It’s that time again, time to catch up with John and Rose as they talk about the week in gaming. John Samurai’d his way to Otakon with Maverick last week then got himself a CRT so he could experience classic PS2 games the way they were meant to be enjoyed as he continues to try to make his way through Rain Code. Rose has been reading a ton of Fate when she’s not playing Ghost Trick, Pikmin 4, or Tactics Ogre Reborn.

In the news, Mario Kart and Splatoon are back online, Red Dead Redemption is getting ported to Switch and PS4 and Feminist Frequency is shutting down. Kai Cenat caused a riot in NYC, Anthony Fantano and Activision are beefing, and Evo was a massive night for announcements.

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

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Edited by Lorelai

The post The Gamesline Podcast Ep. 13: EVOtakon appeared first on Gamesline.

Tribeca Games Fest

The Tribeca Games Fest is part of the much bigger lineup of the annual Tribeca Festival, featuring programming that has been spanning across a whole week. The Fest has been steadily growing with a smattering of not only games demos, but films and workshops since the induction of games as a distinct, recognized category in Tribeca since 2021.

Interviewed by filmmaker Mike Flanagan, Sam Lake of Remedy Entertainment talked about the influences behind the upcoming Alan Wake 2, and the two shared their thoughts on horror as a storytelling medium.

Games like Chants of Sennaar, Despelote, Goodbye Volcano High, Stray Gods, and A Highland Song were exhibited at Tribeca with playable demos.

Telltale Games’ adaptation of The Expanse, serving as a sequel to the Amazon series, was accompanied by both an industry talk with some members of the team and a game demo as well.

And one of the big talks of Tribeca is a screening of Hideo Kojima: Connecting Worlds, a documentary on Hideo Kojima.

The Wholesome Games Direct

As usual, the Wholesale Games showcase delivers a vast catalog of titles that try to tap into something cute and comfy.

There were several titles have been already previously published, but are anticipating a wider console release, such as Button City and Witch Beam’s Unpacking.

There were games about being small, such as Frogsong, Smushi Come Home, and Garden Buddies. Frogsong is a roleplaying adventure game that puts you in the role of a frog, putting you out in a fantasy world filled with combat and creatures much bigger than you.

Meanwhile, there were other games about looking at the bigger picture, such as Flutter Away, The Guardian of Nature, and Let’s Revolution! Let’s Revolution! is a tactics-style, roguelite puzzle game that works similarly to a classic round of Minesweeper.

And lest we not forget whole influx of games where gardening and farming mechanics are at the heart of their narrative, such as further developments unveiled behind Fields of Mistria, Garden Witch Life, and even a shout-out to the upcoming Story of Seasons: A Wonderful Life, a remake of the Harvest Moon title of the same name. On top of some new cosmetic updates, Story of Seasons fans can anticipate this remake being the first game in the whole franchise that will allow same-sex marriage and broader gender options.

Ubisoft Forward

Ubisoft elaborated further on some titles already showcased during the Summer Games Fest, such as Prince of Persia: The Lost Crown. But the Forward presentation went on to debut some new things Ubisoft had up its own sleeve, such as gameplay footage of Star Wars Outlaws.

Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora is set to be a first-person action shooter where players will be put in the role of a Na’vi.

An extended look was also given to Assassins’ Creed Mirage, as well as Nexus and Codename Jade, Ubisoft’s first foray into VR and mobile gamign respectively.

The PC Gaming Show

The PC Gaming Show featured mostly a slew of sequels and further expanses tied to large franchises.

Frostpunk, Path of Exile, Citizen Sleeper, and Brethedge are all getting sequels.

Vampire Survivors is getting an update, and the Pathfinder name is earning itself its own Vampire Survivors riff with Gallowspire Survivors. More gameplay footage was shown of Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Realms of Ruin. And further content was also introduced to Baldur’s Gate 3.

Some behind the scenes developments were shown with the ongoing progress of the Dune: Awakening MMORPG.

There was a significant huge round-up of new, original strategy titles, such as Fabledom, Nova Roma, Last Train Home, and Earthless.

With even many other original titles that were teased in the mix, we managed to get gameplay of Bloomtown, a dark RPG that subverts the initial facade of a wholesome life sim.

Most importantly, we got a glimpse of Ebenezer and the Invisible World, a Metroidvania set in some whacky interpretation of Charles Dickesn’ A Christmas Carol. Tiny Tim has a dive kick.

Capcom Showcase

The Capcom showcase wasn’t a heap of new info, but we did get some new looks at games that we have seen before.

The new series Kunitsu-Gami got a gameplay trailer, showing the slick combat and fantastic art style. You’re seemingly tasked with removing curses from people and places, and having those freed people join you in your quest. No release date for it just yet, but it’ll be on PS5, Xbox Series, and PC.

Megaman X Dive is a gacha game that is getting shut down in the coming months, but Capcom has decided to release an offline version to let people play the game without worry of its impending collapse. Most of the playable characters will be available as well as over 900 stages. No word on how character unlocks will work here, but hopefully the gacha mechanics from the original release are removed smoothly. It’ll be released on Steam and mobile phones.

Pragmata, Capcom’s mysterious sci-fi action game, has been delayed indefinitely after its previous two delays. We really don’t know much about this, except that you’re a guy in a cool space suit fighting robots and protecting a little girl. There’s some gameplay shown in this trailer, and it does look cool! Guess we’ll be left waiting quite a while to know what’s really going on here.

Shu Takumi’s franchises, Ace Attorney and Ghost Trick, both had some pretty big updates. Ghost Trick has a demo available now, and a new Ace Attorney collection, Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney Trilogy, has been announced. Ghost Trick is due out June 30th and Apollo’s Wacky Adventures will ship some time at the start of 2024.

We got some information about Exoprimal, the dinosaur killing EDF-like as well. Some story was shown off, then modes such as a five-player weekly challenge that changes its structure each week. There will be an open beta from June 16th to the 18th, and the game launches July 14th on PS4/5, PC, and Xbox Series.

Finally, we got a look at Dragon’s Dogma 2. The game’s director, Hideaki Itsuno, talked a bit about Dragon’s Dogma‘s gameplay structure, revealing that the beloved pawn system would be returning, allowing you to have a pawn of your own plus two sub-pawns from your friends. There was also talk of map size, which Itsuno claims is four times the size of the original game. No release date, but expect Dragon’s Dogma 2 on PC, Xbox Series, and PS5.

Devolver Direct

Devolver’s showcase was another “comedy” event (which personally, some of us didn’t watch as the last few have been excruciating.) They did show off four games that are daring to be something different compared to everything else we have seen so far, so we can give them some credit where it’s due here!

Baby Steps, the new game from the team behind Ape Out and Bennett Foddy of QWOP and Getting Over It fame, is a “walking simulator” where a manchild named Nate has to leave his parents’ basement and literally learn to walk on his own again.

Human Fall Flat, a goofy physics-based puzzler from 2016, is getting a sequel.

The Talos Principle 2, which was already shown at the PlayStation showcase, got a new gameplay trailer.

Finally, Wizard with a Gun, a game about. Just. That. It debuted a story trailer as well as the release of a demo on Steam.

Grasshopper Direct

The Grasshopper Direct was hyped for over two months, with a webpage promising that “something’s gonna happen” and a countdown running until June 15th at midnight. Once the clock struck midnight, however, the post was delayed around an hour and a half because they seemingly didn’t pre-upload the video to YouTube.

Once the video was posted? A small amount of Shadows of the Damned news (they’re projecting to release it on all current consoles) and a blurred out shot of their next game. And a new merch store. That’s it. There might’ve been some other teases in there, but other than an admittedly cool showcase of 25 years of their games, this felt like a waste of time.

The post The Bulletin: Everything Else But an E3 appeared first on Gamesline.

The Capcom Spotlight Event

The Capcom Spotlight Event showcased a handful of more news and announcements of the publisher’s upcoming games:

The Resident Evil 4 Remake now has a special demo that is now available to play, called Resident Evil 4: Chainsaw Demo. The demo puts players in the beginning of what might potentially be in the final game.

Monster Hunter Rise: Sunbreak will be coming to Playstation and Xbox consoles this April.

The official Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective remaster will arrive to all current-gen platforms this summer in June.

The Mega Man Battle Network Legacy Collection continues to add new content, officially compiling 10 titles of the series into a two-parter digital release.

Street Fighter 6 continues to build up hype towards its release by closing in on its roster of commentators part of the Real-Time Commentary Feature that can be enabled in-game, with Japanese actress Hikaru Takahashi being the last to be included in the base game upon launch. Takahashi will be joining Jeremy “Vicious” Lopez, Ryutaro “Aru” Noda, Kosuke Hiraiwa, and Steve “TastySteve” Scott, Thea Trinidad, H.E. Demon Kakka, and James “jchensor” Chen.

In other news…

Square Enix has been facing some hurdles recently, especially in regards to the lackluster outcome of Forspoken, and has further commented that their smaller and mid-sized titles overall are not meeting their performance numbers as expected.

Discord is experimenting to potentially integrate more AI on its platform. The first tests will be a putting forth a new version of the Clyde bot in community servers, allowing it to be able to function as a chatbot with users. Other tests with AI aim to further assist AutoMod. These settings are already enabled by default with Discord’s latest update, so users are being cautioned to check their own settings.

PSA: Turn these off ASAP. Discord are doing dumb shit. https://t.co/aKSk18RaDo pic.twitter.com/1zJWvYKscw

— Lorcan0c (@Lorcan0c) March 9, 2023

The original Atelier Marie Plus: The Alchemist of Salburg is releasing in English for the first time.

The Super Mario Bros. Movie had a dedicated Nintendo Direct special to debut the final trailers before the movie’s nearing theatrical release. The Direct featured appearances with the movie’s main cast, such as Chris Pratt, Anya Taylor-Joy, and Jack Black. The Super Mario Bros. Movie will be releasing in USA theaters on April 5.

The post The Bulletin: Give That Boy Another Knife appeared first on Gamesline.

Here’s the full Direct if you just want to watch!

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom got a new trailer, which showed off more enemies and vehicles, but not much else. It releases May 12th, and will also be the first Nintendo Switch game to…sigh….be $70.

Pikmin 4‘s trailer revealed the new Hocotatians you’ll play as, the new Ice Pikmin, and an adorable dog-like creature that’ll help you on your quest for riches. The title releases July 21st.

Splatoon 3 is getting an expansion pass. The first wave will allow you to return to Inkopolis from the first Splatoon, letting you shop at the old stores as well. Wave two will introduce what seems to be a new story called Side Order.

Game Boy and Game Boy Advance games were added to Switch Online. Original Game Boy and Game Boy Color will be available to all Switch Online subscribers, but Game Boy Advance is only available for Expansion Pass subs. You’ll have to pay extra for Mario and Luigi: Superstar Saga.

A remaster of the original Metroid Prime dropped on the eshop right after the Direct. It may say it’s a remaster, but many people are thinking this may be a full remake, with new visuals and engine effects. A physical release is coming February 22nd.

The Xenoblade 3 expansion pass has been fully detailed, with the final new hero, Masha, arriving on February 15th. Later this year, part four will release, which is a new story that stars Shulk, Rex, and other characters from the past games.

Fashion Dreamer is a new fashion design title by the creators of the Style Savvy games. No idea why Nintendo isn’t just publishing this but hey, it’s Style Savvy in all but name.

Ghost Trick is getting a modern port. This will also be available on Sony and Microsoft consoles as well as PC this Summer.

We Love Katamari is getting the Reroll treatment, dropping a remaster of the beloved second game in the series June 2nd. There will also be a new mode called Royal Reverie where you can play as a younger King of All Cosmos. This will also be available on all other consoles.

Level-5 is back from their hiatus, announcing three titles in one Direct! The first was a new IP, DECAPOLICE, in which you solve mysteries and otherwise perform police duties (the fictional good kind, for what it’s worth). They also announced a new Fantasy Life, Fantasy Life i: The Girl who Steals Time. Both of these titles are due this year. Finally, a new Professor Layton game was teased, Professor Layton and the New World of Steam. No release date there, but it’s fantastic to see our favorite top hat gentleman return.

Advance Wars 1+2: ReBoot Camp has a release date of April 21st. Previously delayed due to the Ukraine war, hopefully it releases and there aren’t any other historical events that run into its release. Again.

The first details of the Mario Kart 8 Deluxe DLC’s fourth wave are here, and it will include a Yoshi’s Island course and the addition of Birdo as a playable character. Every time I (John) think of Birdo I just hear the audio clips from Mario Advance. This truly will be as far as I go.

Fire Emblem Engage‘s DLC was also detailed, with new Emblems Soren, Hector, and Camilla released now and Chrom/Robin and Veronica coming in wave three. Wave four will include a new story, “Fell Xenologue”.

Etrian Odyssey‘s first three entries are getting HD remasters, all releasing on June 1st for Switch and Steam. They will be $40 each or $80 for all three, and preordering the games will get you Shin Megami Tensei-related character portraits for each game.

Both Baten Kaitos games, deckbuilding RPGs for GameCube by MonolithSoft, are getting remasters for Switch. These remasters are pretty standard fare, with updated graphics and new battle functions, but not much else. This bundle will release this Summer.

Samba de Amigo is back with Party Central, allowing for the Switch Joycons to be used as maracas for rhythm fun. It’ll be out sometime this Summer.

The newest Mickey Mouse and co. game, Disney Illusion Island, will release July 28th. 

The remaster of Kirby’s Return to Dreamland, the lesser-known Kirby title for the Wii, has a demo available now. There is also a new Magalor focused epilogue and new mini-games. The game launches February 24th.

TRON: Identity, an narrative puzzler set in the TRON universe by Bithell Games, releases in April.

There were more tidbits in the Direct, but for now let’s move on…

In other news…

YouTube contractors in Texas went on strike in protest of a policy requiring a mandatory return and reporting back to in-office work. Workers allege that Alphabet, YouTube’s parent company, have recently tried to reinforce the policy as a union busting tactic.

The Securities and Exchange Commission of the United States (SEC) is fining Activision-Blizzard due to its failing to disclose the issues of workplace sexual harassment to its investors, hopping in on the train of now more than a handful of government agents still taking legal action against the company. The SEC notes that the company failed to properly report and collect information on instances of workplace issues, which is deemed necessary to disclose to certain parties.

In a continuing string of the sunsetting of several games, Knockout City will be shutting down this coming June. However, there are at least intentions of a private-server version of the game to be released some time after.

CrossfireX servers will be shutting down in a much earlier time in mid-May. The Xbox Store has started halting purchases and providing refunds associated with the game.

Turtle Rock Studios has also ended Back 4 Blood’s string of post-launch content hopping on to focus on their next title.

Square Enix is apparently not doing so hot financially, citing their numbers of the previous fiscal year starting in mid-2022. Sales of games failed to reach numbers on part of the year prior, which also overlapped with the recent decline of mobile game use.

Meanwhile, Dwarf Fortress is popping off, and developer Bay 12 Games is celebrating the game’s latest, fantastic earnings report by finally considering the hiring of another person on the team. Bay 12 has been primarily ran by brothers Tarn and Zach Adams for years, powered by the donations of a dedicated playerbase that supported the original game.

Friend of the site Food4Dogs will be starting to take it easy on her video output in order to take care and prioritize her health. We wish her all the best! You can listen to our Starlight Car interview with Food4Dogs here.

The post The Bulletin: The Latest Nintendo Direct and More appeared first on Gamesline.

In the news we talk about labor complaints against Nintendo as well as the Raven Software unionization news. Final Fantasy XIV is having a housing crisis, Digimon Survive actually has a release date and Xenoblade Chronicles 3 actually got moved up.

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

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

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