Toss a Feeling to your gamer in this weeks Zed Game Podcast!
This week Zahra, Cameron, and this weeks special guest – Alexis – join us to regale you about the downfall in NFT’s and other headlines in this weeks #gamingnews, Cameron gives a toss while reviewing the VR monkey time trial-er Toss!, and Zahra gets the feelings in an emotional review of Mediterranea Inferno.
Whether you’re a parent to a child who is obsessed with the blue puppy, or you’re an adult with some form of emotional damage, you’ll be pleased to know that there is a video game coming out in November based off the cartoon!
Outright Games, a UK-based publisher, has officially announced Bluey: The Videogame, for the Nintendo Switch, PlayStation, Xbox, and PC. The game has been developed by Artax Games with a lot of input from Ludo Studio, delivering a game that features a new four-part storyline that can support four-players, allowing you to play as the entire Heeler family.
The game will feature the voices from the English cast of the show, and you can expect to see some of your favourite characters, as well as existing and original music. It promises to be an “interactive sandbox adventure” with “story-driven, episodic gameplay”.
Sony’s State of Play
Sony recently had their little showcase, and here is a really quick summary of it:
The remake of Resident Evil 4 will get an update with playable Ada Wong and Albert Wesker, along with PSVR2 support on the way.
Avatar fans (the blue people) can experience a whole new part of Pandora, revealing the Western Frontier in Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora. It is to be set between the first and second movies.
Foamstars, the Splatoon-style shooter by Square Enix, will be getting a playable open beta from September 29th to October 1st, but only for PS5 players in North America. Tragedy.
The second chapter of the Final Fantasy 7 remake project is on its way, and it’s bringing back something weirdly nostalgic for older gamers: experiencing a game across two discs! Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth comes out 29th February, 2024.
Spider-Man 2 by Insomniac Games expands out to Brooklyn and Queens! So you can patrol every single neighbourhood I guess.
Aaaaaand NINTENDO DIRECT TOO
Tis the season for game announcements and rumours. There’s some speculation about what a new Switch would look like, how much it would cost, blah blah blah.
In more exciting, tangible Nintendo news, we got to see Princess Peach: Showtime, where Princess Peach attempts to save a theatre from the Wicked Grape and the Sour Bunch.
F-ZERO 99 has come to Nintendo Switch Online, allowing you to race against 98 other players.
Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD will bring spooks in more definition, Mario vs. Donkey Kong will have the plumber facing off against the primate yet again, and detective pikachu returns in Detective Pikachu Returns.
We also got to see the Splatoon 3: Side Order expansion, Another Code: Recollection, from the DS and Wii, will be coming to the Switch, WarioWare: Move It! Was announced to be released on 3rd November, 2023. Exciting times for Nintendo fans.
Grab your bootstraps gamers, it’s RADIOTHON! Join us in our Radio Against The Machine Subathon Special as we pack the studio with Maylee, Rani, Caroline, Cam & Hazel to spruik, hawk, pitch and otherwise tout the prizes, satisfaction, support, and warm inner glow that subbing to 4ZZZ gives you. Not to mention it’s the only reason we have this show, so show up, and show your bling, in this years subathon!
The Queensland Games Festival (formally known as Game On/GO 423) is the biggest celebration of games made right here, in sunny Queensland. Held on the 22nd of July at the Brisbane Powerhouse, this year Zed Games got to witness more games, more developers, more teams, and more interest in this wonderful event.
Our role? To host the Game Dev Hot Seat throughout the day, interviewing devs live on stage so that they may tell us all about their projects. With a massive variety of games, from narrative to first person shooters, to VR games to board games, and games that blend the borders between them all, at this year’s Queensland Games Festival we got to see it all! And after a long day of gaming, it was a tonne of fun to wrap up with an End Game session, with notable figures in the games industry duking it out against the game-master (with a bit of help from the audience!).
On top of that there were also a number of workshops, and discussions, such as the Emerging Developers Room, for those taking their first steps into the industry, and Gameloft Creative Kids, where children had the chance to meet the artists behind My Little Pony, and create some art of their own.
Missed out? Want to know what was shown? Got there and had so much fun and want to check out the games? Here you go:
AND Metal Evil, Halloween Cat-tastrophe, On Point VR, Maiwar VR, Curses and Covens, Gem Hunters, Battlemage vs MechaDinos, Scarlet Pages, and Fossil Diggers VR!
The Queensland Games Festival is made possible with government support through Screen Queensland’s Culture Funding program.
It’s a new week, so lets go #Glorbo This week Zahra, Hazel and Caroline go (hedge) hog with gaming news, a recap over the who, what, where, when, and that of this years Queensland Games Festival, and then the team talks of the sadness that the lackluster new series of Sonic Prime brought them.
Government backs Aussie gaming. Screen Australia has announced the backing of Aussie games to the tune of $3 million AUD through it’s “Games: Expansion Pack” fund and “First Nations Games Studio” fund. The First Nations Games Studio fund awarded AU$600,000 to two studios, Guck, & Awesome Black, both working on projects related to First Nations storytelling and talent development. Additionally, the Games: Expansion Pack fund provided AU$2.4 million in funding to 21 different studios across the country. The funded games cover a wide range of genres and platforms and aim to accelerate skills and creativity within the Australian games industry. Additionally, the Federal Government has introduced the Digital Games Tax Offset, providing a 30% refundable tax offset for projects with budgets over $500,000. Click the following for a list of all the projects funded and their synopses.
Smell Like a Gamer In recent news, Xbox is going a bit crazy with the themed sweepstakes with both a Barbie movie tie in with a Barbie Dream House Custom Console, and Barbie and Ken controller face plates. But they pulled out all the stops for the game release of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Shredder’s Revenge. This release not only has a sweepstake for four controllers designed after each of the turtles themselves, but the can also “…come with a built-in scent diffuser shaped like a slice of delicious New York ‘za.” Smell-O-Vision at it’s finest. If you’re interested in the TMNT Mutant Mayhem Controller this giveaway will be running till August 13 this year, where you will need to retweet the Xbox Game Pass sweepstakes tweet or whatever they will end up being called with the X rebrand.
AI in the News Goes Glorbo This week the World of Warcraft Reddit community tricked an online publishing AI by feeding it false data about a made-up character, Glorbo, it’s mandatory item Klikclac, and their nemesis Quackion, the Aspect of Ducks, resulting in the generation of fake content presented as actual news under the pseudonym Lucy Reed. This account is credited to writing near 80 articles a day with potentially little to no oversight. This incident raises questions about the validity of AI automated publishing and the potential impact on the increased value of human generated, or at least human moderated, content.
Now in Activision Blizzard News Sigh… Look I’m just as sick as you that these guys keep being in the news. TL;DR is basically, they screwed up the Diablo 4 season release and people are complaining that company’s being cheap, of unfairnerfing, that the menu design is tricking people into buying the season pass, of new items causing nausea, and that some player’s characters butts are out in the open. Also, that the FTC has backed out of the whole merger with Microsoft blockage, and Overwatch 2 is coming to Steam. To read more about these stories, check out the links in the news post on our Facebook page @ZEDgamesau.
And now for a couple of quick bytes:
Mods have given your favourite NPCs in Stardew Valley AI Brains, yep, think about that like Jordan Gerblick of GamesRadar;
“…when you know those video game characters had to have their existing inner-workings hollowed out and replaced with the increasingly ominous power of AI, I can only imagine those interactions feeling incredibly creepy – as if it’s not really them anymore.”
And the US Entertainment Software Rating Board wants to scan you and child’s face to validate age with digital purchases. The proposal to the FTC would have you upload a photo into a system controlled by Yoti – an Epic Games subsidiary, with collaboration with company SuperAwesome, which would be analysed and then deleted. They go on to claim the system poses no substantial risk to parents’ privacy.
And now for some of the upcoming game releases. On Friday July 28, Disney Illusion Island is coming to Switch. Monday 31st, F1 Manager 2023 is coming to PC, PlayStation, and Xbox. Wednesday August 2nd, Ninja or Die: Shadow of the Sun is coming to PC. And lastly on Thursday August 3rd, explore nature, relax, and take photos in Flutter Away coming to PC.
Dominic Law is the new CEO of The Neopets Team after a management buyout deal was made, allowing Neopets to become independent after its old owners Jumpstart Games was shut down on June 30th 2023.
In a blog post the newly formed team outlined its goal to shift away from NFT’s and crypto and revitalize the website, as well as the creation of a new mobile app, World of Neopets.
Basically after running at a loss for over a decade they’ve got a new team and new funding and a whole page of corporate speak saying they’re going to fix up the place.
Because I’m doing the news I get to choose what to talk about and I want to talk about the fact that in Baldur’s Gate 3 you can get freaky with a bear.
In the “Panel from Hell: Release Showcase” Larian studios was showing off the game’s romance aspects and the internet exploded when it was revealed you can get intimate with one of your party members in their bear form.
I’m sure there’s a deeper conversation here about sex scenes in games and all that but I’m trapped in the news and have no time for that so instead I’m just here to say ‘lol bear seggs’ and leave it at that.
And it’s that time again friends and enemies, the newly renamed Queensland Games Festival is this Saturday! Previously known as Game On Festival (or GO423 if you’re nasty) this is a free public event where you can get your peepers on the newest locally made games and meet the people who make them.
The event is on the 22nd of July at the Brisbane Powerhouse from 10am so come on over and support the local Brisbane game industry!
Zed Gamers, welcome to another week of audio glory! This week Hazel’s organised a special treat, so with Cameron they welcome Jed Dawson & Finley (Fin) Cameron from Screen Queensland to talk how they can help YOU get your game and game creation career off the ground (paid internships now available)! Hazel then talks Nova Lands and the problems with automation in gaming. So fill in your forms and submit them by listening in, or head to your nearest podcast department and find us cowering under the desks of democracy.
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.
This week Hazel is in control, taking Rani and The Temporarily Returned Tobi on a journey through the musical influence video games had on their lives, while Zahra tells us about the cuddly cat game Calico, and Maylee delivers the freshest of video game news.
