Ronnie

Try telling the devs of Assassin's Creed Odyssey that it's easy to make openworld games and that there's nothing in them. Come on.

I never said adding 100 Pokemon "was lazy", I said that simply adding more Pokemon each gen is the laziest way they can develop the franchise. "Make a fully openworld Breath of the Wild style adventure? Nah let's just make 100 new Pokemon and do the same gym stuff we've been doing for decades" Neither "openworld games" nor "linear games" are inherently lazy, both can involve a huge amount of work. My problem is simply where Game Freak choose to put their efforts.

I think the vast majority of people are going to be very happy with that, from what I've seen and heard, probably why they changed it to match Let's Go. For me, it's much more fun seeing Pokemon roaming around the world, and random encounters are a huge turn off.

It's not unreasonable to expect one of the biggest gaming franchises in the world to grow up a bit and join the rest of the top tier modern games in terms of polish, systems and development muscle. Well done them for animating 800 Pokemon, over the last decade, but that's not ambition, quite the opposite in fact. Introducing 100 or so new Pokemon each gen is the laziest way they can develop the franchise. The fact that people are excited about a free roaming camera (only in one section, mind), in 2019 says it all.

Fixed that for you

If leaks and rumours are starting to be talked about on here I’m out. Catch you all after the Direct!

In no way do they need a more powerful console. Look at Breath of the Wild. The Switch hardware isn't the problem, Game Freak are just lagging behind in terms of development muscle. A lot of Japanese studios seem to be a generation behind western ones. They just look dated compared to what the Europe/the US can put out. Pokemon games even more so.

The Wild area was a nice surprise, at least they're trying to evolve the formula a bit. The main thing I kept thinking in amongst all the 20fps footage was how the Switch will soon be sounding like a PS4, struggling to cope with Game Freak's openworld coding. I think this game is going to chug, a lot. As a first proper console RPG though, seems to be a decent enough effort from them tbf.

Very hyped for E3, can't wait to see more Jedi Fallen Order, Cyberpunk, Animal Crossing and Luigi's Mansion. Those are my big four for the show. Yeah I don't get it either. Everyone saying how amazing they are, I just found them well, like you say, cringeworthy and just trying too hard.

Wave Race, new Paper Mario, Animal Crossing, 3D World port, Luigi's Mansion, Pokemon, Fire Emblem, Mario Maker, Link's Awakening... I'll take that disappointment!

I ADORE the 90s, I just never played Banjo. In an ideal world they’d both be in. Banjo for the fans, Steve coz if Smash is to be a celebration of gaming, Minecraft has to be in.

So with there being just TEN DAYS till Nintendo's E3 showing, I though it might be fun for us all to predict five things from their Tournaments/Direct/Treehouse/E3 presence in general. Obviously I'd suggest steering clear of obvious things like "They'll show Luigi's Mansion 3." and stuff like that. It'll be way more interesting if we all predict less obvious things, positive and negative. Or random stuff like Doug Bowser will show up with a Bowser pin on etc. Only five though, them's the rules sorry. Also, please no talk or suggestion of leaks here, if you want to please use spoilers tags. I'll kick things off... Mario + Rabbids 2 - If this is a thing it'll show up first in Ubisoft obv. Two years since the original, a game that was a huge success commercially and critically, it's an obvious sequel. Coming August this year. I was tempted to suggest Zelda + Rabbids, but I can't see Nintendo wanting 3 Zelda games out in the same year. Cadence of Hyrule shadow drop - Similar to Hollow Knight last year: "and it's available NOW!". Link's Awakening having no new content - I really, really hope this won't be the case, but I can easily see them giving it a fancy coat of paint, making some gameplay/QOL/UI tweaks and calling it a day. Animal Crossing delayed to 2020 - Please understand. Pokemon/Zelda/Luigi being their big end of year games. It'll still release in Q1 though. Minecraft Steve is the 2nd Smash DLC - Sorry Banjo fans.

It feels like they're neglecting the one game that would really suit VR, Mario Kart 8!

Wow, looks fantastic

Sony probably could have been at this year's E3 if they paced their reveals better and didn't announce everything years in advance. We could have had Death Stranding, Ghost of Tsushima and Last of Us 2 at E3 2019 but we've already seen (at least two of) those so often that they can't possibly have another show focusing on them. I get that they want to show what's in the pipeline but I just find it boring waiting so long for these games and seeing them and others over and over every year. It doesn't help that recently their conferences have just been trailerfests, seems a bit pointless? No wonder they've gone the Direct route with State of Play, the writing was on the wall for a while. I'm looking forward to Microsoft though, they always put on a great show and suspect we'll see tons of exclusives from them this year.

Sounds incredible, so much attention to detail in this game. Shamelessly stolen from Gamexplain's video. It's listed in the exact same order as they do.

I would never call anyone interested in something that I'm not 'boring', we all like different things. It was said in jest anyway. I just think there's a time and place for that kind of thing and coming off a hype Zelda trailer wasn't it.

By all means show us the watching paint-drying segment on the battle mechanics, for those that are interested in that kind of thing, just not DIRECTLY AFTER the epic BOTW trailer. Never seen hype and pace come crashing down to zero so quickly.

This is the first console main series Pokemon game. For all we’d known they could have gone big on it this year. Also, my abiding recent memory of Pokemon was when they’d revealed the proper Breath of the Wild trailer for the first time at the very end of an E3 Direct... got the entire world hyped and waiting to see and hear more.... then cut to Treehouse that showed ussss.... a 45 minute deep dive into the battle mechanics of Sun and Moon. Totally tone deaf.

I really hope you're right.

Love this tweet from Greg Miller, referring to the riducle over the name of the latest COD that was leaked. Schreier butts in of course telling Greg he's wrong and that it's ok to ridicule. (probably when he's not torpedo-ing a dev team)

Not seen it yet but I'll look out for that. I can't make my mind up about Tom, sometimes he's ok, other times I find him annoying. He loves Hollow Knight though, so that redeems him a bit

I played Kid Icarus a few weeks ago on the Switch actually, I remember it fondly from my childhood and playing it again it's easy to see why. I loved the weird vibe that game and Zelda II had.

Nothing to do with the flower side quest. It's pretty obtuse to be honest, I looked at a guide too to know what to do.

Wow, well done them.