Space

Played through the first world today. Love the art style, music and general presentation. I'm still a bit unsure about the controls, it makes for a unique game mechanic but it's a little fiddly and slow. Hopefully after a bit more playtime it will feel more natural. With a bit of effort I did find it possible to just play looking at the TV but you need to have a really good sense of where you're placing the stylus. Drawing the rainbows is generally fine as you have some margin for error as you can swipe through Kirby, but the attack moves that require precise taps. The multiplayer waddle-dee helpers work surprisingly well. I'm glad they included this feature.

Just backed it. Super excited about this game, the visuals look excellent so far. Will be getting the Wii U version. The N64 days were a pretty magical time and the work the Rare team did back then was fantastic.

I was at Wembley for the symphony, really enjoyed it. I was also at the original 25th anniversary one 4 years ago. Pretty surreal experience in so many ways seeing/hearing games from long ago. Great that it was so popular. Would prefer next time for the audience was encouraged to cheer between performances rather than during, it did start to get in the way of the music by the end. A good example is the flute, really needs quiet to hear properly. I suspect the balance would have been right had the producer not said anything. Missed this topic but unexpectedly had a quick meet up with fellow old-timers @Domstercool, @Jordan and @Jav_NE afterwards.

Big fan of Star Trek, hope whatever comes next will be of the standard of DS9 or Voyager. Watched Star Trek IV The Voyage Home the other day, rather amusing in parts.

How does it compare to Opera and Firefox?

Chelsea vs Barca once again, can't wait! The whole Champions League is going to be great this year, nice balanced groups.

I enjoyed Ocarina but didn't really get into Wind Waker and found it tedious to play after getting to the half way stage. The Zelda series has almost no story and they replicate the same old thing every game. I detest the Final Fantasy gameplay but at least it aims above the 5 year old level when it comes to story. Personally I'd say the Monkey Island series is the best ever with Command & Conquer close behind.

Huge account there Blackfox, you did well to cover so much, most wouldn't have managed anywhere near half of that. For when you go next time London Dungeon is right next to London Bridge tube station. But it's not too great unless you're 14 and under. The building I work in is on the bank of the Thames so often spend my lunchtimes walking along the river. There's so much to look at it never gets boring and they've made a lot of effort in the last few years to open up the riverbank so you can walk along the waterside. Also general point: anyone wanting to find a good pub should use beerintheevening.com. You can select a tube station and it lists the pubs and their user ratings and distance from the station.

Could me in too Foxy.

As long as I plan on using the PC I keep it switched on. No point in re-loaded up all my software again each day. I've installed a silent PSU and quiet heatsink so it doesn't keep me awake. The monitor gets switched off as it's a big power drain. But I don't recommend keeping your laptop on all the time. I used to keep mine on and shut the lid at night and after a year or so it started getting very hot and kept powering down. After taking it apart I found the heatsink was totally blocked by a thick wedge of dust. After clearing that out it was as good as new. Closing the lid stops the air circulation and dust that would normally escape out the top hits the lid and falls back inside. A word of warning to save you from taking your laptop apart.

Just because they said they were interested in it doesn't mean they were impressed. I expect quite a few Sony fans will have walked away contemplating Microsoft and Nintendo's offerings. Hopefully.

Testosterone is a chemical that impacts on the body in many ways.. I don't think it could be refined to only cause aggression, as even a refined variant would impact elsewhere in the body.

I enjoyed this E3. It confirmed my suspicions that the PS3 isn't worth the money and is a combination of the PS2 and copied ideas from Microsoft and Nintendo. Microsoft did ok but there was nothing new I liked the look ok. Nintendo put on a good show and Mario Galaxy has made me consider getting the Wii. Up until seeing that I had pretty much ruled it out.

A lot of people think they'll get into the industry by getting a job as a tester, but you're far more likely get stuck in a low paid testing job with no prospects. It'll be repetitive and will take the fun out of gaming. If you want to get into game development get a good computing degree and learn programming in your free time to build up your own portfolio. Gaming is big business now and you won't get in because it's your hobby. Developers get unqualified games testers to do the testing as it's the worst job and they don't want to do it themselves.

I've never won anything from any form of lotto. Haven't exactly spent much on it, maybe 10-15 tickets so far. The older you get the more you realise you need quick money but I'd never spend much on it. Tried the Play Monday lottery last week as it's more charity friendly and I can specify exactly which charity it goes to. I tend to lean towards the animal ones but if they're not in the random 5 shortlisted it's not easy to find another worthy cause to support. The Play Monday site was slow slow I had to do my lucky dip about 5 times and it took 2-3 hours to get registered without the site slowing down to the point the session timed out. Since then they've said the capacity is now higher. They should have expected to get hit after a 4 page (inc front and back) ad Monday on morning in the Metro (London Underground free paper). Trying it again tomorrow but not expecting to win. :P

It'll probably be moved to creative instead. What kind of flash skills do you need?

At first I wasn't sure about the album. It seemed over-long and many of the tracks sounded the same. But after sitting listening to it for hours on the train it has definitely improved and now I really enjoy it. Great summer music and worth sticking with.

I watched the first season of Deadwood and thought it was pretty good. In fact I really enjoyed it. Have got season 2 sitting here to watch, must make the effort. So is there going to be a season 3 and then that's it?

I'm a big football fan and think women should be allowed to play alongside men. Women's football will always suffer until it is regarded as one and the same thing. If women want to play in their own league that's fine, but they should be allowed to choose. Football is ran by old men, in 50 years time things will be even. When it comes down to kids the subject is far simpler. If a child of mine wasn't allowed to play in a team just because of her gender I'd be very unhappy.

Yep WA had no cut scenes. I don't really remember Worms 2 having any either for that matter but I could be wrong. I'm still playing the C&C, great stuff. Worms 2 had the best interface of the lot but the 640x480 resolutions stops you playing it today. I currently play WA in 1280x1024 and you can see most of the level.

One of the best things about Maiden is their cover arts. Probably some of the best around.

I've posted this here as it spans games/pc/video/internet which makes it quite a general topic. First up, here's a quick video I've uploaded: http://revver.com/video/13926/6530 I'd like to thank Mr_Odwin for his video making advice/general cleverness as I'd not have encoded it otherwise. It's a bit retro as it's some footage from Worms Armageddon, I'm sure you all know of it. More to the point it's worth checking out revver.com for your own videos. It's a very well implemented system. It gets your video out in the open so people can watch it and if in the unlikely event it becomes a cult hit you could make a bit of money.

I'm 100% behind the smoking ban. For too long now I've been forced to sit in smokey pubs and have to wash my clothes straight after the evening is up. If I was a smoker I would feel bad about smoking in an enclosed area, it's not a big ask to step outside.

I'm more of a cat person. We've got 3 at the moment and they're all very individual. Not got anything against dogs but I've never owned one and don't like 4 facts about them: - you have to take them for walks, whereas cats do it themselves - they bark, cats don't - they poo in annoying places, cats are discreet and bury it - some of them jump up at strangers answering the door, this really annoys me. I'm sure for dog owners that's part of the fun, but I get really annoyed with all the dog shit on the pavements around here. All animals are great though. They teach you a lot in life.

Iron Maiden are my #1 band and I'm surprised so many relatively young people still like them today. Great to see. I've got every album. Still not seen them live though, being at uni made it impossible to pop into London. I wasn't too fond of Dance of Death so I'll aim to see them live when they do the tour for the one after, which I'll hopefully like more.