Atari acquires several hundred classic games franchises, such as the Bubsy and Demolition Racer series.

Sega is set to purchase Angry Birds developer Rovio. Rovio came under criticism for deslisting the original titular game from mobile game storefronts.

Meanwhile, several Sega Genesis games have been made available on Nintendo Switch Online.

A new Touhou game was announced. Developer ZUN notes that the game will play more like a conventional Touhou title.

Advance Wars 1+2: Re-Boot Camp is now out.

Street Fighter 6‘s demo is now available to play. DLC characters Rashid, A.K.I., Ed, and Akuma were also announced.

Lili, formally known as Emilie De Rochefort, is announced as another character set for a series return in Tekken 8.

An archivist has acquired high resolution scans that restore and capture more accurate colors of the original 151 Pokémon artwork by Ken Sugimori.

Microsoft is the latest of several large companies pulling back from Twitter refusing to deal with its new API system—and as a result, Twitter sharing from the Xbox is now no longer possible.

Apple will allow for sideloading apps in the latest iOS 17 to comply with EU laws, allowing users the ability to download apps outside of the App Store.

Team Reptile releases a new trailer for Bomb Rush Cyberfunk, set to launch on several platforms this August.

Xenoblade Chronicles 3: Future Redeemed is also set to be the eponymous game’s final DLC.

Markiplier is directing, writing, and starring in the Iron Lung, a film adaptation of the video game of the same name.

Hideo Kojima has recently discovered Dungeons & Dragons.

And some things must come to an end, and Balan Wonderworld seems to have been officially discontinued from retail.

The post The Bulletin: Making Room for New Releases appeared first on Gamesline.

New year, and nothing is ever not political: A US representative decided to reach far back towards the relics of old video game and meme history of yore by referencing the World of Warcraft “Leeroy Jenkins” meme on the floor of the House of Representatives during name roll-call, in what continues to be the drawn out process of voting for a new Speaker of the House.  Not even Americans truly understand how our government works at all—but basically: The current US Congress has been unable to select a new Speaker of the House of Representatives. Typically, this role goes to the party that controls most of the seats as of the last election cycle, but the majority-holding Republican Party has been unable to unify around who they want to vote in. The Democratic Party has been consistently voting for Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of New York, and Rep. Jared Huffman of California has decided to invoke old nerd culture in response to the ad nauseum of the whole thing. He is in his late 50s, so this all reads.

Gaming magazine Wireframe is shutting down its physical format, and is consolidating their resources to upkeep an online version of the magazine instead. 

Games Done Quick founder Mike Uyama announces his departure from the organization. Current Director of Operations of GDQ, Matt Merkle, will assume his position.

Masahiro Sakurai declares that he is “semi-retired”.

In the midst of the K-pop group’s hiatus, V (Kim Taehyung) of BTS has started streaming Goose Goose Duck, surging the game’s popularity. V’s gaming streams are currently relegated on Weverse. Weverse is a Korean social community app created by HYBE Corporation, intended for fans of HYBE’s properties such as BTS’ current music label, Big Hit.

A suit that alleged CD Projekt Red misled investors about Cyberpunk 2077 back in 2021 has been settled. 

Square Enix still wants to do NFTs.

—While they no longer want anything to do with Bravely Default: Brilliant Lights, ending service to the mobile game later this February, after being online for barely a single year.

Saudi Arabia has bought a major stake in Magic Leap through its sovereign wealth fund.

Sony debuts the concept of Project Leonardo, a new controller that aims to be customizable to the needs and accessibility of its player.

About 300 quality assurance workers at Microsoft’s ZeniMax Studios have unionized. Microsoft will voluntarily recognize the union, and the scope of its membership officially designates the shop as now the largest union in the video games industry.

And while some of us are busy trying not fumble on our New Year’s Resolutions this early…

Yuji Naka has officially been formally indicted for insider trading offenses.

The post The Bulletin: Goodbyes and Ongoing Grievances appeared first on Gamesline.

Here’s a rundown of the games we saw at TGAs 2022:

Supergiant Games announced their first true sequel, Hades 2. This time you play as a hot lady instead of a hot guy, Melinoe, Zagreus’ sister. The game will have an early access period followed by a full release potentially in 2023.

Ken Levine’s Ghost Story Games has revealed their first title, Judas, a Bioshock-like set in space. Let’s all hope it handles tough subjects better than Infinite did and move on, shall we?

Among Us got a new mode, “Hide and Seek”, where the imposter is constantly active and players must dodge them instead of trying to trick each other. Pure violence!

There’s a Hellboy game in development, Web of Wyrd, with Mike Mignola actively doing art for it! Not much to talk about here besides that it looks really nice.

There were a few more Street Fighter 6 reveals, including the return of Dee Jay and three new characters. Plus, we know the release date, which is June 2nd 2023.

On the other end of the fighting game spectrum, Tekken 8 got its first slice of gameplay, showing returning characters Paul, Law, Jack, and King. Plus, Jun is back for the first time in almost thirty years!

Extremely OK Games, the creators of Celeste, have announce their next title, Earthblade. I think we just have to say “this is by the Celeste team” to drum up interest.

Diablo 4 is releasing June 6th of 2023, but it feels kinda weird to hype it up still, right? I’m not alone in this? Here’s the trailer though.

Cyberpunk 2077‘s big DLC expansion promises more shooting, more Keanu, and some Idris Elba to boot. It’s dropping some time next year, and probably won’t be as good as the anime.

Crash Team Rumble, a new Crash Bandicoot game from Toys for Bob, is some form of fighter? MOBA? Platform fighter? No idea, but you’re trying to collect Wumpa fruit from your foes to fill up your meter. Please don’t make Baby Cortex playable in this one.

There’s a Bayonetta prequel game? Starring “a young version of Cereza from Bayonetta 3” that plays like Bastion? I don’t know who this is for but Bayonetta Origins: Cereza and the Lost Demon, is releasing March 17th, 2023.

And finally, FromSoftware is making a new Armored Core! The sixth (mainline) one, in fact!

Onto non-TGA news:

Yuji Naka got arrested AGAIN. Still over insider trading, but this time it was for the studio that made Final Fantasy VII: The First SOLDIER.

Microsoft is getting sued by the FTC over their attempted acquisition of Activision-Blizzard. There’s lots of layers to this, and it probably won’t stop the sale, but there’s a new speed bump at least.

If said sale does go through, Microsoft has signed a deal with Nintendo to release Call of Duty games on Nintendo consoles for the next ten years. They will also continue to be released on Steam.

The post The Bulletin 12/09/22: The Game Awards, Am I Right Folks? appeared first on Gamesline.

As always, you can support us on our Patreon, and follow us on Twitter @VGChooChoo,  @john_michonski, @ChorbySP, and @Mavsplainiamania

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

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The post VGCC Episode 419: Balansider Wondertrading appeared first on Gamesline.

Square Enix has recently busted a case of insider trading committed by current employees, which included the involvement of Balan Wonderworld developer and former Sonic series producer, Yuji Naka. Initial reports have noted that current employees, Fumiaki Suzuki and Taisuke Sasaki, were apprehended by the Tokyo Police with the suspicions of investing stock in a third party developer ahead of the public announcement of a new Dragon Quest mobile game. Not that long after that information was made, Fuji News Network reported that Yuji Naka was also arrested for his participation in the scandal. Naka has been a hot button subject here at Video Game Choo Choo, and it remains pending if this fall from grace will be a stunning, potential conclusion to that arc. That said, insider trading is considered illegal in Japan, so we can only infer what sort of disciplinary measures the suspects will have to face if their crimes are proven.

Honestly, it is a bit difficult to go further up from there—especially as investigation is ongoing—but other legal battles are also being pursued and conquered…

Blizzard Entertainment will officially not be renewing their partnership with NetEase, a major games company that has licensed several of Blizzard’s titles in China. The two companies have been unable to come to an agreement, and as a result, sales and access to servers for World of Warcraft, Hearthstone, Overwatch 2, Starcraft, Heroes of the Storm, Diablo III, and Warcraft III: Reforged will be completely suspended in China in the upcoming year. There is currently no publicly released statements if or when these titles will ever be accessible again to the region.

As a result of a long, two-year legal battle, Cooking Mama: Cookstar is to be delisted from sale. The game’s publisher, Planet Entertainment, is no longer authorized to sell or distribute the title and other misleading, Cooking Mama-related works. The initial release of the game back in 2020 was met with bizarre treatment and was even hastily pulled from storefronts then, in which Cooking Mama’s IP holder, Office Create was starting to allege that Planet failed several contractual obligations. Initial theories and rumors that were circulating around that time falsely thought that the game was pulled due to having software that was mining cryptocurrency.

After the Saints Row reboot unfortunately did not meet the expectations it wanted to hit, Volition is being absorbed into Gearbox.

Risk of Rain has also been acquired by Gearbox. Although they have explicitly expressed this means they will no longer work on the series, unlike the aforementioned situation with Volition, the games’ original developers, Hopoo Games, remains independent.

Riot Games and Ubisoft are teaming up to collect in-game chat logs in their respective games’ communities as data to train AI technology for an “anti-toxicity research project”. Both companies have had their own fair share of allegations of toxicity and abuse teeming within their respective workplaces.

In a rather bizarre collaboration, Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Siege will be featuring a NieR Replicant bundle among other possible NieR related in-game goods for the game’s upcoming season.

In a rather unprecedented move with prior United States presidential offices, the Biden administration is remaining intent on blocking computer chip exports to China to encourage more domestic production. The move comes accompanied with growing concerns over foreign security and tensions with the Chinese government, but also the administration’s own agenda on wanting to overall encourage more domestic chip production.

While Pokémon Scarlet and Pokémon Violet are officially released—Dead Island 2 is delayed, again. The game’s previous delay date was set for February 2023, and has been pushed back into April. You can also reference a chronicle of this game’s saga of delay announcements on our end, too!

The post The Bulletin: The Blowbacks of Balan’s Bouts appeared first on Gamesline.

As always, you can support us on our Patreon, and follow us on Twitter @VGChooChoo, @john_michonski, and @mavsplaniamania.

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.

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The post VGCC Episode 393: The Balan Parable appeared first on Gamesline.

There was a lot of news this week with Quantic Dream’s courtroom dramatics, NetherRealm deciding the best way to celebrate pride was to have players beat up a bi woman half a million times in Injustice Mobile for prizes, and everything surrounding the Chinese made mobile game Mr. Love firing one of their voice actors for saying Taiwan is a country. We had game delays with God of War: Ragnarok and Gran Turismo 7 being delayed to next year, and a release date accidentally leaking with Shin Megami Tensei 5 coming November 11th. We cap it all off with Yuji Naka’s departure from Square after the failure of Balan Wonderworld and Itch putting together another incredible 1000+ product charity bundle to help support Palestine.

As always you can support us on our Patreon, and follow us on Twitter @VGChooChoo, @john_michonski, @mavsplaniamania, 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 361: Doki Doki Balan Club appeared first on Gamesline.

We dig into the big news stories this week with Jeff Kaplan leaving Blizzard, Apogee Software making a comeback, Samurai Gunn 2 being a thing that exists, Herlock Sholmes in the Great Ace Attorney Chronicles, and Humble Bundle deciding to become a little less humble in limiting the amount you can give in charitable contributions.

As always you can support us on our Patreon, and follow us on Twitter @VGChooChoo, @john_michonski, @scottblah, 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 355: So, About Balan’s Bouts appeared first on Gamesline.

Balan Wonderworld is the first game developed by Balan Company, a studio with Yuji Naka at the helm, alongside artist Naoto Oshima, someone he hasn’t worked with since the days of Sonic Adventure on the Dreamcast. When I think back to that game, I remember how fun and creative the level design was and the charming character designs. For many fans, this seemed like a match made in heaven. Unfortunately, Balan Wonderworld is not the game people were expecting.

The game puts you in the shoes of one of two protagonists, Leo Craig or Emma Cole, who are called to the Balan Theater by a being called Balan after their lives have taken a turn for the worse. The theater transports them to a magical place called Wonderworld, where the children traverse through twelve chapters to help people who have different misfortunes and are being attacked by the Negati, monsters born from their anxieties and fears. 

Balan Wonderworld’s story is pretty much non-existent. There is no dialog, and it is unclear what the goal of the narrative is. Balan looked like such a neat and interesting character, but we learn nothing about him and this really makes the entire experience feel worthless. Compare this to Nights into Dreams, which also had no dialog. The cutscenes get right to the point even without words. You really feel for the children and you want them to become more confident after one is humiliated by a group of older kids, and the other becomes stricken with stage fright. In Balan Wonderworld they attempted to show the problems that Leo and Emma faced in a similar way to Nights. Leo has isolated himself from society after a big argument with a friend years before, and Emma worries about what others might be saying behind her back. The game doesn’t make you care enough about these issues the kids are faced with, because the cutscene that introduces them doesn’t show the deep emotional trauma of their psyches much like Nights did before.

When it comes to the stories within each chapter, you are introduced to the character who needs saving through a short cutscene. In the first chapter, a farmer is afraid of a storm destroying his corn. We see them corrupted by the darkness and create the boss. With what little time they had to show the story of these characters it is acceptable. When you have 12 small stories to tell, it doesn’t really leave room to flesh them out.  After you save them, however, the main character and the person you just saved perform a dance number to a strange song in a fake language. If you cared about them before you will most certainly not after seeing this stupid display. And this happens many times throughout the game. Why not show more scenes with these characters instead of wasting time with the dance number? 

The main gameplay loop of Balan Wonderworld has you collecting Balan Statues throughout its levels to progress the story. To help you do that you’ll need to wear one of 80 “unique” costumes giving you the power to complete puzzles and reach hidden areas. Each stage has its own specific costumes based on the creatures that inhabit them, which can be obtained by finding various keys to open the gems containing them. The keys aren’t even hard to get, so you can basically pick up as many as you want to save for when you lose a costume or want to pick up a different one. 

The costumes in general are a mixed bag, ranging from good to downright terrible. Some of the good ones include the Tornado Wolf that lets you rapidly spin to destroy blocks and deflect tornado attacks, and the Dusk Butterfly that has a neat ability limiting its flying to the night by triggering timed switches. On the other hand, the Box Fox is one of the worst costumes. It changes you into a box, but you can’t control when it happens, causing your character to slide around and fall off the stage. Several costumes that are used for attacking disable your ability to jump, such as the Dainty Dragon and the Sickle Slinger. It quickly becomes apparent that 80 costumes is way too much, and so many of them end up being completely useless. The Lovely Lantern is a good example of this, with its pointless ability to light up dark areas, when the stages aren’t even that dark to begin with.

It isn’t much of a challenge to go through the levels either. You may find yourself going back through a level a few times to collect all of the statues needed to unlock new stages, but completing them multiple times feels like a chore, especially with their lackluster design providing very little challenge. Even after finding all of the statues in the level proper, you still have to locate a top hat and do a QTE mini game with Balan called a “Balan’s Bout”. Matching his pose perfectly on each attempt will nab you a statue. Get even one not so perfect match and you’ll have to come back and redo it. These sequences feel very whimsical, but the same-animation-every-time routine that plays out gets old quick.

The catch to collecting the statues comes with the fact that not every one of them can be reached with the costumes in that specific chapter. At each checkpoint you can change your set of three costumes from ones you have picked up in other chapters, but if you happen to lose said costume, you’ll need to go back to the chapter it’s originally from and grab it again. It would have been so much easier to have the costumes available from that menu without having to go pick them up again. 

Once you finish two levels of each chapter, there is a boss fight, which are best routed by using the costumes specific to that chapter (though they’re all easy regardless). Beat them three times using different costumes and strategies and you get Balan statues. At times it feels like there should be a second phase to the fight when the screen pauses for a moment. If that were the case there might have been room for more gameplay variety. Boss fights in other games produced by Yuji Naka like Sonic Adventure 2 have interesting mechanics that make many of them fun and challenging the first time you play them, such as adding in new attacks to the bosses after a few blows to their weak spot, or using items like a timer to activate a panel revealing the sunlight to help weaken them.

Similarly disappointing compared to Naka’s past works is the Isle of Tims. Upon completing a level you will return to this hub full of little bird/rabbit like creatures named Tims that can be fed drops that you collect during the game. Once one gets big enough, it will show a bubble with another Tim in it. You’ll need to throw a smaller Tim at the big one to make it breed a new one. This isn’t the only way to get new ones, as the Tims follow you around in the levels and bring you new eggs to hatch when you return to the Isle. The point of collecting so many Tims is so they can ride a mechanism on a tower so many times that it will grow higher. This unlocks secret costumes and new Tims with different looks.

On the surface it feels like they tried to make the Isle like the Chao Garden in Sonic Adventure, but with less complexity. The Tims are certainly a cute addition to the game, but they don’t have that same effect as Chao did back in the day. If they wanted to do something similar, they could have added in some mini games similar to Chao Racing to do with the Tims, and made the system for them growing when eating drops more interesting, such as changing their color based on what color drop they ate the most of, or certain drops making them appear with new features like ears, a hat, or a tail. 

One of the only strong points for this game is its art direction. The designs of the bosses and the creatures in the game are quite creative and colorful. If you check out each specially made artwork for all of the creatures that the costumes are based on, they are actually really cute and look like something out of a children’s story book.

Unfortunately, nice art and colors do not save this game from being a bland waste of potential. Everything was there for a brand new fun experience with Yuji Naka on board to bring us a game in the spirit of those old SEGA games so many people loved in the 90s and early 2000s. Potentially, if the game was delayed, they could have fixed a lot of issues, such as removing a lot of the unneeded costumes and allowing the ones that can’t jump that ability, but as-is the game is a misguided mess.

Balan Wonderworld is a mediocre experience that failed to capture people like the classics it’s inspired by. It’s sad to see Yuji Naka attached to something that doesn’t live up to the hype it cultivated. It feels like most of the budget went into the opening cutscene and it shows. The standard price point of sixty dollars is downright ridiculous. Lately it got so much negative press that the demo was removed. If you are still curious about it, waiting for it to become dirt cheap would be best. However it’s clearly not something to write home about.

The post Balan Wonderworld Review appeared first on Gamesline.

In the news, Resident Evil demos were announced, Nintendo Indie World Showcase happened, modders are de-VRing Half-Life: Alyx, rumors of a Square Enix buyout, Twitch purges millions of viewbots, and IO Interactive is opening a new studio!

As always you can support us on our Patreon, and follow us on Twitter @VGChooChoo, @john_michonski, @mavsplaniamania, @erikamiaou and on instagram @fataleflare

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

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

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The post VGCC Episode 354: Big Time Talkin’ appeared first on Gamesline.