The Gaming News Thread (for news that doesn't need a thread)

[Lucky_Deity]

The big announced for Pokemon Day is a new Pokemon Legends game set in the Kalos region: Pokemon Z-A.

This was nice surprise, knew there was a chance for a Legends game but didn't expect a Kalos focused one. Good to finally get a PKMN Z of sorts.

Legends Arceus was my favourite Pokemon game since Gen 5 as well so extra excited for this.

 

[Dai]

Epic Games may have been hacked. They claim there's no evidence of a hack, but that means little. Standard Operating Procedure: change password, and keep an eye on your credit card transactions if you had that saved to your account (or ask your bank to put a fraud watch on it for a while).

Epic Games responds to alleged ransomware hack, says there is 'zero evidence' right now

Currently "zero evidence" hackers have accessed personal data.

www.destructoid.com

 

[Dai]

Dragon Ball FighterZ Game Launches for PS5, Xbox Series X|S on February 29

Game's new versions launch digitally with rollback netcode

www.animenewsnetwork.com

It's a free upgrade if you own the last-gen version.

 

[SAHO]

Recruitment for HoYoverse's new action game Zenless Zone Zero's Amplifying Test is now open! Pre-register for a chance to win Test Qualification, merchandise and other great prizes! Zenless Zone Zero Amplifying Test

*my personalised link for anyone planning on playing.

 

[Jon O Fun]

Seems like Ys X: Nordics has popped up on Amazon & Hit (with place holder release date) but expect an actual date soon.

Ys X : Nordics – Deluxe Edition (PS5) https://amzn.eu/d/6RaKGek

 

[PorgPrince98]

Hey just a quick heads up for anyone with a Xbox 360. There was a sale on non-BC games the other day. Some games were like 95c. They are planning two more over the next two months.

They mentioned that the price would stick once the sales started until the store closes. The first is on June 18th and the second is July 16th.

Hopefully we'll have some good bargains.

 

[Lucky_Deity]

Outside of a few cool things like Metaphor, Fatal Fury characters coming to SF6 (as well as the new Fatal Fury game), Slitherhead and a few other things I was interested in the Summer Games Fest was a snore fest for the most part, everything looks the same.

But Dragon Ball Sparking Zero and Sonic X Shadow Generations were the highlights by a landslide for me and they're releasing a week or two between each other! being my favourite anime and video game series respectively October is going to be a great month.

Just hoping the content in the digital deluxe editions for both games are available to upgrade to if you buy the physical versions, really not a fan of content locked to digital deluxe editions as well as the play the game a few days early.

 

[Dai]

Outside of a few cool things like Metaphor, Fatal Fury characters coming to SF6 (as well as the new Fatal Fury game), Slitherhead and a few other things I was interested in the Summer Games Fest was a snore fest for the most part, everything looks the same.

But Dragon Ball Sparking Zero and Sonic X Shadow Generations were the highlights by a landslide for me and they're releasing a week or two between each other! being my favourite anime and video game series respectively October is going to be a great month.

Just hoping the content in the digital deluxe editions for both games are available to upgrade to if you buy the physical versions, really not a fan of content locked to digital deluxe editions as well as the play the game a few days early.

I thought this year's trailers had a lot more variety than usual for Summer Game Fest. Previous years tended to open with a solid hour of copy-pasted grimdark action games.

Everything announced during Summer Game Fest 2024

Everything announced during the Summer Game Fest 2024 and their trailers, including Alan Wake 2 Night Springs DLC, LEGO Horizon Adventures and Wanderstop..

www.eurogamer.net

Unfortunately, the best I can say is that some of the games looked somewhat interesting. Nothing knocked my socks off or left me eagerly anticipating it. Plus there are a shocking amount of cross-gen titles still being announced. I guess this generation really is going the way of blu-ray, where it never fully leaves its predecessor behind. That's fine for video, but games lugging around last-gen versions can't help but be limited by the weakest target system.

There was a noticeable lack of enthusiasm from the studio audience too. Hardly surprising, considering how many trailers were just misleading cutscenes. Battle Aces was the worst offender on that front, being revealed with a bombastic 90s-anime-style action cutscene, only to turn out to be a boring isometric RTS. And the announcement that a new Batman Arkham game will be exclusive to Meta Quest 3 went down like a lead balloon.

 

[DragoStark]

I also watched the Summer Game Fest last night with a friend. It helped to bounce off one another while we were watching, otherwise I'd probably have been snoozing during the whole thing too.
Nothing really excites me when it comes to new games because I'm a patient gamer who never really buys games when they release anyway (unless I am extremely excited, and the last time that happened was cyberpunk 2077) It takes a lot to get me invested, so I just watched with curious interest more than anything else.
The new persona esque game looks like it'll be another solid game, Metaphor: ReFantazio. My friend was very happy with the DLC for Alan Wake 2.

Hardly surprising, considering how many trailers were just misleading cutscenes. Battle Aces was the worst offender on that front, being revealed with a bombastic 90s-anime-style action cutscene, only to turn out to be a boring isometric RTS.

As we were watching this, I said this isn't game play is it, and my friend said watch the gameplay have crappy 3d models with no shaders on them and lo and behold
The clash of clans or whatever the hell that mobile game is was also really disappointing to see. You see those kind of adverts in the cinema, we don't need it at Game Fest.

Overall it was pretty mid. Good to see lots of indie games getting time air time though, and I appreciate what the Among Us team have done with their contributions to devs who need that extra bit of funding.

 

[Aeon]

Overall it was pretty mid. Good to see lots of indie games getting time air time though, and I appreciate what the Among Us team have done with their contributions to devs who need that extra bit of funding.

At this point I’d say that indie games are the way forward, AAA stuff is often managed by greedy executives who don’t actually care about the product they’re developing, only if it lines their pockets, I’ve yet to properly look over everything that was announced but I reckon if there is something to look forward to, it’s more than likely an indie game.

 

[Dai]

Between Future of Play, Wholesome Direct, and Future Games Show, I spent half of yesterday watching game trailers. As with Summer Game Fest, there was some interesting stuff that's gone onto my endless spreadsheet of things I might buy, but nothing that massively wowed me.

Here's what I have my eye on from yesterday:

 

[Dai]

 

[Dai]

Finally some exciting news! Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it's:

How can the same **** happen to the same girl twice?!

 

[Lucky_Deity]

Finally some exciting news! Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it's:

How can the same **** happen to the same girl twice?!

I didn't watch the Xbox Showcase but from scrolling through my YouTube subs of what was shown off I think only this and Metal Gear were the only titles which I'm really interested in so didn't miss much.

I've only played the original Life is Strange but I loved the game a lot, it's cheesy as hell but I have a soft spot for teen drama movies.

EDIT: There probably is more stuff from the Xbox Showcase which is cool but haven't looked into everything yet, not to write it off without seeing things.

 

[Dai]

I didn't watch the Xbox Showcase but from scrolling through my YouTube subs of what was shown off I think only this and Metal Gear were the only titles which I'm really interested in so didn't miss much.

I've only played the original Life is Strange but I loved the game a lot, it's cheesy as hell but I have a soft spot for teen drama movies.

EDIT: There probably is more stuff from the Xbox Showcase which is cool but haven't looked into everything yet, not to write it off without seeing things.

I've watched some more trailers from the Xbox showcase now. They might have won the weekend trailer war based on what I've seen, but it's a Pyrrhic victory since most of those games will be on PS5 too. Sorry Microsoft, scrubbing the Playstation logo from the end of trailers isn't fooling anyone in a world where it takes 10 seconds to Google what platforms a game will be on.

Is that a turn-based RPG with a budget bigger than 50p? You don't see many of those these days.

The skull-grinding gun is hilariously OTT.

 

[Lordhippos]

Expedition 33 looked really interesting I thought.

Doom of course.

Life is Strange (not necessarily in a huge rush to play it but I will play it sometime as I've played all the others).

Wuchang also went onto my keep an eye on list. Not seen it mentioned above:

Atomfall and Flintlock went into my maybe/try em out pile as they'll be launching on game pass day 1 I don't really have a reason not to try them.

 

[Dai]

So this is where the Japanese game announcements have been hiding all month.

Everything announced in the Nintendo Direct

Our roundup of everything announced during June 2024's Nintendo Direct, including The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom, Metroid Prime 4 Beyond and Stray.

www.eurogamer.net

A few things that stood out to me (which probably differ from those that will grab other people's attention due to my indifference for most Nintendo IPs):

The Mistwalker RPG Fantasian finally escapes Apple jail for a Switch port. That makes it the first console game from Sakaguchi since The Last Story on Wii.

Farmagia looks weird. Farming game where your crops grow into animals that fight alongisde you in huge packs.

New Phantom Brave.

Marvel vs Capcom collection. I assumed this would just be MvC 1+2, but it's a surprisingly comprehensive collection of the 2D Marvel games.

The Hundred Line Last Defense Academy. The combination of dumb cartoony enemy designs combined with apocalyptic edginess quickly made it obvious this was from the developer of Danganronpa.

Metroid Prime 4 Beyond. Yep, it hasn't been cancelled and it's coming in 2025. Looks fine, but really doesn't give the impression of being a game coming out two decades after the original. I hope this was Switch footage, because if this is all the power the Switch 2 can muster it's not going to knock anyone's socks off.

 

[Lucky_Deity]

A bunch of new announcements from Limited Run Games, I think they had a livestream showcase.

Limited Run Games announces over 20 new physical releases at LRG3 2024

Limited Run Games announced over 20 new titles that will receive physical releases as part of its LRG 2024 showcase, including Beyond Good & Evil: 20th Anniversary Edition, Lollipop Chainsaw Re…

www.gematsu.com

Lollipop Chainsaw and Penny's Big Breakaway are definitely titles I'm interested in owning physically. Still waiting for pre-orders to go up for Hi-Fi Rush, not sure if there was any news on that or not.

 

[Lucky_Deity]

Everything announced in the Nintendo Direct

Our roundup of everything announced during June 2024's Nintendo Direct, including The Legend of Zelda: Echoes of Wisdom, Metroid Prime 4 Beyond and Stray.

www.eurogamer.net

Definitely a lot of cool announcements. Mario & Luigi looks great, a new Zelda where you actually get to play as her finally is really cool (not counting the CD-i game and spin-offs), the new Mario Party is the first one in a while to really capture my interest (I heard the last one was pretty good as well though), it's giving me Mario Party 8 vibes which I played a lot when I was younger.

DKCR is one of my favourite platformers along with it's sequel, Tropical Freeze. Glad it's coming to Switch with the 3DS content as never played the 3DS version.

Finally got to see Metroid Prime 4 after all these years though I'm yet to play the Prime series so will be a while before I get to it.

A Link to the Past + Four Swords and Metroid Zero Mission for the GBA are a couple of games I've always wanted to play (Zelda more for Four Swords as I missed out on the DSiWare version from years ago and A Link to the Past is already playable on Switch).

Hopefully the new Mature N64 app will let us see Conker's Bad Fur Day on there soon enough, would be a missed opportunity not to.

The Marvel vs. Capcom Collection is huge as from what I've seen of Max Dood's videos, it was very unlikely to happen (his reaction to this announcment is great btw). I've always wanted to play MvC2 especially.

Glad to see the Mistwalker RPG finally come to consoles, haven't looked much into it prior but definitely on my radar.

A new Phantom Brave game is cool to see after all these years, still yet to play the original but glad a sequel exists now.

The new Danganronpa-like game is one I'll keep an eye on as well though Danganronpa itself is another series I'm yet to get into (outside of the anime of the original I watched years back).

Nice to see more Ace Attorney games as well, especially ones that haven't got an English release prior. Also another series I want to playthrough. I played a demo of one of the 3DS games way back and loved it yet never got around to picking up any of the games.

I think that's everything off the top of my head which piqued my interest though probably forgot something.

 

[BrokenPhoenix]

Gfinity Esports | The latest gaming news, features, and tournaments

Welcome to the home of Esports! The fastest-growing community in competitive gaming - covering news, features and tournaments.

www.gfinityesports.com

GAME is to end physical video game and hardware sales in all their stores (although the article states, they will still sell video games and hardware on a pre-order basis). Truly an end of an era though. I'm guessing they just couldn't keep up with online retailers who sell video games at a consistently cheaper price than GAME do. I'm actually surprised they continued to sell physical games for this long.

They should really pivot to the CEX model and combine that with the pop culture knick-knacks they sell.

I remember when I was younger saving up for a PSP and going into GAME every day after school just to stare at the empty box they had on display. I also remember getting an Xbox 360 Arcade Edition from GAME and playing Naruto Rise of a Ninja, good times. It will be sad to see if they get completely wiped out.