Julius

Finished Chapter 16 tonight. Not sure quite how much is left, but I feel like it's coming to a close, so I'm half expecting to see credits roll tomorrow. Weird hit boxes, some seriously temperamental enemy AI, and a couple of times where the solution isn't made as clear as it perhaps could be. Over 20 hours in and that's my full list of complaints for the game, alongside a few much smaller nitpicks. This game is a gem. Great cast. Incredibly detailed world and story. Politics and war being treated with the respect they deserve in a story like this, and no punches pulled in doing that. Lovely art style. A few moments where they use gameplay to convey an important story moment which I'm almost always an absolute sucker for. Maybe one of the more natural romances I've seen in a video game so far, too? Excited but sad at the thought of my time with this game being over tomorrow. You know that feeling when you have a certain type of mint which just suits where you're at in that moment, and you feel pleasantly refreshed? That's how I'd best try to describe my time with this game.

Vicarious Visions have put up a Spotify playlist featuring 18 tracks which will presumably be in the game. The tracklist: Shout-out to Superman being the best track. Ahem. Also teasing a bunch more songs returning in this promo for the game's soundtrack:

I mean, optimistically, sure, I'd hope so. But Guerrilla always gave me the impression that they're very, very driven to push the Decima engine forward in a lot of ways, and I suppose it depends entirely on their ambitions with this game. If they add flying (as @Goron_3 mentioned could be the case) and climbing mechanics, and it takes place in an entirely new area, then I'm not too sure. But hey, I'd love for it to come out at launch, don't get me wrong! But I do think they need to space them out, because they don't have the need to burn all of their first party exclusives in that first year - they're still flying high, and I think this could be more of a "you're investing in this console this Christmas for these games, whether they release this year, the next, or after that".

Man, I really hope so! Definitely have the feeling that the focus during their touted event is going to be entirely on games and not necessarily on the system itself. Wouldn't surprise me at all if the console, launch date, and price were revealed in the week or so leading up to that event to allow for that, or if they instead just got that out of the way in the first 5-10 minutes. Feel like it would be overshadowed a bit if they went with the latter option, though. I'm hoping we see a good amount. One or two exclusive titles in that first two or three months that make up the launch window. I imagine there'll potentially be something from Square Enix (FFVII Remake Pt. 2 tease? FFXVI tease?) and Capcom (Resident Evil), and probably some other Japanese third parties who are on great terms with PlayStation that might want to show something off here, even if it's only a tease for their own event. Way too many rumours being thrown around about PlayStation being on friendly terms with Konami lately, don't want to get my hopes up but man, what a dream that outcome would be. Games like Spider-Man 2, God of War 2, Horizon 2, etc., are probably like Q4 2021 at the earliest (and that's being optimistic given the current state of affairs), but it wouldn't surprise me if they have showings for some of those games that are obviously a while off, but can demonstrate the PS5's capabilities and serve as a promise of things to come on the system. It lines up pretty well, with Horizon released Q1 2017, GoW Q2 2018, and Spider-Man Q3 2018, so I think demonstrations like the God of War E3 2016 reveal/demo are somewhat realistic. Again, though, wouldn't be surprised if they scrapped any potential release windows for those games and kept it vague, given COVID-19's impact on their development. Either way, I'm very excited to see what's in store, as it looks like we all are. Fingers crossed everything goes to plan for them!

100%! Don't think it took more than two strikes to take out any of those enemies - will probably be a different sort of case for bosses (?), but it just adds to the realism and immersion. Having a variety of ways to take everything on, in this case as Samurai or Ghost, is something I am always all for. The way the world (with the wind!) and it's wildlife guide you is going to be great. The Photo Mode is stupidly detailed. The customisation options are plentiful. Giving us the chance to choose our dub preferences at the beginning is wonderful.The Samurai Cinema mode with the film grain and black and white filter looks incredible. The fact that they've put years into making the game look as vibrant and varied as it does in colour emphasises just how much this team clearly has a passion for the samurai films of old. Oh man, I'm so stupidly excited for this! What a way for the PS4 to bow out (at least in terms of exclusives)!

Here's the State of Play. The game looks absolutely phenomenal.

Yeah, looks like it still have free shipping on existing pre-orders and orders over £50, so would probably get around it by pre-ordering more than one game at a time? SimplyGames still do free Royal Mail First Class shipping for the time being, though the game has yet to go for pre-order there.

After reading what everyone's said about the battle system, yeah, I think I'll wait to see a bit more before committing to picking this up. It looks fun and colourful. At the very least, it makes me want to play the older games for the first time. Also lends a lot of credence to that Mario Anniversary report from a little while back about 64, Sunshine, Galaxy (and 2?), and 3D World Deluxe coming to Switch this year, seeing as a new Paper Mario being part of the lineup was also rumoured too. That's probably the most exciting part of this for me at the moment

Haven't played the original or The Thousand Year Door yet (something I'll rectify when they bring them to Switch...right, Nintendo?), but man, I am all about this art style. I'm certainly interested. Nintendo just dropping news like this out of the blue is always great. Still the Kings of Left Field. Strong counter to Ghost of Tsushima, which comes out on the same day. Guess that's going to be a busy weekend EDIT: Nintendo JP have out a short clip of the battle system in action...

I mean, having a look, those remasters were handled by Robomodo, and none of their games ring a bell for me as being critically praised. This is being handled by Vicarious Visions, who handled the Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy a couple of years back, and who has people who worked on the original Pro Skaters 2 - 4, and had a hand in some other great PS1 games. Totally understand the caution about the inclusion of manuals and revert, but yeah, everything they've said and done before leads to what Tony was saying about these guys being the best to handle this probably being right. But time will tell I guess!

Full interview with Epic for context: The absolutely required viewing Digital Foundry breakdown is up: It's kind of crazy that, at least from what I've seen everywhere, this tech demo has a much better reception than Xbox's game reveals last week. Sony are absolutely in control of their messaging at this point, and are nailing it - what could you give more confidence than having the creator of the Unreal Engine, Tim Sweeney, say that "Sony's PS5 storage system is absolute world class. Best on any platform. Better than any high-end PC. It's a dream come true"? It inspires a sort of confidence in what Mark Cerny was talking about a couple of months ago being the right direction for platform architecture going into this next gen. Imagine that once the Ghost of Tsushima State of Play is out of the way tomorrow, we're going to finally see some more about PS5 and it's games in the next two or three weeks. Very excited.

Previews and 15 minutes of gameplay going up in most places: And Gamexplain spoiling us with the soundtrack comparisons... Found myself just skipping around some of the gameplay videos to get a better feel for the world and the soundtrack. Yeah, like I could be much more excited to dive into this for my first time looks and sounds incredible, really excited for the 29th! Nearly made it!

Some official wallpapers...for your desktop have been put up on Nintendo's website. They're all either promotional art or in-game screenshots. Pokémon Sword and Shield definitely come off the worst of those. Xenoblade Chronicles looks like it was made to be seen on as desktop wallpapers.

Okay, so some screenshots of the first Mafia game looks incredible. Definitely remade. Safe to say I'm in now, if I wasn't before.

Okay, so it's an Unreal Engine demo running on PS5 and talk about their new tech. Looks fantastic, always love watching a good tech demo. Not a fan of the carefully stepping through a tight space, though. I know it's a very, very high end tech demo, much more complex than most games will be for some time, but man, you probably shouldn't be showing off a loading screen transition into a cutscene in this thing. Honestly, this got me much more excited for next gen than what Xbox showed off last week. EDIT: And Unreal Engine 5 confirmed, coming next year.

More info coming next Tuesday. Recently finished the second game, haven't played the first even though I've heard great things, and haven't got any experience with the third either (about which I've heard some not-so-great things).

Don't worry, Stadia will probably be next, if that makes you feel any better

PS4 has now shipped over 110.4 million units worldwide. Some more highlights from PlayStation's end of FY briefing...

Speaking of...some more gameplay with Tony over on Jack Black's YouTube channel:

Played a few more hours of this this evening, got to the end of Chapter 9, still having a good time with it. Chapter 8 with the sneaking around in an SRPG was a welcome change of pace after Chapter 7 (particularly loved the character development in Ch. 8, with the treatment of the enemy soldier, Rosie and Largo starting to come around to Isara, etc.), and Chapter 9's battle was unique compared to the rest of the battles so far. The variety in map layout, squad builds, and main objective in each battle is different almost every time, and it gives the game a good flow in this regard. Again, love just how much work has been put in outside of the battles, such as with the inclusion of the, Audience Hall, which lets be frank is wholly unnecessary, but a neat touch nonetheless.

What's really weird to me is that Keighley's event tomorrow is an interview. If they're related at all (which they probably aren't), then I think there's probably only one scenario which suits it. I mean, considering how PlayStation have handled the reveal of everything for the PS5 so far - the logo, those WIRED articles, the controller? - would it really be that insane tomorrow if they revealed the design of the console itself in an interview with Cerny or someone? And then having some gameplay of a game like Demon's Souls and the announcement of the PS5 blowout in June, which lets face it, is looking to be a much stronger focus on software than previous events of the same nature? I don't actually think this would be that insane...if this was going to be delivered in any medium other than a video call. Unless they've got something pre-recorded? It's just really weird. The handling of everything else so far shows that they could just stick an image of the console out there on their MySpace page and have it catch fire. The only other interview I could possibly imagine Geoff hyping to this level would be something like an interview with Kojima. But there's no way he's prepared to be teasing something yet... right? Watch this all totally be off the mark and be an interview with someone like Reggie announcing GameStop's big push to move into the modern era or something.

Okay, so Geoff isn't trying to temper expectations ahead of tomorrow's event like he was for today's. And GameStop Italy is teasing news of a returning PS exclusive franchise coming tomorrow... Hmm.

The announcement was Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1+2! Big get by Keighley.

Revealed during today's Summer Game Fest! Brought into the modern era by Vicarious Vision, who handled the Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy. Original maps, skaters, and songs from the original soundtrack, and new features like online multiplayer.