Emphasis was placed on how the game will be accessible to players of all skill levels, as well as on its performance- Quake Champions runs at 120hz and with an unlocked framerate. Bethesda also mentioned that they will be expanding their esports programs, and that more info about Champions will be at QuakeCon.

Check out the trailer below:

The post Bethesda Announces Quake Champions appeared first on Gamesline.

This is a video of John Michonski eating food during the E3 2015 period. Andi Clare and Myles Cox are here. Will Westwater cameos.

The post The John Michonski Experience 2k15 appeared first on Gamesline.

Follow us on Twitter @VGChooChoo, @JohnMichonski, @finaldasa, @NiallVGCC.

Hang out with the Choo Crew via iTunes, Hipcast, or Direct Download.

The post VGCC Episode 84: The Boys Are Back appeared first on Gamesline.

Over the course of the week, two things really stood out to me – both announcements, but for differing reasons. Revolving around two franchises that mean more to me than any others in games ever have – and maybe ever will – those two moments in time brought back fond memories, and reminded me why I love video games so much in the first place.

The first, as you might already expect, was the reveal of Mirror’s Edge: Catalyst. At the time the original Mirror’s Edge came out, my love for the medium had begun to wane, fairly significantly. Maybe it was the pressures of preparing for college entrance exams that school year. Maybe it was just that until that point the then incumbent console generation had yet to grab me on the back of what I personally had thought to be a severely disappointing couple of years. Whatever the reason, I wasn’t spending much time in front of my TV with a controller in hand. I’d more or less stopped paying attention to the industry, and when in fact I’d seen the game gracing the cover of Edge Magazine (I think) some months before it’s release, I had remarked “well, that sounds like a stupid idea for a game”.

But then the demo hit, and I downloaded it on the same half-baked whim I downloaded every demo at the time, most of which I never played or outright canceled before they ever installed. That demo, however short it was, was transformative for me – it sparked something in me. Playing the full release that Christmas morning ignited that spark, turning it into a flame that’s scarcely wavered ever since. Mirror’s Edge was an incredibly flawed experience – I’ll be the first to admit that – but it connected with me regardless, in a way that no game ever quite had, or has since. At least, not before this week.

Seeing the long-awaited rebooting of the franchise, as it finally burst into life on EA’s stage Monday afternoon felt like validation of sorts. Here it was, the game I love so dearly, more than any other, returning in the form I’d always hoped for, but never dared to dream possible. Every word that came out of producer Sara Jansson’s mouth on stage was music to my ears, the visuals a sight for sore eyes, and hearing glowing reviews from those who got to actually play the game ramped my excitement up even further.

Like I said, the original game was intensely and significantly flawed, and I’ll never pour scorn on the not insignificant number of people who felt that it wasn’t quite worth finishing. Yes, the controls were a little more finicky than they should have been, and yes, the game suffered badly from flow-breaking trial-and-error platforming, but deep down, there was an inherent charm to the experience. The original Mirror’s Edge arrived at a time when games were gritty, dark, and – to me – joyless. We’d had the first Modern Warfare, F.E.A.R, and Condemned 2, with a second Modern Warfare on the horizon. Gears of War and Resistance had just released sequels, and most of the big releases in the future were set to continue along those same lines tonally. Mirror’s Edge was a breath of fresh air – it’s bright, bold colours, sharp, angular aesthetic, airy electronic music and emphasis on movement, rather than combat was illuminating, and stood out amidst a medium whose contemporaries felt like they were going through their goth phase in unison.

The experience of stampeding across rooftops, bullets whizzing by, and leaping, stretching to catch the landing skids of a newscopter was unlike anything we’d seen before. The sensation of speed as Faith slid down the angled side of a building, having to time that final jump perfectly or meet certain doom an exhilaration that hasn’t quite been matched to this day. For all it’s flaws, Mirror’s Edge touched me in a way I hadn’t thought possible.

On the other hand, there was the announcement of Metroid Prime: Federation Force. Much like Mirror’s Edge, Metroid means a lot to me, for similar but different reasons. As a young child, I’d received my cousin’s old NES and SNES as castoffs, as he moved on to new hardware generations. While I played and enjoyed both, it wasn’t until receiving Super Metroid one year – I guess my sixth birthday – that I really fell in love with video games as a medium. The PlayStation era had already well and truly begun by then, but I was no more than peripherally aware.

It was Samus’ adventures on Zebes that captivated the young me like nothing ever had – and over the next year or so I played the game the game relentlessly, until a PlayStation finally did arrive in my house – complete with the walking tragedy that was Croc: Legend of the Gobbos. But even the disappointment Croc left me with couldn’t damage the fanaticism that Super Metroid had given me, and from there, things grew and grew, until Mirror’s Edge came along.

To see Federation Force – which I’m sure will turn out to be a great game – be the big new Metroid release, and not a full-fledged sequel to Prime: Corruption, or even a brand new Metroid series, left me with a strange, difficult to pinpoint sense of disappointment. Much like with Faith and Mirror’s Edge, it’s been forever since Samus’ last adventure, and I suppose that seeing Catalyst gave me a subconscious hope that this E3 would offer Metroid a rebirth of it’s own, even if I wasn’t aware how much I wanted it until after Federation Force had been unveiled.

As the world of games has settled down now that E3 has passed, I’ve taken the opportunity to rediscover Super Metroid, and even 21 years later, the game holds up phenomenally well. I write this as I celebrate victory over Phantoon, the Wrecked Ship’s boss, and approach the endgame for the first time in a good fifteen years. Okay – so maybe the platforming is a little bit clunky compared to what we’re used to today, but the sheer detail put into Super Metroid’s world design is unparalleled.  That’s not to say that the rest of the Metroid series isn’t just as good – with the possible exception of Other M, naturally – but Super Metroid, for me, is still the peak of the series.

If anything, playing the game again just makes me want to go out and take on the rest of the series once more – I’ve already managed to get my hands on copies of Fusion and Zero Mission – and I honestly can’t remember ever being as excited to revisit old games as I am to relive Samus’ tale from the beginning. Federation Force may not be the most exciting announcement of E3, and may not be the full-fledged addition to the series that Samus deserves, but just playing Super Metroid has warmed me to the idea of this latest instalment.

In the wake of E3, I’ve been left reflecting on just how much these two series, and their respective heroines mean to me. In Samus, and Metroid, I see what amounts to the closest thing I have to childhood love – the foundation of my passion for games, one that will likely span my lifetime. In Mirror’s Edge, and Faith, I see the present, and potentially future – the maturing of my adult tastes and ability to recognize the art and deeper meaning behind games; even if that happens to be unique and solely personal to me. That is, of course, not to say I don’t appreciate the artistry behind Metroid, or that I consider it juvenile, far from it. If anything, Mirror’s Edge showing me what a game could be in an artistic sense opened my eyes up to even further appreciate Samus and her adventures.

Whatever the deeper reason may be, Samus, Faith, and the games in which they star connect with me like no other games. E3 has helped to highlight that for me, and I can only hope that, in the future, more games will strike me in similar fashion.

The post On E3, and Why I Love Games appeared first on Gamesline.

Say goodbye to E3 2015 via iTunes, Hipcast, or Direct Download.

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John:

BEST GAME: 

Since I was actually able to play games, I’m a bit privileged in my opinions. I am, however, also at a bit of a crossroads. Two VERY different games wowed me at the show, and it’s nearly impossible for me to choose one over the other, because I feel it’d be a disservice to the other. Those games are Transformers: Devastation and Unravel.

Transformers is the next logical step in Platinum’s gameplay style. It plays similarly to Bayonetta or Metal Gear Rising, but with faster movement and an easier way to continue combos. Both of these mechanics are thanks to vehicle modes, allowing you to turn into a car and move around the map faster and ram into enemies mid-combo to keep on truckin’. There’s also Platinum staples such as Witch Time (not called that specifically, but it is what it is) and new weapon equips, and new features such as loot-drops, which is where you’ll most likely be getting those new weapons. Mike Cosimano flipped out near-constantly over minute details strewn about the stages, so if you’re a Transformers fan in general, you’ll be happy to know that all your trivia knowledge will be acknowledged in this game. Devastation plays like a dream, I warmed up to it so fast, the guy showing me the demo had to pry me away from the kiosk because I was about to enter unfinished territory and crash the game.

Unravel, on the other hand, is a much more personal game, which I can respect. Everyone fell in love with Yarny and his creator Martin Sahlin after Unravel’s nervous but genuine premiere during the EA press conference. I was worried the game wouldn’t play well, but my fears were pretty much squashed! Yarny has a constant tether on his left, which he can use to climb out of any hole he falls down. Checkpoints refill your yarn, and quick cursory glances around the area are all you need to progress, but the puzzles can get a bit tricky at times, so it’s not a complete cakewalk. I was very glad that the controls were snappy and the platforming was fair, since games like these will often sacrifice gameplay for story. The balance Unravel had between the two is what excited me most, and for that I’m thankful.

WORST GAME: 

I had to pass by a Minions banner every time I was in the South Hall and I hated it. Minions suck.

Niall:

BEST GAME:

Look, you already know what’s gonna be my choice for the best game of E3. You’ve heard the podcasts, you’ve seen me flipping out on social media – there’s no way it can’t be Mirror’s Edge: Catalyst. I’ve been waiting for this game for the past seven years now, and it feels like this reboot is being made specifically for me. Every issue I had with the main game seems to have been addressed – the linearity, the poor combat, the completely unnecessary gunplay – and all for the better. The combat’s been refined, the gunplay removed, the game now takes place in an open world with no loading times or levels, and most of all, it’s retained it’s gorgeous visual aesthetic. I had a nagging worry that Catalyst was gonna be a gritty reboot, but seeing that it wasn’t was a huge relief. I’m a sucker for cyberpunk, and seeing my favourite game get a cyberpunk makeover, while retaining everything that made it so great the first time around sealed the deal. Word from the show floor was that it played tremendously, with all the new additions and improvements fitting the game’s vision. Don’t expect to see me for a few weeks come February 23rd.

WORST GAME:

Hoo boy, did Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 5 look ropey. Just about the highest praise I heard from the game coming out of E3 came from Chooch’s own John Michonski, who said it “seemed fine”. When Geoff Keighley interviewed Hawk on YouTube’s E3 stream, the highs of what had, until then, been an incredibly strong E3 came crashing down. If Sara Jansson had told me everything I wanted to hear during Catalyst’s stage presentation, Hawk did the opposite. His insistence that the game would have the exact same controls that the original had was intensely worrying – they haven’t exactly held up well, as the HD remake showed, and Hawk kept digging a deeper hole from there. Two minute time limits, reusing old levels from previous THPS games, the fact that the game was essentially done; none of it made me particularly enthusiastic about the future of such an iconic series, especially for one that’s pretty close to my heart. Adding in that it looked on stream like an early Xbox 360 game did things no favours. If gameplay hasn’t been modernized, then there’s no way it’ll stand toe-to-toe with contemporaries like Skate or even OlliOlli, no matter how many players the online mode accommodates.

Michael:

BEST GAME:

There was a lot to be impressed with. What makes E3 really special for me is seeing something brand new and getting excited for it. Taking a risk is difficult with ‘AAA’ games since they cost so much money so we rarely see new, grand, IP introduced at these shows. And then Guerilla Games stepped out at the Sony press conference and showed off their new game, Horizon. A mix of robot dinosaur, colorful environments, and Monster Hunter like gameplay grabbed my attention and sparked my imagination. I’m still going to need to see more from Horizon before I feel prepared to plop down $60 but seeing something that new, that adventurous, was a real treat that only E3 can give us. Horizon probably won’t live up to the hype I’m building in my head. It probably won’t be this deep RPG with hunting mechanics and a village you need to take care of. But it is firing off the neurons deep in my mind that love seeing the horizon ever expand and new worlds explored. We’re explorers down to our souls and seeing something so vivid and new presented so wonderfully sparks some light into that often dark place in our minds.

WORST GAME:

This E3 was packed with nothing but good looking games. To choose one to be the “worst” is almost a misnomer since so many titles really did impress, even games I know aren’t for me. Kingdom Hearts 3, The Division, the Destiny expansion, and Disney Infinity 3.0 aren’t usually on my radar but seriously impressed with what they showed at the show. One game stood out as a complete dud in my mind though, Plants Vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare 2. I enjoyed the first Garden Warfare and a new one actually sounds exciting but what they showed both at Microsoft’s conference and at EA’s only served up a big yawn. The game doesn’t look better, the bullet point add on’s seem more like a DLC update than a $60 sequel. Then there was the Zombie superman outfits and the extended demo at EA that was just too much. Maybe, one day, I’ll buy that game at a deep discount and enjoy it. For now however I just want a real, non-free to play, sequel to the original Plants Vs. Zombies.

The post VGCC’s E3 Winners and Losers: Games appeared first on Gamesline.

John: 

BEST CONFERENCE:

The obvious “winner” is Sony. It’s hard to be displeased with Sony’s showing, even if I’m wishy-washy over how quality the “big reveals” will end up being, I still got excited over Final Fantasy 7 and Shenmue. Uncharted 4 has so many new details and interactables that add to the gameplay, and I laughed pretty hard at Sully’s lines, so that’ll be good. Even divorced from franchise revivals, things such as Horizon: Zero Dawn and No Man’s Sky were what really kept my attention. I spaced out during the Morpheus bits, but overall I think Sony knocked it out of the park, at least comparatively. It wasn’t a great show conference-wise, but being on the show floor, I was able to find gems that didn’t have a lot of press time, or I learned details about games that made me love them more.

WORST CONFERENCE:

Even though I feel like Ubisoft had fewer interesting games, EA’s conference was so poorly formatted, I almost feel sorry for them. Following up the genuine and heartwarming Unravel with goddamn Plants vs Zombies? I almost choked on my own spit from the whiplash. Everyone brings up how awful the Pele/Hoop Gawd bits were, but that’s because THEY WERE THE WOOOORST. EA’s sports section is constantly terrible, even if you look at it from a sports game fan’s point of view. Mirror’s Edge and Star Wars: Battlefront were sensational showings, but it was the diamond buried deep within a turd. EA didn’t have the worst set of games, but they had the worst show.

Kay:

BEST CONFERENCE:

For me, placing the best conference this year is a bit harder than placing the worst. Nobody was a standout as Super Amazing, but most of them were competently done and entertaining, with enough interesting games between them to keep people interested. While I’d argue for some kind of honorable mention to Nintendo for having the most “fun” conference to watch, Sony manages to edge out the competition for best conference at E3 this year. While it didn’t have cute muppet versions of presenters, it had a lot of titles people have been chomping at the bit for. Even ignoring everything else, the combination of The Last Guardian, a Final Fantasy VII HD remake, and Shenmue 3 is enough to give them a critical edge over the competition, and that’s not including the other cool tidbits they featured. I know I was personally overjoyed by both the glorious return of Birdie in Street Fighter V and the amazing gameplay demonstration of  No Man’s Sky. While it wasn’t as awe-inspiring as seeing what was essentially a hologram of Minecraft on a table, Morpheus certainly looked fun. While there were some low-points spread out in there like Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 and DLC for Destiny, they managed to end on a high note with a demo of Uncharted Kart Uncharted 4: A Theif’s End. While Bethesda, Microsoft, and Nintendo all put out solid conferences, Sony managed to offer just a little more than the rest of them.

WORST CONFERENCE:

This year, for me there was one particular standout in the shitty conference department, and that standout was Ubisoft. Some might argue in favor of EA being the worst, but for me it was like the difference between watching The Room and watching Grown Ups 2; one is a movie that while bad, is humorous and enjoyable because of it, while the other is a painful experience that makes you want to avert your eyes and ask how it ever got made. Starting off on the wrong foot with a South Park game, the show managed to go downhill from there. The show was mainly padded by Tom Clancy games, to the point where you expected Tom Clancy himself to rise from the grave and come on stage with a loaded gun in one hand and a controller in the other to participate in the painfully scripted demonstration of The Division. Between these parts were such lowlights as the them talking about The Crew DLC for reasons unknown, lolrandom DLC for Trials Fusion that looks straight out of the mind of a 13 year old who’s trying way to hard, and the people at Ubisoft trying to force a meme despite apparently not knowing what a meme is. I want to give Aisha Tyler credit for doing her best to seem genuine despite hosting a horrible conference, but also she was wearing a golden “girlwood” necklace. Trackmania Turbo looked interesting, but everything else was either uninteresting or straight-up boring. It wasn’t the WORST e3 show of all time (looking at you, 2010 Konami Conference), but it was definitely the worst one this year.

Niall:

BEST CONFERENCE:

It’s gotta be Sony. Microsoft came out swinging, and were probably well on their way to “winning” E3 – if you can call it that – but as soon as The Last Guardian hit, Sony had it in the bag. I don’t care much for Final Fantasy VII – I think the original suffers from some dreadful writing – but nobody can deny that news of a remake was earth-shattering. For Sony to follow that up with Shenmue III, and show off new IP like Horizon: Zero Dawn, they hit back at Microsoft punch-for-punch, just as hard. No Man’s Sky looks absolutely amazing, Uncharted 4 is gonna be huge, and even though it’s a little inside baseball, bringing Call of Duty – whatever you think of the series – to the stage was a major power play for Sony, and a real gut punch to Microsoft. Just about the only disappointment I had where Sony was concerned was the lack of David Cage. WHERE WAS HE? WHERE WAS THE MESSIAH?

WORST CONFERENCE:

For the life of me, I just cannot care about anything that was shown at Ubisoft’s press conference. The Division didn’t interest me when we first saw it, and it still hasn’t won me over. Rainbow Six has always been a pretty decent series, but it doesn’t particularly excite me either, and rounding the show out with more Tom Clancy via Ghost Recon was a let down. I haven’t played The Stick of Truth, and while I’ve heard good things, I’m not super interested in more South Park. And don’t get me started on Assassin’s Creed – seriously, can we not just give that series a break? And c’mon, could we not have seen at least a teaser for some kind of standalone Blood Dragon game? Sure, Square Enix’s press conference was pretty amateurish in it’s execution, and yes, EA made some strange choices in terms of presentation (Pele? Tha Hoop Gawd?), but at least both of them showed off games I actually want to play.

Michael:

BEST CONFERENCE:

While both Microsoft and Sony delivered some strong conferences this has to go to Bethesda. For their first time conference Bethesda looked like they belonged among the big boys and brought plenty of ammo to keep up. Doom 4, now just called Doom, started the show off and though I wasn’t convinced by their gameplay trailer it did look flashy and gruesome. Dishonored 2 was announced with a female and male protagonist and hinting at different powers, weapons, and enemies with the same stealth/action assassination gameplay from the original. Then they ended with the big bomb, Fallout 4. The world looks varied and colorful compared to older entries in the series and the addition of a build-able and destructible world seems incredible. In one hour, and for the first time, Bethesda proved they’re a contender in the games industry. Just go watch Square Enix’s conference, another publisher making their conference debut, and you can see just how boring Bethesda could have been.

WORST CONFERENCE:

Electronic Arts. Probably the second largest publisher in the industry with a huge team of developers at it’s beck and call and we got ten minutes with Pele. Even with Battlefront and Mirror’s Edge waiting at the end EA meandered and wandered aimlessly like a drunk frat boy trying to walk home. Need For Speed and Unravel were great anchors towards the beginning of the show, but that was it. We waded through mobile games, an Old Republic update, and Plants Vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare 2 before finding the truly stinky part of their game lineup swamp, sports. Hockey, basketball, golf, soccer, and football peppered the show with excruciating presentations. Hockey was given a lengthy trailer with emotional voice over, NBA Live brought on “Hoop Gawd” their community manager, and Madden gave us the same tired line about fantasy leagues and “completely reinvented” passing. Their sports should be lumped together in an all encompassing spot but instead, we were given one sports surprise after another. And then FIFA turned our boredom into a coma. Pele, arguably the greatest player of all time, was sat on stage next to an EA executive who then asked him about his career. Ten minutes went by, time slowed, for a moment we could see the universe bending until finally it was all over. EA felt like a fever dream deep in the jungles of the Amazon.

The post VGCC’s E3 Winners and Losers: Press Conferences appeared first on Gamesline.

I’m hoping Cuphead is a wake up call to the talented artists and developers out there who will now challenge themselves to be something new, fresh, and unique. Video games don’t have to be stuck in a sitcom style mold where every piece has its place and nothing can ever change. Let’s shake up our own expectations and see what could really be possible.

Cuphead is set to release in 2016 for PC and Xbox One.

The post Cuphead Looks Glorious appeared first on Gamesline.

Michel Ancel, creator of Beyond Good and Evil and Rayman, left Ubisoft and started his own development company and began working on a new game called Wild. Ubisoft and Ancel claimed he was still tied to the publisher and was working on Beyond Good and Evil 2 despite having gone off on his own. Then Gamespot news editor Tamoor Hussain did some digging and though he couldn’t confirm some of the facts does say that he’s “been told it’s been abandoned—in a big way. The studio has moved on. The key people from that studio that were making it moved onto other projects outside of Ubisoft. Like I said, I might be wrong on that, but I had enough of it to chase that small lead.”.

The story gets strange when IGN jumps in as well. In a story that has since been pulled down from the site, with no reason given as to why, IGN spoke to Ubisoft’s VP marketing and sales Tony Key. Key did say he wanted to see another game in the series but said Ancel was very busy and ” no…He’s got things going on and I can’t really comment on his bandwidth.”. With no comment as to why that story was taken down or any comment from Ubisoft about Beyond Good and Evil it’s starting to look bad for fans. The new generation of hardware makes any older titles formerly in development even harder to finish since it’ll need to be upgraded or converted to the newer systems. Maybe the title will pull and Last Guardian and appear, suddenly, at an E3 in the future but for now we’ll have to wait. For now just watch this leaked footage and wonder what could be.

The post Beyond Good & Evil 2 In Limbo appeared first on Gamesline.

The brief video showed little more than gorgeous concept art, but also revealed the game is being developed by the newly-established Tokyo RPG Factory, a company which appropriately represents a “dedication to making Japanese RPGs.” Speculation about the project abounds, with some thinking it may be a return to the “good old days” of RPGs.

“Setsuna” is a Japanese word can be translated as meaning “a moment” or “an instant.” No word on what this could mean for the project, but Matsuda mentioned it as the beginning of a “series” and not just a single game. Check out the presentation below:

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