Julius

Love Maw-maws (Clodsire, anyone?) and very funny that there's an ability to swing around and stick to walls...when this game launches the same day as Spider-Man 2 this looks like a lot of fun! The Mario Edition Switch OLED looks nice too! Love the coins hidden away inside the dock on the cable input/output housing

Stream is up and ready to go: I'll be watching this as I doubt I'll be picking up Wonder on Day 1 (the backlog and Spidey 2 are calling my name ), but I am really curious to see how this one turns out!

Watched Part Three of Ahsoka over lunch. A solid episode, definitely felt like it was setting up the next, and a great Anakin/TCW-type moment from Ahsoka too, with some very Ahsoka dialogue to boot. Rosario and Natasha have both done a great job of embodying their characters with little moments here and there so far (for Sabine, the table and the cup comes to mind as a veeeeeeeeery Sabine moment), look forward to seeing them fleshed out and their relationship explored more in the coming episodes. Kiner OST on point as always. Oh, and also a totally subtle reminder that politicians suck. What they're doing with certain creatures and the plan to follow them seems like a very natural way for us to get elsewhere, hopefully they deliver on that and it doesn't feel shoehorned in, as I was a little worried it might. The explanation for the dramatic establishing wide shots of a planet as a ship comes out of hyperspace got me

I'm upset about everyone else having not yet played them Just reminds me I need to get to III (and every other game in existence) That's true. 2024 is very quickly looking to be one of the best years for JRPGs, it's funny that we already need to start throwing things back to the second half of next year with his busy the first half is looking now if we could just get some Dragon Quest XII news...

September Essentials: Also, yeah, yikes at that PS+ price hike @drahkon. I've still got another year from the Now > Premium upgrade I got last year, but this year I've played fewer games than ever, and the calendar is packed with new awesomeness that I'm missing out on. Not to mention the retro stuff has been abysmal

Officially delayed out of 2023 Not massively surprising considering we've heard nothing all year, but still, kind of crazy the MGS Collection leapfrogged this.

The rest of the XVI cast started to get in on this too!

Looks like a new Switch model is set to be announced here! ...a Mario Edition Switch OLED

Well, we've got a Direct! Hopefully this is focusing on Wonder so that the next Direct (if we get one before it releases) doesn't spend too much time on it, rather than this being a sign that there's no other Direct on the way I doubt it would impact it either way, especially with TGS just around the corner. 15 minutes seems quite long to me to spend focusing on a 2D platformer, makes me wonder if Martinet gets his lap of honour here and/or if we're going to get some Miyamoto weirdness.

SIE filed trademarks for Astro Bot in Europe at the end of last week... ...and in America, too. We're quickly coming up to September, and I think there's a good chance we once again get another PlayStation Showcase. So the timing could be right...could it finally be happening?

Analogue have announced a special and limited Glow in the Dark version of the Analogue Pocket:

It's basically the tabletop RPG Dungeons & Dragons in video game form, with the campaign already designed for you. That's probably the most succinct way I can put it Ooo thanks for that, will need to take a look! Well, originally I wanted to be a tiny Dragonborn bard the size of my lute...but there aren't any height sliders, so there went that idea I think I'm still keen on being a bard though, mainly because every D&D podcast I listen to, the bard seems to be the silliest and have the most fun, but also because knowing the friends I'm going to be playing with...yeah, I'm going to need to fill the gap as a support character So yeah, at the moment I'm thinking an Elf Bard, probably a Half-Elf like a Wood Elf? But I also still just love the idea of messing around as a Dragonborn Bard, even if I don't get to be tiny, so will need to see how the rest of the party composition looks, I think, because I'm not 100% on the race differences (especially if there are things like vision in the dark taken into account) which is precisely why I got the DE, just to mess around and see what sticks

Yep, sure did! Makes perfect sense going for the standard edition in that case, but I respect that there's still a sense of temptation to upgrade to the DE I went with it purely because I'll probably have my first session with my friends on the Friday following release, so wanted enough time to nail down my character's customisation for our co-op campaign, and just play around with the systems a little to get an idea of how things work so that we aren't totally lost! Have definitely gone off the idea of running a solo and co-op campaign separately for now with how long some people are saying they've been playing just the first act for, there are so many other games coming out that I don't want to commit to this too much! Purely running the co-op campaign first just seems like a good way to take it all in with fresh eyes too. I'll probably get to a solo campaign at some point, but with how gaming has been this year and the pile of games I wanted to get to before the year even started...yeah, could be a while before I get to that will be fun to just catalogue my co-op journey though!

Thanks for the thoughts, @drahkon! Shame you didn't love it and that it fell off so harshly for you, but at least it sounds like you had a great time at the start? Really curious to see what I think of the game when I get around to it, as I find we aren't usually a million miles apart on our gaming opinions Would love to see your AC design! I've seen a lot of emblems today (someone shared their Outer Heaven one, which looks and seems perfect?!) and really just want to dig into customising my mech

Having played the 2016 remake for the first time just a month before Rift Apart's launch, I don't think it's essential to play the remake at all, though it might make you a little familiar with any returning faces. However, I would recommend playing it before Rift Apart if you ever plan on playing it, because I think Rift Apart is a step up in almost every way, and so I imagine it could be difficult to go back to the 2016 remake after playing Rift Apart, which I think feels tighter, has mechanics that are much more fleshed out, and also just looks better (not that the 2016 game looks bad, by any stretch of the imagination!). Fwiw, I had a blast with Rift Apart despite not having the greatest time with the 2016 remake! Look forward to hearing your R&C thoughts whatever you decide

He did one on Breath of the Wild, and now Beyond Ghibli is covering the Ghibli inspirations found in Tears of the Kingdom: Love to see it. I've yet to watch it, but yeah, I imagine there's even more Mononoke and Laputa to go around this time. Anyways, I still need to get back to this at some point. Got over 60 hours in, and then just prioritised Final Fantasy XVI (because it's linear and could drag me along to the ending) when it released, which I'm still in the process of going through my second playthrough for. By the time I put it down, though, I did find myself in roughly the same situation I found myself in with Breath of the Wild, some four years ago now, feeling a little fizzled out on the game (probably 50% - 60% of the total map uncovered, a load of things unlocked, etc.). It's funny, because I swear the reason I lasted 20 hours longer with TOTK before getting to this point is purely down to having some more direct main quests to follow along the way, yet while the exploration and adventure aspect of TOTK is what I love most, it also just takes a lot of energy to want to explore - it's definitely something that I find I need to be in the mood for, rather than chip away at casually. It's a shame though, because in pretty much every way (other than reusing the same base world map, but they've added so much it's hard to complain!), I think it's a step up from BOTW, so I do need to get back to it and complete it. Hopefully before the end of the year. Maybe. No promises.

19 minutes of gameplay:

Damn, sounds like you're making light work of it! If I'm remembering right you also made light work of Sekiro's bosses (though I think you were a bit more split on the overall experience, it sounds like you're enjoying AC quite a bit so far?), and this game is directed by the guy who was the lead designer on Sekiro (and considering their schedule, I imagine a lot of the team on AC overlaps with the team that was on Sekiro), so I wonder if it's something about their work/combat/approach to bosses in particular? Or you're just killing it, which is also possible I was just as surprised that I didn't really have a hard time with Bloodborne earlier this year outside of a certain boss or two, at least compared to my experience with other From games, and I really feel like that was down to the combat in that game being exactly what I wanted from the combat in all of the other games I've played of theirs. I'm still trying to not pick this game up, the last few days I've definitely been tempted, but I'm a session or two away from XVI's Plat, then I can return to Like a Dragon...just got to keep myself busy playing everything else!

I keep doing the exact same thing! I read a post elsewhere the other day about the remaining N64 NSO titles, so I remembered Mario Party 3 was amongst them when making my post, but decided to fact check through the wiki for N64 NSO releases just in case, and definitely had a moment of intense confusion seeing the positioning of the '3' in the Mario Party box art

The game is now set to come to Xbox Series X|S at some time later this year, with Series S not having split-screen co-op functionality: Considering split-screen struggling on Series S was reported to be the reason for it not launching on Xbox at the same time as PlayStation a few months ago, seems like a bit of a shame for Xbox players that they've only just bit the bullet in making it a Series X exclusive feature. Then again, they've got Starfield releasing within a week of NG3's PS5 release, so it's not like they're left wanting for an RPG to dig their teeth into if anything, it might space it out better for Xbox (not having their first-party centrepiece competing with the highest rated game of the year so far) and Larian (brings them a third separate platform release closer to GOTYs to revive hype) both, so that'd be good. Got to imagine this will be the first in a line of third-party titles to have some Series X exclusive functionality. While the Series S is a great way to target a lower end market, it does seem like it's been a limiting factor in a few cases already, so I'm curious to see what Xbox's plans are over the next couple of years to minimise that.

We've got a gameplay overview trailer, people: So we get to cosplay as the DQ III hero in this while we wait super, super, super patiently for just a single scrap of DQ III HD news

Excitebike 64 (finally!) arrives on the NSO N64 app on 30th August: It's been, what, nearly a year since this was announced? Still waiting on Mario Party 3 and 1080° Snowboarding...

Nice! Look forward to hearing your thoughts, especially on the customisation I cancelled my pre-order on Monday, just before it was set to ship out, trying to be a Sensible Adult™. Even though I think I'll probably just commit to BG3's co-op campaign with friends for now (until all the patches and stuff are out before a solo playthrough, so years from now), I've got plenty of other games to be getting on with (and games to return to!), and really don't think I'm quite in the mood for such a combat-heavy From game after XVI, so I think I'm okay to wait. But I'm sure I will be in the mood for it by the end of the year, especially when we all start talking about GOTYs 2023 has been stacked, and early 2024 doesn't look like it'll be letting up either! It's a great time to be gaming, whatever you choose to play

We got another trailer for this the other night during Gamescom ONL: And some even got to go hands-on with the game: And lastly, a look at a boss battle in 4K with RTX on: Game still looks great. Still a massive shame about its development background.

Yeah, the first two episodes of Ahsoka were great. Loved the opening, Baylon, Kiner's score (hearing Sabine's Theme backing live-action is goosebump-inducing!), and it sets the rest of the show up nicely. Crazy how much of the marketing footage we've got through already. Chopper absolutely stole the show. Thought the end credits were fantastic too. That font they used is 100% inspired by Princess Mononoke's alternate English title logo (I see you Dave Filoni), with a little Nordic and Star Wars inspiration thrown in for good measure too: