Call of Duty trailer. Set in the early 90’s. Everything is launching on all consoles with all content, and Black Ops 6 is going to be on Game Pass.

Doom: The Dark Ages! 2025. Set in a medieval kind of era. Tons of new weapons, a shield, and riding dragons.

State of Decay 3 trailer, mix of CG and maybe gameplay, maybe not, hard to tell. No release date.

Dragon Age: The Veilguard. New characters, CG trailer setting the scene. Fall 2024.

Starfield DLC, looks very horror themed. “Shattered Space”. Coming this year. Also new content added tonight.

Fallout 76 update. Set in Appalachia. Big new map expansion. Includes Vault 63. Skyline Valley’s the name of the place. You can also play as a ghoul in 2025. Skyline Valley is dropping on Wednesday.

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 from Sandfall Interactive. Turn based RPG about a group of people trying to stop a sorceress who kills everyone after every year. 2025.

South of Midnight. Compulsion Games. Animated like Spider-verse, but it doesn’t work as well in a game. 2025.

World of Warcraft expansion. Very introspective trailer. The War Within. August 26th 2024.

Metal Gear Solid Delta. David Hayter’s doing Snake’s voice here. There’s mud disguises, which is new.

Sea of Thieves will now let you be evil, have a stronger warship, have skeletons on your team. Season 13, July 25th.

Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn. Releasing July 18th 2024. Souls-lite with a little critter companion.

Age of Mythology: Retold. September 4th 2024.

Perfect Dark from The Initiative. Joanna’s got detective abilities. You can scan people’s voice and information. Does look pretty slick, but where’s the alien… No release date, but it’ll be on Game Pass.

Diablo IV update, Vessel of Hatred. October 8th. Very messed up evil trailer.

Fable from Playground Games. Shows some gameplay! Looks pretty fun. 2025.

Fragpunk, 5v5 hero shooter where you can pop effects to change the game as you go.

Pine Creek Games with a mouse. Survival, crafting, rebuild the mouse society. Winter Burrow. Early 2025.

Annapurna Interactive game, developed by Beethoven and Dinosaur, the people who made Artful Escape. They got a bunch of 80’s and 90’s music. Mixtape, due out in 2025.

Microsoft Flight Sim update, commercial flight modes added, do a variety of careers like agricultural, search and rescue, and more. Hot air balloons as well. November 19th 2024.

Elder Scrolls Online. Ten year anniversary celebration. All DLC free for a limited time, new expansion Gold Road June 18th.

Life is Strange new entry. Dimension hopping. Made by Deck Nine. Starring Max from the first one. Double Exposure coming October 29th.

Indiana Jones from MachineGames. It looks exactly what you’d expect. Fist fighting, world traversing, historical mystery, Nazi killing. Fun chase scene. Nailed the vibe! 2024.

Mech battle game, very fast and action packed. Macross style transforming. Mecha Break. 2025.

Wuchang Fallen Feathers from 505 Games, Soulslike game, very slick. 2025.

Obsidian game, Avowed. It’s a first person fantasy game! It’s what you want! 2024.

Atomfall from Rebellion. European village with evil experiments happening under it. 2025.

Assassin’s Creed Shadows, cool ninja lady and Yasuke! Looks pretty slick for Assassin’s Creed. November 12th.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chernobyl. September 5th.

New all digital Series X, and it’s white. Out this holiday.

Gears of War E-Day. Prequel based on when the Locust first attacked. No release date.

There’s a Call of Duty Direct after but I am not watching it.

The post Bulletin+: Xbox Showcase 2024 appeared first on Gamesline.

Howdy, Partners

Microsoft’s announcement last week that four of their games would be coming to other consoles came true, as both Grounded and Pentiment were confirmed for Switch andPlaystation consoles. (While Hi-Fi Rush and Sea of Thieves were announced for the PS5.

Epic Mickey is being remastered for Switch, Playstation, Xbox, and PC, with new visuals and updated gameplay. No release date was confirmed.

The original Monster Hunter Stories game, originally a 3DS exclusive, is getting remastered for Switch, PS4, and PC this Summer.

A new game in the Ender Lilies universe, Ender Magnolia: Bloom in the Mist, was announced for this year.

Gundam Breaker 4 will release this year for Switch, Playstation, and PC.

Sega’s releasing a new Super Monkey Ball, Banana Rumble, with four player co-op and 16 player battle race modes. This will be Switch exclusive and launches June 25th.

Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time, is confirmed for October 10th. We can accept this Nintendo Direct farm game representation.

Suika Game, the viral puzzler, is getting a new multiplayer mode. Local mode is available now, and online multiplayer will release later. It is paid DLC, and a bundle of the DLC and the base game is available.

Shin Megami Tensei V is getting a new version, subtitled Vengeance. This new version will have a brand new route that splits right at the start of the game, adds another 80 hours of gameplay, and has updates to demon interaction. It’ll be out on Switch, but will also be getting released on Playstation, Xbox, and PC, and maybe finally run at a good frame rate.

Penny’s Big Breakaway, the 3D platformer via ex-Sonic Mania devs, is out now! (Right friggin’ now!) It’s available on all consoles.

A release of Star Wars Battlefront has been announced that bundles both of the classic original titles into one! There are new characters and maps as well, plus 64-player matches. This will be hitting every console and PC as well.

Game Freak’s 3DS sleeper hit Pocket Card Jockey got a Switch port available now. It’s really good, if you like card games, please check it out!

Switch Online’s classic games got an update, with five Rare titles added. Snake Rattle ‘n’ Roll, R.C. Pro-Am, Battletoads in Battlemaniacs, Killer Instinct, and Blast Corps. are all available today. In Japan, the GBA Switch Online roster got MOTHER 3. Keep dreaming, MOTHER fans. Maybe some day. (Just go replay the fan translation, John knows he will.)

Another Japan exclusive (so far) announcement was the RPG REYNATIS from FuRyu. Its staff is absolutely packed, and John agree with the below Tweet—this better get localized.

The last announcement was a new Endless Ocean, subtitled Luminous. The old Wii games were a delight for the senses, so we are sure this will be a treat as well. There will even be up to 30 player multiplayer as well. It drops May 2nd.

There were a few other reveals, such as a date for the new Contra and Aggro Crab’s new Crab-based Soulslike, so check the rest of the Direct here.

Other Reveals

IGN also had a few reveals lined up, mostly trailers for previously announced games. However, the big new announcement was a port of the Game Boy Advance title Ninja Five-O. This is exciting, as Ninja Five-O is a solid title that many haven’t experienced due to its massive aftermarket price. Now more people will be able to experience this fun title thanks to Limited Run.

Beloved MOBA Gigantic is coming back—this time as a $20 release. The Rampage Edition will release April 9th, with a closed beta starting today.

The League of Legends fighting game, previously known by the codename Project L, is officially named….2XKO. Pronounced with each letter/number separately. Two Ecks Kay Oh. What’re we doing?

Tekken 8’s developers confirm that the game will soon receive a microtransactions shop, certainly concerning players.

The Borderlands movie got its first trailer. We’re sorry for showing you this, but news is news—and this isn’t even the worst bite this week! At least Jamie Lee Curtis gets to cosplay.

Elden Ring‘s expansion, Shadow of the Erdtree, has been confirmed to release June 21st. New weapons, areas, and characters were shown off in the below trailer.

Continuing Losses

Creator of Suikoden and director of its spiritual successor Eiyuden Chronicle Yoshitaka Murayama passed away on February 6th. He was 55 years old.

Toys for Bob, the Activision subsidiary behind the recent Spyro and Crash games, laid off 36 people. Rumors said the entire studio shut down, but instead they cut around a third of their staff and went fully remote. This followed the massive 1,900 layoffs Microsoft enacted throughout their gaming sphere after the Activision acquisition went through.

Nijisanji EN vtuber Selen Tatsuki was publicly fired after a lengthy absence, which was revealed to have been due to a self harm. Now rebranded as Dokibird, she has re-entered the Vtuber space and has regained success. Nijisanji released multiple statements on the matter, but only ended up fueling further anger at them.

Kazumasa Habu has stepped down as producer of Digimon titles at Bandai Namco. There is still a new Digimon Story game in development without his involvement.

Mane6, developers of indie fighting game Them’s Fightin’ Herds, were fired from development on the game while mid-quality assurance for the last two characters in their season pass. The characters were released in an unbalanced, broken, buggy state, and it has been confirmed that further development is not planned. Promised story mode additions will not be made.

Maximum Entertainment, the current owner of the Them’s Fightin’ Herds IP, is ending active development on the fan-inspired My Little Pony fighting game, reportedly shifting their focus onto an Avatar: The Last Airbender 2D fighting game set for 2025 and Diesel Legacy, set for this year.

In other news…

Larian Studios achieves several more wins from the 27th D.I.C.E. Awards, ending on a high note by ultimately winning another Game of the Year award for Baldur’s Gate 3. Unlike the limitations that they dealt with at The Game Awards, the recipients were able to take their time in their winning speech to call out the current melancholic and unsustainable state of the games industry.

Hosts of the show this year, Greg Miller of Kinda Funny Games and Stella Chung, were also not privy to holding back on cracking scathing jokes against executives who were in attendance.

Insomniac Games’ Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 also walks away from the 51st Annie Awards winning Best Character Animation in a Video Game.

2B from Nier: Automata has been released as a playable fighter in Granblue Fantasy Versus: Rising.

Lady Gaga has come to Fortnite, with her music being added to the Festival mode and a new skin so you can play as Mother Monster and shoot Peter Griffin.

IGN’s Creators Guild has been voluntarily recognized by Ziff Davis. There’s still more work to be done by the union, but this is a huge step in the right direction.

And finally, a beta version of Hotel Mario has been found by YouTuber Game Pak Rat at a thrift store. This beta has unused dialogue and clear versions of old speech, meaning YouTube Poop just got DLC, baby.

The post The Bulletin: Nintendo News and Borderlands Blues appeared first on Gamesline.

He he he, here be podcasters three! While John and Mav are on anime special assignment, Scott’s been deep in the sewers in Remnant 2, Elvie’s been playing wingman in Lakeburg Legacies, Solon’s been deep in the sewers in Crypt Underworld, the gang goes totally Exoprimal, and a quick dip into the Sea of Thieves: The Legend of Monkey Island special crossover event.

The gamers also name every single one of the seven dwarves, Neopets is making it’s long awaited fourth or fifth return, Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl is getting a sequel, Bender becomes real (in Fortnite), Monster Hunter Now can’t wait anymore, CD Projekt Red does some layoffs, Activision takes a break from all of it’s horrible crimes to go after Anthony Fantano, we read the Doug wiki, and we come up with our gaming Barbenheimers.

You can support us on our Patreon, and follow us on Twitter @TheGamesline, @FKAsocks, @lvmaeparian, and @ChorbySP.

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 gamesline.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 Apple Podcasts, Pocket Casts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or directly to our RSS feed.

Edited by Scott B

The post The Gamesline Podcast Ep. 12: House Full Of BuzzBallz appeared first on Gamesline.

Talkin’ TOTK is back with Talkin’ TOTK 2, the sequel to Talkin’ TOTK with even more layers both above and below Talkin’ TOTK. Scott and Maverick can’t do it alone, though, so they summon the aid of Twitch streamer ROBBYDUDE to help us talk as much TOTK as your little heart can desire. Plus, we cover Ravenlok, Mato Anomalies, Super Baseball 2020, the latest Sea of Thieves “Mystery” ARG, the Five Nights At Freddy’s movie, very specifically the actor Nicolas Cage and not any of the characters he’s played in the video game Dead By Daylight, That Man, Mortal Kombat 1, Overwatch 2 dropping it’s story mode, Riot Games’ gender discrimination lawsuit settlement, and we figure out if Link’s cooking is good or not.

You can support us on our Patreon, and follow us on Twitter @TheGamesline, @FKAsocks, @MaverickDrifter, and @ROBBYDUDE.

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 gamesline.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 Apple Podcasts, Pocket Casts, Spotify, Amazon Music, or directly to our RSS feed.

Edited by Scott B

The post The Gamesline Podcast Ep. 4: Tears of the Flinstones w/ ROBBYDUDE appeared first on Gamesline.

As for my part in the proceedings… Hello! My name is Solon, and I fucking love games. I’ve spent this entire year with the pious duty of a court librarian dedicated to finding the best games that came out this year. And while I’ve beaten close to 100 games, I somehow wasn’t able to reach everything on my list of released games. After pouring through every ounce of these games, I’ve managed to condense that massive list of incredible games and art to just the Top 10 so without further ado, let’s get to the li-

Honorable Mentions

Sea Of Thieves: A Pirate’s Life

OKAY, so first I’ve gotta set aside a few Honorable Mentions because this year has been so stacked. And you can’t just give MMO Expansions an entire slot on your Best Of list, that’s like saying a tomato is your favorite sandwich of the year! That would be stupid! Anyways, I’d say it’s a part of Washington State life to be defined by your push or pull to Disneyland. Like a West Coast Mecca, almost every person who lives here is either planning on going OR recuperating from a semi-annual trip to Anaheim. It’s just a part of life around here. However, of course, that bougie sign of normal life around here has long-been cruelly taken from us in a lot of ways by the global pandemic. Somehow despite that, I found a tiny slice of paradise this year on the Sea of Thieves. Sea Of Thieves has perfectly digitized one of my favorite Disneyland rides in a way that can not be understated; not only making it canon to Rare’s world but also expanding on the canon that has always been central to the ride itself.

To be able to crew a galleon with three of your best mates through the doomed and haunted Spanish fort was the most immersive moment of the year for me. I can viscerally feel, hear, taste, and smell the stale California water rushing alongside my boat-now-turned-log-flume. And while that was impressive in and of itself, the A Pirate’s Life update let me live out a dream I’ve always had which is to walk around the entirety of a Disneyland ride. Haven’t you ever wished to be entirely alone on a theme park ride? Free to walk around and explore the space at your leisure instead of simply being pushed through it? Not only does Sea Of Thieves let you do that, it has a veritable treasure trove of details and actual Disney ride lore for you if you do! It’s funny, because I’m not a Disney fan, I’m actually a big ‘ol hater of The D, but Rare produced a real Disney Magic moment with their entire heart, and that presence is so felt through this expansion.

Project Heartbeat

Project Heartbeat is very VERY early in development right now but it’s also already proving to be a formidable rhythm game system. Think of it like Clone Hero is to Guitar Hero except it’s for SEGA’s Project Diva series. It contains all the rhythm game mechanics that every iteration of Project Diva has ever had and with those tools, players have started creating tons of tracks to not only their favorite vocaloid songs that are Project Diva mainstays but also many fun pop songs, shitposts, and crossovers from other rhythm games making for a diverse and rapidly growing catalog with infinite possibilities. Of course, these are all custom made tracks made by rhythm game perverts and the chart creation tools are still pretty cumbersome, and most songs you download can be hit-or-miss, but that doesn’t stop Project Heartbeat from being an incredibly fun time and a strong start to a dream project that I’ve always wanted to see! I’ll continue to play with this game as it’s been my favorite rhythm game of the year to mess around with and definitely deserves an honorable mention.

ANYWAYS, ONTO THE ACTUAL LIST

10. WarioWare: Get It Together

WarioWare: Get It Together is the first WarioWare title I’ve played where it feels like more than a funny gimmick and instead it’s finally a fully furnished Nintendo game. Get It Together is a really special game where each individual microgame is a world unto itself that can be explored in different ways with each of the 18 characters having their own way of completing each five-second task. While some microgames are easy for 9-Volt to hit with a well-aimed yoyo shot, others become much harder and it may be easier or more fun to use one of the more platform-savvy characters like Ashley. So now not only does each microgame have the normal 3+ variations of difficulty, but with 18 different characters there are myriad variations to approach each microgame in WarioWare. The tradeoff is that there are fewer microgames, with a little less of that series-standard aesthetic innovation compared to previous entries. It’s a compromise to accommodate the modularity of multiple characters, and it smoothes over a lot of the cool edges that the series is known for. However, the tradeoff to THAT tradeoff is there are tons of interesting modes to play that involve all of the characters and mini-games in endlessly novel combinations, including an entire smash-bros-like platform fighter hidden inside!

On top of that, the two most sparkling points of WarioWare are Penny’s World having an incredible dynamic music track that changes depending on when you win or lose a microgame, and Nintendo finally committed to supporting a WarioWare game with online multiplayer features like weekly challenges, high score lists, and loads of collectibles that you can use to personalize your roster. So now, even beyond the novelty that WarioWare has always carried in its beautiful, weird soul, it’s also a much more professional and fully-loaded game brought into the modern era. Of all the second-party Nintendo games to come out this year, this is the one most looking towards the future of the series – and after all this time, WarioWare deserves it!

9. Shin Megami Tensei V

This is the only time you’ll ever see a game on my list I’ve left unfinished, so just know that every game that didn’t make my list lost to a game I only played half of. I don’t need to beat Shin Megami Tensei V. I don’t even have much interest in the story – the stakes of humanity in a battle between angels and demons? Nah, that’s not what we’re about here. We’re about Reverse Compendium Fusing demons that are impossibly powerful. We’re about building brokenly strong hot vampire babes that have had all their weaknesses replaced by Absorb Element stats. We’re about talking to fucked up little guys that think they are normal and regular. This is the intersection between math and aesthetic where the joy of discovering new monsters to summon in battle is only overshadowed by finding out what cool abilities they have and how they work in battle. I’ve had so much fun getting entrenched in the systems that I completely lost track of what is going on in the dehydrated story quests. 

I climbed a mountain to slay a giant demon who wanted to enslave the world while he was sitting on a giant toilet. Maybe this is nothing out of the ordinary for Shin Megami Tensei, it’s my first time here, but the presentation impressed the hell out of me. The way the rock music shreds in once you start your attacks always rules so hard. I’m surprised you can even get this much power out of the Nintendo Switch! While I’ve been starting to jump hard off of open-world games of this style, I keep sticking to this one with its stark simplicity in overworld design being spaces you just sweep every square-inch of until you’ve licked the plate clean. And all the while there’s that constant pressure that something, somewhere out there can kill you in one hit and there just won’t be anything you can do about it… yet.

8. World’s End Club

I didn’t get to talk about everything in my review of World’s End Club earlier this year, but if you missed it, World’s End Club is a post-apocalyptic Japanese version of The Goonies written by the Danganronpa guy and directed by the 999 guy. It’s even more of a niche visual novel than either of their usual games, but ever since finishing it, it’s been stuck in my head. I keep thinking of these kids trekking across the entire length of pre-2000s Japan while keeping each other’s spirits up with songs and discussions of their future. I need the optimism that kids can bring while staring down the apocalypse! I keep coming back to Takegarou’s incredible character designs who are all cool and fun. More than even that though, I keep coming back to the climax where all the layered mysteries in the game not only get solved, but are so satisfying in the end that I forget about my problems with the NES-styled platforming mechanics- everything else just washes away. While it isn’t a game that is easy to recommend, World’s End Club sticks with me in a way that makes it transcend a lot of games that may be technically more profound but just don’t have that memorability to make it into the top 10. If anyone plays this game, please talk to me about it. I can’t promise anyone else will necessarily understand you, but I will. We can be in the World’s End Club together with Vanilla and Pochi and all our friends drinking an inexplicably sponsored 90s Energy Drink and riding a spontaneously spawned 10-kid tandem bicycle. 

7. Unpacking

 
I just found out you can flush the toilets, and now I’ve gotta go back and play the whole game again.

Unpacking is an adult game that takes an adult level of patience and care. It’s probably the only game on my list that could be classified in that way, but hey I needed a lot of childish whimsy this year okay? Sue me, *Ah* *Dult*. So, when I reviewed Unpacking I talked a lot about it on a technical and emotional level, but as a consumer review I didn’t get to what makes it personally relate to me, so here’s how Unpacking transcends for me. In my day-to-day life I constantly clean up after two other grown men, and I have for the last six years. That’s how cohabitation situations usually look. You can make a chore wheel or whatever but it’s much easier and safer if I just regularly clean the house. Less stuff gets broken. In a few months that won’t be the case as my roommates will be on their way out into the next chapter of their lives. Part of me cleaning up so much after them was knowing that this wouldn’t last forever – it’s that part of the elusiveness of daily regular life that makes Unpacking such a special experience. It’s the hope that the next stage of your life is better than the last with the knowledge that just doing a regular household chore will make things better for you. It’ll at least make that week a little easier for everyone around you. I keep coming back to Unpacking not because it’s wholesome or super smart or engaging, it’s just for putting a little control back into my regular life in a way that makes everyone a little happier. I’m probably going to help unpack my roommates wherever they end up this year, and that will be very melancholic for me… But now I’m prepared. I’m an adult, after all.

6. Resident Evil: Village

“ETHAN! Winters…” That perverted self-mutilating hand freak and his associated cast of multinational monsters have now fully gotten me into what I’m finding out is without-a-doubt the stupidest game franchise I’ve ever played. My man doesn’t stop for a second to question why Chris Redfield (his best friend? Shortlist I guess) shoots his wife, and instead gets willingly thrust into an entire batch of his own partially-selfmade suffering… Again! Ethan is played off as a dumb protagonist (despite his intensive secret training on this exact subject) but it’s not just him, every character is about as stupid and incredibly powerful as he is. It’s stupendous – I get why people love this franchise now. And more than that, Village offers the smoothest entry into this franchise from everything else I’ve seen and played so far. There is very rarely any moment in the game where your path forward is confusing or obtuse and all the progression systems are built in a way to stay out of Ethan and the player’s way. It’s such a comfortable ride, I immediately went back to play it a second time where I finished the entire game in under 3 hours – which I’ve learned is a Resident Evil mainstay. Capcom has this recipe down to a science so much so that they can afford to not take it seriously for a second, and a comfortable Capcom always makes for a happy Solon! Ethan made his daughter from cans of BABY SOUP in an ancient catholic centrifuge!

Side note: I bet you dollars to donuts that every Chooch member has at least one Capcom game on their GOTY list. They really cleaned up this year as far as perfect quarantine comfort games go in a wide variety of genres. Anyways, this one is mine, sorry Ace Attorney and MonHun friends!

5. No More Heroes 3

I’m flying in the face of our Editor-In-Chief here telling you that No More Heroes 3 is a must-play game, but John is also completely correct in his review that it is heart wrenching seeing your favorite series sell-out all the games he’s supported up to this point for the Marvel Cinematic Universe or trying to baselessly lampoon the decrepit and creatively bankrupt Call Of Duty series. To see Suda51 using his most famous series to directly court Hollywood movie directors is boring and belittles you as the player.

However, No More Heroes 3 is also a dense and far-reaching game where I get to see Travis living something akin to his best life in a game where we get to meet new friends, reminisce on nostalgic moments, connect to the outer parts of the KILLTHEPAST universe, and absolutely obliterate cool,sick,sexy new villains of galactic proportion. High highs and low lows all over this game, but not just in the way that No More Heroes is known for since all these games are crappy and incredible – actually NMH3 is super polished in a mainstream accessible way that kicks ass and sucks ass in a strange surreal kind of way that no other game could really suck like – I appreciate that. This is unlike anything else in games, and it engages with the whole industry on so many levels. I’m watching Suda and Travis take their biggest international (intergalactic) swing at things and not leaving anything on the table. Is this Suda51, and by extension Travis, losing their grip with common folks by pandering to bougies marvel execs? In some ways, but that’s also a road I’m fascinated to continue watching since we now know Grasshopper Manufacturers is in talks to make a Marvel videogame. Even when on the inside, Suda51 is an outsider. So the story continues, and that story keeps getting more and more rich and fulfilling and alienating every time I get deeper into it. 

Travis may be the world’s intergalactic champion, but does Sylvia even notice? Travis gets to tag team with the WWWWW Heavyweight Champion, one of my favorite new characters this year! Travis is comfortable, his friends are mostly kinda alive, and arguably… he might even be Happy? Seeing him express his hyperfixation on Miike-directed horror films in a podcast with his best friend is one of the most relatable things. And don’t even get me started on the presentation of this game! It’s got banging tunes, bold imagery, and a diverse selection of artists who all get to put their name on helping with it. It becomes a collage of all things No More Heroes adjacent and I love that. I want this to be the future of ‘auteur style’ where the ‘auteur’ who gets to have their name on the box is using this platform to champion others above themselves. I believe auteurism to be a function of neoliberalism in a way that can’t really be avoided (although plenty of dudes lean into it in cringy ways) and what happens in No More Heroes 3 paves a pathway to make that way just a little less awful. No More Heroes 3 is one of the best games of 2021, despite narrative quirks, because it represents a plausible future for creators within the games industry at large that I deeply respect.

4. Road 96

Fuck cops. Fuck the police. Fuck 12. Fuck the corrupt government and private institutions that protect and empower them. I don’t think games in 2021 are being clear enough with this very core concept that’s so simple and global that children can understand and deeply relate to resisting the police state they live in. We’ve had 5 years since Donald Trump entered office (along with an international fascist wave of global leaders) and that’s enough time to start getting games to stop fucking around with centrist ideologies and both-sidesism. There is no excuse, and this stupid Fortnite-looking game proves it. Road 96 goes hard, it’s also easily the funniest game I played this year! Life Is Strange has to take a back seat because the 14 year olds in Road 96 are driving fast, shitty sedans and we ain’t asking how they acquired them. Don’t see shit, don’t say shit!

Road 96 revolves around putting a fragile teenager in increasingly absurd and precarious vignettes or scenarios as they try to illegally cross the northern border of their fascist country. It’s extremely dangerous but with a colorful cast of repeating characters leading you and wacky mini-games to engage with, there is never a dull moment. Sometimes you are attempting to de-arrest teens by rallying an entire bus to fight a cop with you. Other times you are hacking electrical grids and singing Bella Ciao with teens to get the signal out that resistance is possible. Maybe you’re just bowling with a heart-of-gold trucker, mixing cocktails for a serial killer (who is looking for you), or being the lookout for two bumbling idiots trying their worst to run a bank heist. Road 96 is a game full of moments, sometimes light, sometimes dark and heavy, other times really sensitive. And all the while it is focused on the main theme that we’ve all gotta protect each other from forces of oppression, even if those forces are our family and friends. Action needs to take place now and not by asking nicely. If you want a fun game that will radicalize our Fortnite generation of gamers, Road 96 is a really fun anarchist/socialist game that I can wholly and absolutely suggest to anyone of any age. AND HOW AMAZING IS THAT?? Go play Road 96 right now, you won’t be disappointed, and you’ll be singing Bella Ciao along with us all! Also, please leave as much money as you can under the secret money rock for the next teen who comes through after you. It may be the difference between life and death for them.

3. Hot Wheels Unleashed

At 1/64th scale Hot Wheels: Unleashed is both the fastest and the slowest racing game to come out in 2021. This game tracks how far you’ve drifted in inches, and if you reset your car enough times you can see the ‘realistic damage’ from someone leaving their thumbprint over your car’s windshield after having to put the car back on the track over and over. Hot Wheels: Unleashed is at a glance very simple, however it is the absolute dream of a Hot Wheels game! You can do stunts, you can drift and boost fun looking toy cars, you can paint your cars with your own liveries, and of course you can make your own tracks. That’s it! The ‘story mode’ is just AI races and time trials on each track to help unlock more cars and tracks to work with, and even that is fun by itself, but the real charm comes from being able to access all of these features through the online community. Upload your tracks, play other tracks based on how highly they are rated, search for fun, cool, or wacky car liveries and tracks that your friends have made, and of course race your friends on your weirdest hot wheels track. Bang those cars together on figure 8s and get everyone to drive the sussy baka amongus bus into each other. Do some sick jumps, roll your car, reset it, and try again! It’s everything I could’ve asked for from a Hot Wheels game and it’s one of the only times where licensed properties like Batman and Barbie are not only welcome but actually make sense for microtransactions. The team at Milestone is doing a great job and aside from some fickle server bugs that still need squashing, it’s the best time I had all year playing games with my friends.

Now excuse me, I’ve got a date with Engineer Insane.

2. NEO: The World Ends With You

Fifteen years. I’ve waited for the sequel to one of the most fundamental games of my childhood for fifteen years. Since then I’ve grown up, become an adult, learned a lot, and seen a lot. I’ve seen enough to know that even if a sequel did happen it would probably be a cash in on a cult classic and its niche following. We’ve seen that from the crappy ports, the cheap media tie-ins, and the drip-feed of crossover events with evermore disappointing Kingdom Hearts releases. Fifteen years of deafening silence did not prepare me for this game being unbelievably marvelous. The dialogue presentation is diverse and exciting, the battle system is completely overhauled making for a really cool action-RPG hybrid unlike anything else, the clothing is stylish and comes with wildly cool effects, the food you can eat is so diverse and fun, and the music… the music is back. IT’S ALL BACK! Fifteen years worth of games have had the blueprint to good-ass tunes in their Nintendo DS and they’ve almost entirely ignored it. If any Square Enix RPG had the balls to put big bombastic J-Rock in their game over the last fifteen years, full of dramatic themes, motifs, and culture they’d probably be AHEAD of NEO on this list! 

Fifteen years! But let’s get past the presentation, mechanics, and aesthetics to the main point: how often did Solon cry playing NEO: The World Ends With You? Well, let’s focus just on talking about the characters because this game is massive in a way where I could obsess about each individual character or mechanic or presentation styling choice for a looong long time. Rindo and his party’s dialogue is refreshingly realistic complete with Line-styled texting where your enemies struggle to text you pics of their location without getting their giant thumb on the lens, and the protagonist just quickly sends them a default chocobo sticker that just says “kweh?” You get left on read at rough times. Strangers and even enemies will send you vaguely threatening texts in ways that show their adroit phone abilities, or lack thereof. And the long, winding conversations that are had throughout the game speak directly to a more modern generation – instead of Neku struggling to find his authenticity as an angsty teenager; Rindo, Fret, and Nagi are struggling with trying to be accepted within their rag-tag group. All three are looking at the other two seemingly-perfect people next to them and asking, “why can’t I be more like them?” This insecurity while trying to look ‘put together’ is palpable, especially while more adult rivals are constantly falling into traps of mistrusting and using each other for their small, short-sighted gains while being preyed upon by the Reapers. 

These kids are dead, playing a ‘Reapers Game’ that they probably can’t come back from. And it barely even phases them because they are all so set on ‘winning’ (which has been described to them as ‘impossible’ and ‘rigged from the start’) that they can’t even see how much their opponents are trying to trick and kill them. That threat barely even registers most of the time, because they are so sure they will wake up the next day and take on the next task. The pining existentialism of the previous game is completely gone, replaced with determination and a force of will that could be a naive misplacement of responsibility onto a younger generation… Or, just maybe… A generation of youths always on those darn phones are actually gonna save everyone. These kids can do anything, and they will, and this is a threat, and it’s also the best hope any of us have. They have to be strong enough to save us all even while we destroy ourselves. The World Will Not End With Them

1. Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker

A tomato is my favorite sandwich of the year. Mmm yum, I love to eat my own words! It is official that not only has Final Fantasy XII been dethroned as my favorite Final Fantasy game, but Final Fantasy VII has also been dethroned as the undisputable greatest game ever made. I am not fucking around here. To make even a single Endwalker is why any of the blood sacrifice required for making video games feels worth it. Every individual level worth of quests from Level 80 to Level 90 has some kind of WOW moment in it and each of those moments compounds upon the events and themes of all the rest of Final Fantasy XIV as well as Final Fantasy as a franchise. The themes are healing and uplifting while being extremely relevant to today. How do we say goodbye to a dying world without becoming consumed by nihilism, defeatism, or existentialism? Can The End be a moment of construction instead of wholly destruction? Who will be with you after the apocalypse and at the end of all worlds and what will be your relationship beyond all things material? To what end will you walk?’

With the same themes of anti-imperialism, communalism, cycles of history, the immaterial power of the spirit, god-killing, and a little bit of the plot-relevant magic that carry through every other Final Fantasy game, Endwalker delivers in every possible direction, including the overhaul of the combat systems being more dynamic than ever. All of the endgame systems have advanced considerably to be more accessible to new and old players. Male Viera are beautiful, and the closest the franchise has ever gotten to graphically interpreting the immaculately sketched linework of Yoshitaka Amano. And each zone is wonderfully distinct in a way that delivers on varied evocative moments, so much so that just hearing each zone’s music can put me into some very specific moods.

Here’s the thing that nobody is talking about with this game though, especially since it pertains to the very sensitive subject of suicide. It takes an incredibly deft hand to write characters and scenarios dealing with self-absolution and systemic cultural life purge without belittling people who have taken their own lives, and FFXIV: Endwalker does that. This is a game that talks about death in huge, sweeping ways without dismissing the personal and intimate act of suicide. Normally in games, we’re used to being confronted with the topic in ways that distance and decenter the player from having to confront suicide- as a somehow unethical or unjustified end that happens to ‘other’ people with ‘other’ problems. But in Endwalker, the pen does not falter for a second with the idea that creating your own end is not only a rational way but sometimes a necessary way to ease suffering, take control of your world, or even express the end of your culture as a final act of your communal humanity.

Depression is endemic throughout Eorzea and despair becomes transformed into apocalyptic fear, yet even still the Warrior of Light walks on. This was such an important message to hear this year. I struggled with the loss of someone within my local community I hadn’t realized was so close to me. I still am a lot I guess… But thinking about the scions and especially Venat pushing through it all with a mix of determination, spirituality, faith, friendship, and a little hard-headedness, just to fight for the hope of a better world, is enough right now. It’s more than enough! It’s proof that games can be not only good but great, even while being in development under the AAA machine for over a decade non-stop. For an MMO to not only stay relevant but also become greater and greater with each subsequent release and not flag for even a moment should be impossible. This game shouldn’t exist. That any game, much less an MMO going into its fifth expansion, is as evocative as Endwalker is is nothing short of a miracle!

As we continue into 2022 and beyond, I’ll be holding on tight to the games I played this year as each entry represents widely different moods, tones, and flavors. This year has been rich in games that I’ve thoroughly enjoyed, but I fear even more than ever that this could all fall away in an instant. I spent a lot of this year fighting what feels like an all-consuming depression. I feel it inside our shared community here, in the school I work in, in my family and friends, and I feel it in myself. The games have helped tremendously for me to fight against this, and they continue too! I’m so grateful for that. But I won’t deny the precarity of the situation. I’ve been working harder every day, spending less time with friends and family, and yet I feel less financially secure than ever. I know I could be one bad GFX card short-out or car repair away from spiraling into debt. A lot of people are in that same situation, and it sucks so much. It’s why I fight so hard to make good work for our community: writing and editing videos that our crew can be proud of. It’s why I fight to livestream so often to make sure people have an upbeat and positive place to be late at night so we don’t have to feel so alone. And it’s why I fight to keep chooch alive, because this community and all the people in it are worth the sweat it takes to keep these wheels turning. We all need that hope, and in whatever form the future of VGCC takes, I’ll make sure we’re still there for eachother.

The post Solon’s Very Top 10 Games Of 2021 appeared first on Gamesline.

Oh, it’s a boyscast. Scott, Solon and Maverick are getting juiced up, wet, and wild on a late Saturday Live cast. Scott beat that Elden Ring, Mav’s getting down and dirty with some Power Wash Simulator, and Solon’s putting on his Tunic and getting back on the boat with Sea of Thieves. Plus, our ongoing and neverending Activision Blizzard coverage, Cleo Draglalialost loses her job, Sony’s Playpass (just kidding, they couldn’t come up with that if they tried), Bloodborne Kart real, shaggy controllers real, Testament real and nb, and an in depth look into the themes of #GollumGame.

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

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, watch the live stream above or listen below!

The post VGCC Episode 389: Nasty Little Pocketses appeared first on Gamesline.

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

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 364: Like a Pirate appeared first on Gamesline.

Starfield

Bethesda has apparently been working on this in some way for 25 years, scary. Though they teased it a few years ago, there was little we knew about Starfield other than the fact that it’s one of them Bethesda RPGs but in space. Now…we know pretty much the exact same amount except that it’ll come out next year! Okay! From the concept trailer it at least looks like there might be more of a story than the usual Bethesda fare, but that might not actually be the case because cinematic trailers are always just sort of like that. Starfield comes out November 11, 2022 (the eleventh anniversary of Skyrim!), and will be on Game Pass right from the get go.

As someone who’s become heavily disenfranchised with Bethesda-made RPGs, it would be nice if Starfield is this more bold and open and barely put together mess of good and creative ideas like their older works, but based on games like Fallout 4, it’s hard to believe that’s even a possibility anymore.

Fallout 76: Steel Reign

Oh hey yeah look right here! This is the exemplification of everything that’s made me stray away from Bethesda. Fallout 76 apparently recovered from its disastrous launch when it added NPCs to the game with the Wastelanders update that came out last year. I don’t really know what recovered means, (I know maybe a total of three people that played it and it was not for very long) but apparently it was enough to warrant continued support. The Steel Reign expansion will continue to focus on the Brotherhood of Steel, with all the associated iconography and such that have come to be associated with them. It’ll add “Legendary Power Armor” and conclude the storyline set up last year in the Steel Dawn expansion. It’s coming out for free to Fallout 76 players next month, on July 7th 2020. 

It really sucks that even if Fallout 3 and its ilk weren’t exactly bastions of thoughtful ideology and concepts, at least there was like something there right? Fallout 76 has taken the Fascist conceptualization of the Brotherhood of Steel that was meant to be a warning with regards to militarization and just ended up making all of that into epic cool stuff even more than ever before. Seeing the American flag power armor in 2021, still being used for the same reasons, is depressing beyond belief.

Also speaking of Fallout 3 I guess they’re gonna do DLC at some point that takes you back to The Pitt from Fallout 3, in a new “Expeditions” branded format. Okay.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 : Heart of Chernobyl

Okay now here’s the post-apocalypse I can get behind. 

Over ten years in the making, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2: Heart of Chernobyl is the fourth S.T.A.L.K.E.R. game! It looks a bit more approachable than previous entries in the series, but who knows if that will be true because video game trailers love to lie! It will have multiplayer and a full main story campaign that seems to be in a more traditional AAA format. I don’t know much about S.T.A.L.K.E.R. but if I can actually comprehend and play this one then that would be really cool! 

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2 is allegedly coming out April 28, 2022, but take that with a pinch of salt as always.

Contraband

Not much about this one!!! It’s a co-op open world game from Avalanche, the makers of Just Cause. It looks like it might be in some sort of swampy place? Who knows!

Sea of Thieves: A Pirate’s Life

A free Pirates of the Carribean expansion for Sea of Thieves! They got more than just Jack Sparrow, they’ve got pretty much every single Pirates character like Davy Jones and such. The only thing that really struck me about this one is that all the Pirates characters look worse than they did in Kingdom Hearts II! Sad.

Atomic Heart

I had forgotten that this game even existed, but I remember its concept trailer being pretty popular when it came out all those years ago. The conceit is still pretty grounded in a wacky 1950’s Russian aesthetic, but who knows what it’ll really be. There’s still no release date, or like, gameplay outside of setpieces so????? Who knows.

Psychonauts 2

Psychonauts 2 is apparently for real coming out on August 25th! After being delayed this many times, I must express a degree of trepidation, that has only exacerbated my concerns that I don’t think a sequel to Psychonauts almost 20 years later could be all that good. While it’s fun to hear the Invader Zim voice again, most of the comedy feels like it’s been taken right out of the original’s playbook, and I don’t know how well that plays in the irony-warped year of 2021. There aren’t that many 3D platformers left though, so maybe just that’ll be enough to be happy about.

Party Animals

This is just Gang Beasts with animals???? This is just Gang Beasts with animals. Okay. 

Hades

The best Roguelite of all time is coming to consoles other than the Nintendo Switch! Hades will be on PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S through Game Pass on August 13th. Please play this one if you haven’t already, one of the GOATs.

Somerville

So this just looks like Limbo or Inside and there’s a reason for that! It’s made by the former CEO of Playdead, the company that made those! This one shockingly didn’t lead with the weird random child murder so I was a little confused at first. Somerville looks like a sad dad game set in an alien apocalypse of some kind. That’s probably the general gist of the game -these affairs don’t usually have dialogue of any kind- but we might find out more before its release in 2022.

Halo Infinite

Energy Sword Sunday.

Halo Infinite returns after its bumpy first reveal with a short look at Master Chief hopping around. It originally seemed like Infinite was going to take a bit of a departure from the main story that 343 had been setting up, but this new cinematic placed it firmly in a post Halo 5 world. There’s all sorts of mentions about Cortana and they added a new AI lady for Master Chief to talk to as well since she’s uh, gone?

They also finally showed multiplayer for the first time and it sure looks like Halo! There are some new armor ability type things like hand-held shields that bounce back plasma pistol shots that seem like they could be really fun if balanced correctly. My only problems with modern Halo have stemmed from trying to be like Call of Duty, and the ways the fetishization of military aesthetics have of course come along with that. While what was shown does little to allay my concerns, it looks like a lot of the funkier Halo vehicles are back, and they made new cool samurai armor that you can wear so maybe it’ll be really cool again! A girl can dream.

Halo Infinite and the first season of its free to play multiplayer will launch sometime this Holiday season.

A Plague Tale: Requiem

So this is like out of nowhere but they’re making a sequel to A Plague Tale, a game that has one of the most insane endings I’ve ever seen in a video game. This time around it seems like they’re frontloading the rat tornadoes, which is cool I guess. The vibes of this game are inscrutable to me, but I’m sure somewhere out there is someone incredibly stoked that the evil Plague Pope is gonna spit rats at you again.

Slime Rancher 2

Oh cool they’re making Slime Rancher 2! I still haven’t played the original, but I love the concept behind the game, and I think I’ve bought it for like three different people over the years. While I wonder what could be so boldly new and different about a sequel, it’s still cute and nice, so that’s good.

Shredders

You can snowboard with your bros, December 2021.

Replaced

This game looked sort of like that Cyberpunk one that was made by the weird UBI guy from a couple years ago, do you remember that? Anyways this game is made by Sad Cat and Coat Sink which really rips to type out like this let me tell you. While the gameplay seems pretty interesting and the lighting is really cool, I can’t help but be fatigued by its dour and redundant post-apocalyptic imagery. Can we please move on from the post-apocalypse I am begging you. Replaced comes out sometime in 2022. 

Grounded

The weird Honey I Shrunk the Kids game from Obsidian is getting a new “Shroom and Doom” update. This will add mushrooms and the ability to sit, alongside a bunch of other stuff. There was one bit where they introduced a big spider boss and then joked about how you could put on the arachnophobia slider to make it look like an orb and I get that it is very funny but it felt kind of weird! Anyways that’s coming out June 30th.

Among Us

While it’s unclear whether this will be coming out alongside the other stuff outlined at the Summer Games Fest, Among Us will be adding 15 player lobbies. Crazy.

Eiyuden Chronicles

They pretty much just showed the trailer from the Kickstarter campaign for this Suikoden spiritual successor. Afterwards, a weird spin-off 2D platformer or brawler game called Eiyuden Chronicles Rising was announced to be coming out in 2022, with the full game coming in 2023. While I’m sure they’re being made by different teams, I really wonder why all of these Kickstarters just make one of their stretch goals to make an entirely separate ass game. So weird to me.

Age of Empires IV

It looks like Age of Empires but they asked me what I would do if I could control history and buddy I’d rather play Fate/Grand Order. 

The Outer Worlds 2

An incredibly painful trailer that spoofed AAA games concepts trailers announced that Obsidian is working on a sequel to The Outer Worlds. Apparently it’s still in incredibly early development, so they have absolutely nothing to show. I really did not care for The Outer Worlds, I felt that its critiques of capitalism were so surface level and devoid of genuine human understanding that I couldn’t even begin to resonate with its world or characters. I know the game has plenty of fans though, so I hope that it at least delivers something they can enjoy whenever it comes out.

Microsoft Flight Simulator

This one is coming to consoles on July 27th, that’s pretty much all there is to it. There will also be a weird Top Gun expansion later this year, but very little was shown and it’s unclear what that will even be? The only thing I know about Microsoft Flight Simulator is they recently cut their game file size down significantly and in a world of Call of Duty Warzones I truly respect that.

Forza Horizon 5

Forza Horizon 5 is the fifth Forza Horizon game, yeah. This one takes place in Mexico and takes you around to all sorts of pretty places that games usually ignore when they make their weird racist fearmongering renditions of Mexico! Very cool plateaus, old architecture mingling with modern day, it’s all really nice to see. They also seem to be adding some more party modes to the game, with things like Bowling, or Pinata collecting. There also seems to be some sort of Halo map editor type stuff that looks like Fall Guys? Unclear. This presentation was like 15 minutes long and I retained nothing except for the fact that they did the fake presentation multiplayer talking and I live for that shit. Forza Horizon 5 drops November 9th 2021.

Redfall

This is a new single-player/co-op game from Arkane studios, the people who make Dishonored and Prey, as well as the upcoming Deathloop. Redfall looks like some sort of vampire survival/arcade game, but it’s hard to tell exactly what gameplay will be like from its proof of concept cinematic. A lot of the dialogue was cringe-inducing, but ultimately if the real game does deliver on the premise of actually killing vampires via their designated weak points that could make for something really interesting!

It’s also pretty funny to me that this was the game that got all the Youtubers in a tizzy last year when the name Redfall got copyrighted because they were so sure it was Elder Scrolls VI! Remember to never trust leakers, everyone! 

The post E3 2021 Day 4 – Xbox/Microsoft/Bethesda Showcase Roundup appeared first on Gamesline.

As always you can support us on our patreon, and follow us on twitter @VGChooChoo, @John_Michonski, @punkparfait, 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 podcast@videogamechoochoo.com, via twitter with the hashtag #AskVGCC or into 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 280: The Sinner’s Milky appeared first on Gamesline.

As always you can support us on our patreon, and follow us on twitter @VGChooChoo, @Solonface, @YourPalNiall and @John_Michonski.

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 podcast@videogamechoochoo.com, via twitter with the hashtag #AskVGCC or into 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 264: Gaze at My Butt Cheeks appeared first on Gamesline.