Julius

Dune: Part Two has started filming

Update on pre-orders for the Collector's Edition in Europe:

I'm working from home, so over the weekend grabbed some blackout curtains for my room and office in my apartment and will be keeping those and the windows closed. Other than that, got some flannels in the freezer to grab at a moment's notice and apply to the back of my neck if needed, cold shower on standby, and of course plenty of water (which I normally drink anyways, but I'll be tracking it the next few days to make sure I get enough). Oh, and got a good fan pointed at me all day too A bit worried about my dad as he works in delivery and is going to be out on the road today, he's a redhead too which doesn't exactly relieve my worries. Take care out there all

The second trailer for Shinkai's next film, Suzume no Tajimari, continues to show off how beautiful this film will be. That song gives me chills too can't wait!

Well and concisely put darksnowman, I'd agree, especially with your mention of it being poorly thought out/cheaply put together side of things, I really think they made a whip for their own back writing this story as films, and then going "oh hold up, Disney+ is going to be a thing, let's make a miniseries instead!", because I could definitely feel the moments of padding at times. Good moments unfortunately don't make a great story, and I think Kenobi is a lesson Lucasfilm should learn a lot from moving forwards. Unfortunately, for me it just sours Ewan and Hayden coming back that tiniest bit, feel like corners were cut when they deserved so much more

Well it's nice to know there are two of us

Ah, appreciate the clarification! I definitely had a moment first reading it where I questioned it seeing as it sold 12 million in three weeks but staying on that trajectory would've been nuts (mainly because I thought "well, CoD sells most of its copies in the US, GTA V and Red Dead 2 have to be up there too, but for premium games other than those it's likely just then a case of them making up diminishing proportions of Japanese and European games"), so it makes sense. I simply had too much faith in the NPD, and it has now been shaken. Damn it Piscatella, read your dang numbers!

9.73 million copies sold! Absolutely deserved for me, I loved it and Iki Island. It's a long way off but I'll be ready and impatiently waiting for the sequel whenever it arrives

I can't disagree at all, it's one of few games I've played at launch where I'm playing it and it's impossible to not comprehend that you're playing something special. I'm actually really curious when everyone got to that point, actually? Was it a boss, a general feeling, a location? For me it was... It is mounting up to be a bit of a weird GOTY this year though, I've got to say, though it could just be me. Even with most of the games you would have favoured to be GOTY nominees going into 2022 being delayed to next year, Ragnarök is still coming, but it just feels like it has a bit of an impossible task on its hands to beat Elden Ring to GOTY, at least at the most visible awards ceremonies (like The Game Awards). I think knowing what to expect - and having such high expectations - is a bit of a factor in that, I don't think it has that shiny new toy allure that most seem to give greater weight to when it comes to GOTYs, even if I'm confident it will still turn out to be great. I feel like it could fall into the same sort of camp as Naughty Dog games (they're great, but they're expected to be great), and genuinely think the only game which stood a realistic chance of challenging Elden Ring for GOTY is Breath of the Wild's sequel, just considering that Elden Ring caught fire in a very similar way and for similar reasons to Breath of the Wild in 2017 Elden Ring will fully deserve recognition come the end of the year, though, and I feel like that's a feeling that everyone who played it recognised back in February. It's an awesome game. I feel like GOTY discussions this year deeper than a surface level "X is GOTY" are going to quickly become dragging Elden Ring for its weaknesses compared to earlier From games (music, some repetition in mini bosses, some jank to boss battles) and the usual stuff you'd expect when criticising From games (difficulty - which I'd argue is easiest to overcome in this game, but whatever - and then stuff like quest tracking, some jank, etc.). Whereas, on the other hand, Ragnarök I feel will likely be all of us going "well, it's a great game, but GOTY?" and the inevitable "it's more of the same". Should be nice though, after a Year of 9's we've got two potential heavyweights to duke it out for GOTY this year, and that should be fun (and I'll just nominate The Last of Us Part I )

Okay, we knew the game was doing well, but this is nuts: according to Piscatella, Elden Ring is already in the all-time top 10 best-selling premium games in the US! Good (Elden) Lord, that's freaking wild.

ShopTo sent out emails earlier today regarding pre-orders for the game on their site going up tomorrow, and I think it might give us our first confirmation of any kind around the technical specs and modes for this game? Not really unexpected (got to imagine we'll see a mode with 40 fps post-launch), but still, nice to (seemingly) know!

You see, now I just want you to get back into it so that you can post this:

PlayStation has announced PlayStation Stars, a new loyalty programme: The digital collectibles part kind of sounds like it wanted to be NFTs, but apparently isn't: Can't help but wonder if the plan was for these digital collectibles to be something like NFTs, but given the absolute collapse of the NFT market over the last few months, they pivoted? Just given everyone and their mother was trying to push it for a hot second there. Anyways, for me, don't really care about the digital collectibles or missions (I feel trophies is already enough? And things like Astro's Playroom is where I'd want those kinds of digital collectibles thing going on with references to the history of PlayStation), but PS Plus members getting loyalty points just from buying digital games is great, it's something I really like about Nintendo's eShop and is much more appealing to me than just having generic PS Plus Double Discounts. Also, I wonder how the "first to earn a Plat in a local timezone/area" would work? Because in reality the first person will probably be a reviewer/influencer with early access to the game. Even if they didn't launch the competition until launch date or whenever, they could just save a final trophy for it and then pop it when it goes live?

Can't wait to see the Nintendo tweet next year saying "Pikmin - 4 shorts!", causing a brief moment of pandemonium before everyone just gets depressed again

Now the question is, would it Metroid: Another Other M, Metroid: Other Other M, or Metroid: Other M²? Or should that be Metroid: Other² M?

Not necessarily related to film and might be for a TV series, but Nintendo have just announced that they have acquired Dynamo Studios, Inc., who will be renamed Nintendo Pictures, and will find themselves responsible for planning and producing "visual content": I've looked them up on Anime News Network, and it seems like they have a focus on CG productions, working on CG for films like Kingsglaive: Final Fantasy XV and Giovanni's Island, series such as Yuri on Ice!!!, and offering production assistance for projects such as Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero and Earwig and the Witch. They also have a history in gaming (I'd have to imagine relating to CG production again), working on the likes of Metroid: Other M, Persona 5 and Dark Souls III, to name a choice few. Curious to see what they'll be trusted with planning and churning out!

I'm dodging around this thread a little as someone that hasn't played Link's Awakening before, but when someone posts music, I can't help but listen, at least a little bit, and it's always interesting without context. It's a track I've had pop up once or twice on YouTube and Spotify autoplay by accident, so it's not necessarily completely new to me I guess? So, to give an alternative take on this music as someone that hasn't played the game before and has no idea what it's tied to in the game, I think it's a great track because I feel like it implies a lot about what is happening/has happened. It's immediately foreboding, and at 0:25 you get this back and forth of the strings which clearly state Dies irae, a Latin sequence which has been used in orchestral music dating back centuries, and is incredibly popular even today in modern scores across cinema and gaming (if you're wondering how it fits, just say the phrase as the strings go back and forth and you'll notice it's in sync with the track, and once you realise what it is you'll start hearing it everywhere). Dies irae roughly translates to "the day of Wrath" or "day of Judgment", and it's a bit of a musical cheat to imply impending doom or reckoning, so coupled with the foreboding nature of the piece at the start, I think it's really safe to say that some sort of reckoning is happening. Is this reckoning internal or external? I have no idea, but the whining and strain of the strings makes me think it's some sort of internal reckoning (I mean, to hazard a guess, relating to whatever Link's titular "awakening" is), as external reckoning, at least musically, tends to be a bit more directly oppressive than I feel this piece is. That it's stated consecutively just adds to this overbearing feeling of something unchangeable, if that makes sense – like whatever type of impending doom is at hand, it's not something which can be taken back, like some sort of permanent change or a realisation which recontextualises things. Further, at 0:50 I feel like the feeling of pain and melancholy in the track is really doubled down on as you get what I can only imagine is a sample or recreation of the original GB game's music (which is awesome), and with Dies irae playing out under and over this, it further strengthens the back and forth of the phrase. No idea how close that mini analysis is, but if it's anywhere near, I think that's another clear indicator of how good a track it is. If not it still sounds great all the same I really need to get around to Link's Awakening, don't I?

The funny thing is that I could totally see it going that way, I think everyone has talked to at least one other person in their life about this phenomena, and my only conclusion is that humans are weird. I do also think it'd be funny if they just kept stuff like ass shots in the game but then just pixel censored the entire scene every single time Or better yet for Naive Angel Mode: how about a Michelin Man costume?

I know it's been doing the rounds the last few weeks, but now that it's official...

And that's a wrap on my Grounded+ run, meaning: Platinum and 100% acquired I've got nearly an additional 100 hours logged in the game now compared with my playtime before, and I've had an absolute blast these past three and a half weeks just glued to this game. The story and gameplay of the main story is phenomenal in more ways than I care to count and have already mentioned, Left Behind is a stellar piece of DLC, and Factions is so fundamentally distinct when compared to most other online multiplayer shooters these days, and is a hell of a lot of fun in its own right. I never quite got the appeal of replaying games (I tend to complete one and move onto the next), especially when I hear about people replaying survival horror games like they do with the Resident Evil games, but now I think I can see the appeal, especially when playing on higher difficulties to show off some level of mastery of the game's mechanics and it's levels. To cap off my Grounded+ adventure, Sunday night I blasted through The Dam and University (well, ran, for the most part!), and last night I finished my favourite level around 23:00, which...took a while. I was pretty tired and figured the last couple of levels would take a fair few attempts, but today it took me an hour, with the penultimate main level taking me one attempt, and the final (kind of) main level taking just two. Had a great time revisiting this game, and it's further cemented itself as one of my favourites, especially with the Grounded+ run of the main story and Survivor run of Left Behind. Playing through it I did have Part II on my mind a fair bit, and I think I'll have to replay it after Part I (which I now can't wait for, if only to get treated to a half decent Platinum screenshot! I mean what even is the state of PS4 Platinums on PS5, they're gross!?), because I now want to contrast that game to The Godfather Part II considering the important parallels at times that this game has with The Godfather. Off the top of my head, there's definitely a lot similar in terms of theme and tone between the two (though not quite as bloody in The Godfather Part II's case), but playing through this again actually got me noticing where some of my issues with Part II come in, as there are a lot of sections in that game which clearly parallel sections in this game, but which I think this game does miles better. For example... That got long, but I could talk about this game until I'm blue in the face, so I'm just going to force myself to stop there. Now to wait another six weeks or so to play it's remake

Already starting to train in the dark arts of their hand gestures

Certainly looks to be the case as they've been removed from the Blog now: Can't wait to play Dino Crisis next month (hopefully)!

So apparently Italy have got Dino Crisis (as well as Ridge Racer 2 and Soulcalibur: Broken Destiny):

Still can't believe four years later that it lost to God of War at The Game Awards H-o-T a fraud confirmed?!?!