Goku, Cloud, Zelda, and KEANU were all at E3 this year!

Pop CultureJune 13, 2019

All this year’s key E3 gaming announcements

Contributing writer

Goku, Cloud, Zelda, and KEANU were all at E3 this year!

E3 is the biggest week of gaming news of the year – which means it’s easy to lose track of everything that’s been announced. Sam Brooks rounds up them all up in one convenient place for you.

Not only is E3 the biggest gaming convention in the world, it’s the biggest hype-machine and you can lose the forest for all the trees. So what I’ve done for you, and you can thank me later, is put all the announcements in one easy place so you know what’s coming down your gaming pipeline in the future, and what you should be excited for.

This is what went down this week, with minimal commentary:

Microsoft

Keanu Reeves is in Cyberpunk 2020, which is all I care about. Also, it’s out April 16, 2020. But I guess you want the rest of the announcements too.
The new Microsoft console is called Project Scarlett, named after Gone With The Wind heroine and curtain-couture wearing Scarlett O’Hara. It’ll be available for you to dump money on next Christmas.

A new Halo game!
Borderlands 3 still exists, is still coming.
The new Obsidian RPG is out in October!

Microsoft bought Double Fine! Also Psychonauts 2 is coming.
Age of Empires II in 4K! Put it in a needle, then into my veins, please.
Console streaming? Which I don’t understand, and nobody explain it to me.

A collaboration between Hidetada Miyazaki and George RR Martin, yes, that guy, is coming soon, under the name Elden Ring. No further information is available, but I’m sure it’ll crush people’s will to live.
Microsoft Flight Simulator is coming back, to keep your uncle occupied on his computer.
Gears 5, which is absolutely not Gears of War 5, is out September 5. Just in time for my birthday! Hint hint: Buy me anything else.
A new controller with a 40 hour battery, which you don’t need.
Phantasy Star Online 2 is coming to the West, finally!
Ori and the Will of the Wisps looks awesome, and is coming February 11, 2020.

New games: New Tales, new Battletoads, new Flight Simulator, the new game from the Hellblade developers, something called Microsoft Dungeons, a bloody Blair Witch Project game, something called Spiritfarer, Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga, Dying Light 2, a Funko Pop x Gear of Wars game, Wasteland 3. And just… lots, you guys. Lots.

Bethesda

Ghostwire: Tokyo is the next game from the creators of The Evil Within. We don’t know much other than it’s an action adventure game, which is barely a genre now.
The people who brought you Dishonored are bringing you a time-beding game called Deathloop, which I misread as ‘Deathdrop’, and I want that game.
A new Commander Keen game, in this climate.

Elder Scrolls: Blades, a game that exists, is coming to Switch. It’ll probably handle better with the Joy-Con Controllers.
Elder Scrolls Online is getting some DLC called ‘Scalebreaker’.
A third Elder Scrolls game is getting an expansion called ‘Moons of Elsweyr’.
Elder Scrolls VI is apparently still in development. Great.

A new Doom game is out on November 22, if you hate hell-aliens. It will be a Doom game.
Fallout 76 is a game that exists, and is being updated. This time, with NPCs, which you think is something you would have upon release! Also, a battle royale mode, because trends be trends. The game is free from now ’til June 17 if you want to try out a game everybody shrugged about six months ago.

Wolfenstein VR, in case Nazis in actual reality wasn’t enough for you.
New Rage 2 DLC.
Some new streaming software technology, which is cool if you like streaming.

Ubisoft

Watch Dogs Legion will be out March 6, 2020. Every NPC is playable, which means that you can playing as a hacking grandma. We stan a Matrix Betty White.
The new game by the Assassin’s Creed Odyssey dev team, Gods & Monsters will be out February 25, 2020. It is reportedly similar to Breath of the Wild, which is a good comparison as they go.
Ubisoft is launchig its own game subscription service, UPlay+! $15 a month gets you access to over 100 Ubisoft games (so lots of empty open worlds with lots of stuff to collect), and includes early access to new games. Fun!
Assassin’s Creed Odyssey is getting a quest-maker called Story Creator, and most excitingly for history/myth buffs, the Discovery Tour will let you walk around Ancient Greece and nitpick about all the things the overworked Ubisoft developers got wrong.

There’s a new Rainbow Six game coming in early 2020. The Tom Clancy estate continues to flourish.
A new strategy game for your rotary phones will bring grizzled white dudes from many Clancy properties together. See above re: Clancy estate, flourishes.
Rainbow Six has a new level or something. So does For Honour. Do you play these games, reader? Get in touch with me at sam@thespinoff.co.nz
The Division 2, a game which people stopped talking about approximately fifteen minutes after it came out, is free to play from today until June 16. There is DLC coming out next year, if that’s your thing.

https://youtu.be/sQWPLKHv2TU

The cats from Adventure Time are joining Brawlhalla. I have no idea what Brawlhalla is.
The Just Dance franchise still exists, and they’re releasing games on Wii still? Christ. Anyway, loo out for the new one next year, you crazy dancing cat.

Roller Champions, a roller derby game, will be available in the next few days in pre-alpha (what the hell does that mean, have they even started making it yet?). It’s a PVP game, and will hopefully allow me to play as my roller derby counterpart: Lady Big Macbeth.
In news that genuinely excites me, the It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia creators are working on a Silicon Valley-esque comedy about video game development. Put Kaitlin Olson in it, and I’m in!

Square Enix

The Final Fantasy VII remake FINALLY has a release date: March 3, 2020. The one hiccup, if you want to call it that, and I do, is that it’s the first episode in a series of them. It’s set entirely in Midgar, which was about 5-7 hours of the original game. Apparently it’s going to be the length of a normal Final Fantasy game. I am sceptical!
Final Fantasy 8 is finally getting remastered, after being missing from the announcement of literally every other Final Fantasy game except it being remastered. It’s out sometime this year.
Kingdom Hearts 3 is getting DLC, with the very Kingdom Hearts name Re: Mind.

Crystal Dynamics’ Avengers game is due out May 15, 2020. It has an all-star voice cast (Troy Baker, Nolan North, Laura Bailey) and will let you play as any of the main five Avengers (sorry, Hawkeye!).
Two SaGa games are finally being localised. You don’t care about this.

Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles Remastered will be out this summer for PS4, Switch and your cellular telephone. The original was on the GameCube.
The follow-up to the mobile game that Ariana Grande was in, I think, Final Fantasy Brave Exvius, is in development. Good for them!
The Last Remnant Remastered, originally an experimental-ish tactical RPG on 360, is available now on Switch! It came out on the PS4 last year.
Some racing game is coming out next year.

Outriders, a new co-op shooter from the makers of that Gears of War spinoff, comes out Winter 2020. According to Square Enix, it will be ‘a journey across dark and desperate sci-fi world in search of the source of a mysterious signal’. That gives me no information! Comes to all consoles.
The new RPG from the makers of I Am Setsuna and Lost Sphear [sigh, sic] comes out August 22, 2019. It will look like a painting.

Nintendo

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild 2 is getting a sequel! No release date announced, but clear at least one hundred and fifty consecutive hours to play it sometime in the future.
If you’re an odd human who owns the PokeBall Plus controller, you will be able to use it with Pokemon Shield and Sword, which comes out November 15.

Animal Crossing: New Horizon has been delayed to March 20, 2020! So you’ll have to wait to escape into a town less hellish than your reality.
A whole bunch of ports are coming to the Nintendo Switch: Dragon Quest XI, The Witcher 3, Resident Evil 5, Resident Evil 6, the remade Spyro the Dragon triology, Ni no Kuni, Minecraft Dungeons, The Sinking City, Alien: Isolation, New Super Lucky’s Tale. Woof!
Banjo Kazooie and Dragon Quest’s Hero are the next playable characters coming to Super Smash Bros. Ultimate! Rejoice, finally you’ll be able to get to play as interchangeable JRPG protagonists and a dorky bear.

A Switch remake of Link’s Awakening, complete with a create-a-dungeon mode, comes out September 20.
Cadence of Hyrule, a crossover between Crypt of the Necrodancer (think Rock Band) and Legend of Zelda comes out today on Nintendo Switch, if that’s your fancy.

Incel simulator No More Heroes is getting a third entry sometime in 2020.
Luigi’s Mansion 3 comes out sometime this year, will have eight player multiplayer and a goo-based character named Gooigi, which is objectively disgusting.
Daemon x Machina will let you fulfill your robot simulation fantasies on September 13.
The unreleased-in-the-West Seiken Densetsu 3 and another Secret of Mana game will be coming to the West… today, I believe. You don’t care about this.

Miscelleaneous/PC/EA Stuff

Google Stadia is a thing!
Blizzard is working on Overwatch 2.
As sure as the sun rises in the east and sets in the west, there will be a new FIFA game, a new Battlefield game and a new Madden.
Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order is coming November 15, in a personal attack on me. How am I supposed to play this and Pokemon Sword/Shield at the same time?!

For all the goths out there, Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2 is coming!
Evil Genius 2, to satisfy your Despicable Me fantasies.
A game called Zombie Army 4: Dead War, which feels like what someone would call a game on Law and Order: SVU.
Shenmue 3, which got given a lot of money on Kickstarter so should be coming out.
A creepy looking game called Telling Lies.

If I missed anything, then you already know what I missed because you know I missed it! I got you there!

But if there’s anything you think I should add, feel free to flick me a line at sam@thespinoff.co.nz.

Keep going!

Soaked Oats’ frontman Oscar Meins talks to folk rock legend Kevin Morby.

Pop CultureJune 13, 2019

Hasty comparisons: Soaked Oats’ Oscar Mein interviews his hero Kevin Morby

Oscar Mein

Guest writer

Soaked Oats’ frontman Oscar Meins talks to folk rock legend Kevin Morby.

On the eve of Soaked Oats’ new release, an EP entitled Sludge Pop, lyricist and singer Oscar Mein speaks with one of his songwriting heroes, Kevin Morby.

Indie folk rock icon Kevin Morby recently released his fifth solo album, Oh My God to global critical acclaim – four stars from the Guardian and NME, that kind of acclaim. When he played his first New Zealand show earlier this year to a sold out crowd, Oscar Mein of Dunedin-born band Soaked Oats was in the audience.

Mein, currently based in Berlin, got the chance to speak to Morby about how it feels to be compared to other musicians, and the way that the shapeshifting business of journalism has changed the way people find and consume music.

Oscar Mein: I remember something you mentioned during your show in Auckland about your influences and how The Clean were a big inspiration early on. When I heard that all I could think about was the fact that when I hear the Clean, I hear a lot of 60s/70s New York bands like the Velvet Underground and especially Bob Dylan when he went electric and it got me tripping on the circular nature of influences and inspirations.

I think a large reason this interview is happening is because when people hear the music that my band is making, they often reference you.

It’s how much stuff gets recycled. Influence can just take on so many forms and ways that you don’t even know. Sometimes I think about you know, people who influence a lot of people. You think about how The Breeders influenced Nirvana and the how Nirvana just changed the world.

I think about how you can be someone who is so influenced by Nirvana and then meet Kim Deal and not know who Kim Deal is. The reach of influence – it’s such a powerful thing.

I’m hugely grateful for being compared to you but I still struggle with that kind of pigeonholing. How do you negotiate that inevitable need for [artistic] categorisation?

I think it’s fine, I think music journalism is so lazy for the most part with their comparisons but at the same time, it’s just gonna happen you know?

I think when you’re an artist, you know, you’re gonna get good reviews, you’re gonna get bad reviews, you’re gonna get compared to someone you don’t like, and it’s just all part of it. I think, philosophically, the thing to do is just keep making good work.

It all comes down to if people are going to connect with it or not. When you’re making work that connects with people, I don’t really care what people think it sounds like or doesn’t sound like, I think it’s just like you said, it’s human nature to sort of categorise things.

Which stems from you connecting with yourself.

Yeah, for sure. I also think, like Kurt Vile, for example, is an old friend of mine. I’ll get compared to someone like him, but at the same time if you’re Kurt Vile you just got compared to some other indie rock artist. Everyone is always getting compared to one another, that’s just inevitable.

I think when people get upset about being compared to someone else… you just don’t need to put your energy there. I think with journalism in general, whatever they’re gonna say about your music, you just try not to let it lead you too much either way.

You’ve talked a lot about how much [singer-songwriter-producer] Sam Cohen influenced Oh My God. How much does the band you’re working with at the time influence your records?

It’s different with every record. Some records are very collaborative and some are more intimate and Oh My God is definitely very collaborative. There was a lot of Sam and I listening to demos and thinking out ideas and talking out ideas, everything was very well thought out. Which I’ve never done with a record, I’ve definitely never had conversations around what direction I wanted the record to go in.

I just saw the notes where it said you had four days with him before going out and touring City Music and then you went back in later?

Yeah, exactly. There wasn’t a lot of time in the studio so in the in-between period, we talked a lot about it so we could kind of go in with the full knowledge of what we wanted to knock out. Which is cool. It was done in a short amount of days but over a span of two years, so there was a lot of thinking about the vision to map the whole thing out.

Exactly. Are you just getting interviewed by a bunch of NZ journalists right now?

I am, you’re the second one.

You mentioned music journalism is getting a little lazy, do you think that’s… that’s kind of tragic?

I don’t know much about New Zealand or Australian press but in America it’s one of those things where people don’t get paid well and you see that it’s not what it once was but you think well, ‘who’s gonna do that job for so little money?.’ And then it’s part of the bigger conversation about ‘why isn’t there much money for the arts?’

I think it’s also kind of going away with technology. I think music journalism used to exist basically to tell people what they’re about to spend their money on, but now people don’t buy music and anyone can kind of make up their mind on their own.

I think it’s very important and I think we need to have it but I think journalism doesn’t really know where it’s at right now. I have a lot of friends in America who are political writers and they’re all getting laid off left and right because these sort of smaller publications, there’s no need for them, and I think all music journalism falls under the umbrella of ‘smaller publications’.

Yeah, it also seems people don’t really have time. I’ve been recycling this idea in my head about headline opinions, you know, people are willing to make their minds up based on headlines now.

And if it’s a catchy hook of a headline then it’s done, you know?

For sure, it’s so interesting.

I remember finding out about like the Microphones, Phil Elverum because I read an article about him in a music magazine when I was 14 years old. I remember seeing his picture, reading the article and buying the album because I thought he seemed interesting and… that just doesn’t really happen anymore. You see a headline, you see ‘This record is great’ and you just Spotify it.

I honestly feel like I listen to music more when the headline says ‘they’re really bad’, when I hear about someone being horrible, and I think a lot of people do that. It’s a weird thing with streaming, you hear about like R. Kelly… when all those allegations came out his streams were the highest they’ve ever been, and he’ll see money for that. It’s just such a weird time we exist in.

Maybe it’s all just a marketing ploy.

It all feels very Donald Trump.

Yeah, fuck.

I shouldn’t be bringing him into the interview.

Anyway! I read a biography of Leonard Cohen recently by Sylvie Simmons and he’s quoted somewhere as saying that there was three or four themes throughout his whole life that he constantly refined and chased. I know with Oh My God you’ve said that it’s kind of a final release of this religious imagery you’ve often touched on. Do you see your music as a process of refinement – thematically and musically – or is it a process of expansion and change?

I think expansion and change. I always like to think of my records as rooms and one day after I’ve released my last album I will have built a house. I think every songwriter is just writing the same song over and over; finding a new way to get at the same thing.

I read Jeff Tweedy’s autobiography recently and he talks about his songwriting and what he tried to get at and he quotes Dylan when he was asked the same question. He said Dylan put it the best when he said “I’m just putting another hole in the same piece of wood.”

That’s what it feels like, to be alive at all; to be a human on planet Earth; you’re doing the same thing over and over. Every year you’re talking about the weather; about how it’s too hot outside; too cold; or it’s so perfect outside; so horrible outside; you’re talking about how you’re hungry or you’re thirsty; how you’re relationship’s going okay or how it’s not going well.

It’s always the same thing you know, over and over, it’s just putting like a new cap on it each time. That’s how I like to think of it. With music it’s the same way, I feel like the same person most of the time as when I began and I’m here constantly just trying to find a new way to tell the same story.