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.

Also, don’t forget to rate and review us on Apple Podcasts, and tell a friend about the show!

If you want to send in questions, send them to our email podcast@gamesline.net!

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

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.

Big Updates from Big Devs

The latest Assassin’s Creed game, set in Japan, has been detailed. Titled Assassin’s Creed: Shadows, the game stars a female shinobi named Naoe and Yasuke, the famous black samurai who was a retainer to Oda Nobunaga. Shadows will be available November 15th, 2024.

Dead by Daylight dev Behaviour Interactive lad out a few updates for the game, including their next two collaborations. Coming next is a Dungeons and Dragons expansion, with playable killer Vecna and playable survivors Aestri Yazar and Baermar Uraz (who are one character, just two people. Like the Ice Climbers I guess?). Their next collab was also teased, a Castlevania expansion with Dracula as the killer. The DnD update will launch June 3rd, and more information about Big Drac will drop August 6th.

Behaviour also detailed other projects, including The Casting of Frank Stone, their collaboration with Until Dawn creator Supermassive Games, their shooter Project T, and a new rougue-lite game called What the Fog.

Sony has announced the new CEOs of PlayStation. Herman Hulst, previously the co-founder of Guerrilla Games, and Hideaki Nishino, previously SVP of Platform Experiences, will take their mantles in June. Hulst will be in charge of the Studio Business Group, the part of the company in charge of first-party games and adaptation of the games in other mediums. Nishino’s job will be running the Platform Business Group, with third-party games and hardware on their docket.

Take-Two has confirmed in a recent earnings call that Grand Theft Auto VI, the game that’ll probably shift the entire economy on launch, is due out in the Fall of 2025.

The Industry Continues to Bleed

In the same earnings call that gave GTAVI a release window, Take-Two’s CEO Strauss Zelnick claimed that Roll7 and Intercept Games, two studios that got internal memos informing them of their shuttering, are actually not closed. Take-Two previously put up smoke and mirrors during their closure of 2K Marin, which hasn’t ever been formally confirmed.

Square Enix, after a report stating Final Fantasy VII: Rebirth, Final Fantasy XVI, and Foamstars were disappointments, announced they would be laying off staff in IT, publishing, and their indie game division Square Enix Collective. Those effected will be informed over the next month.

After Tango Gameworks’ announced closure, the team seemed to have enough time to squeeze out a final hurrah. A final update to Hi-Fi Rush has been released to combat a few final bugs, and the Limited Run release of the physical copy is confirmed to still be releasing.

The previously thought cancelled update to Redfall that would allow for offline play will also be released.

On June 10th, the Switch will no longer allow for direct posting of screenshots and videos to Twitter or the use of Twitter to search for friends thanks to the biggest moron on the planet.

The post The Bulletin: Good Behaviour is Killer appeared first on Gamesline.

It’s a John and Maverick show for episode 412 of the podcast! We talk stupid news, GTA 6 leaks, Splatoon 3, Splatfest, John continues to enjoy Xenoblade 3, has mixed thoughts on Soul Hackers 2, Among Us and Hololive have a new collaboration out, GameStop is giving out copies of Babylon’s Fall, Deltarune’s Spamton makes some noise, EVGA and Nvidia split, Maverick takes us deeper into the world of Honkai Impact, and Twitch is now regulating gambling content.

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.

Subscribe via iTunes, Hipcast, direct download, or listen below!

The post VGCC Episode 412: Vtubers are Sus appeared first on Gamesline.

In the news, Shinzo Abe got assassinated and a bunch of racist channers tricked people into blaming Hideo Kojima for it. In tragic news, Yu-gi-oh‘s manga creator Kazuki Takahashi died in a tragic accident. Gamestop laid off a ton more people from Game informer, Rockstar is stopping development on Red Dead Redemption and Grand Theft Auto 4 remasters because the GTA Trilogy remasters sucked and shifting everyone to Grand Theft Auto 6‘s Development. E3 is coming back in conjunction with ReedPop and Yuji Naka is having a complete breakdown on twitter while Intellivision might be making a comeback. SGDQ happened, and some guy just straight up cheated a run of Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance and Elden Ring hero Let Me Solo Her was gifted a sword and a ton of cool extras after killing Malenia 1000 times. Monster Rancher Ultraman Kaiju is officially being released in the US as well as Witch on the Holy Night. A fan bought enough Nintendo stock to join an investor meeting and ask about F-Zero while some Final Fantasy XIV players bought multiple billboards to advertise an in game event for their ERP venue.

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

Subscribe via iTunes, Hipcast, direct download, or listen below!

The post VGCC Episode 401: We Huntin’ Monsters. appeared first on Gamesline.

Employees at WIRED are asking readers to not click on or support any pages from the publication on July 12 and 13, Amazon Prime Day, to support a walkout. After more than a year of bargaining, Conde Nast management still hasn’t negotiated a fair contract with the shop.

Rockstar Games is shelving the idea of remastering some of its past titles such as GTA IV and Red Dead Redemption. Speculation suggests this decision is made due to the poor response to the GTA Trilogy.

According to trademark documentation, the status of the Intellivision Amico is now up in the air. Initial findings have discovered that the trademark for the system seemingly abandoned, but it has been refilled as of a couple of days ago.

As an acknowledgement of their “Let Me Solo Her” Elden Ring exploits, Bandai Namco has sent the player, who goes by @TsuboiKlein on Twitter, a massive gift box set, including an engraved sword.

A Nintendo fan spent over $40,000 in stock just to ask a top executive a question. He simply wanted to ask if there will ever be more F-Zero games.

An FC in Final Fantasy XIV tried to advertise a special, internal summer event featuring a link to their Discord server through a series of billboards. A couple of these boards have been spotted in Texas, and there are rumors that they are also supposed to go up in California. The billboards faced scrutiny due to its copyright infringing, misleading association with Square Enix and the depiction of datamined content which violates the game’s terms.

After a major patch to the game that introduced the Data Centre Travel feature, which allows players to visit other worlds, a few players of Balmung tried to wall off newcomers from coming in to their world. These fears are likely precipitated by the recent billboard incident.

On top of several rearrangements going on internally, Gamestop is undergoing several rounds of layoffs.

After a few years of hiatus, E3 is set to return in 2023 through the assistance of a partnership with Reedpop. Although the specifics of what this relationship entails is still not clear, the upcoming show is expected to include both digital showcases and in-person specific events.

And finally…

Yuji Naka is still off his shits.

The post The Bulletin: Rest In Peace, Kazuki Takahashi appeared first on Gamesline.

It’s another big news week this week and Scott and Maverick are here with the proper Host/not host dynamic to go through all of it. Our biggest story of the week is the incredibly disturbing story of abuse coming from the developers of Fight Knight. You can find Wren’s post Why I Left The Fight Knight Project here and the record of abuse at Dangen Entertain and from CEO Ben Judd here.

With the heavy stuff out of the way, we go into Discord’s tease of NFT’s, X-Box’s twitter getting deleted, Among Us and Baba is You are getting updated, and the complete messes that are the Popeye game and the Grand Theft Auto Trilogy remasters. Metal Gear Solid 2 and 3 along with Jump Force are being removed from digital storefronts while 1 vs 100 is coming back. The Hat in Time developers are teasing something and I Maed a Game with Zombies In It just popped up for free on steam.

The dynamic duo have also been playing a few games, with Maverick digging deep into Trails of Cold Steel 3 and Scott really just wanting to spend all his time in Inscryption when he’s not playing Cruelty Squad.

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

Subscribe via iTunes, hipcast, direct download, or listen below!

The post VGCC Episode 379: Don’t Buy Fight Knight appeared first on Gamesline.

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 299: Minecraft Pain appeared first on Gamesline.

If there’s a AAA game publisher you know of, there’s a strong chance that they burn out their workers and abuse their labor for the purpose of profit. Rockstar didn’t manage to keep it as well under wraps as the rest of those companies tend to do though, going so far as to boast about how their workers were fighting their way through hundred hour work weeks to ship out the game “on time”. This caused a bit of a stir in the game industry, and the Houser brothers had to go out and make a couple little apologies where they went onto say further outlandish things, like:

“Sam and I talk about this a lot,” he replied, “and it’s that games are still magical. It’s like they’re made by elves. You turn on the screen and it’s just this world that exists on TV. I think you gain something by not knowing how they’re made. As much as we might lose something in terms of people’s respect for what we do, their enjoyment of what we do is enhanced. Which is probably more important.”

Magical elves.

While the Houser Brothers would absolutely love you to ignore the fact that so many of their workers sacrificed chunks of their life and fragments of their essence to receive maybe a hundred thousandth of the profits they received, it’s impossible and irresponsible to. Games are made by people, they’re made consistently by teams that don’t need to destroy their workers, on budgets that don’t have to equal the amount of capital needed to run a small country. Games aren’t these mystical trinkets, nor are they solely the artistic endeavors that require the sacrifices so often claimed. Games like Red Dead Redemption 2 are vessels for the conceptualization of capitalism, and the Houser Brothers want to have their cake and eat it too.

In Red Dead Redemption 2, the villainous Leviticus Cornwall goes on a rant towards the end of the story, talking about how he pushes the gears, does the things that need to be done, and that people have to suffer because of the nature of the world. The fact that Red Dead Redemption 2 is written by the Houser brothers, who said effectively the same exact things about game development in a casual interview, is such a fun ol’ hypocritical time. It’s the heart of why I think the game fails to create a compelling narrative or immersive world; it’s a hotbed of contradictions.

To talk about this again through the lens of the game, Arthur Morgan, our lead cowman, is a character who is consistently at odds with who he is. The open world the player runs him about in, and is encouraged to whittle hundreds of hours away inside of, is one completely disparate from the one on display throughout the main narrative. Where a player can generally play Arthur as a hero, feeding the homeless and helping the wounded, his character arc will slide him into forced scenarios like beating up a disabled man, or stealing things from the poor for little to no reason. If one plays Arthur as a villain suiting these sorts of activities, they’ll still be forced into moments where Arthur is out there feeding the homeless, and he’ll still find his titular redemption.

Even outside of its core, everything in Rockstar’s Wild West is the seed of an idea stomped on by specific design ideologies. There are systems for hunting, horse riding, temperature, food, health, and all sorts of other standard concepts that have been heralded for their realism and immersiveness, but their purpose is painfully clear: to uphold a status quo. Nothing in Red Dead Redemption 2 feels like it’s there because of an artistic vision or a wild concept someone had and executed on; it’s all there because that’s what should be in a “prestige” video game. Nothing intertwines, nothing is truly realistic or has a rhythm to it that could tell a story, thus all of it ends up being a pretentious drag.

To look at one specific example of a painfully sciolistic and contrived system, hunting in Red Dead Redemption 2 is required to gather skins and food. Instead of making the act of a successful hunt require things like hiding or tracking- as the game insinuates- or setting up traps to catch an animal off guard like is common in most open-world RPGs, the procedure is consistent and dry. You find an animal instead of its tracks, check to ensure its quality label is “pristine,” find the glowing red spot on the animal, and shoot it using the “Dead Eye” ability. If you deviate from this specific and simplistic procedure, the animal that you hunt will be rendered a quality below “perfect”, which means you can’t use any of the animal’s parts for anything the game would be asking for. Wow! Just like real life!

It’s this fake and drawn-out idea of realism that infects the game as a whole. There is no actual dedication to replicating the activities of day to day life, nor is there any wiggle room to create crazy surprises or coincidences that are truly realistic. These systems are designed to be a system in a video game, a side activity, a mini game; not vehicles for experiences with a purpose. Even more egregious are the legendary animals, which are all hidden around the map like special Pokémon, requiring you to examine three to four tracks before stumbling upon it and executing it without any sort of restrictions like normal animals. Why? Again, because this isn’t intended to actually be realistic, it’s just for a video game, and it’s what makes a great marketing point.

Everything about the game feels like it’s curated for the express purpose of marketing. Put in survival elements to attract those Minecraft and Rust communities; put in dialogue choices even if they don’t matter because everyone loves Mass Effect; people are always talking about the “emergent gameplay” so put in a bunch of events that everyone will see but they just might miss, so that talking about the game feels different for everyone! The game feels like it’s made just to sell from title alone, dubbed Red Dead Redemption 2, despite being the third in the series and a prequel at that.

These craven design decisions, which seem more based on dollar signs and market expectations than actual consideration and imagination, permeate nearly every aspect of the game’s design. There are moments in Red Dead Redemption 2 that feel legitimately original, and capture a particularly fascinating realm of mundanity and interaction that feels compelling, but Rockstar feels the need to escalate everything to the most absurd degree every single time. There’s a sequence in the game where you get to build a house. You put up fences, the foundation, the walls, the roof, all that, and you do it to a jaunty montage like one would do in a movie. I was really enjoying the concept of this, because you never really get to do something as mundane as make a whole ass real house in an elegant yet lifelike way. Red Dead Redemption 2, however, is never satisfied with a mission just being that, and quickly things escalated into a full on assault against a league of cannibals who just roam around I guess.

I could use “absurd escalation” to describe most of the game too. Every town you visit will feature at least five grand shootouts where Arthur Morgan and company pretty much decimate a large chunk of the town’s populace in extravagant brutalist fashion. Whenever I reached the end of these drawn out murderfests, I had to muse to myself how well one could make an argument for how Red Dead Redemption unintentionally presents itself as a fascist utopia of 4000 police officers per twenty mile radius. Things can never just end in a quick and deadly escape, everything had to be outrageous and stupefying because that’s what games have to be right? They have to be these vehicles for nothing but bombast and epic gamer moments that make you cheer with your bros. When a sequence in your game involves a character being diagnosed with a terminal illness in a rather grim fashion, only to have that character immediately go on a wild balloon ride with a wacky old man that culminates in a shootout where said old man dies with nary a word discussed about him afterwards, there’s probably something wrong with your game’s tone.

When it comes to Red Dead Redemption 2’s nature as a prequel, the game quickly falls into all sorts of myopic pitfalls. From the beginning, you already know which characters are going to live, and which characters are going to die, but unlike some games like Halo: Reach or even the more absurd Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep, there is no elegance or surprise to be had. This isn’t stumbling upon a ragtag group of unknown souls that Red Dead Redemption’s main protagonist, John Marston once rode with. The characters that ride with Arthur are a group of well known figures, whose fates and histories had already been outlined. Barring one standout, I was completely unsurprised by every one of the main story’s victims of drama, and it was hard to become invested in characters when it was clear they weren’t going to be around, or would become incredibly heinous men in the sequel.

At worst, this focus on pre-existing knowledge and events ends up doing nothing but make the first Red Dead Redemption, a game I used to really really like despite its flaws, even worse retroactively. In Red Dead Redemption we knew that John used to be in a gang led by Dutch, and when he faces off against his former father figure near the end of the game, it seems sort of like a homecoming after years and years. Now after Red Dead Redemption 2, we’re told that John had seen Dutch and done a big ol’ shoot out with him just a few years before the start of the original game. When I started up Red Dead 2 for the first time, I expected to deal with some sort of narrative contrivances- like rectifying the fact that Arthur Morgan had never been referenced in Redemption– but having the entire story of Red Dead Redemption feel far less impactful and incredibly over-exaggerated, was something I couldn’t help but absorb in awestruck disappointment.

Of course Rockstar, the company behind the piece of media that has made more money than every other piece of media ever created in the history of mankind, is looking for more and more money, even though they don’t have to. The nature of capitalism is that no matter how much money one currently has, you have to aspire to and gather more and more and more until there’s absolutely none left. Rockstar could’ve taken their time and not abused their workers to push out this product, they could’ve taken risks with their systems instead of watering them down to the lowest most acceptable denominator, they could’ve /tried/ to say anything worth saying. Instead, they didn’t. The Houser brothers and every shareholder and corporation involved with the production of the game have to take the path to peak exploitation every time, because that’s just how it has to be, right?

The way that mainstream journalism has enabled all of this to continue, just as those side characters in Red Dead allow the villains to prosper, is especially egregious. Upon release, despite knowing the circumstances of the game’s development, despite hearing firsthand reports from abused workers that they were forever scarred by the development of not only this game but its predecessor as well, the game received universal accolades and perfect scores from major outlets. It continues to be advertised as the highest rated PS4 game of all time. Some even went as far as to organize week long celebrations of content about the game which, well, I don’t even know what to say about that one.

There’s a problem in modern discussion with treating the development of a game as ancillary to criticism of the product. Every review fills a paragraph or two with allusions to the wrong that Rockstar maybe did, but swat it away with glowing praise the second that mandated bit is over. If a game like say, Final Fantasy XV is being reviewed, however, a large part of the conversation will become dedicated to discussing its long development, and how that would transform the game’s design. Just like with Red Dead’s concept of realism; it’s only the focus when it’s convenient. There needs to be more responsible and consistent coverage, and there needs to be a reckoning with the realities of the market that we as platforms are promoting.

Red Dead Redemption 2 is just one of so many games that has come out at the expense of dozens if not hundreds of individuals, only to have such petty problems ignored as the price to pay for purported perfection. It’s not the first of a new trend, it’s the depressing status quo, and if we’re to create not only better games, but a better world, we need to start being more responsible with how we discuss and engage with games.

The post Cowboys, Cowardice, and Contradictions appeared first on Gamesline.

It’s been a big week in games, and unfortunately, a lot of that is Smash Bros. related, but that won’t stop Solon from getting people’s name wrong, or everyone else on the crew from talking cowboys, SNK’s 40th birthday bash, the void, the return of The Bubz, Blizzcon’s Hearthstone mess, spider problems, and console aesthetics.

Support us on Patreon! Follow us on twitter @VGChooChoo, @john_michonski, @horngal, and @solonface, and don’t forget to rate & review the show on iTunes, as well as tell a friend! You can also send questions, comments, and concerns to podcast@videogamechoochoo.com or find us on Tumblr! 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 239: The Best Joke of All Time appeared first on Gamesline.

Support us on Patreon! Follow us on twitter @VGChooChoo, @john_michonski, @horngal, @decibellemusic, and @daikaijew, and don’t forget to rate & review the show on iTunes, as well as tell a friend! You can also send questions, comments, and concerns to podcast@videogamechoochoo.com or find us on Tumblr! 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 237: The Classiest Podcast Around appeared first on Gamesline.