Julius

My stroopwafel, Arco, has finally been given a release date of 15th August...and will also launch on Switch the same day! Very much looking forward to giving this a try

Demo available now, with 3 weapons being unlocked in the full game as reward for checking it out: A lot of demos dropping lately, and it seems like the smart time of year to do it.

Obligatory: have you watched Andor yet? I remember you saying you weren't the biggest fan of Rogue One, but other than a couple of familiar faces, it does a good job of keeping itself contained and building up an entirely new cast. It's still for me one of the best Star Wars live-action projects, probably, that we've had release under the Disney umbrella. Helps to have planned arcs and some solid execution, I suppose, whereas some of the other live-action shows - even when I've enjoyed them - are certainly flying by the seat of their pants at times. Probably also weirdly helped a good that Tony Gilroy wasn't a head-over-heels Star Wars fan going into his time working on the IP, too Anyways, looking forward to your thoughts on the final episode of Acolyte

A limited edition Astro Bot-themed DualSense has been announced! Pre-orders begin 9th August and it will launch with the game on 6th September: Hmmmmmmmm, do I bite or not? Really like the white/blue face buttons and D-pad EDIT: just realised after posting – I think this is the first DualSense with white analogue sticks? And I also think it's the first of the limited edition DualSense controllers to have a unique button/D-pad colourway, I feel like the other limited editions were using existing buttons. Gives me renewed hope for a PS1 anniversary DualSense...

Was just checking to see if tickets for The Amazing Spider-Man were up at Odeon and found something way better: EVERY FREAKING STAR WARS FILM (except Solo lol) IS BEING RE-RELEASED BETWEEN AUGUST AND OCTOBER OF THIS YEAR! Holy. Hot. Damn. I'll finally get to watch Revenge of the Sith not decided yet if I want to do it all on that one weekend but I can't freaking wait! I'm at least watching every one of them I haven't seen in cinema yet (Attack of the Clones, Revenge of the Sith, A New Hope, and The Empire Strikes Back), and potentially down for a re-watch of Rogue One. The Phantom Menace and Return of the Jedi I don't mind skipping just because I watched them both for anniversary screenings within the last 15 months or so. I was really worried I'd be waiting until Revenge's 25th anniversary after a seemingly inevitable skip for it's 20th next year in favour of TFA's 10th, so really wasn't expecting this

Trailer for The Penguin: Looks great. I really enjoyed The Batman, and I'm kind of hoping they sneak in a small role for him here just to tide us over until the next Batman film. I mean, just imagine a final episode where they're squaring off in the middle of a gang war and one by one radios go out and men go down. Like a boogeyman. Would love to see it. Might be time for a rewatch of The Batman now that I think about it...

I was saying to my friends yesterday how Feige's star ceremony was weird in that it potentially spoiled some of the cameos for DP&W, and I was shocked at how few of the main Avengers were there. Well, I guess this explains why they wouldn't have had RDJ there – did everything they could to have kept that under wraps real well, didn't they? LOL at that one guy correctly guessing RDJ though in the second clip What a pivot for the MCU, too. They needed someone to dig them out of the hole they'd been put in with the whole Majors/Kang situation and it seems so obvious a way to do it in retrospect, but I certainly didn't see anyone suggesting it – I figured they'd just do a variant Iron Man cameo (which I guess he could still do) in one of the Avengers films and leave it at that. But to keep the Tony Stark/Iron Man story well intact by having him play another character, and Doctor Doom no less? That's freaking awesome. The real question (and I say this not having read into it deeper, so maybe they've touched on it already): do we assume he's playing a Tony Stark variant? I feel like that would be infinitely more interesting and a great way to pull the main Avengers cast back in, too – not wanting Tony's name besmirched by, well, kind of himself? The Triple-Tap over the last week of the Russos returning for the next Avengers movies, Deadpool & Wolverine, and RDJ as Doctor Doom has me pretty freaking pumped for the future of the MCU now. We've still got to actually get there but, damn, you can't say Feige and co. haven't tried to call in all their favours to get this mess sorted. Got to imagine the package to get RDJ and the Russos back can't be cheap considering what they were getting paid by the end of Endgame, much less with the advantage of the MCU and Feige needing them. RDJ literally left the MCU, won an Oscar, and came back in the space of 5 years. Just let that sink in.

Just got back from watching this with some mates today, most fun I've had watching an MCU movie since probably No Way Home? Fell into one or two of the trappings I think comes with the territory of a multiverse story (I was constantly expecting another cameo), but yeah, made me laugh my ass off Hard to tell if this is the sign of things to come and the start of a turnaround, or if it's just a splendid one-off, but either way, it was a blast still chuckling at the Gossip Girl joke from the opening Also, banger soundtrack. Even with the context of this being US-only, it's absolutely amazing – being projected for a $400m+ opening weekend worldwide and has the potential to surpass the first Avengers ($207m) for domestic opening weekend, and if it pulls those off, would put it down as being the 6th best worldwide opening for an MCU film (behind Endgame, Infinity War, No Way Home, Captain Marvel and Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness) and 4th best domestic opening for an MCU film (behind only Endgame, No Way Home and Infinity War). Be great to see it pull that off! Really shows that there's a hunger for great and fun superhero films still and that the "decline" of the MCU is purely a question of quality and poor word of mouth – I'd only heard great things about DP&W heading into it. Really curious to see what it's legs are like, especially seeing as comedies aren't the best films to bring in repeat viewings The Odeon Luxe I went to was PACKED, easily the third most packed I've seen it since COVID (behind only No Way Home and, weirdly, Dune: Part Two)

Teaser trailer for the Like a Dragon: Yakuza series: More interested than I thought I would be, feel like they've nailed the look at least. That classic swoop down into Kamurocho

Teaser for Creature Commandos from SDCC: And the new DC Studios logo (which will also be getting used for DC Comics also, but you know, minus the 'Studios' part ) ~

This is by far the most convinced I've been a bout the upcoming Fantastic Four film thanks for sharing this! Yeah, totally agree. It's kind of nuts that the west coast of North America is where it all goes down really for big announcements on that front these days, between SDCC and even D23 – D23 not being a worldwide thing especially surprises me, seeing as it's held in the Star Wars Celebration off-years and Disney has their parks a bunch of other places, and also it pertains to so many things outside of just Marvel, like the new Disney and Pixar stuff, park plans, etc. & yeah, I know there's New York Comic Con, but if we go purely by announcements and hype, I don't think it comes close to being what SDCC obviously is Much as I didn't mind Birmingham Comic Con last year, I don't think it comes close to the hype or excitement that I felt last year at SWC. Which, I mean, makes sense for me individually, but even just in Europe so many of the major conventions here are held on the other side of the channel or lack that same focus, like Gamescom in Germany, Japan Expo Paris or the Angoulême International Comics Festival, and obviously Lucca Comics & Games in Italy – but none of them are really quite like the announcement-filled events that are SDCC, D23 and SWC. It's a real shame

Weird thread revival, but I gave myself the goal when I returned to the game around it's 1st anniversary last year to collect every Ferrari in the game. The car saved until last - purely because it so rarely shows up in the rotation of legendary cars - was the 250 GTO, which costs 20m credits...and the last time I tried to get it sometime last year, I decided to splurge on a bunch of other rare cars I needed/wanted a matter of weeks beforehand Anyways, last month, my Ferrari collection was finally completed! Unfortunately, the most recent update added a new Ferrari (the F430 Scuderia)... ...so the collection is once again incomplete. I've yet to go back, but the F430 Scuderia was one of my favourites growing up, so it seems inevitable. More hilariously, though, and the real reason for my thread revival – this update came with some physics changes! Which have produced some absolutely hilarious results

Immovable object (searing hatred of open worlds) meets unstoppable force (love of crocs and lizards) Yeah, I'm really shocked you weren't head over heels with Skyrim, Glen

Turned out as being £114.99 on the LEGO UK Store. Link to pre-order

People make art real fast They needed to replace the island after this happened somehow They chose to go the Ibiza route with cheap booze and anime hookers

The game has got a summer update, which naturally means more skimpy and suggestive angles and attire: Why does it look like she's chilling in the cove on Wuhu Island from Wii Sports Resort... For the curious: from a quick search, it doesn't look like the game's price has really dropped, lowest I'm seeing it for is ~£60 most places. That's surprised me a little.

Concord is getting a limited edition DualSense released, and I think it might just be one of the best designs we've seen for the DualSense so far: Hopefully it makes it out of the US, if not I might need to consider an import...

The game has officially sold over 3 millions units – making it the best-selling game in the series! This comes following Rusty's and Pater's Japanese VAs reporting that the game had sold 2.8 million units, which they'd heard via From, in October of last year. Great stuff. I really, really loved this game, and given its mission-based structure and the fact that past numbered AC titles have typically been followed up relatively quickly by a non-numbered title in the same "generation" (that's AC generation, not console generation), I think there's a decent chance that we could see another game in the series next year. Bonus points for sure if it follows past trends in the same AC generation of games and you can save transfer some stuff over to the new game!

I hear that there's a great spot in the sewers for some grinding

Interesting update on this – some people seem to be suggesting that these are legitimate parts you can use as replacement parts for the original hardware. Per VGC: Really, really neat to have that option (albeit wrapped up in a pretty unique way, but I guess that's Nintendo for you!) of replacement buttons coming straight from the original manufacturer if that is indeed the case.

Demo has dropped which carries progress into the full game: Still surprises me that more companies don't drop a demo once sales for a game start to die down, especially once a game reaches that point of being 4-6 months removed from launch and can still be a bit awkwardly priced

Wasn't really sure where to put this, but seems as good a place as any: Davide Soliani will be leaving Ubisoft after 25 years with the company, 11 years of which were spent collaborating with Nintendo on Mario+Rabbids. He's been there virtually my entire lifetime, which is kind of wild to think about. Anyways, obligatory salute and best wishes for whatever comes next

It actually was the classification previously, I remember them making a whole fuss about it when the change first took place and then when it got removed (source for the curious: THR) – it was in effect from 2015 until the change to the rules in 2022. Shows longer than 30 minutes at the time could appeal to be considered a comedy but were automatically assigned as a drama, and vice versa. Orange Is The New Black I'm pretty sure wanted to remain a comedy (because of the near guarantee of awards considering they'd gained some in the comedy section before) but their appeal ended up getting rejected. Either way, I think every definition they've come up with has missed the mark and similar to a lot of issues I have with the Oscar's (where anime is doomed because you're asking 60+ year old white men to check that out instead of having their kids watch a Pixar film) I think it's something which has long needed to be reconsidered, and not just because of the sheer number of things you could call a dramedy these days. It's like talking about Action and Action-Adventure game awards at The Game Awards – the winner of the latter almost always takes home GOTY, yet as subgenres they're both incredibly stupidly named and defined.