John, Lorelai and Crystal are back to talk about the week in games. This week, John’s been playing more Pokémon Z-A while Crystal has been dabbling in Old School Runescape. Lorelai lost her week to the wild World Series but did manage to find the time to play the Dragon Quest 1 HD2D Remaster and Episodes 3 and 4 of Dispatch. After that the team goes over the news of the week with Amazon layoffs killing New World, Rockstar Games unionbusting, Halo being used by the US government for propaganda, a new Animal Crossing update and the Wachowskis wanting to have worked with Hideo Kojima on a Matrix game.

You can support us on our Patreon, and follow us on Social Media @gamesline.net, Lorelai, Crystal, and John.

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Our theme song is “Crush” by Melt Channel, from the album Magic is Real.

Edited and Produced by Lorelai

The post The Gamesline Podcast Episode 73: Dragon Type Dispatch appeared first on Gamesline.

Fortnite Mariah Carey

Mariah Carey was trapped in a giant ice block in Fortnite. She finally broke free from her frozen prison. The Queen of Christmas dropped in for the big holiday in-game event, and she will not be alone, joining her other real life-artist luminaries such as Snoop Dogg.

This is a reference to a bit Carey released last year: surrounded by befuddled, costumed Hallowen figures, Carey breaks out of life-sized, block of ice singing, “It’s time!” Once the turkeys come to pasture right after American Thanksgiving, everyone knows that her hit, classic song, “All I Want For Christmas Is You” dominates anywhere there is a speaker.

Suing Sonic

Crush 40 musician Johnny Gioeli is suing Sega for their use of the Sonic Adventure 2 theme song “Live and Learn”. Crush 40 has produced numerous bops for the Sonic franchise, but Gioeli’s suit alleges that Sega breached contract and that they never had rights to the usage of the whole composition of song and only its lyrics. Gioeli alleges that he was unaware “Live and Learn” was used without the correct licenses in Sonic titles and projects outside of its use in Sonic Adventure 2, ultimately suggesting he has not been properly compensated for numerous, missed royalties.

Meanwhile, while “Live and Learn” continues to be otherwise used in the third movie’s soundtrack, a fourth Sonic the Hedgehog movie is already confirmed to be in the works. Paramount Pictures is hoping for a 2027 release.

In other news…

Joining Starbucks workers alike, this past week, Amazon Teamsters went on strike. While some locations have already ended their strike, workers were attempting to challenge the continuing issues of low wages and meager workplace conditions.

More restricted military material has been leaked on the War Thunder forums—again!

Alert! There’s finally new Team Fortress 2 comic updates!

Voice actor Neil Newbon, known for his most recent role as Astarion in Baldur’s Gate 3, will be joining the off-Broadway show, Twenty-Sided Tavern, in limited engagement. This run will be joined by the likes of comedian and noted Dropout talent, Ify Nwadiwe, and performer Jack Lepiarz. Felicia Day, Aabria Iyengar, and Erika Ishii have also recently performed on the interactive Dungeons & Dragons show.

After an antitrust investigation by the US Justice department, Tencent hastily pulled two directors from Epic Games’ board.

Following concerns of rumors that Sony was doing a full buyout of Kadokawa, a release has been published to further clarify that Sony and the major conglomerate are forming “a strategic capital and business alliance“. Acquiring thousands of shares, Sony is to become one of Kadokawa’s largest sharesholders.

And if you are interested in figuring out what to do in this season of giving—Palestinian game developer Rasheed Abueideh is currently crowdfunding Dreams on a Pillow, a stealth adventure game based on his experiences through the 1948 Nakba.

The most charitable thing you can do is to continue to inform yourself and give where you can.

The post The Bulletin: IT’S TIIIME! appeared first on Gamesline.

A Leg Up for the Little Guy

Well let’s get to the real meat of why you are here: Who exactly won Game of the Year?

The following are some of big winners of the night:

• EA Sports FC 25 for Best Sports/Racing Game,
• Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown Innovation in Accessibility
• Neva for Games for Impact
• Frostpunk 2 for Best Sim/Strategy Game
• Batman: Arkham Shadow for Best VR/AR Game
• CaseOh, formely known as randomsimplestuf35, for Best Content Creator
• Amazon’s Fallout for Best Adaptation
• Melina Juergens’ performance as the titular Senua for Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II for Best Audio Design.
• Baldur’s Gate 3 for Best Community Support
• Final Fantasy VII Rebirth for Best Score and Music
• Continuing to the butt of many memes, Grand Theft Audio VI is Most Anticipated Game

Tekken 8 wins Best Fighting Game, later coupled with the announcement that Clive Rosfield from Final Fantasy XVI will be added to the game.

League of Legends was most represented in all respective Esports categories, winning Best Esports Game, Lee “Faker” Sang-hyeok  for Best Esports Athlete, and T1 for Best Esports Team.

Helldivers II won Best Mutiplayer Game and Best Ongoing Game.

Black Myth: Wukong won Best Action Game and the vote for Player’s Choice. Developers Game Science went on to complain they didn’t win more.

Balatro won Best Mobile Game, and took the gold for indies winning both Best Debut Game and Best Independent Game. Otherwise, the game’s team is currently at odds with PEGI, the European video game content rating system, for giving the game an 18+ rating.

Metaphor: ReFantazio won Best Roleplaying and Best Art Direction.

In spite of Sony’s recent blunders, Astro Bot won Best Game Direction, Best Family Game, and ultimately took home the gold for Game of the Year.

Laura Carter was recognized as a Global Gaming Citizen, co-founder of TreesPlease Games, a studio aiming to create games and develop initiatives to combat climate change.

Amir Satvat, a game developer and currently Business Development Director at Tencent, wins the new Game Changer award for his ongoing efforts in creating and sharing resources in response to the continuing, astronomical layoffs and job losses that are plaguing the industry—an issue that was surprisingly acknowledged during the show. That said, some have critiqued the introduction of the award in the absence of the Future Class program this year, with some past inductees and alum having raised complaints over the lack of actual support they ended up receiving and several of the program’s shortcomings.

Show Spotlights

We seemingly cannot ever escape anticipating what bombastic moment is going to happen at The Game Awards every year.

While our host Geoff Keighley was getting roasted by puppets for the whole duration, the show was once again mostly peppered with mostly trailers, teases, and showcases over what is to come.

Man of the hour, Josef Fares, once again was in attendance of the show with much vigor and foul-mouthed enthusiasm. Founder of Hazelight Studios, he took the stage to introduce another co-op game in the works, titled Split Fiction.

A new Indiana Jones game, Indiana Jones and the Great Circle, is slated to arrive Spring 2025. In introducing the game, performer Troy Baker and Todd Howard were joined by Harrison Ford, transitioning into the Best Performance category.

Keighley also gave dedicated spotlight on a new sci-fi IP in the works called Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet. While showing a tease of potentially impressive graphics, the big reveal (unfortunately) is that the game is being developed by Naughty Dog’s Neil Druckmann. Further details about the game’s plot, relayed from Druckmann himself, already has us apprehensive about it. We already were annoyed hearing about The Last of Us getting “remastered” for the upteenth time.

Snoop Dogg was also hyped as the big climatic musical performance of the night, a tie-in with his appearance now added to the next season of Fortnite Festival. He will be joining musical likes such as Lady Gaga and The Weeknd. Leaks suggest Vocaloid superstar Hatsune Miku will be dropping in come next year.

But most importantly, flute guy makes his return to the fray once more.

Following much pomp and circumstance, Swen Vincke, founder and CEO of Larian Studios, was presenter for this year’s Game of the Year, after Baldur’s Gate 3’s Game of the Year win in 2023. Before ultimately passing on the torch to Astro Bot, Vincke took his time to make a scathing joke at being told, among others, to “wrap it up” last year.

Sequels and Reboots Galore

But overall, the nostalgia cycle is in full force!

While there was a sliver of some potential new, original hits that are expected to land in gamers’ hands next year, teases of releases were mostly updates to ongoing games, sequels, and reboots, and revisits of IPs new and old.

Koei Tecmo is putting out a new Ninja Gaiden title, to be called Ninja Gaiden: Ragebound.

While RGG Studios is working on a new title, Project Century, they’re taking the lead with handling a new Virtua Fighter.

There will be yet another Double Dragon game, a new installment to the Onimusha franchise slated for 2026, and the big drop of the night: Hideki Kamiya jumping off the burning ship that is Platinum Games to make a sequel to beloved PS2/Wii Classic Okami! (But never mind all that, we also got a new Turok game baby!!!)

Apart from just full on reboots, tonight also showcased some more current continuations: CD Projekt Red unveiled The Witcher 4 with a full focus on Ciri as the protagonist.

Enemy of the site Randy Pitchford also pulled up to announce Borderlands 4, a shocker to those of us who wanted to forget Borderlands 3 was out in the world. Potentially, there might be less “toilet humor.”

Both The Outer Worlds and Slay the Spire are getting sequels.

We also got a surprise taste of what is going to be a new Sonic Racing game!

Tales of the Shire, a cozy-looking Lord of the Rings game that seems to focus on peaceful Hobbit life is coming for the Switch.

There are also two new games in the works set within the Dungeon & Fighter universe: teased earlier last year, the gristly, bloody, and dark The First Berserker: Khazan, and the more lighthearted-looking, anime-stylized open RPG, ARAD.

Highly anticipated is Mafia: The Old World, the newest installment in the Mafia franchise set in 1900s Sicily.

Oh yeah, and there was also this cat game that most obviously looks like it is some suspicious AI-generated shlock. The developers have hastily thrown up a “gameplay” trailer in defense of the game’s first impressions

Movements in Mobilization

Studio People Can Fly, known for Outriders, goes through its second wave of layoffs this year.

Developer of Gotham Knights and additional support to Rocksteady’s Suicide Squad, WB Games Montreal lays off 99 developers.

Meanwhile, ZeniMax Online Studios, have officially unionized with the CWA.

Workers at 2K’s Motion Capture Studio, with numerous games credits such as the NBA 2K and WWE 2K games, have voted to unionize. The shop will be represented under IATSE. This is the first successful unionization of a motion capture studio in the video games industry.

In other news…

Video game-inspired anthology series Secret Level is renewed for another season.

itch.io was briefly down due to a AI tool used by Funko Inc. falsely reporting their domain to their registrar for phishing. itch.io’s domain has since been reinstated, but the issue also escalated to the point that a Funko representative allegedly went as far as calling itch.io’s founder’s mother.

Shuhei Yoshida is leaving his post at Sony come January of next year. He joined the company in 1993 at the height of the first PlayStation’s development.

Tencent is ending Nintendo Switch eShop services to the Chinese version of the console in 2026. This most likely does not mean it will be down forever, the current agreement the two companies had will lapse, and Nintendo may go with another avenue for Switch and Switch 2 in China.

And yes, Skibidi Toilet is coming to Fortnite.

The post The Bulletin: The Game Awards 2024 appeared first on Gamesline.

Layoffs continue, and the Washington Post has cut about 20 jobs and has shut down their gaming coverage, Launcher. Jeff Bezos is the current owner of the publication through his private investment firm, Nash Holdings LLC.

Following charges of abuse and domestic abuse, studio Squanch Games has officially received and announced co-founder Justin Roiland’s resignation. Roiland has also been released from Adult Swim and Hulu. His various projects such as Rick and Morty, Solar Opposites, and potential future Squanch Games releases currently intend to continue without his involvement.

Blizzard games have officially gone offline in mainland China. Blizzard was unable to settle on an agreement with NetEase Games, a company responsible for the distribution of their services in the region for over a decade. Blizzard was meanwhile already shopping for other publishers in the midst of these negotiations, of which NetEase representatives have accused of simply being unfair with differing conditions and offers.

On top of other shady negotiations that Blizzard has been upholding, the Communications Workers of America (CWA) has dropped its request to Activison Blizzard for a Proletariat studio union vote after accusations that CEO Seth Sivak has made the process difficult. The CWA has found that Sivak made “totally false” claims and manipulative statements that Proletariat workers were pressured into a union campaign.

Internal strife continues to occur at Blizzard’s own main offices, in which a manager from the company claims he was ousted due to his refusal in meeting a quota by giving an employee a low evaluation.

NVIDIA is testing a an AI-based tool that adjusts eyes to look towards the camera in an effort to “maintain eye contact”. Tests released of the tool have justifiably earned divide opinions, viewed as possibly useful in some circumstances to outright unnecessary and ghoulish.

Neopets is facing a class-action lawsuit over a huge data breach that occurred in July 2022. Neopets users who feel as though they were impacted by the incident should check out more information about the pending lawsuit here.

The Pokémon Kadabra officially returns to the official Pokémon Trading Card Game (TCG). Kadabra’s absence from the TCG stems from a suit back in November 2000 in which illusionist Uri Geller claimed the Pokémon bore likeness to his image. In Japan, Kadabra is in fact called “Yungerer”. He has since penned a letter reliquishing control and grudges over the Pokémon that has been reciprocated.

Illustrator Deb JJ, who drew attention for outing Fortnite’s undercutting of their services, has managed to ironically acquire a gig from McDonalds to design for a Lunar New Year campaign in the midst of troll comments they received from their newly acquired attention.

A report, as investigated by People Make Games, alleges that leadership at Valve blocked diversity efforts and fostered a hostile work environment. According to several interviews in People Make Games’ investigation, the company has a huge diversity problem, continuing to have a lack of women in developer roles. Senior employees also refused to make a comment on Black Lives Matter during the outbreaks of protests in 2020 following the murder of George Floyd.

Neil Druckmann claims that Naughty Dog has “moved on” from Uncharted

Meanwhile, co-creator of the first Last of Us Bruce Straley has come out of the woodwork to speak in support of unions, following notice of his lack of credit on the HBO series adaptation. Since his departure from Naughty Dog and founding of his own studio, Wildflower Interactive, Straley has commented on dealing with difficult and crunch conditions working at Naughty Dog.

Granblue Fantasy Versus: Rising is confirmed to be the next game update for Granblue Fantasy Versus. The update is expected to add new moves, characters, and the implementation of rollback netcode. The game will also have a new lobby system, in which players can lightly explore and interact with other players with chibi avatars on an island, and will feature and some mini-games that have been compared to the likes of Fall Guys.

The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has filed a lawsuit in attempts to block Microsoft’s acquisition of Activision Blizzard. The lawsuit is speculated to be a move on the FTC’s part to get ahead of European regulators.

War Thunder was once again being used as a vessel to leak military secrets, in which a user on the game’s forums open shared scans of an operations manual of a US fighter jet. This is already about the third time this has happened around the game’s community, the first time back in October 2021 in which a user leaked classified documents just to debate about the game’s accuracy depicting a tank.

The post The Bulletin: Crappy Deals and Closed Doors appeared first on Gamesline.

The big talk of the tabletop roleplaying games scene has potentially put the Dungeons & Dragons brand name in big trouble: A leak of a new draft of the Open Game License (OGL) has received widespread negative response and controversy due to the constraining and potentially damaging impact on tabletop games creators due to its terms and conditions. The OGL is a copyright document by D&D IP holder, Wizards of the Coast, that is referenced by many developers and designers to grant permissions to modify and redistribute content of their IP. The wider legal implications of this OGL draft—and how this can negatively impact third-party developers and even content unrelated to Wizards’ own IP—is better explained by a lawyer Noah Downs in layman’s terms here. An official statement in response to the backlash by DND Beyond Staff has officially been published as of today.

Various publishers and competitors to Wizards’ brand have swiftly responded to the OGL leak with their own intentions of dropping OGL projects and creating new games systems based on less binding and non-restrictive game licenses. Publisher Kobold Press’s website has been crashing due to increased interest after the announcement of a project they are currently calling “Black Flag”. Paizo, known for publishing Pathfinder, a direct competitor that originally spawned from Dungeons and Dragons to begin with, has announced a new, system neutral open gaming license. Many have canceled their subscriptions to the D&D Beyond platform, potentially further delaying and causing Wizards’ representatives to scramble over their next move. Wizards of the Coast has been a subsidiary of Hasbro since 1999.

After wrapping up the previous year and reviewing their financial goals, Ubisoft has decided to cancel three previously unannounced projects and is once again, delaying their pirate game, Skull and Bones. Again. They’re delaying it again for the sixth time.

Studio head of Amazon’s gaming division, John Smedley, is making his exit from the company. His leave is possibly attributed to the studio’s ongoing struggles, such as MMORPG New World’s shaky launch.

The 20th Super MAGFest has wrapped up last weekend, and anyone who attended is urged to fill in the show’s designated self-reporting form if they have found themselves COVID-19 positive. Respondents’ personal information will not be shared, but they may receive follow-up questions to inform the appropriate community members and other attendees. MAGStock, a spin on the festival as an outdoor, camping event, is currently still slated to take place on June 8-11, 2023 in Darlington, Maryland.

Xbox is set to roll out a more “carbon aware” power setting on the next major update of Xbox Series consoles.

A new trailer was released for the Dead Space remake.

Bloober Team assures everyone that their own Silent Hill 2 remake is going to be A-ok! When the initial teaser for the remake in development was first released, many viewers already raised concerns about Bloober’s potential direction with the game.

YouTube’s latest profanity policy seems to have taken a bigger, stricter crackdown on cursing across the board.

As of this week, Steam has broken its own records by hitting 10 million concurrent in-game users that were active at a time.

Physical games sales went well in Japan in 2022, while the opposite is true for Europe, in which sales in both the console and PC markets were down.

On the other hand, Pokémon continues to consistently build its own numbers, and the Official Pokémon YouTube channel is celebrating by releasing a video commemorating the franchise’s official milestone in hitting over one thousand Pokémon! Feel old and overwhelmed all at once:

The post The Bulletin: Rolling a Critical Failure appeared first on Gamesline.

And the biggest talk of the week of course being all of the reports of the severe injuries as a result of a poorly constructed a foam pit at TwitchCon. The foam pit was part of a booth for Lenovo, and streamers were encouraged to jump in the pit while being livestreamed despite its shallow build. Streamer Adriana Chechik has the most severe case of injuries reported thus far, having broken her back in a couple of places and is now getting surgery to stabilize it.

Former QA worker for Nintendo of America, Mackenzie Clifton, has reached a dispute settlement with the aforementioned company. In a complained filed with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) back in April, Clifton alleged that Nintendo of America fired them for their associations with union activities. Nintendo of America is now ordered to post a notice both in email and on-site reassessing QA workers’ rights under the NLRB.

Square Enix Montreal is rebranding as Onoma.

Konami is now trying to enter the NFT market.

Overwatch 2 players are still catching no break, and several characters were locked out from being playable when the game’s servers when back online.

Meanwhile, Activision Blizzard faces another lawsuit filed by a former employee of the company alleging sexual harassment and the threat of revenge porn by their former manager.

Playrix Games, developer behind mobile titles such as Gardenscapes and Homescapes, is closing all offices based in Russia and Belarus due to the further escalations of the Russia-Ukraine war. They are attempting to relocate employees to other locations.

Final Fantasy VII: The First Soldier is ending service in January next year. The game was approaching its one-year anniversary this coming November.

Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot is coming to the Playstation 5 and Xbox Series systems.

Kingdom Hearts fans rejoice: Animator Seth Kearsley has digitized his copy of what was assumed to have been a “lost” pitch for a Kingdom Hearts animated series back in 2003. Kearsley’s storyboards and rough drawings of the concept have been circulating online for quite some time without any indication that the pitch was fully realized—until now.

The post The Bulletin: Perils Beyond the Pit appeared first on Gamesline.

Remember how last week we mentioned Babylon’s Fall will be shutting down? In anticipation of its closure, some Gamestop stores have been giving away copies if you ask them nicely.

Beta testing for Dragon Ball: The Breakers is now open for the public. The game’s official worldwide release will be October 14, 2022.

Twitch has updated two of their policies. One is regulating gambling streams, prohibiting the streaming of gambling websites not licensed in the US. Secondly, the streamer-site revenue split was changed from 70-30 to 50-50 for bigger streamers. They will also be running more ads on the site, even if the streamer disables midroll ads. Many streamers are already threatening to leave the site.

Among Us has launched a Hololive crossover, introducing costumes based on VTubers for your amogus to run around in. No word if the Pekora costume comes with a monkey.

Grand Theft Auto VI leaked. A hacker, allegedly the same one who recently hacked Uber, shared ninety pieces of leaked video, screenshots, and code from the long awaited game. Rockstar confirmed the leaks as genuine, and have said they come from an early version of the title. A suspect behind the hacking has been apprehended.

The first two Suikoden games are getting remastered. Announced at Tokyo Game Show, the PS1 classic JRPGs by Konami are getting up-rezzed and re-translated. They will launch for all major platforms in 2023.

New screenshots of the A Wonderful Life remake have been published. The screenshots stress the expected graphics overhaul and update, on top of what looks like the (what we feel) tragic yassification of some characters.

In celebration of the shared Undertale and Deltarune anniversary, an update on Deltarune’s future was posted by Toby Fox. The update showcased some new music and locales, plus launched Spamton’s Sweepstakes, a charity drive for Child’s Play that gave out very stupid prizes. It went on to raise over $322,000. The prizes were rewarded on a…very special livestream.

EVGA, one of the largest graphics card manufacturers, has both broken off their deal with Nvidia and backed out of the GPU business altogether. Nvidia is reportedly undercutting all other GPU makers by making their own, cheaper graphics cards to keep third parties like EVGA out of the loop.

The post The Bulletin: HEY EVERY !!!! appeared first on Gamesline.

As always you can support us on our patreon, and follow us on twitter @VGChooChoo, @john_michonski, and @solonface

Also, don’t forget to rate and review us on iTunes, and tell a friend about the show! If you want to send in questions send them to our ask box at videogamechoochoo.tumblr.com/ask.

You can also join our discord channel at thegamezone.zone!

Our theme song is “Crush” by Melt Channel, from the album Magic is Real.

Subscribe via iTunes, Hipcast, Direct Download, or listen below!

The post VGCC Episode 319: She’s Just Catholic appeared first on Gamesline.

As always you can support us on our patreon, and follow us on twitter @VGChooChoo, @john_michonski, and @lvmaeparian

Also, don’t forget to rate and review us on iTunes, and tell a friend about the show! If you want to send in questions send them to our ask box at videogamechoochoo.tumblr.com/ask.

You can also join our discord channel at thegamezone.zone!

Our theme song is “Crush” by Melt Channel, from the album Magic is Real.

Subscribe via iTunes, Hipcast, Direct Download, or listen below!

The post VGCC Episode 318: Ninja on the Cover appeared first on Gamesline.

Fans have been awaiting shipping alerts for their games for a few days now. Aksys then Tweeted that the pre-order bonus watches were damaged in transit.

ZTD preorder bonus game/watch bundles were damaged in transit. The watches were sent back to the factory, but game units are on time.

— Aksys Games (@aksysgames) June 24, 2016

Aksys then claimed the games would arrive on time, but fans were worried when their ship dates weren’t updating. After bugging Amazon and Gamestop customer service, some fans have gotten mixed messages about eventual ship dates, with some claiming that they wouldn’t get their game until mid August.

nice pic.twitter.com/ZlObnc1Z9B

— Jesse M. (@deepFlaw) June 28, 2016

Aksys Games, publisher of Zero Time Dilemma, are currently trying to set things right. Currently, PR reps from Aksys are claiming that Gamestop should have the games available for pick-up on the correct day, and will update pre-orderers on their watches once they’re fixed. Amazon is another story, and one Aksys rep had this to say:

Amzn ZTD folk- 1. Don’t cancel. 2. Don’t approve your insane wait. 3. Don’t buy a 2nd copy. I’ll raise hell, see what I can come up with.

— DANhalen (@Aksys_Danny) June 28, 2016

This is one of the most baffling releases I’ve ever seen. You would think that just releasing a game by itself, then shipping the watches later would be the logical option, but there must be some reason Amazon is being so difficult. Either way, if loyal fans get screwed over thanks to a transit mistake and a messy distributor, it’ll be a bad day for Aksys, especially since there are rumors of smaller game stores selling copies of the game early and spoilers are all over social media.

The post Amazon Delaying Zero Time Dilemma Special Editions appeared first on Gamesline.