The LauraKBuzz Podcast

Another year of video game accessibility is complete and recapped. Now excuse me as I take a few weeks break from this show over the festive period and return in the new year with more fresh thoughts and opinions.

If you purchase a video game on PlayStation, Xbox, or Steam today you can find out what accessibility features the game supports from supported digital storefronts. Would it be possible to bring that same accessibility messaging to physical game boxes?

Motion sickness is more complicated than just visual sensory information. Let's talk about other senses that can trigger or lessen motion sickness.

I would love to see Nintendo ride the wave of their first outwardly accessibility minded release with a step forward toward marketting and messaging their accessibility features.

While there are reasons to suspect this may be a Sakurai specific development, it's none the less exciting to see this kind of accessibility support in a Nintendo published title.

Pokémon Legends has already absorbed 90 hours of my life. Let me tell you about the ways it is and isn't accessible for disabled players of various types. Also, shiny hunting tips for obsessive autistic gamers like myself.

With Pokémon Legends Z-A less than a week away, what might accessibility in this new release look like at launch?

EA is being aquired by the Saudi Government and Jared Kushner. That's not a great sign for the future of progressive themes and investment in accessibility for the publisher.

An update on accessibility at Bridge Command. I'm pleased to say it's largely positive news.

Star Trek is set in a utopian future where disabilities can be accomodated through futuristic technology. Does this starship piloting video game LARP experience manage to capture the same spirit with its level of accessibility accomodations?

While the series still has issues with predatory microtransactions, these new accessibility updates to legally distinct Fifa move the sports sim series in a great direction.

In the calm before the Switch 2 storm, we discuss having helicopter arms as accessibility. 0:00 - Intro 3:28 - To a T 24:57 - Doom: The Dark Ages 37:20 - IGN Article RE Able Gamers 53:11 - Outro

We're back from GA Conf, and we sure have some games to discuss. 00:00 - Intro 02:14 - Oblivion 10:40 - Laura tried the Switch 2 13:09 - Donkey Kong Bannanza 14:35 - Mario Kart World 16:20 - Drag X Drive 28:50 - Metro Prime 4 33:42 - Clair Obscure: Expedition 33 37:15 - 1000xRESIST 40:00 - PS5 audio boosts including voice boost 42:31 - Steam A11Y tags 52:00 - Microsoft increase price of XBOX but not Adaptive controller 52:48 - Godot 4.5 improves accessibility support 54:42 - Days Gone Remastered accessibility features detailed 58:41 - World of Warcraft introduces Rotation Assist with Single-Button Assistant 1:01:44 - Where to find us

Expecting professionals to deliberately subject themselves to illness triggering material in order to protect others down the line from those same harms is not sustainable. We need to take seriously the fight to reduce risks before playtesting with illness impacted players.

A pretty promising selection of features available on first boot of the zombie hoard combat adventure game.

Spider-Man PS4 demonstrated in 2020 that PlayStation can backport accessibility settings for free into older versions of titles. Their approach in the years since has placed accessibility upgrades behind a paywall.

A huge step toward standardisation of an important feature industry wide, but that annoyingly misses the mark on doing so in the most industry standardised way.

This new set of audio boost features on PS5 is a game changer, both for those with hearing loss and for autistic gamers.

I spent four hours this past weekend going hands on with the Switch 2 in London. It certainly feels like a premium step up for the hardware, but it's the specifics that stuck with me in the days that followed.

An open and honest discussion about the fact I'm probably not going to be reviewing Xbox games for a while, and why that's tricky to do when accessibility coverage is my job.