Sheikah

Not saying that, just that following the most popular console is financially sensible but doesn't deliver the best experience.

Amazing game, really. I probably won't be getting it though, having done everything in it twice (PS2 and Wii) and Okamiden once. I'm Okamid'D out.

Yep, them...

Yup. If you didn't tell people what each title number was, they'd never be able to guess that VIII came first. IX was a massive step back and done solely on greed.

Go on then, my spherically challenged friend. This'll be my first mafia, just to let you know. :p

I'll play. Never played Mafia before, so why not? I've had a quick read around to get the rules. One question though, what bonuses does the elected leader typically have?

The Japanese market is different to ours, it's odd in many respects. Over here DS titles that sell well tend to be more pick up and play which Layton conformed to; this doesn't. I think it's more likely the PS3 version would fare better here, I get the feeling we're not as obsessed with our handhelds as in Japan (PSP was a success over there, not so much here). DQ is a large name and people follow it. Also DQ was new to the general public when VIII came out over here, yet had built up considerable reputation by the time IX came around. IX still sold a fair bit less in Europe by the way than VIII, indicating that console can trump handheld over here.

The reason why I don't get the DS version love is that no amount of added touch screen niceties could raise it to the level of the PS3 game, I personally believe. It's entirely possible that they don't think there'll be enough return from the time and effort translating the two different stories and putting out the games on different consoles. If that's the case, they made the right choice by going with the version that's better by a country mile.

I'm sure it will be for 5 minutes. I joke, but...anyone feel like Nintendo are sticking to a formula these days with relatively little innovation to their Mario games?

One look at screenshots like this: ...and I frankly find it absurd that you'd want to ruin the experience playing it on DS. Shit, buy the damn console for this, it's not like the PS3 doesn't have tons of other great exclusives too. The game looks like art, why spoil it staring at the shitty DS screen? Cutting the DS version and keeping the PS3 version is absolutely the right way round if they're only going to pursue one. I hate it when games are released on inferior systems when others are available (e.g. DQ9 on the DS - DQ8 was so stunning even on the PS2 that I felt they really dropped the ball there).

Hmm...not as exciting, but anyone who doesn't have Rayman Origins should purchase it at that price because it's an awesome game. Probably the best game on the Vita so far at least.

Sorry, are you asking how they've managed to drop in price or asking for sites selling them cheap? If the former, I guess because they've been around for a time now, the technology is cheaper to produce and more people are adopting them/more companies producing them. Some info from CNET: Best place to get one is either ebuyer.com or Amazon.

Do you like Chrono Trigger dark? I always think of FFVI and CT as having a similar presentation and slightly similar feel. Always felt that CT was more about fun and had better characters and story though. My general thoughts on earlier Final Fantasies (including III on the DS) summarised succinctly: Something, something, something, crystals. Something, something, something, complete.

Yup. And it making your PC really quick.

Yeah I got a 128GB Crucial M4 SSD which in terms of cost is better value than the 60GB ones (it's around 80-90 quid). Windows 7 Pro can be clipped down to 7GB believe it or not, a lot of stuff installed isn't actually necessary. So it's very achievable to have a dual boot of this and Linux on a 60GB. It should be enough space for your Program Files too, in my experience they never take up too much space. Anything you don't have space for like downloads you can just stick on your other HDDs instead.

Might I suggest something cooler you could do, unless you really need a 3TB drive? Buy a 2TB drive for £70 instead (more cost effective than the 3TB). Then buy a 60GB OCZ solid state drive for £54 and use that as your Windows boot disk. Install Windows to that, and then you have a PC that loads up the OS and any programs you install ridiculously fast (because it has around 500MB per second read and write speed compared to a fairly typical 50-80MB/s speeds of standard hard drives). They're also less likely to fail (no moving parts to knock about), do not require defragmentation and produce next to no sound. Unless you really need that extra TB, the bonus you get from an SSD is really sweet and I wholeheartedly recommend them to anyone.

I didn't bother with the zombie stuff. For what it was, RDR is probably the best game Rockstar have ever made and completely surprised me. I remember seeing a trailer for it in the past that kept harpering on about posses and teaming up with friends and it sounded like shit. I remember getting it after someone on my friends list kept nagging me to, and god am I grateful. They should just go ahead and make a prequel to RDR. The story was great, the gameplay amazing, the environments convincing and beautiful. Far better than the dreary, drug-fuelled grimey GTA with street after street of generic, non-enterable concrete buildings.

Doesn't Chrono Trigger music simply kick arse? It's always stood out for me as the best music ever found in a game. Chrono Cross then followed up with some great tracks, but through no fault of it its own it was never going to rival CT. I love some fan CT songs, if anyone has time you should definitely check these out. Of course if you've played CT, they rock that much more: Spacecat - Audio brilliantly atmospheric, I love this track. Just that feeling of despair, the nearing end of humanity. It'd take a stone to not feel anything from that. To Far Away Times remix - Audio Still sad that CT resurrection was taken down. Love how chilled out this one is.

My advice is to skip the Final Fantasy games before VI. Then skip them after X. :p Efficiency.

As long as you have SATA ports on your older drives it's fine. You can also get an IDE to SATA converter if you have an old IDE drive but I found these adapters can protrude out of the case and be unsuitable. Yeah you can put a SSD in later, hook it up to your motherboard, then install Windows to the SSD and then when booting up your PC tell it to boot from your SSD from now on. Then sit back to blisteringly sweet speeds. Windows 7 Pro is what you want, Ultimate/Enterprise isn't a great idea as they take up more space with fairly non useful features. You can get the OS for quite...*ahem*...cheap. :p

Well hopefully it'll all be free. Recently put together a good PC so I should be able to play it on PC too with no problems.

Cool, I can spec something close to that. I'll exclude the cost of buying OS/monitor/HDD/CD drive for now since you may have them (and it makes this easier :p) Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-Z77-D3H Socket 1155 VGA DVI HDMI 8 Channel Audio ATX Motherboard @ ebuyer.com for £80 Processor: Intel i5 3570K processor (Ivy Bridge) @ Amazon for £174 Processor Heatsink and Fan: Coolermaster Hyper 212 EVO @ Novatech (or Overclockers UK) for £30. RAM: 8GB Corsair Vengeance Low Profile RAM @ Amazon UK for £43 Graphics card: Radeon 7850 HD (Sapphire Brand) ebuyer.com @ £179 Case: Antec Three Hundred Two WAE UK @ £46 Power Supply: Corsair CMPSU-600CXV2UK Builder Series 600W Power Supply @ ebuyer.com for £52 (not modular but a lot cheaper and still great) Case Fans: 2 x Antec Tricool 120mm fans (what I have for the case, nice and quiet and keep things cool) for a total of £15 @ ebuyer.com Solid State Drive (SSD): 60GB OCZ brand Agility 3 SSD (Read rate 525 MB/s, write 475 MB/s) for £54 @ ebuyer.com So far £673. £73 above budget but you can cut out the SSD and buy that later, but the rest you will want to keep else you're sacrificing good, necessary components. And that PC will be awesomely powerful compared to anything for the same price from a PC manufacturer.

Thanks, I was going to get more into the PSO2 beta but then the Guild Wars 2 beta started and that took my attention away. I think when it comes out for Vita I will probably be hooked.

Wow I am...beyond words. I was humming the banana phone tune as I clicked this topic again, I'm not even kidding. Shit is scary. Yeah by high end I just meant if you wanted to play games like the Witcher 2, Skyrim, Guild Wars 2 etc on high settings (ie. not just for web browsing). The modular PSU thing basically means you have a power supply, but instead of having wires that are fused to it that you then attach to the relevant parts of your motherboard and drives, the wires can detach so you can remove the many that aren't in use. An SSD is like a giant flashcard. As such it makes next to no noise, and these ones have extremely fast read and write rates (in the region of 500MB/s - if you were to transfer a 1GB file from 1 SSD to another it would take around 2 seconds). I definitely recommend it as it reduces load times of opening programs and most importantly makes your computer load up from start to finish in less than 10 seconds. If you plan to use it just to install your OS and have a few programs (ie. not store downloads) then you only need a 60GB one, which can be got for around £60 from places like ebuyer/amazon (crucial and OCZ are decent brands). You could always check your current drive and see if they're SATA to save yourself some cash. What kind of price range are you looking at? If you wanted the parts I bought which makes for a pretty damn good PC, you're looking at around £750 ish.

If you like, give me a general list of what you want it to do, what you want to spend and I can put together a compatible load of parts. A few questions regarding a build that you might want to answer too: High end gaming PC? If so you'll want 8GB RAM, an i5 processor, decent overclocking motherboard, ~£180 graphics card Modular power supply? Generally more expensive but cut down cable clutter inside your case. Not essential but something that can be cut out if money is tight. Would you want to pay more for a more snappy PC? If so, sink £60 into an SSD so stuff loads quickly (like booting up). Is having an extravagant case important or just a good all round performer good enough? A lot of the stuff I will probably recommend to you is stuff that I have so I can pretty much guarantee it'll work. With regards to the DVD drive and HDD, double check that they're not too old. You basically want them to have SATA ports, not IDE (see image). IDE is old technology and won't be compatible with most new motherboards. I had to buy a new DVD drive and HDD as both of mine were IDE. With regards to the DVD drive that's no problem, as they go for like £14 on Amazon (and write at the max speed a DVD drive can, worth the upgrade). The hard drive though...I'm just sticking with an external hard drive for now in combination with my SSD.