In many of my reviews of Eminem's recent albums, I have often bemoaned about the amount of pop rap/unlikeable production or choppy flows. I don't think those criticisms can be directed at this album. For the most part, the rapping is amazing. In case anyone forgot, Eminem shows his skills right from the jump and continues to do so on many of these songs, more so than I remember on 'Revival' and the one or two albums before that, at least in a more enjoyable way-he doesn't seem to yell as much here. The amount of pop rap isn't extreme and to be honest I hardly even remember thinking about the beats on this throughout my first few listens until I read a negative comment about them. The beats are better than decent for the most part and after some bad production on so much of his recent work, I'll happily take what we've got here. The beat changes that one is more accustomed to hearing on a Kanye record work well here, particularly with 'Kamikaze' that improves the song at the right time. As always, lyrically there are some cringeworthy bars but they are sparse and I'm not going to pick out a word or bar or two and act like it's a big deal like others. Four songs I really like and have had on repeat, a few good ones, and the worst aren't offensive. His most consistent, easiest to listen to project in a decade.
Best Tracks: Greatest, Lucky You, Not Alike, Fall
This has some of the greatest banging production on an album to kick it off. This is a 5/5 album up to 'Mutha-----'. The best songs are west coast influenced but have a sense of originality with a bit of a rock feel to some tracks. Unfortunately though the quality slips at times with the second half not being as strong.
Best Tracks: LAX, Cold World, Saturday Night Live, Mutha-----, Criminal Set, Scent of a Woman
This is one of my favourite projects from the year so far. It has your standard Trae mood to it with its dark production and emotive lyrics, but I think this is one of the most consistent things he's done. Some of the production is quite dope too, with the sample on 'Lyric Forever' sounding a bit like something from a Kanye beat.
Best Tracks: I Got Me, Nipsey, Lyric Forever, Never Know, Goin Through It, Smile
Two weeks into release this had over 24 hours of outage that made plenty of fans outraged as they fixed known issues such as the wrong tyres being on cars for license tests/missions. It only got worse when fans were apoplectic when they realised the developers had reduced the prize money for plenty of events.
What still frustrates me though are many of the issues that GT6 has. I could copy and paste some of my sentences from my GT6 review. For a game with such a focus on realism, there is still no damage, and navigating the menus is still extremely annoying. And complaining about the menus may seem like nitpicking but I don't think it is because you are in them a lot and they kind of fade in and out to black. It's not an instant transition. Completing a licence test can take less time than going in and out of menus to get to the next licence test. WHY AREN'T YOU ABLE TO JUST SELECT NEXT LICENSE TEST once one is completed? I do not understand it. Why do I have to exit the race selection menus to change cars? I think even GT1 had more shortcuts to get through the menus with more ease than this does. It's painstakingly tedious.
Then there is the need to be online to race against AI that is just bewildering. The only thing you could pretty much do during the outage was the Music Rally mode, but guess what, it didn't save my records. It can't even save your game?! It's a joke. Imagine being hours into an endurance race and your internet drops out or the game decides it needs server maintenance. No offline game modes should require an internet connection. Here is series creator Kazunori Yamauchi on the topic: "The requirement for the online connection is just to prevent cheating overall from people trying to modify the save data." - Give me a break.
The handling and control of the cars is what you'd expect a GT game to have. The addition of the enhanced realistic weather features is fantastic and the fun and challenging classic modes are still great but the issues are annoying. From memory.
As Manchester United were such a presence in the beginnings of the Premier League, this does feel like a Manchester United documentary in a lot of ways. Perhaps more could have been included about some of the goings on at other clubs, but like I said, Man Utd were so successful that it would've been ridiculous if they weren't the team with the most airtime in this. An interesting documentary about the genesis of the Premier League from a financial point of the view and then how it grew and developed into the money maker it is today.