Julius

Well damn, Microsoft really can't catch a break, can they? Not too long before so hopefully still isn't brushed aside by most as old news, but leaks like these - just before the event! - really blow. Thankfully it's a date that wasn't totally unexpected, so not too big a deal. Still hopefully have some cool Infinite news up their sleeves (a demo maybe?), but Starfield feels like the other game that they would probably open or close their show with tonight. That's the main reason I think it blows. Either way, starts in less than 10, hope it's a good one!

Probably the most controlled single match I've watched by an England team at a tournament in my lifetime - let's be honest that's not saying much! - a very solid showing, particularly that first 15 minutes. Kalvin Philips was excellent, MOTM stuff, very disruptive in the middle of the park, showed a lot of courage and positivity moving forwards. Feel like our weak link was on the left, Trippier didn't offer much going forwards and looked shaky at times at the back, would hope that we see Chilwell start in his place next time out, but I'm sure Gareth will continue to justify his presence with his previous tournament experience. Croatia never really got going, H-o-T you're right in saying they were toothless, think they miss the dark horse and wild card that Mandzukic was for them, he had a knack for pulling a goal out of absolutely nothing. Hopefully we only get stronger from here, think we've shown the other teams in our group that Croatia is there for the taking.

Only a few hours into this, and just got to the point where I've left the second world, but I'm having a blast. One of my biggest issues with Ratchet & Clank (2016) when I played it last month was that it felt a bit "floaty", a bit like a PS2 game (I know it's a remake, but still, it just felt a bit off at times); that's not an issue here, as there's a real sense of weight that I've got from Ratchet and Rivet so far. I did toy around with all of the modes, and went in thinking I'd go with Performance Mode, but like @Will I ended up going with Fidelity Mode. I might change it up later into the game, or if there's a New Game+/Challenge Mode to check out and I'm up for it, but the game is too gorgeous to not see it at its best (though for anyone playing in Performance or Performance RT, just remember it's like Miles Morales and checking out Photo Mode actually reverts to Fidelity Mode, which is always neat). The loading times are insane too, and there have been a couple of instances where I've been left in awe by how it's been used to transition to another scene (such as with a hard cut or a diagonal fade). Something that added to the game as soon as I was able to move around in the menu was the haptic feedback, it feels so damn good in this game! The adaptive triggers have been nothing short of wonderful too so far, whether it be pulling down halfway to shoot at a steady pace and then all the way to unload your ammo a bit faster, or pulling down halfway to show you the arc to aim your throwables before pulling down all the way to actually throw it. It takes a few minutes to get used to, but once it's clicked it clicks well, and it's tough to imagine playing this game any other way. The DualSense is front and centre in this game almost like it was in Astro's Playroom (I say almost because it's just shy of being there, which is crazy in its own right!) and has really elevated the experience so far. The screen is always packed with things going on, and that's not to say that the other game wasn't, but they've really turned it up a notch here. It's so vibrant too, serious eye candy all around. The direction of major setpieces has evolved massively since their last Ratchet & Clank game, no doubt learning a lot from their time on Spider-Man and Miles Morales, and it shows, as those moments are brilliantly paced and very engaging. The attention to detail (hair, fur, scales - pretty much every texture I've come across so far) has been insane. That this is Insomniac's second release in just over 6 months is mind-boggling! As a result I've been messing around with the Photo Mode a whole lot, and have already taken over 100 screenshots of the game - and I'm sure that there will be many, many more. In fact, based on my experience with Miles Morales back in November, as soon I loaded into the game for the first time - during the cutscene - I immediately opened up my controller layout and remapped to allocate Photo Mode to right on the D-pad (thanks Ghost of Tsushima for teaching me your ways). Me watching E3 trailers late at night The name's Lombax. Ratchet the Lombax. You can see Rivet's reflection on this guy's dome! So yeah, having a blast so far, despite it still being very early days. Very much look forward to playing more of this over the coming days, definitely hungry for more!

Samurai. Side-scrolling. Major Kurosawa vibes. This is easily my most anticipated of the games we've seen for the first time so far this E3. Anyone else keen on the look of this?

Less a groan on my side and more of an "Oh no, please don't" every single time they showed the Trader's Guild. Thank goodness they decided against it! I really hope Echo gets more screen time and is fleshed out more, because going into the show, he was the character we knew the most due to him being in The Clone Wars, and he's definitely seen some stuff. But he just comes across as stale here. I know he's just a "reg" and that the Bad Batch are exaggerated personalities by comparison, but he can hold his own, and deserves more time. He barely even spoke to Rex, to the point that if you watched this before The Clone Wars, you'd think they'd never met before!

Ubisoft Forward was a bit of a snore fest, if I'm being totally honest, and I was surprised by how few games we saw given that it ran for over an hour (and had a pre-show!). We finally got to see Rainbow Six Extraction, we got a weird look at Rockstar Plus, then it felt like a lot of updates on stuff we already knew about or updates for existing games: Riders Republic, Rainbow Six Siege, Valhalla, and Far Cry 6, amongst others. That Far Cry 6 showing was really weak - let's give you a new story trailer, show no new gameplay, and then tell you what's in the season pass? Yikes. Also, that Season Pass (playing from the perspective of the bad guys) I can tell is going to be bad news, I think back to what I heard about 5's story and villain, and I really don't think it's worth the effort to tell the story of a character like that. Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope looked good, happy for fans of the first game with that one, bit of a shame it's 2022, but by all means let it cook. Terrible game title though. And hey, that Avatar game that's been in the works forever actually exists, which is a nice surprise. Have no idea what it's going to be about, what it plays like, or anything else you'd expect from a video game, so it didn't exactly get me excited. But it's nice to know it's on its way. My Totally Official Score: 6.0/10 Devolver MaxPass+ was a fun time, quite liked the opening bit, loved the running "Premium Purchase" gag, but it felt like it ended rather suddenly, and the bits they had during the show felt like it was getting in the way of seeing the games more than anything else. Which is a shame, because outside of the indie events we've had so far (I still haven't gone back to watch Day of the Devs or Tribeca!), I think this was the strongest showing all around in terms of the games that they had. Trek to Yomi, that side-scrolling samurai game, I am 1000% in for, it looks gorgeous and right up my alley. Death's Door looks fantastic after we got that first look the other day, happy to see it dated, and will keep it at the back of my mind for whenever I get a Series X. Inscryption with its PS1-looking horror vibes definitely kept me watching, and Demon Throttle looked cool, don't think going physical-only is the way to go for that game though. Most consistent showing of games, some funny bits, but I felt like it didn't need to be as long as it was. Still the best show of the last few days, though, and set the benchmark for me. My Totally Official Score: 7.0/10 So I'm not even sure why I watched the Gearbox E3 Showcase, but I did, and yes, I regret it. I now have a new worst games showcase after this. Randy Pitchford very awkwardly speaking with the cast of the film for way too long. Showing the trailer we saw at SGF Kickoff for Wonderlands again. Running the same snippet to announce Homeworld 3 not once, not twice, but three times in the same show, just with a different fact attached to it about the original game. Randy Pitchford returning and me wanting to set my face on fire at that point. Only things I took away were that Tribes of Midgard looks like a fun co-op time (but we already knew about it), Godfall is getting a PS4 version, and Gearbox had no reason to be here. At all. My Totally Official Score: 3.0/10 I'm 99.999999% sure we're getting a new trailer and potentially some gameplay for Bethesda's Starfield tomorrow, and probably a vague "It's coming in 2022" sort of deal. I have very little interest in their existing big RPG IP's, but there's something about this which has really grabbed me, so I hope it lives up to the hype. They've bought enough studios to fill up 90 minutes at least, and with no PlayStation at E3, they should be where third parties either not at E3 or on deals with PlayStation gravitate towards, so I'm pretty optimistic on Xbox tomorrow. It feels like the only place this E3 where we could see Playdead's or genDESIGN's (Fumito Ueda's new studio) next games turn up, both of which I am very excited for, so fingers crossed for those. But I swear if Phil opens up by saying "This is our biggest show, we have X number of games, X number of world premieres" I'm going to slam my head against a table. And while I'm optimistic on Xbox, Square Enix is the show which could make or break this E3 for me, and it follows around 45 minutes after Xbox's event ends. Regardless of how well Nintendo does on Tuesday, we've yet to have a great major show this E3 (including Summer Game Fest). One of Xbox or S-E has to knock it out of the park, and even as someone who wants Xbox to do well and is optimistic about them tomorrow, my hopes are completely pinned on Square Enix. We know we're getting Babylon's Fall and that new Eidos Montréal game there, the lack of a mention of Final Fantasy XVI in their press release for this has me pretty concerned, there's that rumoured other Final Fantasy game, and it's Final Fantasy's 35th Anniversary next year, so ports or remakes or something for the older games would be nice. Give me just one of those three Final Fantasy things and I'll be happy, but give me more than one and I'll be over the moon. High hopes for tomorrow, but it's tough to not be cautious after the last few days. I think the big thing missing from this E3 is just the lack of impressions, meaning there's just this void between shows. I know some companies have let press see or play things to preview their games, but it's few and far between. So let's see some demos drop tomorrow. I could see Xbox doing it, but come on Square Enix, pull that trigger too!

Swapped over to Easy Allies to watch the Gearbox stuff and Michael Huber's eyes are rolling into the back of his skull and there's a lot of very audible sighing going on. If you've lost the Being of Hype himself, you're not doing a good job. And I can confirm, it is not good. At all.

Yep, we got that date there: July 20th. Game looks fantastic. Will definitely keep this at the back of my mind until I pick up an Xbox at some point.

Did...did they just give Vivi a gun? What's with all of these Black Mages packing all of a sudden? Same And yeah, it's by far the most annoying part of Xbox and Keighley's presentations. Just play the damn trailers!

YES, after Ghost of Tsushima last year we absolutely need to see more samurai games! Very excited for Trek to Yomi

I think it's a nice way to break things up at least, most of the other conferences are a bit too serious or a bit too bland. I do agree with you on the language though. If you do want to swear during a comedic bit, swearing in scarcity is always going to be my preference. I've laughed a lot more being caught off guard by a singular use of bad language rather than F'ing until I start questioning how to spell the word being repeated non-stop!

Devolver is already the best show of E3 so far

I think Breath of the Wild sequel news is a lock. Please be a lock. I'll will its existence into a lock. Prime 4 I'm not too sure, because I feel whenever we get more Prime 4 news, we'll probably end up seeing Prime Trilogy news, and I don't think that's likely here? At the same time, I guess it is the 35th anniversary of the series this year, so it's possible that we end up with other news (like the next 2D Metroid) and maybe a 45 second long teaser for this? Just Samus exiting a brightly lit elevator into a dark tunnel, slowly making her way down; close up on the mask, we see her through the visor, it fogs up; reflection of a Metroid or maybe the glowing eyes of some other enemy, hard cut to black, fade in the Prime 4 logo and slam a full title on there. 2023. Boom, done. Would love news on MonolithSoft's new IP, I think it's absolutely time: let's not forget how much they've grown in size in the last few years and how quickly they churn their games out. Selfishly, having only played Xenoblade Chronicles, I'd love a new IP purely because I wouldn't feel inclined to check out Xenoblade Chronicles 2 in the immediate future if it were 3 (though I guess a remaster of X could get around that too). Forget the Switch Pro - I'd gladly take a white Switch!

At least we've got Devolver to save the opening day in around 20 minutes! As soon as they said they had an updated version of Snowdrop to show off, I'll admit that against all logic for a few seconds there I thought we were going to see a short tease of their upcoming Star Wars game. Unfortunately that little blue lizard and the amount of trees quickly pulled me out of that fantasy but I am still genuinely surprised that the Avatar game lives, and even more so that we saw a trailer for the game before the next film.

It lives. They actually put a colon in the title, thank goodness. Now we get to be the ones putting hair in animals. That film is weird man.

Holy shoot the Avatar game lives!

We totally heard about this for the first time at Ubisoft Forward Davide Soliani returns as director. Also the lack of a colon in the title is killing me.

Seems like the French staff typically start it "OO" and the English "YOU". Isn't the origin of Ubisoft's name that it's software is "ubiquitous", though? So that would be "a ubiquitous" rather than "an ubiquitous", but now I'm questioning how the French pronounce "ubiquitous"...

Isn't it based on sound rather than spelling though? For instance, you'd say "a uniform" rather than "an uniform".

I really don't like the Ubisoft Original branding. Gives off way too much of an EA Originals vibe for me, feels like they're inadvertently cheapening their games' first showing. You mean the best part of E3 so far?

That would definitely be the ideal scenario I'd hope for, so fingers crossed there's some truth to it. Still a little dangerous in terms of fatigue I feel, but would much rather it be because of this than UEFA pushing it on them!

TMNT in Brawlhalla was a cool thing to have, and You Suck At Parking looks like such a fun time! I don't really have any expectations going into this, Ubisoft tends to be a pretty mixed bag at E3, but hopefully there'll be one thing I can latch onto and come away from this wanting.

Just over 20 minutes until E3 proper kicks off with Ubisoft Forward. Anyone tuning in? And any hopes for what you want to see turn up here?

After all of the players left the pitch I remember reading on the BBC website that there still hadn't been official word from UEFA that the match had actually been cancelled yet, which felt a little bizarre. I also feel like this is very neglectful to the players. It's awesome that Eriksen seems to be doing okay and will hopefully only continue to improve with recovery, but playing a football match after having the adrenaline you'd have pumping through you after witnessing something like that is dangerous because there's an increased risk of injury just due to the fatigue they'd be facing. At least they're not kicking off from the start of the first half again, though. My hope would be that the players said they want to go ahead in solidarity and for the fans (misplaced or not I think that's the optimistic take), but more realistically, it's probably UEFA pushing for them to do this to avoid scheduling conflicts.

Brilliant news. Hope everything goes smoothly and pray he makes the best recovery one can in these situations. Really puts things into perspective. I think back to when I was in highschool and when Fabrice Muamba collapsed. It was a stark reminder then - as it is now - of just how precious our time is here, however brief it is. Yeah, good news