Bobfoc

I picked up Yakuza 0 as it was on sale and I had always wanted to try out the series, but was worried that I wouldn't know what was going on. Everyone seemed to be suggesting that 0 was the ideal starting point. I can't believe I've been missing out for so long. This game is every bit as fun and utterly stupid as I had hoped.

Plenty of the people who have knocked Khan down in his career didn't have a reputation of being big hitters. When his tactic has almost always been to stand and trade, rather than use his speed and accuracy to punch and move, he's left himself vulnerable to shots he can't always take. The Maidana fight was the only time I can remember him withstanding big punches throughout a twelve-round fight, and even then, he was rocked a couple of times. Khan will never admit it, but he just doesn't have the one-punch power to engage in slugfests. He's been able to overwhelm lesser opponents with his flurries, but he's never been able to land a killer blow that puts his opponent down in an instant. That shouldn't be a problem because, after all, neither did Floyd Mayweather, but the big different was that Mayweather was much more tactically astute and focused on his defence and counter-punching. It's entirely possible that he, too, didn't have a great chin, but we never found out because he so rarely got hit with a significant shot.

I couldn't watch the match because I don't have Amazon Prime, but it sounded unpleasant. It's dumbfounding to me that the 36-year-old who's won 23 Grand Slams and has far more big match experience than anyone on the tour can lose her temper so easily while a 20-year-old in her first major final can just get on with it. As much as I respect Serena's achievements, this tournament shouldn't just be about her, and so the crowd was out of order to ruin somebody else's big moment like that.

Khan's an exciting fighter because he's both a skilled technical boxer and a tactical idiot.

I like to think that he has his own personal photographer who follows him around on his missions. I can see him issuing a serious reprimand when they're not quite in position when he does something cool.

It looks as though some Switch games, like Pokemon: Let's Go, Splatoon 2, Dark Souls, Dead Cells, FIFA 19 and NBA 2k19, won't support cloud saves when the Switch's online service launches. When such a "feature" is behind a paywall, that's pretty poor form.

That's the thing that strikes me most about the current state of affairs. There's an appetite for modern versions of building/creation games, and I feel as though they thrive when they're made by, and published under, people who realise that the people asking for them want the essence of the games to be the same, albeit perhaps with a few modern conveniences that come with technological advancement. While we're talking about a different genre, I'll be interested to see how a new Timesplitters pans out, if it happens. Of the old Free Radical team, I think only one member (the audio designer) is still there (although it's called Dambuster Studios now). The people calling for the return of the series want it to remain true to what made the originals fun, but could be those in Koch Media pushing for a new version to adopt some of the aspects of modern shooters. In and of itself, that's not necessarily a bad thing, but you can end up doing yourself a disservice by straying too far from what made a series tick to attempt to reach a wider audience.

Interesting. My worry would be how quickly it will run, given the strain on the processor when you get to the later stages of a game. However, glancing at reviews of the iPad version, that apparently isn't as much of a problem as you'd think. I'm intrigued now.

I'd be interested to hear how good Spiderman would be for someone who, like me, doesn't really like the franchise itself. I had no interest in Batman beyond the Adam West series, but I still thought Arkham Asylum was fantastic.

It's curious how series like SimCity, Rollercoaster Tycoon and Harvest Moon have lost their lustre, but other companies have produced different games that are faithful to their spirit. With Cities: Skylines, Planet Coaster and Stardew Valley all selling well without established licences, it's good to see that the opportunity is there for new IPs based on old ones to fill the void.

Civ 6 will almost certainly be stripped down, but having it on a portable sounds good. Mega Man 11 and Final Fantasy XV Pocket Edition have also been announced. I think they would have been part of the scheduled Direct, which was postponed due to the earthquake in Japan.

Sounds as though it's along the same line of thinking as holding B to increase the chances of catching a Pokemon.

Playstation Plus subscriptions stack, so it would run from the end of your current one. As for Netflix, I'd guess that you'd enter the voucher code and they wouldn't charge you for the next three months.

There's Nintendo Direct tomorrow. I'd have thought that it would be about the Switch's paid online service. I hope there's more to it than has been indicated because otherwise, all they're doing for me is holding Splatoon 2 to ransom.

Those two statements should not exist together.

I've given up hope on anything interesting being announced at this stage.

Join me in the "bottom of the league" club.

There's always value in acquiring someone who can do it on a cold, rainy night in Stoke.

Sounds good. Is it cross-platform at all?

I haven't played Stardew Valley in a while, mainly because other things distracted me. Is the multiplayer mode good with strangers or is it like most games, which rely on having people you know playing?

They should put the names of the races in a tumbler and draw them in a random order. Let's have Montreal in the winter.

That giant snake had better be the final boss.

Looks as though Harry Kewell will be appointed the new Notts manager. Seems like a big step sideways to me.

It's been getting positive reviews. The consensus is that it recreates the feel of The Hospital and builds upon it, which is exactly what people wanted.

I agree that it's probably going to be a growing trend over the next few years. I can see celebrity boxing effectively becoming its own sport, with "serious" (and that's a term I use loosely, given that it's full of politics and heavily slanted towards the brasher competitors) boxing keeping the more traditional fans. I'll be in the latter camp because I'm keener on boxing skill than manufactured grudge matches, but celebrity boxing will probably make more money in most cases. Maybe it'll fizzle out when the novelty wears off, especially as they're primarily courting people who aren't normally boxing fans, and that's a difficult market to sustain long-term.