Julius

Finished the game myself yesterday afternoon after 25 hours to get the Plat: Incredible technical accomplishment of a game wrapped up in an engaging story with super fun gameplay, and representing a big step up once again from Insomniac. The sky seems to be the limit on what they can do, and now I'm really curious to see how they choose to follow this game up - DLC? A sequel? Another half-sequel akin to Miles Morales? - but whatever they choose to do, I'll be onboard, and I also can't wait to see what route they go with Wolverine to help differentiate it. It hit every single one of those 90s animated series itches for me, especially with... There was less to say than I thought there would be about the ending other than to play the game and see it for yourself, because it's one hell of a finale, so I'll cap my thoughts off by saying that I found it really funny how... One of my favourite games of the year, for sure, and yet another dart in the board that is "2023 might be the greatest year for gaming of all-time." There's genuinely an argument to be made for 5-10 GOTYs this year and it's kind of silly. Anyways, the game sold over 2.5 million copies in 24 hours, making it the fastest-selling PlayStation Studios game ever! Well deserved Yeah, absolutely. I think the game really benefits from slowing down and showing other experiences in a way only games really can – it doesn't happen enough, but when it does, it definitely puts a smile on my face! To be fair, for as woke as Insomniac position themselves as being (which isn't at all a problem, despite the seemingly negative connotation that being "woke" seems to have over there in certain places), mixing up the Puerto Rican and Cuban flags in one of the year's biggest releases when one of your deuteragonists is a mixed race, half Puerto Rican character, and to have that mix up happen in and around his own home? It's a pretty huge gaffe. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt simply because I can't see the how or why of this being intentional, but as someone who clocked immediately that something was off, I'm absolutely shocked that none of their devs or testers picked up on it at all. They'll roll out a patch in the next day or two, if not somehow sooner, but yeah, it's a gaffe which, while surely an innocent mistake, has you doing one of these:

I'm at the tail end of the game now after sinking in 20+ hours over the weekend: maxed level, couple of suits left to get, all activities available completed, seen all but two side quest lines through to completion, completed all FNSM quests, and so on - point is I'm in a pretty good spot to talk about the game at length, but don't worry, no spoilers outside of tags to be found here (plus, I'll definitely some time to mull it all over when credits do roll). Got to imagine I'll wrap the story and Plat up in my next session unless something else comes up. It's rare that I sink 20+ hours into a game it's launch weekend - but not every game is the type of game you can sit down with for hours on end, constantly finding something new and fun to do or try out, but Spider-Man 2 certainly is. First things first: the technical aspect. The game's just so gosh darn purty. I ended up going with the Fidelity Mode, in the end because that's what I would have done with Spider-Man 2018 (if it were possible at launch) and did with Miles Morales; the smoothness of the gameplay can come in the eventual NG+ run, which just seems inevitable seeing as I've played the first game through to completion four times, and the same goes for Miles. It's also the first time I've actually chosen to leave motion blur on - the game's look and feel is perfect, and I know at a locked 30 fps that I'm not in for any surprise headaches, and heck, even chromatic aberration has stuck around for a change! Those are normally the first two things I turn off because any lag in frame rate with those on just makes me wanna hurl, but glad to report, felt nothing of the sort so far. Rays are traced and they're absolutely astonishing, and yes, plenty of screenshots have been taken. Some really nice lighting throughout, but again, nothing too surprising there: Insomniac has put out games at a decent enough clip this gen that it's not a shock that the game that looks as good as it does, even if it is a very noticeable step up from their recent games. The sound design is great. The use of haptics and adaptive triggers are a step up from their use in Miles and Remastered. I can go on and on about how great this game is technically, and the Fast Travel - once you unlock it, boo! - is a delight, as are plenty of transitions throughout the game very reminiscent of the portals we saw in Rift Apart, the most obvious example being the entrance to the Mysteriums (Mysterio's little fun mad house style things). Unfortunately, as ever with Insomniac on PS5, I haven't been without issue in this playthrough, so I'll mention it here purely so that it's been said and so that I don't need to talk about it again. I've had two crashes (only today, mind you), and I had crashes in Miles Morales at launch AND when I played through Remastered just a few weeks ago - what's funny is I can't remember 2018 crashing once on PS4, and having just finished replaying Miles for PS4, I didn't encounter anything there. Also had some funny animations, like pressing triangle at a desk to interact and my character deciding to walk in circles, enemies clipping into walls/floors (the funniest of which was one who got his head stuck in a wall and then his body ragdolled...okay it was funny but also kind of legitimately horrifying, and reminds me of some green jelly from Stein's;Gate - iykyk ). Most of this, though, I'd just file under typical open world jank - it's unfortunate, but it does just come with the territory for a game like this, as it hasn't really hindered my enjoyment, and besides, it's far from the worst offender I've played through this year (ahem, Jedi Survivor). With the technical stuff out of the way, let's talk about the gameplay! The Web Wings definitely took a minute to get used to, but I love them now as it just makes long distance travel across the map before Fast Travel is unlocked a bit more enjoyable and breezy. The open world itself I'm so glad threw out the Unisoft towers and instead decided to just have the player uncover the map more akin to old school JRPGs like Chrono Trigger - you know, by *actually* going somewhere on a map to fill it in? - and it just helps the pacing so much, and coupled with what I'd describe as a more natural (well, besides the blaring neon signs in some cases!) just makes exploring this New York actually FEEL LIKE EXPLORING. It freshens things up in such a nice way compared to the first two games, though I'm getting towards the end now and I still can't shake this feeling that this NY feels different and I find myself a little scrambled at times trying to get my bearings compared to the first two games - is it the new coat of paint? The faster traversal? The expanded map? It's probably a combination of all three, and it's by no means a bad thing, but it just feels...different. And it's not the super confusing decision to have the FRND drones at the start have standard flight controls when the glide controls of Peter and Miles are inverted by default - anyone else get a little annoyed at that? Something I think has been really hit and miss for me has been the inclusion of a Parry in this game, because honestly, it just seems superfluous to me in every case outside of a boss fight. The game seriously didn't need it, and while it can lead to some cool combat moments, this game simply doesn't have the combat mechanical depth of a God of War or a From Software for it to feel completely at home and worth investing time into to start getting it right, and it's not helped by it most commonly being appropriate in battles against brutes and a swarm of grunts who are going to overwhelm you while you wait around a bit to get that Parry off. Also not a fan of the AoE attacks that need you to jump; especially after so long with just dodging in the first two games, while I get that it's something new that allows for fresh ideas, I don't think either were absolutely necessary. As for the main story, I've seen things - plenty of things! - but think I'd rather wait until I've completed the game to talk about it, not least so I can hopefully talk to some of you about it. What I will say is that it took me back to the feeling of the Peter Parker I grew up on, and it got me misty-eyed just feeling thrown back through time at points, but this all brings me onto the side quests. The entire thing feels SUPER 90s Spider-Man TAS and Spider-Man for PS1, and I loooooooove it for it. This game has the best side quests of the year, and it's not close. No, I haven't played through BG3 all the way, but I've seen enough to know that none of them have anywhere near as immediate a narrative or emotional payoff as some of these do. I don't think any of them have ended without a smile on my face, and yes, two in particular got me to well up a bit, for personal reasons that I won't get into here. Also plenty of surprises for some quest lines, so let's jump into some spoiler tags to talk about these side quests! This all just adds to this feeling that, much more than the first two games, this world has Peter and Miles really involved in their communities and caring so much for them, it seriously has so much heart and wears it all on its sleeve - IGN might finally be justified in saying that this game really makes you feel like Spider-Man Well, more like preschooler Julius, because I was only 3 or 4 when I watched the 90s animated series (in the early 2000s, owning some of it on a VHS and all!) Which is clearly to say that my judgement was impeccable if that's anything to go by

Love a Digital Foundry tech review, so here's theirs for Wonder: Spoiler: it's glowing

Haven't watched too much anime this year, but last month I watched Neon Genesis Evangelion for the first time, as well as End of Evangelion. Thought the show was fantastic, it's really not hard to see why it caught on as much as it did, much less inspire as much as it has (it being so obvious an inspiration for Attack on Titan definitely makes me want to debate AoT being a mech anime with someone ). The last few episodes of the show and EoE...were, well, wild. Absolutely wild. Do I have a complete idea of what was going on? Nope. Did the creators? I genuinely also want to say no Also, it's so funny having heard bits and pieces over the last however many years it is now that I've got into anime about the show, and I feel like you can definitely age a person by who their favourite girl/s in Evangelion is/are. I'm not one for waifu/best girl culture, but it's so obviously Misato and Ritsuko that, yeah, it's clear a lot of people saying otherwise were kids/on the younger side when they first watched the show because, c'mon, GOOD LORD was Asuka annoying Anyways, this week I've re-watched Steins;Gate again, and I think that's the third time I've watched it. Yeah, it's still a 10/10, and it's still my favourite time travel story in any medium. I should really check out the game at some point, probably, huh? Now I'm just left debating whether or not I want to pick up another show between now and Pluto dropping next Friday.

Yeah, I'm also going to agree with @Happenstance and @drahkon that starting from the beginning with these games is what I'd recommend. None of these games are particularly long (you can 100% the first game in 30 hours at a pretty casual pace), and the story and character development, I find, were half the fun. But perhaps more importantly, because these games are AAA showpieces: I think it would be tough (not impossible, mind you) to start out with 2, a PS5 exclusive, and then go back to the older games, not because of how they look (because the PS5 versions of Spider-Man and Miles Morales both look fantastic), but because of the incremental improvements in design, gameplay, and tech from game to game. From what we know of 2 just from the marketing, things like faster traversal thanks to the newly introduced gliding mechanic, near-immediate fast travel to seemingly anywhere on the map, and the parry system are all very small but sizeable changes to the approach in design for the game. And, also, yeah - the price. I don't think I've paid a full £70 for any standard version of a AAA game at launch this gen (you'll struggle not to find them whittled down to £60 or a little over that, to be honest), and while the price doesn't bother me too much, I know it's enough of a reason to hold others back, whereas I imagine you could probably get Spider-Man (2018) and Miles Morales combined for less, especially if you dig around a little into the cheapest way to get to the PS5 versions of the games (through upgrades, Ultimate Editions, etc.). Would love to read your thoughts if and when you get to it

I was looking through this thread after recently playing through the PS4 version of the game and, nearly three years later, I have an answer because I heard it as well! And yes, this is totally a valid reason to revive a thread

Thanks, and ah, appreciate the heads-up! Will make sure to download the patch for sure Yeah, makes total sense to me - it's such a meaty game, and especially seeing as they like to dole out pretty nice updates on a regular basis, it doesn't seem like holding off does any particular harm! I'm in a funny spot with BG3 playing co-op exclusively right now I will say, and as much as I'm enjoying it, I have *thoughts* on the co-op mode and how it's played out so far, but I think I'll wait until my next session and Spidey 2 are both dusted off. I've really been enjoying it, as there's enough quality for it to shine through I think regardless of how you approach the game and which mode you play it in...but let's just say that I'm very deeply pondering the possibility of starting a solo playthrough sooner rather than later, and I'd love to do so before the year is up just so that I can fairly consider it for my own, personal GOTY deliberations. Like you, though, I think other games are probably going to take priority for me between now and December, as once Spidey 2 is out of the way I'd like to get back to Like A Dragon (which I started last year before Ragnarök cut off that playthrough) and Tears of the Kingdom (which I dropped off of for similar reasons to the first game - had a wonderful time but just found that I'd had my fill and then a shiny new toy in the form of FF XVI came along ), and hopefully round those off so that I don't find myself with two massive, half-completed games in my backlog when next year kicks off

Yeah, that's totally fair honestly, besides introducing a few threads that they'll pick up in 2 (and the obvious thread that they already picked up in Miles with Miles becoming Spider-Man), I don't think you missed out on anything that I'd say makes it absolutely essential to play through. There are some newly introduced enemy types which shake things up a bit, and one kind of cool boss fight, but otherwise...eh. I mean, besides the stuff with Black Cat. As someone who had a crush on the character as a kid thanks to the 90s cartoon... Hell yeah, love a good midnight gaming session – have a good time with it! Look forward to hearing your thoughts My copy has now shipped so it's either turning up later today or tomorrow, and I've got next week booked off, so I'm hoping to really dig my teeth into the game (and some others) during that time. The Friday launch and another of my friends playing the game does mean that it looks like my weekly BG3 co-op sesh is getting pushed to Saturday night, though

As someone who is a big proponent of this, and other tropes like carrying over save data, and fighting a final boss earlier in the game when you don't know they're the final boss...not too many come to mind? But I love this question. I'm going to take it that we're talking about fighting a previously playable protagonist from a previous game in a series (I can think of a few examples where it's true for newly introduced characters in the same game), and I'm also not going to count what goes down in cutscenes as fighting them, as, well, that'd probably be a super slippery slope. Yakuza does this a couple of times (I won't say who and in which games because those games are pretty story heavy), though I will say that it definitely helps that there are a couple of games where there are more than one playable protagonist. For the same series, to get really cute with it, though, and in one that I don't think is going to spoil the games (because he's on the cover of the game), you fight Majima in a couple of games when he technically first becomes playable in a main series Yakuza game in the prequel to the series Yakuza 0, after having shown up previously in every main series Yakuza game before this released (so, every main series entry up to and including 5), so that kind of retroactively fits the bill for those games? As well as if you started with 0, which most introduced to the games since the PS4 (including myself) started with. He's also playable in Dead Souls, which released before this, as well as a special, optional player chapter in Kiwami 2. One of my favourite (and currently active) PlayStation IPs does this too...and I'll say which, but in a spoiler tag, so click at your own risk, and it's really hard to say more than that without potentially giving it away. Seriously. This is your last warning. It's a game that's released since I joined the forums, if that narrows it down at all. I think that's all I've got in the tank for games I've played To add to this a sec, as I'm having a hard enough time wracking my brain for answers as it is – I think Red is already the absolutely quintessential answer to this question, but I have to imagine he's also the answer where it applies the most, too? What with him also being able to be challenged in Black 2/White 2 during the Pokémon World Tournament, as well as in Sun/Moon at the Battle Tree, and in the Let's Go games? I'll also admit that I'm actually really shocked that they didn't do this again in Black 2/White 2 with the protagonist of Black/White. I'm not someone who screams Gen I bias a lot when it comes to Pokémon games, but I genuinely can't think of any reason to not have the B/W protagonist not show up in B2/W2 other than it needing to be seen as Red's thing - and to further this, the bias seems to ring especially true here seeing as the PWT could have very easily served to also have other protagonists from the main series games turn up.

Reviews are in and they're looking pretty spectacular - currently sitting at a 93 on Metacritic and 92 on Opencritic. Don't know when I'll get around to playing this, but man, what a fantastic year it's been for new releases. We've been absolutely spoiled rotten in 2023

Per Empire, the UK release of The Boy and The Heron is set for Boxing Day of this year. Additionally, the English voice cast has been announced, and it is S T A C K E D, including Ghibli VA returns for Christian Bale (Howl, Howl's Moving Castle) and Mark Hamill (Colonel Muska, Castle in the Sky; he was also the Mayor of Pejite in Nausicäa, but, well, that's technically not Ghibli ). Can't wait

Oh, 60 fps for sure. My TV doesn't support VRR, but even if it did, I think I'd lean towards 60 fps anyways after experiencing both Spider-Man and Miles Morales at that frame rate, it's just too hard to go back plus, I use the Photo Mode a whole lot in these games (because they're so darn pretty!) so get to see what things look like in Fidelity Mode quite a bit anyways! Great to hear Yeah, the stealth sections in that game are funny, because it serves the purpose of slowing down the pace for a bit after/around major story beats and setpieces...which is completely null if the person playing is doing side content, which naturally slows things down anyways, and so getting to those sections just grind things to a halt. What's funny is, I've played through the game four times now in total, meaning I've approached it a few different ways at this point, and I'm still undecided about the game's approach to its pacing, because it's basically an either/or. If you play through the game doing everything, everywhere, all at once? I think the pacing tanks at those stealth sections and in the final act following the change in world state (which slows down/changes traversal approach and brings perhaps a bit too much new to the table in terms of open world side content right at the game's apex). If you play focusing purely on the story? The stealth sections are well placed to bring down the game's pace when the story calls for it, and the story's pacing doesn't falter nearly as much in the final act as it would otherwise. Also reminds me of Yakuza a little bit with how short (but epic) that final battle is, but giving the option to get sidetracked before the finale means that some people might go in with higher and lengthier expectations of a final confrontation than plays out. It's not an issue, of course, it really depends on how you want to approach the game, but it's something I've definitely noticed happening a lot more over the past few years. The Star Wars Jedi games are another prime example of games with so much side content that the story pacing suffers a bit for it, and so two different playthroughs focusing on either story or completion offers up two very different experiences. I've rambled on enough, but I think Miles went a long way to fixing some of those concerns, with a bit of a smarter balance when it comes to side content (the volume as well as being able to trigger certain crimes on a whim) and longer cutscenes making the game a bit leaner and ironing out that pacing. If Spider-Man 2 can get closer to that, retain the emotional resonance of the stories of the two games that came before, and offer some new things up mechanically - all of which it seems to do based on trailers and some of the scores floating around - then I really think we're in for a treat! Did you get around to playing the The City That Never Sleeps DLC by any chance? Curious on your thoughts on that if you did, as it's pretty different to the base game in some ways but a nice segue into Miles Morales

Yeah, honestly, think this could just be a blanket statement for Insomniac games at this point – they've absolutely got my full trust and I don't feel like I need to watch a second of reviews or commentary, because I'm onboard (especially after how good the first two Spidey games were!). There's a very easy argument to be made I think that they're the best in the biz and have been for a hot minute now alongside Nintendo EPD (because, I mean, well) and From Software (because, I mean, well) for their sheer output in both quality and quantity. Will admit that I read the highlights of the DF tech review, though, mainly to try to figure out what mode I'll play the game in! Which will probably be Performance Mode (shocker), because it's very hard to go back from 60 fps in a game like this...so thank JJJ for Photo Mode incorporating Fidelity Mode Nice! How did you find it? I replayed it for the first time since 2020 (prep for Miles) just a couple of weeks ago myself and got the Plat (again) in the Remastered version too. Some things just can't be helped

Launch trailer dropped yesterday, and reviews are abound today! Trailer: Reviews: Just 4 days to go!!

Not a surprise to see it go through at all, as unfortunately this is just the state that entertainment industries - for any medium - are in at the moment. Just have a look at what's been going on with football over the last few years in particular (never mind the rest of the last three decades) - these companies are inevitably going to end up owned by a tech giant or some state with ass-backwards QoL and trigger (knife?) happy rulers. Anyways, what strikes me about this deal at the time of typing is simply that it doesn't feel nearly as big a purchase as it was when it first got announced back at the start of last year. Don't get me wrong, it's obviously still massive and a big blow to the idea of any fair competition in the industry that you can buy big names and make them exclusive - and that goes for anyone buying people up, not just MS - but while CoD is still huge, it hasn't actually grown its player base in any notable way in years, and things like Warzone seem to be only having a cannabilisation effect which we've also seen over with the Hoyoverse games, where they bring out a new game and their players/spenders don't double, they just move across to the hot new things. Overwatch 2 launched into a quiet state of virtual nothingness - I know people are playing the game, but it's not part of the conversation in the same way that the first game was at launch and thereafter. There's very little growth potential for the foreseeable future in these big AAA IP as they are now, and while the impacts of that might be minimised somewhat by trying to view it as a player count vs sales as part of Game Pass and most likely - eventually - platform exclusive, I'm curious to see how MS react when, inevitably, this purchase doesn't have the impact they forecasted, and doesn't bring people over. In a very strange way it actually provides impetus for PlayStation to get off their arse and create a competitor, potentially in the form of a new IP, with all but guaranteed growth in contrast (because, y'know, starting from nothing). I think my biggest (realistic - the actual hope is that this deal sets such a bad precedent that the buyouts stop, but that's pure fantasy at this point) hope for this purchase is that Xbox eventually realise this and that the actual growth potential in this purchase is in the smaller projects...but it's also been over half a decade now since they came out and announced a plethora of smaller studio pick-ups which we've still seen virtually nothing from. Their Game Pass curation and IP management so far has been simply embarrassing - the fact that we're halfway through the generation and after so many pick-ups that they're still struggling to get decent enough first party content speaks volumes. . Totally agree, but like @drahkon says, Microsoft are simply peerless when it comes to their spending power in the gaming space. If Apple, Google, or Amazon step up and actually pull their fingers out to get their own gaming platforms properly off the ground? Then yeah, we'll some competition; but the absolute worst kind. Like you say, it's going to be a bunch of consolidation plays to react to this almost out of necessity, and it could easily get ugly, and because of their relative buying power, Nintendo, PlayStation and others will likely need to play to their cards wirth teams that they're already buddy-buddy with. It blows my mind that I've seen people around the internet dare to compare Microsoft's level of acquisitions to what we've seen from PlayStation and Nintendo so far - at the end of the day, while these are corporations, good lord do some people need to learn to read the room. We're all losing and now everyone's playing catch-up to the big spenders. I genuinely hate it as someone who wants to play games...but it is super interesting to follow from a business case study POV. Either way, thank goodness I've got a backlog longer than the sun is blinding and that the indie space continues to produce bangers.

A meaty - nearly 10 minute! - video on the Access controller! More details in the PlayStation Blog: Good stuff

Confirmation of this month's games: Oh, and also, PS5 Cloud Streaming has (finally) arrived: Still struggle to imagine who this could be for and why you wouldn't just install natively, but it's cool nonetheless!

GameXplain with a big ass blunder in breaking embargo and getting their review discussion up...and then unlisting instead of setting to private. So it's still up (for now). Haha, whoops. Won't be watching that, so more importantly: only 8 days left to go!

Introducing the *new look* PS5, arriving in November – but not (yet..?) called the Slim? Detachable UHD disc drive confirmed, which can be purchased separately if you get the Digital Edition. From the PS Blog: Curious what this means for their future plans when it comes to plates? They have the previously announced Deep Earth Collection still to release, but are they going to double up on the number of plates for the slimmer models to be covered? Are only the slimmer models going to get them - despite them having a different system/size? Is it going to be only the older models that get them? Or will they drop the plates altogether? Pricing is...interesting, to say the least, either staying the same or even increasing in some territories, in the case of the Digital Edition. I guess it pushes an emphasis on the Disc Edition as it'll cost less than the Digital Edition + disc drive...but wasn't the point to push the Digital Edition at a reduced price to have a greater hold on game pricing and get a higher % of store profits? It'll sell regardless, but I guess the savings here are to be made on the hardware production side of things for them sure there's a bump in storage, but SSD prices are coming down on a pretty consistent basis, so it's an odd bump in price any way you try to put it. The detachable disc drive is a cool piece of tech, feels like something from a bygone era of gaming, but yeah, no reason to pick this up if you already have a PS5 (unless the change in dimensions is in your favour) – and if you don't, it seems like it'd be worth expediting a purchase of the current model? Now to wait and see if we get a Pro next year...but seeing as it feels like I can count the number of games on one hand actually pushing the current models, do we really need one just yet? Also makes me a bit nervous about the price of a potential Pro seeing as the slimmer-not-Slim PS5 hasn't seen a decrease in RRP, so it's probably going to be coming in at $549 or $599.

We now have explicit confirmation of this from Aonuma's full interview with The Telegraph. Here's the excerpt: Good stuff. DLC shouldn't be made just for the sake of it, and as I said before, the game is absolutely jam-packed with content as is, so it's really just not needed. I mean, so was BOTW, but TOTK feels like way, way more game in a weird way, and, for me, fully justifies the price hike seen in some territories. Still need to return to the game myself, but very curious to see where it lands in the GOTY conversation at the end of the year. While I think BOTW was pretty comfortably considered GOTY back in 2017, the promise of more DLC certainly kept it on people's radars, whereas 2023 has somehow turned out to be a more competitive year than 2017 in a lot of ways, and games like Baldur's Gate III have become surprise critical and commercial successes releasing much closer to the end of year gaming awards season. Not that I think too much stock should be put into GOTY awards (other than your own personal ones), but I'm just really curious to see how it lands. May feels like it was a year ago with how many [high quality] releases we've had since!

Looks like the TLOU Factions project is on ice. Per Kotaku: This one hurts. Having played the original Factions all the way through twice (well, essentially three times) just last year, which was a lot of fun, I had really high hopes for this turning out well. I guess it always had the potential to be tainted by GaaS crap, but I was really interested to see their plans for storytelling in that style of game – surely ND were building up to something fresh for the space. While I get Bungie coming in and giving their opinion that the game might not have the best systems in place to keep players coming back, no GaaS title is a guaranteed success. Zero of them. Risking it with something fresh just to have a moment in the spotlight is far more intriguing a proposition for me - and a more realistic expectation, I think, for these publisher's - because we're getting high quality games releasing at such a pace now that very, very few games have consistent staying power that brings players back (and potentially spending money) week in and week out. I'd argue the only people who have cracked it with multiple successes in a row are the Hoyoverse folks, and even then I have to imagine that there's an obscene level of cannabalisation amongst their own products when a new one is launched. Now I'm left just hoping that Naughty Dog get something out before this gen is done. Hopefully there's their new IP and TLOU Part III to look forward too, but we're rapidly nearing the halfway mark of this gen and they've released a pair of remasters and a remake, so it's hard to not be a bit concerned and let down

Some leaked details on the PS+ Extra games for October: Few of these definitely seem perfect for spooky season

I certainly think it can be enjoyed without having seen The Clone Wars and Rebels, but with zero knowledge of those series at all, I think it might take a minute to figure out what's going on with some of these characters – it was kind of marketed as being a sequel series to Rebels. For that reason, I'd recommend watching a couple of videos from Star Wars Explained intended to catch people up who haven't seen those shows. I recommended these videos to some of my friends who hadn't seen Rebels or The Clone Wars, and had only watched the live-action Star Wars shows, and I don't think I heard a question from them since, so I'll recommend the same to you: SWE also has some character videos released in the build-up to Ahsoka; if you plan to watch any of those, I'd recommend the ones for Thrawn, Ahsoka, Sabine, and Ezra (in order of how important I think knowing about them is to enjoying the show). I still think that even with watching those videos, some of the bigger fan service moments don't have the same amount of payoff if you haven't watched Rebels and The Clone Wars – but it should be more than enough to not feel totally lost while watching the show. For me, I think it's one of the best live-action shows they've released so far - probably behind Andor - and I think preferences will probably decide if you enjoy it more than Mando S1 and Mando S2; if you're one of those people who isn't a huge fan of the episodic adventures not really related to the main story in Mando and want one continuous story, then I think this will be right up your alley, as the show has a clear premise from beginning to end which every episode feeds into. Personally, if you've watched all the other live-action Star Wars show up to this point, I think you should watch it because it sets up a lot more of what's to come in future shows. Hope that helps, look forward to hearing some of your thoughts if you do get around to it!

Damn, what a finale for Ahsoka. Some scattered thoughts: Definitely my favourite season set in the New Republic/Mandoverse era, I agree with @FalcoLombardi that the first three episodes were a bit weaker than the others and a lot of (necessary) set-up, but every episode thereafter - from Parts 4 up to and including the finale in Part 8 - came with moment after moment of payoff, and even more so if you've watched Rebels before this...and even more so than that if you've watched The Clone Wars before this. And I don't think that's down to the show being a continuation of where Rebels left off, or having some great fan service moments, but genuinely because the show had moments they were constantly building towards. I love Mando having it's standalone episodes, but in an eight-episode season, having only half - at best - of those episodes actively move things along can definitely result in a weird pace to the season, ESPECIALLY with how short some episodes end up being; Boba Fett was an interesting origin story before it wasn't and turned into Mando S2.5; and Kenobi, well, weirdly lacked direction and just felt very bloated too. So, I think this is maybe my second favourite live-action Star Wars show overall, behind Andor, but that five-episode stretch from Part 4 - Part 8 is my favourite five-episode stretch in any of these shows so far. It's just beat after beat of payoff for someone like me, and I loved every bit of it. Shout out to: Baylan and Ray Stevenson's (RIP) performance, my favourite new character introduced in the show and it's not even close; the visual effects, this is BY FAR and no question the best visual effects we've seen in any of these shows, a couple of shots in The Volume which were obvious but otherwise it looked like a massive bump in budget; and, lastly, a special shout out to the Kiners for their music this season. Hope they get their chance to score a live-action film with Dave's movie – I say I hope, but I have no real doubts that they'll be along for that ride. Right then, now the long wait begins. It could definitely be a while before the events of this show are picked back up, so for now...maybe it's time for a Clone Wars or Rebels rewatch?

Final trailer for Pluto: Poster looks great too!