killthenet

That's definitely settled my nerves!

Yeah, Sweden really put the pressure on from the kick off but England have definitely grown into the game. Fantastic move in the lead up to the goal but that turn and shot from Mead was incredible. I think England will get more opportunities but Sweden will always be dangerous so it'll be interesting to see how they start in the second half.

I was amazed by how one sided that game was, France definitely deserved to go through but they should have done in 90mins really - there was some decent last ditch Dutch defending at times but France had more than enough clear cut chances to put the game to bed. The QF's overall were much nervier affairs than I expected, Germany had the most convincing win but even then Austria caused them plenty of problems and it could easily have gone to extra time if Austria hadn't messed about playing out from the back. Sweden and France were obviously the better sides in their matches but they were so wasteful, if England or Germany had played Belgium or the Netherlands then the scoreline would have been pretty emphatic.

Barbie doesn't have this guy in it though

Dug deep and managed to pull themselves back from the brink but they definitely need to improve in the semi final. I was very impressed with Spain, they played miles better than they did in the group stage, they should have doubled their lead but fortunately England were able to keep it to one goal and just about get back into it.

Georgia fookin' Stanway! Spain already causing problems again, hopey England's newfound confidence wil see them through but it's bound to get nervy before the final whistle. Can't keep letting them get down the flanks

I had basically given up hope of England getting back into the game - what a priceless goal! Go and and win it now!

Who doesn't love a white goods noise?

Yeah, NI were solid until Kirby scored, they even looked quite dangerous on the break but the two quick goals at the end of the first half looked to have broken their spirit a bit. Could get quite ugly for them, Russo looks like she's on a mission to get into the starting 11, feel sorry for the NI keeper as she's been great so far

Sarina Wiegman has tested positive for COVID, obviously won't be able to manage in person tonight but given England have already qualified it isn't too inconvenient but it does throw a spanner in the works for QF preparation. Hopefully she tests negative before Wednesday, would be a bit of a psychological blow not to have her in the technical area for the QF. I was surprised by the French performance last night, the first five minutes or so it looked like they were going to destroy Belgium but in the end they were lucky to get away with the 3pts. That penalty from Renard was atrocious on all fronts, shouldn't have been given in the first place but thankfully it was such a tame penalty that the Belgian keeper easily saved it.

The Wii vitality sensor re-emerges as a pack in with Bayonetta 3, attach it to your genitals and the game will let you know when your level of arousal becomes too high.

Fantastic news that it's coming out this year but I wish I hadn't watched that trailer, it showed way too much.

I actually worry for Northern Ireland on Friday, the strength in depth England have is ridiculous (especially up front) and the players that do come in for that game will be itching to impress to try and get in Wiegman's starting 11 for the QF. Northern Ireland have been quite disciplined at times in this tournament but they are still very much a team of part timers so if England score early on Friday and get their tails up it could be a very long night for the NI players.

Yeah, I was worried that Norway would prove to be quite tricky but the just looked shell shocked in the first half. England were definitely nervous on Wednesday night but they got the 3pts, I fully expected them to put in an improved performance tonight but they've just blown the opposition away - the movement, passing, closing down, finishing has been outstanding, hoping that Beth Mead and Ellen White can both pick up hat tricks

Are there any other EZA podcast viewers who find Bloodworth's lip smacking incredibly annoying? It wasn't something I noticed until he took over as host but it is really grating on me, hampering my enjoyment of the podcast. Surely there's something they could do to reduce the noise, some filter they could put on his mic to alleviate the issue. I think I suffer from misophonia so it's hard to just ignore it.

Didn't clock that Lorelei and the Laser Eyes is by the studio that made Sayonara Wild Hearts so I'm even more on board for that now. Blanc also looked great so will definitely be adding that to my wishlist as soon as it goes live on the eShop.

I thought that was a pretty good show in the end. Have been meaning to pick up Nier for ages on Playstation but never got round to it, it's going to be £34.99 apparently so there isn't too much of a Switch tax so I might well pick it up at launch. It did look a little blurry in the trailer but it seems like it runs quite smoothly. Definitely going to be getting Persona 5 Royal though, that's a game I held off on playing because of the length, figuring it would make more sense to play on Switch, so I'm glad it's finally getting a release - the port looks pretty good too, doesn't seem like there's a noticeable drop in visual quality but I suppose it did start out life as a PS3 game so the Switch shouldn't really have a problem running it.

Classic Ubisoft. Don't really know what to expect from tomorrow's presentation, besides Mario + Rabbids and the supposed Red Dead port, everything else should hopefully be a surprise. All the talk of Capcom reminded me of that rumoured Switch exclusive Resident Evil so it'd be cool to see that get revealed but I won't be surprised if it doesn't show up

If a native port of Red Dead is coming to Switch I'd be very surprised, wouldn't have thought Rockstar would be willing to put in the time and money to get it running at a passable frame rate and resolution - surely it's just a cloud version? Are there any figures on how successful the cloud versions have been? I'd assume it's still a significant investment to do one, even if they're using current streaming infrastructure, so I'm curious to know what sort of return devs and publishers expect when releasing their games that way

That was news to me too, saw someone mention it in the Resetera thread - poor guy's been through a lot the last few years

Was genuinely upset when I read the news last night, Ben is one of the most genuine, engaging and articulate game reviewers/pundits there is and since Kyle left, Ben & Huber became my absolute favourite allies, so it's a real shame that he's leaving. I feel bad because I've fallen off Frame Trap recently, not for any issues I have with the show (more that I started avoiding spoilers, then just couldn't find the right time to hop back in) but whenever he appears on the main podcast he brings a great energy and always has thoughtful opinions so he'll be sorely missed when he moves back to Iowa. I'm sure he'll still try and be involved in games criticism, he clearly has a great talent for reviews so hopefully he can find another outlet or website to write for. In terms of EZA in general, I think this might be the breaking point for me, I'll see how things develop over the next few months, they surely have to bring some new faces in now and they might well thrive for all I know, but the way things have been going the last couple of years, I've definitely become less and less engaged with their output. The Allies helped me through some incredibly tough times, they were a constant source of joy during the most traumatic stages of my mental health struggles, a beacon of positivity to cling to that helped me to get back on the road to recovery, so they will always have a special place in my heart. But with the pandemic and the frequent departures since, it really feels like their position in my life has shifted, from something that was essential, where I would look forward to every new episode of the podcast or Frame Trap, to something that feels like more of a habit or routine. Like I said, I'll give them another few months, see if they can turn things around, it's good to see them finally hiring a community manager, and Gabby seems like a good fit, but by the nature of her job she probably won't be appearing on the podcasts too often so it really depends on who else they bring in as to whether or not EZA as a whole can be rejuvenated and find a new lease of life, for whoever does come in (if they hire anyone at all), it will be incredibly daunting, they've got some pretty big shoes to fill.

They've done it before, haven't they? Having two directs in close proximity, it isn't exactly unheard of, but I'm not saying there's definitely going to be a full scale Direct, just that the existence of one focusing on a deep dive into Xenoblade (an enormous RPG that's coming out in little over a month) doesn't automatically mean there won't be a general Nintendo Direct coming soon. I'm not holding my breath for one, I won't be disappointed and raging if there isn't a Direct on the 29th (Nintendo 'leakers' aren't exactly the most reliable in the world) I just wanted to point out that it's not entirely out of the realms of possibility to have two Directs in the space of a week.

The rumours of a proper direct said it would be happening on June 29th - this Xenoblade one happening doesn't really have any bearing on whether that one happens or not, just means if there is a proper direct that Xenoblade won't get much screen time.

Yeah, same here @Glen-i, I don't need to see any more of the game - the fact that it exists and is coming out in little over a month is all the info that I need

Super late posting my May update because I've been busy with other things, too busy to play games in fact so next months update is looking pretty barren at the moment... I kicked off May by playing through F-Zero X on the N64 Online app, it's a game that I was already intimately familiar with, being one of the staples of multiplayer parties and sleepovers in my youth, but I don't think I ever gave the single player much attention (outside of the time trials), my brother was definitely more skilled than I was so I'm sure he was the one who unlocked everything back in the day so it felt like I was coming at F-Zero X with fresh eyes again when I booted it up on Switch. First impressions were that I had certainly grown pretty rusty since the last time I played it, I only managed to place 3rd on my first attempt at the Jack Cup on Standard, my style was more reminiscent of F-Zero on the SNES, bashing into the side of the track rather than easing around corners, but I soon started to get the hang of it - I wasn't winning every race but I was able to keep my nose in front of my nearest rival so it wasn't long until I had completed the first 4 cups on standard difficulty. Thinking I was going to breeze through the difficulties in only a few hours of place, my confidence was checked when the step up to expert proved to be very tough. I was struggling to place in the top 5 most of the time, especially on the later races, and even when I got ahead of a rival it was only for a split second, they would invariably speed off into the distance, so I knew I needed to work on my driving skill. It was a bit of a slog to be honest, the AI seemed almost superhuman at times so it was a lot more frustrating than I bargained for but eventually I got the hang of things and, thanks to familiarity with the tracks I was able to work my way through each of the cups and finally unlock X cup. I think I had the most trouble with Queen Cup, it seemed to be the most challenging one on expert and I was able to breeze through the Joker Cup afterwards so when the credits rolled it was a bit of an anticlimax. I was a bit underwhelmed with the X Cup, I remember it being amazing when I was a kid, that the game was generating the tracks itself, that you'd get a different one every time, but racing on them now they're a bit boring - not putting up much a challenge at all. I don't think I'll be bothering with Master mode, it was frustrating enough working my way through on Expert, but I will likely go back to the game to mess around in the time trials and try and get better at the Death Race (another mode that I could never get the hang of when I was younger) and it was definitely a trip down memory lane to experience it again, I have to say I know the graphics are simple to achieve a consistent 60 FPS but the game looks gorgeous to me, the simple polygons rendered crisply on the Switch screen really makes the visuals pop. Next up I finally started Aztech Forgotten Gods and its fair to say that first impressions were pretty bad. As I have mentioned here before many times, I was a huge fan of Lienzo's previous game Mulaka so I had high hopes for their next game and was slightly disappointed when they unveiled Aztech Forgotten Gods in a Nintendo Direct, one of the things I loved about Mulaka was the ancient setting, exploring Mexican folklore and myth, so for them to unveil a title that was almost the polar opposite in terms of setting, replete with flying robots and a futuristic city, it didn't exactly live up to my expectations, it just didn't look like my kind of game but, given how much I loved Mulaka, I was willing to give Aztech a chance. As I said though, when I finally got around to firing the game up, first impressions were very poor, the camera was very awkward and the general visual presentation reminded me of a low budget PS2-era game. It didn't help that it throws you right into action either, the prologue is set thousands of years earlier than the main game and you control a character who is already at full power (ala Metroid) and, despite the button prompts and slight on screen tutorials, the character feels far too fiddly and skittish. It was definitely a big step down from Mulaka, control in that felt fluid and enjoyable from the off, so, although the prologue makes sense narratively, it felt like a bit of a misstep to drop the player right into the action. What followed was surprisingly dialogue heavy, jumping forward far into the future and putting you in control of a young woman named Achtli, a bit of a slacker who lives with her archeologist Mother in an ultra futuristic Aztech city. It felt like it went from one extreme to the other at first, from dropping you into the action unprepared to a the lengthy exposition that followed, so the pacing felt quite uneven in those early stages, but eventually Achtli accompanies her Mother to a dig site where you pick up a magical gauntlet that is inhabited by a forgotten God, your actions triggering the resurgence of multiple malevolent Gods who take it in turns to wreak havoc on the city, leaving it down to Achtli and her new gauntlet to restore the peace. The early jank definitely stuck around throughout the rest of the game but once I had got the hang of the controls and the myriad of movement options the gauntlet presents, it became a lot more enjoyable. You can definitely see the roots of Mulaka in some of the boss battles, operating on enormous scales which can be impressive at times, even if the engine hampers some of the spectacle. Visually it doesn't improve much though, the graphical style isn't the most attractive to begin with and the scale of the environments leaves the models looking quite blurry and muddy most of the time, the frame rate isn't fantastic but it was at least stable, seeming to favour a stable framerate over a stable resolution, which does dip quite low at times but on the whole I still had a good time with the game. Lienzo is clearly a small team so I can forgive them some technical shortcomings, and I went into the game wanting to love it but it definitely seems like their ambitions for the game were a bit out of line with what they could achieve with their limited resources and time. Like I said, I enjoyed some of the boss fights eventually so there is a good base there but it was much more of a disappointment than I had anticipated - hopefully they can knock it out of the park again next time. I have been interested in playing the GTA Trilogy on Switch since the new versions were announced but, given the poor reception when they first released, I decided to wait until they'd put out a few performance patches before taking the plunge. I remember playing GTA III at the time it came out on PS2 but I would have spent most of my time just aggravating the police and trying to cause mayhem, I picked it up on Android over a decade later and finally dug into the story missions but I don't know if I actually managed to complete it, the controls weren't exactly stellar to begin with so being restricted to touch screen controls made it all the more clunky to play through, so I was interested to see how it felt to play it portably with a physical controller. After firing it up and playing through the first couple of missions I was reminded how tetchy and floaty the driving physics can be, trying to take a car up a small incline results in the car flipping over, large vehicles are far too bouncy, but most of all I was annoyed by the terrible AI - other vehicles seem to have no sense of you at all, following their proscribed paths and patterns even when you pull in front of them at a junction they won't try to move out of the way. It makes some of the missions incredibly frustrating, especially one of the early races, and it definitely hampered my enjoyment somewhat. For the most part the missions are quite easy, the objectives are incredibly simple at times, but as you get further into the game the difficulty is ramped up significantly, the last few missions in particular were just absurd, from insanely tight time limits to ridiculous tests of accuracy, often times giving you wilfully poor instructions (the second to last mission in particular was guilty of that). It was definitely disappointing going into the final mission, I had tooled up with every weapon, a shield, geared up to infiltrate the mansion, only to stripped of everything once the mission actually started. I tried it the conventional way several times, making it about halfway up the dam before getting scorched with a flame thrower before becoming so impatient that I decided to use the all weapons cheat to make it easier. It obviously helped to have access to everything but the cheat actually restricts your ammo, only giving you a few rounds for each weapon, so it was still a slight challenge that took me a few more attempts to complete. I don't really feel like I ever really engaged with the story, it feels pretty barebones in that respect (as well as being pretty outdated in terms of representation) but I had a good time speeding around Liberty City with Double Clef FM on full blast and I don't think it'll be too long until I dive into Vice City. Lastly for May I played through the original Ninja Gaiden on the NES online app, it's a franchise I have obviously been aware of for a very long time but one that I had never played, so it felt appropriate to start at the very beginning. I had expected it to be punishingly difficult and, while some of the boss fights would certainly qualify, my first impressions were that it was actually less of a challenge than I had feared. The game is still replete with all sorts of 8-bit nonsense, with the same kind of incredibly unfair enemy placement and knock back that Castlevania is guilty of, but I felt more able to navigate the levels than I had expected. In the first few acts the biggest challenge for me was probably the time limit, it wasn't something that I really considered while I was playing through the first level, I was taking my time navigating the terrain and fighting enemies, so I didn't even make it to the first boss before the time ran out - a lesson I tried to keep in mind as I played through the rest of the game. I used the rewind function pretty liberally, there was no way I was going to be able to beat any of the final bosses without abusing that particular feature, so it wasn't as stiff as a challenge as it could have been, but I still feel like I got a good sense of the gameplay. The thing that surprised me most was the story and how much dialogue there was in the game, it would often spend several minutes on setting up the next act, sure its incredibly simple and the translation is a bit ropey, but it must have been hugely impressive back in 1988 and, with the considerable challenge it offered, dedicated players would have definitely got their moneys worth. I'd definitely be interested to try out more of the series, perhaps working my way through the 2D entries like I've done with Castlevania. As I mentioned previously I haven't really played anything yet in June, at least not outside of Animal Crossing, I had intended to play through Xenoblade X before Chronicles 3 comes out at the end of next month but it feels like too big of a commitment with the limited time I've got at the moment so I'll have to trawl through my backlog and pick out some of the shorter games to get through first.