Julius

Damn, great share @Dcubed! Might be worth dropping it over in the Wii U/3DS eShop closure thread too, seeing as the stores close up directly to eShop cards on the 29th (though they should be able to still be added to a linked account until the store properly closes in March I think?), and this is running up until the 31st, making this an excellent time for a discount. I'm not sure how likely it is another one comes along before March, so I'm definitely going to be jumping on that when I get paid later this month and save me some money on my planned eShop expenditure

I can definitely see where you're coming from here, and I think a large part of that is down to poor final entries in a trilogy, like with X-Men Last Stand in 2006 and Spider-Man 3 in 2007, which I think retroactively kind of soured the earlier entries in those trilogies. As in...the Christopher Nolan trilogy? In fairness, only one of those released prior to the start of the MCU (The Dark Knight released in July 2008, after Iron Man released in May), so I'm not sure how much that film might have contributed to that feeling prior to the MCU but, considering that only Batman Begins was out at that time and trilogy openers not always being great, I can kind of see it. I'd heartily recommend revisiting Batman Begins and The Dark Knight, both are fantastic films before you even start to account for the fact that they're superhero films, though I do feel the former is overshadowed unfairly by the latter (The Dark Knight is absolutely the stronger film, but Batman Begins lays the foundation superbly). The Dark Knight Rises is a mess, though, so YMMV there. I really enjoyed The First Avenger too, and I think for me the trilogy of Captain America films is the strongest trilogy in the MCU so far. There's a narrative and thematic throughline there which isn't evident in the other trilogies, it's actually got a sense of musical continuity, and even with Civil War being a team-up, the fact that it is a Captain America film first and foremost isn't lost. Compare that to Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness which feels more like a WandaVision sequel than it does a Doctor Strange one Iron Man 2 has its moments but on the whole is terrible, but I found myself coming around somewhat on Iron Man 3 when I rewatched it in the build-up to Infinity War. I went through some personal stuff between my first viewings of the film and that most recent viewing prior to Infinity War, and though the film on the whole is a bit of a mess, Robert Downey Jr's performance is incredibly relatable and underrated in that film, but I think it's so easily missed if you haven't been through some stuff which would cause you to go through some of the things you see him do in his performance on-screen. Yeah, I know we've said this in some of the other MCU threads, but so much this. Unlike with games, which I generally avoid scoring for my own sanity and because I think there's on average a lot more to say and explore with one game versus one movie, I use an app/website called Letterboxd to track films I've watched and how I've rated them on a 10-point scale. It's come in clutch on more than one occasion when I'm talking to my friends about some of my favourite films, I simply look at what I've given a 10 or 5 stars and can start to talk about my subjective favourites (which, more often than not, has some level of alignment with the quality I perceive in those films). When it comes to the MCU, my mindset has always been that a 7 or 3.5 stars is a baseline for what I'd expect - a solid, fun time, eating popcorn while swimming in those sevens. Now, there's a whole other discussion to be had about how impossible this is when I'm comparing something like Ant-Man on the same scale I'm using to score The Godfather, but most of the time it correlates somewhat between where I'd rank the films in a tier list concerning only the MCU and the quality I perceive the film to have. Now, this is of course entirely subjective (what the hell does a score even mean? I interpret it typically as some sort of a likelihood of recommendation, perceived quality, and my likelihood to not flip the channel if I walked into a room and it was on), but so far we're six films into Phase Four, of which I've seen five (sorry, Thor: Love and Thunder). Of those five that I've seen, only two have been at or above the 7/10 I'd expect out of an MCU film: Shang-Chi (8/10) and No Way Home (9/10 - maybe needs another watch, but that's mostly down to its second half being so electric); for comparison, Black Widow I gave a 6/10 (Yelena being that film's saving grace), and Eternals and Multiverse of Madness I both gave a 5/10 (if you've seen the films, you probably have a good idea of why, even if you enjoyed them). The crazy thing is that my scores are pretty much in line with the general consensus based on the average film scores given by other Letterboxd users, so that perception of a dip in quality is being recognised by many. It's funny. Pretty much every time I jump on with my friends for the last 18 months or so, it's almost always becomes talk about MCU burnout, and DC slipping up Just to add, I think this also ties into your following point about not knowing which direction things are taking, because in terms of pure character count, the introduction of the X-Men is going to absolutely swamp the MCU with new characters. I'd be surprised if it's any later than Phase Six (there's no way they'd wait until 2026...right?), but considering that we're heading towards The Kang Dynasty and Secret Wars, introducing them in Phase Six could also quite easily rush things along. It reminds me a bit of where we were at after the release of Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 2, when Adam Warlock was teased and everyone thought he was going to be the deus ex machina to resolve Infinity War/Endgame (which, well, arguably fell to Captain Marvel in Endgame). Funnily, I had the opposite issue where until the post-credits tease of Thanos made him a household name, I knew barely anything about the guy other than what I'd read on a Top Trumps card, whereas probably thanks to the 90's and 2000's animated series for the Fantastic Four, I'm pretty aware of Kang and everything else they bring along (typing this has made me remember that I had a Mega Bloks set based on the Fantastic Four film, the Doctor Doom cape in that set looked phenomenal ). Similar for the X-Men actually, and Spider-Man, just because of those animated series; heck, I'd go so far as to say that if you didn't read comics, people my age probably had very little knowledge of the Avengers prior to the MCU blowing up. I'm really just crossing my fingers for Doctor Doom to be the post-credits tease at the end of Wakanda Forever at this point. Yeah, it's weird, I've definitely grown up on a bit of both but feel that for me DC has done more in terms of giving me principles and something to aspire towards (thanks, Batman), and so similarly I'm appalled at how poor a job WB have done in getting that cinematic universe off the ground. I gave up after watching the first Suicide Squad film, and I haven't actually caught up on the rest yet, though I did check out James Gunn's Suicide Squad (which was enjoyable, but ultimately felt just like an R-rated version of Guardians). Probably not the place to get into it, but this is what happens when you base a solo film (Man of Steel) off the tone of an unrelated trilogy (The Dark Knight trilogy) and then suddenly decide to expand because, uh, money, and without a creative lead. Now I think Man of Steel is a good film, but when that's your Superman, you've already written yourself somewhat into a corner – it's not that you can't do a darker Superman story, but there's a reason that more of his darker stories are told in standalone/alternate timeline comic runs, because especially when you want to play a character like Batman off him, them being from completely different backgrounds tonally is half of the appeal! Kansas-raised god from another planet meeting a billionaire orphan who turned tackling his inner demons into an evening hobby? Come on! Anyways, even though the live-action stuff is of varying quality, I'd definitely recommend checking out the animated DC films, which are no question the best DC films put out over the last decade or so, with some great and oftentimes very faithful adaptations of stories like Under the Red Hood, The Dark Knight Returns, etc. Definitely a couple of weird choices (The Killing Joke should've been an easy win but decided to split the fanbase instead), but on the whole it's got a great cast of voice actors with plenty of great stories realised in animation in awesome ways. Justice League: War was also a template for how it actually is possible to bring everyone together for the first time in one film, even introducing a bunch of these characters, and yet still pull off giving the audience a great time watching the JL assemble, but sadly WB don't pay attention to their own projects

Well, looks like we're finally going to be getting some new Scarlet and Violet news!* *and more, because it's Pokémon, so there's always more. Do we start hoping for a Mystery Dungeon Explorers remake now or..?

New Andor trailer: And a three episode premiere to boot, though the show has now been delayed from the end of August to September 21st:

For anyone who doesn't already own it/have it available through PS+ Extra, Demon's Souls is available physically from Amazon for just £19.99. Seemed too good a deal to not share

I honestly think it's a feeling I've seen in people watching the MCU since Phase Two to be honest – probably Age of Ultron? And I definitely remember people questioning why the Guardians were getting a film as they were nobodies and that it was going to drag things out. But I think it understandably came to a head post-Endgame in 2019, closing the book on an 11 year journey spanning 22 films (I'm just counting everything up to and including Endgame here). As we got closer and closer to Endgame the number of films released per year in the MCU increased from two films per year in 2016 to three films per year in the year's following, which was never a crazy amount to keep up with. That's, what, six hours a year, maybe a bit more? I think what helped is the mess that was the MCU's extended universe for the longest time, and how shaky it's canonicity was at times under the lens of the wider MCU. You could quite simply skip Agents of Shield because it didn't have a tangible impact on the films, in the way that there was very, very, very little content carrying over from the TV shows to the films as a result of the power struggle between Ike Perlmutter and Kevin Feige over Marvel Television (they were very much trying to do their own things which would sometimes get in the way of Feige's plans, such as for The Inhumans). This started calming down in 2015 when Kevin Feige started reporting directly to Alan Horn at Disney, but didn't really go away until Perlmutter stepped away and Feige became the Chief Creative Officer at Marvel in 2019, helped by plans already being made for MCU shows to come to Disney+ as far back as 2018. At this point, I think it is objectively too much, not even for those of us watching, but because VFX artists cannot keep up with this level of output (and there aren't enough of them to begin with), and it's why in the last few years cracks have certainly started to appear in the quality of these productions. I've definitely seen some people say they're just as hooked as they were before (even on here) in light of us getting much more content, and the box office numbers don't lie, the MCU is still by all means a rampant success, but I do wonder just how many of those ticket sales are people watching a film because they want to see the film, or because of sunken cost in the MCU. It's clearly had a massive impact on pretty much every entertainment industry it reasonably could at this point, from how it brings more people into keeping up with and being interested in films to taking up the entire film calendar, to everything needing to be a team-up/be going somewhere/be filled with references, and this is as true for films as it is for TV and, I imagine increasingly so in the next decade (just thanks to the longer production time and thus slower reaction time), video games. I do think there's a wider discussion about choice paralysis and the dangers of having an overwhelming number of choices with something as trivial as your pick of entertainment to be had here which doesn't just apply to Marvel, but just about everything these days. @Happenstance suggested in the Phase Five thread that you can just key in on whatever you want and that there's not a need to keep up with everything - just check out the Cliffnotes if you aren't feeling something and want to know where the connective tissue is in references made, or watch select episodes - and I think he's right, though I know that's not such an easy solution to implement for myself and some others who view the MCU for what it is sold as, which something that you need to remain up-to-date with and have watched every second of, sort of like it's some form of validation of your level of fandom? It's a tricky slope to navigate but I do think more and more emphasis is being placed on what we do and don't consume by other people, and almost like politics or religion, what you choose for entertainment feels like it's heading the way of being some form of validation of character/potential compatibility in some people's eyes. People have always had a tendency to jump to such extremes, but it's very quickly becoming the norm in areas where it really shouldn't be. Picking your battles is going to be key just for keeping up with the MCU itself moving forwards I think in the same way that it is just about every other entertainment medium we may want to indulge in, which is nuts, but also genuinely kind of exhausting to just think about. The crazy thing is that, so far, the MCU is the only one to truly make their model a success; no-one else has come remotely close. And thank goodness – I can't imagine what it would be like if we had two of these juggernauts to keep up with.

Steam with the Oprah energy: everyone with an outstanding Steam Deck reservation will be able to get theirs by the end of the year. Awesome stuff

21.7 million PS5 units have now shipped, per yesterday's quarterly report from Sony, with 2.4 million of those being in the last quarter: Off the back of this, the forecast for units shipped for the year has been lowered to 18 million, anticipating improved shipments as supply chain woes start to ease, and the components shortage having a relatively lesser impact. I also can't help but wonder if the difficulty in tracking down and getting a PS5 for so long has created this fog around the console for some, as I'm definitely starting to notice more availability and the time it takes for stock to sell out increasing (mostly since the Horizon Forbidden West bundle launched, so maybe people just don't want that bundle?). Software sales took a bit of a hit, down by 26% (no doubt due to the lack of any real big hitter over the last quarter). PS Plus subs are up 2%, and monthly active PSN users are down 3%. The count has also officially stopped for PS4 shipments, leaving it at the count reported in May during their EoY of 117 million units.

Turned out to be modders, but certainly one hell of an achievement by the sound of things! Now would be the perfect time for a bit of news on a sequel

Well iPhone users, enjoy: the Backbone One - PlayStation Edition.

I'll have to take a nose around and revive some old threads when I get around to them I think from what I understand and can see on HLTB they're not terribly long games, probably a few weekday nights, so I'm hoping it gets me back to playing some relatively shorter games. I've played a lot of longer games this year, and while I've loved most of them, I haven't exactly put a dent in my wall of backlog games, hopefully they'll be a nice change of pace! I'm hoping to cap off playing these and God of War III Remastered by getting back to God of War (2018), as I never got the Platinum for it. Having now played Red Dead Redemption II I'm really looking forward to reviving the 2018 GOTY debate I won't lie, it can definitely be daunting playing some of these games for the first time, just knowing how much they mean to so many people, especially when I feel I'm fairly entrenched in the gaming landscape now – it's hard to escape how important some of these games are when they're in 'Best of' lists. Playing through Ocarina of Time all the way through for the first time earlier this year was a huge example of this for me, it's hard to not occasionally find yourself wondering "does this still hold up?" It's like watching a classic film from the 60's or 70's today for the first time, things like The Godfather or Apocalypse Now, where you've heard how great it is, and I think it puts a lot of pressure on the film up until that point where you just find yourself sinking into it. Despite some of the intimidation, just getting on with it always immediately quells that feeling, and I do always enjoy going back and having the conversation about these games, whichever side I land on, especially on here with people who are open to having discussions and hearing other thoughts about those games

Vita means life Remote Play on Steam Deck is life Took around 15 minutes to set up through Chiaki with this guide on YouTube, and the results are really nice. I'll probably reserve it for slower or 2D games (though my short test with Astro's Playroom was surprisingly smooth), it'll definitely save me a penny or two moving forwards not needing to buy certain games again/multiple times if I just plan on playing them at home, and I feel could be really great for shorter grinding sessions in JRPGs. I've also hooked up my black Dualsense (as you can see!), love that the UI automatically updates to show the X and O rather than A and B when using it, and had a bit of a play around with Battlefront II, very much looking forward to playing through that campaign again. Also got my Logitech MX stuff hooked up too, so now I'm just going through my list downloading stuff and having a bit of a play around with Steam as someone who isn't really ingrained into the ecosystem, and it's great. The default controller options I got for Battlefront II weren't responsive, so I just went into the store and downloaded someone else's controller configuration, and it was all sorted. This should be a fun summer

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: