Julius

Decided to tune in... ...and starting with a bang with Barret, Tifa, and Aerith Mii fighters, huh? ALSO THE MUSIC PLEEEEEASE LET THIS MEAN WE'RE GETTING MORE FINAL FANTASY MUSIC!

Just installing Warzone now to see if it's still working, thanks for the heads-up either way! Seems like the steps might be a bit longer for those of us in the UK (on PS5 at least): 1) Install Warzone 2) Open Warzone 3) In Warzone, access the Franchise Store and download the Black Ops Cold War MP Free Access (The promo they are running over christmas to try out MP) 4) This should in theory then trick the PS store in to giving you the cross gen bundle for £5 rather than £65 5) Enjoy Cod for £5 If you have a PS4, I think you can skip ahead to step 3 - I believe the MP Free Access should be under the Demos tab in the PS Store on PS4?

Empire

No surprises here. Disney Gallery for Season 2 of Mando coming on Christmas. Always love Star Wars behind-the-scenes stuff, so looking forward to this! One-off, hour long episode according to the official site.

Continued my journey on, down The Lord's Path aaaaaaaand...yep, been hit with that patent Souls difficulty slap. Or at least it feels that way. First time through, I made it to the end against the Tower Knight without much of an issue. Took it slowly, took my time, managed to avoid the flames of that red dragon on every bridge, scoured areas as much as I could, finding my buddy Ostravus again and giving him a hand. Side note: I really like how straying from the beaten path rewards you with character interactions - even if the shopkeeper does give me the creeps which makes me want to cut him down - and saving Ostravus then having him lead the way and take some people down is a great way to repay you in terms of gameplay, which I don't think I've experienced in other games this much before? Anyways, the guy kind of lost the plot and started waving his sword at nothing, nowhere near the guys he was trying to attack (...unless he was waving?), but I appreciate the effort. But yeah, that first run went really smoothly...until I got to Tower Knight. I know I need to slice his heels, gamer gut feeling thing, and so chopped down all of those archers around us and made my way back down, but I just couldn't get inside, and the angle never opened up. Is it because I'm locking on and strafing? Used up waaaaaaay too many health items, and just as I thought I was starting to make some progress, he took me out by hitting me with his spear to stun me, when I was backed up against one of the longer walls to the sides, and then shield slammed his flames at me. No big deal, I thought. If I could get that far the first time, this should be fine, I'll get him next time! So thinking back to it, I kind of rushed things, and instead of going under the second bridge I went over it, sprinting across, and didn't gauge my timing or the length of the bridge correctly (or both), and got killed by the flames of that damn red dragon. Souls were lost. The red dragon killed me a couple more times, I lost to the blue-eyed knights before the final fog door before Tower Knight a couple of times, and I got cornered by wolves in the underground area. The AI in this game seemed a bit more temperamental in this area than it was before (maybe because it's a pretty tight space the whole way?); I don't need encounters to play out the same every time, but every time I went to make my way across - even after coaxing out to burn the bridge and running behind it - the red dragon would take a different length of time to come back out, and the archers by the blue-eyed knights would be static one time - meaning they were easy to kill with a bit of patience - but other times they were running back to the blue-eyed knight, and I was taking on a tank while being shot with arrows again. It makes the game unpredictable, for better and worse; going to be more patient when I give it another try tomorrow. And there's definitely a bit of jank when it comes to the game's combat, because even though it nails the heft of the weapons and rolls, it just feels off at times, and not as reactive. And then there are the times where I'm still accidentally pressing square and either wasting grass or, in some cases, think I'm eating grass but instead I'm lighting my sword on fire and get killed when I should have healed myself. I'm definitely still on that learning curve! I did make it back to the Tower Knight in the end, but got cornered again; I didn't even get a hit in this time. Could sense I was getting frustrated, so even though I'd invested another two hours into the game this evening, I chose to put the game down. Get the feeling it's going to be one of those classic gaming things, where I can't do it no matter how many times I try, and a day later I'll do it with much more ease. We'll see I guess On the upside, I've ended up with a ton of Hardstone Shards, and thank goodness, because I accidentally spent some on the Bastard Sword for an upgrade...not knowing it was a two-handed weapon. Yeah, like I'm doing anything in this game without a shield; this is going to be like the shotgun and torch for me in The Last of Us, always equipped and drawn because I know there's going to be something out there and then I spent a load of Souls not knowing what to do with them but wanting to spend them before going back out to 1-2 (I went back to The Nexus when I started today), so stocked up on way too much grass (which, again, I completely wasted) before learning that the Maiden in Black would accept them to level up my stats. But speaking of The Maiden, she needs to learn to give better directions! I spent a good 10 minutes looking for The Monumental after her vague "go through those doors" direction, only to find a bunch of staircases and different floors Overall, a bit more of a frustrating session today when compared with yesterday's. I'm still learning and getting to grips with the game, so this was bound to happen. Feel like maybe I'm too invested in retrieving Souls that I lose? Anyways, it's going to take a lot more than my experience today to dissuade me from trudging on, because when this game clicks, it feels so good. It's just unfortunate that there's a bit of jank to hold it back elsewhere, but I've found it clicking much more than I've encountered jank (so far)

When I first saw it last night I was thinking the exact same thing, so you're not the only one! All Might with Hulk's face on closer inspection...

Gnosia? It's weird because I think it showed poorly, but swear I've heard of or seen it somewhere before. I feel like it was well received in Japan? Got to look it up. EDIT: yeah, thought I'd seen it before. It received some great reviews in Japan, got a 10/10 from IGN Japan. Huh. Still think it showed really poorly here, though.

Among Us on Switch. Of course! Shadow droooooop.

Montage time, the true staple of any Nintendo showing Hazel Sky and Trash Warriors looked quite interesting though!

Cyber-Shadow looks like way more Yacht Clubs awesomeness, loved the little I played of Shovel Knight a few years back. That pixel art looks so good! ...how many cat games are we getting? And someone please stop the puns! Alba: A Wildlife Adventure looks phenomenal though. Love that art style, seems super charming! Happy Game was like Inside meets a fever dream. Huh. Count me intrigued. When they started showing Super Meat Boy Forever, thought they were going to say "At last Team Meat finally has a release date for this" December 23rd though!

Yep, pretty my exact thoughts too Spelunky and Spelunky 2 on Switch? That's a win for everyone. Summer 2021? Why so long a wait..? Fisti-Fluffs looked like chaotic fun

Donkey Kong Country 3, The Ignition Factor, Super Valis IV and Tuff E Nuff all coming to Switch Online's SNES collection this Friday.

Well, with Cyberpunk not wanting to play nice leading me to shelving it for the time being, but me clearly in the mood for a long-ish RPG...I decided it was time to boot this up. I'm a bit over 2 hours into my first From Software game, and have just cleared 1-1. Taking it very slow trying to get a feel for the combat and to gauge which enemies I can and can't take on, which I'm still adjusting to (keep forgetting to lock on!), and died a few times already. Which has also been its own interesting experience once I figured out I could go and get the souls back so long as I didn't die. For anyone wondering, I went with being a Knight, and decided (after very little research) to grab a Providential Ring at the start. First death was to the Vanguard Demon, quite predictably, though I did much, much worse than I had expected to against the big guy: I kind of cornered myself immediately when trying to gauge his swing, and after five or six rolls weren't enough to get me out of an awkward position, got hit with the old one-two and was down for the count. The next time was a hole. After that it was a red-eyed demon. And then him again. And again. I learned a valuable lesson about being willing to just grab my souls and run away, that's for sure Game looks gorgeous, playing in Performance Mode so it feels super smooth, and I'm quite liking the feel of the haptic feedback so far (even if it's dialled way down compared to something like Astro's Playroom). I feel like I might need to turn the brightness up, because it's ridiculously hard to see in some of the darker areas, but I guess that's the point? Level design has been really solid so far, I love the shortcuts and just how natural the location's layout feels, because in some other games I know levels can feel a bit contrived at times. Really appreciate the incorporation of the bloodstains and messages too, adds a completely new dimension to the game. Been tricked once or twice, but also loved how simple the tutorials were, so can't complain! The number of deaths I witnessed with people throwing themselves from high points in The Nexus is admittedly a little concerning, though music has made my ears perk up a couple of times too already, I'm a big fan of the main theme of the game in particular; foreboding, menacing, and completely overpowering, I love it! Super early impressions, but yeah, I'm digging it so far. It's super tense and has me on the edge of my seat with my heart pounding like only The Last of Us games has before for me, hopefully I'll adapt a bit before the end of the game though because that can't be healthy for my back! only thing which has felt a bit off so far has been lining up heavy attacks, there are times I'm square on with enemies, launch a heavy attack at them, and completely miss. It's just weird is all, I'm sure I'll get used to it! Oh, and Phalanx is perhaps the weirdest boss I've ever come across, in appearance and the tactics required to beat it. I mean, I guess Firebombs aren't so weird a tactic...but yeah, I was long out of them, so spent probably 20 minutes cheesing it by locking on and strafing around the room, coming in to take out one of the little sludge shield dudes at a time, and then backing back off. Was not what I was expecting from my first Souls boss experience, that's for sure! Not super sure where I'm going next. I think 1-2 has opened up (The Lord's Path?) but I know I can return to The Nexus and start another world too. I think I'll stick with 1-2 for now, but does anyone have any tips on the order to take things on? Or just any general tips for the game?

Thursday's stream is already up? I mean, nice to see they're prepared I guess... Might check out the highlights, really interested to see what Sakurai has to say about Sephiroth

A...Star Wars Direct?! High Republic livestream event coming at 17:00 GMT on 4th January 2021! From the official site: Exciting stuff!

Think I'm going to have to shelve this for now, unfortunately. Two more crashes today (not a great way to wind down playing after work), lost quite a bit of progress, and had a couple of quests about to finish off before the police randomly turned up and killed me. I'm quite patient when it comes to these things normally, but a game like this is long enough as it is, and it just makes it so much more difficult to invest time into. It's hard to enjoy playing after a long day at work, when at the back of my mind I'm waiting for it to crash again Sucks, because I've been excited for this game for so long, but I'm finding it harder to like the game the more bugs I encounter, and it's made it difficult to gauge my own enjoyment of the game itself. It's definitely more Deus Ex from the little I've seen of those games, than it is GTA. It's an impressively constructed world which looks great, and the story was starting to get interesting, but it hasn't hooked me enough to the point that I'm willing to play the same missions over and over because of crashes (to be honest, very few games I'd put up with that for - I hate wasted time). Little aside totally separate to my experiences with crashes, but also found this game did a really poor job with its tutorials and menus, it feels like a lot of stuff is buried? Read that the guide is much more helpful in that regard, so might pick that up at some point. It sucks, but there are other things I have to play, so it's not that big a deal. I might just hold out until the next gen patch at this point, to be honest, whenever that ends up landing. Glad to see everything's generally been going smoothly for others playing though, and glad to see people enjoying it too

I really don't play enough indie games...but excited to watch nonetheless! Would be such a weird move to save Silksong for this and not have it at The Game Awards last week, but then again, considering Nintendo had a big Smash trailer to show off, I get it. The wait for a Direct proper...continues

By "reacting to something", I specifically meant that they were reacting to discourse/reactions from the community (that's my bad, should have been clearer). It's not until they're called out on it that they actually say something. But the imagery in my head of a Word document filled with "What to do in case they find out..." tweets is definitely funny to think about

Just got to say, I hate how almost every acquisition these days is becoming a case of the absolute worst companies (EA, Activision, Take Two) competing to acquire good studios. Doing their shareholders proud, I'm sure. Urgh. On the upside, at least they're competing for them with other rich folks, and so are throwing more of their money at it than if they didn't have competition, I guess?

Absolutely agree. The fact that they put out those footage videos which only covered the One X and PS4 Pro from last gen was a giant red flag. And, again, like you said, they knew this. This is what I mean about them reacting to issues, rather than then getting ahead of them. It's the problem with third parties not optimising games for consoles and, in this case, aiming at mid-to-high end PCs. It's not the fairest comparison, because it's a first party title and would have been optimised significantly more than this, but look at Miles Morales on the PS4. It runs at mostly 30 fps and has a smaller colour gamut when compared with the Pro, or PS5, sure, but it's still playable and enjoyable. PlayStation does crazy good work with their optimisation (I played The Last of Us Part II and Ghost of Tsushima on a base PS4 earlier this year, and loading times and the game's appearances were both spectacular - don't think either crashed, though there was the occasional technical glitch), and looking at CDPR's sales for Cyberpunk, they really should have put much more effort in.

Yeah, I'm curious to see what the issues are too, because I had the exact same reaction to the options available from the start as you did. I noticed there weren't any choices for pronouns though, so I wonder if being referred to as he/she in the game is determined by the voice you choose? I'm not sure, but I could see that potentially not going over well. It's something I'll want to read up on once I've completed the game, because I get the feeling anything which isn't explicitly transphobic might go over my head, even if looking out for it, simply because of just how much is going on at all times, and also for the obvious reason that I'm a straight male and might not find something offensive at face value in the same way a trans person might. Admittedly, that might be partially down to my own ignorance of the matter, because I tend to steer clear of a lot of the commentary on it online (it's a minefield and I tend to steer clear of toxic discussions where I can). But, yeah, I'm definitely going to make a point of reading up on it once I've completed the game. Hopefully doing so will allow me to empathise more with the situation and have a better understanding of it.

I think that something made more and more apparent by CDPR's handling of Cyberpunk 2077 is just how new, and perhaps naive, they are when it comes to being a big AAA studio which their audience have high expectations of. It's great saying the above now, and things like free DLC, regular updates on development once they were ready, etc, are great PR, BUT, it always seems like they're reacting to something. Bold promises of no crunch soon followed a year later by crunch being in place. The fact that something that would induce photosensitive epileptic seizures to those with photosensitive epilepsy, got through QA and internal development. Delay after delay after delay (and the game still not being up to snuff). The fact that the base console experiences on last gen run as poorly as they do. And not to mention the potentially transphobic undercurrent to the game (yet to see this myself, so I'll save opinions about this for if and when I come across it, but it's been talked about for a while now based on the trailers and gameplay we saw before launch). It's all being addressed in retrospect, which to me suggests they either thought they would get away with it or, much worse in my opinion, they're incredibly naive as a studio. In the case of the potential to cause seizures, they've been naive in their testing in a way which has absolutely endangered players; it shouldn't have taken until launch for that to get flagged. The way development has panned out makes them look like they only care about the bottom line and seeing what they can get away with, and while I understand this is a business at the end of the day, I don't think it's a look which is going to age well. And considering this, let's not talk about the irony that is being a massive company putting out a AAA game in the cyberpunk genre. Not speaking to the quality of the game itself, but only their words and actions as a studio, I think they've got a lot to learn from this.

Convinced Yoko Taro is one of the funniest guys working in the industry.

Episode 2 of AoT S4 was awesome! Slower paced and a better understanding of the characters, which I'm always a fan of. The art style continues to grow on me, I noticed the music a bit more here (probably down to the last episode being so action packed by comparison), and the OP has grown on me a lot in the last week too, especially in terms of its visuals. Also, Horikoshi has been absolutely unhinged the last few chapters of My Hero Academia. Just read Chapter 294 and yet another reveal. Cannot wait to see this arc animated in two or three years' time, and after today's chapter, it's now the longest arc in the series, and we're still not done (though it does seem to finally be winding down). Finished my rewatch of My Hero Academia S4 earlier in the week and enjoyed it much more than I did earlier this year, even if I do still think the animation quality and season on the whole was a step down from S2 and S3. Bring on Season 5! And lastly, to break the cycle of me rewatching things, I started watching Mob Psycho 100 yesterday, and I'm halfway through the first season at the moment. Really wasn't feeling it in the first few episodes, as it felt like it wasn't going in any particular direction, but it's really picked up quite well and I'm having a lot of fun watching it!