Julius

Out of nowhere – and only available for a limited time! Also, a Fire Emblem 30th Anniversary Edition will be available too (while stock lasts).

Confirmed Day 1 apps for the PS5...

The thing that might make this a bit different is that Kojima Productions got a lot of help - temporary workers and from Guerrilla - on Death Stranding. It could just be the case that they're bringing more people into the company on a more permanent basis. Also, worth noting that Kojima announced his deal with SIE in December 2015, and still had a trailer ready for Death Stranding come E3 2016 that June. If it's "only" going to be an in-engine trailer with no gameplay (and let's be honest, isn't that we'd expect to see first from whatever KojiPro does next?), then the job listings might just be a sign of them preparing to ramp up production, but they could feasibly already have something in-engine ready to go. I remember it being a while before we saw any actual gameplay for Death Stranding! Might be me being optimistic, but if not at The Game Awards this year, I still imagine we'd see it at some point next year in some form. All being well, anyways!

@drahkon, no surprises here, but hey, I'll take confirmation! With the timing of this post following yesterday's, wonder if they've got something ready for The Game Awards?

Yep, super similar to Nuktuk, Hero of the South! All this talk about TLA/LoK honestly just makes me wish someone would put some money behind more animated Avatar projects. Would much prefer to see an animated series dedicated to Kyoshi or any other corner of the Avatar universe, and heck, if you want to do a live-action film/series, I'd much prefer they had it be about Roku or Wan. But back to Raya, yeah, I'd be super surprised if the Pixar team hasn't watched at least TLA. Intentional or not, it's a great thing to draw inspiration from! And yeah, hands down The Last Airbender is the best animated series in the west for me, and at the very least on par with my favourite anime. I watched it all the way through for the 6th or 7th time the other month (lost track!), and it's crazy that it's even more relevant to me now a few years into adulthood than it was in my childhood. I always seem to watch Korea when I'm going through a rough patch too, which is always interesting! Well they're saying cinemas, but whether or not that pans out, I guess we'll have to wait and see a bit closer to March. Considering that they've already got Souls coming to Disney+ on Christmas (at no additional cost, thank goodness after the whole Mulan thing!), I'd be very surprised if things have changed enough for them to warrant not having it release on Disney+ over cinemas.

So, the beta for the games from 2018 is currently being streamed live over on Twitch. Imagine it'll get pulled sooner rather than later, but don't want to share it seeing as it wasn't legally obtained. Can find the stream over in this ResetEra thread. Though I think it's ended now. Absolutely insane how many leaks have been coming out of Nintendo recently pertaining to their older games, but those were much, much older than this. The beta had: - Pokémon not available in the full games in places where I think Game Freak said they couldn't be viewed? (i.e. just saw Greninja in a Camp) - one heck of a cool logo and title screen - a fully controllable camera. Worth noting this was some 18 months before release and that's how Route 1 looked. Not that Routes require the most time, and they could have been left until much later, but it does scream that the games were rushed to me (if it wasn't apparent before ). It's been a year since the games released, and it still hurts to think about what these games could have been. Yes they were a runaway success, but man, it just really hurts not seeing Game Freak show any drive or pride in guiding this franchise forwards. It's the biggest entertainment IP in the world, a guaranteed success; this is the equivalent to seeing Star Wars Episode X in a decade or two be an amateur fan film by comparison, with CGI, design, and other technology outdated by some 15+ years, and then destroying the box office! As much as I want Diamond & Pearl remakes to hear what they do with the music, I have so little confidence in Game Freak delivering a game that's just on par with the games they would be remaking and released some 14 years ago for a much, much less capable system. I know some here and elsewhere enjoyed the game, which is awesome, and I'm not saying that Pokémon needs to go completely nuts, but just taking inspiration from games which are a decade old (or more at this point!), like Xenoblade Chronicles and Dragon Quest VIII, would go such a long way to pushing the franchise forwards. That's crazy to me. There's just no excuse in my head. Some might say "but they need to line it up with the anime/TCG/etc.", but good scheduling and a big enough team would undoubtedly be able to handle this. It's frustrating to say it, but it is complete laziness from Game Freak; someone over there needs to grow a backbone, dig their heels in, and take the reins. How have the games got worse over the last decade, considering that their design philosophies were admittedly already quite outdated by the time we reached the DS? It's been 7 years since they put out their first "3D" title with X & Y, and I still can't even use my right stick on my Pro Controller a generation later to control the camera, for crying out loud.

Yeah, 100%. As @bob mentions, that description too...very, very close to that TLA intro we hear from Katara. Tuk-Tuk or whatever his name is seems a dead ringer for Appa, voice/interactions/appearance definitely seem Korra-esque, and the whole vibe seems to be going in that direction. Not necessarily a bad thing, of course, but hope it's not as predictable as the trailer and description at least make it sound!

Not to get carried away, but... That does look like Kojima. Him filming and his clothes definitely make him look even more like Kojima. Death Stranding is out on PC now, and with the launch of next gen next month, and with The Game Awards just a few weeks later...I don't think it would be that crazy to think Kojima Productions could have something to show off here, especially considering just how soon they had something whipped up to show off Death Stranding for the first time at E3 2016. Having only played MGS 1 - 3 from his list of games so far, I'm definitely curious to see what he'll tackle next. Personally I agree with you and hope it wouldn't be horror-related, just because there was way too much buzz around the Silent Hill reboot from the core members of the old team for there to not be anything to it, so even though it would be cool to see him get to realise some of what he showed off to the world in P.T., personally hoping for something completely out of the blue with whatever is coming next!

First trailer for Raya and the Last Dragon:

Probably the most I've spent on gaming in one go, now that I think about it! I started saving at the start of the year, putting aside a healthy chunk of Christmas/birthday/work bonus money, and have been saving a little but fixed amount every month since, which has left me in the position that I could splurge on my day one haul, which will be: Hardware - PS5 - additional DualSense - Pulse 3D Headset - Media Remote (buttons look much more tactile for viewing than the rubber buttons on my Samsung remote, and the PS5 will be taking up the film-playing mantle from the PS4) - Wireless Charging Station Software - Spider-Man: Miles Morales (just the standard edition, might upgrade down the road but I'd rather not have that gold banner on the case ) - Demon's Souls - Cyberpunk 2077 - Astro's Playroom (included) Also got Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity set to arrive the following day, so I should be kept busy up until Christmas! In terms of accessories, I'm really looking forward to getting my hands on the DualSense, and I'm super curious about how their software-implemented 3D audio will play out - really hoping the Pulse headset is comfy! In terms of games, all of the above and everything in store (Ratchet and Clank, God of War, Horizon Forbidden West, XVI!). I'm replaying the PS4 version of Spider-Man right now and forgot just how much I adored this game - I don't think I've quite had the same fun with moment-to-moment gameplay like I have swinging around Manhattan as Spidey, especially when that score swells up, so I cannot wait to play Miles Morales! Demon's Souls I've never played before (or any other From game, for that matter), and this seems as good a place as any to give it a go. Weirdly, Cyberpunk I'm a bit wary of at this point; I'm sure that will change once I get my hands on the game, but I have so many questions about that game and we're only a month away, so don't think concern is completely unwarranted at this very moment. Booked off the 20th (Friday) because I didn't want to book the 19th off only for the console to not arrive until the afternoon - I finish work at 15:30 that day, and work from home, so if the console does arrive before I finish work, I'll take a short break to quickly set it up and start downloading Miles Morales/system updates. I decided to continue with my all-physical approach to games for launch day at least, because I wouldn't be surprised if there's some server strain on PlayStation's end come launch day. Once I finish work, hopefully I'll be able to hop straight into Miles Morales - if not, will probably have a look through the menus and adjust things I hadn't earlier. If it's going to be a crazy amount of time until Miles downloads (which I don't think will be the case at all, I've had a much better time with physical copy times than digital download times!) then I might hop into Astro's Playroom first instead, but knowing myself and how I like to play games, if that happens I probably won't be putting it down and play it until completion. Probably play until midnight-ish? Then on the Friday wake up nice and early, brew a fresh cup of tea, and have some light breakfast while I watch that week's episode of The Mandalorian, before diving into a three day weekend of gaming I think I'll probably complete Miles and Astro's Playroom before the weekend is up, but not sure where I'll go after that. Depending on how well Hyrule Warriors is received it could be that, but then again, think it's much more likely I dive into Demon's Souls to keep the next gen hype rolling. Whatever the case, pretty sure I'll end up playing Cyberpunk 2077 last, just because of how openly that game will be structured - definitely something I'll want to spend my time smelling the roses with! Very important to keep in mind, for sure! We're going to be in a middle ground for at least the next year of games either capable of running on the PS4, or which look like they could have been for the PS4. Not that I mind in the slightest Also worth mentioning, I read that Bugsnax and The Pathless were two games not listed on the PS Store update in the US? Which comes later this week I believe in Europe...perhaps these are going to be the two PS+ games for PS5 next month?

So, uhhhhhh...Petr Cech is registed on our (Chelsea's) PL roster for the season. Imagine he's more there to help the new goalkeepers we have and give us a solid backup option, but would be very funny to see him take 2nd choice over Kepa

What a generation! My face hurts from smiling just thinking back to them, so many great games this gen hopefully they just keep coming with the PS5!

Monster Sanctuary is coming to the Switch on December 8th. Looks like a really unique blend of monster taming and platforming, remember seeing a bit of it last year or the year before, and it's made some huge strides since. One I'll try to keep an eye out for!

Another shorter trailer: More voice acting, seems like everyone but Link and minor characters is getting voiced in this. Wonder if that's a sign of what's to come with the BotW sequel?

It would be great if our government would get off their backsides and did the same thing, but anyways I think it's school as normal after half-term (the second week) for everyone except those above Year 8 in secondary school. Seems like a smart move, don't really understand the nonsense we've seen this past month or so over "kids aren't likely to be hit too hard themselves, but can be carriers, so let's let them loose on the local community and pin the blame on them when things start to go wrong." They had the entire summer to plan for this, and should have expected then to realistically be out of school until after Christmas, and planned accordingly. Feel like my head is consistently in my hands these days when I see some of the poor decisions being made, here and elsewhere, regarding COVID. Never mind all the other stuff going on... Oh dang, stay safe drahkon! How are you doing now with your sense of smell/everything else?

Couldn't sleep, started nosing around, and... How. The. Hell. Did I miss this?! Since when did this happen?! Hunter x Hunter (2011) is on Funimation in the UK...and has been since July?!?! Just snuck on there, months ago, and somehow hasn't turned up in my recommended section on Funimation? Or anyone on my front page?! What the heck?!?! I know I was busy-ish at the time, but still, considering I feel like I keep my ear pretty close to the ground on this...I'm pretty surprised it passed on by. It's the first time the series has its dub completely available in the UK. Also a blu-ray collection on the way at the end of November over here too, Set 1 with episodes 1 - 26 coming on November 30th, which covers the Hunter Exam and Zoldyck Family arcs. It's funny because I've managed to avoid picking up anime series on disc to this point, but I'm not risking not having access to Hunter x Hunter in the future when it inevitably stumbles out of Funimation down the line. Definitely going to be snapping that up! If you haven't watched Hunter x Hunter before, do yourself a favour and change that (and if you have before, this is a perfect excuse to watch it again!). As a bit of a warning, it starts off quite slow and a bit predictable in the earlier arcs (which, not to spoil anything, is kind of by design), and is fairly long (148 episodes in total, longest anime I've watched through by a decent amount...still didn't stop me from binging it under two weeks the first time around, though!), but it is an absolute masterpiece: endearing main cast, a wonderful gallery of antagonists, nuanced character arcs, a deep and storied world, one of the best power systems in any shounen(/combat) show, a masterclass in animation by Madhouse, and an absurdly astounding soundtrack composed by none other than Yoshihisa Hirano (Death Note, Final Fantasy XIII) - I'm talking maybe one of the best OST's, period. It left me wanting more, so much so that I bought the available volumes of the manga and then tracked down translations of the chapters not yet included in volumes. Only downside with the whole thing? You will absolutely come away from the anime wanting more...and there isn't too much more beyond that. Togashi (who also created Yu Yu Hakusho) has unfortunately been on hiatus for a while due to stress and physical ailments, and we haven't had a new chapter for years (very fun when in the middle of probably the most intriguing arc set-up so far). The upside? Trust me when I say that you can watch the anime, and only that, and come away completely satisfied that Hunter x Hunter is just that, 148 episodes of greatness. Unless you hate recap episodes, in which case it's 146 Oh, and it probably has one of the most memorable OP's out there with Departure (by the time the show is done, you will have an on-and-off again relationship with the song, growing to love it, becoming tired of it, punching the air in anticipation of it, and then later crying with it). Great ED's too, Hunting for Your Dream by Galneyrus being my favourite. Love the way the narrator comes in, sets up the next episode, and bails to this This is, without question, my favourite anime series alongside only Steins;Gate and Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, with all three in my eyes being several notches above the rest. This sits alongside them atop my pile of fabled 10's. Do yourself a favour, if you haven't seen it before, and give it a chance of sitting alongside yours

Yeah, it's a great track! Very calm but also kind of melancholic? Perfectly captures the experience I imagine we all had as children just slowly nodding off, and trying to fight off the yawns while doing so. Really reminds me of some Pixar tracks, the one that plays when Sulley puts Boo to sleep in Monsters Inc. in particular (link should be timestamped)! EDIT: found a better example from when he puts her to sleep at the end of the movie. Skip to around 01:57!

Haven't been too well the last week or two, but feeling a little better now I managed to keep on top of the news, but had been drugged up and sleeping a lot (woo), so a lot of it kind of flew over my head at the time. The teardown video was welcome, I'm glad we've got that out of the way now. The design makes much more sense with the context provided in that video, but I won't act like a hardware buff (I'd say my knowledge of it is functional at best), as I'm really just here for the software! The look and size doesn't matter too much to me because I've got the space for it and, again, care much more about what I'm playing than how it looks. My only real concern is regarding the liquid metal solution, the biggest concern being about the console in transit - I have to imagine that there's some cautionary measure Sony have implemented in its design, but it wasn't all that clear here. Removable face panels and dust collecting spots for easy dust removal is a great move when compared with how it worked with the PS4, and I think Sony would be foolish to not offer swappable panels at some point in the future. I've said it before, but giving everyone a white face panel which they'll want to change to black as easily as possible is a really smart business move (even if a bit of a questionable PR one). One of my posts a week or two ago regarding my expectations for the backwards compatibility numbers based on the 1% figure they'd thrown out to us previously and us ending up with only 10 (but now 8) games which won't be playable through backwards compatibility on PS5 is pretty much what I expected, so this is good to see. Wish this was something they nipped in the bud much earlier, to be honest, before the internet ran away with the worst case scenario - one of those things that perhaps they could have communicated better to us. Biggest surprise out of this for me was that delisted games like P.T. would still be playable on PS5, that's super weird, but sure. It's good for game preservation (for those who have it) at least. Finally, the first look at the UI we got earlier this week was pretty solid. I think it looks nice enough, but some of those emptier spaces in the home menu perhaps could have been fleshed out a bit more (I know it's before launch, but just to give us a better idea of how it will look at launch). I like the idea of activities, and think it could be great for hopping back into something to get an idea of what you were doing (such as returning to an RPG after not touching it for a few weeks) or going down the completionist route (Sackboy was a great example for them to use), but I do wish that they would have just come out and say that progression tracking for trophies would be a thing. This seemed like a veeeery roundabout way of saying it without, well, saying it, which makes me a little nervous? Also curious to see just how much support this gets from third parties. I'm one of those who likes to turn trophy notifications off in some games to just immerse myself a bit more, and I can see myself wanting to turn it off to some extent in some games. Cards look nice enough too, but there were a few times where I was looking at it wondering why I had to scroll through so many cards to get my recent screenshot, for example - I'm sure it will improve as we go along, but I'm really hoping that some of this will be customisable, namely the size of things in the home menu and the order of cards. Options are important for those that want them, I think, and looking at how Sony supported Naughty Dog's handling of accessibility with TLOU2 and the PS4's handling of it too, I would be very surprised if the size of some of these things couldn't be manipulated at a minimum. Like the idea of getting hints on what to do next (curious to me that that's a PS+ thing, but I guess it's a very direct way of ensuring that the player has an internet connection? Wonder if some of this will be cached in the background to load it faster), and being able to organise the layout is cool. Don't know if it would necessarily turn completionists off website guides simply because there's so much more info there, but it's a promising start, and I would hope that like with picture-in-picture screen sharing, that some apps could also be used in this way (e.g. Spotify, YouTube, etc.), because personally I'm thinking of the times I'm grinding in a JRPG and end up using my phone to listen to a podcast or more of the game's soundtrack than what is immediately present. And speaking of screen-sharing, I don't know how much I'll use it, but I think it's a really neat idea in the picture-in-picture format specifically. I'm thinking about people picking up a PS5 after not having the PS4/not being into gaming in general, starting up a game in the PS+ Collection and getting a bit lost, and chatting to a friend, sharing their screen when they need a bit of a guidance. Anything you can do to break down those barriers of entry is cool to me, and I'm sure that there will be plenty of other uses for it too, but that's the biggest for me. It's really neat. Same goes for the consolidation of voice chats and PS Messages into seemingly one spot? The biggest takeaway for me though is the PS Store being integrated into the UI/OS rather than being a standalone application, because the PS Store on the PS4 has been a clunky, lagging mess for years now. With how they skipped over it, I think that'll be what they focus on next. I think PlayStation are doing a good job of maintaining excitement for long stretches with the PS5 in ways that Xbox perhaps haven't been trying to, but I think the best comparisons on their respective YouTube channels shows a huge disparity between the two heading into launch. While I appreciate Xbox coming out and giving us a lot of info much earlier, it does feel like they consistently blow their proverbial load way too early (such as with the console design reveal well ahead of when we expected it at least year's Game Awards), and PlayStation is doing a good job of keeping us coming back for more, because there's still quite a bit to cover in the coming weeks. I think a look at the new PS Store will come in the next week, then we'll got a few smaller bits and pieces posted to their channel such as more on the Create button, etc., before we hit previews and gameplay demos when November kicks off. And then it'll launch in the US and a bunch of other places on the 12th, and we'll just be clutching onto our games arriving a week before the console over here in Europe, counting down the days for launch, hoping payments don't bounce, and that the console arrives on launch day. Very excited!

Caught up on some of the Game Informer coverage, and the game continues to look great! The suit @Map shared is awesome, and the higher frame rate and faster loading times have really been on show from the little we've seen so far. Just as an example: Spider-Man 2: Enter Electro and Spider-Man 2 would like to have a word with you, among others funnily enough Enter Electro and its predecessor were both developed by Neversoft, who also developed THPS2, and their first Spider-Man game and THPS2 came out just a few weeks apart!

A few familiar faces from Breath of the Wild in this short video

Heck. Yes. Seems like a lot for a free update, which is always a great thing. Honestly, as many great games as I've played this year, I think this is going to end up as my GOTY unless something else completely blows me away, because I had such a great time with this game. So while I've already completed the game once to an insane degree, NG+, more trophies, and multiplayer might end up being enough to bring me back. There's still a lot more to play this year though, so we'll see!

I have to imagine that it's going to be a bit of both, as it seems more like the PS4 Pro boosted mode from the little hints we've heard about it from the website data. My guess would be that a game running with enhanced performance only, akin to the Pro's boosted mode, would run straight from the disk, whereas upgraded, PS5 versions of the game will require the disc for authentication and to be downloaded completely (I imagine this is how the Miles Morales PS4 > PS5 upgrade will work, for instance) more akin to what Xbox has done to this point. Could be completely off the mark there, but that's what I'd expect based on what we know and heard from Cerny's presentation, too. While the Xbox One line requires the disc for authentication but is otherwise just a downloaded application in most cases, if I recall, I think that's down more to it not being an integrated feature from launch, as is the plan here.

Gone gold!

Eh, I saw that and immediately thought that these are just error messages to cover every potential outcome, so I'm not too concerned just yet. If we don't hear anything two weeks out from launch, then yeah, I'd be a bit confused about why we haven't heard anything, but it's a whole lot of nothing right now. I genuinely don't think that this will end up impacting many, if any, PS4 players on N-Europe. How many games are even available on PS4? According to this list on Wikipedia (yeah, grain of salt and all that), there are currently 2916 games available on PS4, as well as a number of other games not included in that list, such as arcade ports, PS2 Classics, etc. Let's be generous and just round up to 3500: even if PlayStation's 1% figure is an exaggeration and it's actually something like 5%, that would still "only" be around 175 games which wouldn't be playable. Thinking of how much shovelware there is on the PS Store, as well delisted games, and things like that, I really don't see it being an issue for most gamers. I could be completely wrong and just be naively optimistic here, but at the very least in my mind, first party, third party AAA, AA, and most indie offerings are going to be safe in this transition. And if that 1% figure is correct? That's only going to be around 35 games which won't be making the transition. Again, odds are, this isn't going to impact any of us. Also, PlayStation's messaging being that 99% of PS4 games will be playable makes me think that it's much more likely we'll see a blacklist of games which won't work on the console, rather than a whitelist of games that do, just because that list would be unnecessarily long? But maybe that's just me thinking it's better to put out a shorter list than a long one, because I only see that leading to confusion too. Of course I'm hoping for some clarification sooner rather than later, but am I personally worried that PS4 games I want to play aren't going to be playable on PS5? Not at all.