Ganepark32

My exercise has had to be dialled back a bit after I pulled something on my left side, under/around my ribs, last Thursday there. I felt a crunch doing the sit ups where you only move your shoulders off of the floor and even though I manage to finish my hour circuit after, since Friday its been absolute agony. Had to actually be helped off of the floor on Saturday morning by my fiancée because I tried to sit up after doing leg lifts and got a huge pang of pain. Icing it didn't do much and heat hadn't helped either. We're presuming its muscle related as it does seem to spread and be more painful over a larger area at times and then less so at others but being careful because I'm on long term medication for my stomach and the undiagnosed bother I get there (they've pretty much said hyperactivity, dyspepsia, heartburn, IBS but nothing I take really helps even after massively changing diet, not that my GP seems that fussed to get to an answer) as said medication can reduce calcium absorption so obviously taking supplements for that too. Its meant that I've had to alter a lot of what I'm doing so as to let that side relax and heal up but it sucks because I feel like I'm doing less even though I managing a lot in a 40/50 minute window and more or less still managing some basic weights (being very careful with this so as not to pull, the slightest bit of pain and I stop and move on to something else). Its just trying to get my head around needing to take it easier and not feel bad for not doing as much because I'm hurt (should also say that I dedicate a portion of my circuit to body stretches before any major exertion). Hopefully get back up to full speed soon as I'm missing not doing everything. Happy that I seem to be shifting what fat was there (which wasn't massive amounts to start with but enough to push me to get healthier) and putting on muscle as there's more definition in places which is nice. Still struggling a bit with strength in my shoulders but I think my hypermobility is at the root of thatas they've tried several times to pop out of their joints doing resistance band and weight work. Just making sure I get enough protein and such and varying my diet to help too. Bought a steamer and have a bunch of veg and rice set for a shop delivery tomorrow so looking forward to getting use out of that.

Still actually waiting on GAME taking my money for my order for this. Don't know whether I should be concerned for getting it on Friday (more likely Saturday up here because of the way the post has been) or not as they say they'll take payment up to 7 days before release. Trying to decide whether to cancel my order there and just stick in a click and collect with Argos that I can pick up in Sainsbury's on Friday. Wasn't originally massively fussed for playing this but I've had the Gusty Gardens Galaxy music stuck in my head for the last couple of days and now I can't wait to play Galaxy again. Sure, I'm also looking forward to replaying 64 and Sunshine (adverts for the latter keep coming up on YouTube so that doesn't help) but Galaxy is just such a special game that I haven't played since the Wii so really looking forward to playing it.

Finally, it's about time they got the price and launch details out of the way. Will be interesting to see them present what will likely be (most of) the launch lineup. They've lost 2 games from that in recent weeks (Deathloop and Kena were being positioned for it) but I'd expect a decent lineup if they announce one with Miles Morales fronting it and maybe one other first party title. I think we'll see plenty of timed exclusives or full blown third party exclusives as its known Sony have been striking deals left, right and centre so that's where the bulk of their lineup will come from, though I do expect it'll mostly mirror what's been announced as coming to the Series X/S for launch period with a smattering of other games, probably indie heavy. This is definitely not a reaction to Microsoft though. Its been on the cards and heavily rumoured for weeks that an event would fall in mid September and I even believe that the 16th was touted as the date for it. Nevertheless, excited to finally get the details and finally know whether I'll be able to afford one at launch if they price match Microsoft (I know the discless will be cheaper but I'd much rather the standard PS5 model) or whether I'll have to wait if its a bit more expensive. Pricing is perhaps the only thing that might have changed recently now that Microsoft has gotten out there but I don't expect an undercut beyond the discless model.

Wasn't really intending to pick this up as I've plenty to play at the moment but given that it's likely to be scarce, I've ended up sticking in a pre-order with GAME hoping that because everyone else bombarded Shopto and other online stores with orders where the price was cheaper, I'll actually get a copy on launch. I'm not actually expecting it on launch just because of the sheer volume of people who seem to have pre-ordered on other sites but hopefully I'll be surprised and it'll drop through the letterbox on Friday. If not, hopefully it'll only be a couple of days later and not that I've missed out as I'd expected it to be a while before copies become available again. Mainly getting it because I'd love to play Galaxy again (even if I'd prefer to play 2 more) and some of Sunshine. I'm not hugely fussed to jump into 64 again as it really could have done with an update beyond some basic visual updates. It'll also probably maintain its price if I decide to sell on down the line.

I never had a chance to play this so its like a fabled tale at this point but I have to say, hell yeah. It might be overhyped but I can't wait to finally play the game. Absolutely love the film (I saw it a few years after it released and so the game had slipped me by) and I've followed along with this saga to bring the game back for years but glad that Ubisoft have managed to finally pull the finger out on this and allow it to come back. I'll be there day one. Just to decide what to play it on.

New Japan announced the blocks for this year's G1 Climax starting on the 18th. Block A Kota Ibushi Jeff Cobb Kazuchika Okada Tomohiro Ishii Will Ospreay Shingo Takagi Minoru Suzuki Taichi Jay White Yujiro Takahashi Block B Hiroshi Tanahashi Juice Robinson Hirooki Goto Toru Yano YOSHI-HASHI Tetsuya Naito SANADA Zack Sabre Jr. KENTA EVIL That Block A looks insane. While Block B certainly has a strong line up, I'd be really hard pressed to say where I think they'll go with Block A. Pretty much anyone's game. Cool to see that Ospreay made it back over, likewise Kenta. Guessing he'll have to wait that bit longer for his US title match against Moxley, though if they haven't been able to agree to a time and place for the match for Kenta to win it, I imagine they'll save for Wrestle Kingdom which will likely mean Kenta isn't winning G1 (I probably wouldn't expect it anyway). Do wonder if they'll continue the Ospreay push this year through it as they had intended before the pandemic started or if they'll bounce off of that and go with the singles push for Ibushi, maybe even have it be Ibushi v. Tanahashi as the final now that their tag team work is done. Will be interesting to watch and excited to actually sit down and watch it all for the first time with having the NJPW World sub, can stick it on in the morning after exercise. On the AEW front, All Out was pretty good at the weekend. Moved stories ahead, albeit a bit slower than I think many would have wanted. The less said about the Matt Hardy v. Sammy Guevara match the better because that should not have continued. They're going with it being Matt's call but both ended up injured and it was just a clusterfuck from the get go really. He's too old to be doing some of those spots. At least they followed it up with a great Women's title match. Great for NWA, not so great for AEW and their Women's champion as Thunder Rosa really did run rings around Shida. The ending was as expected but it just felt so flat after Shida had been on the back foot the whole match. Great advert for Thunder Rosa and happy that she'll be getting a few more matches out of the temporary deal. Wasn't keen on FTR winning the tag belts but it is what it is. It'll set up the single push for Hangman Adam Page (a redemption arc for sure) and the return of The Cleaner for Kenny Omega so there's that from it. They've also brought in two former WWE wrestlers in the last couple of days. Matt Sydal (whose in ring debut at All Out had him botch a move off of the top turn buckle and land on his head) and Miro, aka Rusev. Do think that's where they need to draw the line there and focus more on bringing in indie talent if they're signing (They've also brought in Tay Conti formerly of NXT too and have Matt Cardona on a 5 match deal/trial). They've got some really good indie talent on Dark that they could and should sign over anyone else from WWE.

It was an introductory price thats been running for the best part of a year so seems reasonable enough. They were pretty upfront with it being an introductory price to so shouldn't be too much of a shock. Though I do wonder how this will affect those only subbing to the PC version of Gamepass. Its always had a smaller library of titles and apart from Microsoft Flight Simulator, which is a niche title at best, there hasn't really been many big releases on Gamepass for PC. Those hooked in on the introductory price may well see that the increase doesn't make it worth it in the end which is understandable especially for the smaller library size. In the end, Ultimate is still the best value for money of the Gamepass subs if you have a console and PC and want to make use of XCloud (which from my experience running it, it runs extremely well on my Samsung Galaxy S9. Ori and the Will of the Wisps ran far better through XCloud than it did on my One thats for sure). I do imagine we'll perhaps see some tightening of the £1 Gamepass sub following this with the Series X/S on the horizon to help bring some money as that loophole has ubdoubtedly lost them a ton of money from subs (even though I do suspect they're ok with it as Xbox Live Gold costs very little to run from what I gather compared to Gamepass so all those 12 month Gold cards people were buying up will have posted some money in Microsoft's pocket somewhere along the line).

£450 is a pretty damned good price. I know I said it would probably go to that yesterday but part of me honestly thought it would be £500. Getting under that mark for the Series X is a big deal considering the cost of production of that hardware. And adding EA Access to Gamepass at no extra cost is a genius move, especially in the European market space. Getting Fifa included in your Gamepass sub at no extra cost, not having to fork out the £60+ for a copy on next gen, yeah that Series S box is going to fly off of the shelves and bring with it quite a big swathe of new Gamepass players. How the Series X does is another matter. The Series S will undoubtedly outsell it and may even give the PS5 a run for its money (though I'd still say that Sony will walk away the winners this holiday) but I do think hittjng that £450 price point and the inclusion of EA Access in Gamepass does present a strong incentive to pick up an Xbox at the end of the year. Yesterday they were forced to come out and announce the Series S, today they've just gone with it and played their whole hand. Its now up to Sony to throw down and see where the cards fall. I suspect at most, one of Sony's machines will match the Series X price point, possibly the digital, but will they be willing to gamble on a bigger loss to undercut Microsoft. I'm not sure. Really will be interesting these next few days/the next week (I'd expect Sony to come out with their price and release by next week at the latest now. Wouldn't be surprised for some kind of announcement this week for a State of Play next week tbh).

November 10th now confirmed as the launch date for the Series S. Have to figure that that will be the launch date for the Series X as well, or that November 6th date that was going around will be for the X and the S will come out the Tuesday after to split up the launch for whatever reason. Interesting that they're not pulling the trigger for announcing date and price for the X like they've been forced to do for the Series S but I suspect it won't be much longer.

An interesting announcement. Given how Hyrule Warriors performed on the Switch, I guess it was a given they'd do a pseudo-sequel to that. Cool they're tying it to BOTW, even if I wasn't a fan of that game expanding on that world in the lead up to its sequel does make sense. Production values look good but I will say that footage in the trailer for the game did look ropey at times. The resolution definitely drops quite heavily during gameplay to the point I wondered if they captured the footage in handheld/on a Switch Lite. Still, another surprise announcement from Nintendo and will surely make many happy. Just a weird way they've gone about announcing their releases this year, but I suppose it spreads it out to give other games a chance to shine on the console (though I'd say this hasn't bean a good year for third party titles on the Switch outside of indies but that's a different subject).

The people around the net expecting a $100 difference in price between the standard and digital PS5 consoles is ridiculous. I get its probably wishful thinking and the digital console is definitely the one for Sony to push akin to how Microsoft will push the Series S, as a service console, but I just don't see the difference being that big. I'd be very surprised if it was anyway. Its a difficult one to parse for how they'll price the different SKUs because the blu-ray drive isn't the main expense in the production cost, its like the proprietary SSD is. Perhaps they will take a loss on that piece of hardware to drive sales that will lock people into the digital infrastructure where Sony will make a larger portion of month from PSPlus and PSNow subs alongside digital sales of games (though with the latter, it'll be interesting to see if the cut for the digital store holder will be reduced from the standard 30% much like with the Epic Games Store and whether that will be something Sony looks to do to win back some favour with indie devs or if it'll be across both console manufacturers). I don't know. I'd have said at the start of the week we'll get some form of announcement of what Sony has in store next but with them focusing on PSVR this week, I'm not so sure. If there's to be any movement, not necessarily on price but in terms of Sony's next showing, I could see an announcement late Friday for next week but again, they don't seem to be in a hurry to move on it, and rightly so as they know that they'll sell through their console allocation on launch (I know many of us here will be amongst that, myself included hopefully).

My one concern that I have for the Series S is something that just popped into my head based on a rumour that was going round: that to keep the cost down Microsoft might consider selling the box without a controller in the package. While not a consumer friendly way to go about things, they'd then make money on the sale of controllers at launch with this thing if that's how they're going to go. I highly doubt they'll go for that though because even with that low price, asking people to then trump up for a controller separately would instantly kill any good will because then it really isn't £249.99/$299/€299, its an extra £50/$50/€50 at least on top. But its one way to keep the console cheap at point of sale and gain some money back on it. It's something I've heard that Sony may do for the digital PS5 to keep the cost at point of sale down as well. Looking at figures, the All Access montly cost for this on the UK is likely to be around the £21/£22 mark. Thats insane. Gamepass Ultimate is £10.99 a month so effectively you'd be paying a tenner for the console each month over 24 months. Regardless of going for the full purchase or the All Access plan, it really is a bargain. I do also wonder if they'll heavily tout XCloud. One of the features that is supposed to be coming for that is using your Xbox as the device to stream to. Effectively, if they achieve that for the Series S, you could theoretically still play your next gen games in full 4k60fps only they'd be streamed to your Series S through XCloud giving you the best of both worlds. Again, it makes it a no brainer for those wanting the cheapest option with the potentially the most games.

Was not expecting £249.99 for the UK for the Series S, was expecting a straight conversion. Thats extremely aggressively priced for a November launch. While it may not have the exclusives out of the gate, that's a banger of a price for what is essentially a Series X with a downlocked GPU and smaller hard drive. Its guaranteed that the PS5 will fly off of the shelf on the quality and prospect of first party games at launch but with that Series S, I can see that selling extremely well at that price here, especially for Gamepass. I don't think the lack of a disc drive is going to hold that back. Actually tempted by that myself seeing as I bought a new TV at the start of this year thats only 1080p and I'm already invested in that ecosystem (I've spent a ton of money in all console ecosystems this gen, my poor wallet weeps at the hundreds of PS4, Swotch and Xbox One digital games I've bought). Probably would still opt to go with the Series X on the All Access plan because it'll only add £20 to my current Gamepass Ultimate sub, but yeah good price for a good bit of kit. So whats the thought that the leaked $499 for the Series X converts to £450 over in the UK? That would surely be a big one for Microsoft as I still just don't know if Sony can match that with the standard PS5 (Discless sure they'll match that but for the standard I don't know. I'm still expecting £500 and would happily and will happily spend that for a PS5 at launch if I have the money).

Either a controlled leak or a genuine leak but the Xbox Twitter account just posted this: So I wouldn't be surprised to see a rushed announcement/press release later today about this. @Ashley, if I understand it correctly, though it is still a little confusing, the Series S and X share the same CPU, NVME SSD and GPU but the GPU has been downclocked on the Series S to focus more on 1080p resolution, maybe 1440p depending on the game (its pretty much a One X so it might even get some basic 4K). The Series X is the full whack 4K60fps box thats promising up to 120fps and potentially 8k. Both will be capable of ray tracing I believe, I might be wrong on that. Essentially Series S is your entry for those who are still rocking a 1080p TV with the Series X being the more expensive and technical hardware for those with 4K TV setups, essentially the true next gen console.

Potential leak of relesse date, price and look at the Xbox Series S. https://www.windowscentral.com/xbox-series-x-and-xbox-series-s-release-date-and-price-finally-revealed November 10th is supposedly the date for both pieces of hardware. Series X launching at $499.99, with a $35 monthly All Access plan. Series S at $299.99, $25 monthly All Access plan. Series S is pretty much just the One S but with a black cooling vent and maybe a bit thicker. No disc drive as rumoured. So they'll have the low end with the Series S, that was pretty much a given at this point as there was no way Sony would counter that piece of hardware as they're focused solely on the next jump (quite rightly). But that and those All Access plans will make these very accessible at the end of the year and with the current pandemic and some out of jobs, pushing that hard may make a difference for shifting consoles. The lack of a big first party title at launch won't help, and throughout the console's lifespan but I think we can all at least hope Microsoft are going to progress in that department. Still, if true that's a $100 cheaper than I was expecting. Sony will undoubtedly match that but with what bit of hardware I don't know. $449/499 for discless and normal PS5 would be great but I do wonder what the margins will be for Sony as they're tight with that based off of the last production costs I saw (in the ballpark of $470-$480). Anyway, the game of l cat and mouse looks to be ending. Should get confirmation of this soon enough (and I'd expect a straight conversion to pounds for us in the UK, probably the same for Europe) and I expect Sony will follow not far behind.

It really has been a fantastic couple of weeks for Gamepass. In the last few weeks we've had Wastelands 3, Tell Me Why, Battletoads, Hypnospace Outlaw, Spiritfarer, Drake Hollow and Undermine as new releases. Such a great variety of newer indie and bigger budget games. Undermine really has been a stand out for me as I'm not a massive fan of rogue likes but with this being of mix of ghat and a dungeon crawler, it's been great to play through. Some might see it as a bit more simplistic than some of its contemporaries but I love it. Don't sleep on this one if you like rogue likes or dungeon crawlers as its great (its coming to Switch also for those wanting it on the go). Haven't put much time into Spiritfarer but what I've played so far has been great. To get that day one on Gamepass is just insane and I do feel guilty playing it through that (I'm probably going to buy it myself down the line as I was intending to anyway before it came to Gamepass) but its just a beautiful game. Definitely looking forward to delving into it more, even if I know its going to be a tear jerker. I've only just made a start both Wasteland 3 and Tell Me Why but both are great out of the gate. Even with a slight latency between pushing the left stick and movement in Wasteland 3, its definitely scratching that RPG itch I've got and it looks fantastic even on a base Xbox One. I've never played the franchise before but its clear there's been a major step up in the production department. Plays extremely well and very intrigued to get stuck in more. And Tell Me Why just shows Dontnod doing what they do best, strong narrative games with well written characters and heartfelt narrative. They've clearly done a lot of work on their engine as well as its a marked improvement visually over Life is Strange 2. I've got all those games downloaded and ready to go on my Xbox One (apart from Battletoads which I've finished and thought it was OK, not great, bit meandering at times and definitely tries to go to wide with some ideas) and thats before I counter in all the other stuff I've bought and have sitting waiting to play. There's been months where I haven't played much on Gamepass but August has been a fantastic month for the service and if that's a quality level they can keep up with indies and bigger releases, I'm going to be a very happy gamer for the rest of the year, even if my backlog will be huge. I've always thought it was a worthwhile subscription (been using it since May last year when I got an Xbox One again) but as I say, the last few weeks have been exceptionally strong for the service even just on consoles. I'm on Ultimate so can access the PC side but don't have the rig but even then, if I did I'd be drowning in releases what with the likes of Microsoft Flight Simulator and the forthcoming Age of Empires 3 remaster.

Played a bit of Night Call myself thanks to it being on Gamepass on Xbox One and enjoyed it enough. Its definitely not going to be for everyone as there's not a lot to the actual detective work but I found the characters you meet along the way interesting enough and found the conversations well written, even if your dialogue choices don't seem to have a huge bearing on where they head in most cases. Cloudpunk has a release date, October 15th. Been waiting for this one since it was released on PC and now can't wait to play on console. I just hope its been optimised well enough as I know some people had issues with it running on their rigs. Cool that they're including the first person view point they recently added to the PC version. Its very much a narrative focused game but its definitely the kind of game I love to play because of that so looking forward to picking it up.

Cool that they've finally announced the 3D All-Stars collection and 3D World coming over. Been a long drawn out rumour for both at this point, was actually starting to think it had gone the way of Star Fox Grand Prix. What's not good, however, is the limited availability of the 3D All-Stars collection. Sure, do it with the physical edition but it makes little sense for digital purchases. Probably speaks to them splitting up the collection and selling them separately, though I do kind of wish they were doing that out of the gate. As much as its great to play 64 again, I've played it enough. Sunshine, well without the Gamecube's triggers its not going to work as well. Galaxy is the only one I'd love to replay, though I'd much prefer the sequel as that was just a better game all round. Still, nice announcements. I've never played 3D World so might get a chance to now (if I don't sell my Switch on in the lead up to the PS5 launch to grab on of those, but thats up in the air). I'd suspect that with 3D All-Stars and Pikmin 3 Deluxe, that's Nintendo's lineup for first party releases for the end of the year. Short of any surprises down the line, its not a great lineup if you're looking for new stuff from Nintendo, even with new content for Pikmin 3. I do suspect though that there'll be a much stronger lineup for next year.

Started a new exercise plan on August 1st after having a bit of a rough month for my mental health in July. The combination of that and noticing that I was putting on weight and getting closer to the dreaded 100kg mark (I'm 6ft 4 or there abouts so its not that I was getting fat but that what was once lean was starting to develop a podge) made me make the move to do something about both. Not got the most equipment at home (some resistance bands, a pair of 5kg hand weights, box step and a bench for sit ups and such but that out the gate would have been a no go) but after doing an intense morning exercise session on 31 out of the last 33 days (haven't had a break day since August 9th), I'm seeing the benefit of it even if I'm still finding getting the motivation in the morning to do it difficult at times (I do it at half 7, an hour after getting out of bed and go for about 50 minutes). I'm pretty much doing my own circuit with no pointers, though my partner whose joining me in this getting healthy plan is using an app and giving me tips if I want different stretch or exercise ideas. I've slowly added to it over the weeks and keeping the intensity up where I'm finding it easier and so I'm noticing that my waist and chest have trimmed a bit after doing measurements the last 2 weeks. My shoulders and arms are building up which is nice considering the effort I'm putting in on weights and with the resistance bands considering it's not amazing equipment. Pretty happy with it so far. Shame my scales are broken though as while there's clear evidence of weight loss, after weighing myself on Sunday I was still at my starting 98kg which was annoying. Partner checked her weight and it was the same as hers at the start so we're suspecting it's bust because we're both showing evidence of weight loss in clothes feeling looser. Don't have a specific goal in mind other than to just get healthier and stick to it. Its also helped me keep an eye on my eating, which was never bad but the little snacking I did has since been cut out completely and I'm being more conscious than I already was of making my meals have enough of everything I need nutrient wise (with being vegan this is obviously more important as I'm not eating meat but I'm eating a lot of tofu and getting protein from a lot of other sources). I think realistically if I can lose some weight with this but build some muscle, which is what I'm already doing, then I'll be happy and can easily stick with it. Hoping that next summer, where hopefully things are starting to go back to normal, I can work on my running and get back to that and possibly get hold of a bike to do stuff there. The only immediate goal I have is to work up the strength in my shoulders so that push ups feel easier as with my shoulders being hypermobile, and liking to pop in and out, I'm finding those effortful so hopefully I can improve there. So yeah, happy with how I'm going so far. Just pushing myself that bit more each day and hoping that I keep making the progress I am.

Seems Microsoft will be focused on already announce games in their TGS showcase: Odd choice as you'd think they'd want to really show that they have a good slate of games for the Japanese market. I suspect that they'll show Dragon Quest 11 and Scarlet Nexus again and they'll probably have Resident Evil 8 but they'll need to show a bigger slate than that to show they're improving for that market. An expensive next gen console with limited Japanese IPs will do as well as the previous Xbox consoles. I do also think the PS5 being expensive out the gate may also mean we see slower sales in Japan based solely on how that market has moved heavily to portable/mobile gaming but that will probably only a short term thing as the PS5 sales will steadily pick compared to the Xbox Series X which will flounder. That's an aside anyway. Hopefully Microsoft have something up their sleeves for the showcase, though I suspect it'll follow on from another one earlier this month from Phil Spencer and such covering stuff they didn't shown in the last showcase, which has to be something from first parties as they've not shown a lot so far.

Rebel Galaxy Outlaw finally has a release date. It's coming September 22nd to the Switch (as well as Ps4, Xbox One and Steam). Was well received last year when it launched on the Epic Games Store last year so one to keep an eye on. I personally didn't enjoy the first Rebel Galaxy game when it was part if PS+ years ago but this sounds as though it's a step up over that game.

*Opens thread* In all seriousness, I'm hoping for a date and price soon. The rumours of an early September event from Sony seem to have some weight so hopefully we'll find out by the end of the week or next week when that'll be. I'm still very much on board for the console. I know the games will be there through the coming years but losing Deathloop from launch is a bit of a downer from my point of view of buying as I'm not majorly fussed for Spiderman Miles Morales (the first was a decent game but the repetitiveness of the open world, even if it was optional, started to wear on me). Its why I'm weighing up whether I'll pick one up at launch or not. Realistically, its going to be a minimum of £500 but more likely more than that and that stretches my finances a bit (even if I sold my Switch Lite and library of games for that which would be my intention, tho I won't go into that here). So I don't know whether I'll just put the money back and invest early next year when Ratchet and Clank/Deathloop comes along. Some of the other games I'm interested in, Pathless and Kena, will have PS4 versions and with the likes of Cyberpunk there's still enough to keep me playing on current gen at the moment. We'll see. Once the price is out there and release date I'll make my decision. Pre-ordering online will be useless as they'll be gone in seconds and with everything going on, not keen on heading to the likes of GAME to put a pre-order down under a "First come, first serve" promise for launch even with putting a deposit down. Still very much looking forward to getting my hands on the console. Do find it odd that third parties seem to be a bit slow on the draw so far with regards to announcements as it does feel a little barren on that side coming towards launch. Sure, there's some big games coming but there's also a lot of cross gen games and some devs just not really getting out there and announcing/showing anything. The pandemic may have affected plans but I do wonder if some third party devs just aren't quite ready for next gen fully and the pandemic hit their plans hard.

Ended up subbing to NJPW World back in July and I've been working through stuff on there, going through a list of some of the best matches and damn, its just so damn good. Don't think I've watched a match that hasn't been incredible. Certainly puts every other wrestling promotion to shame just with the shear work rate of the guys in NJPW. I had Takahashi v. Ishimori on the other night from their G1 meeting in 2018 and god damn was that a good match. Put on Okada v. Tanahashi from that year as well and similarly just so damn good. Likewise, the couple of Will Ospreay matches I've had on have been brilliant. Obviously ended up finishing up Wrestle Kingdom 14 night 2 and loved that. The Okada v. Naito match was so good. I remember following it along on Twitter in January and it was just a slew of people posting finisher after finisher but that really did a disservice to just how good that match was. He'll, even Jyushin Thunder Liger's last match was a good watch (I'm still shocked that he's only 55 and done somewhere north of 3500 matches across so many different promotions, just insane). Was a bit skeptical about subbing but more than warranting its monthly fee with the quality of matches they put on. Summer Struggle finished yesterday but the missus is on nightshift so having to wait to catch the end of that but heard its great so looking forward to sitting down to see Naito v. Evil. But yeah, so good so far. I'm still watching AEW alongside going through this but NJPW is just on a whole different level of quality.

New footage from the devs was shown last night during the Future Games Show at Gamescom. Continues to look fantastic. Love the look of the game and just amazed that its being made by such a small team (its either 2 or 3 devs). They've also said to expect it in 2021 on Xbox One, Xbox Series X and PC.

Trailers for some indie games coming out of Gamescom. Scourgebringer has an official release date: October 21st for Switch and Xbox One (it'll be on Gamepass for the latter). It's out now on in early access on PC and will have its full release then for that platform too. Had a chance to play the demo for the game during the summer showcase on the Xbox One and loved what I played. A cross between Celeste and Dead Cells is pretty much what you get. Plays and handles well so for fans of rogue likes, one to keep an eye out for. Here's a new trailer for Minute of Islands, which is coming to PC, Mac and consoles next year (a Switch version is amongst those). Very nice art style and looks like it'll be a point and click perhaps. Again, could be interesting. While this Summer has perhaps lacked big announcements for next gen or Switch, indie devs do seem to be continuing to put out some good stuff.