dwarf

The final count is void because my expert views weren't consulted. Lol at the people who think you can somehow sift nostalgia out from the lists, or think that desirable in the first place. We're all going to have slightly different rationales so there's no point getting anal about them. For example, I could've included GoldenEye for a bit of variety in my list, but I hold Mario games very dear and it would be remiss of me to pretend otherwise. Other people might have given in to the impetus to favour variety. Plus, the logic behind my own list isn't even internally consistent, so there's no chance of reaching a shared logic between the group. I understand I'm too late but I'll post for myself if nothing else: 1) Metroid Prime 2) Super Mario 64 3) The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild 4) Super Smash Bros. Melee 5) Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door 6) The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time 7) WarioWare, Inc: Mega Party Game$ 8) Lylat Wars (Star Fox 64) 9) Diddy Kong Racing 10) Wario Land 4 Kind of disgusted with myself that Mario Kart DS and some of the 2D Marios didn't make the cut, particularly Super Mario Land 2: 6 Gold Coins, which nobody ever seems to talk about here? I guess Mario preferences are largely a matter of timing and nostalgia, and SML2 arrived at the right time in my gaming development. In a similar vein, Kid A is my favourite Radiohead album, perhaps by virtue of it being my gateway into the band. Super Mario World was also worth a shout in the above list but I first came across it on Wii's Virtual Console, so it had less of a chance to work its charms. Warioland: Super Mario Land 3 was another one that people neglect. Something about that GameBoy series escapes the collective memory, man! Overall, pretty happy with the list though. Much easier than I was expecting. Shame I wasn't able to bump Breath of the Wild up higher in the final results to counteract the ungrateful philistines lurking in this cess pit you call a gaming board!

What's more important: football as a commodity, or football as a sport that's steeped in fairness and tradition? Thatcherism has well and truly prevailed if football fans have started to prioritise the former. Our Maggie once said creepily: Football fans don't have souls anymore :-(

The gripes you had were things I could kind of forgive given the sheer amount of stuff Nintendo added and reinvented. If you isolate certain elements of the game and examine them closely, I concede they can be a little half-baked. For example, one-on-one combat when taken on its own is a little broken, what with the dodgy flurry system and the next-to-useless parry. But if you step back and view the combat within the context of the game as a whole, it's pretty impressive. The rune abilities serve multiple functions in combat, allowing you to attack, defend, or outmaneuver opponents, especially when used inventively in conjunction with each other. The environment also plays a massive part in combat - it affects the way you approach battles to begin with (get a vantage point to fly in from? sneak along the ground?), the weapons you use, and the physics of the objects in the vicinity add a tactical layer. It's fucking remarkable, really. Two thirds of the way through the game the combat did get a little stale, but for me there was enough gameplay variety elsewhere, and enough promise in exploration, that I didn't get hung up on it. I think the differences in opinion come down to values in some sense, in a way that's difficult to explain. On your side, the blemishes add up and tarnish the overall experience. On my side, the blemishes become insignificant in light of the game's philosophy (without wanting to sound wanky about it) - the mystery of it, the feeling of freedom it grants you, and all those things that can't be quantified. None of these abstract concepts can be traced back to one mechanic. Rather, all the mechanics contribute to a greater, uncompromising vision. We forget sometimes to really talk about how games make us feel when we play them, instead choosing to focus on game mechanics and features in the same way publishers do on their box arts. I can't give enough weight to the sense of surprise I felt when discovering some of the physics-based tricks in Breath of the Wild. And it was a sustained surprise too, bordering on bewilderment, that all these things could exist in the same game. Everything in the world has a consistent logic underpinning it. So while you might say that recipes and meal-cooking kind of make a mockery out of the health system, I just loved the fact that you could forage for ingredients, intuitively combine them, drop them, freeze them, feed them to a dog, and so on. It's a tiny aspect of the game really, but it works toward those grander ideals of mystery and freedom. Playing the game with a more detached, critical eye, the game is enjoyable as a piece of engineering. That Nintendo had the balls to follow through on all their ideas to the extent that they did is terrific. Again, something like the repetitive nature of the combat trials doesn't really irk me. They were tedious, granted, but the point for me is that they don't fundamentally bring into question the core systems/philosophy of the game. The systems and approach were right; it just shows Nintendo lacked the time to add enough content to fully explore those systems. On the face of it, Portal has a very simple mechanic, but there are hundreds of ways it can be used depending on the layout of each chamber/level. Breath of the Wild is the same, it just didn't quite have enough fresh levels. Still, I thought a sizable portion of the puzzles were pretty neat. I flatly disagree about the world being too empty. Nintendo dispersed the loot and hidden locations pretty damn well perfectly. I'm not expecting to win you round. You can't help how you feel, after all. But what you feel is wrong.

You could at least link us to the post m8.

Messi is in the World Cup. Hallelujah! Watched the match in the early hours of this morning and was fist-pumping for every goal. Dude is incredible. It's a shame that Argentina's first team full backs are pub players. I doubt they'll progress as far as they did in 2014.

I won't deny that you guys have aired some legitimate grievances with the game, but you still sound like spoilt children to me! That ranting article being a clear example of someone who's thrown his toys out of the pram - sure some of the criticisms were valid, but spare me the reactionary bullshit. When a game achieves critical acclaim there's always a push-back from nitpickers who start to inflate every drawback they can find. As if by tallying all the niggles you can render the genuinely brilliant features of the game worthless or trivial. It'd be easy for me to write a few pages of criticism about Breath of the Wild, but that would be to miss the point. A half-wit can point to a lack of enemy variety, or highlight the underwhelming side quest rewards. The story is half-baked and more time should've been taken to humanise/contextualise Ganon. But if that's your overriding impression of this game I do question your ability to appreciate the things that matter, or your ability to recognise the abyssal level of complexity involved in making a game of this magnitude. Get some perspective guys - this is the most revolutionary Zelda game at least since as far back as Ocarina of Time, and the way it invests players with agency in an open world setting is frankly miraculous. Quibbling something as small as the slip mechanic when climbing in the rain shows a lack of awareness of the bigger picture. To be able to overhaul so many systems in one go with so much success is unbelievably difficult. And the nature of these design choices, like weapon-breaking, is that they are give and take. In chess, almost every attacking move comes with a defensive compromise; in game design, almost every bold new mechanic raises a potential flaw. There are dozens of new interlocking mechanics in Breath of the Wild, and yet they all come together holistically. Some of the mechanics will likely prove to be iterative, as is always the way in games that break the mould, but overall they pay off. The criticisms I've read are as much a reflection of tired player attitudes as they are flaws in the game. Weapon-breaking wasn't perfect, true, but I nevertheless appreciated being forced to rotate between weapons, when in other RPGs like Dark Souls I'd fall back on my favourite weapon for half the playtime. You're overly entitled to your own comfort zone if you feel ripped off by this system. It's one game. Why not put your hardened concept of weapon ownership aside and just run with it? On a more practical level, if you feel like you've got everything you wanted from the open world experience when playing the game, choose that time to finish up the bosses and move onto the next thing instead of playing it to the point of boredom. I'm delighted Nintendo refused to listen to the fans in this thread. This game has single-handedly made them relevant to me again. From the testimony of the developers it's obvious that they were desperate to leave the shackles of formula behind them, and the game shines because of it. For those who say Breath of the Wild lacked that ineffable Zelda magic - dude, are you for real? Breath of the Wild inspired the same wonderment I felt when exploring Hyrule in Ocarina of Time. It's fair to say the quality/structure of the story was a letdown, but the writing was occasionally imbued with classic Zelda charm (see: Purah, the diddy age-reversing scientist girl). Let's not kid ourselves as to the quality of past Zelda stories too - the series has been crying out for help from Studio Ghibli for a long time. Tl:dr - this game is lit, and fully deserves the praise it received. Even if it wasn't your ideal, traditional Zelda game (yawn), you have to admit it achieved some remarkable things.

I can't tell if this is linear or not.

The first battle royale mode/game on consoles. Gun play is a little basic but I was pleasantly surprised, and I think the graphical style suits consoles better in terms of performance. I wonder if in a few years time we'll look back on the genre as a fad, or as a key development in multiplayer.

Embarrassingly I watched the whole series of The Night Of in one day, because I have too much free time. You're right, the first episode is killer, but the series drops the ball a bit after that and becomes too silly for its own good (the disregard for evidence/ the investigation process was overly crude, the black lawyer Chandra makes some out-of-character unprofessional howlers, the open violence and complete lack of order in the prison was ridiculous, and despite every character appearing to be a wisecrack the show felt somewhat humourless). The ending managed a neat balance in that it tied everything up without giving you everything, and it was good fun overall, I just expected to find the characters more engaging than I did given the promise of the first episode.

@dan-likes-trees OK so there's a lot to unpack here. You need to get on Singing Detective right now. Short and sweet, insane central performance by Michael Gambon, packed with 40s/50s oldies (you like Fallout so), plus you'll get that fuzzy feeling of recommending something obscure to other people after you've watched it. What's not to like? Considering our alignment in TV taste it isn't surprising you have won the recommendation wars with The Night Of. Love Riz Ahmed as an actor and as a man, and I liked the tone of the trailer. So well done. Re: Friday Night Lights - you have the wrong guy. Haven't seen it. I have been tempted by Top of the Lake cause I've seen our Peggy in the thumbnail on iPlayer, but nobody seems to be talking about the show (in my life, don't know about you guys). Trapped... also looks pretty good. Saw The Girlfriend Experience ranked highly in a listicle, might check out one or two episodes. Battlestar was one I never got round to and not sure if it's my bag. Can't be arsed with Homeland if it trails off. Electric Dreams is promising. Thing is, Channel 4 fucked up a couple of shows like Utopia, which seemed to start well, and Misfits, which also gradually declined. Maybe shouldn't pin the blame on the broadcaster though.

@Ashley OK now we're cooking, that looks more up my street. Has Mackenzie Davis from that great episode of Black Mirror (San Junipero) I see.

@drahkon Westworld trailer looks aight. Will potentially give it a go. @Sméagol Not feeling it (based on trailer)

@Zell Oh yeah, I love The Thick of It too, but didn't include any comedy series because I've got a drama itch to scratch. I'm sure True Detective is good, I just couldn't handle another detective series after Hannibal left a sour taste in my mouth (plus Matthew McConaughey gets on my nerves). I watched one or two episodes of Sopranos and enjoyed what I saw, but it was too heavy for me at the time. Not sure I'm quite in the mood for it atm. The Pacific I'll definitely watch at some point. Not sold on Narcos after watching the trailer for season 1 unfortunately. You didn't mention it, but Boardwalk Empire was another one that I could not be arsed with.

OK sheeple! I want to get into a new TV series, one with solid writing and direction. I don't want any of that House of Cards bullcrap because that's gotten ridiculous. No shitty 13 Reasons Why style recommendations either as that is PISS POOR. I want some fucking lit TV, OK?! Is that too much to ask? NO, NOT HANNIBAL, YOU TWAT. OR TRUE DETECTIVE FOR THAT MATTER. Bear in mind my favourite TV series are these (approx in order): The Wire Mad Men Breaking Bad This is England (‘86, ‘88 & '90) The Singing Detective Stranger Things Band of Brothers Game of Thrones Game of Thrones is not the kind of thing I'm looking for, but fuck me it's entertaining af so that's why it's on the list. Hit me you fuckers. I have been trying to get into Twin Peaks but I'll come back to that at some point.

Targeting hardcore GT fans and it isn't a Pro? What a spectacularly dumb decision.

Came here for creep gameplay Got creep gameplay

https://twitter.com/Lythero/status/892580204174082050

The developer confirmed it is more difficult due to the slippy landing physics that punish you if you fall just short of a ledge.

If Mario's freer 360 degree movement is the barometer, then maybe you'd come away with an impression that R&C is clunky. But that's about expectation as anything else; the controls in R&C are tight and responsive, and the game is as much of a 3rd person shooter as it is a platformer so the characters necessarily perform differently.

Not a Whovian but I don't think that should preclude me or others from weighing in on this. It seems to me that if there was any TV show that could accommodate a radical change in the identity of its protagonist, it would be Doctor Who. I can understand why people adore the show, as I'm not always immune to the absurdity and flamboyance of it myself, but one reason I couldn't connect with it was that I never really felt there were any stakes for the Doctor. The show relies on contrived storylines and deux ex machina so often that I found it hard to buy into any sense of danger, or any sense of frailty in his character, and for me it hardly seems a stretch at all to imagine his regeneration into a woman, given the creative license taken with every other aspect of the story. If a different show were to randomly change a male character whose identity was fundamentally male, someone who suffered from guy issues, that would make less sense. The 'anti-male agenda' angle is ridiculous. You see the biases you wish to see - take the BBC political coverage, which is apparently both communist propaganda and a hard-right neoliberal conspiracy at the same time. Lots of men see these changes as women taking over, when in reality it's a minor re-balancing act in favour of women from a position of extreme inequality. The feeling of weirdness is because you aren't used to equal representation. We'll see another male Doctor before long anyway. With all that said, I do see why men want male role models and want to hold onto a distinct masculine identity that isn't constantly derided and abhorred. I generally find it easier to identify with male characters and authors, for example. I also find some forms of feminism treat/dismiss traditionally male traits like competitiveness purely as evil habits of men rather than the sometimes positive traits that they can be, or sometimes feminists fail to see how men are oppressed by these things themselves. To say crises of masculinity are self-imposed by men is to miss the point that individual men have legitimate concerns about their male identity. Heading slightly off topic there but tl;dr: I can see why some men are frustrated at the turning tide in some respects, but throwing a hissy fit over a gender change in a camp TV show is pretty tragic imo. If there are legitimate (show specific) objections to it, I've not read them here. Are you sure all of this isn't happening inside your head? Why should some characters not say things like that? Are there no girls who can throw apples better than boys? Are all characters mouthpieces for Moffat's politics? Does the show actually make those generalisations about sexuality? It's playfully recognising that there are strong women, and strong gay people in real life, and that we haven't heard their voices much in the show until recently. Maybe it's saying men have been a little bit responsible for that, but why take that so personally?

This was referenced in Mark Brown's latest video. A reminder of the ingenuity and singular feel of Demon's Souls, and how the Souls series became a bit turgid and complacent thereafter. It's kind of interesting to think that we (as a forum) knew it was special when it was just an obscure Japanese release, and reflecting on it now I think it's fair to say the industry was crying out for the kick in the teeth that this game represents. The most influential/important game of the last 10 years, perhaps?

Eurogamer alerted me to this: Amazon Prime customers can get a PS4 Slim, Overwatch, Crash N.Sane Trilogy and a spare controller for £180 (if you have a friend who's using Prime, maybe ask them, or if you haven't made use of the free trial do that and cancel it) Would have considered this if I hadn't just bought a WiiU to play Zelda Today only. https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B073K33CPN/ref=as_li_ss_tl?ie=UTF8&linkCode=ll1&tag=eurgam-m-21&linkId=64a1b184ac504a0ff69b34352ed914d6

At that price I doubt it. #banter

They kept that quiet.

Yeah that's what I gathered after playing more. Was having unwelcome Navi flashbacks when I saw it. It feels like this game has borrowed the best design choices from a wealth of the best games, including Shadow of the Colossus and even Portal (going by the shrines) and yet it still feels totally unique as well as Zelda-like. There isn't a more immersive open world game out there. The craft is staggering. It goes without saying, but only Nintendo could've made this, and not for the simple reason that they own the rights. As Bard was saying to me, it's just baffling how they could've pulled off the open world thing the first time they tried it. Or have they said they've thrown out/retuned several similar iterations of the game before they arrived at this? 3 things: Love Link's running animation Why can't I roll bombs down hills in every game I play now? Can Link/Zelda/the series be put back in the box after this?