costing a few dollars, the child who filed the lawsuit spent 170 USD through a card linked to the game. In that lawsuit they now claim that Nintendo used “dark patterns” to trick players into spending more money on the game’s microtransactions, and that “Minors are especially susceptible to these addiction-enhancing elements of game design.”

Public perception of loot boxes and similar microtransactions has soured greatly in the last few years, and lawsuits like this are popping up more and more often, but it’s still hard to predict what way they will go.

Playstation Showcase 2023:

In the early hours of the 25^th of May, the Playstation Showcase took place, announcing a huge number of upcoming game titles and new hardware. Here are some of the highlights from the show:

Playstation is going handheld with a new piece of hardware coming later this year that will allow you to stream any game from your PS5 console using remote play over Wi-Fi. The device, known as Project Q, sports an 8-inch HD screen and all the features of the dual-sense controller.

In addition to this they announced they will be launching their own pair of Bluetooth-enabled earbuds. They promise lossless audio with low latency and will be compatible with Playstation 5, PC, and the new Project Q device.

Bungee, the studio that gave us Halo and Destiny, has announced Marathon – a revival of one of their earliest titles which released for Mac in 1994. The new Marathon is said to be a PVP extraction shooter and is also multiplatform with full cross play and cross-save coming to PS5, Xbox S/X and PC.

Revenant Hill is the latest game from the studio that created Night in the Woods. The announcement trailer showed off a very similar art style to Night in the Woods, but the games are not connected in any way. Revenant Hill takes place in 1919 and you play as Twig, a cat who has fallen on hard times and is working odd jobs to make ends meet until they can reach their dream of becoming a familiar.

After Months of rumors we finally got confirmation that Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater is getting a remake as Metal Gear Solid Delta: Snake Eater. In addition, we’ll see a rerelease of the first three MGS games as part of the Metal Gear Solid Master Collection which will be coming later this year to PS5.

Square Enix is bringing us Foamstars, a 4v4 shooter coming to PS4 and PS5. The gameplay is very similar to Splatoon except instead of paint players will shoot foam at each other.  Teams aren’t racing to cover the map in their paint but instead the foam is used to both attack and change the layout of the map.

The showcase concluded with a 12-minute gameplay reveal of Spiderman 2 showing off many of the games most exciting features. We saw more from our villain Kraven the Hunter, we saw the black symbiote suit in action, and we saw action from both playable spider-heroes Peter Parker and Miles Morales. Although we weren’t given a date for the game’s release, we were given a window of fall 2023 – or spring for us.

Upcoming Game Releases:

On 26^th May

• Hello Neighbor: Search and Rescue coming to PlayStation VR, PlayStation VR2.
• Sheepy: A Short Adventure is coming to PC.

On 30^th May

• System Shock coming to PC.
• Company of Heroes 3 is coming to PS5, XSX/S.

and that’s all, this week, in gaming news.

This week Paul leads the team with Zahra and the disembodied voice of Maylee, to talk gaming news, english pronunciation, and reviews! With Zahra sprinkling the magic on a review of farming simulation in Homestead Arcana, and Paul loses his head in a review of the puppeteering sequel Another Fisherman’s Tale.

More in Activision-Blizzard-Microsoft News

The EU Commission into Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision-Blizzard has been approved after an extensive investigation. Microsoft has agreed to provide free licenses for the next 10 years to cloud streaming services allowing residents in the European Economic Area to stream Activision-Blizzard games on any cloud platform, addressing the competition concerns identified by the Commission. However, the merger still faces challenges with the FTC filing in the US and continues to be blocked pending appeal in the UK. ^1-4

https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_23_2705

In other Activision Blizzard News, the company has abandoned its original plans for Overwatch 2’s separate co-op PvE mode… a major selling point that got players to move somewhat objective free from Overwatch 1 to 2. Now the game will incorporate co-op gameplay and experiences into the live-service model, disappointing fans who had been eagerly anticipating the depth and progression of the original vision.^5-7 These views have been best summarised by user Uchihagod53,

“The f**k was the point of [Overwatch 2] then?”

Zelda: The Good, Bad and … ooo look at the pretty colours…

Fans have been disappointed at the release of The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, with a player finishing the game in just over an hour and a half (speed runner gymnast86),⁸ the inability to pet dogs,⁹ and lack of unlimited bombs.¹⁰
Despite this, Tears of the Kingdom has received overwhelmingly positive reviews with around 97 on Metacritic and OpenCritic, making it the highest-rated game of 2023 and the highest-rated Switch game to date. The critical success of Tears of the Kingdom has made it the biggest Zelda game launch in the UK and is expected to be one of the biggest and best-selling games of the year worldwide.^{11, 12} Players can also look forward to more in the future with Eiji Aonuma (the series manager and producer of Tears of the Kingdom) stating that future Zelda series games will continue to embrace the open-world format introduced in Breath of the Wild. Aonuma compares this shift to how Ocarina of Time established a format for subsequent Zelda games in the late 90s.¹³

Amazon Doubles Down on Lord of the Rings MMO

After talks broke down between Tencent and Amazon in 2021, Amazon decided to abandon their stake in a Lord of the Rings MMORPG.¹⁴ However, the rights for the franchise recently reverted to Middle-Earth Enterprises leading to new discussions with Amazon and the eventual partnership between Amazon’s New World team and the Embracer Group. The game is currently being pitched as an MMO separate from the Lord of the Rings projects, rather aiming for gameplay experiences over faithful adaptation with an over 10-year lifespan.^15-17
However Lord of the Rings Online fans are not worried about this game taking over the franchise even in the face of potential server shutdowns and resource allocation, instead pointing to the lacklustre performance of Amazon’s MMO New World.¹⁸

And Here’s Some Tasty Gaming Bytes

• You can finally 100% The Burning Shores DLC of Horizon Forbidden West, now that they’ve added the ONE Brimshine Sliver so that you can finally buy and upgrade everything.¹⁹
• In a new acquisition to the gaming community Sea Lions have become gamers, with US Navy’s Spike traversing mazes WITHOUT fishy bribery and showing delight when winning games.²⁰
• And finally the relaxing, co-op-able game Powerwash Simulator has hit 7 million users,^{21, 22} making us ask the question,

“Why meditate when you can simulate?”

https://twitter.com/PowerWashSim/status/1656646241353101320?s=20

And now for some upcoming games.

On Friday 19^th, build your own racer in Lego 2K Drive coming to everything.
Monday May 22^nd, multiplayer tactical roguelike Inkbound comes to PC.
Tuesday May 23^rd, save the post-apocalyptic world in the tactical RPG in Miasma Chronicles or save it as a platforming pixie preservationist in After Us, both coming to PC and Next Gen Consoles. Or lighten up with a cartoonish platform shooter Glitch Busters: Stuck on You coming to PC, PS4 and Switch. Explore the hand-painted puzzle platformer Planet of Lana coming to PC and Xbox. Hit the nostalgia nerve with Puzzle Bobble Everybubble! on the Switch. And Star Trek: Resurgence is coming to PC, PlayStation and Xbox.
And next week on Thursday May 25^th, the sequel to Do Not Feed the Monkeys, Do Not Feed the Monkeys 2099 is coming to PC and Switch. The Lord of the Rings: Gollum is coming to PC, PlayStation, and Xbox. And lastly Tennis Manager 2023 is coming to PC.

References;

1. https://www.gameinformer.com/2023/05/15/european-commission-approves-microsofts-activision-blizzard-acquisition
2. https://www.gamesindustry.biz/european-commission-approves-microsoft-activision-blizzard-deal
3. https://www.gamesradar.com/microsofts-activision-blizzard-deal-approved-by-european-union/
4. https://www.gamesradar.com/the-eu-will-require-microsoft-to-bring-activision-games-to-its-cloud-competitors-if-the-buyout-is-successful/
5. https://www.destructoid.com/overwatch-2-pve-pivoting-from-original-plans-news/
6. https://www.gamesradar.com/the-death-of-overwatch-2-pve-is-hitting-players-hard-after-years-of-waiting-overwatch-1-died-for-this/
7. https://www.gamesradar.com/overwatch-2-is-killing-the-pve-mode-it-was-supposed-to-be-built-around/
8. https://www.gamesradar.com/just-hours-after-launch-the-speedrun-record-for-zelda-tears-of-the-kingdom-sits-at-just-over-90-minutes/
9. https://www.gamesradar.com/i-just-found-out-that-you-cant-pet-the-dog-in-zelda-tears-of-the-kingdom-so-now-im-never-playing-it/
10. https://www.gamesradar.com/the-legend-of-zelda-fans-are-mourning-the-lack-of-remote-bombs-in-tears-of-the-kingdom/
11. https://www.destructoid.com/tears-of-the-kingdom-metacritic-opencritic-score-nintendo-zelda/
12. https://www.gamesradar.com/zelda-tears-of-the-kingdom-is-officially-the-uks-biggest-zelda-launch-in-history/
13. https://www.gamesradar.com/expect-more-open-world-zelda-games-after-tears-of-the-kingdom-series-producer-confirms/
14. https://www.gamesindustry.biz/amazon-cancels-lord-of-the-rings-game
15. https://www.gamesindustry.biz/amazons-second-attempt-at-making-one-mmo-to-rule-them-all
16. https://www.gamesradar.com/amazons-lord-of-the-rings-mmo-is-a-game-first-a-reflection-of-the-books-second/
17. https://www.ign.com/articles/lord-of-the-rings-mmo-coming-from-new-world-developer-amazon-games
18. https://www.gamesradar.com/new-world-was-a-success-for-a-month-lord-of-the-rings-online-fans-arent-scared-of-amazons-new-lotr-mmo/
19. https://www.gamesradar.com/horizon-forbidden-west-adds-a-single-missing-crystal-so-players-can-finally-100-the-dlc/
20. https://www.dexerto.com/gaming/the-us-navy-is-using-video-games-to-train-sea-lions-and-dolphins-2141633/
21. https://www.gamesindustry.biz/powerwash-simulator-hits-7m-players-news-in-brief
22. https://www.destructoid.com/powerwash-simulator-has-seen-7-million-players-scrub-up/

Silksong Update

If you’ve been eagerly awaiting the release of ‘Silksong’ the follow up to 2017’s ‘Hollow Knight’ you’re not alone. Previously all we’ve heard is that it would release in the first half of 2023. Thankfully the games publisher has taken to twitter to address the situation and let us know that the game will no longer be launching in the first half of 2023. Expect more details closer to release which is anytime between now and the heat death of the universe.

Street Fighter 6 Final Open Beta 

‘Street Fighter’ fans will have the opportunity for a good look at the upcoming sixth iteration of the legendary series in one last public beta before the game releases officially on June 2nd.  This isn’t just a small taste though as it includes 8 playable characters, 6 stages, 8 game modes, character creation along with several other features as well as full crossplay support between Playstation 5, Xbox Series X/S and Steam.  It will be available in May from Friday the 19th to Monday the 22nd.  To take part simply go to the Open Beta sign up page on streetfighter.com

Doom II RPG ported to PC

Did you know there is an official RPG of Doom II?  ‘Doom II RPG’ was released in 2009 for the iPhone, iPod Touch and the Apple iTunes phone, the Motorola ROKR E1. Since it was based on iOS2 you’ll have a hard time getting it to run nowadays. Thankfully the resourceful team of enthusiasts at GEC Entertainment Inc have reverse engineered the game and released it on PC. You can find all the info you need to play the game at the Doomworld forums.

Activision enlists her majesty’s finest

After last week’s decision by the UK’s Competition and Market Authority to block Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision/Blizzard/King, Activision is gearing up for a fight by hiring Lord David Pannick KC to lead their appeal. Lord Pannicks previous clients include Queen Elizabeth II, Boris Johnson and Manchester City FC. Microsoft has hired Daniel Beard KC who, while not a Lord, has previously won massive appeal cases for both Apple and Intel.

Peabody Winners!

‘Life is Strange True Colors’ has received a win at this year’s Peabody Awards. The Peabody Awards are a prestigious set of annual awards that recognize excellence in broadcasting and digital media content that has made a significant impact on society.

Another video game related winner was ‘The Uncensored Library’ which is a beautifully crafted virtual library that runs in minecraft.

“Leveraging Minecraft’s availability in countries while other media is blocked, over 20 million gamers in 165 countries have been able to access censored articles, available in English and the original language, from acclaimed independent journalists under threat by the authoritative regimes of places such as Saudi Arabia, Russia, Mexico, Egypt, and Vietnam.[snip] the library has become a teaching tool in K-12 schools and universities around the world. For turning one of the largest digital platforms for youth into a global movement to fight censorship, The Uncensored Library wins a Peabody Award.”

Upcoming game releases

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (Switch) – May 12

Humanity (PlayStation 5, PlayStation VR2, PlayStation 4, PlayStation VR, PC) – May 16

Firmament (PC, Mac) – May 18