killthenet

Don't have much faith in the remake really, it'll probably be a competent game but I don't think Bloober are going to be able to nail the narrative tone and atmosphere in the same way as the original. I'm glad they seem to have taken some feedback on board and have made some changes to James' face, he looked so dopey in the reveal trailer - reminding me of that old Nathan Drake PS3 meme - but he still doesn't look right to me. I'll reserve me judgement on the remake until people actually get their hands on it but it really wouldn't surprise me if the reception is very tepid. I'm more interested in the new stuff but The Short Message didn't exactly give any indication that Konami know what they're doing with the franchise - visually it was a nice looking game but the writing was so poor, lacking in any subtlety, and the gameplay went from tense to tedious pretty quickly with those repetitive chase sequences.

Yeah, it was a phenomenal performance from Atalanta. Crazy that it's only their second ever major trophy, and Gasperini's first despite being 66.

Feel like Leverkusen probably aren't going to win this one...

Thank fuck for Jhon Duran. Crazy game really, there were enough missed chances for it to have been 8-4 or something. Even though we were pretty wasteful it feels like a good point in the end, one that could prove vital - means Spurs have to win tomorrow night or we're out of reach

I thought it was great for the most part, don't think it had as lasting an impact as Breath of the Wild but it's still a masterpiece. It isn't as consistently brilliant as BOTW but I think the narrative and thematic highs are higher in TOTK, particularly reaching the temple for the first regional phenomena quest (I tackled Rito first, which I think it the intended route) was such a jaw dropping sequence of gameplay, the way it builds and builds, the atmosphere literally gave me goosebumps - it was pure Zelda, one of the greatest moments I've ever had from the franchise. I get the complaints from some people that the open air formula doesn't really feel like Zelda, that you need more structure and focus on a linear narrative, but the way they turn reaching the dungeons into part of the puzzle in TOTK feels like such a natural evolution of the traditional Zelda formula that I'm excited to see how they iterate and improve upon that concept in the next game - I would have loved the dungeons to be more involved as well but the way they extended the sense of discovery and atmosphere out into the overworld really is fantastic. Ultrahand and being able to build things felt so novel at first, even if it took a few minutes to get the hang of it, it seemed like the possibilities for complex and creative puzzle solving were going to be endless, but eventually I just stuck to the same old standbys so it just became a bit of an inconvenience for me by the end. I think they needed to strike more a balance, limiting options often breeds more creative solutions and I feel like the fact that you can pretty much build anything stifles the core experience somewhat. Obviously people have built utterly insane, batshit things but they don't have much actual utility in the game, they just help steamroll your way through enemies and puzzles which sort of saps the fun out of the game really - when the solution for everything is just to use brute force it gets tried fast. So yeah, there are definitely a lot of problems with the game but it has so many spectacular, unforgettable moments that are more than enough to outweigh the frustrations.

Enough to tape about 750-800 GameCubes together

Fucking ridiculous, how many late goals is that now? Gutted that Villa couldn't do it, we're stretched so thin at the moment so it's a couple of games too far really.

I would assume it's all more or less the same though, don't think they would have made any sweeping changes. I think the one change a lot of people are hoping they have made is the manufacturing process node - people on Era seem to think that the 8nm mooted in the original T239 leaks from 2022 will be too inefficient so it would be good if they have switched to a more up to date process I do feel pretty confident they'll support SD Express, I just have no idea how much the cards will cost when they first come out. It's hard to gauge from the little info that Samsung have posted online if they're going to much different to manufacture than standard SD cards, I would assume it's all quite similar just with more bandwidth on the data lines

I would hope that they'll be using the new SD Express capable slot which would offer speeds equivalent to the internal storage. It is a brand new technology though, coming onto the market later this year so there's no telling how much the cards might cost

Crazy that people find all this stuff, like you say a lot of it is over our heads but the big takeaways are that there doesn't seem to be any new gimmick, there's no reference to any cameras so the rumours about it having AR features don't seem to hold water - it really is just a more powerful Switch. In terms of specs this confirms that there will be 12 GB of RAM which is more than the Series S, so given that is the biggest limiting factor for that hardware it's a good sign that we'll get to see more current gen ports. Same goes for the storage too, UFS 3.1 is capable of over 1.5 GB/s read which is lightning fast compared to the original Switch, although it's still only about a quarter as fast as the PS5 is capable of but it's still a great sign that developers will have much more freedom this time around. Personally, I think faster storage was at the top of my wishlist, the original Switch has felt pretty sluggish since I've started to use a PS5 and been spoiled by the much shorter load times, so it's great to hear there will be a big upgrade on that front.

I know Arkane had a flop with Redfall but wasn't Hi-fi Rush a reasonable hit commercially as well as critically? Seems insane to shut down Tango Gameworks, makes me worried for Ninja Theory if Hellblade doesn't hit the ground running. People pointing out that Microsoft is worth more than ever too, currently over $3 trillion in value, so it's not like they need to close down all these studios but it's obvious this won't be the last round of closures

Misplaced post

I figured they would at least mention the Switch 2 today so glad they didn't disappoint on that front. Probably the same sort of cycle as the original Switch, reveal in the Autumn and release in Spring. Very interested to see what games they announce in the June direct, could Prime 4 finally make an appearance? Good to see Princess Peach: Showtime shift over a million copies. Shame we didn't get numbers for Another Code but it was to be expected really. Interesting that if they hit their sales target for the next fiscal year they would surpass the DS and be getting very close to PS2's total

Thankfully only Spurs can still mathematically catch us, and to do that they would need to get points from all their remaining games (2 wins and a draw) and hope that we don't get any so us losing to Brighton yesterday doesn't feel like it's cost us too much. We do look out on our feet at the moment though, really hoping we can put in a much improved performance on Thursday night and turn the tie around. As good as finishing 4th will be for our future it would be amazing if we could win a trophy to really cement this team as the best Villa side of the last 30 years

Weird night for us in the Conference League, everything that could have gone wrong did go wrong and Olympiacos were very tactically astute. Not all hope is lost for the second leg away in Greece, they did lose 4-1 at home to Maccabi in the round of 16, but its going to be a big ask to come back. Very grateful to Chelsea for beating Spurs last night though, one bright spot for us on an otherwise disappointing night.

Pyoro just tweeted a picture of the Nintendo World Championship 1990 NES cart and people are flipping out with speculation. Some think that it means NWC is coming to Switch Online, or a new 99 game based on it is coming out, which others are focusing on the dip switches with 'SW2' apparently signifying that Switch 2 is going to be the official name after all I honestly have no idea what it might mean but when Pyoro tweets it usually means there's an announcement in the very near future

The offside law needs to be changed. How does it improve the game to get so forensic about offside decisions? Haji Wright gained no appreciable advantage from his foot being millimetres ahead of the Utd defender - there was no legitimate reason to rule out Torp's goal. Such a shame that football fans have been robbed of a historic extra time winner because the VAR quibbles over a couple of millimetres. Just seems so petty.

Thought it was a good show in the end but Steamworld Heist 2 was a bit of an anticlimax - I had tried to keep my expectations in check but with all the ratings it really did seem like it was time for Silksong so I couldn't help feeling disappointed with the 'one more thing' announcement this time. Very happy to see Lorelei and the Laser Eyes coming so soon, Sayonara Wild Hearts is one of the best games of the last few years so I'm excited to see what they do next. Weirdly the second best announcement for me was Wayforward's Yars Rising - I've never played any original Atari games so have no fondness for any of their titles but I thought this new Metroidvania take on the series looked super cool.

I feel like Silksong might be too big for this but I won't argue with a shadow drop - would undoubtedly be the biggest shadow drop ever if it happens I'm with @Dcubed on the Mina the Hollower hype - feel like that's one I would jump into immediately whereas Silksong seems like much more of a time commitment.

Both Nolan and Guardiola are utter bores who are absolutely full of themselves. The fact he couldn't win the Champions League while at Bayern Munich is proof enough that Guardiola is a bald fraud UTV!

I mean, he did rape a woman - not really sure how much more of his reputation there is left to tarnish

@Julius The Belgium away kit is a tribute to Tintin, it's supposed to echo his iconic outfit - I think it looks pretty cool!

It wouldn't have been that annoying if they had made it clear early on that finding all the Toads was required, at least then I would have known to seek them out a bit more than I had been

I agree with @Glen-i, I played through Super Princess Peach for the first time a few weeks ago and didn't think much of it. It's a pleasant enough platformer but there is a lot of busy work. I think the recent GVG gaming video about it was presented in an overly harsh way but I agree with him that it feels very frustrating to reach the final boss and be told you need to collect all the toads before you can take him on. Felt like an imposition to have to go back through all the other levels to find the ones that I'd missed, I definitely enjoyed Showtime more out of the two

Finished this last night and overall I was pleasantly surprised with the game. From the impressions a few weeks ago I assumed it was going to be absurdly easy but there was actually more challenge than I expected, it still wasn't difficult by any means but it wasn't as breezy as I'd been led to believe. The different costumes add a lot of variety to the gameplay and I can imagine Peach's moveset in the next Smash game is going to be hugely expanded based on the abilities she has here. Some of the costumes are a real joy, the Ninjitsu and Phantom Thief especially giving Peach more satisfying movement options, but I really didn't get on with the Baker or (to a lesser extent) the Detective. At times Showtime weirdly reminded me of Bayonetta 3 and Cereza & the Lost Demon - it has such a stylish and smooth presentation at times, even if there are one or two technical issues. There is definitely a lot of potential left in the basic concept of Showtime too so it wouldn't surprise me if this becomes an ongoing series, it's about time Peach had her own continuing franchise.