Julius

Just downloaded it this morning, I’ll be sure to give it a listen later! Thanks for the heads up

I know that I said that I’m not the biggest fan of some of their reviews and podcasts in the past, but IGN have been a stellar example for the industry of how to deal with a plagiarising “video games journalist” since Filip was first found out in the space of the last week. What’s even more gutting is that they, of course, are going to be the ones dealing with the collateral damage that he’s caused in an attempt to fix this, and beyond that, that their trust has unwittingly been betrayed by some scumbag trying to pass himself off as a journalist. It’s utterly disgusting, and he has just made the application process much harder - and longer - for those that follow in his footsteps by trying to work themselves into video games journalism. I said before that Filip was a big problem for me when it came to NVC, and I meant it, because that gap between the end of Jose’s tenure and the start of Filip’s when Peer spearheaded the show alongside Zach and Brian (not too long after the launch of the Switch, in fact!) was excellent. I haven’t listened to them for a while, but I think I’m going to try and do my best to support them in my own little way through this rough spot by resubscribing to NVC and giving Game Scoop! and Beyond another shot for a few weeks, too. Like I said, I listened to them quite frequently until probably a few months ago and stopped because it just wasn’t clicking with me at the time, but I think that their collective maturity and utmost dedication to their work and readers/listeners/watchers deserves to be noticed, at the very least, if not rewarded.

dunkward

Colin Moriarty on the situation:

Yeah, I kind of have the same worry nagging away at the back of my mind (albeit a very small one, because I’m still as hyped as can be), but I think what’s ultimately going to make the towers/collectibles stuff fun is the traversal, and by all means, I think that’s going to be awesome. I think the problem at this stage is that the average gamer hasn’t had hands-on time with this game, and I feel that a short free demo would help appease our fears with regards to this.

Well, this looks promising for Golden Sun fans... ...guess the hype train keeps a-chugging.

My advice would be to not shop for them individually. If you search for “Marvel Phase One DVD Collection”, and then exchange “One” for “Two”, you can currently find both Phases complete for less than £30 on Amazon, possibly even cheaper elsewhere. I highlight the DVD version of the collection specifically, because, as you can imagine, the Blu-Ray variant is still in high demand, despite having been sold out since release; it really shows the full extent of the Nintendo-like valuations that you talk about — I’ve seen plenty of them floating about for over £200, and they originally had an RRP of £35. Even if you’re interested in getting them on Blu-Ray specifically, if value is what you’re going for, I’d recommend getting the DVD variation just for now, because I think we’ll see a reprint of Phase One and Phase Two along with the release of the complete Phase Three some time next year (and probably a complete Phase One - Three Collection too). I don’t really use streaming services, so I wouldn’t be too sure there, but I was using Netflix a couple of months ago and it only had three MCU films, if I recall correctly. Amazon and HMV frequently have offers for MCU films, so that could be worth checking out, and, if you’re not too bothered by the second hand market, I think CeX could really help you out here, too

Agree with @Ganepark32, @Hero-of-Time, @Goron_3, @Fierce_LiNk, and @Sheikah here with regards to how Filip was stupid to do this in the first place (and evidently not for the first time), and that he should be named and shamed accordingly. Beyond that, I of course agree with @Ronnie that going after the man’s family and kicking him down, and especially threatening physical harm and imposing emotional abuse, is wrong — I think we can all agree on that. Also, the guy really doesn’t know how to apologise: a simple “this is my fault, I plagiarised this review”, etc., would have been more than enough. A few minutes of waffle and deflecting not only fails to convey a message well, if he’s trying to get us back on his side...he’s failing. Epically. For me, his “apology” here shares some similar shades with [EA CEO] Andrew Wilson’s “apology” at E3 about microtransactions in Battlefront II: minutes of build-up (Wilson was effectively saying: we’re going to change, but not confessing to wrongdoing, etc.) before a huge deflection (“...but we can all come together and help charity!”) and ultimately not truthfully apologising and accepting wrongdoing. I think Filip saying that “hey, you shouldn’t believe that Jason guy, because he’s wrong — but check out my video and make up your own mind on the matter!” is disgusting, and he’s trying to take advantage of the situation as much as anyone else. @Ronnie, I don’t think that Jason Schreier is going after Filip more than his job allows him to do so. Being a video games journalist for another large gaming journalism outlet, I genuinely think that informing us all — people that watch/read these reviews, the general public, and most importantly, Filip’s next employers — of any prior wrongdoing by Filip, which shares similarities with his most recent, is his fiduciary duty. If facts about Filip doing something, which we can all agree is wrong, fuels the mob, then I think he’s just got to ride it out — the blame is on him and his past self. Jason went as far back as he could to see if something like this had happened before, and, rather unsurprisingly, it’s not the first time that Filip has done this. Would we rather learn this from a neutral video games journalist shortly after the time of Filip’s most recent mess-up, or from some random guy on 4Chan or ResetEra in the coming weeks or months? But to come back around to the threatening behaviour by many on the Internet: whilst it is agreeably out of place and unacceptable, surely, if you’re putting both your name and face out there — in this day and age, when the mob mentality runs amok every single time that something can be pinned on a particular someone! — you would be aware, to some degree, that any poor choices you make when carrying out your work could come back to effect not only you, but those around you? Just a thought; I’m not at all saying that this behaviour is justifiable, but at the same time, I don’t think that we can let him pull a victim card when this is very clearly what would happen if he got caught, just given the extreme opinions and the do-or-die, short term benefit attitude adopted by many these days.

Man, that sucks. Spyro was the only platforming mascot that I interacted with in my formulative years of gaming, with Enter the Dragonfly being quite popular amongst me and my friends in primary school. I guess I’m just going to wait this one out. It’ll likely be at half price (if not less) when Christmas sales come around, so I guess I might pick it up that way?

From yesterday’s QuakeCon keynote:

This doesn’t make much sense, but just to prove that we can make such a comparison. £50 for NES Classic, which comes with a controller (RRP of £7.99), so £42 for the console and the 30 games that come with it. Let’s argue that the cost of the console itself is negligible to price the games up a bit: £42/30 games = £1.40/game. So, at £1.40/game, 20 games would cost £28 — at face value, that’s a £10 saving being made by having Online, which seems like a good deal. Sure, different games would cost different prices in a virtual marketplace, but I chose to use the NES Classic here as a source for Nintendo’s valuation of these games because they chose the games to be included themselves. But let’s compare it now to PS+. PlayStation Plus costs £50/year, and you get up to 24 games per year. Let’s say we choose PS4 titles as are two games per month, because they cost the most. £50/24 games is just over £2/game. NES games are nearing on thirty decades old, and you’re getting games from a couple of years ago and some change for just 60p more per game with PS+ when compared to Online. Just taking PS+’s 2017 offering into account, off the top of my head, both Metal Gear Solid V and Just Cause 3 were available last year as part of their catalogue of free games for PS+ members — they currently have an RRP of £25 on the PlayStation Store...each. Meaning that if we’re going to average everything out, you’re saving ~£23 on the current RRP of those two games alone (I would assume that they cost even more at the time that they were available to PS+ members). The other 22 games that you chose last year would have needed to save you a further £4 for you to have effectively broken even with your annual subscription outlay. Meaning that, in all likelihood, you were practically in the position that PlayStation were effectively paying you in video games to just sign-up for their service. Its not a perfect world, so yes, you are still paying £50/year to our corporate overlords for an imperfect service in the form of some inconsistent servers, and there are plenty of other issues which could be argued about, but I think you catch my drift: PS+, just as an example, is currently of much greater (edit:) objective value to a customer than Nintendo Switch Online is being described as having. Nintendo could have just had a Virtual Console subscription, perhaps even with different tiers, and offer everyone the typical online interactivity (just copy PlayStation and Xbox on this one, because it’s clear that they know what they’re doing) for free, and have still made a huuuuuuuge profit. Not only that, but they would have completely avoid the unarguable divide that their handling of, and plans for, Switch Online have brought about, which I think is much more important than whatever content they decide to include in an online subscription service.

I think it should be taken on case-by-case, because ultimately it boils down to the type of game, the person reviewing the game, when they actually receive the game (for example, Ben Moore mentioned in the latest Huber Syndrome that they only got Octopath a few hours before its release), and a number of other factors. If it’s a game which is driven by a narrative, then I have to agree. In narrative driven games, the end of the game is typically tied to some massive event that the game has been leading up to, and is often a grand showcase of both storytelling and game mechanics that a reviewer really needs to experience to speak about the nature of a game. If, however, a game is driven by mechanics (such as a racing game, or many platformers), I really don’t think that you have to stick around until the end to appreciate what the game does well and what it doesn’t, and I don’t think that the ending of such a game necessarily puts the reviewer in a better position than is they hadn’t forced themselves to play through to the ending. And then there are some extremes, like games that are over a hundred hours long — if the reviewer isn’t enjoying it, are we really going to demand that they waste time so arbitrarily? If a game is driven by a narrative, then I already think that it is something of an industry standard that a reviewer plays the game until the end. However, for games driven by a focus on mechanics, I suppose that letting people know that you haven’t finished the game can’t do much harm — perhaps some onus should be put on the game’s studio to share whether or not they think that the reviewer needs to play the entire game with said reviewer. As for playtime, I think that it’s something that they should mention too, and I really appreciate when they manage to fit that in. Where a game has a substantial post-game, too, I think it’s great for them to just give it a mention, so that players know beforehand that there is more to the game than what they might have seen or heard, or will gather from the (main) game length quoted in such a review.

Honestly, I’m at a bit of a loss. I feel like he returned to England to win the Champions League with an English club (this would make him the first person to win the Champions League with three different teams, and from three different leagues), but I can’t see him sticking around here just for the sake of pining for that record. He’s already damaged his reputation substantially in my eyes since his return to England four years ago. With Italian football on the rise again, I could see him returning to Inter. It’s the only club he’s previously managed that I still feel has an affinity for him, but he’s a serial winner that wants to win different trophies in different countries; would he really be happy with a return to Inter, after leaving on such a high note eight years ago? I wouldn’t want him back, to be honest. He went about selling (and then buying) some of our best first-team players, and ostracised a number of players who have then gone on to success elsewhere. Much more importantly for me, though, is that he left us for Manchester United, a team we have been rivals with time and again since Mourinho’s first stint at Chelsea. That and, well, I don’t think that there can be much arguing about him having lost his spark to some degree — I think he’s best off taking a sabbatical to figure out his next move, because his last three appointments - Madrid, Chelsea, and United - are bleeding together because of the overlap in a more negative, counter-attacking style of play, and because of how he has fallen out with fans and owners alike a lot in the last eight years. I also expect Abramovich to give Sarri a minimum of two years to adjust, with the goal for the season ahead likely just being to secure Champions League football for next season. He’s one of the few managers in the world that has his team play in a Guardiola-esque way, and Abramovich has wanted beautiful football in that style at the Bridge for years, so I will be surprised if he leaves us at the end of the season, so long as we qualify for the Champions League. Then I would expect substantial investments ahead of what could be a trophy laden season for us next season if it all comes together if things do work out with Sarri. I just want Roman to be patient for once, and not pull the trigger early this time around. I think PSG is a possibility if Tuchel fails (though Neymar has been receptive to his extreme ideas already, so I’m not too sure), but I still think that Mourinho will need a substantial break before his next move. He needs to figure out his game plan if he’s going to take over as manager for the most heavy investors in Europe of the last few seasons, because nobody wants to see a team with such embarrassing riches and talented players playing back-to-the-wall football. I really do think that he needs a break to recapture his spark. It worked wonders for Guardiola when he had a sabbatical; sure, he didn’t win the Champions League with Bayern, but he broke a lot of records and brought through some youngsters with great potential. There’s just not much left to like about the attitude or playing style of the current Mourinho, and I feel like we’ve been seeing his ugly side more so than his happy side ever since he left Inter.

Official gameplay video:

Hopefully seeing cutscenes for trivial things like the S.S. Anne arriving is a good sign for next year’s game. Still really on the fence regarding Let’s Go, if I’m being honest.

Haven’t seen anyone mention the Limited Edition bundle for the game yet? It will include the game (obviously), a Nintendo GameCube Controller Super Smash Bros. edition, and a Nintendo GameCube Controller adapter. It will release on December 7th along with the standard edition of the game. I was out yesterday, so missed the livestream, but caught up with the Easy Allies reactions video. Kyle’s laughing had me in tears, especially the Banana Gun praise be to Sakurai, loved when they revealed the numbers with tongues in their cheeks

IGN have handled this extremely well, considering other negative setbacks that they’ve had in recent years. I was certainly in the group that wasn’t a fan of Filip on NVC (he didn’t add much at all to the conversation, had poor knowledge when it came to Nintendo, wasn’t as charismatic as some other panelists, etc.; I’d love for Peer or Zach to lead it now, they were great during the transition period after Jose left), and though what he did is obviously wrong, I do feel sorry for his partner and his child, seeing as they made the expensive move to San Francisco with him. He might go back to his YouTube channel, but his potential career in any type of journalism has gone up in flames, and then some. He’ll be blacklisted by the industry for the rest of his working life for this. I have to agree with @Hero-of-Time that gaming journalism, and specifically reviews, isn’t in such a great place. I’m not the biggest fan of Colin Moriarty, but he does make some great points. The way I see it, there are just waaaaaaay too many fish in the pond at this point thanks to YouTube, and it just isn’t balanced. IGN have had some of the worst reviews that I’ve ever watched or read put out in recent years, yet they’re guaranteed hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of views every time that they upload a review. Some of the best reviews that I’ve seen recently have been from much smaller entities than IGN, but their quality and content is through the roof (places like Easy Allies, Gamespot’s YT channel gets pretty low viewing numbers for reviews, Super Bunnyhop, and some other, much more obscure channels). I was listening to EZA’s Frame Trap the other day, and Ben Moore brought up how he doesn’t feel comfortable talking about music, because his lack of knowledge on the matter limits him to buzzwords and generic phrases like “the music perfectly matches the emotion of the game at certain times”, and so he doesn’t feel like it adds anything substantial or worthwhile to the review. It’s funny, because this is exactly how I feel about the majority of reviews I read/watch by larger gaming journalism outlets these days: there’s a whole lot of buzzwords, and the review is probably over a thousand words long, but they’re saying a whole lot of nothing about the game.

It’s unclear whether or not it will be in place for next year’s Oscars, but the Academy has just announced that a new category for “outstanding achievement in popular film” is on its way, in an attempt to give films which are more popular with the public but less popular with critics a more realistic shot at winning an award. Not too sure how I feel about this. On the one hand, it’ll probably drive up their viewing audience numbers, and I think it makes the Oscars much more accessible to a casual audience; on the other hand, it also reminds me of the creation of the “best animated film” category, which felt like a genuine attempt by the Academy to discredit critically-acclaimed animated films when compared to their live-action counterparts (and which is poorly decided anyway, clearly). The Fox purchase will have gone through by then anyways, and seeing as that will mean that the majority of blockbusters are all under one Mickey Mouse emblazoned banner, I’m struggling to see how this category won’t be a monopoly.

To be fair, Pogba has been a mercurial, Zidane-esque player from the start, and drifting in and out of games is exactly what mercurial players do. He’s one of those midfielders that plays best when they can run all over the pitch and not be tied down to a specific role (i.e. a holding midfielder alongside Matic). I agree that Mourinho definitely doesn’t play to his strengths, and it doesn’t help that he’s made taking a dig at his own players his style of management. His man management and the feeling that he was a member of the team is exactly why he was so successful at Chelsea (the first time around) and at Inter, and I think that it’s because he’s attempted to take a step back from that happy figure and become a more controlling figure in the changing room that he’s developed a much more negative attitude (and, ergo, a much more negative style of play has been seen on the pitch since he left Inter). I’ve heard similar things, and that Mourinho’s negativity during pre-season is just a ploy to get out of the club. At the same time, this is the man that would love to get one over on Guardiola, so I could see him sticking around. I’m also just not that sure where he could go — maybe he’d return to Inter?

He really is, but it’s becoming clear after how he was being shopped around in January, and now this transfer window, that Pogba isn’t at all interested in sticking around at United. Raiola at the end of the day is Pogba’s agent, and he needs Pogba a lot more than Pogba needs him, so I very much doubt that he was shopping Pogba around without his permission. From what I’ve read there was little credibility to Barça’s offer, but even if there was some truth to it, I would just think that they’re trying to stay in-line with FFP and get rid of the deadweight in their team, as opposed to pulling an Arsenal-Suarez type of thing. Kovacic having his medical now. I think we’ll be saving our other business (probably another look at our defence and striking options) next summer. Still a bit light on numbers considering how many games we might just end up playing this year, and options are always needed when trying to implement a new, high-intensity system of play. But otherwise, happy with our business this summer if Jorginho, Kepa and Kovacic is to be it, even if we did leave it to the last second.

Worth mentioning that this is how Neymar forced through his move to PSG last summer. Kepa is going to be an excellent signing for us. Sarri has apparently spent the last month or so studying replacements for Courtois, and has just spent the last ten days alone watching footage of Kepa, apparently even describing him as the “perfect modern goalkeeper”. It’s very important to remember that a very specific type of goalkeeper is needed for the type of game that he and Pep go for. Apparently Pepe Reina put in a good word for Kepa to move to the Premier League with Chelsea and Sarri too, putting one final shift in for his former manager. Elsewhere for us, there are still talks of us wanting Fekir, and Kovacic’s loan move - despite recent rumours suggesting otherwise - will include a buyout clause, and the deal is reportedly on the verge of completion. I still feel that our squad requires much more depth, but hopefully this is enough for now to help Sarri to qualify for the Champions League next season, which I assume would push us to add that much-needed depth to the squad. Modric still wants to leave Madrid for Inter - who wouldn’t after both the manager and star player have left? - so I have to wonder what Madrid will do in the event that both of their Croatian midfield maestros leave the club. Bayern’s Jeremy Boateng has notably turned down Mourinho’s advances. And, last but not least, Pogba and Raiola are reportedly attempting to force a move through to Barça, but United’s stance remains the same at this point. Not much time for PL clubs left now. Should be a fun 24 hours or so

Kovacic going to be loaned out for a year to Chelsea, according to Marca. Not the most reliable of sources, but Kante, Jorginho and Kovacic would be an excellent three-man midfield. UPDATE: a more reliable source is saying that a Kovacic deal is close, and we’re also in for Fekir at around £50m. Seems like we’ve only just realised that the transfer window is still open...

Rumours with similar levels of credibility state that we’re also after Oblak, Pickford and Arrizabalaga, so it would seem that we’ve got our hands in a lot of different pots right now in an attempt to resolve this. Courtois’ manner is completely unprofessional, but is it really that surprising, given his history? He went AWOL to force a move through to Chelsea in the first place (which included his consequent loan to Atlético), and forced Čech out of the squad by delivering an ultimatum for first team football. Also read earlier about Willian’s falling out with Conte, which, according to his words, had nothing to do with Conte being a bit of a, uh, “character”; it had to do with Willian not understanding why he would be substituted in games in Conte’s second season, which shouldn’t be surprising given how shallow our team was last season. Why he didn’t just ask Conte about this I don’t know...Willian’s coming off as a bit of a petulant child in light of this. Like I said in the build-up to last season: WE HAVE ABSOLUTELY ZERO DEPTH. Sarri’s style of play is just as intense as Conte’s (at least in his first season with us), and, besides Jorginho, we haven’t added any players that both suit the system of play that we’re now going for and could slot into the first team. All for youth giving us depth, but our starting XI is a bit of a hot mess right now. I’m in agreement with @Kav about certain players of ours not suiting a back four, and with Sarri taking a backseat on our transfer business (officially being our “head coach” as opposed to a typical “first team manager”), it seems that our transfers team hasn’t taken the initiative to even go about trying to sign players that would actually be more suited to a back four. I’m somewhat perturbed going into the last few days of the transfer window at how little business we’ve done this summer, and I’m very pessimistic about our chances of obtaining silverware by the end of the season (heck, I’m not even confident about our ability to secure a Champions League place) because of our lack of squad depth. I just hope that in the event that we end up with no trophies that Sarri is given time and patience by the board, in a similar fashion to how Guardiola was treated but City after his first trophyless season there.