Julius

So, Odd Taxi was an anime I came across when it was announced earlier this year, and I added it to my watchlist on Crunchyroll a few months later. Something about the thought of a walrus taxi driver in a pretty soft art style just gave off a vibe I wanted to check out, and this is from someone who is incredibly selective when it comes to watching anime. However, it wasn't until I saw videos go up last weekend that I gathered that it had finally reached its conclusion, and after confirming that fact - and with it only being 13 episodes long - I dove right in. I think a concern I had going into this was that the second season of Beastars is coming next week, and while I'd steered clear of much of Odd Taxi's promotion and fan discussion, there was always the potential for overlap in themes and content, kind of like how Beastars feels like a more mature - and anime - take on things we saw tackled in Disney's Zootopia. After watching the show, I can safely say that both my initial instinct that it would be a relaxing show about a walrus driving passengers around and that it would tackle issues around society, our places in it, and societal constructs like Beastars did were completely unfounded. This isn't a show about society; this is a show about individuals. It's really tough to talk about Odd Taxi without giving much away, and even that feels like it might be saying too much. Jumping in like I did, virtually blind and with very little context, is absolutely the way to do it. And trust me when I say that you should check it out before you hear much more. To put it very simply: GO WATCH IT NOW. It is initially a slow burn, with individual narrative threads across a diverse cast of characters slowly drawing you in to the intimacies of their interactions -- there is a mystery aspect here, and some questions you'll probably find yourself asking, but there's nothing really front and centre. Early on, especially in setting things up, it really gave me Yakuza vibes, which I obviously loved. As the show goes on, the layers of the mystery get peeled back, raising more and more questions as thread after thread, character after character, crash into each other. Coupled with some genuinely superb writing - the dialogue in particular feels just beyond being steeped in realism, but is wacky enough that it doesn't feel like it's playing it straight, and it also has one of my favourite characters when it comes to their dialogue structure too - and what turns out to be a very well constructed mystery, the show just builds upon itself episode after episode, and by the time it ends, it feels like it's really hit it's stride and delivered a truly meaningful and surprisingly mature narrative - and ending - that I won't forget anytime soon. One of very few shows where I felt so satisfied by it all that I really do hope they aren't considering a second season. They also did some really cool stuff to promote/tie in with the show, such as the fact that a Twitter account in the show actually exists on Twitter, or how there's a radio show they've released weekly (I checked out the English text translations after and it adds an entire other layer to the show). I really enjoyed Odd Taxi, and hope it doesn't get lost in the shuffle of what is shaping up to be a massive year for anime; it seems like it might be one you find in hidden gem lists at the end of the year, and in a way, I really do think it is a hidden gem. It's only the second anime series I've checked out this year (the other being Berserk), but it's set the bar incredibly high for everything else that I watch after. I implore you to go watch it!

Never mind what I said before, I guess PlayStation sensed that people wouldn't want to check out the VOD once they heard how dull this event was, so here's their own recap 53 second recap: It definitely felt like a step down from previous State of Plays, where it felt like they were starting to finally find their rhythm. I think it was smart to say that there would be no PSVR2, Horizon Forbidden West or God of War sequel news here, because it meant I went it with very low expectations anyways...which emphasises just how poor a showing it was that I was still disappointed. And yeah, Kena is still scheduled for next month. It was part of a smaller show at E3 and had some previews, but you feel like it could've been pushed here.

Yeah, I'm just going to come out and say it: That was bad. Starting with Moss Book II was cool, but knowing that there wasn't any news on PSVR2 coming today, it was hard to be excited as someone who doesn't already own a PSVR headset. Imagine it fell flat for most others watching too. Arcadegeddon...I couldn't care much less about to be honest. And I was surprised by just how long the overview trailer for post-launch content was for Tribes of Midgard. F.I.S.T.: Forged In Shadow Torch looked neat enough, but it's not something for me, and Hunter's Arena Legends (wow that's a generic title) looks like it could like a unique enough battle royale concept which could carve out it's own corner...but again, not for me. Sifu still looks cool, and I'm really into the aging mechanic. It's a shame about the delay to Early 2022, but like @Ganepark32 said, such a silly move to make an animation for a delay like it's some grand reveal that the audience would want. Now my most recent impression of that game will be how silly a move that was. Real smooth. Jett: The Far Shore might have been one of the few shining lights in this thing, thought it had a really good showing here. It looks very unique in its look and gameplay loop, shame they're not even committing to a particular month yet though, it's hard to be bullish on that arriving this year if the developers aren't either. Demon Slayer: The Hinomaki Chronicles -- I'm sure it'll have it's fans, but this series deserves more than a generic (and pretty poor looking) arena fighter which follows the anime. So just go watch the anime instead, it's on Netflix and is well worth your time, much more than this game will be, I'm sure. Lost Judgment had a decent trailer, I haven't played the first game so I'm in no rush to get this, but it continues to look fantastic, and just based on the trailers I'd seen for the first game, you definitely get the sense that they're taking it to the next level with this one, adding loads of new content (as RGG always do). Did find it funny that the closing shot had plenty of yakuza in the background The Death Stranding Director's Cut is pretty wild with just how much new content it's adding - the racing circuit?! - and considering that it didn't seem like a short game by any stretch of the imagination before, I'm a bit surprised by how much they're adding now, and some of it even seems to potentially be addressing some of the criticisms I heard around launch (specifically combat and bosses). No word on upgrading from the PS4 version was a bit disappointing (and concerning), and the lack of mentions on any adaptive trigger or haptic feedback additions was surprising. Probably another trailer at Gamescom's Opening Night Live I guess. And then Deathloop. Music was cool, that's pretty much all I gained from that showing, we've seen it plenty up to this point and there's not much new to say about it. My Totally Official Score: 4.0/10. Save yourself the time and just go read an article summarising the State of Play instead. Had my fingers crossed for Little Devil Inside or XVI, but that was a hope more than anything. Still, the lack of news for games like Kena (out next month - I know we had a bit of a look at E3, but it was at a smaller event, so I was surprised at it not being here; maybe Gamescom?) and Solar Ash (sometime this year still I think?) meant I came away completely unsatisfied.

Director's Cut coming 24th September: The circuit looks wild! EDIT: guess I regret my words and deeds from the State of Play thread; details on the PS5 features and upgrade path from the PS Blog:

Agreed. I'll post thoughts on the rest of it after it ends, but if it's ending on Deathloop...this has been pretty poor. It'll take us up to the 30 minute mark at least. Fingers crossed for a "one more thing"...

Trailer from State of Play: Looking real good!

Anyone tuning in for this? Coming out with first with some PSVR in a Moss sequel...interesting!

What If...? looking good. August 11th.

So while I think the penalty was (extremely) generous, am I remembering right that there was another ball on the pitch in the corner, which Sterling ran past to make the run into the box which ended in the penalty being awarded? I remember thinking that he could've easily swapped balls if he wanted to. Obviously it's too late to do anything about now, but that's got to sting even more for Denmark. Swear there was a free kick call towards the end in their favour too that Maguire shrugged off and played on from, and the ref didn't seem to care much. And the laser in Schmeichel's face for the penalty too. Sincerely hope that it's Felix Brych refereeing the final, he was brilliant in the Italy v Spain match last night, letting the play run and making some great calls.

No fairytale ending for Denmark, then, but the way they bounced back and showed resolve since their first match day after what happened to Eriksen, wearing their hearts on their sleeves and going to the last minute, they've done themselves and their country proud. Schmeichel was immense in goal tonight, really unlucky with the penalty save falling back in the path of Kane, but Denmark just dropped off a bit towards the end of the second half and in extra-time, and you had the feeling it wasn't meant to be after Christensen and then Delaney went down. We deserved it on the night, Southgate made the right changes at the right time, Sterling was spectacular, as were the team, doing well to keep their shape and focus up until the end. Very happy we didn't need to experience the stress of penalties, but I agree with @killthenet, Germany felt much, much more stressful, and more momentous, just given how much that rivalry (on our side, at least) has been drilled in from such a young age. Italy are absolutely going to be the favourites going into Sunday, they've been the best team in the tournament since the opening match, and have shown a real passion throughout the competition so far. It's hard to see them not winning it, but anything is possible in a one-off game of football, especially when their weakness is being overrun on the flanks, and that's arguably where we're strongest. Their midfield give us a torrid time though, I can see us trying to avoid the middle of the pitch. Our run so far feels similar to Chelsea's in the Champions League, where we've had a bit of luck in the draw but have beat what's in front of us, and now find ourselves with a great chance to make history. Time to look ahead to Sunday!

Yeah that was a terrible penalty, unlucky for Schmeichel that it fell back to Kane, not much he could do after that. We've been in top since the end of the second half and dominated the first half of extra-time, I can't remember Pitchford getting a touch. Another 15 to go. Time to start believing.

You just had the feeling that no-one was going to take their chances in that second half. Denmark definitely having to dig deep and absorb a lot of pressure, having two of their core players in Delaney and Christensen go off with minor injuries certainly didn't help them and gave us a bit of a boost in terms of momentum. Think Southgate was smart to leave subs for extra-time, think Foden could help us shake things up a bit more directly through the middle as we're having to drag Denmark wide at the moment. Hope this gets settled in extra-time. Also get to mention these two absolute peaches from Lee Dixon: • "There will be subs made at some point." • "And that should be time" -- 10 seconds before we actually reached the 5th minute of a 6 minute stoppage time.

Good first half from both sides. Been pretty different to Italy v Spain in that it's not a constant back and forth from the right of the pitch to the left, with the sides working each other out and one side dominating possession briefly before the other side counters, but rather England and Denmark both having periods where the other side just can't seem to get on the ball. Hopefully plenty more goals to come in this second half, that goal from us was certainly coming. You'd hope we'd go out and grab another in the opening 15 minutes of the second half to just get control of the match a bit, we haven't looked too confident at the back so far, and Pickford always looks like he has a mistake in him.

Maybe Courtois was right Two terrific long range goals so far this tournament from him, he's been a great spark of inspiration for them. Also thank goodness we finally saw a free kick scored this tournament. Crazy that we've seen just about everything else imaginable except a direct FK goal, and in the penultimate game no less!

And just like that. Screamer. Denmark have dominated the last 10, well deserved. Let's see how we bounce back. Think the fact we've conceded our first goal in the tournament in the semi-final could work against us mentally now.

I think the aim will be for us to have a lot of the ball, but as we've seen in the last few minutes with Denmark firmly dominating the flow of the game for a spell, I don't think we have the football intelligence, pitch awareness, or focus that Spain do to actually dominate a game with possession of the ball. Which I think actually makes trying to emulate that dangerous, as passes start to get misplaced and we stick our feet in where we don't need to. We also have this tendency to drop off for no apparent reason, invite pressure, and get lucky to not concede. We're fortunate to not have come up against a team yet that's had the quality to capitalise on that, but Denmark could. Like you say, first goal will be huge. Last 10 have not been a fun watch for us though.

Here we go then. Optimistic about our chances but think the first goal will be vital in determining which way this goes. If we can get it, then I think we'll grow into the game with a bit more confidence and control the flow a bit better, but if Denmark get it, I can see us getting nervous. Got to imagine the crowd and home advantage will be immeasurably in our favour like it was in the Germany game. Fingers crossed for a good one!

Didn't get around to it on Monday, but did play the game a fair bit yesterday. Started my session off by reverting the Broadsword from Raw to +5 (also upgrading the Tower Kite Shield to +5 too), and gave the big, headless demon down by Andre a quick shot (still barely damage the thing), before heading off in the direction of Sen's Fortress. After entering the gate I heard a hissing sound, and this snake-headed guy came at me. I pulled him outside and we duked it out a bit, I probably spent a good 15-20 minutes pulling him and his friend out to get comfortable with how to parry and riposte them (I decided to only attempt it on its wide swing as opposed to its overhead swing or quick thrust), frequently revisiting the bonfire to heal up. Once I was comfortable enough with it, I carried on up the stairs to a tight pathway with huge drops on either side and swinging axes. Yeah, Frampt was right about this place behind a madhouse, that's for sure. I made it across without too much trouble, taking it nice and easy, before having to parry and riposte another snake-headed guy on the tight path after drawing him under the path above us - knew that my practice would come in handy. There were also some of his friends above and below me firing lightning my way, but I didn't pay them too much attention, and made it to the other side. I carried on forwards, taking my time and having to fight one of the lightning-throwing guys up close and personal, which is never fun. Got the parry down a bit here but had to be wary of its ability to bite me if I stayed too close, something a bit difficult to manage on a tight path with him in front and swinging axes behind! Continued on and encountered my first boulder in here, which played out pretty hilariously: I waited here until the boulder passed and ran to the left up some stairs, another lightning-throwing guy taking aim at me, and a boulder crashing down on me, forcing me into a gap, I think with a fog door. I walked through it, but the lightning-throwing guy had followed me down, and chased me around this room a bit, before one of his friends turned up and they ganged up on me. I died. I'd picked up a couple of Large Titanite Shards while in there, so from the bonfire took them on over to Andre to get both my Broadsword and Tower Kite Shield to +6. I dove back in and ended up dying to the lightning-throwing guy with two swords by the swinging axes that you come across, and after that died to the guy on the tight path under that lightning-throwing guy. My parry timing was getting worse. The next time, though, I got much, much further. Quite a few traps in the way -- I love how the enemies can interact with them too (even if it does seem a little inconsistent at times when it comes to stepping on the pressure plates). I got really lucky running up some stairs boulders were flying down to what I thought was a fog door, but wasn't, so rolled off the ledge, and then rolled off that ledge, as more and more boulders chased me down. At some point (this might have been after, I'm not sure) I came across a chest which unlike all the others I've come across was just flung in the middle of a room at an odd angle, with warning signs all over the place and bloodstains EVERYWHERE, so yeah, I didn't open that thing. I'm guessing it was a mimic, and so now that I'm pretty confident they're in the game, I'll be whacking every single chest I come across from now on before thinking about opening them to see if that does anything. I don't want to see what a Dark Souls mimic looks like. Eventually came to a mechanism which the boulders were falling down onto and shooting in four directions, and which I could turn, so I shot a few in every direction, then checked them all out. Most of them just took me in directions where I'd had to run past boulders before, but one of them had destroyed a wall in the room with hanging cages I was in before, and so I followed it down, coming to a larger room with more hanging cages, and met a wizard-robed guy called Logan. Unfortunately the cage was locked, and I didn't have a key, so there wasn't much I could do for him, but there was a pretty nice view from the end of this room at least. Eventually I circled back around and had to make my way up the path where a boulder had been flying down before, with the lightning-throwing guy up ahead. I made my way to the side room, checked to see if he had followed me in, backed up when as I went to do this he entered the room, then I tried to lock on and put my shield up...it turned me around and I was facing the wrong way, so he killed me from behind. I then got much further again, this time coming to an extremely tight path with swinging axes in the distance and a lightning-throwing guy just to the side, but he was on a ledge and I couldn't reach him. Figuring that ranged weapons were the way to go, I tried to have a go at him with my Heavy Crossbow and Heavy Bolts, but it barely did anything, sake for Throwing Knives. Turns out I picked up a Longbow somewhere...but I haven't invested in DEX at all, so was still at 11, and needed 14 to handle it properly, so that was a no go too. Stumped, I hid behind a corner for about 10 minutes trying to figure out what I should do: I can't hit him enough to take him out, no matter what I try, so do I make my way back with all of these souls I had on hand, or just go for it? Eventually, I decided, I just need to play it cool and go for it. And so I did. First time's the charm but crikey that was not fun. This fog door took me outside, and so I had a little look around - I could see the giant who was dropping the boulders down into that room with the mechanism! - before making my way up some steps, when suddenly a massive explosion went off next to me. I didn't get caught in it, but looked around, and surely enough there was a giant at the top of a tower hurling firebombs my way. I got to a safe spot and noticed a bunch of messages up against a damaged part of the wall, so I turned the camera and had a look down to find a small balcony below. I dropped down, and surely enough, there was a bonfire there! I rested up, invested the souls I had on hand in DEX (no time better to start investing in me using that Longbow, right?), and then carried on, the path taking me back to a little drop next to the fog gate I'd just walked out of before. Explored the area a bit more, finding some black-faced knights like the ones in Undead Parish, and I can parry them really well now - love the feeling of retaining your own skillset in this game. Explored a bit more, eventually came to a massive black knight (like the one I found protecting the Fire Keeper Soul in Undead Parish before), and he managed to get me stuck between him and the wall, so I died. Explored further, killing that big black knight, and eventually making my way up a tower. As I got up there I spotted a giant - the one who had been lobbing firebombs my way - and he kicked me through the wall. I healed up and went back out there, walking between his legs a lot of the time (camera can be very dizzying when doing this!), occasionally getting caught underneath him when he keeled over from tiredness, but I eventually took him out. From here I could see what looked like a MASSIVE knight beyond a big fog door that I decided not to go through before - would have to guess that's the boss of this place. I made my way back down to some of the narrow paths, and managed to jump across to the giant on the other roof dropping boulders through a hole. Took him on, and he eventually took me out, but I came back next time with a vengeance and killed him pretty quickly. Also came across this lovely view: Did a bit of grinding for souls at this point as I wasn't too far off going another level, and wanted to continue working towards using the Longbow. I attempted another - risky - jump adjacent to the one I had made to reach the giant with the boulders before, and landed it, making my way to the top of a tower and finding this extremely optimistic guy who had some items to sell... Made my way down to the bottom of this tower, and it came out to a bridge - one that was visible from the boulder mechanism room - and there was yet another lightning-throwing snakehead here too. Took him down with a few backstabs, finding the Cage Key behind him -- this must be the one for Logan. I then made my way back up, and wanted to go save Logan, so jumped over to the boulder-dropping giant, fell through the hole...but he was aggro'd and wouldn't drop anything, no matter how far away I ran. Threw myself off a ledge nearby and figured that I would need to make it back here going the "normal" route. Great. I made it back to the biggest room, the one with the overlapping paths, and noticed something glowing at the bottom. Cautiously, I edged my way around the tight ledges, eventually dropping into a small pool next to one of those headless demons like the one by Andre. He didn't aggro at all, so I picked up the nearby items, but as I walked away and another one turned up, they both started attacking, so I ran away up some stairs and followed the ladder up. There were some more items here and messages saying that there was an invisible wall, and surely enough there was; this took me out onto a balcony to face another giant (this was the one who pulled the chain in the cutscene after ringing these second bell). After taking him down I was on a slither of health and still had to make my way back essentially through most of Sen's Fortress to the boulder room...which I managed! Got the boulder to crush the wall, freed Logan, grabbed the nearby item, and knowing I probably wouldn't make it back in one piece, threw myself off a nearby ledge to spawn back at the bonfire. Quite happy that I'd managed to almost fully explore Sen's Fortress (at least it felt that way!), I can only remember one item in that big room that I couldn't figure out how to get to, but I don't mind. It was finally time to make my way through the fog door and take on the boss: the Iron Golem. So, the first time went about as poorly as you'd expect, and I died...but not for the most obvious of reasons. Walking through his legs and sticking close to observe his attacks I just managed to walk off the ledge, so for the first time in these games I think, I was laughing at having died at a boss. No idea why the arena is like this, but it changed things up a bit, and the fact that he can grab and throw you - potentially off this very high tower - was very funny too. Love the music, especially when the violins and piano go off in a tizzy. The second time around I died trying to get too much distance between us to heal and he killed me with his air slash from behind. The third attempt went much better, even though I still died, as I managed to get him down to half health before kicking the bucket this time. My strategy was to stay close with my shield up, walk between his legs and try not to get grabbed, then two-hand slash his ankles a few times. After getting him down by a third he stumbles like a drunken buffoon for a solid 10 seconds, before eventually falling over. The fourth attempt didn't go quite as smoothly. Even though I got him down to half health again, I found out that the hitbox on his grab is INSANELY big, you can be more or less behind him and he will grab in front of him, and he'll stick pick you up. That was fun. As I'd been walking through his legs to this point I decided I'd start jogging through instead. The fifth attempt was probably the worst one, he trampled me pretty early on and I didn't even get to use an Estus, I think locking on bit me in the ass a bit here. I decided that on my next attempt I wanted to see if you could dodge roll through / away from the grab animation. And surely enough, you could. My sixth attempt went much better: didn't have to use an Estus until after it was down to half of its health, I could dodge roll through the grab, and I don't think I got grabbed once. But then I noticed a gold ring on the bridge behind where he was originally standing, went to interact with it, and...nothing. Making my way back to the middle he hit me a bunch, so I got through my Estus Flasks pretty quickly with a lot of work left to do. I would draw him in, dodge through the grab, two-hand slash away, run to the other side to pull him into the middle, and repeat. And eventually - with a pretty aggressive ending where I just went for it, which could have ended badly - he went down. The gold ring from before moved itself to the centre of the arena, but before interacting with it, I wanted to spend my souls. Got myself up to DEX level 14 so that I could use the Longbow, and then spent the rest buying 183 Heavy Arrows and 15 Firebombs. After this, I made my way back over and interacted with the ring of light... ...and so it was up to Anor Londo! Such a well done cutscene, just look at how dark the area around the ring of light is, the freaky nude gargoyle-like creatures grabbing you and whisking you away, this foreboding and unnatural humming noise...before this golden sky greets you as you sail over the wall, the choir taking hold triumphantly of the moment, before it ends with a melancholic bar. Awesome stuff, and such a great contrast to the rest of the game: this place feels special. Made my way down the stairs to be greeted by this giant golden knight, who didn't seem too interested in me, so I carried on into the room next to him, where there were two more. It looked like they were protecting something at the back of the room, but feeling intimidated I didn't want to fight, so tried to have a nose around to see if there was anything there, before one chased me off into this massive courtyard. With what looked like the top of a tower to my right and more giant golden knights up ahead, I hooked left and looked down a narrow staircase going down, at the end of it a bonfire. I made my way down and rested, a Fire Keeper nearby offering to reinforce my Estus Flask with a Fire Keeper Soul I'd picked up before. Didn't do that yet - we talked a bit and I learned a bit about Anor Londo and the Fire Keepers - before resting up and saving. I was happy with where I'd got to for the day, and it seemed like a natural finishing point to my session. I'm not sure if I'll get back to Anor Londo today - I would love to, but I'm feeling a little feverish after my jab yesterday, so I'll have to wait and see. But whenever I do get back to it, I can't wait to continue my journey and explore this place.

Case in point: #CovidIsOver is trending right now. My issue with leakers in gaming will always be that for software, they're robbing the development team of what should be their moment in the spotlight, and for hardware...well it never really pans out the way they say, does it? And then you end up with people angry or upset because of how they've managed to psych themselves up for something not really promised. I err on the side of optimism when it comes to leaks like a Switch Pro, because it'd be great for us consumers, it'd do good business for Nintendo, and it would have helped - from a technological perspective at least - to raise the bar on what they're capable of developing. It's disappointing that it's not real, and I totally think it's fair to be disappointed, but I just don't understand when you get rampant fanboyism on any side acting like something like this is a feather in another side's cap (whether that be journalists flexing a superiority complex or the CoNsOlE wArS) -- I understand why it exists, all of human history is a testament to us putting up walls and escalating things over our differences (in opinions, skin colour, gender, what have you), I just think it's taken too far and too seriously a lot of the time (like with pretty much everything else these days, unfortunately). For gaming - something that I think is either to pass the time, have fun, or challenge yourself - the immaturity of some corners of gaming really is something else. I don't think there are many, if any, other industries which have as many people willing to fall on a sword in their declaration of loyalty for a company that couldn't care less about them. People are weird.

Unfortunately a lot of industry folk don't seem to want to let it die just yet, be it for clicks or what have you, a few of them saying that they'd always heard 2022: To be fair he did say that at the start of June too, but it doesn't seem to be the end of the Pro talk...when I kind of wish it would be. I think it's a bit disappointing that this isn't a Pro model, but I still like the look of it. I'll never understand people getting up in arms about it (not here, but rather the echo chamber out there: social media), but I guess that's just par for the course with something like this. Remind me again, this was the one that came out in the second half of 2019 with the red packaging, right? I got mine in April 2019...so...I guess that's one way I'll be attempting to justify picking this up leading up to and beyond its launch Think I'll ponder it a little longer, but the nice thing at the moment is that it doesn't look prohibitively expensive either, in terms of either the physical games I'd be interested in or the actual console and gamepad itself. It's refreshing when just about everything else has skyrocketed in the last 6-12 months, so I'll probably need to jump on it sooner or later. Between that, the Switch, and my New 3DS XL, think that gives me access to about as much of Nintendo's back catalogue as I could want, besides any super specific games still locked behind the GBA and GC. Definitely feel like I've been dragging my heels on digging into some franchises, such as waiting for Wind Waker, Twilight Princess, and the Prime Trilogy to come over to the Switch, but that doesn't seem to be happening anytime soon. Shame, really. Don't be surprised if I post in a thread soon asking for recommendations! Yeah, I think they'll have had more time to optimise it for sure, especially after 5+ years in development once it's out (probably more like 4/4.5 due to COVID), so I really do hope that they've managed to improve things this time around. I have other issues with Breath of the Wild, but the frame rate tanking to all hell in one of the key areas in the game is a pretty big one. I'm a bit nervous about when we see Legends: Arceus next, too. It looked rough when they showed it off, but they told us at the time that it was a version of the game that was a few months old, yet without some extra horsepower being made available, I'm struggling to see how Game Freak on their own could make an open world like that actually work well, from a technical perspective. Still holding onto the hope that Monolith Soft are supporting them to some extent.

Best match of international football I've watched in my lifetime. Both sides giving their all, that togetherness of each side, figuring each other out in front of our eyes and spilling their hearts out onto the pitch. Feel sorry for Morata, he's had a good tournament but his confidence will be shattered yet again. Fantastic penalties from Bernadeschi, Thiago (looking to his right until the last second and snapping it back to the left, wonderful), and of course Jorginho -- pretty sure Simón clapped once he picked himself back up, it seriously takes some doing to watch the goalkeeper the entire time. I'd love for England to beat Denmark, and I'd love for us to beat Italy...but I'm not going to get carried away, and if we do somehow win it, over the course of the tournament, it won't have been deserved. There's been one team head and shoulders above the rest since the opening night, and that's been Italy. Got to take it 90 minutes at a time, but I pray that, whatever the result, the match against Denmark tomorrow is a firecracker. It would be an injustice to the quality of this tournament if we end up seeing a repeat of our 0-0 draw performance against Scotland in the group stage. The fans coming back in force have made all of the difference so far this tournament, I've loved it. This'll be a Euro's I think we'll all remember for a long, long time to come.

Italy hanging on by a thread here, but they've been resolute. Doesn't deserve to end, but penalties would be a cruel way to resolve this match.

Couldn't be more excited by the prospect of extra-time for this match. Both teams have proven that they are more than worthy of making it through -- a real semi-final worthy of being the final itself. I think the longer this goes on the tougher it's going to get for Italy, purely because they've had to do a lot more chasing in normal time than Spain. They need to come out with pace and grab what they can as soon as they can; they can't afford to chase this another 30 minutes, because they need something in the tank to counter. This should be good

Oh man these Italy changes are making me very nervous for them. Barella has been getting less of the ball, so having Locatelli come in to help with the battle in the middle of the pitch makes sense...but unless Insigne is actually injured (seemed to have a bit of a niggle) I think his influence will be missed up front. Then again, his pace certainly dropped off in the last 10. Morata tearing the defence apart, might be a stroke of genius from Enrique. He's a very fast striker and can stretch two legendary - but importantly, aging - centre backs apart to make space in the middle. Bringing him immediately changed Spain's shape and Italy have been struggling to adapt - because they have no time to. Hope Italy can see the rest of this half out.

Game on! Happy for Morata, he always looks like he lacks confidence, but it's been coming. Italy are getting overrun in the middle of the park now Verratti is gone - we're seeing Chiellini have to come into that space to shut player down - and now all of the momentum has gone Spain's way. Cracking game, this will be ones coaches point to for a looooooong time, an instant classic. Give me that extra-time I asked for before and I'll be happy.