Julius

I mean, I guess it could belong in here, seeing as it would be retro by now – a Wii build of Free Radical's Star Wars Battlefront III, recovered by the aptly named Free Radical Archive: This one never seeing the light of day is always going to hurt for me, had no idea that a Wii build was planned, and man, those surface-to-air (and beyond) shots always get me excited, as do the cutscenes for the campaign. After EA's Star Wars exclusivity deal dying and 2018's Battlefront II much improved since launch but no sequel in sight – will we ever see a Battlefront III?

This game has seen many, many trailers over the years, but finally, it has been given a release year: 2025. I can't believe I lived to see this thing get some sort of release window. Feels like we've been seeing this game for a decade (and we nearly have been!).

Konami have released the redone opening movies for Suikoden and Suikoden II: Got to say...I prefer the original openings there's a weird mix here of some of the art for the original games and the new art, not to mention the weird and empty, higher fidelity locales. The originals, for comparison: But hey, at least the music is still S-tier, and, don't let this dissuade you. These are two of my favourites in the genre, so you'll be damn sure I'll be picking up a copy to support this re-release, and I'm looking forward to seeing how others here get on with them. No idea if I'll actually play these versions anytime soon, though. 2025 is looking stacked as it is and I think I'm more ready to continue my Suikoden journey than I am revisit these two excellent games right now, but I guess I'll see how I feel closer to the time!

Bit of a frustrating second session, once again finishing on a death (this time, thankfully, I had saved in the room next to where I died). I died to a Crimson Head - or I'm guessing that's what it was. I came across a red-hued zombie who had decided he wanted to live again after dying a second time (poor guy) earlier on my session and killed him, I have trophies turned off again so just saw the trophy description after finishing up and the image more or less matches my description of the first guy I killed and the second guy who killed me. Zombies can get up again after being killed and they're faster and stronger, that's good to know. Wish I burned his corpse, which is what I'm guessing that file I read was talking about (how to avoid having these second generation creeps turn up). Had to start the session doing everything I did towards the end of my last session in order to go back, blow the dog whistle, and kill the dogs. I used a shotgun because screw those things. No, seriously, screw those things -- even with a shotgun I nearly ended up downed by the two geezers a second time. I've got a mask and put it in place (I don't know if I'm actually meant to do this because *something* is chained up there and I'm not 100% sure I want to find out what it is), I've done the key swap and so have the Armor Key, just collected the second part of Moonlight Sonata which is why I died heading over to the...bar, I guess it is? So, by far and away my favourite thing so far about the game is the puzzles. They feel so natural and relatively light as far as puzzles, but because you might not have an item to hand, figuring out what you need to get from the chest or how many slots you want to have open to move things around makes you feel like you have a level of ownership over the puzzle you're solving. Favourites are the knight and bee puzzles so far, though I've been waiting forever to do that clock puzzle (spent 5 minutes trying to figure out if I did something wrong the first time I walked into the dining room!). My second favourite thing is the atmosphere. Knowing that Crimson Heads are a thing now adds some more tension, the lightning, the dark hallways, now I'm scared of L-shaped hallways with windows because of dogs and zombies crashing through windows. But my main frustration is with the combat and the tank controls in combat specifically -- because they don't come naturally to me (as, well, this game first came out when I was just 3 years old some 20+ years ago and I can't remember if I've ever played a game with tank controls like this, but I don't think I have) when I'm getting attacked or chased I feel like I'm fumbling around the DualSense and hoping for the best at times, which means my stun gun has seen ample use, as have the daggers I had been collecting, but have run out of. This aspect of the game specifically I'm just not finding much, if any, enjoyment in. I also feel like there's supposed to be a way for me to dodge when they attack (my general tactic has been shoot a thing until dead or, after learning about Crimson Heads, shoot a thing, run around it, or try to draw it into a corner and then go around) but honestly I have no idea if that's just me not gelling with the combat is there and wishing for a way to dodge. I also just feel like I suck at the game because of this, even if I feel like it's going relatively okay some 3-4 hours in, I feel like I'm taking it slow (in part because Jill is slow, in part because of tank controls, in part because I'm looking around and searching everywhere for items) but I *think* this may have just got a friend who was warning me about a snake killed (whoops). I'm guessing there's a time limit or something? I was wondering why the game was so explicitly telling me where something was for a change! And I feel like I'm saving too much, and wasting ammo, and... You get the picture. Anyways...yeah, that's where I'm up to. Loving the vibe and the puzzles, wanting to tear my eyes out and give up when I'm in combat most of the time. I can't remember any game in recent where my enjoyment of it is constantly meandering depending on the type of gameplay, specifically, that the game is going for in a certain moment. I'm going to dig my heels in and push on for now, but if it continues to not click (I don't think I've come across anything like a boss yet), well, I'm not going to force it -- in hindsight, given my knowledge of the tank controls going in but wanting to give the game its best shot at impressing me, maybe I was wrong to go with the middle starting difficulty and should've gone with the lowest purely to account for my lack of experience with tank controls? I don't know, I guess I might need to consider giving modern controls a go to see if I gel with it any better, but if my main concern about starting to experience the earlier PS1 Resident Evil games was that they might not give the fairest first impression and left me not wanting to come back, after today's session with the game, it's hard to not feel like that I was justified, and perhaps should've even started with a more recent remake instead, like RE2, just to touch base with the series in a modern sense before figuring out how I wanted to tackle some of the games. Guess we'll just need to wait and see what happens next time on Julius Plays Resident Evil

Interesting, I take it this means that the episode being a backdoor pilot for that upcoming Pacvania game really boosted some pre-order numbers. Seriously, I'm wondering what they get for a S2? I feel something like Silksong could be a really cool get.

Maybe it's in part down to how I approached the game (crit path and the odd side thing here and there) but I absolutely loved Sabacc, and would love to see it expanded into its own game. Hell, it'd probably make a solid mobile game. A more than welcome distraction than the disasterclass that was the rest of the game, for me, so maybe that's why I latched onto it so much? It's always funny when games get one over on the player which is in no way by design but purely because it's communicated something poorly or ineffectively, and once you start using the thing you were supposed to be using all along? Piece of cake, of course

@Hero-of-Time so I CTRL+F'd 'Nix' and 'Sabacc' and you give me nothing?! Glad you got to it though, and fully agree with your thoughts, though I'd definitely go with the option of backing those words with near-murderous intent and venom

Opening movie has dropped:

Was just reading up on this, what a joke. I'm not even surprised at this point. Elsewhere and tangential to TGAs, I saw ND were getting harassment and had to turn off comments on YouTube for the Intergalactic trailer for unfortunately obvious reasons. The only thing that makes knowing climate collapse is upon us even remotely sweet is that all of these braindead hateful bastards are going down with the rest of us.

Trails has managed to sneak its way into my Spotify and YouTube recommendations. There's this more emotive piece: And this absolute banger: I'm taking this as a sign from the Gaming Gods that I should probably be making the time to play a Trails game some time next year.

First trailer for Karate Kid: Legends:

What's even crazier is that FIFA/EAFC still has gambling sponsors on shirts in-game (unless the player is under 18, as is the case IRL); I get that's what the sponsors are paying for, but gambling sponsors being allowed to advertise in a game with a 3 rating is madness. What's interesting @Jonnas is that Astro Bot actually had a casino level (there are slots machines, cards, you name it – it was my favourite level in the game which is why I remember it so clearly) and only released back in September, so obviously as Localthunk was getting at, it really depends on the size of the developer or publisher when it comes to how much leniency you'll see. Maybe it's the fact that you aren't playing the games yourself? Immediately what I thought of, and I will always have respect for Belgium being the only ones to actually take any action when it comes to FUT. Shame about the rest of the world having governments and organisations full of spineless cowards. Can you imagine if the EU had an iota of the balls it took to stand alongside them? Ultimate Team in its current state would be finished. Can't even begin to describe how much I would love for that to be the case.

Sorry, but I had to

Here's an overview trailer, presented by...Daisy Ridley? What? Who else would you have present a Monster Hunter video? This isn't strange at all! Yeah okay, so it's a bit strange. Kind of strange. Very strange.

@Cube I've slowly been chipping away at them myself and for the four that I've seen so far - those being the first four: D&D, Sifu, New World: Aeternum and Unreal Tournament - I totally agree. D&D absolutely seems like it's supposed to be setting something up. I can't help but wonder if it originally started out as a Baldur's Gate project or something and changed when Larian bailed, because otherwise it does just feel out of place and feels like a generic advert for absolutely anything D&D, and I think its story it blunted because of that. The weakest of the ones I've watched so far is probably Sifu, having no experience with the game it didn't really make me want to check the game out more than I already do? Even if it has some cool stuff going on visually. New World definitely had the more complex arc, hilarious for an MMO, because it just feels like such a throwback in the least epic way visually, but is actually more interesting to me than a good number of the MMO trailers doing the rounds over the last decade. Arnie voicing King Aelstrom was also just kind of hilarious, too my favourite episode of the four I've watched so far. And yeah, Unreal Tournament: Xan was similarly great, even if it was much more predictable. As someone who hasn't played an Unreal Tournament game it's by far the most anything has done to convince me that I should at some point. Going to get through a few more today I think, with the next batch dropping tomorrow it means I don't need to wait around so much, because my original plan was just to binge them all

Maybe my memory's a little hazy, but wouldn't this also mean that if Nintendo were to re-release some of the DS Mario games with the casino mini-games, they'd be slapped with an 18 rating if released today, too?

Trailer for Superman is dropping on Thursday: First look at the poster and a little bit of some of the film's music, too:

Thought this had already been addressed, but anyways, PEGI are trying to stick to their decision to rate the game as 18 due to "gambling". Localthunk responds in kind: I mean, he's right. Taking aim at the waste basket that is EA Sports' football game not called FIFA is hilarious, I'm all for punching down on their practices

Mainly it's that it's only three, but not being able to play at two as an alternative sucks too. My gaming group is four people including myself, and so this just means someone is going to be left out of we'll need to rotate. It's a real shame as I've been looking for any way to convince my friends to try a From Software game, and our collective thought has always been that if there's even a mainly co-op game by them, that'll be when they try one – feels a bit lower stakes than playing through one of these games solo, and they'll have someone who has some experience with these games to hand, too. Not being able to play as a duo sucks just in case enough people aren't available; while we're a group of four, sometimes it's just the three of us, or even just two of us, who are able to jump on, just because the others in the group are busy with other things. It's been a growing trend over the last few years in the industry where these co-op games are becoming based on groups of three rather than four, and while I get it purely from a debatable balance and design perspective for the people who worked on the game, co-op games - and specifically PvE, where it's your group vs a bunch of non-player enemies - I feel like shouldn't be about finding a perfect balance, but just having people engage with the game in whatever size of group they want. Alien: Fireteam and Warhammer 40k: Space Marine II are the main ones which come to mind where we've been interested and then been disappointed and needed to chalk it off purely because of the three-player angle. It is what it is I guess, but considering the size of groups you can play with in Elden Ring proper, I can't help but feel left frustrated that they've gone with a bit of an odd choice

Easy Allies landed a video with the game's director and producer after TGAs: I don't even think it was a brilliant trailer - though a huge reveal of course, I'm not even sure it was in Top 3 Trailers for the night - and yet it's got me wanting to revisit The Witcher III and give it another chance.

Network test in Feb, registration on 10th Jan: Obligatory Vaati vid: Think I'm in. It can be played solo or in a trio (apparently no duos, apparently the password method will be used for linking up with friends), and it seems like I've got two friends who might be onboard. Just sounds like an exciting new way to play more From goodness while we wait for whatever they've got next in the pipeline Can't help but wonder if this will be digital-only? But I love the art and so would love the chance to get a physical copy!

So, after what just happened on the balcony and in the garden (?) when trying to find some Green Herbs after being attacked on the balcony, my fear of big dogs as a small child has retroactively been fully justified and next time I will be bringing a shotgun to the dog fight. Interesting tone so far, not really sure what's going on quite yet, but I do now that burning this mansion down might be a better idea than sticking around for however long the game is going to make me there hasn't really been much tension yet outside of cutscenes, but I'm only a couple of hours in so far. I went with Jill, by the way, purely because I've heard so much more said about her over the years than I have Chris. The slight boob jiggle when you stop walking caught me off guard the first time and gave me a good chuckle – I'm sure this is the true reason Capcom decided to remake the first RE Definitely took some time to adapt to the tank controls (I went with the original control scheme), I was feeling somewhat competent up until the dogs came into the picture, and obviously the fixed cameras are pretty foreign to me too. Enjoying the light puzzle elements so far, like figuring out what and how to interact with things in a room, going back and forth to the chest to just test items out that I've picked out on certain things I can interact with, testing out things like the lighter and kerosene after reading up on how to dispose of the corpses in-game (love when games communicate things like this effectively but don't just throw a dozen tutorial screens at you in the first 5 minutes, I had to learn about it from someone else's writing in the universe) and then accidentally walking into it, mixing Herbs, and so on. I already feel like I've mentally mapped out what I've seen so far of the Mansion pretty well, which is impressive for the game to get across with just how little time I've spent with it so far. The key-related puzzles (that trap room where the game seems to hint that you need to die to progress? Yeah, I wasn't taking that bait!) have probably been my favourite puzzles so far. Obviously, I've got to shout out just how good this game looks. Sure, I'm playing the HD re-release on modern consoles, but it's not hard at all to imagine how the original release of Remake back in the day must have blown minds. Similarly, the lighting, the sound effects, the vibes are through the roof but they aren't suffocating in the way I, for whatever reason, thought they might be going in; music creeps in at times to lend a hand to the building tension, lightning flashes through the window to reveal a box under a chair which makes you move just left enough towards a fire place for the camera angle to change, which shows a map of the second floor – honestly, just this little nugget feels like it got me more excited for the game, knowing that someone clearly put that there knowing that players would see it when the flash of light burst into the room. It feels so well crafted. Special shout-out to whatever misery awaits me under the stairs, but also a bigger shout-out to the door animations, as they're absolutely hypnotising. Feels a little weird to be limited on inventory space just because I don't have much experience with games giving you limited inventory space. That's taking a bit of getting used to just in terms of a "hmm, what should I be taking with me?" sense, but I quite like that every time I've gone back to the Safe Room (only unlocked the one so far) I'm always trying to figure out what I need and then what I *might* need, there's a definite risk-reward to carry both the shotgun and handgun while dumping the knife, or carrying around an emblem I've had since the start of the game still because I just know it's going to be useful in some way. Combining stuff and examining them in the menus, too, just feels like it adds this other layer of "let's stop, think, and take a closer look at this" which I'm liking. This is my first time playing a Resident Evil game - not counting the 5 minutes I spent in the demo of RE2 Remake wandering around the starting room as Leon before deleting it because I wussed out - after meaning to for a good while, and I'm really excited to see how it goes, knowing both how revered the franchise and this particular game are, but also just on terms of how I'll handle my first real survival horror experience outside of The Last of Us. I'm not sure how much I'll be revisiting this thread during my playthrough but after a month or two of feeling fully burned out on games, I'm glad that after taking the last week off after playing something very short last week, I've even started one. I feel like I've been trying to deliberate over the last few days which games I want to get to between now and the end of the year, and above all else I felt like I needed something new and different; so far at least, the alien nature early on to me of the tank controls and my first RE seem to be doing the trick.

Bet you'll never guess what I'm playing... Totally just stood in that room for 5 minutes. What a vibe setter; Firelink Shrine vibes, or maybe I should say Firelink Shrine has Safe Room vibes?

Thanks for the heads-up H-o-T! Funnily enough, my brother asked for my birthday/Christmas list yesterday when Granblue had been languishing in my basket on TGC for a couple of days at £30 (been trying to figure out what I want to play over my Christmas leave), so I was pleasantly surprised to see it had dropped when just checking the links were working before sending the list over to him. Asked him to buy it ASAP when I saw that price, seems a steal

Seeing a weird number of people causing a stir about Jordan having a shaved head. Not that she would need this to justify the shaved head at all anyways, but I wonder if it's a gameplay mechanic of sorts? Naughty Dog's hair physics are insane so it'd be odd to me if they suddenly went with a protagonist who shaved theirs off...so considering we'll seemingly be trapped on Sempiria for potentially most of the game, if not all of it, I wonder if there's a passage of time (be it through "days" or just story chapters) which sees her hair grow back? It could totally just be her look, I mean it's a bit more grown out in the photo we see but still very short, but choosing to introduce the main character in this first trailer with a shot where she's in the process of shaving her head before she goes down to Sempiria is a pretty peculiar choice if it's not intentional (I guess maybe a form of otherwise "letting her hair down" or something, so to speak).