Bobfoc

The new Theatrhythm (Final Fantasy rhythm game) is getting a free demo tomorrow. It's looking very generous too, with thirty playable tracks.

I have nothing against Wrexham or their fans historically. Even though they'll probably deny my team promotion, I don't begrudge them for having something to smile about after years of non-league football. I find the excessive media attention a bit annoying, and perhaps rather disingenuous. Whenever I see McElhenney and Reynolds doing anything Wrexham-related, it always seems to be in the form of comedy skits. It's hard to shake off the feeling that there's still a major "Look how wacky we are" factor in play. Plus, as said, the notion that they're some sort of plucky underdog when they're packing their squad with established Football League players is a huge stretch. I've come across people who believe that McElhenney and Reynolds created Wrexham FC, and others who think that it's a Youtube club in the nether depths of the football pyramid. They're one of the oldest professional clubs in the world, and so this misconception that their zany Hollywood owners are putting together something never before seen in the community is all too misleading. There's got to be a point at which they both lose interest and sod off, at which stage you wonder how they'll have impacted the club's long-term future. No doubt, they'll have plenty of material to fill out their documentaries right now, but how about when they hit the inevitable plateau and aren't doing anything particularly noteworthy? It's all well and good that they're apparently aiming for the Premier League, but unless they get some serious outside investment, that really isn't likely to happen.

The next game is going to be on Game Pass at launch, just as the previous two were.

It's only fair. Most of Liverpool's home-grown legends supported Everton growing up.

This is a good result. It means that Wrexham have another match to add to their schedule and hopefully compromise their title push. Yes, I'm clutching at straws.

10 Australian Opens and 22 Grand Slams. Sadly, Djokovic is a brilliant player.

What's the Elusive Contract Arcade like? I never did the Elusive Contracts before because the "one failure and you can never, ever try again" format put me off.

I think the perception of Xbox is influenced somewhat by the fact that they don't have full console exclusives now, with every first-party game coming to PC as well. Getting people into the so-called "Xbox ecosystem" is more of a priority than shifting huge numbers of consoles. I dislike Microsoft as a massive corporate monolith, much as I do Sony, but I think their first-party output has been very good since the Series S and X consoles launched. I've had lots of enjoyment from the following Microsoft-published games over the last couple of years: Gears Tactics Microsoft Flight Simulator Age of Empires IV Forza Motorsport 5 As Dusk Falls Pentiment That's not mentioning first-party games that were also on Playstation due to previous contractual obligations, such as Wasteland 3 and Psychonauts 2. While I haven't finished it yet, I'm also really liking Hi-Fi Rush. I love that, along with Pentiment, Microsoft-owned studios are being allowed to get a few people together and make smaller passion projects as the bigger games are being developed. Honestly (and I know it's not a popular opinion), I played Horizon Zero Dawn and God of War (2018) for a few hours and wasn't really drawn in, so their respective sequels were never going to be on my radar. Obviously, though, they're big hitters that get a lot of attention, which is something that Xbox, perhaps unfairly, doesn't have a lot of. I do think that this year should be the year the new consoles start justifying themselves to the masses. Sony's only major full PS5 exclusive right now is Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart, with God of War: Ragnarok, Horizon: Forbidden West and Gran Turismo 7 all playable on PS4. I find it hard to count The Last of Us: Part 1 and Demon's Souls when they're both very similar remakes of games you can still buy at a much lower price. This year, there are possibly two Final Fantasy exclusives on PS5, while I think the vast majority of Microsoft's output is going to be unavailable on Xbox One. Again, that's not an issue if you already have a good gaming PC, but there are still plenty of people who will prefer the plug-and-play sofa experience of the consoles.

Sabalenka/Rybakina and Djokovic/Tsitsipas will contest the two singles finals.

I did the first stage of Hi-Fi Rush and I like it. I still want my games to be bright and colourful, so this really fits the bill.

I'm liking it too. The combat has been built upon from previous games, which makes all the skirmishes a lot of fun. Three Houses is one of my favourite games ever, but I knew beforehand that there was going to be less focus on character interaction and story, so I'm happy enough to look at this game on its own merits.

Oh, no. Xbox is woke.

I think the format of the show was fine. The Hi-Fi Rush shadow drop aside, they've been open about what to expect. Minecraft Legends is something that intrigues me, not because I have high expectations, but because I'm keen to see how well they can make an action-strategy hybrid work on a console. In a strange way, it reminds me a bit of how the strategy battles worked in Brutal Legend. Although the more serious Forza games (as opposed to the Horizon series) isn't likely to draw me in to a huge degree, I did like the sound of the car-building single-player career mode. I hope that's reasonably substantial because I can't see myself playing the game competitively. Hi-Fi Rush is going to be out later today, so I might as well give it a try. It's looking stylish and the world and graphical design remind me of Jet Set Radio, even though the gameplay itself is different. The last rhythm-action game I played was Metal Hellsinger, which I found to be a bit repetitive, so my expectations are in the same general zone. Elder Scrolls Online doesn't interest me at all. That's not to say it doesn't have its audience, but MMORPGs never did turn my head. I'm not sure what to make of Redfall. It sounds like a mish-mash of several ideas thrown together, which could just as easily make for a variety of fun escapades as it could a series of half-baked components that all underdeliver.

Remember that it's going to focus on Redfall, Minecraft Legends, Forza Motorsport and Elder Scrolls Online. There haven't been any promises of anything other than that, so expectations should be kept in check.

It opens itself up to greater variety, at the very least. In past versions of the mode, you'd play as the same wrestler over and over, whereas this will let you play as all sorts of different people.

This looks interesting. I wasn't expecting One Night Stand 2006 to be in there.

I played one game of it when it came out on Game Pass, but I didn't quite get the hang of it. I may go back to it at some stage because I'm a Civ fan.

One particularly unexpected rumour is that Keylor Navas is being pursued by Forest, Leicester and Bournemouth.

WWE 2k23 will come out in March and will contain a John Cena showcase mode and the debut of Wargames matches.

Those games are the sort I'd wait to play until they were really cheap, but they're enjoyable for the silly B-movie vibe.

Swiatek and Gauff are both out.

I think the old "dump" stadiums have more character and atmosphere than the big new arenas.

That could also be Forest.

I like that there's something to differentiate Grand Slam matches from those on the regular tour, but it's a bit of a pain for the whole tournament. Maybe they could just introduce five-set matches at, say, the quarter-final stages.