gaggle64

No. NO. Bad Sméagol. Bad man.

Finall got round to playing the first episode of the Walking Dead as I work through my backlog. It's really quite exquisite. Also, not nearly enough Clem/Ellie crossover fan art out there. Not for my emotional needs.

The one reason to do the stars-thing is for a science date and you need a partner to help track the course of Perseus Minor for the next three nights. Or if you're in Wales, anthropological studies.

Spent a stupendous afternoon at a roller derby game and I absolute recommend the experience to everyone. It's a really fantastic spectator sport and deserves to become a huge game nationally & internationally. I'm so glad I read up on the rules before so I can understand what was going on - there's a great mix of tactics, rough athleticism and personality all at play. My local team got a bit of drubbing at 121-211 despite some good late efforts but it was a great experience. Will be going at the next opportunity. And now, here are just some of my favourite names from the roster:

The one thing this has to do for me is to not have iron sights. If any gun other than the one obligatory sniper section has iron sights it's no sale.

This looks like the kind of dumb fun I could potentially get behind. The sort of game I can play with a half-and-half gin & tonic in hand.

Awk, I am so sorry to hear about all that @jayseven & @Raining_again. I hope things seem brighter for you both soon. Maybe you should engage each other's strengths form up into some kind of unstoppable Megazord-type construction?

As non-football fan both are solid but PES has generally tended to be the more enjoyable to play. FIFA's got a bit much of that whole fiddly-hyper-realism thing going on.

Today I won my first campaign of Civ V. And then I kept playing...

The recent Penny Arcade also suggests some promise.

I really like the Defoe style universe, I hope the central characters are worth sticking with.

*spits tea* *drops monocle*

I've been really pleasantly surprised by how good this looks. Might very well consider buying it at launch. Still not regretting holding on to my 360.

It's been confirmed that Martini will be the title sponsor for Williams this year after a shirt was accidentally posted and then removed on the team store with the car expected to be livered accordingly. It's going to be sexy. Fan mock-up - Also Sauber has a new female driver, American Simona De Silvestro who's gunning for a seat next year after five years Indycar experience including an Indy 500 win. Would love to see a competitive female driver in F1, the sooner the better.

Giantbomb have a liveshow with the beta scheduled for 11pm GMT if anyone's interested.

Lots of info with the closed-ish beta going out tomorrow. as ever had a straight forward but extensive look at the actual gameplay. I love the apparent fluidity of it. I'd buy a PS4 tomorrow if it was coming out on that platform. Could potentially get it for my laptop if my nerve doesn't hold. Beta trailer:

As an Englishman who used to live in Scotland I think it should. I think it could do very well as a small European nation and I think the Yes campaign has been able to deliver a cogent long term strategy while the No campaign has barely been coherent. All Scotland's got to look forward to with further Union is increased isolation and ignorance from Westminster politics without even further autonomy to look forward to.

Maybe Zelda wasn't into it but you and I both know every female between Death Mountain and Lake Hylia was desperate to ride him like Epona at a five-carrot-tilt.

I always thought being Link seemed kind of awful, constantly saving the world and half the time not even being recognised for it. I always wanted to be a member of the Starfox team, flying cool-as-fuck space fighters and getting paid for it.

I hear those hybrid drives are a pretty good investment right now.

Civilization V might actually be too good. It's one of those games you can play until 3am without noticing time go by. The only problem with it is it keeps overheating my laptop for some reason, thereby stopping me from playing more Civilization V.

He ain't your guy, friend. On a related note got a ton of applications out over the last couple of weeks, but only got one turn-down so far. I have got to get out my current job, I'm only just getting about enough hours to cover my outgoings and my manager keeps telling me to "be optimistic". He might be the friendliest person I've ever hated.

Quick catch up - XCOM: Enemy Unknown -One of the most atmospheric strategy games I have ever played, tough and full of depth with only a rather flat final level putting a fly in the ointment. Fire Emblem: Awakening - The best strategy game I've played in years (and after XCOM, that's saying something). Engaging characters, a decent story and a whole slew of well designed systems add to be a consistently sumptuous gaming experience. And last and foremost: To The Moon I've ended up writing this post at 2am because I finished this game at about 4pm and I'm still haunted by it. The gameplay is very light but what you get instead is a well-wrought story about autism & memory which affected me deeply and personally. I am an individual with a (twice) diagnosed autism spectrum condition and I have never found any fiction or discussion of it which resonated with me strongly until now. It's a beautiful, heartbreaking piece of interactive story telling - the fact it was made in RPG maker only makes it all the more amazing.

Until fairly recently I was in the "don't give them attention" crowd but creationist evangelists are mass manipulators by necessity so the rest of have no choice but to devote some of our free time challenging them as often as possible when we could be doing and/or celebrating actual scientific & educational progress. You carry on, Mr Nye.

I have bought tickets to my first roller derby game (Portsmouth Roller Wenches vs. Croydon Roller Derby at Havant) and to a 65daysofstatic gig in Southampton. Excited!