Julius

First teaser (I guess?) for Christopher Nolan's Oppenheimer, which Universal have decided to just loop on their channel Still can't believe they got a real nuke for the purpose of filming

First trailer for Blonde, the Marilyn Monroe film based on a not-totally-accurate novel, starring Ana de Armas: Her accent sneaks through a bit and I'm still not quite sure if her casting is the right one (just considering the person she's portraying, I don't know if the message it's sending is quite right), but, with so much of it being in black and white, and especially with the aspect ratio and cinematography being used, I'd say they've done a good job of selling Ana de Armas as Monroe (and a much better job than the colour stills release a month or two back, which looked a bit like she was wearing a Halloween costume).

The second wave of the Booster Course Pass is set to launch next Thursday on 4th August: (YouTube link for your not-compressed-by-Twitter viewing pleasure)

I'd be interested please, as even not-folders are better than no folders!

Steam Deck has arrived in one piece Man, I wonder what I'll buy for it first...

While I continue to procrastinate on updating the Gaming Diary thread for the first time this year, one of my aims for the year was to get through the God of War games I could before Ragnarök launches. For some odd reason they're not all available as part of the new PS Plus, and I just don't like being beholden to streaming, so now that we know Ragnarök coming in November, I decided to pull the trigger: (Not pictured: God of War III Remastered, because it's on PS4, and kind of not retro? Wait, is PS3 even considered retro? Well it is to me ) Looking forward to playing through these for the first time in the next few months before I replay God of War (2018) to get ready for Ragnarök

Played through Twilight of Edo Japan last night. Got The Near Future left, and then it's onto whatever is beyond that, I'll probably need to do some grinding I imagine if/when these characters all come together. I'm out tonight so probably won't get back to it until the weekend, but while I think the game is a bit of a mixed bag of efforts, I'm looking forward to seeing how it all concludes.

Yeah, it being the same solution as it is on Switch now is very underwhelming. It's something, but it's not exactly great, as while it achieves some level of (hidden) organisation, who exactly is this helping and what problem is this fixing? Digital games are still getting buried Like you say, it can't be that hard to implement having them appear on the main screen, and it's nuts that the PS5 is missing features which are still available on the PS4. The same can be said for themes; I think it's actually pretty embarrassing that they continue to award PS4 themes for things like the end of year recap without having them available on PS5.

Oh yeah, I totally agree. 1440p is going to be great for most gaming with a monitor these days, I'm honestly surprised it's taken nearly two years for it to even end up in beta! I've just been asking for folders for forever, so may have some deeply ingrained bias resulting in my previous statement

New beta out today for any beta testers: The important one: Gamelists (basically folders...kind of); Unfortunately, sounds similar to the current solution on Switch, which is to bury it inside your Library rather than throwing it up front and centre on the home screen Still, it's better than nothing – hopefully we don't need to wait too long for a wider release!

To add to what @drahkon said, it also seems like Yakuza 0, Kiwami, and Kiwami 2 were added back to the service earlier this month after leaving in December (per VGC)? Which is honestly even weirder. So, basically I'm just imagining a scenario where Phil Spencer and Hermen Hulst (let's be honest Jim Ryan ain't doing the dirty work) are waiting around in the SEGA lobby and then occasionally doing this to the guy in reception, with no words exchanged:

All of the mainline Yakuza titles are coming to PS Plus this year: Like A Dragon as part of the PS Plus free games in August (available at all tiers), which will also see 0, Kiwami, and Kiwami 2 arrive on the service (available at Extra and Premium tiers). The remainder of the Kiryu saga (Yakuza 3 Remastered, Yakuza 4 Remastered, Yakuza 5 Remastered, and Yakuza 6: The Song of Life) will be on the service by the end of the year. The Remastered titles will be exclusive to Premium, whereas Yakuza 6 will be available at both Extra and Premium tiers.

Well, that was a fast turnaround:

Yeah, there's a Disney live-action remake coming in September and Del Toro's stop-motion film coming in December. There's also a Russian direct-to-DVD animated film called Pinocchio: A True Story which released back in February, which...looks like a mid-2000's DreamWorks film. For the darker live-action version are you maybe talking about The True Story of Pinocchio? It looks like it's won a slew of film festival awards over the last few years, but I can't seem to find a release date for it.

Hats off to Rockstar, as it sounds like they have really taken some great actions after the talks of crunch and frat-like behaviour leading up to and following the release of Red Dead Redemption II. Also: sounds like we're getting our first playable female character in modern Rockstar games. Good stuff. Obviously, we'll need to keep an eye out for updates and the proof will be in the pudding, but the fact that it sounds like the steps they've taken has slowed down production on GTA VI but they're sticking with it seems a good sign that they're committed to these changes. Hopefully we continue to see some other AAA studios start to wake up and make similar changes. UPDATE: some more details on the game, as well as some details about the changes made at Rockstar.

First full trailer for Guillermo Del Toro's Pinocchio:

So this is awesome: they built the flutes seen in the game for the game's music recordings!

Potential games for August have leaked: Damn, that's a stacked month if true. I own all of them already (boo), but it might be the kick up the behind I need to start Like A Dragon soon(ish)

Schreier/Bloomberg reporting that this has been indefinitely delayed.

Yeah, I played through and posted thoughts on Ancient China yesterday (got lost on the last page) in short: loved it, easily the best chapter I've played so far. It's funny with this game how much people playing in different orders has really highlighted the strengths and weaknesses of the game in unique ways, and at different points for everyone, to the point that I do wonder if momentum going into the last part of the game will see a wide swathe of opinions on how it concludes. While I think there are some good ideas (I said it on the last page, but seriously, someone needs to mix the Present Day and Imperial China up into a cocktail of a JRPG and really zero in on it, that'd be right up my alley), I just think they lack depth resulting from little/no exploration and, frankly, not enough time. There are trace elements of a JRPG in there but going from chapter to chapter, it's not really clear why this is a JRPG. In hindsight, it was probably made one more because it was what they knew at the time, and was a relatively simple way of translating their thoughts into a game. I agree with you on it feeling like a 16-bit RPG tech demo, I said something along similar lines... *checks notes* That's what I posted after playing through four chapters, but honestly, it's how I felt after the first two (Prehistory and The Distant Future), which just made for a super weak start to the game. I think I enjoyed The Wild West and Present Day more because they were so lean compared to those chapters, again just goes to show how easy it is for the progression order to have an impact. Can't imagine how letdown I'd be if I'd played Imperial China and [insert another good chapter, by the sounds of it The Near Future?] first and then being left with the rest of the game to kick on with. Again: there are good ideas, but just some really muddled execution. Still got a fair bit to go though, so hopefully it improves a bit from this point!

The Hollywood Reporter are reporting that Destin Daniel Cretton (the director of Shang-Chi) will be directing Avengers: The Kang Dynasty. Hell of a jump if true, but if there's anyone that knows the people on these films and if they're up to the challenge of tackling an Avengers film, it's going to be Feige!

Some more details on PSVR2 (the PS Blog says they'll be sharing launch details soon): Key details:

Early review scores are looking really good!

It hasn't arrived yet and I don't play Fortnite, but it seems to run great on the Steak Deck from what I can see on YouTube (though it does require additional setup, as you need to use the Epic Games Store to download Fortnite on PC these days!):

Played through Imperial China, which was the fifth chapter I played through. That leaves me now with Twilight of Edo Japan and The Near Future left to do, think I'll likely do them in that order based on the mixed reception here that I've seen to the former and the much more positive reception seen for the latter, and then it'll be stepping into the unknown. Yeah, I agree. Megalomania is a really hectic and fun track but man...there's so much which could have been done here to keep it fresh! For example: a secondary melody or B-section based on the time period you're in, using the instruments used for the other themes in said time period? It would have got the point across still but just added a nice depth and some new flavour to it rather than forcing a great track down your throat until you relent