Julius

Game looks goooooood. Three and a half weeks away and I've yet to play the 2016 game...guess that's what I'm playing next

Bit of a tough one to explain without spoiling it (and imagine finding it naturally was a big part of why it landed so well with me), and it's totally possible that you've come across it to some extent already. I'll split it up into two explanations, one with vague instructions on how to come across it, and one pretty explicitly stating it Hope that helps

New overview trailer: Such a good job with the voiceover casting for this game's trailers. The right balance of condescendingly over-the-top and pretentiousness

Finished Episode 3 of The Bad Batch, and it was great once again. Still getting into the groove, but it looks like we're inching towards what I've mentioned wanting to see in my previous posts come to fruition. Also, it had quite easily one of the darkest scenes in Star Wars. Looking forward to next Friday, but this show has me adamant now more than ever before that Lucasfilm Animation (and Filoni) is the go-to when it comes to Star Wars storytelling. The show looks incredible, and I think it's a bit of a shame to a certain extent that their plans for the Rebels sequel seem to have been woven into the live action plans instead. Been a while since I've read any of the canon stuff if I'm being honest, I was pretty much up-to-date at one point, but after I missed a few (and wanting to collect the hardcovers, but missing out on some) my interest kind of fizzed out. I might end up going back to track some down, but can't imagine it'll be easy! As for where to start, though, I think Claudia Gray's Lost Stars is the best jumping in point into the new canon novels. It reads more like a YA novel, and there is a romance at its core, but there's a lot of mature storytelling and character development going on. It takes you through from before A New Hope up to the end of the Battle of Jakku, showing you both sides of the rise and fall of the Empire, with some excellently worked moments where it ties into the films, which I won't say too much about, but this is a book where it feels like it adds more to those films rather than its own separate entity. So that would be my recommended place to start!

Amazon UK will reportedly be restocking around 10,000 consoles on Tuesday or Wednesday of next week at 08:00/09:00. Probably one of the largest restocks since launch, so if you're still looking for a PS5, that seems like it might be your next best shout. Apparently the GAME drop yesterday also took an hour and a half or so to get through, and ShopTo took a good few hours today, so it's either things are starting to look up, or these are just going up at very awkward times when there's reduced site traffic

Game went gold yesterday... ...and will come in at just over 42 GB (before the day 1 patch):

I've had nothing but good experiences with them if I'm being honest, they saved me last year after Simply Games completely botched my Final Fantasy VII Remake pre-order, and I've been mostly using them for my physical games since. Being able to pre-pay on pre-orders whenever I like definitely helps with managing finances, rather than wondering where £50 randomly vanished to one day, that's for sure I've also had positive experiences with their customer service. Can empathise if you've had issues with them though, after what happened with Simply Games I think I've only used them twice since, which was for Judgment (which was £10 cheaper than everywhere else) and Mass Effect Legendary Edition (which wasn't available physically on ShopTo for whatever reason). I remember reading about ShopTo not doing the greatest job with how they handled PS5 pre-orders too, though. Customer service and experience is a really fickle thing, one of the few certainties in life

The new controller colours are now up on Amazon UK: Midnight Black - £59.99 Cosmic Red - £64.99

Just seen the same, good luck! Seems to be for some bundles on back order, but it could be worth getting your name down even if that is the case (don't know if this will be of interest to you @Hero-of-Time, or if you'll see it in time )

One of my favourite Easy Allies videos in a long time: the EZX Bonus Food Reviews. No surprise here that Don steals the show, but I was surprised by just how natural Brad was. Would love some more stuff from them like this, it's nice to get a bit more variety, especially when I think the Allies have struggled more than most other places since starting to work from home as they don't get to bounce off each other, this was very cosy!

Today's PlayStation Blog entry focuses on how the features of the DualSense were utilised in Returnal, and will be utilised in upcoming titles Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart, Subnautica: Below Zero, Ghostwire: Tokyo, Life is Strange: True Colours, Scarlet Nexus, Mobile Suit Gundam Battle Operation 2, and Kena: Bridge of Spirits.

Nice video for the 20th anniversary: Also, the 3 months for £1 Game Pass Ultimate deal is back to celebrate:

Light novel inbound, but no word yet on a western release:

Online portal and app details for E3 have been revealed. From the official site:

Such a lovely shade, I'm kind of tempted by both...guess I'll need to get another charging station and buy some local co-op games to justify it Instantly reminded me of the limited edition PS4 for MGS V, which I really liked the look of (though think the below is slightly darker? Could just be the lighting though):

New controller colours coming to the US on June 11th, and the UK on June 18th! Some other angles for Midnight Black: And for Cosmic Red: Welp. Guess I'm starting a DualSense collection then... ...now give us face plates

Yeah, IV - VI are only going up in price on the resale market these days, so I hope so. I've actually had the DS remakes of IV and V sitting on my shelf for over a year now (I picked them up when I noticed a bit of a drop in their prices), but I've found myself putting them off as I've wanted to return to VIII. I have it on 3DS, but I find myself less inclined to play a game on a handheld these days (I just prefer a much bigger screen to look at), so would love a Dragon Quest VIII HD, with the QoL improvements of the 3DS version and the orchestral soundtrack, but I'm not getting my hopes up too high on that one.

A Dragon Quest 35th Anniversary stream draws near! And yes, there will be an English stream (though it's at the ungodly time of 04:30 BST on 27th May for us): Dragon Quest XII news? An update on that new Monsters game? An update on Infinity Strash? PORTS?!

Weirdly, I had an experience not totally dissimilar to yours where I ended up putting the game down: I picked it up two years ago when I got my Switch, played it for 40 hours across the space of a week, and then my interest kind of just dissipated. I then picked it back up some 8 months after that, thinking I'd just critical path the other two Divine Beasts before making my way to Hyrule Castle, probably 5-10 hours at a push, and ended up nearly doubling my time with the game to 75+ hours. Breath of the Wild is such a weird game for me, and this is as someone with very limited Zelda experience: 10-15 hours of Ocarina of Time, 5-10 hours of Spirit Tracks, and a few hours here and there such into the original game and A Link to the Past. Breath of the Wild is the only Zelda game I've seen credits roll for, which probably sounds sacrilegious to some I think what Breath of the Wild sorely lacks is any sense of urgency and immediacy, as @Hero-of-Time touched on, in that while having immediate access to the game's main boss is a very cool idea and places a lot of faith in the player to find their own way to enjoy the game, it also makes many tasks in the game feel not necessarily pointless, but aimless. The game's difficulty plateaus probably 10-20 hours in depending on how many battles you take part in, and I'm not saying that in the sense that there isn't any challenge - if you don't pay attention, well yeah, you'll probably die - but there's no real escalation to that challenge once you've seen every enemy type. And the more time you put into the game, the "easier" some later parts of the game become, which have been trivialised if you've been going out and experiencing what the game points you towards, the Divine Beasts. The map being empty besides the stamps you leave and location names is great, and unlike pretty much every other open world game I've played, that moment of paralysis where I open the map for the first time, see too much stuff to do, and have to make a decision then and there on if I'm in or out on doing it all never happened: I knew full well that this game was too big for me to do everything going into it, and not having all of that on the map made it easy for me to focus on my adventure. The problem for me was that without a sense of immediacy, such as more fleshed out quests or a half decent story to carry me through until the end, it felt like there was perhaps a bit too much space between each point of interest. Some shrines are fantastic, others not so much, and I thought that the Divine Beasts were a genuine snooze fest. And then there's the whole debacle over weapon degradation. My two cents is simply that the ability to repair your weapons, as well as an upgrade option for both the durability and power of your weapon, driven by rupees and material gathering, would pretty easily solve things. I don't think Breath of the Wild is flawless, but I think it's a game you need to experience yourself just to figure out where you land on it. I like it much more than I don't, because despite my issues with it, it filled me with a sense of wonder and childlike awe I very rarely experience, in any medium, let alone just in video games. It's a very lonely and isolating experience, and that in itself can make it uncomfortable and aimless, but it's those moments that you experience by yourself - coming over the top of a hill as the sun rises over a valley and you see a village in the distance, when some soft notes kick in; thinking up a solution to a puzzle that feels outside the box; climbing up somewhere high, putting a bunch of stamps on your map, and then gliding in any direction that takes your fancy - that make it worthwhile, in my opinion. The first time something in the sky was nearby, the music kicked in, I didn't know what was happening at all, and then looked up to find something which left my jaw agape and made me tear up. I think there's a really solid foundation for the sequel to build on, and I hope they go some ways to fixing some of the issues myself and others have talked about. Breath of the Wild in my eyes is one of the best open world games to capture that sense of adventure, but beyond that, I think it's flaws are very noticeable and I think the criticism is absolutely justified. As others have mentioned, it's probably not worth sticking with it if you have already put a load of time into the game and still find yourself bouncing off it; you don't owe the game anything. It's one of few games in my mind where it doesn't seem to care at all if you see it through to the end - for better and for worse, I suppose this is why it lacks a plot at it's core - but just wants to be experienced.

According to Hermen Hulst, more than 25 titles are in development at PlayStation Studios, nearly half of which are new IP. He also talked about navigating the transition to lockdown, and indie titles too. From Wired: Earlier in the article, Jim Ryan talked about how they hope production ramps up in the latter half of the year: The rest of the article is well worth a read too

The time is nigh for (hands-off) previews. Well, guess I'm already sick of that particular promotional image Game Informer also have a few videos up where they talk with Insomniac:

Haven't received mine yet. I ordered with Amazon, but they've been very hit and miss lately (they've delivered a bunch of manga for my younger brother days - if not weeks - late over the last few months), so I'm not that confident that it'll actually show up on the 27th if I'm being honest. Fingers crossed though!

Vive Pro 2 announced, releasing 4th June 2021. 2448 x 2448 pixels per eye (5K), 120° field of view, 120 Hz refresh rate. Special promotion in the pre-order period where it will cost £659 for the standalone headset, which will be £719 after launch. A fully kitted-out Vive 2 with Base Station 2.0 and controllers will cost £1299.

EA Play Live is coming back Thursday 22nd July. Not like it was ever the highlight of E3 week if I'm being honest (remember when they managed to spin the Battlefront II screw up into a charity drive?), but with others seemingly in agreement that spreading things out too much wasn't great and many either turning up at or having events of their own next month...EA, come on guys. Hope we start getting the E3 schedule confirmed soon. I'm still on the fence about taking that week off for it, but knowing what's actually going to be there in terms of shows will probably sway me. Don't think we know anything concrete about the Summer Game Fest plans at this point either.

Previews for the game look like they're dropping on Wednesday! While only previews, a whole month out seems quite early, I think that shows a lot of confidence from PlayStation in this game (no surprises). Imagine this means actual reviews for the game won't drop on or just before release date as has been the case with some other exclusives so far, like Demon's Souls and Returnal, but maybe a week or so out instead? Also, full transparency, I have no idea who Joe Miller is. Buuuuuuut Kinda Funny's PS I Love You XOXO podcast has apparently been delayed from today to Wednesday, and apparently there was also a Swedish site last week saying that previews would be going up this week too.