dan-likes-trees

Yeah, pretty much my thoughts. I bought a 3DS for Pokemon X and literally never used it again. Keen to avoid a repeat. (Though reminds me I've been meaning to pick up Link Between Worlds). Haven't you got a Wii U though? Can't you just get BotW on that?

Anyone still playing this? Got back into it late last year and it's now my go to mindless-back-from-work-chill-and-don't-think game. Such a brilliantly balanced game. Becomes way better and less luck-based the more hours you sink into it. They must be making a shitload of cash off the loot boxes and all that - everyone I play against are decked out with fancy glowing stuff. Only game I've ever paid microtransactions on; feels good to give something back to a free game! For anyone interested, ex-gamespot writer Danny O'Dwyer has a great 20 minute doc about the making of - really interesting look at how games studios work. Also great to see a journalist going solo to patreon to actually make something constructive rather than another chat podcast!

Don't know about you guys but I'm having a serious battle with myself to stop myself splurging on a switch having read up on Zelda. Tried playing Horizon Zero Dawn the other day and I spent the whole time wishing it was BotW. Jealous of those of you who bought a WiiU and don't have to drop the hefty £330 pricetag! On the other hand, had a little browse of the metacritic's top WiiU games, which reaffirmed my thought that it would be purely a Zelda and Mario Kart box for me to buy. Must... resist...

Hacked into Roger Federer's personal email account to uncover this correspondance. I'm seeing him in real life for the first time in months this weekend so I'll get the lowdown on a possible return to coaching! Truely a stunning finish @Nikos9 - one of the all time great Xpert matches. Very glad we both went tooth and nail for the win! Yeah man I was totally fuming with myself looking at that final league table! Getting my best defender suspended was probably the worst thing about that loss in retrospect. Congrats on getting a good away win! -- Great season all round guys, some great twists and turns in the runup to the final game. New boy off the forums Elstak done well too - next season should be a cracker with Elstak, Haden and Cubic all coming into good form. Over at Winston I had a few distractions which has cost me some poor dvs; might need to spend some money over the window. But hugely looking forward to getting my revenge against @Nikos9 in season 3!!

Absolutely man. Much respect for laying out your thoughts in such a considered way; this kind of debate is alway healthy & interesting even when it strays a little off-topic, to my mind. We definitely have pretty similar thoughts on a lot of these points, even if as you say we'll always disagree on some of the big ones! This paragraph in particular is something I thought considered in that way. I'll refrain from getting into the other points in full (some of which I agree & disagree with) before the rabbit hole gets any deeper, but a couple of final bits I'd like to respond to Re - 'For many years there has been a sort of consensus that the liberal-left agenda is the only legitimate one' - Certainly a valid point and your point about Trump etc being a response to that is fair, but we're still in a world in which, in the UK at least, the vast majority of news outlets lean varying degrees to the right (The Mail is the UK's best selling rag!), & the vast degree of the population vote to the right, with only the Mirror and The Guardian (+ arguably the BBC) being the main liberal mouthpieces left. I would agree that that's the case with the entertainment industry, though I'd say that's more to do with creative-types having a tendancy toward liberal views and values; an industry packed with such people are bound to produce entertainment with a liberal leaning (Not to say that's always a good thing). So I'm not sure the consensus on a 'liberal-left agenda' applies to society more generally. Perhaps repeating myself, but I would stress that I don't consider this the case; the vast majority of feminists purely support the concept of equality for women, not the suppression of forms of culture, and find extreme instances of feminism to be sometimes irritating and counter-productive. I get your thinking and I agree that it's muddy; how do you define a general political ideology, and who actually, ultimately represents it? It's a similar issue to Brexit thing from earlier; the official Vote Leave leave campaign was a based around a wholly different set of beliefs and values from Farage's UKIP-led unofficial leave campaign, yet people still lump them all together and, as you said, call racist on the basis of the views of the most vocal. I'm not going to stop calling myself a feminist because I sometimes disagree with the actions of some of the most vocal and extreme feminists, just as any right winger shouldn't be discouraged from expressing their views for fear of being seen as a racist / sexist or whatever else. Ha, something we can definitely both agree on!

Disclaimer: This idiot wrote this half term writeup before getting thrashed by the Super Stars, and so some of that might be a little embarassingly outdated! Will the Winning Ways of Winston wane against the amazing anger of the Greeks? Greeks, following a disapointing draw on the opening day, have concluded a strong first half of the season. The tough-to-spell Tochourochou, aptly named considering his age like a rare breed to dinosaur, has been a monster in 2017, whilst the peerless Haraszti, in goal, has saved 100% of the shots on goal this season. They are flying, with 12 goals in their last 3 games; a team fully settled, balanced, and in their groove, who have conceded only two goals all season. A week with games away at Haden and then Super Star FC could prove tricky, particularly having been outplayed by Haden in their draw.. nonetheless, make it through that and they will be well poised to grab the trophy. Winston’s biggest win was a last-gasp comeback away at Haden; their best moment of the season, whilst being caught off guard by an impressive Leeds side their worst. This reporter claims that Winston’s eye for business has been key once again - recent purchase of experienced defender Tsirogiannis, rumored to be hated by the team and left out of a recent trip to Pizza Express, has played well, and Galisteu, bought in toward the end of last season, has been instrumental to back up an aging Artobolevsky, scoring the descive winner in the 93rd minute against Haden. Winston employed some rare defensive, some claim boring, tactics on the opening fixture of the season that saw a stalemate conclude 0-0. It could yet prove desicive; neither team looks likely to drop more than a few points so the return fixture, at the Greek stadium, will surely be the season’s defining fixture.. Haden United finally kick into gear Haden’s first season with United was plagued with poor results, rumors of fights in the dressing room, and a shocking home record. Fans feared the worst when the manager was caught off guard by Super Star FCA in week 1, but were exultant during a recent first league win at the new home stadium of Weybridge Castle against Cubic County. Things suddenly look a lot more rosy.. Results have been positive since, with Xicluna and Lewis forming a solid partnership in the center of the pitch. Stuart Dale needs to contribute more; 3 xpert appearances but not a goal or assist to note; once he breaks his duck the goals will surely come flowing. Elsewhere in the squad there are a couple of odd curiosities; talented keeper Bonillo has a save percentage of only 64%, class veteran Mena has yet to G&A, and Wizzini is hardly wizzing around the pitch. Still a project, then, but they are scoring goals, a top 3 finish looks a no brainer, and they will prove decisive in the title race to come; season three will surely be the time for Haden to at last mount a serious title tilt. Zell MIA - manager abandons sub after strong start A sad story for the league - it appears renowned leader Zell has finally left the sub for pastures new. The Sub looked strong in their first few games, and still sit 4th in the table a few directionless games later. A barnstomer of a match against Haden was the manager’s last input, a 5 - 3 diot that many have called the game of the season. The league will suffer. Club legend Rory Slater expressed his disbelief - ‘I signed my life away to the Sub and this is how he repays me??’. We hope Zell will return but if he does not, he will be known as an eternal manager with little left to prove. Super Star FC start with a smash but mixed squad struggle to sustain energy. Mystery manager Elsak started his Super Star career with a bang, crushing a hopeless Haden 2 - 0 away. Results since then have been mixed; a spirited game againt the Greeks that they nearly clawed a point from, but they remain the only team in single figures of goals scored. Winston’s manager was said to be nervous about the return fixture.. we will see in mere minutes the outcome here. Super’s away game against Winston showed some serious promise - the manager bossed every tactic going but still came away without a point to show for their efforts. The manager has invested wisely in a core group of 20/1-6’s and this punter suggests they will come good in a couple of seasons; unfortunately for Elsak the players he has been given players that sit behind the curve of the top teams; Pirlo is the standout in Midfield, but is all too easily marked out of games. In time they will grow into the name. Leeds make room for surprises with solid return The boys from the midlands have reemerged as a force to be reckoned with, after what can be desecribed as a very solid return to xpert football. Aside from an embarrassing 4-0 loss to the Greeks, they have been consistent, particularly in defence, nicking points off the likes of Haden and Winston. Star signing Deme Diana has scored only one goal after his high fee transfer to the club; the supporters want more, more for their money. Dawson looks hugely vulnerable in between the sticks; one wonders how long it will be before he is moved out for a more talented keeper. Regardless of these mistakes, keep an eye out for them in the top 4. Cubic County A one nil win against Super Star looked to be a turning point in the season for this square-based squad but it turned out to be a turning point that turned toward things turning out badly, with three straight losses on the bounce since. The squad has some talent, but the fans are crying out for the manager to enter the transfer market to add some experience and talent to the defence. More pressingly, their keeper has the lowest save ratio of any active team, and begs to be replaced. Cubic are scoring goals and will be a force once their defence starts to mesh together. The mid-table battle between SuperStar, Leeds, and Cubic will prove one of the interesting narratives through the rest of the season. Roger Federer distracted by Australian Open renaisance If one had to guess as the year began which major trophy Roger Federer would have been the first to lift this year, the smart money would have been on the Maddog Cup. In actual fact, an astonishing resurgence has seen roger revel in a really revival that on Sunday culminated in a grand slam open trophy. Even this writer, close to Federer himself, knows little of Roger's return; we will have to wait to the season to see if he will ever be back....

Wasn’t suggesting Grazza is part of any generalised group of people; he clearly has pretty nuanced views on all this even if they’re views I don’t share (Ironically, you suggesting that I fit in with that forum trend is in itself a bit generalising). Regardless, his language he used fits in with a specific trend I noted; complaining of ‘tantrums’, suggesting people should ‘accept democracy’ is effectively the same as saying ‘you lost, get over it’, even if he’s since clarified that’s that’s not his view. Would like to add that I respect him for putting his views out there in a pretty thought out way; it's interesting debate! I get and agree with your first point (I find the generalised accusations of racism equally reductive (with the cavieat that a small but sizeable portion of the votes were probably based on it!). Even if he made his point in a slightly simplistic way, I agree with Dazzy that’s it’s a bit of a puzzling response to all of the events of the past week. People have a democratic right to protest, and as I said, the surprise you see is more to do with the volatile cocktail of orders, promises, tweets from Trump in the past week than any specific act; and the knock on effects they have more widely. The protests are as much about general defiance and support than specific protest. The point here is that the creator changes to his game to effectively get a U rating. He could have released the game as it was and gone for a higher rating. It’s not censorship, it’s a choice designed to boost sales, so it’s a marketing choice, not a choice made out of ‘political pressure’. If you want to work in the entertainment industry you’ll be aware of such limitations from the start, and base your game around it. I generally agree with censorship for products aimed at impressionable kids. These two quotes contradict themselves. I understand that you’re complaining about double standards, but you seem guilty of the some double standards yourself. I agree to an extent with your first point, but the fact is that the amount of popular entertainment that objectifies women still vastly outnumbers those that objectify men, which isn’t exactly an ideal cultural situation. I have no background in those examples so I can’t go into specifics but, yeah, I guess I do generally agree, but again the point is that it would be fine if there was an equal amount of male objectification elsewhere in the culture, but (particularly in videogames) there isn’t; there’s still way more female objectification and little on the other side. Ultimately it’s a combination of tonnes of factors around the marketing of those games and the different social values within different regional markets and companies that make these choices, which is, again, just capitalism doing it’s thing in huge multinational companies; putting changes down to ‘political pressure’ is a bit of an oversimplification to my mind. I also feel like, more generally, that kind of stuff is a result of more games being made by more diverse and maturing developers, and for increasingly diverse and maturing audiences, as compared to twenty years ago when games were more largely made for and by young white men. So the way that games are updated for evolving markets is affected by that too. In the UK we do pretty well for censorship (compared to say Australia, some Asian countries etc) so I find it hard to be bothered by having 2% less gratuity in certain games. Part of this is definitely personal taste; titilation is right down the bottom of my list for gaming prioritise, so if there’s a fraction less female nudity in games I’m fine with taking that hit as a side effect of incremental progress in society in general. The point I want to make most with all this is about your generalised use of the word ‘feminists’, and the repeated use of ‘they’ when getting into examples. I’d hope everyone on this forum considers themselves a feminist, ie, people who believe that women should have equal rights to men. You, it seems, have a problem with certain groups and certain views and actions of some feminists (I don’t always agree with every feminist either, and often those who shout the loudest aren't necessarily representative of wider views). So when you say feminism is about the control of others - that’s taking specific examples, behaviors, outcomes that you’re unhappy about and tarring feminism more generally with the same brush. It’s the same kind of generalisation that Rummy was highlighting on the other side of the debate.

Honestly man I can't believe you can be following the news this week and think that the two examples you cite equate in any way to the general elections in the past that 'sometimes have gone your way, sometimes haven't'. It's not that people have become 'so indoctrinated' that they're shocked by Trump and Brexit, it's that they're both genuinely massive political earthquakes in a way that general elections in the past 50 years haven't been. Regardless of whether or not you agree with Trump's overtly racist, sexist rhetoric, you can surely understand that the scale of people's reactions to it correlate with the historical magnitude of his election as a world event. Brexit is obviously more nuanced, but again will have consequences, for better or for worse, far beyond that of a general election that rolls around every 4 years. Speaking as someone whose girlfriend of two years could well be kicked out of the UK following Brexit I find it pretty insulting that anyone protesting such a razor thin majority (following a campaign packed based on outright lies, by the way) could be described as 'having a tantrum' and 'not accepting democracy'. There are lives, families at stake with Brexit, and I have huge respect for anyone for continuing to express their views in the aftermath of a vote. The 'you lost, get over it' view that has surfaced after some of the last year's big votes is completely abhorrent to me, particularly as, in both cases, there are endless repercussions and further choices to be made in the aftermath, and the other 48% of either demographic shouldn't be ignored. Back to games.. I don't broadly disagree but To me this is the opposite to what the Colin Was Right video was saying. The 'certain people' you describe are surely the game devs. If people at the top of the chain in studios are increasingly tending toward less sexualised depictions of women, then more power to them. There are certainly still a tonne of games out there where women are depicted in sexualised ways. Same goes for movies or music videos - Game of Thrones is one of the most popular TV shows of the last few years, for example. To my mind, moving to equality in the mainstream is always a positive, especially given the huge diversity of entertainment out there. In a perfect world, developers should have the creative license to to shape their games how they want, not to provide sliders with settings for how their vision should be interpreted. That's how you'd have enough variety of experiences to please everyone, non?

Been playing The Witcher 2 and Banner Saga (which is a great mix of FFTactics and the Oregon trail) recently, and realised that, increasingly in my old age, I play games for the story above anything else. I also feel like that's part of why I've moved away from Nintendo games recently - and why to many they all seem quite similar to many people - lack of engaging, well written narrative. So I'd be keen on suggestions on Ninty games with good plots (I've heard good things about the Fire Emblem stories). So - what are the gaming stories that have stayed with you over the years?

Do keep us updated - can't find any vr-only reviews so I'm interested to see if you stick with the VR all the way through and keep loving it (and avoid a heart attack). Might be the game to convince me to buy psvr for myself at last when my birthday rolls around.

Good thread! I don't have an unlimited card but, kind of simialrly, we go to the cinema once or twice a week and see pretty much every movie we're interested in.. anything we don't get a chance to see I'll try and get on Netflix or Prime - if they're not there I feel like I 'do my bit' more than most for the movie industry and have no guilt in pirating stuff I've missed. I think the problem with streaming services is that they've made everything else seem so pricey by comparison - 15 quid for a blu ray looks mental next to £7 for a month of unlimited HD movies and tv. Similar to @Ashley 's point about buying TV shows. The other major annoyance I have is how much more things still cost to watch in HD. It should surely be standard practice by now, given how trash DVDs / SD look on a big-ish TV. I'll frequently overpay on things from small groups that I want to support (patreon-ize podcasts, buy indie games day one, buy books, etc) and not feel the guilt for torrenting Edge of Tomorrow, or dodgey-streaming every football match ever. Enough money in that industry without me pitching in..

Haha, yeah that was kind of my thought. Thread wasn't meant to be specifically about Nintendo games but I'd encourage suggestions... if there are any. On a related note, does anyone know what happened to Advance Wars? Is that a Nintendo IP? Quite enjoyed Days of Ruin's story, along with the older ones. get it on iOS!

Wooww.. shame there aren't any Man City fans on here - what a game!! Two absolute clangers by Lloris to go two down, great goal by Alli, then Walker has the most outragously brazen push on a through-on-goal Sterling, who misses... rush up the other side of the pitch and Sonny gets the equaliser! Finish the game with two mids in central defence to top it off! Cheekiest point I've seen in ages! All for Chelsea to lose after today's results though.

Resurrecting dat thread!

Got myself an ipad for work so I thought I'd get a thread going, since I'm finding it night impossible to find anything that isn't total rubbish on the app store. I've been playing Subterfuge this week, which is a week long, real time strategy game along the lines of Risk, with submarine bases and various special units added into the mix. Attacking a base will usually take between 5 and 20 hours real time, making for some tense standoffs as the clock ticks down. It's brilliant, kind of exhausting, and all about playing people off against one another, forging alliances, backstabbing. Nervewracking waking up in the morning to notifications of subs entering your sonar range...! I might start an N-Europe playground match if people are interested (it's free to play) Also a fan of 80 Days, which is a kind of narrative-driven game where you take trains, planes, boats around the world as ther servant to a rich toff. Good fun! What have you guys been enjoying recently?

Had a pretty similar response playing Assassin's Creed Syndicate.. Hoping Mass Effect Andromeda will scratch that itch soon! Did you ever play Witcher 2? I dug out my 360 and a copy from CEX to go back and see what I'd missed and have put in a few hours - it's great! I expected it to have dated a lot in comparison to 3, but aside from a few niggles it holds up really well. The plot, script, dialogue trees and voice acting are all top notch - a slightly grittier and political storyline. Obviously it lacks the open world aspect but it never feels too linear anyway. Helps that some of my faves from 3, Triss, Triss and Letho all have pretty big roles so far too.. Well worth going back to play!

Random side thought I had whilst reading this list and thinking about why Nintendo games don't hold the appeal they once did - to me a lot of it is related to narrative. Where games have really come on leaps and bounds in the last few years, for me, is the quality of the dialogue and storytelling. With the exception (hopefully) of the upcoming Zelda and Paper Mario, I can't think of any recent Nintendo exclusives that have a plot that isn't more or less totally redundant (I'm sure there are exceptions!). Putting gameplay first can be great, but I think part of why Nintendo games all seem a bit similar is the lack of narrative diversity as much genre diversity. The other one is art style. There have been so many interesting releases on Steam and PS4 recently that look unique as well as playing in interesting ways (Firewatch, Inside, Last Guardian spring to mind) whereas the majority of Nintendo games seem to have the same kind of bright, rounded 3d Mario-y aesthetic. My Nintendo knowledge isn't what it once was so I'm interested to hear what you guys think. I'm actually, regardless, quite excited to get a Switch having skipped WiiU!

Read that list and thought it was your actual top ten, which seemed pretty on point to me - suggesting that indie games are definitely where my interest lays as I get older! Looking forward to playing Abzu, Inside, Witness and Invisible Inc. 6 games I've played and actually enjoyed this year.. 6 - Stardew Valley for being a total relaxing joy to come back to during my first few weeks on a new job 5 - Overcooked for the great local coop 4 - Hitman for bringing back some childhood joys 3 - Firewatch for the great voice acting and engaging dialogue 2 - Witcher 3: Blood and Wine DLC for basically being a full game stuffed with great quests and amusing detours 1 - Last Guardian, which I haven't quite finished yet but is quite unlike anything I've played, incredible animation and interaction with Trico, and some deeply beautiful environments. Can't quite believe it didn't suck after all these years! Shoutout to some 2015 games that I've been playing catchup with; Lovers in a Dangerous Spacetime, Subterfuge, and about every Telltale game form last year Probably spent the most time with Rocket League this year, which just keeps getting better and less annoying the more I play it.

Probably not going to have the time this week I'm afraid, been a bit of a busy time for me. I see my first match is away against Angry Greeks, could be a shocking start to Winston's season going on current form! I'll definitely contribute some roundups through the season though : peace: Fairly confident Roger will be back

^ Yeah, it's a fantastic game. Great atmosphere, addictive progression, and has that rare thing in a videogame of making you feel like a bastard for doing immoral things. I got them both already! Damn. Titan Souls is the perfect Plus game - I played a couple hours and found it quite frustrating, but it's pretty charming and I can people having a lot of fun with it if they put up with it.

Good to see some of you guys getting this - steal at this price! To give the contrasting view - I found it a great experience - really good voice acting and dialogue trees, beautiful visual design, somewhat moving. Fully worth the 8 quid IMO. That said I can totally the negatives. It's full on walking simulator, no puzzles, and the conclusion is kind of an anti-climax, even if that is the point to some degree. I reckon you could work out if it's the kind of game you'd enjoy before you buy it. Not much for me on psn sale but I've been waiting for The Order 1886 to drop to a reasonable price for the 5 hours of gameplay or whatever. Might add it to my swelling backlog

Yeah I got that part, I meant is this the main thread in which people are discussing PSVR in general, which it seems to be. Cool, cheers dude. Nice site that - looks like there a lot of games I've not heard of that look alright! Definitely agree with quite average games being kind of amazing from my experience of the GearVR. Decided to hold off for now but might jump in later - when I was looking pretty much everywhere was sold out (in amazon, argos, game) so that bodes well for it in the future!

Camaaaannnn!!!! What a year for Winston. Terrific final chase against @Nikos9 - was worried a 7-0 demolition of Seahawks and a final defeat against Drahkon could see me slip but we pulled it over the line! and... two double jumps, one 18-6 and a 21-8 and 4 milli in the kitty!! What a time to be a Warrior!! Looking forward to season 2. Up for a couple weeks off to catch my breath though - Christmas celebration at Camp Winst are to be huge! See yous all in the new year!

Same. It was fantastic. Thought he pulled off a Star Wars with a real sense of immensity and scale that I haven't seen from the films before, whilst getting pretty great performances out of the cast despite a script without much space for characters Loved it for all the reasons that I loved KOTOR - fantastic worldbuilding, zipping between different planets and enclaves, all with terrific set designs, costumes, extras and the like. Also felt truley StarWars-y, particularly in the visuals (one of the few sci-fis not to be overloaded with naff FUI and HUD stuff). It all genuinely felt like a story about the minor characters and tiny side stories, which tFA puported to be about, but ultimately wasn't at all. Thought k2SO was brilliant, though struck me to be the most obvious evidence of reshoots / reedits / shoehorned in extra lines. Great to have such an epic story, all contained in one film. Up there with Empire for me : peace: