Julius

No worries, happy to help and thanks to you again for all your help with my Sinnoh Dex!

@Glen-i I've grabbed a Union Room, Link Code is 11235813 Shall we trade all four across first and then trade them back? So the trio first and then end on Ho-Oh / Lugia before going back around?

Cool, I've got a haircut at 11:00 tomorrow so will probably be back around 12:30 at the latest, that sound alright with you?

@Glen-i I'm available today from now until 15:30 or during most of this weekend (apart from a few hours around midday tomorrow and Sunday) if you still need Ho-Oh and the Legendary Beasts for your National Dex sorry for the delay, been having a tough time with some screens and games making me feel really nauseous lately, but it's getting there!

New plates have arrived! Appropriate music. First time using PlayStation Direct, very impressed by the quick turnaround. Only real downside is that now some of my accessories don't match the console. I'm still not fully sold on all black, even seeing it in person, as the matte black plates do look a little on the cheap side, but it does match the rest of my set-up a bit more than the white. I'll give it a couple of weeks to see if it grows on me!

I knew PlayStation had marketing deals in place for Call of Duty, but reading around, seems like they were re-upped just before the start of this new generation back in 2020, so I guess this is what Phil is referring to. Which makes sense, but I guess that means at the very least Call of Duty should be on PlayStation until mid-gen, so until 2024 or so. I do wonder what PlayStation's internal thinking is going to be, because Call of Duty is going to leave an enormous multiplayer shooter gap -- is this a gap they are going to try to look to fill themselves, either by reviving an old IP of theirs like SOCOM or Killzone, or perhaps by moving their marketing deal over to Battlefield and hunkering down with EA? Then again, that isn't exactly a franchise in good graces right now (and hasn't been for a while), so maybe they'd want to acquire a particular third party IP which is being swept under the rug but is already something of a name; not a household name to the same extent as Call of Duty, of course, but maybe something like Medal of Honour?

You can now find your PlayStation playing stats from last year in the 2021 PlayStation Wrap-Up report here. Do find it very funny that Death Stranding is front and centre, considering all I've done with it so far is upgrade to the Director's Cut Compared to 2020's stats from last February, some interesting takeaways are: Total playtime in 2021 (895 hours) was only 7 hours less than in 2020 (902 hours), and all this despite the fact that I took a break from gaming which lasted a few months. FIFA more than made up for it I guess, as did my weekly play sessions with some friends on GTA! I played 20 fewer games on modern PlayStation hardware in 2021 when compared with 2020 (16 vs 36). Hours played online increased substantially from 125 hours (14% of total 2020 playtime) to 219 hours (24% of total 2021 playtime), though I suppose I didn't start playing with my friends on a weekly basis until a few months into 2020, so that increase isn't too surprising. I said in last year's post after playing across 156 days in 2020 that I would aim to surpass 200 days played in 2021...and apparently I did. Not sure how that happened. Despite playing substantially fewer games, I got 499 trophies in 2021 compared with 542 in 2020. This is down to going for a few more Platinums (4 in 2021 vs 1 in 2020), but a lot of these and a Platinum popped from the Ghost of Tsushima Director's Cut upgrade before I played the Iki Island DLC. Haven't started a game in 2022 yet...and seeing these numbers might be the push I needed.

I mean, there's definitely enough material out there to get some lewd fan fiction going... I think that's enough internet for today.

Finally, a release date (and gameplay overview) appears: 5th April 2022! Starting with whichever trilogy you want is such a smart and inclusive move. Looks stupidly fantastic, though I'm not super keen on the tight over-the-shoulder perspective. That Galaxy Map is huge! Love how it clearly builds on some of the ideas from The Force Awakens and The Clone Wars game, just dialling it all to eleven. This looks well worth the wait! AND OH MY GOD THERE'S A MUMBLE MODE!!!

I mean, I'd guess it's getting a Hisuian form (I think it's why they've not shown off anything about the starter evolutions so far), so maybe it won't be part Ghost-type? I'm pretty nervous about some of the Hisuian forms they might be hiding from us actually. The last few generations have been some of the most contrasting for me when it comes to the quality of some of the designs, some are top tier and others have a Pokémon knock-off vibe to be.

No worries Yep, Typhlosion is my favourite of the bunch too. Thanks Legend of Thunder! For me I think it's just wanting to keep things fresh, I've been using Fire-type starters a lot more over the last few years. But we'll see, with all of the Sinnoh starters being available in Brilliant Diamond & Shining Pearl and there being no version split, I wouldn't be surprised if there's some way to get the other two starters at some point in the game anyways, seeing as you'll have to potentially catch everything anyways. ...so I guess I just convinced myself that I might be getting Cyndaquil

Yeah, I know they do. I meant more in the sense that, for example, GAME and other big retailers are likely going to have more accurate stock tracking systems, etc., which are going to make it much harder for them to break release date and get away with it than a much smaller store without such systems in place. A lot of the stores that have broken street release date in the past have been smaller, independent stores or chains, oftentimes in more remote locations (be it on a map or technologically, such as in a developing country). Like I mentioned, they also won't be putting anywhere near as much at risk if they break street release date than if a massive retailer like GAME consistently did so. Anyways, seems like the leaks have grown into full on file dumps now, meaning that new Pokémon and new forms are out in the wild that we haven't seen yet, so I'll be trying my best to steer clear. Has everyone decided on which Pokémon they want to start with? I think I'm stuck choosing between Cyndaquil and Oshawott...

Also, to add to what @Glen-i has said, I think big retail chains like GAME are going to be under much more scrutiny when it comes to tracking stock and the like than stores which don't specialise in video game retail or much smaller stores. There's a lot more at stake for GAME if, for example, Nintendo decides to penalise them/cut them off for breaking street date than if a smaller chain/store does it (and that's if they even pick up on the smaller chain doing it in the first place). I think this is (rightly) discussed every time a new Pokémon game comes out, but because it was so recent and I'm too lazy to type it all out, I'll just link to what I said about this when the same thing happened with Brilliant Diamond & Shining Pearl back in November. Maybe I'm wildly misremembering things, but I can't remember this happening to this extent with some of the Switch's other massive titles (Animal Crossing, Breath of the Wild, Mario Odyssey; but then, I honestly don't think Nintendo cares nearly as much about Pokémon leaking compared to those games), but I think that just speaks to the logistical nightmare that is dealing with a typically annual, guaranteed 10+ million units seller, being released simultaneously worldwide that is localised in multiple languages. And typically around the end of year holiday season, no less.

Well, I can't not talk about this. For some perspective, this is a move nearly six times as big as Take-Two's recent acquisition of Zynga (which as of this moment, until the Activision Blizzard deal is finalised, is the largest video game industry acquisition) and nearly nine times larger than the Bethesda acquisition in 2020. It comes in just below Disney's acquisition of 21st Century Fox in 2019 for $71.3 billion. Some things that go without saying are that, firstly, and maybe most importantly but is sure to be lost in the long run to the pettiness of console warring: this is awesome for those Activision Blizzard employees. It's yet to be finalised, but I can feel the relief from here, and fair play to Microsoft because I can't remember the last time we heard a whiff of discontent or controversy from their teams (*touch wood*), so hopefully they'll be in much safer hands as and when this deal gets across the line. Secondly: I'd much rather it be Microsoft than a Chinese company like Tencent or ByteDance, or heck even Embracer. Honestly, it's hard to feel any different to how I felt back in 2020 when they acquired Bethesda. The smaller acquisitions that they spent a few years making have quickly fallen by the wayside (I still think they did Obsidian dirty by having them announce their fantasy game only to acquire Bethesda), and this is yet another case where - while there is a working relationship between the two companies - it's not as closely knit as, say, Bluepoint and PlayStation were, or Next Level and Nintendo, where they've already got a relationship founded on already working together to produce a game. The term I used back when the Bethesda acquisition was announced was that this was an example of inorganic growth, and I'd more than stand by that with the Activision Blizzard acquisition. We all know big money acquisitions have been on the table the last few years with some of the deals we've seen in the gaming space, but like with Bethesda, this acquisition is almost aggressive. You aren't nurturing smaller teams and helping them realise their dreams with greater financial security as seemed to be the case a few years ago, you're buying a developer with an IP - Call of Duty - where the threat of pure console exclusivity could legitimately bring PlayStation to its knees so that Microsoft can have their way with them in the boardroom. Others have said it, but much more than was the case with Bethesda, there is too much money to be left on the table by having their games be exclusive, so which permutation of events do we see? Pure exclusivity and a massive middle finger to those who have already purchased a PS5, as well as the rest of the industry? Bending PlayStation over backwards to push Game Pass onto their platforms, with Call of Duty not being available anywhere but on Game Pass for PlayStation owners? Continuing to release Call of Duty on PlayStation until the end of the generation to make a hell of a lot of money before winning the next generation before it begins by then making it exclusive? None of these outcomes are positive for the industry. There is no-one to compete with Microsoft right now as a platform holder when it comes to these acquisitions. Sony straight up do not have the money lying around to make an acquisition of a company like Square Enix, let alone a company big enough to rival the purchase of Activision Blizzard, like EA. Nintendo meanwhile are twiddling their thumbs in the corner and, as always, have zero interest in what's going on with these acquisitions. It certainly raises other interesting questions: do we finally see PC games like World of Warcraft come to console and smartphones, because I mean imagine a game as popular as that running on xCloud on your phone? What does it mean for Overwatch 2? Will Toys for Bob be revived get a second chance now, meaning more Spyro, Crash, and Tony Hawk entries? If COD becomes exclusive and Xbox sales rocket, will they finally start reporting their sales again? Where the heck does that leave games they only published, like Sekiro? On an individual basis, I have been avoiding Activision Blizzard games like I have Ubisoft games, just with everything going on within their companies, and their games aren't going to move the needle for me. I'm genuinely happy that those working at Activision Blizzard might finally get a chance at some semblance of normalcy, security, and stability in their workplace. From a business perspective, this is a move that makes sense. I question just how much of the industry has to be bought up before we actually see the powers that be question if the industry is being monopolised, and this is an insanely aggressive move, but this was a one in a million chance to acquire one of the biggest publishers after a year of nothing but negative press. I'm more surprised that it was Activision Blizzard first rather than Ubisoft, or even EA. As I mentioned last time with the Bethesda deal, if not for monopolisation laws Microsoft would have aggressively acquired Sony ten times over without even flinching, and slipped Nintendo into their back pocket. I've said it before, and I'll double down and say it again, because I would say the same if this were PlayStation or if this were Nintendo: In the long term, this can only be a bad thing. I don't care if you're silly enough to align yourself with one platform holder over another, these billion dollar companies are destroying the ceiling for growth and creativity in a medium I can safely say that we all care deeply about. They are commodifying the few big companies that remain for the price of the many, in that this will be a price that the rest of the industry - in the long term - could pay for dearly. And that continues to be a worrying thought.

That's true, think I just got very unlucky. It was first thing in the morning when I went to get my booster and I liberally applied hand sanitizer before entering and just after exiting. Is what it is

Seems like I've had a similar experience to @Emerald Emblem I've been off work the last two weeks for Christmas, and I knew I had my booster booked for the Tuesday just gone (the 4th), so was careful to not go out to supermarkets, etc., from last weekend to reduce the risk of me passing it onto someone else. Tuesday rolls around, get the taxi to the vaccination centre, and the place has less than 10 people on the premises. Awesome. I was in and out with my booster jab within 5 minutes of arriving. Wait around 15 minutes to get a taxi back to my apartment, order some McDonald's breakfast -- same result as the last time I had McDonald's breakfast with a jab, which I did with my first: a tad feverish, so lie down for a few hours after a bit of paracetamol and chugging some water. Tuesday night/Wednesday morning was hellish because my sister didn't get home from work at the usual time (she's normally back at midnight on a Tuesday shift, if not earlier) and I was up a bit later than usual because of the nap I'd taken before. Long story short she stayed around a friend's house but texted my old (cancelled) number, and then immediately went to sleep with her phone on Do Not Disturb, so me and my parents were up until 06:00 before we finally get a response. So Tuesday's night of sleep was borderline nonexistent. Felt fine on Wednesday, even if I didn't get up until noon, but by the evening I was a bit downtrodden and getting major feverish chills, to the point my teeth were chattering. Wake up yesterday morning to coughing up some nasty looking and slightly bloodied stuff (I tend to get dry air in my room this time of year which can unfortunately have the same effect when combined with a cold), which is concerning, but it was mightily outweighed by the fever, so I went with the NHS guidance of it potentially just being a booster side effect after 2 days. Well, today's the third day, but I got up late after yet another rough night of sleep. For whatever reason blood circulation to my nose gets real bad when I have flu-like symptoms, to the point that it can cold, which makes for terrible nights of sleep unless you half risk suffocating yourself with your duvet. So I knew that realistically I either had COVID or the flu. Just taken a rapid lateral flow test and it's showing as positive. Ordering a PCR now, but considering that realistically my three potential vectors (based on the timing of my symptoms) were two taxi drivers and someone working at a vaccination centre, it's an understatement to say that I'm miffed. I mean, what are the odds that I likely get it from someone who needs to be taking regular tests on the day that I go and get my booster?

It's pretty crazy to me that even in an overview trailer in the month of release they seem to be drawing the line of what they show off at Kleavor. On the one hand, it's nice after they've been known to show way too much of the new Pokémon before releasing in the past (such as with Sun & Moon), but on the other hand, this is Game Freak's first big shakeup with a Pokémon game. The fact that we've hardly seen anything of the game at this point, to me, is still very concerning. Maybe the English version of this trailer will clear things up a bit, but like I mentioned before, going into an "open world" game knowing so little about the actual gameplay loop is bizarre. The textures on some of the clothing makes me gag. I mean, I think it's just poor portfolio curation. It's Pokémon, so I'm not saying that these games won't sell well being so close together, but I don't think there's any question that they would sell even better with a more substantial gap between them. There's very little benefit, and from my perspective much more to risk, to launching two titles from the same IP each with the potential for sales of 15+ million within three months of each other. There's going to be some level of sales cannibalisation there, and though not a great or 1:1 comparison, it's not the first time we've seen Pokémon do this: Ultra Sun & Ultra Moon cut the legs off the sales of Sun & Moon, a pair of games which had the potential to surpass everything in sales, bar probably Gen I and Gen II. I think we can say with confidence that Brilliant Diamond & Shining Pearl still have more to come, because at the very least they have some Mythical Pokémon events to come. From Legends: Arceus releasing just two months later, I think it's heavily implied that we might not see a new game from them later this year (if we do, then I am genuinely going to be even more confused), and will most likely end up with an expansion pass to tide us over until whatever comes next. Maybe, for whatever reason, this is TPCi wanting to have the best-selling game in a calendar year, which is almost impossible to swing when launching in November, hence the January launch, and if they are planning an expansion pass then maybe we see a definitive edition bundled with the expansion pass up for sale in November instead. I do agree that BDSP launching after this game was never an option, and that it would be best positioned where it was; it was simultaneously rushed out in a messy state yet also got to benefit from being the first mainline series game to launch in two years. I guess my perspective is that neither game benefits in the sense that BDSP were rushed out as something they felt they had to release, when Legends: Arceus is what they really want to do, but looks like it could do with much more time in the oven. I don't even think they should have waited until November 2022 to launch this necessarily, because all being well, that's clearly the window Nintendo are taking aim at for the launch of the Breath of the Wild sequel, and there's no way they want these two games launching next to each other. I just struggle to justify why this needed to launch at the end of January rather than in March, for example, or heck, the summer. It's Pokémon, so it's going to sell regardless, but there are better alternatives to the Christmas season than launching in January in my opinion. I don't strictly think it's a sales thing either - even if I think the perspective of a business is that this isn't needed - I also think brand burnout is also a very real thing too. We're three weeks from launch and I'm questioning if I'm in the mood for another Pokémon game so soon, even one as different to the last as this looks, and I doubt I'm the only one who feels that way. Re: some kids/adults not having the money to buy another game so soon, it's anecdotal, but as a kid I know I would've had a tough time - even with the leftover Christmas money - convincing my parents that I should get a second Pokémon game in just a matter of months. We'll have to wait and see. Like I said, it's still going to sell well, because it's Pokémon, so in terms of sales some of my points are going to be almost impossible to prove, but by TPCi's standards, it seems almost desperate?

New year, new events thread! Starting it early this year because of the news already coming out that E3 will once again be digital this year, due to Omicron concerns -- we had to wait until March last year before finding out what was up with E3 2021. As reported by VentureBeat: However, Mike Futter has shared that he heard that E3 would likely be going this way in 2022 as the ESA had already abandoned their plans to use the Los Angeles Convention Center -- he says he heard this prior to the emergence of Omicron. And, as has been discussed ad nauseam, but in particular since the start of COVID: publishers don't need an E3 presence, much less a particular one, to communicate their plans to consumers these days. And, without skipping a beat...

I dropped the game after getting to where I wanted with the Living Sinnoh Dex after getting a bit tired of grinding out the Underground. I at least got the Legendary Beasts, can't remember if I got Ho-Oh though. Been feeling really rough the last couple of days since my booster jab, so will take a look once I'm feeling better (hopefully over the weekend) and let you know

A number of "insiders" and smaller gaming outlets seem to think that previews for the game are due to go up within the next week: It's about damn time. I can't remember the last time that something marketing itself as an open world game left it until the month of release to show off a stretch of unedited gameplay and have it's mechanics and gameplay loop clearly explained. And I still think the decision to release this after Christmas and just two months after Brilliant Diamond & Shining Pearl was a silly idea. To be fair, Centro Leaks are very hit and miss with Pokémon and aren't exactly a reliable source, to the point that I think even Serebii has called them out on a number of occasions for spouting nonsense. They basically aggregate any and all leaks that come out, act like they've heard something similar, throw in a few educated guesses based on details other people pick up, and then kind of gaslight followers when it comes to previous "leaks" of theirs that turned out to be wrong. An example of this is how they have been sharing the versions of the Chinese Riddler leaks, which in turn they are taking from the translations put out there by some attention seeker who seems to be getting off on the attention he gets from sharing the translations of the Chinese Riddler leaks. It's so bizarre. I mean, everything in the spoiler tag doesn't seem at all that surprising to be honest, so I think it's more an educated guess based on what we've seen. I've definitely seen a lot of people speculate on similar things based on the menus we've seen from the game so far, so hopefully we'll get a better idea soon! Yeah, the whole game being about how this is about the Sinnoh Dex being completed for the first time leads me to agree with you. On the one hand, it's Pokémon, so catching/recruitment is going to likely be involved to some extent, but there are very few "open world" games which make being a completionist the core of the game's structure. This being Game Freak, I'll admit I'm nervous to see how they've handled it. Burnout in an open world game is very hard to avoid, even in games which have a variety for you to do adjacent to the critical path of the game, but that could be compounded here by the repetition of having to catch all of the Pokémon, if that's the angle that they're taking with this. I look around and at best I think people are just interested to see what this first "open world" Pokémon game is going to be like - I know that's the case for me - but I think Legends: Arceus has already lost the war, when the first battle hasn't even begun. People with baggage from playing bad open world games don't really want this to begin with, and people who have played good open world games are going to find that this isn't anything like how an open world game for Pokémon has the potential to be. People are going to say that Breath of the Wild x Pokémon is impossible to deliver on, but I do think that there are ways that a great open world Pokémon game could be made with the right team on it and drawing from the right inspirations - ahem, Monolith Soft and Xenoblade Chronicles - and unfortunately I think this Monster Hunter-lite experience thanks to its marketing is already heading down the wrong path. I can already envision the blowback Game Freak gets from this game - I mean, they get blowback with every game, to be fair - and it potentially putting them and fans off altogether when it comes to making open world Pokémon games, when what we know of it so far is zonal open world design at best, probably based on Monster Hunter World. Time to go back to my cave I guess. My optimism fades more every time I talk about this game.. You mean to tell me you don't walk around by pushing forward a left analogue stick?

Been a while since I've posted an update in here, so with 2021 over and me being in a reflective mood before looking ahead to 2022, I figured it's a good time to get caught up and close the book on my last 12 months of gaming. I've talked about a few of these games elsewhere, so I'm probably going to cheat with those and grab what I said elsewhere, what with there being quite a few games for me to go through and wanting to not take too long, so I might be really brief on some games, especially ones I've talked about recently. We'll see how that goes I guess JUNE PORTAL | 2007 Portal is a game I went into having heard a lot about -- not in terms of its content, but in terms of its critical acclaim down to its innovation in combining the mechanics of its famous portal gun with great level design. And it's absolutely deserved. I played the game from start to finish in one sitting, frequently getting goosebumps from the fun and genius of its physics-based gameplay with a number of puzzle elements, which naturally includes the use of the portal gun to entire in one portal and come out of the other elsewhere. Working my way through the Aperture Labs puzzles for the first time was an absolutely blast, and its light but efficient story quickly turns chilling as you get closer to the end. The most succinct way I can think to describe it as someone playing their first Valve game was that its level design and mechanics are exactly what you'd expect from Nintendo on some of their best days. I played the PS3 version, which obviously isn't the best way to play the game, and boy did it make sure I came away knowing it: a few frame rate drops throughout and terrible stick sensitivity meant I had to turn the horizontal and vertical sensitivity down substantially from their default settings, and these two elements combined with the fact that this is a first-person game meant quickly becoming nauseous early on. Only real big criticism I have is that the first 17 chambers (i.e. levels/puzzle rooms) slowly ramped up the difficulty, with it feeling fair and fun, meaning I breezed through the early part of the game, and the story kept pace. Problem is, once the game's story started to take over, I found that puzzles became increasingly obtuse, so you've got a story moving along to its climax at 100 mph but leaving you behind, which resulted in some really poor pacing in my playthrough for the latter parts of the game. A minor criticism would be that there were some objects in those latter stages where you could find yourself caught on objects on the floor, obstructing your movement. On the whole, though, I thoroughly enjoyed it, and cannot wait to start up Portal 2 once I get my hands on my Steam Deck later this year *touch wood* and potentially even return to this game too. Oh, and Still Alive is a banger of a credits song (beware if you haven't played the game, though, because the lyrics of the song are a bit spoilerish). STAR WARS: SQUADRONS | 2020 Star Wars: Squadrons is a game I initially started back in 2020, but got ill shortly after starting only a few hours in, so I had to drop it. Going back to it, I started over. Honestly, I thought it was such a mixed bag of a game: the music isn't anything special by Star Wars standards; it being based on Motive's work on starfighter combat in Battlefront II is great, but the lack of an option to play in third-person and locking players into only a third-person perspective meant I felt like I wasn't getting as much fun as I could out of the game, due to the limited cone of vision you have from the cockpit and how quickly ships can whiz by; the increased complexity from Battlefront II in diverting power to different parts of your ship, as well as customisation options for your weapons loadout, was really cool; but, perhaps most importantly for a licensed game - besides capturing the look and feel of the IP they're adapting (which this game does just as well as EA's Battlefront games) - the story and characters were just so unbelievably dull and forgettable that, looking back, I struggle to see how I continued playing. Probably because it's Star Wars, I guess. Unfortunately, I came away feeling so much of this game was a missed opportunity. ICO | 2001 Playing ICO for the first time after having played a From Software game before was almost trippy -- the atmosphere, the music, the ambiguous nature of the story, the way the castle is so expertly interconnected, it just all screams that it inspired Hidetaka Miyazaki greatly. Now, the camera has aged miserably, calling useless Yorda over and the Shadows grabbing her and having to beat them with a stick is a pain in the ass, but so much about this game - especially it being Fumito Ueda's directorial debut - is still of such great substance, even today. Could absolutely do with a remake, but well worth going back to check out if you've never played it before in my opinion. RATCHET & CLANK: RIFT APART | 2021 SEPTEMBER GHOST OF TSUSHIMA: IKI ISLAND | 2021 I waxed lyrical about Ghost of Tsushima back in 2020, and so getting to return to it for the Iki Island DLC a bit over a year after the game's initial release pulled me back from the depths of a video game burnout and thrusted me back into one of my favourite open worlds. Lives up to the main game in every regard - music, characters, story, visuals - but fails to really innovate, serving more I feel as an epilogue for the game as the wait for its inevitable sequel begins. Getting to pick up the blade of Jin Sakai once again was wonderful, and I got to spend 10 hours more with a game and world I already enjoyed immensely. OCTOBER DARK SOULS | 2011 So much has been said about Dark Souls that I honestly don't know where to begin, or if to. I originally started the game way back in June, but found that I didn't feel pulled back to it for a long time after reaching what I think is probably the game's climax - the room lying beyond the formidable pair of Ornstein & Smough - and perhaps also in part due to me talking about the game in too much detail and too frequently in its own thread (a lesson I think I can learn from). The opening half - really, it's more like two thirds - of Dark Souls is masterful: the atmosphere the game creates with its muddy hues, fog, and overwhelming ambience outside of boss encounters is almost flawless; the enemy compositions in different areas and rooms seems purposely calculated; the heft of my broadsword and knight's armour sees my avatar somewhat slowly - but purposefully - step forward, headstrong and ready for whatever comes his way, particularly in the form of some of the best boss fights I've faced this year. The opening two thirds of Dark Souls are so well paced that despite being pretty open, it still manages to feel linear, and this is thanks to its great design. But, as I mentioned before, unfortunately this veneer was chipped for me once I had conquered Anor Londo. Ornstein & Smough was like the experience was for most: challenging, and at times, very much not fun when they would pull off some moves which feel downright unfair (I'm talking about them hitting you through their counterpart, who is often obstructing your vision; they remind me a lot of my time with Adjudicator in Demon's Souls, though not quite as bad and with much better music). Everything in the game felt like it was leading up to this climactic boss fight in Anor Londo, and your reward? Finding out that you're going on a fetch quest for the final third or so of the game, which instantly stalled my sword-raising and want to carry on at the time; again, I think it's this combined with me talking about the game too much which basically made me burnout at this point. If anyone's seen what I'm like in the Demon's Souls and Dark Souls threads, it's that I'm stubborn to a fault. I pick the games I'm going to play carefully, playing games one at a time, and I can't remember the last time I actually outright dropped a game. And so, naturally, after Ghost of Tsushima's DLC helped pull me back in, I returned to the game with some resolve and saw my journey through to its end. Unfortunately, its the weakest part of the game in my eyes. The areas you visit for your fetch quest seem like they don't have as much to them as earlier areas in the game, as if they didn't get the time they deserved to be fully realised, and for me, some of the jankiest moments in the game happen in the final third. As a result, and especially with some areas being much more open, the pacing of the game somewhat plummets as you warp from bonfire to bonfire, taking on areas which sometimes feel taped onto other parts of the game. The music is still great, the atmosphere is still there, but the thing driving you on - at least for me - just seemed so hazy at this point in the game, and to be honest there are some of the weaker areas, enemy designs and compositions, and bosses in this final section. And speaking of which: Bed of Chaos sucks, but it did lead to some hilarious moments. As did the hydra. It's such a shame that I feel like Dark Souls suffers in its final third, because its other two third are practically flawless as far as I'm concerned. Meaning, that for all of my criticisms, it was still one of the best games I played in 2021. I do still need to go back and play Artorias of the Abyss at some point, so I'm looking forward to that! METROID: ZERO MISSION | 2004 LITTLE NIGHTMARES | 2017 I sat down with my sister on Halloween to play Little Nightmares from beginning to end in one sitting -- funnily enough the last time we did this was with INSIDE when I played it way back in 2016, and this definitely riffs off the skeleton of that game. Part charming, part creepy, and with someone else on the couch a whole lot of fun, the grotesque inhabitants of Little Nightmares are sure to see me again in their sequel this Halloween. NOVEMBER SUPER MARIO GALAXY | 2007 POKÉMON BRILLIANT DIAMOND | 2021 DECEMBER IT TAKES TWO | 2021 I played It Takes Two with my younger brother across two sessions, and we had a blast playing this game together. The diverse range of mechanics throughout the game breed a variety of wildly unique areas and levels, and so the game constantly feels like it's throwing something fresh and exciting at you. Josef Fares gets a lot of flak for wearing his heart on his sleeve and being a bit loud-mouthed, but there's no denying for me that he is a talented director and his team at Hazelight are producing the best two player co-op games right now. It's not hard to see why this got the GOTY at the 2021 Game Awards, and why it's rated so highly by many who played it. However, personally? I preferred A Way Out, as I think the story it tells grabs you a bit more beat by beat, and most importantly for me and my brother, focuses on an almost brotherly bond between its two protagonists. With It Takes Two, I do think it's firmly targeting an audience with its story of people who are either in a relationship and perhaps even playing with their partner, if not people who are experienced with relationships -- both of which my brother and I are not, so while some beats definitely still hit, there were certainly a few misses in there too. Still, I think it's well worth checking out if you get the chance and have someone suitable to play it with! RETURNAL | 2021 I've said a lot that I want to about Returnal in its own thread, but unfortunately for me I can't really cheat here as my thoughts are split across a number of posts and stitched together it doesn't flow that well. For me, the game does a lot well. It's combat and traversal is tight, it has some of the best boss fights I faced in 2021 (a Boss Rush mode would be perfect in my opinion), it makes excellent use of the DualSense's haptic feedback and adaptive triggers, and it looks simply breathtaking, which combined with oppressive and alien hues of blue, green, and red makes the game's atmosphere feel very unique. The enemy designs are great too, and while I don't think there's a standout track, it does have a solid soundtrack. It's a third person shmup which feels like it takes some concepts seen in games like NieR: Automata and dials them up to eleven. It's heavily skill-based, too, which I love. However, as someone who is new to roguelikes (disregarding Mystery Dungeon games here as they're very different besides a very basic similarity in skeleton), I feel like this game is a terrible first roguelike. I don't mind getting used to weapons and mechanics myself, but I honestly think anyone new to this genre might be best served looking up a guide to its mechanics before hopping in -- I'm not talking here about the roguelike nature of the game in its cycles, but rather the mechanics around that, such as augments, etc. The game almost assumes that you're well versed in roguelikes from my experience, which made it awkward when I was still figuring new things out half way through the game. I also don't think it had to be as much of a roguelike as it ended up being, with runs potentially lasting upwards of an hour and, besides a few abilities scattered throughout the game after overcoming a biome and its boss, there isn't much carried over that feels like true progression. While this suits the narrative - which is interesting - and helps show Selene's descent into madness, I feel like having a critical path which stays consistent but then having randomised rooms to the side could give the best of both worlds, in that in restarting a run you could then just look around for a decent weapon and augments knowing that you can sprint towards the end of the area after attaining these items. I think you'll probably know if Returnal is a game for you -- that's probably the most succinct way I can put it. RED DEAD REDEMPTION II | 2018 The final game I played in 2021 I binged across 10 days (well, more like 8, as I didn't play on either my birthday or Christmas) to completion in around 73 hours. Red Dead Redemption II is a goddamn masterpiece. I'm still digesting it to be honest with you, after finishing it a few days ago, so I'll probably lean towards keeping things on the brief side, especially when it comes to story, and my thoughts might dart around a lot. It has the best looking realistic open world of any game I've ever played thanks to its gorgeous skies, outrageously realistic lighting, and phenomenal fog. Not only that, but there is a sense of heading from one plot point to the next and getting lost doing a million other things like in my other favourite open worlds, and there's so much detail to explore and stuff to do throughout the game that honestly, critical pathing the story to me almost seems like you're missing out. The characters are some of the most nuanced from a cinematic and story-based game that I've played, with wonderful performances across the board, but in particular I feel the need to highlight Roger Clark as Arthur Morgan, Alex McKenna as Sadie Adler, and Benjamin Byron Davis as Dutch van der Linde, as for me they were the standout performances of the game, with many of the key scenes and story moments hinging on their interactions. The score, the work on which was led by Woody Jackson, is a goldmine, and with tracks like Outlaws From The West is of the highest calibre when it comes to cinematic game scoring, to the point that I think it matches up some of the greatest soundtracks in the pantheon of spaghetti western greats. The story about Dutch van der Linde's gang in the dying days of the cowboy is, hands down, one of the best narratives for me in all of gaming that I've experienced so far, enhanced so much more by the decisions you make throughout your time in Arthur Morgan's boots, and also my decision earlier in the year to play through the first Red Dead Redemption, for which this game is a prequel. Now, this isn't to say that the game is without fault, because despite the reports of overwork and crunch amongst Rockstar staff throughout development of the game, there are so many moments which can only be best described as what you'd expect in terms of "open world jank". I saw a horse and its carriage striding up the side of a barn wall, I lost count of the times where - with no gun in hand - I would focus on someone by holding L2 only to find myself drawing a gun (who the heck thought the focus and aim trigger being the same was a good idea?), and because the game is similar in mechanics to Rockstar's golden goose in GTA V, an accidental bump against someone can escalate to a bloodbath in the space of 15 short seconds because the engine is designed to almost thrive on chaos. Beyond this, from a storytelling perspective there is one particular chapter which stands out as the weakest - and it is also the shortest and worst paced, almost feeling like a parody of another AAA game from another studio with a focus on storytelling - and there are often moments of a borderline lack of cohesiveness between the story of Dutch saying "we need more money" for the thousandth time and the fact that no-one ever questions just how much money you need, after a bank job in the first half of the game leaves you with flush with cash. The game is also so richly detailed that it's almost a fault of the game, because there are so many systems which you actually don't need to touch in the game. But these are, honestly, me trying to find minor nitpicks with the game which I could expand upon but honestly don't matter too much in the big picture, as I often try to do with my favourite stories and games. And yes, as you might have picked up by now: this is now my favourite traditional open world game, bar none; sorry Ghost of Tsushima. It's equal parts a feast for the eyes, a well-crafted story from beginning to end, expertly portrayed cast, a wonderful world with wonderful people to meet, and a musical masterpiece. So, to cut myself short, here are some stupidly good looking screenshots from the game. I've been careful to pick my favourite screenshots from only the first two chapters of the game, but to emphasise how good I think this game looks: I took well over 2000 screenshots of the game in my 73 hours with it. And that's it for catching up on 2021 -- onto playing games in 2022!

Some PSVR 2 news coming out of CES:

I didn't watch too many new films in 2021 - amidst the raffle of films making it to cinemas, region exclusive streaming platforms, and COVID scares - and honestly I think you guys have covered a lot of them, but I'd throw Tick, Tick... Boom! into the mix. I'm not typically someone seeking out musicals, but it's Lin-Manuel Miranda's directorial feature film debut and Andrew Garfield gives one heck of a performance, with his singing but especially also with his acting. I'm going to be really surprised if he doesn't get an Oscar nomination for this film.

See, I was thinking along similar lines to begin with, but the base game and the expansion planned are only two of the five "versions" currently available, and if I'm remembering right a sixth "version"/fifth expansion was announced a while ago. I guess it depends on how far they would plan to go with it, if and when it comes to the West, but bundling it all together in one package - assuming they do all of the expansions - when it's done seems like they'd be leaving money on the table unless Nintendo are covering S-E's losses and then some, just considering that the base game is probably a £50 title and the first expansion £20 - £30 based on the Japanese prices above. I also have to imagine that saving it all to drop in one go would take quite a long time due to the translations, which would also see them sitting out on potential earnings by choosing to not release things when they're ready to go. Then again, they could absolutely just be taking advantage of their rabid Japanese audience over there. The more I think about it - especially with DQ not being huge over here in the first place - they have a real mountain to climb in getting it all out over here -- heck, there are zero plans to do this with XIV at any point according to Yoshi-P, and it's the biggest MMO right now. At a push I could see them maybe including the first DLC expansion with the base game, heck maybe even the first two? I know they've released all-in-one packages at separate points for the game in Japan, but they seem to be treating this as a new and entirely separate entity in that regard, I guess they're just waiting to see how well it sells.

Just finished the first episode of The Book of Boba Fett. Scattered thoughts: Overall, a solid but subdued opening episode, hopeful for next week!