Julius

We're not quite out of the Not-E3 woods yet, folks – Capcom Next has been announced for this coming Monday, focusing exclusively on three upcoming titles: Think I'll give this one a pass but from the impressions I watched and heard about Kunitsu Gami over the last few weeks, seems to be one of those smaller games more akin to a PS2 title of yore (pretty sure someone straight up referred to it as a "long lost Capcom title for the PS2" in their impressions), so I can imagine it being of interest to some here.

Nintendo are going a bit nuts with the icons – four waves of two icons have been announced to tie into the release of Luigi's Mansion 2 HD, updating on a weekly basis and starting today.

Free monthly games for July will be:

Poor. Poor. Poor. Subs looked good but were brought on far too late, and we've rode our luck tonight in more ways than one to avoid Germany and that side of the tournament tree. Our group sucked.

England seem to want it more than they have the last two games, but on the night, Slovenia seem to want it more than us. Slovenia look really scary on the counter and our passing has been sloppy at times. Also swear they've said "spicy backpass" or some permutation of it a good two or three times now. Shut up. Please. I beg.

Lee Dixon still doing his best to draw out my hatred for him. How the hell he thought it was Saka offside and not Foden at first beats me.

Aye – Portugal are on that side of the tree, too, so it's safe to say it's absolutely stacked right now. Anyways, moment of truth. Time to see if switching Trent out for Gallagher makes all the difference

Really poor from France. Late penalty shout maybe, but it would've been unfair to Poland to give it. France have yet to score with one of their own players from open play. Which is crazy. We all thought Austria would win this group, right? anyways, now if England come 2nd we get Germany and if we come first there's a chance we get the Netherlands. Great.

You play Upamecano, you concede that you're probably going to give something silly away. Poor pick from Deschamps and France are holding on here after Lewa's equaliser. 7 according to Opta, vs 11 in total in 2020/21: That stat of ⅔ of total own goals at Euros coming in either the 2020/21 or 2024 tournament is mental.

Kind of crazy part is, just having watched this video, I don't think they actually mentioned one of the most egregious parts of the trailer visually -- you can straight up see the border of an alpha texture. Spotted by Digital Foundry in last week's Direct Special (linked to specific point in video) Crazy. I hate that my reaction to this is just to point at the Battlefront Classic Collection put out by Aspyr earlier this year, which weighed in at over 60 GB! It's great and all that these legacy titles are able to stick around with these various ports and remasters, but man, the fact that so many of them are phoned in with ballooned file sizes due to terrible optimisation, or the prices they come out for, is a bit gutting. Hopefully Nintendo take note of the reception and make sure the finished game is delivered at a higher bar of quality than it seems to be currently meeting.

Couldn't find a thread for the original release, but feel like it might warrant one now - originally released back in 2022 by Digital Eclipse to commemorate Atari's 50th anniversary, Atari 50: The Anniversary Celebration is being expanded on this October, and said expanded version is also getting a physical release. Yep, still a lovely cover!

It was an own goal, sure, but Austria are now 1-0 up against Netherlands, meaning Austria are currently top of the group over France (who are still 0-0 with Poland). First 10 minutes, mind you, but could be an interesting one...

Thanks guys for getting this sorted, it's really appreciated especially the transparency around this stuff! With the issues in recent weeks, I'm still just glad everything seemed to run super smoothly when the Direct was on last week! There's nothing quite like the reactions of N-E in a live Direct thread

Felt it was coming. But man did they leave it late. Excellent burst through the midfield from Calafiori, and a perfectly weighted ball. There we go.

Donnarumma must be PISSED about that. Great pen save. Great initial save when it comes back in seconds later. No-one there to help after it goes back into the box. Game on.

Urgh, more stupid commentary at this tournament. Croatia man tries to play the ball back, comes off an Italy man back to him, with him now potentially being behind the back line. "Offside" - it came off an Italian last you muppets!

It lives...allegedly. Reminder that there was additional content tying into 2 added to the new release of the original. Got to imagine 2 has been pared back if it ever does make it out.

Pretty boring match so far, Italy on top if anything and at least we're seeing shots taken by both teams, but Italy seem comfortable with a 0-0 and Croatia don't seem to want a goal enough to take the lead. Definitely. Lack of pace on the wings and no real threat up top to aim at, even if they do have an excellent midfield, why is Modric the one overlapping to lash it across the 6-yard box? It reminds me of when Spain went through that phase of playing without a striker.. you know, minus the wealth of talent everywhere else on the pitch and the pace they had on the wings.

Which match is everyone watching tonight? I've got Croatia v Italy on seeing as there's more riding on it, what with the winner of the match - if there is one - guaranteed to go through in one of the top spots. Croatia haven't really turned up yet but with there back against it I'd be shocked if it all goes Italy's way, even if I'd back them to win it. Might flick between both of the matches, though. Spain have been one of the most exciting sides to watch so far this tournament for me, they look ruthless on the wings and are the most direct I think I've ever seen them. Here's to a - hopefully - good night of football!

Well, here we have it: to the surprise of no-one, Gfinity are reporting that GAME plans to put an end to in-store sales of games and consoles. Pre-orders for home delivery or in-store pick-up will still be available. What a mess, and crazy that they couldn't find the resolve to last it out until the Switch 2/GTA VI, but I guess that's just a sign of how dire things are, and have been for a while. Mental that this update comes just three weeks after the news on their rewards programmes, guessing splitting the news up was supposed to soften the blow? I'm genuinely struggling to think of where I'd even go locally to look at and buy physical, newly printed, sealed games in a store at this point. Switch 2 will absolutely have carts, we've seen the leaks for Xbox moving forwards and their plan to go all-in on digital...leaving PlayStation as the only one where it's a bit of an unknown at the moment. Very curious to see if they lean into the business decision of going all-digital (maybe with an optional disc drive for BC?) with the PS6, or lean into the good PR keeping physical around might bring next-gen, just thinking back to how much noise was made when so many of their legacy storefronts threated to shut up shop a few years ago. Feels like another nail in the coffin for physical media. Can't say I'm a fan of this all-digital future we're seeing at the bottom of this abyss we're collectively staring into as a gaming community. UPDATE: and GAME have gone into denial mode, per Eurogamer. Like they have a choice.

Late drama in both games was nice to see Hopefully sets the tone for the rest of this final round of group games. Let's all pray that there aren't any more 0-0's. Yes, I'm looking at you, England.

Germany counting their lucky stars, and namely one called Füllkrug. Germany celebrating like it's a win. Switzerland deserved the win. 1-1.

Excellently worked goal from the Swiss, and, for now, they're now top of the group over Germany. Let's see how the rest of this plays out, but we've been saying all along just how leaky this German defence looks, they really seem there for the taking.

Very much deserved win for Portugal. Much more convincing this time around, perhaps could have scored more and will need to be more clinical in the knockouts -- felt like they had Turkey at arm's length from the first goal onwards. Pepe was class at the back, too. Great game overall, shame Turkey couldn't put it in the back of a net that wasn't their own because they were fun to watch. Crazy just how much better they were in the final period of the game when Güler came on, shame he couldn't start after concerns around his fitness the last few days, because there were some sweet passes by him in his short time on the pitch and seemed like the launchpad for every Turkey attack towards the end. Hated the reminder that he wasn't even born when Ronaldo got his first goal at the Euros in 2004, mind Lastly, very concerned about just how many pitch invaders there were today, especially with it happening again and again AFTER security increased towards the end of the match. Scary stuff and needs to be taken much more seriously, all it takes is one person with a screw loose for us all to see something horrible take place.

Most unselfish Ronaldo I've seen in front of goal with only the 'keeper to beat...ever? Especially considering he's still waiting to score that record-extending goal in his 6th Euro finals, oldest goalscorer in the competition, etc. He'd normally absolutely bury that himself but does the "right" thing in passing it to Bruno for a simple tap-in. Excellent run behind the line, too -- showing Kane how a drop in pace can still be used to bring everything forwards. Seems like he's serious about just wanting to put the team first and win. Good for him, potentially scary for everyone else.