Julius

Wow, this is the best start I feel that English football has had to the start of the UCL in a very long time. Extremely pleased with our performance away in Madrid; feels like our most dominant showing against a top European side in, well...a very long time. Great to see Morata scoring again, Hazard was great as always, but I'm still concerned about squad size. I think we seriously need a few more players come January if we're to keep this pace up (with or without major injuries). I can't help but feel sorry for Ancelotti: though I find Bayern's recruitment tactics extremely respectable in this day and age, I think it says something that Robben (33) and Ribery (34) are still considered to be in Bayern's current best XI; these players, as well as Xabi Alonso and Lahm, amongst others, should have had players signed to replace them a year ago at the very latest. Shaqiri and Costa brought in for the long-Term to replace Robben and have both left (Costa had an off-season last season, but if the problem was Carlo's tactics anyway...) and Coman hasn't shown off his spark in a while. Kimmich is a solid RB, but at the same time, if anyone in Bayern's starting XI got injured today, especially in such an important position for Ancelotti's system, it would have caused chaos. The team should be playing something like a 4-2-3-1 or a 4-4-1-1 given the available players (I'm still surprised we don't see Müller played just off Lewandowski more often; the former can run around the entire final third of the pitch whilst the latter can hold up the play and poach) but we're still seeing them trying to implement Guardiola's tactics with the counter-attacking mindset of Ancelotti's 4-3-3/4-2-1-3 and it simply does not work given the players at their disposal. Surprised he wasn't out sooner, because it seems a waste of a great manager - no offence to German football - to walk in to somewhere like Bayern and not be given the funds and respect to implement a new system. Both Bayern and Ancelotti are to blame for this, in my eyes: the former saw some of Jupp's managerial spark in the latter, I'm sure, whilst the latter expected a walk in the park.

Final trailer has more-or-less been confirmed to be dropping 21:00 - 22:00 ET (02:00 - 03:00 BST) on the 9th (10th) by SWNN's sources, depending on the events of the game (it's playing at half time during an NFL game). My calendar is marked, and it's great that it comes merely hours after BFII's beta closes. The countdown to the film is really starting to kick in 77 days to go!

HOLY SMOKES THIS GAME LOOKS AMAZING

Aaaaaaand the editing is complete: the film is finished. Around 83 days to go

Yeah, Rian Johnson (the director) and Mark Hamill have been very verbal about how there shouldn't be much else shown from the film, so I'm planning on avoiding absolutely everything once the next trailer goes up. Despite what I just said about those involved, the film is premiering a week before its official American release date (the 15th), the largest gap between premiere and such a release under Disney's regime. @EEVILMURRAY at this point, I honestly think it's either that or she's a Skywalker in my eyes. Anything else requires way too much inorganic exposition (Skywalker could be explained through further Forceback visions). I'm also extremely interested in where they take Kylo after TFA: if he is going to turn, do we see the beginnings of this at the end of TLJ? Because if not...I think there's a valid argument for him going darker and killing Snoke in IX to take control of the Galaxy (only if X - XII are planned too).

Great idea @Nicktendo! Surprised we haven't done this before, but I agree with the others: I don't think the IGN method will work on a message board. If I'm understanding what @Ronnie and @Hero-of-Time are saying, the GAF way sounds like the best way to do it: set a deadline (i.e. the end of September) to allow for optimal participants, who will post their Top 10, with their top choice gaining 10 points, their next 9 points, etc. However, I'd suggest that we save 2017 Nintendo games - as there have been a lot of greats, but I feel that, as a result, it could take a while for us to fully process them - for the start of next year, and debate top games for the year, and then debate as to whether or not they make it into the list? I mean, BOTW is a 50-hour commitment at minimum, and Odyssey is likely to be critically acclaimed by many of us too. Just my two cents, but it gives everyone a chance to play them after we see some prices drop in a few weeks in preparation for Christmas

So, Mark Hamill tweeted this before deleting it: The question is: did he delete it because he was up to his usual fan-trolling, or because he wasn't supposed to reveal that? in any case, we'll be finding out soon enough: this would mean the trailer is likely to drop on October 9th at roughly 21:00 ET - half-time of Monday Night Football - or 02:00 BST. Confirmation will likely be provided during the weekend as GMA will likely release a teaser to the trailer. In other news, I'm starting to get seriously excited.

From the Direct last week featuring the new UBs (not too keen on their designs to be honest with you guys): The following image of USUM's Alola came a few weeks beforehand and, so someone who's into the lore moreso than the competitive side of battling, it was especially intriguing to see what looks like a familiar formation of dark/purple clouds... Alola in USUM You know, like the ones we saw in DPPt and ORAS when Dialga, Palkia and Giratina showed up? Sinnoh in Platinum Hoenn in ORAS And, finally, a special poster was revealed earlier today. Including what you might ask? First things first: it's a great looking poster. Not too sure how I feel about NPCs having virtually the same outfit designs as SM, but alas, it won't make or break the game. However, what about those shadowy figures obscuring our view of that familiar looking cloud? Upon first viewing, and a lot of zooming in, the one on the left seems to share a lot of similarities with some Pokémon, in the way that it's torso generally falls and it having a pretty weird arm and all. But the left one? Yep...that definitely looks like a person, who's body is facing the left side of the image, and seemingly has their arms crossed and is seemingly wearing a backpack of sorts. Zooming into the facial area shrouded in cloud reveal two faniliar Sugimori-styled eyes. Another look at the left one and that arm still looks dodgy, but a male face seems evident, as well as what looks to be some sort of eyewear, pretty short hair, and what seems to be a beard. Mechanic parts are seemingly evident down the sides of his torso. But, okay, who is it? Well...Lysandre did have a bit of an accident at the end of XY, so that could explain the extremely strange and seemingly cyborg-like design. However, could it also be Cyrus returning from the Distortion World? Well...it's possible. The general aesthetic down the side of the right figure's torso looks extremely familiar to the aesthetic found on many of Team Galactic's costumes, as shown here: But, likewise, the studs on the "female"'s elbows and the buttons on the "male"'s chest area look similar to those found on Aether's costumes: Whatever is going on...colour me intrigued. I'm absolutely ready to dive into this based on the possibilities this poster boasts alone!

A MASSIVE Reddit leak, which by all means seems legitimate, has dropped plenty of information, and seemingly the entire roster of Heroes, Villains, vehicles and infantry expected to be found in the game, as well as the supposed locations - and possibly even order of these locations - to be found in the campaign. Note that these should still be taken with the slightest grain of salt, and that whilst this is expected to outline everything we will see in the game at launch*, it does not go beyond this, and could by all means be subject to some change. Many spoiler tags ahead. Illegible grammar will be edited, but most information will be sourced directly from the Reddit post. *With the knowledge that Finn and Phasma will be dropping as our first DLC - which appears to be a tie-in to The Last Jedi - it's safe to assume that also included in this DLC, as listed below, is a space battle over D'Qar and a ground battle on Crait (as seen in the teaser trailer for the film). Heroes & Villains Multiplayer ground & space locations Game modes Vehicles (including Hero & Villain vehicles) Special units Campaign locations (supposedly in order)

Ousmane Dembele is out for 4 months with a thigh injury; I can't help but feel sorry for Barça. Julian Nagelsmann is also being lined up to replace Ancelotti next summer at Bayern after the continuous reports of unsettled players at the club, which I find an extremely intriguing prospect, considering how well he's done with Hoffenheim to date, given the size and financial resources of that team, and of course his age: he just turned 30 a few years back. A lot of talk over in Germany that Bayern are willing to get him at any cost, as they view him as a once-in-a-generation managerial opportunity, and are probably still embarrassed about how they never got Klopp and instead got Klinsmann nearly a decade ago.

Man, the beta is drawing closer and closer, I can't wait! My end-of-year Star Wars excitement bout is beginning to kick off Anyways, there are some rumours going around that a trailer will be shown next week at TGS next weekend. A few days ago, a supposed leak also revealed that the beta will be roughly 14GB - 16GB in size, with the Clone Wars-era Assault on Theed battle shown at E3 being available, as well as the Civil War-era space battle over Fondor shown off last month at Gamescom. A new game mode, Strike, will be available on Takodana, whilst a Skirmish mode will also reportedly be available.

My wallet has a bad feeling about this...

Principal photography has been delayed until June of next year, as was expected.

And so it begins... [in 26 minutes]

I'm in agreement that it's a bland choice, and certainly the safest, by a long shot, but right now I think JJ offers the stability Lucasfilm requires right now: he's a director that they already know they can work - and work well - with, and who already knows the ins and outs of writing and directing a Star Wars film. The last few months at Lucasfilm has been turbulent to say the least, so a safe choice - JJ or RJ - was to be expected, but any announcement for Rian taking the helm would have had to wait until after December to make it a smart PR move and would have left it far too right for production to kick off when planned (which currently still stands as early 2018, very likely February or March). I think the biggest weakness of JJ's works to this point has been his reliance on his mystery box philosophy, and with many answers expected in The Last Jedi anyhow, perhaps this will free up some creative opportunities for him, as he isn't laying the groundwork for a trilogy but rather completing it. I think the more worrying news is hat he is co-writing with Oscar winner (Argo) Chris Terrio, who wrote Batman v. Superman as well as the upcoming Justice League movies. Worth noting also that the film has also moved from May to December 2019 (the 20th to be precise), meaning it rounds out the 2019 box office against films such as an untitled live-action Disney movie (likely Mulan), Bond 25, Frozen 2 (all November) and Wonder Woman 2 (December 13th). Perhaps even more interesting is that Deadline are reporting that Rian Johnson turned down the directorial helm of Episode IX.

A developer behind the upcoming Nintendo Switch indie Lichtspeer might have just let it slip that Nintendo are working on an achievements system for the Switch. I think the inclusion of an achievements system would be huge for a home/portable hybrid, and it would certainly give players more incentive to play through games again or push on further. Then again, I personally think it would be better to add achievements to games post-completion so that players enjoy the game at face value the first time around, adding to the replayability of each game. SOURCE: https://www.reddit.com/r/NintendoSwitch/comments/6yw24w/we_made_lichtspeer_a_game_about_throwing_laser/

You mean DisneyLife? You're right, that's been around a while now, but in my opinion it never got the marketing push (and exclusive rights to their Star Wars and Marvel films) needed to really push it into the mainstream, which seems to be the plan with the new streaming platform (considering how they seem to be going straight for Netflix as direct competition from the off by pulling their films from there). It'll be interesting to see whether both the Star Wars TV series (Rebels, but perhaps The Clone Wars in particular given Warner Bros. and Cartoon Network's history with the series, and, I'd assume, some form of distribution/licensing rights) make it into the platform too, and it's worth noting that DisneyLife gave access to books and music too. If they continued that trend with just the canon Star Wars content alone - I mean, it'd practically be an archive at that point - from the novels to comics and the music, as well as the movie and TV contributions, Disney could really be into something here, I feel. Do that with Marvel too, such as with the comics, and throw in the PIXAR short films for good measure, and I feel you'd definitely have a platform which could justify a £15/£20 per month package. I'm more of a physical media kind of person myself (not quite sure why to be honest), so they'd have to throw in some decent bonuses (such as those that I hinted at above) to warrant me buying in, considering I already own all of the Star Wars and MCU films on DVD or Blu-Ray as it is :/ If I didn't though, I'd certainly be in. I think any little extras could be what sells me on it

Star Wars and Marvel films are being pulled from Netflix by Disney ahead of their own streaming platform's launch in 2019. This follows the announcement that Disney and Pixar films were being pulled from Netflix last month. Bob Iger, who revealed this information, also said a launch for the Netflix competitor would be aiming for "late 2019", and Disney plan to produce four or five original films, as well as an equal amount of new original series and TV movies. A price for subscription has yet to be announced. Out of interest, would a Disney streaming platform potentially pull any of you away from Netflix, or would you just end up subscribing to both platforms anyhow?

Whilst there was a thematic throughline in the OT, I'd argue that Return of the Jedi's director, Richard Marquand, wasn't the director in anything but title and that it was absolutely George Lucas' film (at least, much more so than The Empire Strikes Back, which Lucas' former mentor at USC, Irvin Kershner, directed) in every sense of the word, and most depictions of Jedi's production supports this. Personally, I don't mind giving nearly everyone in Hollywood a crack at Star Wars, whether an actor/actress, director, producer or BTS guy/girl, because I love Star Wars from an outside perspective, and can't imagine how insanely happy it must make those with an inside perspective to be hired, even if only for one film. Changing the director every film also means that we should avoid a repeat of the critical panning of the prequels for a while. However, I am beginning to worry about the amount of directors being cut from Star Wars projects due to "creative differences" with Lucasfilm, and I'm scared as to why this is happening. Phil Lourd and Chris Miller were fired from the Han Solo project just months ago, and whilst I'd argue that their comedic style would have never suited this character, "creative differences" seems to be a recurring theme, whether it comes to writers or directors. Heck, Trevorrow is the FOURTH directorial casualty since Disney took over (Josh Trank was fired from the standalone film due in 2020 which he was supposed to be directing, which was reportedly a Boba Fett project), meaning that of Disney's original six film plan revealed for 2015 - 2020, half of them have had a change in director. Whilst this is by no means any reason to freak out - it happens all the time in the movie industry, just ask DC - this strange through line seems to be stemming from the same place, so it's worth keeping an eye on. As much as I love the Lucasfilm Story Group, it's the tiniest possible that their involvement could be tarnishing creative freedom when it comes to directors. As for Rian Johnson returning? I'm totally on board. He already has a great rapport with fans because of his actions at Star Wars Celebration in Anaheim back in April, signing something for, and talking to, every single fan who queued up overnight for the The Last Jedi panel. He has seemingly fit as a cog into the Lucasfilm machine seamlessly, and with great directorial and writings credentials already (I highly, highly recommend checking out Looper, Brick or The Brothers Bloom before The Last Jedi comes out just in the event you need any more reasons to be extremely excited) and with the backing of Kathleen Kennedy it's almost a no-brainer for him to come in to write and direct IX, not to mention his great relationship with the great late Carrie Fisher means that he is arguably the director in the best position to give her the farewell that she deserves. I've said it plenty of times before, but I am somehow even more excited for VIII than I was for VII simply because of Rian's involvement, and whilst the film will of course share similarities with Empire - this goes without saying at this point - I think we should all be prepared to see what could potentially be a film that could leave a mark on the movie industry just as much as the aforementioned did back in 1980 come this December, not least because this will be Kylo Ren's film just as much as it will be Rey's, and so having Rian Johnson come back after giving them a great platform for growth in VIII would position him best to complete their arcs in IX. I love the idea of him returning to direct the film!

In an interview with Bloomberg (which also shared the hopes left for Pokémon GO and touched upon the future of the franchise as a whole) the CEO of The Pokémon Company International, Tzuneka Ishihara, had the following points to share on the Pokémon game making its way to Switch.

The film had been scheduled for release on May 24th 2019, but that's sort of thrown up in the air by the following paragraphs. Colin Trevorrow had been pinned down to direct, but due to one reason or another - some reports are saying that he's taken several stabs at the script with no luck, whereas others suggest that there have been creative differences between himself and the higher-ups, such as President of Lucasfilm Kathleen Kennedy, for months now - he has left the project by mutual consent. Rian Johnson, the director of Episode VIII, due this December, is widely touted as the favourite to become the director of Episode IX, though it wouldn't surprise me if they kept the decision to make him director - if he becomes director - quiet until after Episode VIII's release to likely critical and fan acclaim (and, if this were the case, I think it would then be less likely that there is a delay in filming and, consequently, the film's release). Episode IX is expected to begin shooting early 2018 for a 2019 release.

Leaked a month or so back but EA have finally confirmed real-time transfer and contract negotiations and more in-depth cutscenes interwoven throughout the manager career mode experience (such as a Ballon d'Or presentation for the year's best player or the media unveiling of a marquee signing in the news section of the menu), as well as a new transfer hub. Seeing as this is the main mode for which I've played FIFA over the last few years, I'm happy to finally see some strong features added to the mode.

Square Enix's TGS 2017 line-up has been announced, which includes a Project Octopath Traveller presentation on September 23rd at 09:55 JST. Definitely one I'm excited for, the art style looks great!

The Ultimate Collector's Series Millenium Falcon set, based on the The Empire Strikes Back and the The Force Awakens iterations, which will cost ~$800USD, has just been revealed it will also be coming with 7,541 pieces, making this the largest and most expensive LEGO set to date! And yes, it comes with both satellite dishes I kind of just want it for the extremely clean box design, though.... Available October 1st!