Julius

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!

Spent a few hours with this game over the weekend, not as long as I might have liked but got to the start of Act 2. Overall, I'm quite enjoying it. Gunplay is surprisingly fun and tight considering this is CDPR's first go at it (right?), and driving and moving around is pretty tight too. I wouldn't say it's best in class in any of these regards, but it's better than I think it could probably get away with being on the lower side. The game looks visually stunning, but I'm glad I turned off all those settings I mentioned before, certainly looks much better in my opinion without them; weirdly, I started the game up today and it hadn't saved my settings from yesterday, only noticed because I had a Maelstrom member in my face and there were lens flares all over the damn screen!). Haven't really found much of a flow to it until the end of the first act (which is a loooooooot of story and set pieces), only popping out of my car on the odd occasion when there's something going on nearby on the mini map. I'm hoping I find a better flow to it in Act 2, but yeah, as far how I normally play open world games, this one has had me far from my normal playstyle, at least up to this point. Still finding myself adjusting to the menus too, and found it really weird how during one set piece where you don't have a weapon, picking one up doesn't automatically add that weapon to a slot, and instead I found myself digging through the menu to equip it? Made for some odd pacing...that and changing weapons after running out of ammo firings encounters. Playing it on a PS5 and it has (generally) run well so far, frame rate has been a pretty stable 60 fps from what I could tell, with only a dip or two here and there, and I've only experienced noticeable texture pop-in on two occasions: once during the real time montage at the start (literally blink and you miss it, because I spotted it and suddenly was being shown a different location which looked much, much better), and when you first get into an open area outside of V's apartment building. Not to say I haven't come up against bugs elsewhere, though, because I've come across a few. Nothing like floating cigarettes or anything like that, but just bizarre things. Early on in the training courses, I'd complete them, screen would fade to black to send me back to the training hub, and then I would be spinning for no apparent reason. Every. Time. Hasn't happened again at all since I left that area, either, so that was odd. Had another time where I called for my car, and I had a crash in a tunnel down the road from me; my car had spawned in a position where it was clipped into another vehicle, it flipped that vehicle, and it broke out in flames. There was a time super early on where I was still adjusting to the controls and would just randomly wanted to test things, so I punched a civilian, and people ran away and ducked in terror, as they do. A minute late I arrive at my next spot to continue the story aaaaaaaand there's an NPC crouched over at the doorway blocking my entrance, and nothing I would do could move them (I couldn't punch or shoot them), so I had to close the game. Something which has happened multiples times is enemies spawning in walls, or being able to clip through them, which has been...interesting. And then there's just the AI in general, which seems really hit and miss. Some gunfights will be tense showdowns, other times I can literally walk up to them in full view of others and shoot them three times in the head, without any acknowledgement by any of them that their buddy is being shot. Also, what the heck is up with the traffic in this game? So far all the traffic I've come across has been crawling along at a snail's pace, to the point I'm breaking my own immersion and driving on the wrong side of the road more often than not, which causes car crashes that absolutely no-one seems to care about or react to! Not to mention the endless onslaught of cars stopped at green lights or halfway through a turn (on the other hand something nice I've noticed is the light changing to green whenever you drive up to a red light, though, which I thought was pretty cool). Oh, and I've had two software crashes. One time between loading screens in a string of cutscenes/conversations at the end of Act I, and another time when I opened the phone to send a message. Anyways, I don't mean to come down too hard on the game, because I've been enjoying it. Something I've got to mention is what happens at the end of Act I... So, yeah, so far, been enjoying my time with the game, but have yet to really be blown away. But I'm sure there's plenty left to see, so hopefully that will change!

It's been a while, but finally a worthwhile update on this from Granblue Fantasy Fes 2020 earlier today. Unsurprisingly, a PS5 version of the game has been confirmed to be in the works in addition to the previously announced PS4 version. It has been announced that a worldwide launch is being targeted for 2022! In addition, a 23 minute gameplay demo was also shown off at the event (below is the video to the entire Fes stream, but I've placed the starting point at the start of the demo). Exciting times ahead! Shame it's not a 2021 title, but I think this is for the best, considering potential impacts on development due to COVID, and of course wanting them to knock it out of the park. It was confirmed during Fes that the game is currently in it's alpha version. Seems increasingly likely that Platinum's work on the game was scrapped, but hopefully the team learned from some of the mistakes made there, or at least were given a clearer idea of what they wanted as a result.

It's landed!

Just finished Chapter 15, thought it was solid. Not the best, not the worst, just solid. Got another awesome new rendition of the main theme near the start which I really liked. Not too much else I want to say other than... Roll on Chapter 16 I guess, I'm ready for this finale!

Presentation is going to be at 22:00 GMT on the 17th.

Is it weird that I'm more excited for this new Buzz Lightyear film (based on the fictional astronaut the you is based on) than I was for Toy Story 4?

Oh yeah, I totally agree! It's a strange one. I love it, but I agree it's odd to go with this character of all of the third party characters now. Not to mention the long list of Nintendo characters people have been hoping for forever. It does make me wonder if this was a Sakurai or Nintendo choice - I can't remember as I haven't been following Fighter Pass 2 as closely, did they say who chose the additional fighters like they did with the first Pass?

Yeah, I can certainly empathise with those who either haven't played or aren't fans of FFVII, especially seeing as it's another sword wielder. As for the reasoning, I think it still makes sense in that Final Fantasy VII is the biggest JRPG not called Pokémon and that this gets some tie-in promotion to the Remake project (I know it's mostly been associated with PlayStation, though I do guess the original is on the eShop?), and for Dragon Quest in the last Pass I think it made sense considering that it's the godfather of JRPG's and is still a series adored in Japan.

Above all else, I just love that this paints Sakurai as... I think this is my favourite Smash reveal to date by far, I've never been so hyped up by one before, and had a smile on my face the entire time. It singlehandedly has me buying the second Fighters Pass, and I only dip in and out of the game for local co-op sparingly now as it is. Guess that's going to have to change now

Having trouble getting to sleep, but just seen the GOTY given out and realised it's over and...wow, my subscription feed has very little to be excited about. Smash reveal, a pretty big Xbox announcement, and an update on a PlayStation title we knew about effectively summarises the whole show for me just judging from my feed. It was the best Smash reveal ever, though, so I'll give them that. Also that GOTY medley was awesome! Absolutely agree with @killthenet about ending it on Animal Crossing, that transition was so smooth! As for GOTY, it's tough because for all four games I played which were nominated, I think they would all be more than deserving (and I don't doubt that Hades would have been too, from how I've seen that game be praised here and elsewhere). Still surprised by the winner though, considering how toxic a vocal minority of gamers have been, but yeah, now that something else has won I kind of would have liked for Animal Crossing to take it. That game was such a great way to de-stress at the start of all of this...in fact, I've been feeling a bit stressed again lately, so might need to hop back in!

Teaser trailer from The Game Awards: Don't know why they didn't just wait for this to announce the new game instead of doing so before, but oh well

Announced as releasing 19th March 2021 at The Game Awards, and for a new trailer too:

Wasn't planning on watching live but caught one or two things in-between the Disney Investor meeting and kind of glad I didn't watch it in the end. Don't get me wrong, Smash Bros. Fighter Pass 2 Character 3 is awesome, and so are some of the other trailers, but it's as @Dcubed said, there's just so much being rushed through to get back to the trailers. I mean, even the Mario 35th anniversary medley was extremely rushed. Like, physically rushed. It felt like they asked how many Mario tracks they could recognisably squeeze into two minutes? I'm calling it there and catching up on highlights when it's over, this thing is far from over and it seems to be going at a strange place. Hoping to wake up to some awesome reveals those staying up to watch will get to enjoy!

A lot of news coming out of the Disney Investor Day meeting. This is insane. Kevin Feige also reiterated that Black Panther will not be recast and they will continue the story in Wakanda with the character's stories they have already begun telling.