Julius

Yeah, this is why I don't care about England games and watch them reluctantly during tournaments. One of the most boring matches I've seen in a while. Sounds about right! Scotland look good though, unlucky they couldn't take more from this match. Playing with their hearts on their sleeves, could easily nab something when they come up against Croatia.

Box art looking good!

Amiibo are now up over at ShopTo for £29.85! Link. @BowserBasher @Dcubed @S.C.G not sure if you were waiting for the Nintendo store specifically, but figured I'd tag you just I'm case you're cool with ShopTo and can get there in time

Watched the new BBC Sport Ronaldo doc, Impossible to Ignore, last night. Decent watch and would recommend, though if you've read or seen anything on Ronaldo before, there's not too much new stuff to latch onto here. Was caught extremely off guard when I heard the first few notes of The Last of Us' theme come in just after 37 minutes, though. Never been more confused or intrigued during a documentary in my life than having that music play here

I'm not fully onboard with it, but it is really fun to speculate about. Kojima or not, this is one hell of an ARG. Kudos to whoever planned it, I think game marketing is boilerplate at best way too much of the time and it's nice to see someone spice it up. Just to play devil's advocate to your point about the Kickstarter though, they were bought out by a private investor under the strangest of circumstances when their Kickstarter didn't look like something worth backing, let alone not really having much of a history as a company to justify it. And then they turn out to be making a PlayStation exclusive, again with nothing to really show since they were bought out...it is just super weird. Geoff Keighley being onboard with whatever's going on is by far the strangest part to me though. A lot of the other stuff feels like you need to jump through hoops to explain, but there really is no explaining how an indie developer bought out by a private investor - and is now having their game worked on by a team called CREATEQ Interactive, another company with no real history - who has had nothing to really show for the last 5+ years is now being talked about by arguably the biggest hype man in the industry. Even if it's not Kojima, good lord do these people know how to market a game. Now, if it's not Kojima (which they've said multiple times), then I think they'll perhaps rightly get some blowback from this, as they've definitely leaned into it quite a bit, and every time they apologise they then lean into it even harder. Whole thing is bizarre and I have a tough time believing it, but I just want to see how this whole thing pans out! Yeah, as someone who never played P.T. as I didn't have a PS4 at the time (and didn't even know it existed), I've watched a playthrough on YouTube and all I can say is that is one twisted a demo. So definitely wouldn't be one for me either, kind of why I'm hoping it's not Kojima -- because then it's probably Del Toro and almost definitely Junji Ito too, and that guy's manga freaks me the hell out!

Remember back in April when this trailer for a new game called Abandoned by Blue Box Games was announced, and everyone was in a huff thinking that it was Kojima? And then the studio denied it was a game by Kojima? Well, if you're down for conspiracies and still open to the possibility that this is Kojima (not necessarily Silent Hills, but a horror game by Kojima), then start looking down this rabbit hole: And if you're down for a little extra spice: Remember too that the Director's Cut was the only game we were told we would be seeing again in the next few weeks, when there are no currently planned State of Plays as far as we are aware of. Could be a slip on Geoff's side, but I'm wondering if they're saving whatever this is for either Gamescom or that next State of Play, potentially alongside the Director's Cut. It's crazy and convoluted, which does make it sound a while lot like Kojima, and the straight up denial that this was a Kojima game got people to back off, but it's back in full force now, and I am here for it. I mean, just read it, it's so calculated that drawing up as a coincidence almost seems naive. Stock photos being used on LinkedIn for staff? A fake PSN account? We'll have to wait and see, but guess this speculation is here to stay a while longer!

BONFIRE LIT Yeah, I've been talking the last couple of months on here about how I'm starting to get a weird hunger to return to Souls after playing Demon's Souls at the end of last year, and even more so after the Elden Ring trailer. Well, with Rift Apart wrapped up last night and me still being off, I figured it was finally time to dive into Dark Souls. Just over 3 hours in, and I wanted to share my journey so far. So, right from the outset, the silent title screen was like the game trying to play mind games with me, and then I accidentally clicked a button as I put something down on my coffee table, and the silence was pierced by a sharp (and very loud) blade. Thanks, Dark Souls I was surprised by how few customisation options there were when setting up my character, but all the better, because I definitely tend to get distracted by those. Went with the Knight and I'll probably go with a Vitality/Strength/Endurance build like I did in Demon's Souls, just because it's been a little while and I love the heft of moving around in armour. I might change it up when I get to the next game, but for now, sword and board is how I'll be rolling. Started in the Undead Asylum, pitch black and could barely see as some of my blinds fell down the other day, so naturally had to pump up the brightness. As soon as I started making my way down the hallway I was filled with a whole lot of dread and questioned if I should really be playing this, that feeling of dread was what made Demon's Souls so tough to endure. I very slowly worked my way through the Asylum, constantly going back to the bonfire to replenish my health, as I wanted to make use of something I used sparingly in Demon's Souls: parrying (and by extension, the riposte). Practiced a fair bit before I made it into a massive room which screamed boss arena, so I moved to the edge of the room and the Asylum Demon jumped on. I'd spotted a door on the other side as I walked in the room, so made my way around the Asylum Demon before sprinting through the door and it closed behind me. Looped around, checked out as much as I could, and then ended up above it to land a plunging attack, which took off a massive chunk of its health. Kept my distance where I could, kept an eye on my health, rolled into attacks and made liberal use of some i-frames before landing a few hits to its belly, and a couple of minutes later it was down. I know I've beaten Demon's Souls at this point, so I've faced objectively tougher bosses, but getting past Asylum Demon really calmed my nerves, and I was happy to go forward. And so I did, then this massive crow grabbed me from above and flew away with me. The end. But no, jokes aside, crow kindly dropped me off in Firelink Shrine (which has awesome music by the way). Funnily enough, my instinct after seeing different directions to go in and explore was to reach for a map on my controller (I went to press Options) before I noticed what I was doing, knowing there wasn't a map, and smiling to myself. Spoke to the NPC's around there, one I bugged into telling me about ringing some bells (one up above and one below ground) and another who asked me to join a cult -- naturally, I agreed. Did a little looking around, found some chests and got locked in that area so used a Homeward Bone that was in one of the chests, then started heading upwards (you're crazy if you think I'm going downwards first!). Practiced a bit on these skeleton dudes too, and this bring me to my first death in Dark Souls: no, not to the skeletons, but not knowing how the jump works and so falling as I tried to reach a ledge to get across to some loot! Continued upwards and made it to Undead Burg, slowly but surely making light work of these skeleton warriors and continuing to get more and more comfortable with the parry and riposte. Already appreciate the level design and how things connect, keeping an eye out for paths and rooms not immediately obvious. I made my way down and saw the back of this black knight seemingly protecting something, but the guy was huge -- left him alone. Eventually got to this point where I was circling this tower before stepping through a fog gate onto a bridge, and noticed a ladder to the side of me, so I climbed it and killed some skeleton archers. Nothing up there, so continued across the bridge and the Taurus Demon came leaping from the sky. We danced around a little bit before I thought I'd try climbing that ladder and seeing if I could attempt a plunging attack on it from up there, and surely enough I could. Again, tried to keep my distance with an eye on my health, after plunging down would draw him out to the middle and then sprint for the ladder, and there was one time I was up there and plunged down and it jumped up which took me by surprise! But, no problems here, a couple of plunging attacks and the Taurus Demon was down. Only death at this point was still that damn jump! Continued on thinking there would be a bonfire, came across a bridge filled with skeletons, so went the other way and met Solaire. Then, as the football was on and I felt like taking a break, did something very silly: walked all the way back to that last bonfire to save my souls, lit it, levelled up, and quit the game. Went back on after the football and some food, and my second session with the game went nowhere near as smoothly as the first. Had to make my way through much of Undead Burg again to get to the bridge, as I made my way back over I felt a bit off with parrying again and found myself getting hit a bit more than I was earlier, so spent a bit more time practicing again. Made it halfway across the bridge after a red dragon tried to burn me to a crisp, so went beneath the bridge after noticing there was a room beneath the red dragon with what looked like a bonfire, and noticed an archway to my right which had stairs going down. Well, I want to move parallel to the bridge if anything, so went the other way. Killed a couple of skeletons under the bridge in pretty tight spots, got across to some rats and got myself poisoned, with only one Estus Flask left, so I used it. Regrettably, I figured the bonfire was directly above me and surely I could make it there in a hurry, so I rushed up and as 'Undead Parish' flashed across the screen and a skeleton came towards me, I succumbed to the poison. That was death #2. Then I made the long trek back there again and tried making my way across the bridge to the room beneath the dragon, but was engulfed in flames, and so lost my first souls in Dark Souls. Death #3, no big deal. So I got back there again, got under the bridge, but this time figured I'd go down that right path...and of course it knocks a ladder down to the bonfire I went back to earlier and had been making my way all the way over from levelled up some more, climbed the ladder back up, made my way back over there to the Undead Parish and found a sign saying there was a tough enemy ahead. I thought it was referencing the giant, armour-plated boar I'd spotted up ahead, so made my way up this spiralling staircase and came face-to-face with a massive knight like the one I saw earlier. Tried to run, but that guy was not slow, and my shield clearly wasn't durable enough, as he made pretty light work of me once he caught up! Death #4. Then on my next run I got poisoned by the rats again, but had all my Estus Flasks, so cheekily grabbed the souls from the start of Undead Parish and made it back to the bonfire before succumbing to poison and allowing myself to use those souls (why I didn't just light the bonfire I have no idea!). Death #5. Then got through a decent chunk of Undead Parish, backstabbed one of these tall skeletons with a cape and a cool black helmet and managed a riposte first time, but died to the next one I came across with a bigger shield. Death #6. I got back to the boar and after clearing the area decided to take it on, so lured it down the steps to the ladder I emerged into the Undead Parish from, and every time it walked away plunged my sword deep into its behind -- weirdest sentence I've typed on here I know, and weirdest backstab in Souls for me so far for sure. Then retrieved those souls and died to the skeleton knight again (Death #7), so got back there, retrieved those souls, got back to the bonfire and levelled up before deciding to change my strategy and see if I could make it past the red dragon. Naturally, I died while trying to sprint across. Death #8. Went back up there, got in position after hiding from its initial flames, the my fan started playing up so I messed with the controls and the red dragon jumped up (before scorching me again). Death #9, but it taught me what to do! Waited there a minute and what do you know, the red dragon jumps up then down onto the bridge, so I sprint past through his legs, and quickly turn the corner upon entering the room with a bonfire -- as I learned from the red dragon in Demon's Souls, you're never safe from their flames! Lit the bonfire, went outside to the right and found some guys either praising the sun or just being weird, so went back inside, pulled a lever to open the gate...wait, those steps look familiar...and found myself back at the start of the Undead Parish. Chuckled to myself, lit the bonfire again to auto-save, then left it there for the evening. I won't be counting deaths moving forwards (at least I don't plan to!), but I was really happy and a bit proud that I was able to take down the first two bosses and make it through Undead Burg with only one death suffered when trying to reach that ledge (oh yeah, I've learned how to jump properly since by the way!). I counted the other deaths mainly because it was funny how quickly things went downhill in my second session, but each time I was getting farther or trying new things out, so it was time well spent. Took a little time to get my head around Humanity before I successfully restored my humanity and kindled a flame for the first time, but it's getting there. After that initial hump I had to get over in the first 30 minutes as I made my way through the Undead Asylum - where I was making up excuses to put the game off and questioning if I was in the right frame of mind or if I could actually even beat the game - things just clicked right back into place and I felt comfortable with it, something I didn't truly feel with Demon's Souls until after beating my head against the wall taking on the Adjudicator, beating Flamelurker, and taking out some Archdemons, but it felt much later in the game compared to this. Sure, I've been dying, but I'm not getting phased by it as I found myself feeling early on in Demon's Souls. I look forward to taking further steps forward tomorrow, but I'm really enjoying it so far: the design of the levels, the brief moments of music, learning enemy attacks, getting more proficient with parrying and ripostes, and learning from my mistakes, and branching off from that - most importantly! - not being afraid to try something new that I didn't try in my last run.

Well there we go, unlucky for Denmark but once Belgium started making changes things just stopped going their way. I understand some of their key players are recovering, but playing without their spine in the first half speaks volumes about why Belgium were such a scattered mess over the pitch. Yeah, a lot of teams are just missing that efficiency in the final third to get them over edge and just pass it around for the sake of doing so (ahem, Spain); it's pretty rare that a team uses increased possession effectively. Was a good match in the end, but Belgium's spine needs to get fit pretty quickly in my eyes, they can't go on risking a repeat of their first half performance today.

Lukaku's holding play there was insane, you love to it. Wonderful passing play there from Belgium and such a controlled strike by Dr Bruyne. Lovely gesture to not celebrate it too. Feel sorry for this Denmark team, they started great in the first half but didn't take their chances, and just started petering out of energy when the changes to bring on De Bruyne, Hazard, and Witsel were made.

Lukaku's run and De Bruyne's pass were lovely, a worthy equaliser. Denmark will be ruing that they didn't take any of the earlier chances to extend their lead.

I'm going to guess that money changed hands for demo exclusivity. Honestly, I think it kind of sucks in this instance (and was silly of Square to accept that money), because the demo itself is what won me over, not that trailer (at all). Funny thing too is that, as a PS5 exclusive demo, I saw more loading screens in the first 30 minutes with this than I did the entirety of the PS5 exclusives I've played so far. I know it's a demo but I wasn't expecting that going in.

Demo period extended to 26th June, feedback until 2nd July:

Don't know if this is how the scoreline will stay, but HELL YEAH DENMARK LET'S GO!

Spent yesterday catching up on what I missed of Treehouse, watched the Direct again, and re-watched a bunch of trailers and checked out some of the reactions too. Started out strong with Smash, that Kazuya trailer was hilarious the Life is Strange games coming to Switch is great too, my sister loved the first one when she played it on my PS4, so I'm sure she'll be interested in that (strange that True Colours is coming day-and-date with other consoles, but no date for the Remastered collection when it comes out a couple of weeks later for other consoles is a bit weird); Super Monkey Ball Banana Mania is a collection I'm curious about (only memory of those games is being around a friend's house and just constantly watching him fall off the edge); and I'm glad I didn't pick up Super Mario Party, because Mario Party Superstars looks like a great time, guess what I'm playing with my family this Christmas! Then it was Metroid Dread. Someone mentioned it on here the other day before the Direct, and so I looked it up and found a bunch of fan-made Samus suit designs, and so when we saw the white and red suit (not sure if it appears in any of the other games, but I haven't played most of them so I haven't!) I immediately knew what was going on. Agree with @Jonnas that the reveal itself and what they did around it was probably stronger than what they showed in the trailer itself, as while I think it looks really good from a gameplay perspective, it looks a lot closer visually to what we saw from Samus Returns than I expected. Still, made many people here very happy, which is always great to see! only criticism I've seen of this section really was that maybe they could have had even more exaggerated reactions if they didn't lead into it by saying that it was a new Metroid game beforehand, but given that they started with the bad news that Prime 4 is still in development and we could extrapolate from what they were saying that it wouldn't be here, I think it was a wise decision. After this they went into Just Dance 2022, and I bring this up because I think we need to point out three strengths that Nintendo's Directs have that shows by others don't: they know how to pace a show; they know what their fans are hungry for; and they know how to control the narrative within their show. Absolutely no-one rightly freaking out over the Dread announcement was paying attention to anything that happened for the immediate minute or so after that trailer finished, and they know that, so sticking something in like Just Dance to allow that announcement and the fans a moment to breathe is something which goes well under the radar at these things, but I think is really worth highlighting. After that it cooled down a bit for me, but again, it just flowed well and they kept the interesting announcements coming. Warioware looks like a lot of fun but is perfect for a mid-Direct game, what they showed of Shin Megami Tensei V looked great, the Danganronpa collection sounds great, and some third party ports were interesting to see as always. Advance Wars 1+2: Re-Boot Camp is something I am absolutely in for, I've only heard good things from here and elsewhere, and while at face value I think the sprites in the originals looked better, I'm not complaining. Koizumi and Takahashi throwing it over to Aonuma for the Zelda stuff was good, but when you say you're throwing it over to someone for the final section of the Direct, I really don't think there was a reason to go back to them, because it instantly makes you wonder if there's one more thing. That and the three quick montages throughout, rather than one longer montage, were probably the only tiny missteps I think they made in the whole thing. Age of Calamity DLC looks like good fun, that game is still on my shelf but as I'm starting to slowly get that Zelda itch, I doubt that will be the case for too much longer. Skyward Sword HD I'm obviously looking forward to, it's a bit of a downer on things that there aren't any other plans beyond that and the Game & Watch (which looked cool by the way, guess that's our Zelda collection!), but then it was onto the Breath of the Wild sequel. Yes, it's a bummer there's no title yet and "aiming" for 2022 doesn't do much to inspire confidence, and it wasn't as strong a trailer as any of the ones we got for the first game, but I still think it was really strong in its own right. I love the melody in the middle section, and I absolutely adore just how much of their sound design comes into play when creating moments of harmony and disharmony in the trailer, which further complements the music: the wind flapping in your face as Link descends from the heavens; the sound of the glider being beat by the air; my absolute favourite part of the trailer -- the bokoblin horn sounding out as the music starts to climb towards its highest point, and the Stone Talus they're chilling out on literally climbing up too; the moment of disharmony caused by Link's new arm infestation and its magic/sci-fi sounds; the immediate climb back up after that disharmony as Link freezes the spike ball rolling towards him, there's a split second moment to breathe as it stops, before it rolls back up the hill and punches that climax again; and the way the water droplet reversing leads into Link phasing through that island in the sky and back to the incantation-sounding stuff from earlier in the trailer. They do similar things in their other Breath of the Wild trailers too and I love it. Really spoke to me with that erhu at the end too, it's my favourite sounding instrument and loved when it would turn up in the first game Strongest of the bigger E3 presentations this year by some margin for me (and seemingly everyone else here too, which is great to see!). Nintendo almost singlehandedly filled out the second half of 2021 with a bunch of games I'm very excited to check out. My Totally Official Score: 9.0/10

Amiibo up at Amazon UK for £25.99! Link

Burn this Yeah, think I'll definitely have to get around to Ocarina of Time. I was really enjoying it too when I dropped it, it's just getting over that hump of working my way through back to where I was before. It's nice that we have access to a fair few of the older 2D Zelda games through NES and SNES Online, I do look forward to getting to those at some point too. I actually also got a copy of the Link's Awakening remake through work just before Christmas too; we have a weird points reward system and a catalogue to use those points on, so I spent a good 30 minutes listing all of the games I was interested in from there, finding their retail price, and comparing that to how many points they cost to get the best £/point value

Registration has gone up for the next major system update beta later this year: What's everyone hoping for, either in this update or some other one in the future? For me it would have to be: • folders (my digital games are completely buried right now) • get rid of the screenshot capture notification completely or make sure it doesn't turn up in screenshots, like how the UI for capturing recording doesn't show up in those recordings • make trophies a bit more accessible, maybe give us the choice to pin some (especially those with Activity Cards or counters) • improve the look of the individual trophies. I really don't like the cards • settings presets for certain games would be cool. For example, I normally turned trophies off for story-driven games but just leave them on now as it's a bit of a pain to turn them on and off from game to game, so maybe a way to let us add a preset for notifications for certain games I choose and not others. • along similar lines, presets for headsets with certain games. I play online with my friends quite a bit each week but from game to game I'm having to adjust their volume and the volume of the games themselves.

Yes, this combination was the best for clearing a room when combined with the Topiary Sprinkler! Love the chaos that would ensue and a small army of Agents of Doom just following you around Completely agree. I was prepared to play more but once that Platinum popped it was like the game was telling me to put it down.

I think logically, from a business perspective, the former makes the most sense: leave no semblance of a doubt that it's a sequel to Breath of the Wild, that title recognition is far too valuable to drop considering how well the first game sold, especially in comparison to earlier entries in the series. But this is Nintendo, so of course that goes out of the window and it'll be the latter Now that we know there aren't any other plans for Zelda's 35th (boooooooo), I think I'll probably return to Ocarina of Time on 3DS sometime this summer. I got probably 60% of the way through before dropping it out of the blue, so while I can see its influence on so much of what I play, I still haven't seen that ending! I've been actively putting it off (and playing other Zelda games) in case there ended up being a Switch port for the anniversary, but now we know that's not coming anytime soon, I think I'll have to. Similar thing with Dragon Quest VIII too. Started it straight after XI, got some 20+ hours in, got bogged down with other things and dropped it. Been praying for a port to modern consoles and actively putting off the other games I own in the series hoping for it, but nothing at the anniversary event or at this E3 (except for Square Enix tearing my heart out). Guess what I'm saying is my 3DS will probably see some use for the first time in a while this summer

Yeah, I think it's totally fair. I really enjoyed it, but I went in expecting it to be a bit longer than the 2016 game based on the price (somewhere between 15 and 20 hours?), so was a bit surprised by its length in the end. I was actually ready to dive into Challenge Mode, thinking I'd need to get through it for the Platinum like I think you did with the 2016 game and with Miles Morales and NG+, but turns out you only need to play through the first 10 minutes of it after cleaning up the collectibles in your first save so unless you really crave a second playthrough, it doesn't do as much to keep you hooked either if the main draw for that return was seeking out that Plat!

Went through the exact same thing! I actually pulled Dark Souls down from its shelf the other day and popped it under the Rift Apart case next to my TV, and I'm staring at it right now. Trying to resist the urge as much as I can as I want to update the Gaming Diary thread first, as once I start Dark Souls I know I won't get around to it for a while, but I feel it calling to me

Sucks because I want your thoughts on those new games and to read about you annihilating Demon's Souls, but I think it's fair, especially as we start to learn that more and more of these games are coming to PS4 too -- I think it could've been the game to help push you over the edge, but I still feel like XVI could go cross-gen. If you had a base PS4 I might worry that the console would spontaneously combust (probably a little over-the-top though I was seriously concerned with mine playing The Last of Us Part II and Ghost of Tsushima last summer!), but if I'm remembering right you've got a Pro, so I imagine you should be good. Even if the upcoming first party games were PS5 exclusive, we know so little about this second half of the year as it is, and like you said, that E3 Direct gave us all plenty to play. I put through my tentative pre-orders for the next six months or so last night, now that E3 is finished, and though there are some I might change my mind on (the Diamond & Pearl remakes -- I might just replay Platinum ), I feel like it's a pretty stacked six months we've got ahead of us!

Wrapped this up last night and grabbed the Platinum. Was a great game to play the last week with E3 and the football on, hopping in and out between things, and I had a blast. I'm glad I played the 2016 game a few weeks ago - which I thought was good, but not great - because I genuinely think I'd struggle to go back to it after playing a Ratchet & Clank game like this which I enjoyed so much. Many of the things I enjoyed I mentioned before: the game looks incredible (hundreds more screenshots have been taken since my last post), the setpieces are fantastic (!), the DualSense is by far and away the star of the show, and the controls feel much, much tighter. The weapon variety and how you use each one adds so much, and while by the end of the game I certainly had a strategy like I did the first for huge encounters, I still found myself grinning the whole time. Some things I didn't touch on before were just how great it is for each planet to be filled with so much to do besides the story, and how full of life each planet is: it's not just the enemies, and it never just felt like a level, but a place with so much to see and going on. The gadgets are so much fun and there were times where I frequently would just play around with them for the sake of it, pushing myself to see if I could reach parts of the map in ways the game wasn't necessarily designed for, and it was a lot of fun. Certain planets are much more open than others, and I kind of wish there were less invisible walls in the way and the game was more sandbox-like in structure, because it genuinely is that much fun to traverse these planets and fully utilise these gadgets. Also, though we saw some of the uses of the SSD in trailers and gameplay to do with the portals, there's a particular planet about halfway through the game which did something incredible. I don't want to go into why exactly it blew me away, but I think it's something many here would appreciate (but might go unrecognised by less avid players). It was also my favourite level first time through, though it's a bit of a pain to traverse through on return visits! Something I didn't expect at all from this game was that it actually touches on mental health a few times throughout. Though it's not the deepest dive we've seen into mental health in video games, it doesn't feel at all phoned in -- it seems genuine, and I think even with that lack of depth to it, added a lot to these characters and will hopefully land well with younger players in particular. Music is solid too, feels like I'm tearing apart the first game now, but I thought the music was much better here, and overall I'm struggling to think of anything I preferred from that first game compared to this one. This is also the first game where I used some of the Activity Card hints for tracking a couple of down, namely Gold Bolts, and combined with the Map-o-Matic, it's a much better alternative to looking up a guide. Trophies tracking progress is also great (though it doesn't seem to track everything that you'd think it would?), but I did find it a bit weird that they make such great use of the Activity Card hints but then there are still items to collect which aren't in the Map-o-Matic or Activity Cards. I got most of them anyways, so I only had to look up one at the end when cleaning up, but it honestly felt like a step backwards having to look up a guide because of how Activity Cards are incorporated. Maybe for a rare item like that they could have the Activity Card hints unlock after you complete the story? Maybe they should have certain Activity Card hints unlock at certain points in the story too, and have them greyed out until then (for example, you revisit some planets later in the game with new areas unlocked, but it'll show hints for those newly accessible items on your first visit). Anyways, overall, felt like I took a risk playing this game after enjoying the 2016 game but not loving it as I know others here do, and I'm happy I took that risk. I'll probably dive into it a bit more later in the Gaming Diary thread, but what we saw of this game before it's release, and my trust in Insomniac after Spider-Man and Miles Morales, was rewarded. Loved this game! Wanted to wait until I finished Rift Apart to chime in on this, but it certainly depends on the game for me. It's been so infrequent so far that I've actually bought a game at around the £69.99 RRP (only Demon's Souls and Rift Apart, and to be fair I've enjoyed both immensely), and if that money didn't go towards those games, I probably would've spent it on some other interest, hobby, or going out (as that type of spending I do from a monthly entertainment budget), so for me at least, that money is going somewhere for me to use for fun anyways, might as well be a shiny new game. It probably helps that I have relatively little interest in AAA releases from most of the bigger publishers launching at or around that £69.99 price too (I'm thinking your annual Ubisoft, EA, and Activision games), and I'm more than happy to go back to stock up on games I missed out on for PS4, PS3, 3DS, DS, etc., instead. This all being said, there are certainly a couple of games I'm waiting to go down a bit before picking them up, because either I feel it's a bit of a risk as I don't have much experience with that genre (such as in the case of Returnal, though to be fair I'm also waiting for them to sort out a quick save feature for that game), or I just wouldn't feel the need to pony up the £50 - £70 they're asking for anyways (such as in the case of Sackboy's Big Adventure). Which brings me back to Rift Apart: I'm genuinely surprised that there hasn't been the classic "the game isn't long enough to justify its price" topic coming back up. I actually ended up spending less time with this game than I did the 2016 one, and overall that first playthrough was comparable to Miles Morales in length (though to be fair, skip the cutscenes in Miles and the length is halved). What makes this game £69.99 vs £49.99 for Miles? Were they considering the reuse of assets in Miles and the need for unique assets throughout much of Rift Apart? It's an interesting one because it's the same studio. I was happy to pay full price based on what I enjoyed of Insomniac games before this, but can completely understand why others would want to hold off. Game Pass is undeniably great value, but in my case, it means absolutely nothing to me if I can't reel off a list of games I personally want to play on their release date -- indie games I tend to play after the hype has died down in a lot of cases, as I find it a bit harder to commit to them when there's so much else to play. Sure, there are games I want to play on there (the entire Forza series, the Halo series, Rare Replay), but in terms of big, brand new games, I think Forza Horizon 5 and Starfield are the only ones moving the needle for me at all, which is why I'm happy to just wait until next year when Starfield releases to consider picking up a Series X, because I can reel off a list of 10 or more first and third party exclusives that are either confirmed, or very likely on the way, for both PlayStation and Nintendo that I cannot wait for. Also, to be honest, Starfield is the exact kind of game I'd want on my shelf, I love it's artwork! For me, I've said it before, but I'll say it again: Game Pass is great value right now, but we still haven't seen even the first wave of Xbox first party exclusive games come out consistently (forget this generation, that's been the case for the last few years), and though it seems Infinite might kick it off later this year, how their lineup is curated, and how those teams are managed, remains to be seen. I'm hopeful for them, but until they've proven themselves, I think it's fair to be a bit cautious.