The Gamesline Podcast has a full house this week! John’s been playing Digimon Story Time Stranger, Nikolas is exploring FNaF World, Lilith has tales to recount of Trails from Zero, Rimworld, and Guilty Gear Strive, and Rose has been enjoying a bounty of gaming including Silent Hill f, Hades 2, Silksong, Clover Pit, and Elden Ring Nightreign!

Plus, they discuss such news items as EA getting purchased, the enormous Game Pass price hike, Brazil banning loot boxes for minors, and ZA/UM’s union!

And they close off with a thoughtful listener question: When do you feel that you are finished with a game?

You can support us on our Patreon, and follow us on Social Media @gamesline.net, John, Rose, Lilith, and Nikolas.

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 by Crystal and Produced by John

The post The Gamesline Podcast Episode 70: Science Hill Feminism appeared first on Gamesline.

We have an indepth conversation to finally close the book on Bayonetta 3, John imported a copy of Ultra Kaiju Monster Rancher which leads to an interested discussion of regional differences in titles. Signalis is a game about girls that are robots and also Zombies and Solon has a lot of good things to say about it! We talk about recent developments in the tech industry, and consider Kojima’s disclosure that several companies have been trying to acquire Kojima Productions.

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

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 418: Sonic and Amy Talk About Death appeared first on Gamesline.

On November 15th, SMITE will be collaborating with RuneScape! Truly no better indicator of how the cycle of nostalgia has changed in recent memory. The event itself offers skins that replicate RuneScape’s iconic low-poly aesthetic, including the famous Gnome Child with rainbow socks.

ZA/UM confirms allegations of misconduct and gender discrimination from dismissed employees. This news comes after the dismissal of Disco Elysium designer Robert Kurvitz, writer Helen Hindpere, and art director Aleksander Rostov last year. Kurvitz has filed a lawsuit against ZA/UM and as of this week Rostov and Kurvitz have released a statement in regard to their own perspective of the situation at ZA/UM. Kurvitz’s own lawsuit against the company is still set to occur later this month.

In news about failed attempts to set trends in tech that don’t involve one social media website, Google is starting to issue refunds for Stadia. The service itself will be shuttering completely in January 2023 and refunds will be processed through the payment method used for subscription purchase. If you don’t have that, Google will reach out to your Gmail but if that’s gone then you’ll have contact Stadia customer service yourself.

Unity and IronSource have officially completed their merger as of this week. When first announced, the merger has come under scrutiny from Unity users due to IronSource’s own concerning history.

Meanwhile, Hideo Kojima has his own thoughts on mergers—and he says “No!” to them. On the latest episode of his podcast, “Brain Structure”, Kojima at some point stresses that he has no intentions of ever selling his studio and wishes to remain independent, claiming that he has been approached with heavy offers who want him to do otherwise.

If you’re looking for a new gig, then you’re in luck because SEGA is in need of a Sonic Lore Master. The listing itself is for an Associate Manager however the description does in fact go to detail about the opportunity to “. . . be immersed in the organizing and shaping of Sonic lore, canon, characters, and universes, helping to bring consistency, connectivity, and creativity to all things Sonic. . .” It’s a hybrid position so if you’re able to commute to Irvine, California on Tuesdays and Wednesdays then make sure to brush up on your Sonic facts and send in that resume!

The long-running, Japanese variety show GameCenter CX is celebrating their 20th anniversary, commemorating it by finally revitalizing their Youtube channel. Also known as Retro Game Master, the series has often been cited to be ahead of it time and largely owed to the culture of game playthroughs and game streaming today.

Get ready trainers, Pokémon Scarlet and Pokémon Violet is coming out next week, on November 18th. We don’t have to listen to Ed Sheeran against our will for longer.

Finally, but most unfortunately, it has been reported that Kevin Conroy has passed away at the age 66. Conroy is famous for his portrayal of the caped crusader Batman in Batman: The Animated Series and in various video games including the first three games of the Rocksteady Arkham series and most recently MultiVersus. As part of DC Comics’ 2022 Pride Anthology, Conroy wrote “Finding Batman,” a story detailing his lived experience as a gay actor amid the AIDS epidemic and how the role of Batman ultimately became an extension of his self. Suffice to say, the impact can be felt by everyone who would consider him the definitive voice of the character.

The post The Bulletin: Rest in Peace, Kevin Conroy appeared first on Gamesline.

Rieko Kodama, producer of Skies of Arcadia and a core leader behind the original Phantasy Star games has passed away. Kodama’s career with Sega spanned over three decades, especially significant when she began her career in a time when women’s presence and contributions in games were largely overshadowed.

Takahiro Sakurai, the Japanese voice actor for Cloud Strife in the Final Fantasy franchise since 2002, has admitted that he has been in an extramarital affair with a work colleague for about ten years. The affair has forced the cancellation of his radio travel show, P.S. Genki Desu. Takahiro this past week. Sakurai’s marriage—and specifically a marriage to another industry professional—has been withheld from public information until now, and his talent management agency has acknowledged and published a statement apologizing to the impacted women, who both remain anonymous. Sakurai prominently works in anime, and has been recently performing as Giyū Tomioka in Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba, Reigen in Mob Psycho 100 III, and Tsubame Ozuno in the Urusei Yatsura 2022 remake. These roles and others currently have not been impacted.

Rocksteady Studios’ co-founders, Sefton Hill and Jamie Walker, are leaving the company by the end of this year. The news comes accompanied by the information that Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League is almost finished with production.

Unable to meet the demands of the guidelines set by Japan’s CERO rating system for games, The Callisto Protocol will not release in Japan. The game’s marketing has made its excessive level of violence a point of highlight, and the game’s developer, Striking Distance Studios, does not want to make changes to said content to secure a CERO rating. The company has vowed that Japan pre-orders will be refunded. CERO’s standards have grown increasingly stricter over the years, impacting game releases in order to produce region-specific copies of titles like Cyberpunk 2077, The Last of Us, and Resident Evil.

After accusations against PQube for exploitative behavior, Toge Productions and Mojiken Studio’s A Space for the Unbound was successfully able to find a new publisher under amicable terms. The game’s developers accused their former publisher of withholding grant money to leverage and increase their own revenue.

Following the outcome of a a slow, internal takeover that pushed out the original core team behind Disco Elysium, Robert Kurvitz, one of the co-founders of the original ZA/UM collective, is attempting to file a lawsuit against ZA/UM the game studio. This information was discovered on public Estonian court records, accompanied with the scheduling of a hearing date in late November.

The Communications Workers of America have officially filed unfair labor practices charges against Activision Blizzard due to threatening, anti-union messages made by executive Lulu Cheng Meservey via Slack. Meservey was recently hired with a wave of new employees in attempts to bring more women onto executive positions into the company, but has been quickly critiqued based on her prior working for Substack.

Meta’s Reality Labs is steadily hemorrhaging billions of dollars. The company’s latest third quarter financial report show that profits are also continuing to shrink since their foray into exploring VR, while Horizon Worlds, their proprietary virtual space, is attracting less than 200 thousand monthly active users. Meta’s own stock shares has plummeted at its lowest in the last four years.

Capcom’s latest financial reports confirms that Street Fighter 6 will likely not see a release until 2023 next year. The Resident Evil 4 Remake is also slated to be released around that same time.

CD Projeckt Red will be remaking the first Witcher game in Unreal Engine 5. It is confirmed that this is the same project that was publicly teased under the code name, “Canis Majoris”.

And the wait is over.

Blaseball is back.

The post The Bulletin: Playing Chess appeared first on Gamesline.

Overwatch 2’s launch is off to a rocky start after being immediately hit by DDoS attacks on its servers. The game is now currently under maintenance and it is unclear when servers will be fully up and running.

Even without these issues, players with prepaid phone plans have initially found that they were unable to play the game due to a new anticheat system that requires a player’s phone number to be tied to their account. The game’s team however, is now reportedly trying to address this issue.

Overwatch 2 also has a bizarrely dicey “gender verification system” in order to get into its competitive scene. The game’s Calling All Heroes program requests all participants, who wish to partake in secondary and the amateur competitive circuits—which intend on prioritizing “underrepresented genders, such as but not limited to: transgender, non-binary, genderfluid, and women-identifying individuals”—to verify their gender “to maintain a safe competitive environment”.

Meanwhile, after a series of investigations, the National Labor Board has determined that Activision Blizzard has intentionally withheld raises from QA testers under the Raven Software union.

Artist Kim Jung Gi has passed away. The acclaimed illustrator died after a heart attack while finishing the last leg of his workshop tour in Europe. He was on his way to travel to New York City to attend and conduct programming for New York Comic Con, which is occurring this weekend.

Members of ZA/UM’s original cultural artist collective have been ousted from the game studio that created Disco Elysium of the same name. This has been confirmed by several of the original core members of the collective. Although specifics have not been disclosed due to fear of legal reprisal, it is implied that the team has been underhanded by investors that have made these decisions. ZA/UM the game studio will continue to remain active despite backlash and has even been posting new job listings since.

Meanwhile, Fandom has acquired well, a lot. Fellow video game editorial publications like Gamespot, Giant Bomb, and GameFAQs have been thrown into the acquisition.

One of the worst video games of 2021 is getting a TV series adaptation. At least, that is all according to Bloober Team themselves and is simply still all on paper.

The Dead Space remake now has a trailer.

In a rare move for many games as of late, H.R. Giger-inspired horror first-person shooter game Scorn is being released a week earlier than intended. The game was previously announced to be released on October 21, but will now be available to play on October 14.

The Steam Deck is now officially available for purchase without reservation. This is also on top of the availability of proper docking accessory for the system.

And behold…

The Super Mario Bros. Movie.

The post The Bulletin: Blizzard Still Beefing It appeared first on Gamesline.

In the news, Toshimichi Mori the creator of Blazblue left ArcSys, Skull and Bones was delayed while Scorn was moved up, and E3 is back being run by ReedPOP. ZA/UM has dissolved, Wiglett is coming, and the Google Stadia is officially dead. Finally, the Shenmue and Blade Runner anime’s are being cancelled by WB/Discovery, and there is a new Onimusha anime coming from Netflix.

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

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 413: Stadia Must Die appeared first on Gamesline.

By the time I realize all of that, we have entered 2019. Our news cycle is on this constant up and down roller coaster of announcing horribly dismal events, or once in a while, something decently okay. I had no time to waste by simply constantly counting numbers and quantifying every aspect of my life to feel productive. When I realized I deserve to have no-strings-attached fun, I felt better and made more thoughtful choices naturally. 2019 was a pretty improved year for me when it came to balancing my work life and free time, and although it is still not quite ideal, I hope to carry on this positive perspective for something even closer to perfect into the neo-20s.

My background in video games coverage originated from solely covering indie, niche titles, and this list reflects that. Although there were other titles that could have easily made this “Top 5” list a “Top 10” instead, I wanted to hone in and focus the attention on specifically naming titles that might be missing from the mainstream conversation.

This will be my first year celebrating Game of the Year with Video Game Choo Choo and I couldn’t be any happier to out my shameless preferences to all you fellow weirdos.

5. AI: The Somnium Files

I adore really stupid and ridiculous games, and AI: The Somnium Files definitely fits that bill.

In a near-future version of Tokyo, a secret agency called ABIS investigates crimes by exploring the subconscious dreams of persons of interest (called psyncing). Kaname Date is part of this agency, assisted by an artificial intelligence embedded into his left eye prosthetic named AI-Ball. (Alternatively, she is also called Aiba because one will soon discover that this game really loves wordplay that would put the English localization teams of the Ace Attorney and Pokémon games to shame.). Confronted with a case that involves those closest to him, Date is forced to face questions he has never answered about himself that may connect to a much bigger mystery.

At its core, AI is essentially a complex visual novel that will branch based on the decisions you make. Controlling Date, you examine scenes and must interrogate different NPCs to gather information. You will inevitably have to further discover details through entering dreams, which are conveyed as terrifying, surreal visualizations of a person’s psyche. As they say, you can do anything in dreams, and the game doesn’t hold back about all sorts of weird things that must happen (Aiba is your avatar) to progress in what I would call its own Silent Hill nightmare version of MikuMikuDance.

Being the product of Kotaro Uchikoshi, the brains behind the Zero Escape series, AI is definitely one of the more unique games I have had the privilege of trying out this year. It receives some credit because a fictional 12-year-old girl briefly made gamers™ really mad, but at the same time, it is not above anime trope bullshit and sometimes falls into those traps that should be worthy of criticism. For instance, Date, the main character, can at times be just utterly frustrating and annoying, though this is balanced with other compelling, interesting characters—such as the game’s actually well-rounded and decently written women. Although AI: The Somnium Files is a game that would be difficult to recommend if you are looking for a more serious, grounded mystery adventure, I implore anyone already open to suspending their disbelief for this wacky world of the Somnium to psync along with me.

4. Gris

Gris is what I would consider to be a very therapeutic, healing game. It was technically released at the tail end of 2018 and I am glad its impact was able to prolong its visibility into 2019.

A girl wakes up in the palm of a giant statue and when the statue starts to crumble apart, she drops onto the colorless earth below. Many things are unexplained, and you are left with the responsibility to lead the girl through a vast, wondrous world and discover her innate potential.

Developed by Nomada Studio and published by Devolver Digital, Gris’ beauty is through its minimalism. Not only is much of Gris’ storyline left unsaid for you to unravel, the world itself starts off pretty empty and gray (title drop!), which slowly becomes more complete—more colorful—as you progress. As you collect more skills, you will have to put them to the test through platforming mechanics and puzzle solving.

Gris is such an immersive experience—very much like an interactive film!—and it had strongly impressed me with how smooth every scene transitioned and cinematically coordinated with its music. Its visuals are tenderly rendered through highly illustrative and flat, 2D animation, emulating ink and watercolor on paper.  Because I was only slowly learning more and more details about this world as I progressed, I had to keep moving forward, wondering where this allegorical journey would lead me.

Gris is show, don’t tell, at its finest. It is easy to not only get lost in the gorgeous art, but within something itself that feels like I am peacefully falling asleep into a lucid dream.

3. Yuppie Psycho

I like exploring horror concepts and reading spooky stories, but I am a huge scaredy cat when it comes to playing actual horror games myself. Yuppie Psycho never got too overwhelming to the point where I had to put it down, and I ended up truly enjoying it! Its real strengths as a horror game were simply not in just flashing blood and other shocking imagery, but in ideas that were disturbingly too real.

Yuppie Psycho takes place in a dystopian 90s society, in which Brian Pasternack somehow lands a job at one of the world’s largest companies, Sintracorp. Brian comes from a rather underprivileged cusp, and after quickly experiencing horrifying conditions that no one else seems to be bothered by at the offices, his time at the place becomes uncertain. Unfortunately he finds himself quickly cornered into his first assignment: hunting down a “witch”.

Initial impressions of Yuppie Psycho can harken a lot to other 2D adventure horror games like Ib, but as previously mentioned, the game has much more added complexity. Brian has to navigate the different floors of Sintracorp and not only will he be absorbing sordid details through his co-workers, but will have to potentially pit himself against the dangerous beings that lurk in the darkness of the different offices by solving puzzles. The game does such a great job at the jarring juxtaposition between its otherworldly elements counteracting with the mundanities of office life. For instance, a basic mechanic would be essentially preparing and combining foods to make healing items. Normal. Meanwhile, you need to photocopy your face with some sort of witch-cursed paper to save the game since the paper encapsulates your soul in some way. Not normal(?).

I appreciate how immersive the game was by avoiding cheap thrills and being scary where it was appropriate. This is all the more enhanced with an excellent soundtrack by Garoad that knows how to convey nostalgia and panic all at once. It is also brutally funny with pure, deadpan delivery, truly creating an accurate representation of the very real anxieties that can come out of the white-collar workplace, but translated into literal horror.

2. Later Alligator

Later Alligator is a nauseatingly delightful and charming game that can only be best described with every single other synonym for the word, “cute”.

It is a point-and-click adventure game comprised of puzzle mini-games similar in vein to titles like Puzzle Agent and the Professor Layton series. Patrick the alligator is convinced his family is scheming to kill him and enlists your help to trek through Alligator New York City and get to the bottom of what exactly is going on. As a private investigator—which, worthy to mention, I only noticed this genius pun while I was writing this—you have to talk to the different alligators to coerce more information on Patrick and help them with some sort of problem through a mini-game.

It is incredibly simple through and through. But for that reason, it is a strong, solid game by never overstepping its bounds and asserting its identity—especially so clearly through its visuals. Later Alligator was skillfully animated and designed by the team of Smallbu Animation, led by husband-wife animators Lindsay and Alex Small-Butera. These lovingly executed visuals and the game’s strong sense of humor grabbed my heart in loving and caring about every single one of these gators.

Even after finishing the game, I can’t help but keep replaying it to obsessively collect everything and discover any other fun piece of eye candy I could have missed. It’s like visiting and checking in on real friends you made in a very real city. But they’re alligators. I sincerely just want them all to be happy in their simple, alligator lives. I hope The Knife finds the love he deserves!

1. Disco Elysium

As a frequent player of tabletop RPGs, Disco Elysium panders to me like the disgusting nerd I am. It is a refreshing take on the traditional RPG genre by fitting it squarely in a context that is relevant to the grand socio-political conversation of our times.

Whereas many of the more significant titles of this genre are often set in high fantasy realms where combat sometimes becomes an inevitable choice, Disco placates you in a more believable world riddled by poverty, crime, and corruption running amuck that can easily be a reflection of our own reality if things go even more sideways than they already are. Pure conversation and thoughts are your main ammunition, and solutions are presented by a better understanding of human nature.

I am a huge proponent of more text-heavy games being part of the larger conversation on video games. Visual novels have a stigma as is, and there are definitely some gamers™ that need to read a damn book once in a while. Especially with such a turbulent year filled with louder discussions on social issues, it was inevitable that our zeitgeist hastily responded. I felt that many pieces of media that came out this year, although admirable, were too on the nose in asserting their own social commentary to the greater discourse. Others just expressed opinions that were just outright laughably wrong.

Disco Elysium, on the other hand, is coherent and doesn’t speak down on you. It is the type of playing experience that can make you laugh, cry, and go through the entire wave of emotion all in a single hour playing instance. With credit due to Michael Kurvitz and his writing team at ZA/UM, Disco Elysium is such a well written game that manages to come from a place of high literacy and sensitivity to human emotion, knowing where to be touching and clever without sneering and making assumptions about you. It can be gut-busting in all the truly ridiculous ways based on the choices you make, all the while being respectful and careful in handling topics such as war, addiction and bigotry. This was a thoughtfully produced game, interestingly not holding back with its obvious, direct projection and commentary of more recent events.

The developers are also just hardcore. Hard. CORE.

Disco Elysium can undeniably be heavy and tackles difficult topics, but it manages to avoid falling too far deep into mockable, edgy nihilism. Even if you may not consider yourself to be a fan of text-heavy games and may prefer something on the more lighthearted side, it is something worthy of at least trying out because it may just surprise you. After all, it did for many of us.

The post Elvie’s Top 5 Games of 2019 appeared first on Gamesline.