Tag: pokemon

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

VR Adaptor Coming Soon

PC games can be played on the Playstation VR2 via an adaptor which will be available on the 7th of August, meaning that in addition to the VR games available on the PS5, the VR2 can be used to play the many VR games available on steam.

The adaptor will retail for $94.95 AUD.

https://blog.playstation.com/2024/06/03/playstation-vr2-players-can-access-games-on-pc-with-adapter-starting-on-august-7/

Studio Sanctioned Mods Incoming

Baldur’s Gate 3 is set to become even more mod-able in the near future with the announcement of patch number 7.  The update is set to launch in September and the headliner is the official modding toolkit which will allow for improved compatibility as well as a more convenient experience.  The toolkit will undergo testing via a two-phase process the first being a closed alpha (which started June 3) with a small team of mod creators to further develop the modding tools and in July the closed beta will kick off with around 1000 players (which anyone can sign up for) who will test the mods that were created during the alpha.

But that’s not all for lucky number seven, Larian Studios has also indicated that the patch will also include improved evil ending (for all you sickos out there) and some more bug fixes.

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1086940/view/4179982568653520452

Screen Queensland Funding

As part of Screen Queensland’s game project funding (which since it’s last round has been doubled) 14 projects will receive altogether a total of 1 million AUD and another 3 projects will receive 1.1 million AUD.

The full list of games funded is available on the Screen Queensland website (but a quick shout-out to Schrodinger’s Cat Burglar which I’ve gotten to play at the last couple of Queensland game festivals and is absolutely delightful).

Applications for the next round of funding opens on Friday 7 June and closes on Sunday 21 July.

https://www.gameshub.com/news/news/screen-queensland-games-funding-june-2024-2641288/

Pokemon Centre Online Launches for Australia and New Zealand

And now for the most important piece of news of all time, the Australian and New Zealand Pokemon Centre website has been soft launched and my money will never be safe again.

The Pokemon Centres are online stores that sell exclusive items like plushes and the like (lifesize Mareep plush my beloved) but ship only to specific regions; America, Canada, the United Kingdom and Japan with this launch putting Australia and New Zealand on the list.

No word yet when the hard launch of the website will be or what differences there will be if any from the soft launch but I am eager to shovel my money into the gaping maw of the pokemon company.

https://press-start.com.au/news/nintendo/2024/05/31/the-pokemon-centre-online-is-now-open-in-australia-with-a-soft-launch/amp/

GAME RELEASES

The Smurfs: Village Party – June 6 – Playstation, Xbox, Nintendo Switch, PC

V Rising – June 11 – PS5

Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous – A Dance of Masks DLC – June 13 – PC, Playstation, Xbox, Nintendo Switch

This week Maylee presses the buttons while Zahra and Peter delve deep in this weeks Gaming News and the difference between physical and digital. Zahra then takes it easy in visual masterpiece puzzle game Boxes: Lost Fragments, Maylee tries to love Roller Drama, and then team talks their recent TTRPG gaming and experiences.

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.

This week Maylee leads the charge on Zed Games, with Cameron taking over the airwaves for this weeks gaming news! Then Caroline leads the way with their totally impartial review/rant/discussion of the recently bug filled release of Pokemon Scarlet & Violet.

Games Awards!

The 2022 Game awards will be held on Friday December 9 at 10.30am – 1.30pm Australian Eastern Standard Time.  There are 31 award categories including Game of the Year, Best Indie, Most Anticipated Game, Innovation in Accessibility and Best Art Direction.

In addition to this there is the game awards future class, ‘50 inspiring individuals who represent the bright, bold and inclusive future of video games’.

Composer Maize Wallen and designer Chantal Ryan are two Australians that have been included in the 2022 Game Awards Future class list.

Chantal Ryan is the Director of the game development studio ‘We have always lived in the Forest’ and produces ‘experimental narrative games and systems built upon disruptive language technologies’.

Maize Wallen has produced audio for games such as God Fall, Receiver 2, Wayward Strand and Cosmic Express.  Their focus is 3D spatialised audio and dynamic music.

https://thegameawards.com/future-class

Pokemon scarlet and violet get patched

A whopping 1GB patch was made available on the 1st of December – Nintendo’s support website stating that the patch includes season 1 of ranked battles, fixing an issue that caused music to not play correctly during the elite four and top champion battle and lastly, other select bug fixes.

They have also acknowledged that many players may encounter issues that affect the games performance.  Given that this has been the buggiest pokemon game ever released, this is an understatement.

https://en-americas-support.nintendo.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/60277/p/989#v110

VR Showcase Winter 2022

The Upload Gaming Showcase 2022 steamed this morning and showcased ‘exciting game updates, announcements and exclusive reveals’.  Some of these are:

Call of the Sea VR, by Out of the Blue, a mysterious adventure game where you solve puzzles and maybe become some sort of sea monster? Intriguing!

Across the Valley, by FusionPlay is a VR farming simulator for those who want their cow milking to be more immersive.

Maskmaker by Innerspace VR is a puzzle game where you play a mask maker’s apprentice.

Survival Nation by Wenkly Studio is an outdoor adventure sim with added zombies.

And The Signifier by Playmestudio is a detective thriller that has you using victims’ dreams to solve crimes.

https://uploadvr.com/upload-vr-showcase-winter-2022/

And now for the releases!

December 8

Chained Echoes for the PC, Playstation, Xbox and Switch, NecroBouncer on PC, The Rumble Fish 2 for PC Playstation, Xbox and Switch, Witch On The Holy Night for Playstation 4 and Switch.

December 9

Dragon Quest Treasures for the Switch, Jitsu Squad for Playstation and the Switch.

December 12

Wavetale on PC, Playstation, Xbox and Switch

December 13

Crisis Core –Final Fantasy 7– Reunion on PC, Playstation, Xbox and Switch, High on Life for the PC and Xbox Series X.

December 14

The Witcher 3 comes to Playstation 5 and the Xbox Series X.

And that’s all this week in gaming news!

On Zed Games this week Hazel, Caroline, and Peter talk news, Caroline walks us through a review of Lunistice, and then the crew talk the g̸͚̜̈́͋̕l̵̊ḭ̸̭͗̃t̴̚c̸̈́̚h̸͠é̷̉̚ŝ̷̌ of the most recent Pokemon release.

Hitting your earholes from Zed Games, the crew talks news, Pokemon Scarlet/Violet hype, and Paul kicks groin in McPixel 3.

New content for Cult of the Lamb!

The Blood Moon Festival: Cult of the Lamb’s first seasonal event is underway and will go until the 10th of November.  For the duration of the festival a new ritual is available to perform, giving players the opportunity to unlock 3 new forms to spook up your followers and 4 new creepy decorations.  In the same announcement, Massive Monster announced that they are working on a major content update that will be available to players for free.

Disco Elysium writer files lawsuit against ZA/UM

Earlier this month it was revealed that Disco Elysium’s lead designer and author of the book the game is based on Robert Kurvitz, lead artist Aleksander Rostov and the main writer of the game Helen Hindpere had no longer been working at ZA/UM due to what was described as an involuntary departure since late 2021.  Robert Kurvitz has been revealed to have filed a lawsuit against ZA/UM although at this point the exact details of this lawsuit are unknown.  There is speculation that Kurvitz is looking to gain control of the rights to the game in order to produce a sequel.

Pokemon’s gone to the dogs

Just in time for Halloween Nintendo has revealed yet another new Pokemon from the upcoming Pokemon Scarlet and Violet and it’s a heccing spoopy pupper.  Greavard has the internet in raptures despite the fact that the Pokemon company has said that it drains the life from you.

“Greavard is so affectionate that paying it any attention will make it so happy that it’ll follow you wherever you go,” The Pokémon Company tweeted. “However, Greavard will slowly and inadvertently absorb the life-force of those around it.”

Amazon is doing the least

Finally in celebration of Fallout’s 25th birthday, amazon has released a single screenshot of the upcoming live action fallout TV show.  Very little is known about the show, with no news on when it is supposed to be released or what can be expected from the story.

Upcoming game releases

October 27:

Brewmaster- Playstation, Xbox and Switch

Horse Club Adventures 2 – Hazelwood Stories PC, Xbox and Switch

Moonshine Inc. – PC

Paper Cut Mansion PC, Playstation, Xbox and Switch

The Pinball Wizard- PC and Switch

Star Ocean The Divine Force – PC, Playstation, Xbox and Switch

Warhammer 40,000: Inquisitor – Martyr -Playstation 5 and Xbox Series X

October 28:

Bayonetta 3 – Switch

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2- PC, Playstation, Xbox

Live by The Sword: Tactics – Xbox One, Switch

Resident Evil Re:Verse PC, Playstation 4, Xbox One

Resident Evil: Village: Shadows of Rose DLC PC, Playstation and Xbox

October 31

The Unliving – PC

Embracer Group Takes in Tomb Raider, Deus Ex, and More

Development studios Eido-Montreal, Crystal Dynamics, and Square Enix Montreal will be acquired by Embracer Group, who has entered an agreement to acquire the studios as well as multiple IPs such as Tomb Raider, Deus Ex, Legacy of Kain, and many more from the Square Enix catalogue.

The acquisition also includes over 1,100 employees in eight locations, with the total purchase price reaching 300 million USD. This agreement is expected to close later this year.

“We are thrilled to welcome these studios into the Embracer Group. We recognise the fantastic IP, world class creative talent, and track record of excellence that have been demonstrated time and again over the past decades. It has been a great pleasure meeting the leadership teams and discussing future plans for how they can realise their ambitions and become a great part of Embracer,” says Lars Wingefors, Co-founder of Embracer Group.

Alleged Pokemon Thieves Killed

Police officers in Florida, USA opened fire on four suspects who were believed to have stolen Pokemon cards, as well as some pizza. After multiple units converged on a Target in Florida in response to an Audi with obscured registration tags, they spotted two teenagers who were immediately deemed ‘suspicious’ due to wearing hoodies and face masks. A security officer in Target had alleged that the teenagers had stolen some Pokemon cards and a pizza, confirmed via security footage.

Police attempted a takedown and then opened fire on the teenagers, injuring two and fatally wounding another, with a fourth suspect detained. None of the teenagers were carrying any weapons.

County Sheriff Marcos Lopez has defended the actions of the officers involved after facing backlash for the over-the-top response.

Halo Infinite Had A Massive Update

Halo Infinite’s second season is here, and it is a big one! With new maps, modes, and cosmetic items, the detailed patch notes needed a six-chapter table of contents.

Some of the new content includes a King of the Hill, Attrition, and a battle royale inspired Last Spartan Standing game mode.

Updates have also been made to some of the movement abilities, affecting what players call ‘skill jumps’, which utilised movement tricks to pull off some very hectic tricks around the various maps. The left shoulder pad of the Jorge-052 armour kit now also shows the correct texture, for the more observant fans out there.

Sonic Prime Teaser Trailer Is Here

Netflix released a trailer montage showing off some of the kid-friendly animated shows that will be joining the roster. Right at the end we got to have a glimpse at everyone’s favourite blue hedgehog, also giving fans a listen to voice actor Deven Mack’s performance.

And now for some upcoming games!

May 5

• Best Month Ever (PC, PS5, XSX, PS4, XBO, Switch)
• Trek to Yomi (PC, PS5, XSX, PS4, XBO)
• Warhammer 40,000: Chaos Gate – Daemonhunters (PC)

May 6

• Crowns and Pawns: Kingdom of Deceit (PC)

May 10

• Songs of Conquest (PC)
• This War of Mine: Final Cut (PS5, XSX)

May 11

• Brigandine (PC)
• Source of Madness (PS5, XSX, PS4, XBO, Switch)

May 12

• Achilles: Legends Untold (PC)
• Cantata (PC)
• The Centennial Case: A Shijima Story (PC, PS5, PS4, Switch)
• Flippin Kaktus (PC)