Julius

Friendly reminder that the Direct and final trailer are going live tonight: You know, in case you understandably completely forgot about it happening in the two weeks since it was initially announced

@Ronnie regarding your questions, based on my own knowledge and a bit of digging around... But yeah, those are my 2 AM ramblings, we'll see if they still make sense when I wake up and read it all back in the morning, but hopefully some of my points have come across and I've maybe taken a very roundabout way of trying to answer those questions

A friendly reminder that Fusion lands on the service today! Urgh, I really want to get back to a Metroid adventure, it's been a minute since I played and loved Zero Mission...

Just finished E2 S3 of Mando... Great episode (again), maybe a bit stronger than last week's for me just considering how much I feel the story progressed this week compared to last. Roll on next Wednesday I guess!

Yeah, late on a Sunday evening, perfect to doze off to kind of surprised they gave Bethesda a 10 minute spotlight for the trailer/delay/Direct announcement, but hey, fair enough! Probably the smart move Always been the case for me that Xbox just needs to work on their curation, let alone their actual output (which has been...sparse, to put it kindly). It's all well and good buying up every other studio going, but if you don't space out their releases and end up with first-party droughts, and don't fill those droughts with must-play third-party AAA titles (with exclusivity, if you can get it)? I just can't personally find the desire to pick up a machine mainly for a legacy catalogue and indies, regardless of their quality, I need to be confident about what's coming. Right now I do still think Xbox are looked at, perhaps a bit unfairly, as still just being Halo/Forza/Gears (I'd argue +indies now too?) by the industry at large. Maybe Starfield is the start of that narrative changing, but at the same time, Bethesda have had some misses over the last few years and so the pressure is on, because you know that game is going to be coming in hot and a potential mess in need of fixing. Comparison is the thief of joy, as always, but I look at PlayStation and know that on the first-party front I can at least expect Spider-Man 2 by the end of this year, and I get Final Fantasy XVI in the next few months and Final Fantasy VII Rebirth within the next 12? And then I look at Nintendo. Does my Switch gather more dust than I ever thought it would? Honestly, yeah. But will I be buying whatever the Switch successor is on Day 1, knowing full well that Nintendo is going to crank out some must-play titles for it? Hell yes I will. I feel like Xbox promised a lot back in 2020 leading up to the launch of the Series X|S, and some 2½ years removed from it's launch, I think it's fair to say that they've struggled to live up to their promises.

See, I agree, in that I like the anticipation and build-up to getting more films...yet at the same time, I know there'll be plenty of reasons for delays/cancellations, but it definitely makes Lucasfilm look somewhat incompetent that so many films and creative partnerships have been announced and then shelves. To be clear, I don't think it's anything to worry about (especially in an age when Star Wars is somewhat thriving on a streaming platform, and even more so when there's so much else vying for our attention!), but if you told me 10 (and a bit) years when Disney picked up Lucasfilm that they'd only release 5 films in an annual flurry before going cold again, 13 year me would've laughed at the irony of Star Wars films coming back and then going quietly back into the night so soon even more so when only one of those five projects had a smooth production to boot! Would've made a great set of Making Of books (and maybe a 'How Not To Make' for the cancelled projects), but yeah, Disney chose to save face instead and not deliver the goods on that front Knew you'd be gutted about Jenkins' film, to be honest that being the only one we really knew anything solid about makes it hurt a fair bit, and like you said, it's been slim pickings on the starfighter dogfight front for a while now. Here's hoping someone else picks it up down the line in some form or another! They added a few panels after the initial tweet (the ROTJ one and the Andor ones weren't up initially), so here's hoping! And yeah same for me for the Lucasfilm ones! Yeah, spent this morning realising it's about four weeks away and so I've outlined my plans for what I'm watching and listening to over the course of the next month, which will be interesting! And I'll try my best, but if it's anything like my Bloodborne updates... ehhhhhhhh, could take a minute I'll need to get my friend who's tagging along to bring any of his spare phones too by the sound of things! And yeah, will definitely need to keep my eyes peeled for tickets to anything I don't manage to get into. Trying to keep my expectations in check, so worse comes to worse it's just a weekend surrounded by Star Wars fans, which will be fun because I've not been in a huge crowd consistently since COVID kicked off a few years ago, much less a Star Wars one! (closest I've got to that is probably one of the midnight releases, but everyone tended to keep to themselves then) Honestly, a bit surprised Domhnall Gleeson isn't attending. I can get it in Adam Driver's case - he just seems to hate attention, and I'd be the same away too - but Gleeson has attended a fair bit before in press junkets and the like before, and in terms of time on-screen, he's probably what, the antagonist with the second most minutes drummed up in the sequels behind Kylo? Could just be busy ofc, but very curious love that Andy Serkis will finally get to see some love though! Yeah, Kristin was excellent last year I thought! But like you say, the chemistry Andi and Carboni have built up over the years, honestly it's just unmatched

Amiibo is available from ShopTo and TheGameCollection for £10 less than it is on Amazon at the moment – I'd guess that the Amazon price is set to be updated, but might be worth putting your name down elsewhere in the meantime to save a bit! Nintendo UK have also announced their pre-order bonuses, as well as additional items to bundle with the game:

Think this is our first Not-E3 show to get a date? The Starfield Direct will be taking place Sunday 11th June following the game's delay to September:

Delayed to September 6th 2023, with a Starfield Direct on June 11th 2023 for Xbox's and Bethesda's Not-E3: This thing has been delayed a couple of times and it's still probably going to come in hot. Let's just hope it's more a case of this: Than this:

Babe wake up, the new PS5 system software update just dropped

Hoo boy, looks like Kevin Feige's and Patty Jenkins' films have been shelved: Earliest we have a Star Wars film slot scheduled in for right now is 2025, and unless that's Taika's film, I have my doubts we'll actually get it. That would be nearly six years without a new Star Wars film releasing after The Rise of Skywalker, which...yikes. Shame because the pieces of the puzzle seem to have been finally slotting into place the last few years for shows on Disney+, but hey, we also don't know too much about most of these projects (well, apart from Jenkins', and I'm sure that one will sting for a while), so it's not hard to let go. At this rate, I'm starting to think it's more likely we get a feature-length "episode" to cap off the storylines of Mando et al (akin to Siege of Mandalore, even if that got cut up into pieces) before we get to the next Star Wars film. If it's anything like previous years, I think these will be the major ones organised by LFL, but I'm sure the schedule will fill up nicely in the next few weeks – this should just be the first batch, because like you say, it's definitely light on the ground in spots. A gaming panel would be neat, especially with E3 quickly going the way of the dodo and this being the last year of EA's exclusivity deal. Given that Survivor got delayed from mid-March to the end of April, I can't help but wonder if they might stick some kiosks up for people to demo the game? As for music, I'm really crossing my fingers hard for a David W. Collins panel unwrapping a bit of one of the OSTs – maybe going back to finish Rogue One, which he never got to do as Oxygen stopped before they could round it off? Or heck, would love to hear his thoughts on TLJ's or TROS's OSTs, even if I don't think he's the biggest fan of the direction they took, there's a *lot* to unwrap in those soundtracks. Despite it being finished for years, Star Wars Oxygen is by far and away my favourite Star Wars podcast that I've listened to, so yeah, here's hoping! Yeah, put me down for a bit of everything too Obviously want to get into the main day opening events: the Studio Showcase (really hope that if we can't they show everything there to the people outside the main stage!), Ahsoka, and The Bad Batch. Then there's just the short matter of the Clone Wars and ROTJ anniversary panels, Making of Andor (started Ep 1 the other day and loved it!), Concept Artists of ILM, Creature Cantina, Villains of the Sequels (a shame Adam Driver will probably never turn up to one of these again ), VFX of Andor, and a Look Back at Obi-Wan (yeah I wasn't the biggest fan of the show and even less so it's soundtrack, but given that I couldn't justify the kind of absurd prices to get a photo op with Ewan and Hayden, I'd want to attend just to see them in-person ). So, uh, yeah, just like 80% of what they've announced, please and thank you Ah, that's good to know! Keep the tips coming and I'm kind of glad I didn't throw away my old phone now, guess that'll be in the rotation to try to book some spots! EDIT: find it really funny that Witwer isn't attending the animation game night, because he wipes the floor when it comes to Star Wars trivia and just realised in the list of presenters for the Live Stage – no Andi Gutierrez?! Gutting, Andi was always great with Anthony (and yes I miss the Star Wars Show)

Schedule for Celebration is coming through... Hopefully got news on the lottery in the next week or two? Also, I think there was a rumour a few weeks back now about how nothing would be streamed from Celebration this year. While it would suck if that were the case, honestly, considering how it was handled *at the event itself* for some major panels... I don't even know what to hope for at this point just hope that, whatever they decide to do, they communicate it much more clearly this time around. Last year was a mess!

With one episode left, the show has continued to be great...but, Episode 3 aside, I think almost everything else was handled just as well - if not better - in the original game. Still killing it in terms of viewership, unsurprisingly: the show's audience has grown 74% from Episode 1's premiere to the premiere of the most recent episode, Episode 8. I'm sure I'll talk about it more once the show is over, but there's just been weird moments and choices for me in the show throughout which means it doesn't quite hit the heights of the game for me, despite still, by far and away, being the best adaptation of a video game to date. Just weird moments of dialogue shuffled around from one place to another, staying shot-to-shot and line-to-line faithful in some scenes but then making new and original content for others (which has strangely trailed off? Think there were some great uses of this for flashbacks/Day Zero stuff), and some weird musical choices too (we got the credits music for Part I playing at the end of Episode 5 or 6, can't remember which? And a certain climactic moment in the last episode didn't have music which served as a great callback and arc closer in the game). There have also just been moments where they spell things out for you in a way that they don't in the games, and my eyes roll into the back of my skull – are writers really that nervous about subtext in their scenes these days? The biggest kicker for me - and the most puzzling - is just how little we've seen of the Infected throughout the show; it's felt less survival horror and more, well, survivor with zombies occasionally thrown in. Super weird choice, because we've only had one or two moments of true tension related to the Infected as a result (the rest has kind of been them going full Hollywood, to an almost distracting degree at times), so yeah, there's that. Can't help but wonder if their budget was capped for some silly reason, because even though I loved Episode 3 and think it was much better than the content we got in the game for that part of the story, it being so different to the game seems to be a result of needing to cut corners and run away from using the Infected. It's really bizarre. They've straight up cut two of the most memorable encounters with the Infected in the entire game! On the flip side, there's been some great acting in this, I think Bella Ramsey has been great as Ellie, occasionally there'll be a line stolen from the game verbatim and I'll just be like "well, Ashley Johnson definitely did that better", but it's only been distracting once or twice (and I think that just comes about as a result of this Ellie feeling weirdly younger at times than she was in the game). It's also just nice that this is already brilliant story continues to show that with time, patience, and the right people spearheading a project, video game stories can be told well in other formats. Oh, and I nearly forgot: I wish people would just give up on shaky cam, I think it was Episode 7 where I suddenly got nauseous and needed to check the bitrate of my stream because the camera was jittering about all over the shop. There's a time and a place for it, and that's not a shot with two people stationary either side of a table just talking to each other I don't personally think I can consider this more than a 9/10 adaptation of a 10/10 game and story, despite one episode still being left, but if nothing else, it was worth it for Episode 3 and to see how it was handled. I can't help but wonder if them adapting Part II could help fix my main issues with it (pacing and structure), whereas their adaptation of Part I has made an already lean and mean story into an even leaner story, and I do think that's come at a cost to the quality of the adaptation.

Attack on Titan: The Final Chapters – Special 1 (or Chapters 1 and 2 of Final Season Part 3...man, this isn't getting confusing at all) was absolutely awesome. An hourlong special with stupidly good animation, music, AMV-type moments (two of 'em, in fact!), and as has been the case throughout the entirety of this final season, the writing is still just bonkers good in this Special. What isn't awesome is the wait until "Fall 2023" (so, September?) for the second half of the final part of the story in the form of another special (I don't know how much is left to adapt, but probably another hour to an hour and a half? Wonder if there'll be any Final Chapters cinema releases combining both the Specials...)...but, well, if it lives up to the hype, I'm sure the wait will be worth it. As hyped as I am to see it continue, I also feel pretty satiated just from the Special (which has singlehandedly got me back into an anime-watching mood). So, uh, yeah, while I want to enjoy the rest of 2023 between now and what comes next in the story, I hope this year doesn't go by as quickly as this Special came and went

A new Capcom Spotlight arrives next week starting from 22:30 GMT on Thursday 9th March, with the pre-show starting at 22:10: Feels like we're starting to hit our stride a bit with presentations now as everyone tries to squeeze them out before the end of the traditional financial year at the end of March

Metroid Fusion is crashing onto the NSO Expansion Pack next Thursday – March 9th! Talk about striking while the iron is hot, fair play Nintendo!

16 weeks to go... ...thankfully there are plenty of games to get to in the meantime, otherwise this would be a looooooong wait

For anyone who has been wondering about the connections to Studio Ghibli's films, and more specifically Princess Mononoke, but for whatever reason has done themselves the disservice of not watching those films (), Zeltik has put out the video just for you: But seriously go watch those films Princess Mononoke is an 11 Fight me

Just got finished S3 E1 of The Mandalorian, or Chapter 17 – The Apostate. Here are some random and not really cohesive thoughts in a spoiler tag And I think that's all I really have to say that belongs in spoiler tags? Overall, while solid, this episode felt more like a prologue and something of bit of a soft reset in some ways following The Book of Boba Fett and the climax of S2, and yeah, it was a total bummer to have it load up and see that it was only 37 minutes long...but Mando is back, and that's something I'm happy about looking forward to next week's episode!

While PlayStation is getting a LeBron collab for some strange reason, here are some Mando-themed Series X|S: That Series X especially looks awesome

There will be a LeBron James limited edition pair of plates and a DualSense releasing later this year. Yeah, I'm having a tough one piecing together how LeBron is the one getting the first official limited edition plates for PS5 too. If memory serves, only the second limited edition DualSense too (after the one for Ragnarök)? C'mon now PlayStation, really, this?!

Yeah that's what I was getting at above, it's normally Tuesdays for Odeon (or was in the past when I was regular in the pre-COVID times) and a couple of other places, but of course ymmv when it comes to other chains, and especially independent places. I don't think this film is quite big enough to be one of the films which is an exception to that and has tickets drop the same day as the final trailer (such as with Star Wars or Endgame), but then again, they did give everyone a good two and a half weeks of notice for the final trailer and it's Direct, so they very well could be gearing up for that "Tickets available now/tomorrow!"

I'll try keep an eye out Given that the Direct for the final trailer is on Thursday 9th March, and with the 10th being a Friday and Mario day, at a guess it'll go live then, if not early the following week? Or it'll just be a random Tuesday as is often the case

Over here we get the Friday off for Good Friday and the Monday off as Easter Monday (which I guess might technically be a carryover from not being able to make the Easter Sunday a bank holiday) But honestly when you put it that way I do question why it was billed for the 7th in the first place. Our cinemas would probably still be open anyways but you're right, the Easter weekend was always going to be a weird weekend to premiere. This reeks of someone going to book time off for Easter and then realising that they were about to premiere on what is a national holiday in a bunch of countries

Yeah, I do think it's a really odd decision to not show the wider structure of the game beyond what we've seen in trailers. While it's nice to hear more about combat, I feel like we could get something of an idea for it from the shots we've seen in trailers up to this point. The general structure and flow of the game though? No idea. I'm sure it'll be fine, but I really think they should've led with that rather than a combat focus, because while it's flashy, the exploration (or potential lack thereof) is the one thing which has me a little on edge about XVI. We've seen supposedly wider areas to explore (such as with that shot in one of the trailers where the party is riding on chocobos in the desert). Watching the previews there's definitely a few more QTEs than I would personally like to see, but I guess we'll see how that plays out too. Oh well, don't think it's anything to worry about yet, but yeah, I do wish they focused on that a little more here there are already rumours floating around about the next set of previews coming in April, though, so hopefully the wait won't be too long, and not should it now that Forspoken is out of the way and it's a pretty straight shot at focusing on XVI from now until June 22nd. Exciting times!