Julius

It's nearly the end of January, which means the Easy Allies GOTY Deliberations have arrived! ...yeah, I'm not sure if I'll be checking this one out, or if I do it's going to be a slow chip rather than my huge gulp approach. Not sure what Gabby's doing here, but then skimming the comments, it seems like she might actually belong there more than some of the others at this point, having played some of the bigger shout GOTY contenders this year when others haven't. The comments spoil their GOTY, but honestly, if you look at the Allies left and what they choose to play/prioritise over other new games, as well as the noisiest ones here...I don't think it's that much of a surprise. Can't believe they decided to wait another month until after Brad left to hold these and not find a way to have him back, he played and reviewed more new releases last year than anyone else left, and even with the additional month, it seems "no-one has time to play everything" is getting thrown around. Hoo boy. Regardless of whether or not I check this out, I think it's time to revisit some of their old GOTY deliberations. One last good excuse to take a trip down memory lane

Secret tracks and private lobbies have been added to the game!

These pastel pink Joy-Cons are now up for pre-order on the UK's Nintendo Store:

Seems increasingly likely that we'll see a State of Play in the next couple of weeks, as was expected. Yesterday, billbill-kun posted that the full title for Death Stranding 2 would be "Death Stranding 2: On the Beach": And today, they posted that a new version of Until Dawn is on its way to PS5 and PC: It's the 30th anniversary of PlayStation this year, and we know very little (if anything) about their current first-party plans, so I look forward to seeing their approach for the year – and to seeing if there is indeed a State of Play just around the bend. I want more games to get hyped about, damn it!!

Side Order DLC arrives 22nd February:

The Dunk delivering the goods as always *sees the rest of the thread*

The series producers did a trailer breakdown with IGN: And if you actually want to go off the deep end, Hello Future Me (great channel) did a...4 hour and 20 minute live breakdown over on YouTube: Absolutely! I'm nervous about this adaptation of the show potentially trying to replace the original (I think it has an uphill battle in doing so, mainly because live-action/CG blend on a modern TV budget still isn't aging quite so gracefully, whereas the original still holds up and is timeless), but man, I'd love to see some of those S3 moments adapted in live-action, with just a little bit of difference! Would really like to see how they'd handle the extreme colours of the final few confrontations, actually. Trying to imagine some of those moments in live-action is pretty tough, so I'd like to see if they'd approach that a bit differently. 1000%. The fact that you get to view a recap with the characters, are exposed to certain perspectives/bring up certain questions for the cast to walk into answering in the final few episodes, poke fun at certain elements (like what happened to Jet ), and that they do it all through live theatre with absolutely hilarious casting choices...man. If this weren't out so soon I think I'd start a re-watch of the original

Yeah, it's hard to say I disagree with anything you mention – it really does look great. I'm super happy about the shots of levity, it feels like so many live-action projects these days kind of forget the joy of just being fun, or maybe it just feels that way because those aren't the ones getting the big budgets and being allowed to set the pace? I think the debates are going to come along after this first season has completely aired and the eternal discussion of how it holds up to the original animated series kick off, as happened with HBO's The Last of Us last year and the game. Not saying that's right or wrong, but yeah, it seems inevitable I'm also actually really curious to see how long conversation around this adaptation lasts. The Last of Us was only a game before it was adapted, meaning it could only be played by people with certain consoles, and with the changes they made too, having weekly episodes made a lot of sense – and a lot of the discourse was kept to the contents of the show itself. On the other hand, this entire first season of Netflix's TLA is being thrown out all at once, and with the story already being a known quantity and the original animated series still being available on the service (at least over here) I'm not sure it'll have that same long lasting impression on the public consciousness that TLOU managed to. I'd also love to know what the split is on existing fans checking it out vs total newcomers – I mean, at this point, surely the only holdouts of the regular Netflix subscribing crowd are going to be people who just don't care for animation? Anyways, I'll shut up That seems to be the plan from what I can gather? At least, this first season is covering all of ATLA S1. It's not been officially confirmed that the second and third seasons are locked in, I don't think, so I think they're waiting to see how the first season does, but I'll be shocked if it tanks and ends up getting cancelled after it's first season. My attempt at understanding Netflix wanting to adapt the series to live-action in the first place was to still have the franchise on their platform in some way after it potentially moves back to Paramount+ in more territories. Also, as great as the first season of ATLA is, the second and third seasons are overwhelmingly seen as the better seasons of the show. It's not really at risk of being a Cowboy Bebop situation from my POV because there wasn't all that much to adapt and they did so weirdly, whereas if they're capable of adapting ATLA S1, I'm going to have a hard time believing that they don't think they can make some serious waves by then going on to adapt S2 and S3.

Game has reviewed insanely well: currently at a 90 on MC and a 90 over on OC, too. This marks the first time an RGG title has scored over 85 on Metacritic, making it the best-reviewing game in their history. So, which of you crazies are jumping in this week?

The game has reviewed incredibly well, currently sitting at a 90 on Metacritic and a 90 on OpenCritic. Anyone here planning on picking this up? I had been tempted to finally dive into a fighting game at launch but, for now, I seem to have calmed that call

Reminder that this releases on Thursday. But the real reason for the bump? Digital Foundry doing a tech review of the trilogy! Didn't see that one coming but love it, certainly some of the best in the biz

Still looking really good: That shot of that Agni Kai Just a month to go...

Paging @Jonnas I remember you mentioning last year that you were waiting for a release date – and now it has one!

Transformations trailer: There are also some pastel pink Joy-Cons on the way to commemorate the game's release:

Gave me a chuckle:

Trailer for the third and final season of The Bad Batch, streaming from 21st February, and opening the season with a three-episode premiere:

Well at least I can still tell the difference when it comes to AI (for now, at least) If nothing else I think this highlights the strength of the designs in Pokémon that it's so easy to pick up on them being an AI/blend of existing designs, but also it's popularity really highlights that while Game Freak get worked to the bone on the main series and don't really get to give those games as much time and polish as they might warrant, there's still a hunger for different takes on Pokémon. After seeing the trailer and footage for Indiana Jones and The Great Circle the other day, I can't help but think back to the research team finding that Mew fossil, and how great an actual adventure game where you're learning more about the history of that world would be. But alas, I'll just settle for watching it back I'm more surprised they haven't included a Mickey Mouse 'mon, seeing as the character copyright ended at the start of the year. Why not go all the way? Let me play this as dual-wielding Mickey! Speaking of, I hope we get an update on MOUSE soon...

Man, there were one or two I'd seen that I thought were stretches, but so many of these are pretty damning. I'm not normally a fan of how Nintendo and co. handle things like fan games, mods, etc., or how they used to be with their games/music being on YouTube (they're generally getting better)... ...but I am really interested in seeing how they choose to handle this particular situation. This is maybe the first time I've seen where it could easily call for Nintendo & co. throwing their full force behind doing something here – so many of the smaller situations are easy to foresee being taken down, there's been nothing close to this scale and it really brings into question even further the debates about art currently, almost parallel to the AI art discussions we've seen over the last few years. I haven't looked into it but I wouldn't be shocked at all if some of these designs utilised an AI in their construction, because they certainly have that look to them. Anyways, 5 million purchases now and currently the third highest game on Steam for concurrent players (behind only PUBG and CS2). Nuts.

Kamiya has chimed in on the situation: Found that funny as heck Anyways, agreed with everyone: this sucks. The NG+ stuff doesn't bother me too much, but of course things like the Sujimon and exclusive bonus dungeon really does, and I'm curious to see how that bonus dungeon is handled as it's not really detailed – is it additional story stuff or just a place to grind? While it sucks, considering that Like a Dragon has "only" sold 1.5 million units as of the end of month, I can see why, if this were a smaller studio, things like this end up being done - not that it's okay, but sometimes it's just how it goes. But a SEGA-published title, already starting to milk a franchise for all that it's worth off the back of "only" 1.5 million units sold of this upcoming game's predecessor? For all of the platforms that Yakuza is on now, while it's awesome that the franchise has blown up, I'd argue there's still a long way to go (and I think this series can get there) before you can start pulling things off like this in a similar way to what they've done with Persona 5. It still feels like it's on an upwards trajectory and I think they need to tread carefully, because these games rely SO heavily on word of mouth that pissing off your core audience could have ramifications if I continue this with future games and take the content divide between editions further (which, unfortunately, seems likely). Cosmetic stuff, fine. Optional cards/whatever in side content to speed things up/customise further, fine-ish (feels kind of like a mobile game at that point). But bonus content, which kind of feels like it's stuff being taken away from people buying the game at anything but those premium tiers, rather than additional stuff being added? It's disgusting.

Right?! I've tried to read up reasons for/against using certain controllers when playing Smash for a while now, but this is certainly the most succinct and persuasive reasoning I've seen for using a GameCube controller, so I'm convinced – thanks Glen! It's also one of those where I guess while things like feel and the specifics of frames and animations will be tweaked between games, being able to hop in with a GC controller anywhere from Melee onwards sounds super helpful, rather than needing to re-learn things on certain controllers, and saves needing to learn things on newly released controllers with their potential tweaks, even if only minor (like if the Switch 2 Pro Controller ends up with a proper D-pad). No worries! Well, this hurts to read I totally get it, though, and I imagine I'd probably not have been too keen on certain new mechanics had I played older Smash games prior to Brawl, which in hindsight gives me a good chuckle (like, tripping? Really? Was Sakurai entering his masochist arc or something?). Love Subspace Emissary (some strange decisions like number of players) and that Main Theme, though! I skipped Smash 4 not having a Wii U and not really getting much use out of my 3DS during its lifetime, but coming back to Smash with Ultimate missing trophies still hurts me deeply. I know the focus was elsewhere (what they did with the size of the roster, number of stages, and sheer absurdity of the soundtrack was insane), and that it would've taken a lot of time, but having anyone return and then add dream characters and awesome assist trophies who don't get a chance to have their own Smash trophies feels so strange. Even more so with how some of the game's trailers placed an emphasis on the roster being trophies! It's bad to say this, but I'd gladly pay full price for a Smash Ultimate DX on Switch 2 with trophies added and just a couple of new characters. I loved those things, and for an entire generation of kids with their respective first Smash game, it can be such a great introduction into the scope, variety and history of gaming, especially for someone young or new to the Nintendo ecosystem; so, so, so many of the games I want to play on older Nintendo systems are games Brawl put in my head, like with Ike and the Path of Radiance trophies, or the awesome Metroid trophies, and of course the Zelda ones (Wind Walker ones I was especially big on). I spent countless hours looking through and reading every description of those things

Oh yeah, that's how I typically get by in Ultimate, to clarify: my issue is that the stick feels waaaaaaaaaay worse (to me, just based on so much with the Wiimote) to jump with than the D-pad, as a little nudge in the wrong direction just messes up what I'm trying to do (diagonal jumps I find can be especially hit and miss). I guess it just feels like my odds of messing up are much greater with the stick flicks. It's got me thinking that maybe I should just future proof my Smash experience by committing to the GameCube controller, to be honest Oh yeah, I've soldered plenty before (thankfully, otherwise I'm not sure I would've been as keen) as I took Product Design as an option back in high school – but it was my first time in a while! I think I was more worried about my apartment not being quite as well set up to deal with a potential fire somehow breaking out as a dedicated crafting classroom I hated feeling the rush of soldering again, as it kind of makes me want to find more excuses to do it in a more regular basis and put this kit to task

Finally received my replacement KHS-400C laser on Friday, tried to see if I could get by removing the anti-static solder without a soldering iron as I had read that a heated up flathead would do the trick – last night I found out it did not, best I could do was flatten it a bit, but not get the solder to its melting point Ordered a cheaper soldering iron which arrived this morning, instantly got rid of the blob with little faff, put my PS2 back together after cleaning as much as I reasonably could of the inside and...it worked! I've just booted up Dino Crisis which was able to get past that screen it was getting stuck on before (win), and skipped some cutscenes to open up the menu which opens and closes pretty much instantaneously without any attempts by my TV to adjust the resolution – so @Hero-of-Time I can confirm it works well for those pesky changing menu resolutions on PS1 games the "dialogue box" text in the menu looked a little squashed to me, but the sub-menus looked fine, so I've checked and turns out that that's just the way the menu looked Also, man those tank controls are certainly going to take a minute to get used to when I get around to some of these PS1 games wouldn't be surprised if I find myself needing to lower the difficulty on some of those just to get by. Unrelated to my PS2, went back to Vintage Gamer yesterday, this time with some friends – easily the busiest I've seen it in the three times I've gone this month. My friends loved it and both picked up ~10 games (and were pleasantly surprised by the prices), and the manager even pulled out a box of some of the rarer items he had hidden away to see if we were interested – my friends hadn't heard of any of these, which was funny to see some great stuff in there like Legend of Dragoon, that DS game with Tingle, Suikoden IV (I'm holding out to pick up V physically myself, as I already have IV digitally on my PS3), Puppeteer, Ducktales Remastered...but the only game which tempted me a bit in any serious way was 3D Dot Game Heroes; it's one of those games I had on my long spreadsheet of games in the PS3 tab I made way back in 2017 when doing a full head-first dive into researching systems and games I'd one day be interested in checking out. I looked up how much it goes for on eBay (where I've found it shows up fairly infrequently, at least the PAL release) and it's ~£60 at the moment, but considering that I have enough games in my backlog, likely won't prioritise it any time soon and because it slipped my mind when starting to write a list recently of retro games I wanted to pick up in anticipation of the Birmingham Gaming Market in April, made the probably sensible decision to just let it lie. Maybe some other time! In fact, that's generally how the trip went for me: saw a couple of games which piqued my interest, but nothing really pulled me in. I'll probably give it a few months to let stock refresh, but I did pick up one game: Super Smash Bros. Brawl. I love Brawl, and it's easily one of my most-played games of all-time, getting a copy back when we got our family Wii back in 2010 for Christmas. Fun fact no-one asked for: we only had the Wiimotes and Nunchuks for our Wii, meaning I ended up playing Brawl exclusively with a horizontal Wiimote, and while I get by fine in Ultimate playing against my brother every now and then with the Pro Controller, my muscle memory for the horizontal Wiimote far exceeds that of the Pro Controller, and in fact has probably been my main obstacle in playing Ultimate more – I can't transition from using directional input to jump to using a dedicated button! Anyways, the family copy remains at my parents' house, so figured I'd pick this up for nostalgia's sake, and also because we're thinking of doing a day at some point of playing Wii games, so this just seems essential if I don't end up just bringing my Switch and Ultimate along, that is, but then we have a potential controller issue on our hands, and I'd feel bad playing with a Pro Controller while my friends had Joy-Cons...maybe

GI rapid-fire interview with director Naoki Hamaguchi:

Creepiest Tonberry tease for The Rising Tide: Hell yeah

It's definitely one of the dumbest game titles I've seen in a while, and that's saying something I will say, though, while I'm generally not the biggest fan of first-person games outside of shooter-based ones, the decision to go first-person with this game is incredibly clever because it immediately differentiates itself from those other franchises you listed. I am absolutely an advocate for third-person to at least be an option in games like this which heavily emphasise others aspects of gameplay, not least because I feel like you risk shrinking your potential audience without it, but I think it works solely for that reason. I'm not sure what it is about it, but it also gives me an old school licensed game vibes in a way the modern Star Wars games, for example, haven't. Tangential to your point about who ripped off who, I read something yesterday where it clicked for someone that Todd's involvement made a lot of sense for them when they considered the puzzles and cave/dungeon exploration in something like Skyrim. Also had no idea he was such a big Indy fan. I've got to say, is a bit weird to me that you go so far as to get Harrison Ford's likeness, though, then have the game be first-person (also: so much for the franchise living on after him, I guess?). It kind of reminds me of Cyberpunk – kind of crazy to me that in a game like that with so many things you can customise about your character and "Cool" being an attribute that you can't see your character in third-person outside of hopping on a bike. Just give us the options, darn it! It's kind of crazy just how much of Xbox's major first-party content is first-person, I genuinely wonder if that decision is hurting them, even if it's probably more to the tastes of traditional PC players. I'm actually pretty excited for this one. Come on Xbox, after Forza Horizon 5 you've just got another 3 games to start seriously tempting me they've got Blade too, I guess? Though I'd want to see gameplay for that first.