Julius

Ancelotti has become Napoli’s next manager, with Sarri having officially departed the club now. It’s only a matter of time...

30th August: game delayed from October 19th to November 20th.

Excellent (but pretty quiet?) interview with Salah and Lampard. It’s rough that he never got the chance to shine at Stamford Bridge as he is now at Anfield, but I’m glad to see how much he’s developed over the last few years across Europe. Klopp was a perfect match for him as a manager, so as much as I rue him being successful elsewhere in England, I’m just glad that he’s performing at his very best. As a neutral, I can’t wait for the final on Saturday it’s been an excellent year for English football!

Emery is a great catch for Arsenal, making good use of his relatively small budget whilst at Sevilla to lead them to success. It’ll definitely be interesting to see how he approaches restructuring and rebuilding this Arsenal team (especially that defence) going into next season. Apparently we’re going after Sarri if Conte leaves, which I’m all for. His Napoli side have probably been playing the second most attractive football in Europe for a couple of seasons now (behind City in the season just gone), and he’s often compared to Guardiola (understandable, given that they’re the only managers who put an emphasis on the art of the sport in their tactics and decision making, as well as a focus on possession and verticality). I just hope that we get him in before the World Cup starts if he really is switching to Stamford Bridge next season.

Huber: ...it’s going to be great. Now, I know there’s a disclaimer there; I know why this game got delayed to 2019, because it runs at a very steady 15 frames per second. That’s a quote for the back of the box, surely?

So what you’re saying is that Poké Mart is a universal brand, and, having a monopoly on pretty much everything, they drew out more Pokémon in Chargestone Cave because their sales criteria for repels weren’t being met? Pokémon just went up a notch in terms of realism

Funny, because I mentioned the exact same thing after my playthrough. I thought I was going a little nuts - I don’t know, it’s a cave, so we get extraordinarily high encounter rates, I guess? - so I’m glad that you mentioned that. Honestly, I think it’s my biggest gripe with the game (and, admittedly, it’s not that big of a gripe): for all of the game’s excellent pacing, the last place that you want to encounter a Pokémon every two steps is in a cave with an important Team Plasma encounter, multiple dead ends, and a lot of items to find off the main route. And all of this happening just after the midpoint of the game really does bring the game churning to a halt, and, from what I remember, it takes a little while after successfully traversing the cave to get back up to its previous momentum. And yeah, the music in this game is ace

I’ve tried twice already to return to XY with Pokémon Y, both to experience the journey again and to catch a lot more Pokémon for my Dex, but it is just so bland and by the numbers that I get bored after the first few hours. It’s already aged quite poorly in terms of overworld graphics, almost like an early PS1 game, considering the jump from Gen VI to Gen VII. That being said, I’ll probably try to give it another go this summer. As for SM, I really enjoyed my first playthrough with Sun and had one of my best experiences with Pokémon with it. That, coupled with opinions I’ve heard about a second playthrough souring the experience, has stopped me returning to Alola with Moon, which has been sitting on my shelf for a year and a half since Christmas 2016. Not too sure I want to trade it in for Ultra Sun/Moon either, considering how I’ve heard similar things about that game as I did with second playthroughs of SM. I’ve yet to play through White 2, so that’s one of the games that I definitely want to play this summer.

That’s awesome! I played through White for only the second time a few months ago, and I really do think that they’re some of the most underrated games in the franchise. The game is extremely well paced for the most part, with something moving the story along in virtually every location that you come across, and your rivals actually develop as characters throughout the course of the game. I’ve seen some people complain about how linear it is, but there’s enough in each location to deviate a bit from the critical path to explore areas before moving on, and I’d much rather have a linear, well paced, narrative driven Pokémon game than a potentially open, disjointed, exploration driven one (I’d also have to imagine that it’s cheaper to pursue the former than the latter from GF’s point of view). I also noted the same thing about the battles feeling much faster during my playthrough, so I think that there must be a difference there. Levelling up is also much faster because of how it depends on the difference in level between your Pokémon and the opposing Pokémon; if your Pokémon is a higher level than the opposing Pokémon, it will earn less EXP, and vice versa. It just feels like Game Freak really went out of their way to streamline the narrative and gameplay with these games, and it shows in just how well the game has aged. And yeah, that sprite work is top notch!

Great result for us today to end a tumultuous season on something of a high. I hope we don’t take too long deciding Conte’s future, both for us as a club and for him as an individual. If he’s going to stay, though, he needs the backing to take us back to where we belong in the Champions League; our squad size wasn’t the only issue this season, but it sure was a big one. As for talk about what’s different about José at United when compared with his most successful stints - which I’d argue were his stints at Porto, Chelsea, and Inter - is that he’s not an underdog. Nobody expected Porto to win the Champions League; he helped us to our first league title in 50 years in his first season at Chelsea; and that Inter side, though extremely talented, hadn’t been anywhere near the top of Europe in the years prior, and yet he helped them to the treble. These teams were also filled with leaders, and I don’t think that United really has any leaders in their team sheet, let alone in their starting XI. His time at United is reminding me a lot of his time with Madrid: it’s about taking an obscenely wealthy club - who are by no definition underdogs - back to the top of Europe after a long spell of inconsistency and complacency at the highest level.

Goal is reporting that Arteta has agreed to become Arsenal’s next manager in principle, with the announcement expected to be made in the next few days. Personally, I think it’s a bit too early for him to be given such a role. Though, a trial by fire at the beginning of his managerial career could be a great way to kickstart it, and I do think that he has the potential to be a great manager, based purely on working with Guardiola and the way that he himself played during his career. I don’t think that it would be an appointment like Simeone or Allegri which could send shivers down other teams’ spines, but I do think that his appointment could make Arsenal something of a dark horse (not necessarily winning the league, but perhaps returning to their favourite position in the table) going into next season.

Did someone say “friendly neighbourhood”?

This is golden.

I think that if this game sells over 10 million copies, as Call of Duty games regularly do, I do think that there is the potential for a substantial overlap between Blackout and Fortnite, which I think could take some players away from Fortnite come later this year. It could literally just last a weekend and be a glorious fad, but, on the other hand, Call of Duty is strongly positioned to contend with Fortnite in a way that PUBG can’t. That being said, I do think that there are a few potential problems which could lead to that not being the case. For instance, why is Blackout being tied to Black Ops 4 and not being positioned as an ongoing service which will transcend the typical annual refresh of the Call of Duty franchise? Sure, Activision wants to make money - and I assume that this game will still have an RRP of £60 - but getting players to buy into a refresh of a GAAS (game as a service) model like this annually would seem silly, especially seeing as they’ll probably end up copying Fortnite’s business model by having an in-game currency and season passes. If this was a GAAS product being worked on continuously by an entire studio, which was positioned separately from the annual titles (which could then retain both typical first-person shooter multiplayer modes and a campaign), and which had a base cost tied to a season pass of £10/pc for those who don’t own the most recent annual CoD, and free for those that do, then I think they could get away with copying Fortnite’s business model and make a ton of cash as a result. The way that they seem to be doing things could still make them a lot of money, but I agree: a free game with a massive community and is completely supported by a developer is going to probably beat out a AAA game with a £60 RRP which only wants to take more of your money every day of the week, at least in the PR side of things.

Pep has signed a two-year contract extension to remain with City until 2021. So, uh, see you all in May 2022, when the Premier League is next won by a team that isn’t City

I don’t think PES would necessarily be what Xbox went after if they chased Konami, as I don’t think that that really boosts their appeal in markets such as Japan when there’s a rival game such as FIFA available on every major console (and especially now that it’s on Switch). I think the biggest problem is that PES lost its foothold a long time ago when it became apparent that, despite being the more mechanically sound game, deals weren’t going to be made for all league and club rights. I agree with everything @Hero-of-Time mentioned too, but I do think that - had this been a few generations ago - a license acquisition/exclusivity such as PES could have been huge. Honestly, though, I can’t think of many other major developers that are sitting quietly on a stash of world renowned, AAA games like Konami are. I think Xbox would have to be incredibly aggressive to force a deal through just to use their licenses exclusively, but I think it would be worth them pursuing, especially seeing as they do have the backing to make it possible. Something like fronting up the costs for a Metal Gear Solid 4K Remake Collection and giving Konami 10% if profits sounds ridiculous at face value, but I imagine having games such as these exclusive to Xbox - with a built-in fan base - could have been the only thing that could have flipped the narrative of this generation on its head. I just don’t think tackling a new AAA IP will work for them, especially considering how few exclusive/first party AAA IPs they have on Xbox as it is right now anyway. Do you think that a game such as Star Citizen launching as an Xbox console exclusive could be a way that they could turn the tide? Because, as grand and as advanced as that game appears to be, I don’t think it has the history and fan base of IPs like Metal Gear to make a massive difference.

Yeah, I was surprised at just how hyped everyone in the audience got given that no BR gameplay was shown. I’m going to hazard a guess that the first gameplay of their BR - Blackout, was it? - turns up in Sony’s showing at E3 next month, which will be huge. I honestly don’t care much for CoD, but I am intrigued by the direction that they’re taking things in. It’ll be interesting to see how this effects the numbers of Fortnite over the Christmas period.

Haven’t played since the after the first few days of release, but I’ve been looking into it a bit more, what with the Let’s Go! “leaks” and supposed GO integration, and I stumbled upon this gem of a documentary-type video about the world’s number one Pokémon GO player: Brandon Tan. I found it to be an incredibly fascinating watch, and it’s great to see how the game still maintains small communities of players.

Reveal in 10 minutes.