Bobfoc

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.

I think it's only a matter of time before they emulate the doubles matches and make the fifth set a super tiebreak straight away. Apart from the physical strain the players have to endure, these long matches are a nightmare for scheduling purposes. The tennis calendar is also far too packed. Obviously, it's financially motivated, so it's not likely to change, but the players have to compete in so many tournaments with such little time to recover. It's surely no coincidence that we see more surprise results at the US Open than at the other Grand Slams because the top players are exhausted by that stage of the season.

That's fair. What I'm trying to get at is that taking out anime cutscenes isn't going to bother me much. I can't remember thinking any were particularly good.

I definitely remember a couple of weird Persona 4 Golden cutscenes that didn't really add anything to the story. One of them was when the girls go to a hot springs and notice how big a character's breasts are. Then there's another where the comedy mascot fails to do a ski jump and rolls down a hill in a big snowball.

I've read that Bruce Straley, co-director of the first game, didn't get any credit or acknowledgement in the television series. While it's not a legal requirement, I think that's rather unfair. From everything I've heard, Straley was far easier to work with than Neil Druckmann, with the latter pushing the exploitative working environment at Naughty Dog to a much greater extent.

I always found the anime cutscenes in Persona to be tonally different to the regular storytelling. It's as if they were made by a different team with very little input.

Murray just came from two sets down to beat Kokkinakis in a match that took 5 hours and 45 minutes. He'll be absolutely knackered for the next match, but it's incredible how fit he still is after all his body has been through.

The Australian Open has started, with Murray beating Berrettini in a very close match over five sets. Raducanu plays Gauff in the second round in what will be a major indicator of where she is in her development.

I think the combat system wouldn't appeal to those used to the more modern Star Wars games, but perhaps I'm being a bit harsh. I'd probably say that I wouldn't recommend it to someone expecting something akin to Jedi: Fallen Order, whereas I would recommend it to someone who knows what they're getting into beforehand.

I think people have already grown suspicious of bitter Oasis-themed chants from Leeds fans.

What's the overall plan for this show? Is it going to just cover the two games or will it continue the story after that? My honest opinion is that the story in the second game was a big step down from the first, both in terms of pacing and writing, but perhaps having someone like Craig Mazin (smug though he may be) could tidy up some of its overdone excesses. It would cause a lot of complaints from the gaming community, but I think any continuation of the story would be better off in television form. I mentioned in the General Television thread that the necessity of making a game fun leads to some awkward tonal shifts in which a character is breaking down in tears after killing a named character one moment and then slaughtering dozens of anonymous goons without giving a toss the next. Taking that away at least helps give the brutal narrative moments the impact they're going for. Plus it would mean that Naughty Dog could work on something else. They haven't made a new IP in nearly ten years now. If nothing else, they could at least stop bullying their employees and working them to death.

Having played the game and having heard that it's a very faithful adaptation, I'm not sure I can really be bothered to watch it. I doubt it's going to surprise me at all. That said, it's probably better suited to television. With the game, there was the age-old issue of ludonarrative dissonance, in that there had to be plenty of combat to make it fun, but it meant that a gruff, middle-aged dad and a young teenager could mow down dozens of professionally trained soldiers. With a non-interactive medium, that's not something they have to put in.