Julius

Jason Schreier has just released a piece on this for Bloomberg: At work at the moment so won't get a chance to read it until later, but those excerpts aren't exactly flattering. There need to be more effective ways to protect employees from this, and given everything else that goes in the industry with crunch, mistreatment, etc., it still boggles my mind that this is an industry without a unified union. It might be more difficult to put together than say what's in place in Hollywood, given the global scale of the video game industry by comparison as opposed to it being focused in one hotspot, but something has to be done.

Honestly, I'd much rather they just wait until they have more games to show. What they had to day, at least for me, just felt like too little. @Ganepark32 mentioned what PlayStation did with sharing their trailers the other day for the indies they were showing off, just dropping the trailers at regular intervals that day on Twitter, and honestly something closer to that would have worked for the titles we saw in this Direct Mini. There just wasn't enough to really dig into, and it felt like it had barely even begun before it was over. Thing is, I feel like now more than ever their entire audience can appreciate that they might be having difficulties just like everyone else with production and working from home, whether it be recording, compiling and cutting together a Direct, or just having game be delayed. Trying to save face with investors is going to hurt them more than anything, I just wish they'd be more open with what's going on, because otherwise what you end up with is an install base which is (somewhat rightly, at this moment in time) concerned about what will be in stores for them in this second half of the year. It's a bit concerning to me that we might end up knowing the launch lineups for next gen consoles and their release dates before we know what Nintendo has in store for us come September and October. And this is from someone who is happy with what they've played on the Switch this year, Animal Crossing and Xenoblade Chronicles were awesome and long experiences which I greatly enjoyed. I think they set the bar really high with their E3 2019 showing too in terms of reveals and announcements (two Smash characters and the BotW sequel is the embodiment of hype) so I do feel that, to some extent, they've made themselves the victims of their own success. Nervous if they continue with the Partners Showcase, but we'll have to wait and see. I'd be surprised if we got through to September with a tried and true Direct (or even a more typical Direct Mini), so there's always reason to be optimistic that something will turn up that we're going crazy over sooner rather than later.

Put a few more hours in this evening, making some decent progress, but this might be my last update for a few days until I've got this second act completed, mainly because I want to throw some thoughts and events in some spoiler tags. And some life stuff. But today I had by far my favourite duel and favourite "huh, what's that over there?" moment, and would love to discuss it a bit further at some point, and throw some photos in that spoiler tag too. Oh and I still can't stop taking screenshots. For now, what I want to focus on is this game's polish. It looks brilliant, I think that much is evident, and mechanically its great too, but, during my session today there were a few times where I was like "huh, QA didn't get that one I guess?" Disclaimer, my PS4 ran a bit hot and is a base model. But I still think it's all worth bringing up, especially because I want to be honest about this game's flaws, as much as I have loved it so far. My first weird experience today came in the form of following a fox from a Fox Den to the nearby shrine. Everything goes fine, I find the shrine, go up to press R2 aaaaaand all I'm getting is the circle begging for me to get close or change my perspective to press R2. I do everything under the sun, but it's just not accepting my R2 input. Finally, after circling the shrine from further and further away and returning to it time and time again, after circling it from some 20m away it finally gives me the prompt to press R2. Thank goodness. I had another experience which was very similar: wiped out a load of Mongols on the road, went to save the damsel in distress aaaaaand it's telling me that there are enemies nearby. I circled the area aiming a bunch of wind chimes at a distance of 10m or so (this would show any enemies in range from where it would land) and there was clearly no-one around. Normally I'd be concede that it's no big deal, whatever, and move on, but these NPC's that you save can often offer information on spots you might not have visited yet, so it is kind of a big deal for a game like this (and for someone like me scouting every inch of this island). After a minute or so, she finally accepts my help and concedes that there were no enemies nearby. Something I've found increasingly annoying too is that when you're on a beam and want to jump down, you can press circle to do so. Surely that would carry over to the edge of a roof, right? Nope. You can't roll from the roof either, meaning that if you're using stealth, you have to JUMP down by pressing X and preparing for the absolute worst, because there's a decent chance you'll end up an arm and a leg away from where you intended, in the middle of a Mongols' Monday night dinner party. There was also a time where I was busy liberating a village and ended up in a showdown in this old abandoned house on stilts with a bunch of Mongols, and tried to roll out of the way. I phased through the floor and ended up in the space below, waist deep in water. I think Jin might be taking his title of Ghost a bit too literally. Last one: I mentioned yesterday that I finished Act One and went back to Izuhara to complete everything I hadn't been able to before that final mission, including some events that popped up. Turns out that I was actually in a weird space between Act One and Two, and that once I travelled 50m into the second region and it showed that I had now started the second act, I checked my map and was treated to them making a big deal out of some areas which Mongols had taken over since the end of Act One...as in the activities added post-Act One, which I had already completed. Just weird things like that where I'm surprised no-one picked up on it, especially when there are lovely little polished quality of life choices made which almost give a false sense of polish for the rest of the game. I think my best example of this would be after completing some light but quite drawn out platforming to get to a shrine, turning around and making towards the stairs (even if they're long gone) gives you the option to descend the shrine. As much as I'm loving it, I do feel like the game could have done with some extra polish. I think that Sucker Punch and Sony have rushed it out of the door to some extent, and thing is I feel like a lot of it will be brushed aside because it's an open world game, so there are bound to be bugs. Even if the reasoning for it is that it was promised as a PS4 title and they want it out before the PS5, I do feel like it could have done with a bit more time in the oven. Because I would have loved it even more. Also @dan-likes-trees glad to see you're enjoying it! Haha, totally agree on this feeling like a de-stress after TLOU2. The contrast in their colour palettes is night and day (and honestly, GoT is much more vivid in its palette than most realistic games these days), so it's a welcome change in atmosphere, colour, soft music, natural sounds, and tone after the intense experience of TLOU2. Also agree with the comment on particles, it gets pretty annoying after a while when trying to line up a perfect shot and a butterfly zooms on by! I thought the same of Jin to begin with, but I think he improves quite a bit as a character from that point. Really funny the deeper I get into the game seeing just how strongly Sucker Punch based Jin on Toshiro Mifune. EDIT: Also completely forgot to mention that I've already maxed out the stance and samurai skill trees. Time to focus on becoming the Ghost!

Well, uh...I think that's the weakest Direct I've ever seen? An update on SMT V is cool (even if I did feel like the trailer was pretty tame), but yeah, that was a bit worse than I had expected it to be.

An actual reason to bump: coming 2021.

It's up. Thoughts before watching: my expectations are low, but still excited to see what they might have in store for us. I just wish that Nintendo were a bit more transparent about the difficulties that they're having at the moment with working from home, I know that they want to assure investors that things are fine, but it's still odd to me. The way they handled Prime 4 shows they can be transparent when they need to be, too.

Another hundred screenshots or so later and I am now somewhere between 25 and 30 hours in, at a guess. I completed the first act around 5-10 hours ago, but it didn't make it all that clear that the quest I was doing was to take on the end of act one, and it locked me out of the rest of the map for a good while there...so had to backtrack to liberate the rest of Izuhara as I had planned to before pushing ahead. Which I then went on to do. It was just as well, seeing as some more stuff is added to the map after completing that act. I have now liberated every village in that region and done as much side stuff as I could find (I'm sure I've missed some Fox Dens here and there, but the map is mostly filled in). I've maxed out my number of charm slots, almost completed a lot of the Samurai and stance skill trees, etc., and there aren't any question marks or quests left...so I'm pushing ahead for now. Can always come back later. I hope. Outside of the game looking insanely good, the combat has really clicked and I am loving it. Still feel like a lock-on would make it even better, but the heft of the sword, slightly delayed response to button presses, and lining up combos and special moves just makes it so much fun. When all is said and done, this might be my favourite sword fight system in a game. Not only that, it's got me thoroughly hooked. The story has improved so much from the early rough start it had (with some bad pacing my main problem), with characters that are easy to become attached to, character arcs are starting to become a bit clearer, and the way the characters interact with the world just adds so much depth. For a main cast in an open world game, this I think is as good as it gets. Not only that, but side quests flesh out so much of the world, and for the first time in an RPG that doesn't have a 'J' in front of it, I care enough to actually seek out these side quests and learn more about these NPC's, whether it's chasing down some bandits after a roadside clash, liberating villages, or helping a mother come to terms with the loss of her family. My favourite so far is probably the samurai at the onsen. Add to that the excellent environmental game design, and how the world leads you to more activities (whether yellow birds or foxes, or in some cases tree and flower colours), and this is quickly becoming a game that I'm struggling to put down. Also: swiping right on the touchpad to flick the blood off your katana

Nice pics @martinist! I've spent far too long playing around in photo mode, took over a hundred screenshots today alone... Some of my favourites: This is hands down one of my favourite games to just look at and take in, I'm having a blast taking so many screenshots. Only other game I've gone this crazy on the screenshots with was Breath of the Wild. One of the best looking worlds of this gen for me. Probably around 10 - 15 hours in now. For anyone wondering, I'm taking it slow and doing everything I can in an area before moving on (seeking out collectibles, freeing every settlement, doing every quest, etc.), and I'm still in the first act (I would guess that's of three, but I seriously have no idea). Based purely on that guess and the number of settlements I've given freedom to do far, I think I'm around a quarter of a way through my playthrough? At this point I've got used to the combat and really enjoying it (when not overwhelmed by arrows or too many enemies). I still think that the lack of a lock-on hurts the experience with combat overall. Slowly got used to using R2 too, but there are still a number of occasions where it just doesn't feel natural to press it and I try just about everything but that. I've only got one stance left to unlock, stances and switching between them clicked a few hours ago. A slight pet peeve relating to that though is the tip turning up to change stance gets very annoying after one or two times, like cool I get it Water is the way to go against Shield, but that guy just turned up in the middle of a battle where I've only face guys wielding only swords! It actually slows down time and freezes gameplay at times when it comes up. Might need to dig into the options to sort that out. Other than that, the story has improved quite a bit since the opening. I like how the quests have you interacting much more with other characters in the world (whether protecting them, fighting against enemies with them, or just riding around together), and the characters are really growing on me. Kenji is probably my favourite so far, a few laughs thanks to that guy, who has a great intro. Music has been really solid too, my favourite part of when I played on Friday was the title being presented and the music soaring with it. For those curious: Having a good time with it, in no rush to finish at all (hope to at least finish the first act by the end of tomorrow, though!) but I plan to stick to how I've been playing up until this point...unless the game just drops off a cliff somewhere. A little anxious that the other major areas I've yet to visit might feel too similar to what I've seen so far, I'm hoping to at least see some snow to shake it up a bit (I haven't seen any yet). Also straw hat + cape = coolest Jin. I've got quite a few sets of armour now but the Traveller's Attire paired with a nice straw hat just looks fantastic.

Yeah, there really wasn't that much to it. It was always going to be weird just seeing the controller and being told how nice it feels, what the haptic feedback and adaptive triggers are like, etc., but still felt like a bit of a letdown. Only thing I liked as something to take away from this is that we'll hopefully stop seeing a dozen articles every week titled "PS5 PRE-ORDERS GO LIVE TOMORROW?!" with Eric talking about how we'll definitely know ahead of time. Though that does make me nervous about scalpers (but then that recent article about boosting initial production from 6 million to 9 million units will hopefully stop that being too much of a factor). Still, as someone who has yet to play any of the Astro Bot games (waiting for that PSVR2 to play Rescue Mission!), it's definitely got me a little more excited to play it while waiting for everything to install.

Put a few hours into this earlier this evening (finishing Arkham Asylum for the first time took up much more of my day than I had thought it might ). I've got to say...I'm pretty mixed on the experience so far? On the one hand, this game looks incredible. Weather effects, lighting, the leaves, the way the sky and clouds play off each other to produce these beautiful dusks, dawns, and sunsets, not to mention that trademark golden afternoon hue. The colour palette is also so vibrant and lively, it's a pleasure to just look at this game. The music and world design (forests, fields, villages and paths) all come together in a way which just nails everything you'd expect from a game with samurai. The giant plumes of smoke, swiping up on the touch pad to let the wind direct you, wildlife leading you, the world just naturally guides you; seriously great world-game design. The blood spatter, character models, and combat all look great, and feed into that samurai love even further. The sound design is excellent too. Kudos to Sucker Punch for all of that. Oh, and you can sit by a lake and write a haiku. Most peaceful gaming experience I've had all year. But on the other hand...man, this game's story starts out rough. The pacing of the first hour or two is undeniably poor, it just jumps around non-stop before finally throwing the reins over to you. It hasn't done much to endear me to anyone other than Jin (the protagonist) so far. Stealth mechanics have been kept at a minimum so far, so can't comment too much on them I feel, but honestly, I much prefer just going full samurai and challenging folks to duels. It also took me some time to adjust to what I feel is a really awkward button layout, case in point: R2 to talk, squeeze through gaps, and climb onto your horse? Compare that to every other first party Sony game (or heck, most AAA games) and that's just an odd decision. And while I've adjusted to the slower paced nature of combat and am enjoying it, having arrows fired at you from a distance on multiple occasions by Mongol archers, when it takes so little to die in this game (you start with very little health, and getting hit can take out a sizeable chunk of your health bar even with where I'm at now), just doesn't add anything to the experience, and I'd say is actually detrimental to the point of it getting frustrating. But the most egregious thing I've noticed: who on Earth signed off on this game not having a lock-on target for combat? I swear I'm spending just as much time fighting the camera as I am the Mongols. Maybe even more! It's genuinely insane to me that this game doesn't have a lock-on. Oh, and just a heads-up for anyone wondering, I'm playing the game with its English dub. Not because I wanted to, but because a) Sucker Punch seriously don't know how to effectively size and position subtitles, and b) because the game was designed around an English script, meaning that it isn't lip synced and can look pretty odd if you play with Japanese audio. A shame, because I was really looking forward to playing it with Japanese audio and English subtitles after how much I've enjoyed that being the case with the Yakuza series. So, yeah, a real mixed bag for me so far. I'm going to stick with it until the end, so I'm curious to see how my thoughts change over the course of the game, and with regards to the controls, I'm sure it's something I'll become accustomed to, but some of these design and control layout decisions just seem kind of poor to me.

Keighley hooking us up with the DualSense scoop at 17:00 BST: Wonder what game he might demo as part of this? Think Astro's Playroom probably makes the most sense to showcase the DS's features, and considering that it'll be pre-loaded too, it'd be my bet. Link to stream:

Oh man, the one time in the last few months I chose not to go with ShopTo! Think my copy will probably end up arriving tomorrow, but I don't mind, still got plenty to play (probably need to finish Arkham Asylum today!). Have fun, looking forward to reading your early impressions

Obligatory Digital Foundry breakdown:

I've had it downloaded for a while now, but having not played many other Metroidvanias has me on the fence on whether I want to dive into Hollow Knight first or get a bit more familiar with the genre. Hmm.

Wollaston, not too far from the canal and right next to the horse's fields. Fun times. I went to school at Ridgewood, chose to go there over some other places mainly because so many of my friends were going there. Followed that up with going to King Edward's for college before everything went down there, then went off to Halesowen after that! And haha that Tesco...it's such an eyesore! Save for the massive Tesco logo I'd swear someone had built a fort in the middle of town, such an ugly thing, and so unnecessarily big too. Having two Aldi stores so close by definitely doesn't do it any favours either. How about you?

Xbox has just dropped some news regarding the Velocity Architecture behind the Series X. Interesting read, but mostly just confirming details which we've seen rumoured or speculated on. Only 9 days until their big showing next week. Look forward to finding out a bit more about what Xbox Game Studios have been up to.

Day 14: Favourite 2D Platformer So, this thread has shed some light on me having not played all that many platformers in general. I've played a number of Mario games (Super Mario Bros., SMB3, Super Mario World, Super Mario Bros. DS, and Super Mario Bros. Wii, off the top of my head) but have only seen credits roll on one (DS, for those wondering). Going to need sit down at some point this summer and right these wrongs. But anyways, this leaves me in a weird position where I'm light on options, which fortunately makes my decision all that much easier. INSIDE is one of the strongest and most nuanced narratives I've played through, and that that comes across in a 2D platformer (I guess you could argue 2.5-D, but point stands) is incredible. It's daunting atmosphere, colour palette, and light puzzle and platforming mechanics come together in a 1984-esque world and prove that a game can be far greater than the sum of its parts. It remains my favourite indie experience to this day. Playdead's other game, LIMBO, is also excellent for similar reasons. Unless you hate spiders.

Reviews have just dropped. Currently sitting at an 84 on Metacritic after 48 reviews.

Day 14: Open World City Game Easily could have mentioned it yesterday, but thought it was best saved for this: Kamurocho, specifically the version in Yakuza 0. I'm sure I'll love the version in Judgement @Mandalore, I'm just not there yet! Bright lights and drunkards line the streets of 1980's Kamurocho, the cosiest city in all of gaming. It's littered with fun mini games, arcade machines, convenience stores, and Japanese eateries, which is all given life by so many of its awesome/hilarious/emotional side quests, as well as the hundreds of punks you'll surely crush on your way around town. I chose 0's Kamurocho above the other versions (Kiwami, Kiwami 2, and 3) I've visited so far as there's nothing quite like your first time in Kamurocho, and this was mine. As @RedShell mentioned before, becoming familiar with the layout and then seeing those changes take place around the district from game to game adds so much, a layer of immersion I honestly don't think I've experienced as organically from any other series that I've played. Honourable mention: Hong Kong in Shenmue II. Side note: yes I've already bought Sleeping Dogs, open world Hong Kong would be my jam, and seeing what @Cube and @Happenstance had to say about it makes me want to play it even more. Not sure if I should just finish my time with the Yakuza series first, though.

Yeah, I really don't think it will be 4 seasons plus like Rebels and TCW were, but I guess we'll have to wait and see. It's essentially a spin-off sequel series to The Clone Wars which will follow characters introduced in the final season, and while I can't wait to see how it unfolds (Matt Michnovetz has written some episodes for Bad Batch, and worked on both the Umbara and Citadel arcs of TCW, for former is one of my favourite arcs in the show, and is almost universally loved by fans for how well it writes clone troopers, so I'm all in), the utilisation of the same font as TCW for its branding (weird thing to point out I know, but in terms of branding alone it's very clearly positioning itself as a TCW spin-off more than anything else) and the fact this is focusing on the Bad Batch means that yeah, at best, unless it blows up in completely unexpected ways, I think this will be a typically long two season show at best, with potentially even shorter seasons than its predecessors. It's just a gut instinct, most of which is based on the info they've shared with us today and how they've treated the animated shows in the past. Realistically, I would guess that it's only been signed off for this first season, and how it's received will help dictate if they're going to go ahead with a second season. Making the seasons shorter to be reactive to that makes the most sense to me. I don't think it will take the role of their main series, though. I think we're about to see Lucasfilm Animation undertake two (potentially three?) major projects concurrently for the first time, and I think the Rebels sequel will very firmly be the core focus of theirs. What happens around that, with shows here and there like Bad Batch to allow them to tell other stories, I think will be much more flexible. Yeah, TROS I think was kind of selfishly rushed out the door by Iger for him to cap off his Disney tenure with the strongest year imaginable: the culmination of Star Wars and the MCU. It really could have done with more time. He and Disney were the ones who didn't give The Force Awakens the extra time that film might have needed too (as much as I enjoyed it, I think the concept art makes it very clear that they had many more original ideas which were scrapped in favour of mirroring A New Hope). And like you said, I think they're trying to line things up so that they have a continuous slate of projects to offer on Disney+, but I feel like it's their inflexibility which might have caused them issues before, so if they do need more time I hope they don't hesitate in making the decision to delay things a couple of months as and when it's needed.

Yeah, I agree, though I think they're preferable to the other characters I think they were potentially lining up for the same treatment from S7. Still, it always hurt that they went with a new set of clone commandos over the return of Delta Squad. But hey, at least Filoni and Lucas made them canon. To some extent. What I wouldn't give for a new Republic Commando game.

My bad! Think I phrased it weirdly, so just to clarify, when I said "both", I was actually referring to the Rebels sequel and Mando S2, not Rebels sequel and Bad Batch. Yeah, I genuinely don't think they've had this in the works too long. In fact, the Bad Batch arc we get in S7 of The Clone Wars is just a fully realised version of a rigged version with basic models which they showed off at SWC 2015. Not to take anything away from the production of the show (looks great, I'm sure some lines were re-recorded too), but I do feel like polishing the show for release had Dave Filoni tossing around ideas for characters from the Bad Batch arc and another arc from the final season, and I'm guessing this one got the green light because it was much better received (and is honestly the more interesting direction to take it in). I'm expecting Bad Batch to a somewhat limited run show, maybe two arcs at maximum, at least the first time around. Think they'll then go on to realising some of the other planned arcs from TCW on an almost annual basis - it's such an easy way to bring people back to Disney+ for a potentially otherwise quiet month. I'd guess this will be Spring/Summer 2021, and the Rebels sequel will be Autumn/Winter 2021. Yeah, definitely expecting some more announcements in the coming month or so. Do you think Mando S2 will get delayed? I know filming finished fine but post-production on a project like this, even with people working from home, just seems like it could potentially not go as smoothly as they'd want. Wouldn't be too surprised if it were to release a bit closer to the end of the year in all honesty.

I'm pretty confident it's on the way, I'm thinking that this is more of a "hey, Clone Wars did some great numbers, we have stories lying around we'd like to tell", etc. I'm fairly confident that Bad Batch will utilise the same assets and same look as The Clone Wars too from what I've read about it, which is why the turnaround could potentially be so quick. The Rebels sequel, after Clone Wars and Rebels, is very likely to have its own distinct art style and assets to hand, and would understandably take longer to turn around. I think they're just saving it for something, along with the trailer for The Mandalorian Season 2 (which still hasn't been delayed from its October 2020 release window). Celebration was supposed to be next month until all of this went down, and both were likely to show up there (even if the Rebels sequel was only going to be a short hint of a trailer - I'm still of the mindset that it was going to be late 2020/early 2021), so it wouldn't surprise me if they have some more reveals lined up but wanted to get this (lesser but still exciting) reveal out of the way first.

Could've gone in the Disney+ thread, but figure it fits in better here. Star Wars: The Bad Batch has just been announced to be coming in 2021, a follow-up spin-off to The Clone Wars! Read around a bit as a lot of rumours have popped up surrounding this and which characters may or may not be returning, the most interesting being that Disney are apparently interested in adapting Dark Disciple to the small screen. Would be very interested in seeing some of those other arcs (Cad Bane Vs Boba please!) teased so long ago, and others only realised in novels to this point, make their way over into Disney+ adaptations.

That's what I thought initially too, but thinking back to the Spider-Man console they put out, as well as some of the other limited edition consoles, I would fully expect to see a very noticeable red spider on it somewhere. I just want an all black version of the console and controller.