Julius

Officially delayed to Spring 2023. Pretends to be shocked Some interesting new shots on show and Aonuma rocking a new haircut was a nice little surprise, but yeah, the delay wasn't unexpected. It's a shame, but hey, they should take all the time they need as far as I'm concerned. It's not like we're currently starved for games. Let it cook!

Worth mentioning that 12 months of PS Now has been pulled from the PS Store (in fact, the only remaining subscription is the 1 month subscription for £8.99), but can currently be picked up from eneba for €65 (around £55) and can be stacked. Probably not worth pulling the trigger on it until we have some clarity on what exactly is coming, but could be worth keeping an eye on. That's the big thing. I know it's an easy hook for speculation, rumours, etc., to keep the conversation on this self-sustaining...but we've know about this for around 6 months now, and today they practically confirmed what we already somewhat expected from the original rumours/leak from Schreier. Big companies are weird This next bit isn't aimed at you H-o-T, but it's also worth mentioning separately, though, that a few here are only quoting £100/year for PS Premium when there are monthly and quarterly options available - which is strictly not the case for NSO's Expansion Pack. So, if you only have a few games you want to check out from the retro catalogue, you would have the flexibility to move between tiers, but naturally the longer subscriptions come at a discounted price. If some of these ultra rare games or games never released over here do come to the service, you could pay for three months, play them all, and then just go back to a lower tier? So even more bang for your buck than could potentially be the case with an annual subscription if you aren't interested in the long haul. To be fair, that article is from 2015, and the patents found and published last year imply that they've found a solution - should they actually choose to use it - which would be much faster. From IGN's article which covered the patent last year: Either way, they've got the money and time to do both. Unfortunately, though, PS3 games being streamed rather than native makes me question how much money and time they actually wanted to invest in this service. Not saying it would have been easy, but if they wanted, I think they could have managed it.

If I'm going to be downloading a bunch of PS1, PS2, and PSP games, they better get a bloomin' shift on with getting folders on the PS5 I said it in my post just before the news dropped, but the lack of specifying which retro titles are coming doesn't exactly inspire confidence. Yes, we're a bit over 2 months away now from when this will be releasing, but this level of transparency (or lack thereof) is exactly what I don't think they need to be doing. I guess it starts a conversation for them, but it kind of reminds me of how a good chunk of people completely misinterpreted that the PS5 would only have BC for 100 titles, based on PlayStation's own poor wording and messaging. And how about potential for things like Share Play to co-op? A lot of questions, which I'm sure will be answered, but it's a shame they weren't more up front. Now we've got to put up with another two months of rumours and speculation. 340 is a sizeable number of games across the PS1, PS2, PSP and PS3, going well beyond what I was trying to hope for and confirming that there's definitely going to be a good number of third party games included. But, of course, the question now is, which ones? That's going to be the absolute make-or-break for pretty much everyone, but the sheer quantity means that there's very likely something I can't easily get my hands on now that I'll be able to in June, and that's an exciting prospect. I'm definitely going to be holding fire on purchasing PS3 games now until we get some clarity on what, exactly, is coming. Weirdly, no technical details? I know they're not showing the service or games off today, but I'm surprised there's no mention of aspect ratio, resolution, etc., because the quality of emulation is going to be a huge in whether or not this works out. @Hero-of-Time right there with you crossing my fingers for trophy support, I know there was that patent a while back where they seemingly figured out how to retroactively add trophies to emulated games (by basing it on triggers in the games themselves), so yeah, all fingers and toes crossed for that. Hopefully we get a dedicated State of Play or something of that ilk in the next 4-6 weeks to provide some clarity on all of this. I mean, depending on the games included in the service, that could be a great deal (obviously, only if you're interested in checking out games that might be selling for an eyewatering premium in the secondhand market these days/weren't released over here in the first place). If that does turn out to be the case, then yeah, my money would also be staying in my pocket. Guess we'll just have to wait and see, but the quality of the emulation, and of course the fact that some games from the PSP and PS1 libraries are being included (which I don't believe are on PS Now?), could still be huge. It's for this exact reason that they should have said as much as they could out of the gates.

There's an option for both cloud streaming and downloading for PS1, PS2, and PSP. Shame about PS3 though.

Here we go, it's coming in June! Not sure if it deserves its own thread, so if someone wants to make it, feel free, because I'll be sorting the formatting on this post GamesIndustry.biz also have an article up following an interview with Jim Ryan.

I honestly don't know what I'm expecting at this point from today (or whenever news drops) specifically, but I think they need to send a very clear message with their initial lineup of games and make it crystal clear what the plan is moving forwards. I think NSO for Nintendo has been fine, but the way they've updated us has been very haphazard from the outset; it's tough to be excited with a drip feed of games dropping pretty randomly and, before the N64 Expansion Pack was added, not knowing what to expect. If third parties are included in any capacity, I think we need to see some games from them listed out of the gate (i.e. Metal Gear Solid), and say that you're working closely with third parties if that is the case (as in, call them out and show who we can expect games from). If there's going to be trophy support, come out and say it. If the plan is to drop decently sized catalogues for PS1, PS2, and PS3 all at once: say it. If the plan is to go a console at a time: say it. Clearly state the differences between tiers and the pricing structure (don't pull a Nintendo with the Expansion Pack and say "it's X amount annually" then not confirm the fact that there won't be a monthly option available - I get it from a business speak perspective, as you want to avoid any perceived negatives, but it raises more questions than it answers). It's the really simple things like transparency about their plans which I feel PlayStation has been stumbling over a bit in the last year or two, so if and when we get an update on this - today, tomorrow, Friday, next week, next month, whenever it may be - they really need to nail the messaging. I agree in that I think it'll be pretty middling to begin with, and my expectations are very low in that I want to go in just thinking it'll just be what's available on PS Now and maybe what was available on the PS Classic (probably barring Final Fantasy VII, seeing as that's available separately?) too. Anyone got any ideas on how they might name the tiers? I imagine PS+ Silver/Gold/Platinum would be a pretty easy and clear way to distinguish, what with how it relates to trophies and the old Platinum line. Only drawback is it does sound a bit Xbox Live-ish... Man, those are some good picks H-o-T! For me I'd want a balance between what I'd personally want and what I'd want my friends to check out (for instance, none of them have ever played a Metal Gear Solid game), but I'll be selfish on focus on myself. I'll also do away with lack of localisations too PS1 - Xenogears, Suikogaiden Vol. I (Suikoden graphic novel spin-off - by implication, I get Vol. II as well right, as a freebie? What do you mean, "no"? What kind of democracy is this?!), Legend of Dragoon PS2 - Suikoden V, Dragon Quest VIII (in lieu of a modern HD release because Square Enix continue to be silly), Star Wars Battlefront II PS3 - Ryu Ga Gotoku Kenzan! (the first samurai Yakuza game), 3D Dot Heroes, Final Fantasy XIII (and, by extension, the rest of the saga...right?! What do you mean "no" again?!) PSP - Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII (which one is the subtitle?!), Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions, The Legend of Heroes: Trails on the Sky

You could say he was floored

Been a while since I've posted any pick-ups in here, but got my bonus last week, so here are the latest additions to my collection: Okay, in fairness, only Twilight Princess HD, Dragon Quest VI and Dragon Quest IX are new here, as I picked the rest up when I got my Wii U, but I forgot to post them at the time the former I got as one of my gaming aims for the year is to play all of the 3D main console Zelda games released before Breath of the Wild (currently one down, four to go), and the latter two I got as I have the others and figured I might as well pick them up before their price continues to sky rocket. And yeah, before anyone says it, that Splatoon case is annoying me too, forgot to check it when I received it so I'll probably pick up a new case for it at some point Also picked up a few PS3 games: One of my other aims for the year is to finish playing through the Metal Gear Solid games, and as I've only got Peace Walker and V: The Phantom Pain left, figured Metal Gear Rising Revengeance looked like good and silly fun that I'd want to add it to the list of Metal Gear games I want to check out. I also picked up Puppeteer because I've heard good things and ever since Astro's Playroom have kind of been missing the sillier, Japanese side of SIE, so I'm looking forward to checking that out too. While I don't always aim to get games sealed in packaging, I figured that I haven't had a pristine PS3 game before, so now was a good chance to treat myself, so I got both of these sealed. Finally, I picked up Spec Ops: The Line. I love narratives in video games, but on the whole I think there are few games that with their narrative justify gaming as the medium to tell their story. I've heard Spec Ops is an exception in that regard, and that I pretty much have to check it out, so I'm excited to get around to it

The part that doesn't make sense to me is that you'd commit assault before screaming obscenities or shutting him down from his seat. A simple "hey asshole, that's not cool!" would have sufficed when it came to defending his wife, and if anything he could have talked to Rock after (I also think the joke was in poor taste, should've been checked with Will and Jada first, but didn't at all deserve the response it got and wasn't nearly as offensive as it's been made out to be – Demi Moore was a badass in G.I. Jane? But I can also understand the insecurity about losing hair, and the joke had very little to do with film), but instead he committed assault and went off on an unhinged acceptance speech which I don't think he should have been in the room to give in the first place. I also feel like the old adage of "any press is good press" applies less and less with how widespread social media is now and how easy it is to voice your opinions, so even if it was some sort of stunt for attention, I do think it's hurt him. His actions and acceptance speech words don't add up, so even if it was staged, I think it's set a terrible example for viewers on how to handle insults, showed how effective gaslighting is, and showed off for all to see just what Hollywood privilege is. Oh, plus the whole Scientology thing. Dude needs help. Probably because they would have been one of the many in the audience to give him a standing ovation after his acceptance speech. Same folks blissfully ignored everything going on with Harvey Weinstein for years, and some pretended to be shocked when Ricky Gervais was joking about it at the Golden Globes a few years back. The Oscars are less and less about the films these days, unfortunately (I mean, there's no award for editing anymore, which is kind of insane!), and more and more about the privileged crowd in attendance. It's gross. The worst part about all of this for me is that the rest of the show was completely overlooked again, drawing attention to a rich guy being an absolute buffoon ahead of films people have poured years of their life into. That it's ended up being a leading story ahead of an ongoing war in Ukraine on a lot of radio stations and in a good number of newspapers, too, is outright disgusting.

See, I thought the same actually...until he got back to his seat and started shouting obscenities in a completely silent audience. It went from "oh hey it's a bit" to "uh what the hell is going on?" real fast. You also see Chris Rock stop himself from firing back once Will gets back to his seat, which, you know, would've been easily done given Jada's infidelity and whatnot.

Well there was Will Smith going full Kanye by hitting Chris Rock followed by a very unhinged award speech, proving yet again that if you're big enough in Hollywood then there aren't any repercussions for your actions (bet the producers were laughing to the bank though)

My journey is finally over. It's late, so I'll be brief for now, but I'll be back with my thoughts on the latter stages of the game and some final thoughts. As someone who loves to dig deep into lore, and finally playing one of these games at launch, I finally found myself able to enjoy these games in the way many others do, reading item descriptions and trying to figure things out about the world and it's characters for myself before the collectively accepted lore is settled upon, as I found to be the case with Demon's Souls and Dark Souls, what with being so far removed from the release of those games when I first experienced them. I actually want to make some story DLC guesses, because I'm sure it's coming: I'm one of those who loved Breath of the Wild, and yeah, the comparisons between the open worlds of Elden Ring and Breath of the Wild is absolutely fair. The difference? The world of Elden Ring is much more tightly focused, abundant in and saturated with discoveries - whereas Breath of the Wild wants you to breathe and just soak everything in, Elden Ring is much more keen to nudge you along, but it's up to you whether you want to follow their guidance - and those discoveries feel much more rewarding in how they enrich your journey, whether that be through finding a new location and your jaw dropping to the floor at its environmental design, finding an awesome item in a chest, or even coming across NPCs, of which there are plenty in this game. For the first time in one of these games, I think the decision to make the game open world allows for some nice breathing room in how you approach things, as you aren't having to walk down the same corridor and die to the same boss over and over again, and this being coupled with more contextual NPC summons, Spirit Ashes, and a crazy variety of weapons, spells, and incantations means you're never truly taking this journey on alone (if you don't want to), which relieves a pressure that I've personally felt in both Demon's Souls and Dark Souls before. It's not flawless, but then, I don't think any game with any great complexity to it beyond its mechanics can be. I think there are a few weird boss fights, in terms of a lot of things: crazily overpowered combos, too many duos, and just a tad too much repetition for my liking with some of the minor and mid-level bosses. I think the decision to rebalance the single player experience of a game with a focus on the multiplayer experience made for a bit of a weird adjustment period for me when I sat down with the game after the update, and reading into it more now, I think they toned down a boss fight which should have been difficult a tad too much, whereas they kind of ignored another obvious candidate for tweaking. I also think by and large that the boss fight music was kind of forgettable; there's definitely a standout track or two, but I'm not going bonkers over 50%+ of the soundtrack like I might have done with the other games of From's I've played so far. I need to let my thoughts sweat it out some more, but honestly, I think this game is a masterpiece and will rightly be talked about in the same breath as Breath of the Wild in how it's revolutionising modern open world games. Now, open worlds - especially ones a bit more free of direction like these two - might not be for everyone, and that's perfectly okay, but I think the key difference above all else for me with Elden Ring is that it masters almost everything from a micro- to macroscale, and that legacy dungeons - while generally shorter than what I've experienced in Demon's Souls and Dark Souls - still have a level of intricate level design which shows From at a whole other level, so if that's what you're looking for and the open world isn't for you, you have the flexibility to beeline it to wherever the game is pointing you and enjoy the game how you want to, playing how you want to play. I've brought up Breath of the Wild a lot, and I typically hate comparing games so much, but that game had a lot of issues for me that I think Elden Ring very overtly addresses, so I hope they were paying attention to the criticisms before, because otherwise they're going to be unavoidable going into Breath of the Wild's sequel for now. I've said it before, but now having finished the game, I'll say it again: it's the end of March, and I genuinely struggle to imagine any game surpassing Elden Ring for my pick for GOTY 2022. The year is long, and we'll see what happens, but in terms of my own personal rankings, I think Elden Ring is firmly in the Top 5, and possibly in my Top 3, favourite games of all time. Hell of a game. Kudos, From!

Physical Switch version is coming to Asia with English support: Imagine it'll end up being a bit of a Dragon Quest trilogy situation where it isn't made available physically in other regions and is kept in Asia. Curious to see if it ends up with a physical release on any of the other platforms it's coming to.

Feel like this will be appreciated here

I 100% agree with this, and I still find it incredibly confusing that that's the case when this has been rumoured for so long - what, nearly 6 months now I think, with more and more details coming every time? - that comparisons are still being made to Game Pass. Then again, as always, it's a vocal minority of people who aren't PlayStation fans (not calling out anyone on here, but definitely seen it elsewhere) who seem keen to make the comparison. Maybe one day PlayStation does get to the point where they have to do that, but for now, they have enough consoles out in the wild and sell a crazy amount of copies with first party releases, something Xbox was frankly struggling with and resulted in their transition to Game Pass and xCloud. I'm really curious to see how the retro side of it is handled, because yeah, I think it's clear that - on here at least - that's what we're collectively most interested in. Do they have third parties onboard? If so, are we just expecting the usual suspects to support it and, for example for PS1, get a similar slate to the Classic? What's the rollout going to look like: is it going to be a drip feed, or a good chunk all at once? So many questions, hopefully we see some answers next week! Personally I'm just really hoping we see some Konami representation in MGS titles and Suikoden, specifically V as it never made it's way to PSN on PS3 like I to IV did. I don't think that would be too surprising, especially with what all of these reports have said. At best I think PS1 and PS2 could be made playable through native emulation (I mean, I think they all could be, I just see them wanting to take the cheapest and easiest route, whatever that is), but I don't see them going that far with PS3. From what I've heard PS Now is much better on PS5, and that service already has a modest slate of PS3 titles available to stream.

Looks like we're finding out what's up with Project Spartacus next week: I'm pessimistic about the whole thing based on what we've heard from reports so far, but at this point I'm honestly just really curious to see what it actually looks like. If there's trophy support for any classic games on the service then they'll have my attention (and I'm not even really a trophy hunter, I just think that'd be super cool), otherwise...eh. Also curious how many times we'll see this turn up in articles next week if it is revealed

£78. Honestly, I know it's a lot, but it's thankfully not as high as I think it could have potentially gone for (I watched eBay like a hawk for a few days and it was the only sealed copy I saw in that time). I don't have any games pre-ordered for the next month so didn't mind taking the hit

Target acquired, sealed and delivered! First time I've had to do any bidding on eBay, pretty exhilarating, it's a good thing I don't care about more serious collectible items (or have the disposable income to chase them) or I'd be hooked. I was going to get it for a bit under RRP, but set my max. bid to a good bit over to be safe, and then raised it by another £5 with 10 minutes to go. Good thing I did too, because two chaps came in to try and snipe it with 30 seconds to spare!

Pretty sizeable update set to go live early next month, which seems to be a half step in the right direction. I do wonder if it's already too little too late for the more casual GT players (including myself). I've not touched the game in over a week as I've been waiting to see how this all pans out, and I probably won't get back to it now until I've seen credits roll on Elden Ring (and not to mention it's going to be at least a week until the update is rolled out anyways), but it really took the wind out of the sails of the game for me. It's all been very reactionary so far, which is rarely a good thing for a game like this. The lack of DRM removal to allow for offline single player is still a huge concern given how long the game was down for during its most recent update. And, while it's pie in the sky here due to this being a first party title, even Battlefront II completely removed it's pay-to-win microtransaction system (indefinitely and then permanently) and had to fully rebalance the game, so what does it say that they clearly haven't reviewed that as an option?

Italy not qualifying for the World Cup this year after losing to North Macedonia tonight, after how thoroughly they proved themselves last year during the Euro's, is absolutely nuts. That means if they manage to qualify for the next World Cup in 2026, they'll have gone 12 years between World Cup appearances. It's kind of barmy that they don't automatically qualify as European champions to begin with, but I guess this exact scenario where they're getting knocked out in playoffs by North Macedonia is why.

THEY'VE FINALLY UPDATED THE APP TO ACCESS SCREENSHOTS AND CLIPS OVER HERE! Finally!

Square Enix have released a trailer for the game's new and arranged songs: From the comments and what I've seen elsewhere, the reaction to this seems to be somewhere between mixed and negative, which is a shame.

Hell yeah! Happy you watched and enjoyed it Spirited Away is amazing, and probably one of the best Ghibli films to start with, given its near universal praise. I think the simplest way to put it is that it just oozes heart and charm, but is so unique in its weird and wacky ways and characters, that I think it's hard to come away not endeared to some of its elements, especially given some of the sharp contrasts in warm and cosy visuals with the serenity of the train scene. And I still think having your work scored by Joe Hisaishi is tantamount to cheating, and Spirited Away's soundtrack is no exception -- it's beautiful. It's funny, because I remember I first watched the film on holiday at this old lady's place that my aunt cared for when I was much younger (probably 6 or so?), and I just didn't get on with it. Looking back I think it was a combination of Yubaba's creepy face and transformations, as well as the Kashira (rolling head dudes). It's just such a different vibe and energy to a lot of western animation, I think I was a bit taken aback by it in hindsight! So, @drahkon...which one you watching next?

Today's system update: I've either completely missed it previously in an update or they've just failed to mention it, but didn't realise that there's now an option at the bottom when you tap 'Options' on a game on the PS5 home screen which keeps it on the home screen. Either way, that's really neat. Also like the clean-up of the UI, especially with trophies on trophy pages having a pattern and colour to denote a trophy grade. Now give us folders you monsters

Yeah, I'm right there with you, there's a timelessness to the silent skits and visual gags of the older LEGO games which I'll always be fond of, felt like a throwback to silent films. Granted, there is Mumble Mode in the cheat codes so that you don't have to play with voice acting if you don't want to, which is a fine addition, but it's pared back in the sense that it is essentially just the original scenes dubbed over with said mumbling, so it's still a step down in that regard. To compare the "No, I am your father" scene in this game to the original (first video is linked to the particular scene in the trailer): Yeah, I can totally empathise with this, I think it's a line getting harder and harder to walk with every passing week having new headlines of employees being treated like dirt. Almost the entire industry needs a shakeup, because it's had it's chance for wake-up calls and done nothing with them. Selfishly (and not?) I think it's something that shouldn't even need to be on the mind of the consumer when picking up a game, it shouldn't be a question of the wellbeing of the team behind these games because they shouldn't even be in these positions in the first place. It basically presents people searching purely for entertainment with a moral and ethical quandary, and to add some level of irony to it, it's only those who are quite into games in the first place and keep up with it who actually keep abreast of what's going on who might end up hindered by this; the average casual gamer - the ones who actually have buying power en masse - have zero idea what's going on 99 times out of 100. Personally, I avoid Ubisoft and Activision games right now, have done for a while now, but then I bought and adored Red Dead Redemption II last year, which makes me feel like a hypocrite. It's tough, but I guess similarly to my view on the whole controversy surrounding Hogwarts Legacy, there unfortunately isn't a one-size-fits-all solution, and it really just needs to come down to the choice of the individual. At the end of the day when it comes to things like this I tend to ask myself "would I feel like I'm robbing myself of a worthwhile experience which I might find joy in and/or learn more about myself from?", which I guess personally would outweigh whatever sense of guilt I'd have in the pit of my stomach. I love Star Wars, as I know many here do, but even if I take away the fact that this is a Star Wars game, the first LEGO Star Wars game was the game myself and all of my friends had growing up, and I still remember flicking through a game magazine on the floor of the tiny off-licence next to my primary school and learning about - and counting down to - the release of LEGO Star Wars II. So there's almost too much nostalgia for me not to? But then, I mean, that just brings up the poison chalice of corporations preying on the innate and uncontrollable feeling and desire for nostalgia in the first place, which is to say that we're all doomed