Julius

Just got to be positive. It will arrive tomorrow. I am speed. Best case? It turns up tomorrow, which would be the awesome and ideal scenario. Worst case? Guess I can watch some TV and finish catching up on my Gaming Diary, it should be here on Friday. We're in the middle of a pandemic. It sucks, but I can wait another day. (probably) That being said, if it doesn't arrive on Friday... Sounds like an awesome plan for the weekend! Fingers crossed there's no need for you to go to the lab on Friday and you can just inhale and exhale the fumes of next gen!

Crazy. Absolutely agree with you @Ganepark32, DOOM Eternal is lucky to be on that GOTY shortlist - I'm sure it was a great game, but it's almost already nullified by the fact that Demon's Souls would have been eligible, it just ended up in the hands of press so late on. Don't see it winning anything on the night The only award I actively care about is TLOU2 winning for Accessibility, I don't think anything else this year comes remotely close. GOTY is really hard for me, I think Animal Crossing: New Horizons is awesome and could deservedly win (I wouldn't question it), but at the same time, I do feel like its relevance here has more to do with how the year has unfolded with COVID more so than the qualities of the game itself. To be clear: not suggesting it shouldn't win or isn't deserving of its spot in that shortlist, just think more than any ever game, it has that "against" it in how critics and fans might has it out. I was hoping Ghost of Tsushima wouldn't be there simply because it would've put my three most likely to win down to two (VII Remake and The Last of Us Part II), but yeah, we've ended up with a shortlist where I've played 4 of the 6 GOTY nominees, and I think all would be deserving of the win. Only heard great things about Hades too, and still really want to check that out, because I have no doubt from what I've read here and heard elsewhere that it deserves to be there. Awesome year for games. That's the biggest takeaway for me. Well, that and Xenoblade once again getting snubbed in the music nominees (if I'm remembering right, Xenoblade Chronicles 2 didn't get nominated in 2017 either?).

GAME have sent me a code I won't use to reduce a next-gen game/game with a coming next-gen upgrade (from a limited list) to £30 from RRP, so if anyone is interested, let me know and I'll message you the code. Honestly have no idea how long it lasts. Games in the promotion are: - Control Ultimate Edition (PS4/Xbox) - Marvel's Avengers (PS4/Xbox) - Dirt 5 (PS5/Xbox) - Yakuza 7 (Xbox only) Didn't know whether to put this in the Xbox Series X or PS5 thread, hence the neutral ground instead

Also had the same email as @Ike yesterday from them about it arriving at the warehouse; from what I've read elsewhere, seems like Royal Mail and everyone else has been absolutely battered this last week or so, and probably will be into the weekend too. Noticed my delivery type has been changed from the usual free 24h Royal Mail to 2 - 4 day shipping, so have no idea when that's going to turn up.

Looks like a solid pair of updates! So much for not updating this game, knew they'd come around in some form But as for getting to this soon... glances at list of games releasing in the coming weeks ...I honestly don't know if I'll get to it before Christmas. Miles Morales and Astro's this weekend, Demon's Souls will probably take me up until the week before Cyberpunk (depending on when I finish that, could sneak it in there? But there's also Age of Calamity and 13 Sentinels I will want to get to), Cyberpunk will probably be two weeks minimum...and then I'm off for a week to cap off the year and hopefully catch up a bit Same thing happened with Ghost of Tsushima Legends, I adored that base game and want to check it out still, but it's nowhere near the top of priorities at the moment. At least I'll be able to play Squadrons with better performance on next gen when I do get to it!

GOTY shortlist: Vote here. So, uh, pretty good odds The Last of Us Part II will be coming away with a win somewhere, huh? The dramatic pause for effect at the end of the GOTY list of nominees was so unnecessary also, that domination in Best Performance by Sony was pretty insane! Had 13 Sentinels sitting on my shelf, looks like I should try getting to that soon too...I want to check that and Hades out before the end of the year (doubt I will by the time TGA's swing around), what a fantastic year for games!

Oh man, normally I'm a big fan of Suriel (former Game Informer guy, now MinnMax guy) but, his actual 6/10 review score aside (whatever, it's subjective, that's fine), one minute into this review it already seems like a rocky start. I don't know if it's on him or his editor, but opening up immediately with a description of the power fantasy of controlling the Divine Beasts is such an odd starting place for this review. Aaaaaaand I can already see him being swamped in the comments...

@Happenstance @V. Amoleo hopefully you guys hear something sooner rather than later! I don't normally receive my dispatch confirmation from Amazon until late in the evening/early hours of the morning, and don't think I've had anything arrive late from then when that's happened (in fact, weirdly, my earlier dispatch emails are the closer calls!). Fingers crossed for you both that you hear back soon and it all goes smoothly

Seems to be doing solid on Metacritic for now, 78 critic score and 90 user score. No big or even medium outlets from what I can see, but seems to be pretty well received. I do think Sony got things the wrong way around when it came to reviews and things like that, I think it would have made much more sense to give reviewers Demon's Souls a week earlier than they did, in addition to Miles Morales and the other games. What we've seen are reviews for Astro's Playroom, Miles, and Bugsnax come out, and then major outlets (perhaps rightly, from a business perspective) turning immediately then to Demon's Souls, as they only had a couple of days to review a 30+ hour RPG. Still think that was an odd choice.

Launch trailer: Looks like reviews have started going up too! Don't think I'll be getting to this for a few weeks, but hope everyone who checks out enjoys it! Really looking forward to reading through some impressions

So, Yodel is trending on Twitter in the UK now that a fair number of GAME and Very customers have cottoned on to the fact that has had me concerned for the last week I've made peace with it for the most part, though I'm still annoyed at GAME for their blunder. I didn't see any issues with Yodel when shipping the Series X | S for Very last week, so fingers crossed! Also seen a couple of Amazon UK orders ending up with Hermes? Hopefully those here who ordered with them ended up with Logistics! What's everyone's plans for launch day/weekend? What are you all planning to play? And do any of you have a priority list of games to install?

This is super cool! But the flex is unreal So much for the console war being over I guess Keep finding myself checking my emails every few minutes, despite knowing full well it'd be a surprise for the tracking info to be sent before this evening. But still, so close!

It might have almost no bugs when you first start, but they release new ones each month. You've just got to be patient.

Just woke up to my dispatch confirmation too, should apparently get an email or text with my 2 hour delivery window tomorrow! Next 36 hours are going to be crazy, hope everything goes smoothly for everyone! We're nearly there!

I mean, I wouldn't be against it! Incredibly charming, ridiculously rich and diverse OST which perfectly complements it's world and characters, an awesome gameplay loop...as someone who dropped the game after the first month and "only" put 50 hours in, or something like that, this game has undoubtedly been a massive part of gaming in 2020. I love that many are still enjoying the game too, and I live popping into the New Horizons thread, especially to see everyone's reactions to the new updates! Even if it doesn't win, I feel like it deserves special recognition; can we at least get it an award for being the Best Escape? I doubt I'll catch up on the one or two games I wanted to check out before the TGA's come around, but I do hope I'll catch up by the end of the year and be able to hash it out in my head. It's been such a strong year for games, another one of those years where we've ended up with an embarrassment of riches!

I'm not generally a fan of celebrity ads, but the Brie Larson ones put up today are a rare exception. The Animal Crossing one is especially wholesome! So...Samus when?

The Digital Foundry train never ends! Their review: Think this will be the last thing I check out about the game before I boot it up after Astro's and Miles Morales. Looks absolutely fantastic, music sounds great, I can honestly say that I've never been so excited to get my ass handed to me

10 minutes of One X and Series X footage in a special episode of Night City Wire:

Okay, but why does it look so bad? Also, new definitive cut by Coppola of The Godfather Part III: Love the first two, but the third is definitely a big step down. Very much looking forward to this!

Heck yeah!

Scoooooops (at least for the PS4 version). Game will require 70GB minimum and will ship on two discs (perhaps not too much of a surprise given the scale CDPR are going for).

First firmware update has rolled out, hopefully fixing some of the issues users were having over in the States and elsewhere ahead of our launch on Thursday. First time I've ever been happy to see a stability update

Catch-up post #2. JUNE XENOBLADE CHRONICLES | 2010 DEFINITIVE EDITION | 2020 I'd been holding out for a few years when Nintendo announced last year in a Direct that Xenoblade Chronicles would be making it's way to the Nintendo Switch, with a fresh coat of paint and a number of quality of life improvements. This game starts out rough, in that it is almost overwhelming with so little progression in its opening hours. Tutorial screen after tutorial screen, massive areas where you can get lost in any direction, quest markers and green dots (NPC's with something supposedly important to say) filling up the map. I found myself questioning whether I was ready for a long haul JRPG, which I can honestly say is the first time that I've ever asked myself, especially after looking forward to a game for so long. Just give it another hour, I thought to myself. And I'm glad I did. The opening hours of this game are light on story but quite heavy on exposition, but a short smattering of it later, finding myself familiarised with how to traverse Colony 9 - and the areas immediately surrounding it - and doing a couple of quests, and it all just clicks. Don't get me wrong: it is overwhelming. But once you've adjusted, once the frequency of tutorials popping up dies down a little, the quests and sense of exploration take hold, and quickly became this loop I craved to run around in over and over again. Experience for finding a new area. A treasure trove of experience for finding a secret area. A map which is simple to read (if a little confusing in terms of bridging levels at times), more than happy to lead you to directly to the next area to critical path the story, but is filled with exclamation marks to boot once you've stocked up on quests. You might not remember which quest you're taking that monster down or picking up that item for, but it's the perfect way to guide your wider exploration of the world and level up. It rarely felt like grinding. The feedback loop of arriving at new settlement, talking to the locals and taking on a load of side quests, explore a new area and tackling a load of side quests, raking in items, EXP, materials, etc., is honestly one of the best I've encountered from the perspective of making you want to explore. I don't need these items, and I don't need this EXP, but it's on the way/just slightly off the beaten path, so I might as well check it out, and I would be grinding in a JRPG anyways. The UI is simple to navigate, and not having to make my way back to complete all of the side quests and being able to be told that I've completed them mid-fight is such a simple but respectful thing to do. That's without mentioning the generous checkpoints pushing you to explore, or how there aren't any traditional healing items (at least that I've come across yet) but instead your health regenerates insanely quick while exploring after a battle, and battles feel like they're in their own vacuum, like when a protagonist in an anime recovers from a fight in one episode to be back at it again against someone else in the next. And then there's jumping (or rather, falling, much of the time!) and taking fall damage which quickly recovers, but balances out the adventuring of the world with the fact that this is a JRPG. And speaking of adventuring, the sheer scale of this game put a grin on my face time after time, it made me feel giddy and almost like a child - you know, that sense of awe and wonder every time you saw something enormous, or cool, or remotely interesting? It's such a powerful thing for a game to put you back in that mindset, and it's one of the best reasons to play Xenoblade Chronicles. This game is MASSIVE, and it does such a great job of conveying that. Not only that, but time after time, I was blown away by just how diverse and unique locations were, massive new zones which are basically their own biomes with their own acclimatised fauna and flora, and extremely memorable by just how far this game goes with its colour palette and scale. At times, it almost feels as if it's taunting you: I mean, you bought that the world is massive, right? You'll probably buy the trees glowing at certain times of day too. I think a big part of that is the verticality of this game, and the scalability of those vertical components: climbing up vines, descending down ladders, jumping from a cliff above a massive waterfall, it's something I haven't really found as a focal point in world design in other JRPG's, or honestly, many other games in general. You see the head of that titan up above you? You can go there. I want to share an example of the game's scale giving me that sense of awe, which I shared in the game's thread early on into my playthrough, but want to share again here, because it was probably the most memorable time it happened. And I haven't even got started on the level variety of creatures in these massive areas, which again, feeds into the feeling of this being a real, living and breathing ecosystem, and encountering a LV. 90 enemy rightly informs you that you are definitely going the wrong way - but load times after death are forgiving and very fast for a world of this size, they really want to let you loose and just explore, a far cry from what you would typically expect from a JRPG. Attacking a beast and then seamlessly transitioning into battle, the types of triggers which can draw them to you (sight, sound, being attacked), utilising Arts, preparing and making full use of Chains...the battle system is very unique, even if it does feel like its overstayed its welcome by the end of the game. This game is not without flaws. It has pacing issues in the second half. The story is pretty predictable...even by JRPG standards. Again, the battle system doesn't do much in terms of progressing in any meaningful way in the second half. Some quest chains are ridiculously long, or tedious, or both. Technically, not a spectacular game (frame rate dips and pop-in are consistent throughout). Some members of the cast are kind of tossed aside in the second half, which is a shame. The lack of a Photo Mode for the times in the game where you say to hell with the technical side of the game, the sense of scale is spectacular, I'm going to open the Settings, empty my HUD, zoom in until I am quite literally in the character, and the weapon on their back is no longer visible, adjust the camera - WAIT! the weapon is visible from this angle, turn slightly... - and then screenshot (and this is assuming that your Party Gauge is empty, otherwise enjoy waiting for that to drain, because for some reason it won't disappear with the rest of the HUD you just went into settings to remove). Being staggered out of the use of an Art (a similar issue I had with Final Fantasy VII Remake earlier in the year). Hilariously bad examples of clipping. And I do feel that the zones should have zoned in a bit in terms of scale much further from the end than they end up doing. Oh, and the game really pushing for you to do some crazy high-levelled quests towards the end (which I had a blast with), but then not having a scalable final boss (which, uh, given the context of what the final boss is, perhaps more than ever, makes very little sense) meaning that it's a cakewalk. And yet, despite its flaws, this is a game I would recommend to anyone, on the back of a rewarding gameplay loop, great world design and scale, and, you guessed it: a killer soundtrack. Yoko Shimomura, Manami Kiyota, ACE+, and Yasunori Mitsuda deliver a soundtrack which is an embarrassment of riches, covering a variety of genres, feels like it would be at home alongside some of the best and most diverse Final Fantasy soundtracks, and takes this game up another level. One such example of this is in most location tracks featuring day and night versions, which greatly fleshes out the vibe for the location, and goes a long way to defining your relationship with it; for instance, Satorl Marsh (Night) is this ethereal track filled with light piano strokes, strings, and an understated vocal element which makes you feel like you're floating in some fantasy, whereas Satorl Marsh (Day) brings a steady beat, bass, and heavier piano strokes to the forefront. Hometown feels like a starting Pokémon town in the best possible way, it captures a light and hopeful feeling extremely well; Gaur Plains is this epic adventurous track which makes you want to explore its wide open fields; A Friend On My Mind is a particularly beautiful composition, which always makes me a bit misty eyed; A Tragic Decision is an insanely diverse, rich, and haunting track; Riki the Legendary Heropon (yes it deserves to be here, it's a very silly but well composed track, plus the seriousness of the guitar is hilarious!); Thoughts Enshrined(/While I Think); The End Lies Ahead(/To the Last Battle); Ancient Mysteries with its slow and epic choir; the epic electric guitar riffs and awesome as hell trumpets in You Will Know Our Names; I could go on and on, and I'd probably end up listing half of the soundtrack, they did that good a job. However, there's a certain track which plays in an overwhelming amount of cutscenes, which builds slowly, has an intense guitar solo, a moment to breathe with a few piano strokes, and then, hits you with everything all at once: Engage The Enemy, easily my favourite track in the game. Xenoblade Chronicles is not going to be for everyone, and it's far from a flawless game. That being said, in a vast sea of JRPG's, Xenoblade Chronicles - with it's epic scale, world class soundtrack, and wonderful gameplay loop - is perhaps one of the most ambitious, keeping me hooked for the better part of the 70+ hours I spent with it, and I wouldn't have had it any other way. THE LAST OF US PART II | 2020 There is so much, yet so little, I want to actually say about The Last of Us Part II. A lot has been said - good, bad, and even sometimes in the middle - about this game, and I truly believe that I could write page after page about this game, like so many have, and so many will. But I think doing so would genuinely rob those who have yet to play the game of one of gaming's most intriguing and most complete experiences, and if anything, this is one of those rare games I'd rather people just experience, so while the rest of this will be focused on my opinions and thoughts about the game, I'm not going to be spoiling anything. Not even in spoiler tags. Let me get one thing out of the way: The Last of Us Part II is perhaps one of the most intense and emotionally draining experiences I have experienced in any form of entertainment. It is unrelentingly ferocious in its violent imagery, incredibly vivid in its depiction of love and hate, and horrifying in its insight to the potential malice of humanity. Blood spatters and sprays as the enemy clutches their neck, the blood audibly gurgling in their throat, before collapsing heavily in a heap; wailing on the enemy, cutting through them like butter as your breath grows tired and your face is dyed red; the unanswered screams of the enemy looking for their friend, now face down in a pool of his own blood. Every facet of combat is visceral, from the audio design of a machete meeting the long handle of an axe as it protects its wielder, to the fluid animation as you dive into the grass after being spotted while you searched for a way around, scrambling as you reach for something - a gun, a bow and arrow, a distraction - to protect yourself with. The production values of this game are on a level I don't think we've ever seen before, with faces and the Infected looking as detailed as one could possibly be comfortable with, and it's ironic that a game this beautiful is so grotesque and unremorseful in its depiction of violence. The story to this game is absolutely epic, in terms of its scale, design, and structure. It does an awfully good job of putting you in someone else's shoes, making you see Ellie's perspective, but then shifting the perspective and then asking questions of you: is she doing the right thing? Is Ellie going too far? As important and as well characterised as Ellie is in this game by Ashley Johnson, a lot of the heavy lifting in this game is done by the excellent work of its secondary characters, who, like the game's story, are constantly questioning why Ellie is willing to go so far, and be so brutal. Is it love? Or hate? Which is it that is driving her in this moment? While I do think that the game can be a bit heavy-handed when it comes to its core themes at times, it does so with such ambition, and such great range, that it's hard to not praise Naughty Dog in how they wrote this game, Neil Druckmann, of course, in particular. There were easier routes to take as a writer, but above all else, Druckmann is true to this game's characters and world - for better and for worse. This all being said, I do think that while the game has an abundance of memorable and great moments and interactions, it can oftentimes feel lonely when compared with the first game, as we control the hands of a much older and much more independent Ellie. That being said, the guitar mini game (a really fun use of the touchpad, and a great way to involve us in what could have easily been a cutscene), and hearing Ellie play the guitar and sing covers of some songs - mostly when she has someone around to listen - are especially touching, and Ashley Johnson has a brilliant voice. And I do think that the game - the second half in particular, though it is noticeable throughout - has some serious pacing problems, and while a large part of this is down to the story structure and writing itself, it's also down to areas being much larger, too. There is an area early on where you have free reign to explore a few blocks of a city, which is an amazing and open experience, and I want to make it clear: I have no issue with that part. It made sense in that the characters were searching for clues on what to do next, stock up, and so on, that this part of the game should have been more open. But throughout the game, everything just seems much larger than it needs to be, from the number of buildings you're free to explore in an area, to the number and size of the rooms in that building, to the size of that building's hallways - it always feel like you're reaching for something, which is a little further away than it would have been in the first game. This isn't to say that areas are scarce on supplies - far from it; in fact I would say the opposite turns out to be the truth - but rather, the physical space between those supplies seems further than it perhaps needs to be. Areas are big and fill up so quickly with enemies that stocking up after a battle makes the most sense, and so the game is clearly pushing you to explore to stock back up, but it feels like you're searching multiple buildings here, whereas in the first game you might be searching only one or two. In terms of exploration, this means that the collectibles - which told so much of the story in the first game - are also very spread out, and while I think they did just as strong a job here with things like the safe puzzles and with other items or visuals in fleshing the world out, it all felt awfully familiar: scribbled notes, lengthy diary entries, and light puzzles. Another big part of exploration is that it all feels very natural, and gone are the white lines of the game to give you a sense of direction, instead relying more on the visual cues and logical hints the folks at Naughty Dog have left for you to follow. While it's generally very seamless, and does a great job of pointing you in the right direction, there were admittedly one or two times where I did find myself questioning if I was going the right way; as areas are generally larger and more open to exploration this time around, it meant that I would often find a way out only accessible through a short QTE (you know, the ones where you hammer square to push a door open, or triangle to pull a garage door's chain down), recognise this as being the way forward, and tap circle to back out of the QTE so that I would be free to continue exploring; this admittedly did go quite some way to breaking my immersion while looking around abandoned buildings and closed off exteriors. I could speak about the music until I'm blue in the face, but all you really need to know is that Gustavo Santaolalla once again knocked it out of the park, but the addition of Mac Quayle and his unique, almost Hans Zimmer-like touch with the wailing of strings, brass, and guitar blaring scenes into life, screaming at you to take action, is also excellent. It adds an entirely new soundscape to the soundtrack when compared with the first game, a whole other dimension of music to demand your attention on a whim. I also think that what Naughty Dog has accomplished with this game with regards to accessibility is nothing short of brilliant, and it puts many other meagre AAA efforts to shame. I found myself spending 5 minutes just looking through them at the start of the game, and I seriously do hope that it shines a beacon to those less abled gamers that there are studios who are more than happy to put in the extra time and money so that you can share in experiences those more able than themselves often take for granted - myself included. It's worth checking out this video (don't worry, no spoilers there either) if you weren't already aware of the accessibility options in this game. I really think it's worth the time to take a look so as to appreciate it, but also, I think it's just great to have that perspective of how fortunate many of us are. I know I take it for granted a lot, especially in my love of playing games, and so I hope this only continues to be something we see trend on a larger scale in the coming years. The Last of Us Part II is a game like no other. Heck, at times, I think it's unfair to compare it to other games, it almost feels like it's redefined what a video game story can be. Time and time again I found myself being offered a string of QTE's in important cutscenes, struggling against characters this game told me were the bad guys, but with its sense of perspective and its attempts to challenge your own desires to "be the good guy" and "do the right thing", more than once I found myself looking away from the screen, lost in this grey moral area, hesitating to press square. If that doesn't speak to the power of video games as a storytelling medium - to gain perspective, empathy, and introspective moral questioning - I don't know what can. Yes, you have to be in the mood to play this game; yes, it is going to take a toll, in a number of ways. But, by its end, it is a brilliantly stunning, horrifyingly human, meandering epic of a game, and despite its flaws, I implore you, if you haven't already, to experience The Last of Us Part II.

Digital Foundry with the Series S vs X comparison video: I won't lie, I've had to talk myself out of keeping an eye out for a Series S a few times in the last couple of weeks. Mainly for legacy Star Wars titles and the older Xbox catalogue, and I don't have much interest in going physical when I do pick an Xbox up (much as I love it, Game Pass pretty much ensures I won't be going that way). Only think I'm missing is the juice from the Series X. Hopefully they'll put out an all-digital version at some point?

Heck yeah! Fingers crossed it's all smooth from here, I know they had some issues with one or two of their Xbox deliveries last week, but I think that just comes with the territory, and hopefully they've got any of those kinks knocked out! Don't imagine I'll be getting another update from GAME until Wednesday when it ships, and then it's onto waiting from Yodel. It's weird because I've only historically heard bad things about them, and not had great experiences with them myself, but apparently they were pretty solid last week for Very in delivering the Series X | S. Everything is crossed. This week is going to be weird, when I don't think about it, it's going fast with work...and when I get excited, it's another three whole days! Managed to agree with my manager to finish nearly an hour and a half on Thursday after staying over and doing some extra work last week, so hopefully it shows up around lunch for me to set it up and I can jump on soon after. If not, oh well, I'll just have to distract myself with a film or something, otherwise I'll be waiting by my machine for a few hours!