DE.

Considering it mostly comprises of looking at data screens, FM does have an amazing ability to suck you in. In my current game it's October 2063. VAR was never implemented. I started this game on 8th February 2019 so have been running it for over a year, definitely the longest save I've ever done. In-game I am 76 years old and have been managing Rovers for roughly 46 years. Dunny was my assistant manager until he turned 73 and finally retired. 65 year old Ryan Nyambe is my current assistant. The only other 'real' players on my coaching staff are Richarlison who has been a fitness coach since 2048 and Dominic Calvert-Lewin who has been a scout since 2054. The club recently upgraded to a 117,000 seater stadium which cost £800m. I had a brief stint as England manager from 2034/2035 but the options available to me in terms of players were pretty awful so I let somebody else deal with that shit. Competition wins are pretty healthy ? A largely successful career IMHO in terms of the PL is hasn't changed that much in all honesty, but I've seen Man Utd and Man City (twice) get relegated in the past few seasons which was nice. Both bounced back up unfortunately. Burnley were in the PL for a while but have been on the decline in the last 20 years or so and are now just an average League 1 team which is pleasing.

Tbf I've had the same thought when watching some modern WWE events.

Traditionally football management games haven't done very well on consoles, I think that's pretty much the only reason. Honestly I wouldn't buy it on console as I'm too used to playing it on PC/Laptop now, but whether there is a market there in modern day is up for debate. The only question I'd have regarding putting FM on consoles is how well a PS4/XBOX/Switch could handle the processing involved. I won't profess to understand the differences between console and computer processors, but I wonder whether that is a factor? I imagine they could still optimise the game for console even if it was an issue though. One of my exes from many years ago really hated FM. Think it would have either been 07 or 08 at the time. She said more than once that I was more interested in FM than her. In retrospect she was probably right tbh, but I have no regrets.

I really liked FM11, I was playing that all the way through until FM15 when I finally upgraded. Granted there were long periods where I wasn't playing it, but it was an excellent instalment. I can't speak for the latest versions of FM, but honestly as far as 18 is concerned there's no requirement to tinker extensively. If you want to micro-manage everything then the options are there to do so, but personally I assign my assistants and coaches to training, press conferences, youth teams, friendlies etc. I use the same tactic for every match and never have to mess around with it. I basically just deal with transfers, team selection, match day and discipline. Although the game seems to think I'm a bit too eager on the disclipline front as somehow I'm rated 22 on discipline, despite the max rating technically only going up to 20

Yeah I've got an 8bitdo wireless six button for the Mega Drive Mini and it works perfectly. Really good quality controllers. I'll definitely be grabbing one of those Saturn flash cards when they're available! It's pretty expensive to get ahold of the better Saturn games and I'm not really up for paying upwards of £70 for them. It's cheaper to buy the Japanese versions of most of these games and with a RAM cart you can bypass the region lock on the console - a bit of a faff to play a game though!

Also a few useful links I found during this latest playthrough: https://joyceychen.com/persona5-negotiation/ - gives best answers to give during negotiations. It wasn't 100% for P5R due to the new content but still had 95% of the right answers. https://old.reddit.com/r/Persona5/comments/6ba2x1/english_flowershop_bouquet_guide/ - correct flower combinations if you get a part time job at the flower shop (good way to raise the kindness stat) https://samurai-gamers.com/persona-5/answers-class-questions/ - classroom question answers, useful as some of these are stupidly obscure/Japan specific. Also if you hit the touchpad on the PS4 controller before answering it'll show you what other players answered to the question - pretty much gives you the answer. https://chinhodado.github.io/persona5_calculator/index.html#/list - fusion calculator. Useful if you want to know how to fuse a specific persona.

Yeah if you get into an ambush situation it can be bad times, especially if Joker has a weakness the enemies target repeatedly. I just finished P5R and then realised I didn't rank up the necessary people to unlock the new content ? I've got a save from an earlier Palace but it's some way back. I guess I'd rather reload that then play the entire game again though. I managed to do every palace in one day (securing the route) so I guess it shouldn't take that long if I fast forward through all the other scenes. Still a pain though. @Bigdoggsteel pro-tip, rank up the doctor at the clinic ASAP. You can buy an item from her at around level 5 called SP Adhesive 3. It is extremely useful for pretty much the entire game. It restores 7 SP per turn in battle, which is a life saver if you're trying to get through a palace quickly and don't want to burn through SP items. I always buy at least 4 to apply to every active party member. They are a bit expensive but once you get the doctor up to level 7 the price gets significantly discounted. Kawakami (the teacher) is another one you'll want to try to rank up to level 10 as soon as possible. Once she's at level 10 you get the ability to go out in the evenings after you've been to mementos or a palace. Very useful for ranking up confidants. In terms of the rest of the non-phantom thieves: Chihaya (the fortune teller) - her abilities aren't that useful tbh. Caroline & Justine (the prison guards) - have very useful abilities but are difficult to rank up. Not really necessary to complete the game. Iwai (gun store owner) - his ranks are all about gun customisation, I never bother with it. Ohya (journalist) - her rank up abilities are all centred around lowering the warning levels in palaces. Again not one I bother with as I find the character annoying anyway and I never get close to triggering 100% alert in palaces. Oda (kid in the arcade) - again all about gun upgrading. At first rank you learn down shot which is actually pretty useful, but outside of that not important unless you really like the gun mechanic. Togo (shogi player in church) - has a ton of useful battle aids during rank ups, definitely worth getting all the way to 10 if you can. Mishima (phansite owner/school friend) - another really irritating character but his rank ups are worth doing for sure. The higher you rank him up the more EXP your party gets in battles. Yoshida (politician giving speeches in station square) - makes negotiating with shadows easier and allows you to get more stuff from them. Doesn't have any major impact if you don't rank him up but I did find his abilities useful. For me in terms of importance ranking up I'd go with: Takami (doctor) Kawakami (teacher) Togo (shogi player in church) Mishima (phansite owner/school friend) Then whoever you want after that. Those four are definitely the most useful.

I got the tactic I'm using off the SI forums a few years ago, has always worked a charm. Goes without saying due to the date all of the players are regens. I'm assuming the match engine has changed enough on FM20 to make a tactic like this unusable though.

Probably using a tactic from the SI forums ( https://community.sigames.com/ ) There are always tactics available there which effectively explot weaknesses in the match engine and make the game a lot easier.

The Fink had a great voice, always takes me back to the Attitude Era. A lot of people like him but for some reason Justin Roberts' voice kind of annoys me. I know he takes his job very seriously and his book was really interesting, but personally not a fan. I actually prefer Dasha who is doing ring introductions for AEW at the moment.

I'm still on FM18! Will probably upgrade for FM21.

WWE have announced a big talent cut as a result of COVID19 - from Reddit: Biggest surprise there are The Good Brothers (only recently re-signed), Mike Chioda (employed at WWE since 1989), Rowan, Rusev and Logan. The rest generally aren't being used and I had forgotten the likes of Epico and Primo were even around. WWE sure did fuck up Rusev though - over like crazy with the Rusev Day thing but they just buried him. I didn't think this week's AEW was as good as previous efforts. Jericho was a bit too cute on commentary, the matches were lacklustre, the main even went on way too long - especially considering Jake Hager isn't that good, and overall the show felt like AEW Dark with a Dynamite main event slapped on to the end.

Fantastic news, fingers crossed the recovery continues going well and Paul is out of hospital soon.

From what I heard they weren't even able to get a lot of their pre-orders out on time so that doesn't surprise me. I never pre-order from Amazon. ShopTo is my go to - always competitive in price and have always gotten stuff out to me really quick. They got P5R out to me 4 days before the release date, and apparently they were shipping FF7R out a week before release. I ordered from gamecollection instead as they were cheaper (and I didn't need it that quickly tbh) but most of the time I go with ShopTo. Thanks, that's really useful. I wish there was more Saturn stuff available (in general) as it's one of the only older consoles that doesn't have a huge amount of mods available.

I believe this instalment covers Midgar so I assume it'll end after the gang infiltrate the Shinra building.

A brief vid I took of the Sector 5 slums from above.

Oh yeah I love NXT and the Takeover events were my favourite things in wrestling before AEW came along. I still enjoy NXT although not as much since it moved to Wednesday, admittedly. It's easily the best thing WWE puts out regardless. Whilst I agree WCW at the end was a clusterfuck (albeit a somewhat entertaining one in retrospect) people forget that there was some very bad stuff on Nitro during the 'golden years' as well. Jim Duggan, M. Wallstreet, Glacier, Jim Powers, Public Enemy (good in ECW, sucked everywhere else), The Amazing French Canadians, Kevin Sullivan and the Dungeon of Doom... the list goes on but there was a lot of crap on Nitro even during the good times! However it was balanced out by the amazing cruiserweight division, and the nWo storyline before it became stale. I can't really watch WCW past mid-1998 as it becomes really difficult for me to pay any attention to - especially considering how long the shows are by that point. The 2 hour Nitros were just about right.

I watch current PPVs on the network , but primarily classic Raw/Smackdown/Nitro/Thunder shows, pre-2003 PPVs and the documentaries. That's about it but still a hell of a lot of content there alone.

Just beat Airbuster and fell down to the Sector 7 church. I'm starting to get used to and even appreciate the new battle engine. It's quite chaotic, especially during boss fights, but once you know what you're doing it's fine. It's incredible how much they've fleshed out the story so far. The slums are now huge, fully rendered areas rather than a screen with a smattering of houses and shops. They really focus on establishing who Avalanche are and you get much more insight into the members, as well as some added story elements which weren't there before. There's also a darts minigame which is kind of fun for a little while. Speaking of the story, it isn't exactly the same as the original. The core elements are all there, but the dialogue and certain scenes are shuffled around or changed entirely. Also some of the music is different (overworld theme is playing in the slums, for example). The bombing run to the Sector 5 reactor is now a full blown dungeon with a lot to do. Admittedly I found some of these annoying, and it felt like they were just trying to stretch out the time you were spending there rather than doing anything enjoyable. The graphics though, just wow. There are times when I stop and just pan the camera around in appreciation. There are some stunning sights. One thing I will say it that whilst aesthetically the game does obviously borrow heavily from the original, it doesn't feel atmospherically (to me at least) like the original game. The colourful quirkiness of the original is replaced by a more gritty realism. I don't think there's any way to really avoid this with the updated engine and graphics, but it's noticeable regardless.

There is that, although ITV got a lot of shit early on for cutting stuff out. I have no idea if they are still doing that.

I think the weird thing about the Cody/Spears Figure 4 pin was that Spears was clearly still conscious and moving around. It looked like it should have been easy for him to lift a shoulder up, and if he was in so much pain that he couldn't why wasn't he tapping out? It just didn't look right, although I give them credit for the creativity if nothing else. I believe the FITE AEW pass is something like $4.99 a month which is pretty reasonable. I wouldn't be without the Network though!

I have to admit they've done an incredible job fleshing out Biggs, Wedge and Jessie in the FF7R. They were minor characters you didn't know much about in the original, but they're fully fleshed out main characters in this one. Good effort.

I spent a lot of time on Elite using my Rift, it was an amazing experience for sure. Only problem was I couldn't work out how to be effective in combat. I'd always die in a few hits and nothing I did seemed to fix it. There was a cool little app I downloaded as well which allowed you to play YouTube, browse Facebook etc in the cockpit of your ship. On those looong trips to certain places it was great to be able to watch something. Although admittedly it's a lot more comfortable to just take the headset off and use the laptop/TV!

PCVR is still very expensive so yeah, not something to buy just for the hell of it. PSVR is certainly a cheaper option if you have a PS4 but it's pretty much exclusively game based. There are some flying games/experiences but I don't think any of them would come close to a proper flight simulator.

That sucks man. Part of the reason I bought my PS4 was for the FF7 Remake actually. When it was announced way back in 2015 my most recent console was an XBOX 360, so I figured once the remake came out I'd upgrade to a PS4. Obviously I was naive in thinking it would be out within a year or two! As it turned out Sony released PSVR and I ended up buying a PS4 for that anyway around October 2016, but I was still expecting FF7R to be out by 2018 at the latest! I can't believe it's taken this long - just when the PS5 is around the corner. If future instalments come out on PS5, which I am assuming they will be, I guess I'll be upgrading again!