Bobfoc

You could do it in Smackdown 2, but not through a table.

I have strong memories of all the rumours surrounding Mew and Bill's Secret Garden in Pokemon Red and Blue. While they didn't pre-date the internet itself, nobody I knew had an internet connection at the time. That meant that all kinds of wild, labyrinthine methods to unlock the secrets were spread around. I'm sure people have made rom hacks to add them all in, but it would be amazing if Game Freak made a special version of the games with all the made-up Pokemon in.

The Game Boy games were the highlight for me, although Pikmin 4 comes close.

Probably because you can always recruit more units in XCOM, whereas Fire Emblem has a limited pool of soldiers with personalities. Granted, in this game, those personalities boil down to two or three variations of shallow anime archetypes who all talk like children.

The rumoured Nintendo Direct will take place tomorrow at 2pm PT/5pm ET/10pm GMT. It will last about 40 minutes.

Apparently, Hogwarts Legacy has an NPC who is a trans girl. Obviously, that's a good thing in and of itself, but the nature of the conversation surrounding the game means that cynicism regarding the motives behind it is inevitable.

I'm quite sure review scores only exist now as clickbait, to stir up "engagement" (read: angry squabbles) in the comments section and so that publishers can use them in their marketing campaigns. As far as I know, most reviewers don't like having to use them. I can guarantee that any site that gives the next Zelda game anything other than a perfect score will be inundated with death threats and DDOS attacks, just like last time. They also seem to have drifted to a point at which 7 out of 10 is considered average, so even the most generic and forgettable big-budget games tend to get that score slapped on them. Another thing I've noticed is that, every so often, a story-driven game gets lavished with embarrassingly over-the-top praise. Look to the likes of GTA IV, Bioshock Infinite, Telltale's The Walking Dead and The Last of Us series as examples. Now, I'm not saying they aren't games loved by many people, but when reviewers hail them as the long-foretold coming of the thing that will finally convince the most ardent of sceptics that games are finally, and indisputably, works of high art, it all gets rather over-the-top. It feels as though some people are so desperate to be there when gaming's "Citizen Kane moment" arrives that they can't help throwing out sentences like "In a medium where everything else is John Wick, The Last of Us Part 2 is Schindler's List" and "GTA IV gives us characters and a world with a level of depth previously unseen in gaming and elevates its story from a mere shoot-em-up to an Oscar-calibre drama". It's fine to love a game, but reel in the outlandish bollocks.

There are some Switch games on clearance offers at Tesco. Stock will be different at each shop, but I managed to get Pokemon Shining Pearl and New Super Mario Bros U Deluxe for £18.50 each. Other similarly priced games that were out of stock where I looked included Animal Crossing: New Horizons, Super Mario 3D World, Pokemon Legends: Arceus and Super Smash Bros Brawl. There were even sightings of OLED consoles for just over £150, but they sold out very quickly.

If you go purely by game scores, you'd think it was a masterpiece, but the reviews almost all mention the same problems. It's a good example of why putting stock in review scores alone is foolish.

Forest have been able to grind out results lately in a way that Leeds, with arguably more skilled players, haven't. They could probably do with a Dyche-esque figure.

Bear in mind that the story and characters aren't as good as in Three Houses. The tactical combat is very good, though.

This is an entertaining match filled with moments of brilliance and silly errors.

Ireland are already flexing their muscles.

Is the alternative ending Cena winning at One Night Stand and the promised riot happening?

I'd love it if companies only revealed games when they were more or less finished. Obviously, keeping shareholders happy is why we don't see that very often with the biggest titles, but it's nice on the rare occasions when it does happen. I think most publishers are starting to get a little better at focusing their showcases on games slated to release in the near-ish future, especially now that so many of them have their own smaller reveal events instead of doing one big blowout at E3. You'll still get the occasional "Here's a logo; pre-order now!" moments, but I haven't noticed as many as there used to be.

Jeff Grubb, along with a few others, reckons that there will be a Nintendo Direct next week.

Well, he was rubbish anyway.

It's good that we're seeing actual gameplay footage this soon before release. Trailers with canned animations only go so far.

It seems that neither Forest nor Everton fans actually wanted him, so it's a strange one. Luckily, it's a short-term deal.

Awoniyi, Lingard and Gibbs-White are injured, while Dennis hasn't really done anything to justify his place. Surridge isn't really up to Premier League standard and Wood looks well short of match fitness.

I wonder what will happen next for him. On a football level, he's missed significant development time, and on a more important level, there will still be doubts surrounding him. Can Man United realistically bring him back into the fold?

I'm not really sure about the idea that Forza and Flight Sim are niche, but Demon's Souls is a major title. Forza Horizon 5 has significantly outsold Demon's Souls, even though it's on Game Pass, and Flight Sim has sold around the same number of copies on Steam alone as Demon's Souls has altogether. More people were playing Forza Horizon 5's early access, available only to those who bought it outright, than Returnal ever sold. The Last of Us remake has enjoyed a significant boost since the show started, but it also didn't set the charts alight when it first came out. What's "deserving of attention" will always be subjective, or at least dependent on the definition. For me, Ghost of Tsushima was more interesting than Horizon: Forbidden West and God of War Ragnarok were ever going to be because it was a new IP, but the latter two games were obviously going to garner more hype because they were sequels to popular games. I suppose Microsoft's recent output has been more intriguing to me because they're putting out more new properties than Sony is. Really, I'd say that the only "new" Sony-published game that's exclusive to PS5 is Returnal, and, as said, that wasn't the big blockbuster that the likes of Uncharted et al. are. The PS5 will inevitably sell huge numbers if Sony just keeps focusing on the same series, but my head will turn more when their studios deliver some fresh IPs. Give us a Naughty Dog RPG or a Sucker Punch tactical game. Yes, it's less safe than The Last of Us Part 3 and Ghost of Tsushima 2, but let's live on the wild side for once. Clearly, that's a memo that most game publishers could do with reading. Anyway, that's my tuppence worth that I imagine hardly anyone will agree with.

We're always taught not to leave things until the last minute, yet all these massive clubs with state-of-the-art facilities seem to do it all the time.

Someone at the BBC isn't happy.