Julius

Agree with Kane not being a suitable fit for captain. He might be the best traditional No. 9 in football at the moment, but all that means is that he is good at putting the ball in the back of the net, not leading a team, as you rightly said. Some might argue that players like Ronaldo captain a nation, so why can’t Kane? Well, as selfish as Ronaldo might sometimes be at club level, he puts the team well beyond his ego when it comes to international football, and drops back deep plenty of times, playing in a free-roaming role as opposed to as an out-and-out striker. He’s also ridiculously fit, and thus can be a striker who drops deep and still outruns half of the opposition. Kane looked very sloppy tired tonight when he wasn’t scoring goals. As for the penalty given, I do think that it was a penalty. There’s not much to it, but it’s very clumsy of Walker: there is no reason why he should be raising his arm at that angle in that particular situation, seeing as he really should be jumping for the ball, and he was clearly obstructing the opposition player from attacking the ball. That being said, the two penalties not given to us makes me wonder if referees (on the pitch and off it) — or maybe just this one in particular — are becoming somewhat reluctant to award more penalties with VAR, especially after the amount that we’ve already seen awarded in the opening round of the group stage and after having awarded one earlier in the match, because those were very clear penalties from the replays that we got to see. I don’t think that Brazil’s argument against the Switzerland goal last night was particularly strong, but that was another case of the referee seemingly brushing off (judging from body language and his reaction) players’ requests to at least take another look at the situation. Maybe a challenge system like the one in tennis is needed for situations like these, but instead of having a limited amount for the whole game, like three in a whole set in that sport, you have three opportunities to have a challenge proven wrong. If you have three challenges proven to be wrong, then you can no longer challenge for the remainder of the game. Or something like that. Hey, I’m not a corrupt FIFA official, so I don’t know Anyways, back to tonight’s game: the formation has me concerned going forwards. Tunisia and Panama were always going to be our easier games, so an attacking, 3-5-2 seems warranted, but, by the time Belgium comes around in our final group game, the players will already be accustomed to a formation which would surely need to be changed when against the bigger teams, such as Belgium. Makes me concerned that Southgate has completely overlooked how dominant other major teams’ attacks are, and just how weak our defence is.

Typical English display against a much weaker side: dominate the opening 20 minutes, make a silly mistake, and go missing until the end of the match to pop in with a winner. We were very, very lucky to win tonight (and maybe equally unlucky to not have a penalty or two). Hopefully the nerves will have gone by Saturday so that we can sustain a strong performance against Panama.

I watched my first traditional anime series a few years back — Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood. Up to that point, my relatively limited exposure to anime came from shows that I had watched as a child (such as Pokémon, Yu-Gi-Oh, and Digimon), and a number of films by Studio Ghibli, which I had become obsessed with a few months prior. The heavily anime-influenced world of Avatar, with both The Last Airbender and The Legend of Korra, were also major proponents in my wanting to delve into the anime medium — at the very least, just to find out what I might be missing out on. My worry with a serial anime series at that point was that it wouldn’t be able to hold my attention for a long enough run; that an ongoing series might not have the payoff one might hope for judging from the first few episodes; and that the vast majority of anime goes without a dub, which, as a newcomer to the medium, is my preference simply because I like to appreciate every frame that I can, which I might find difficult to do with subtitles. I plan to watch a short run, subtitled series to alleviate this in the near future, and I think that Mushishi will be my anime of choice for that. I dabbled with the opening few episodes of Cowboy Bebop shortly after finishing FMA:B, but I simply couldn’t focus on and appreciate it like I wanted to, as I was still processing the epic adventures depicted in the latter’s world. I’ve returned to and watched the entirety of FMA:B since my initial series viewing, and I found that it really does get a lot better the second time around, with a lot of minor references going over my head the first time around making the story feel much tighter and cohesive upon second viewing. Yesterday, with the density of my exam periods rapidly falling after a hectic, exam-filled week, I finally found that I was ready to watch my second anime. The anime that I chose was Death Note, and I’m ten episodes in so far. I have to say, I’m really enjoying it for the most part, with the mind games, manipulation and investigation being the highlights so far for me, and getting into the deductive mindsets of both L and Light has also been particularly engaging. I did find it somewhat jarring just how quickly Light seemingly surrenders himself to using the titular Death Note within the space of the first episode, but I suppose that direct jump to the main crux of the show is to be expected with pilot episodes.

Oh yeah, I totally agree. When I said “he” in that final line of your quote, I was actually referring to Messi not being a natural fit as a leader, and his inability to grow into one, not Ronaldo I think Ronaldo’s transformed in a lot of ways since 2006 - his playing style, his physique, etc. - which has allowed him to change and grow into a strong leader. Messi, on the other hand, hasn’t gone through such a growth, in my opinion, and thus hasn’t given himself the opportunity to grow into the role of captain/leader.

Out of all of the teams that could realistically stand a chance at winning the tournament, or at the very least are expected to top their groups, only France and Uruguay so far have a win. The former required an unhealthy amount of VAR and was a serious struggle for France, and the latter saw a last minute winner. Brazil v. Switzerland in one hour. There’s no chance of an upset in that one...right?

Well done Mexico, what an excellent performance. It’ll be interesting to see how Germany bounce back next Saturday against Sweden. That match has the makings of a tough fixture, too.

Mexico were very shaky those last ten minutes or so. Going to be interesting to see if they can stave off the German bombardment.

Blistering, end-to-end start to the Germany v. Mexico game. This should be a good one

It’s going to be a long three months... Thinking of finally finding myself a copy of Spider-Man 2 (played it around a friend’s house as a child, but never got a chance to own it myself) and playing through that and Activision’s PS1 Spider-Man games through the summer

Gotta love the Huber Syndrome E3 Special

Well...not really, but okay As for the Croatia match, tomorrow evening’s double billing of Germany v. Mexico and Brazil v. Switzerland should more than make up for it

Well, that’s fair enough. I can respect your opinion, and to be clear, I think they’re equally great. At best, I could probably bring myself to say things like “Messi was better than Ronaldo in the 2011/2012 season”, or that “Ronaldo was better than Messi in the 2017/2018 season”. I don’t think that comparing the number of leagues that they’ve proven themselves in is a fair way to make such a comparison, because Messi was pretty much always going to stay at Barça for as long as he could after all that they did for him to allow him to live out his dream. Ronaldo fits so well as a leader for the Portugal national team because the rest of the squad is fairly shaky, they’re often considered underdogs against the big national teams, his manager is relaxed about him controlling the dressing room, and thus he can improve all of their performances with his own leadership and determination. He also plays as an out-and-out striker these days, which is completely different to Messi’s role, hence why one can be seen as having a relatively larger impact on the international stage than the other. I definitely don’t think that saying “Ronaldo has won the Prem and an international trophy whereas Messi hasn’t” makes him better than Messi — by the same argument, Messi has won two Champions League/domestic league/major domestic cup trebles. How many has Ronaldo won again? Ronaldo being a leader is a plus for him, but it’s not a minus for Messi — some people just aren’t born to be leaders, and while others can grow into the role, he just hasn’t. You don’t have to be a leader to be one of the greatest footballers, and maybe that just says more about his relatively conservative personality. I would agree with you if you were to suggest that he shouldn’t be captain of Argentina, because it just doesn’t suit his playing style and adds much more pressure to his game. I’m not quite sure what he did to make you generally dislike him, but I’ll bite: why do you generally dislike him?

Well, I don’t know about that. Is Ronaldo currently playing better than Messi? I could agree with that. But to say he’s inferior? Don’t be daft we’ll hopefully have to wait a good few more years until they’ve both retired before we can even start fairly comparing them; they’ve peaked at completely different times (so I feel like there’s a bit of recency bias going on), and they’re both very different players, playing the game in a very different way. That said, I think they’re both great examples for the sporting world and anyone who follows/participates in sport in general. Unless it comes to paying taxes

I’m really, really digging the new theme. Especially the epic choral section towards the end. It sounds relatively subdued when compared with 4’s, which I just gave another listen to, and everything seems subdued when compared to Brawl’s I think this is more than made up for, though, with what I feel is a more complex and nuanced track this time around. Just excellent work all around from what I’ve seen so far

This game has had it all. What a beautiful free kick - made even more amazing seeing as it’s very rare for Ronaldo to bend it like that. That’s as many goals in one 2018 World Cup game for Ronaldo as he managed to score in all three of his previous World Cup campaigns combined. He only managed one goal in each of his previous three World Cup campaigns.

THUNDERBOLT! First big matchup of the World Cup is delivering on every level possible. Cracking game

Perfectly executed free kick from Spain. You can tell they’ve tried that one a few times on the training ground

What an excellent first half, with some great end-to-end stuff. This is why it’s called the beautiful game hopefully more of the same for the next 45’ I think it could have gone either way, to be honest. I don’t think it was intentional by Costa, and I think he might have (wrongly) assumed that Pepe was actually going to fight for the ball and jump for it, hence why he was leaning into him, but instead Pepe planted his feet to the floor. Really doesn’t help the referees that of all players this was Pepe, just given his history when it comes to trying to win fouls like this, and he really should have got up. He had a chance to help defend, but he stayed down instead. Either way, it was an excellent piece of skill by Costa to find the space to get a shot off. Quick mention for Isco, too, because he has been dynamite so far in this game, I always love watching him.

Blistering start by Portugal, well deserved penalty (and rightly called). Long way back for Spain - they look like they haven’t even woken up yet.

Figured this might need its own thread? I’ll update this post later on with some relevant facts and information, but for now, I’m going to go watch Portugal v. Spain

Miyazaki-san’s recent interview with Famitsu has been translated. I’m sticking this one in a spoiler tag, because it is long.

Yeah, I’m aware of this. I stumbled upon the code for Manaphy in Pokémon World, way back in the day, iirc, and also found it annoying that it was awkward to get a Jirachi if you really did want one (at least over in the West). But, then again, these examples that you cite were a decade (if not longer) ago. I don’t recall pretending that this is something new, but perhaps I could have been more concise in making my point. This is a pair of spin-off titles in the core series, and so maybe they think that they can get away with haphazardly bungling Mew in with an accessory this time around. It’s worth pointing out, though, that this will have the highest RRP of any core series game to date, and to use the game as it has mostly been advertised would require you to drop somewhere around £100 for the game and PokéBall Plus. Compare that to how events have been handled since your example of Pokémon Ranger: free codes which require a bit of travel time or a download from the internet. You aren’t paying a penny over whatever base price you paid for the game to be able to use it as advertised or as the only way to get a certain Pokémon. I feel it’s especially disrespectful because, if you’re buying this for the purpose of filling your Pokédex, Mew was available not too long ago for free. They wouldn’t have got away with doing something like this if we were still on 3DS, I don’t think. The only saving grace I see here is that Mew has already been available and in circulation as of late, and isn’t solely exclusive to this accessory if you really do want one, but if you do in Let’s Go...well, pay up. This is where I see the potential for a problem. Coming back to the traditional core series games: what’s to stop them from releasing a GreatBall Plus with next year’s titles, which come bundled with a Pokémon entirely exclusive to the accessory, and which won’t be made available by any other means? I agree with a lot of what @Glen-i has to say about this. In the short term, it seems like a nice way to do things, but the long term potential impact it could have on the franchise as a whole isn’t so rosy from where I’m sitting.

I think that’s fair, though I do think that this one will at least be worth a try, just because of how they’re going to be doing so many things differently. I also hover towards TPP over FPP a lot of the time, but I think that this will be a special exception, just considering the quality name attached to the title in CDPR. I love just how immersive they’re trying to make the world, so I do find a FPP quite fitting: this is supposed to be about us viewing the world through the eyes of one of its inhabitants, and feeling like a citizen of Night City. If this were something like a Zelda game, then I don’t think that this approach would work. Then again, I did find it a bit odd initially that there isn’t going to be a choice between FPP and TPP (at least from what we’ve heard so far), and we will have fully customisable characters that we’ll only be able to see during cutscenes and the like, but that’s less of a gripe and more of a “oh, what we heard about the game before wasn’t totally accurate”/it’s been a mixed message up to this point. I really appreciate them coming out and being straight to the point about the way that the game is (as opposed to say EA, who hide everything that could be a potential problem from the limelight). I also wouldn’t bungle yourself in with the ResetEra crowd, just because they’re the same crowd complaining about how the game looks like a complete detour from the Blade Runner, neo-noir cyberpunk game that we first saw back in 2013 simply because of it being daytime. This game is about CDPR pushing the limits of gaming technology and innovating the role playing genre as a whole, not refining it, and I think it is a wise move to make such a grand departure from the third person open world adventure of The Witcher 3 — which by all means is, at least critically, the bar for an excellent modern RPG — with this game, to keep themselves sharp and to show off their vast range of expertise.

Excellent technical analysis as ever by DigitalFoundry: What they suggest is that what we see here is the game, which is seemingly confirmed by Daniel Bloodworth of Easy Allies during their Impressions video for the game: the trailer looks slightly cleaned up compared to the gameplay that he saw, but is not a CG trailer. His impressions can be found here, and it’s well worth a watch — it’s not every day that someone like Bloodworth seems so enamoured by the quality of a game demo, but he clearly is here: