Fierce_LiNk

I think it's the faces that look a bit budget. That old saying "body from Baywatch, face from Crimewatch" comes to mind. Except the bodies look a bit shit, too. I didn't know they were still making PS2/PS3 games.

I think @Space set up the N-Europe League and has to renew it for the next season. @Space, if possible, can you renew it please and let us know the code so that we can join the N-E league.

*laughs in digital downloads*

I'm all about the instruction manual, me. I'm not sure how we're going to cope if they drop the manual out of the box to cut down on costs. Fucking madness if they do that, the crazy bastards. Nobody will able to work out how to turn the damn thing on or where to put the discs. Imagine the carnage on the digital version, where somebody tries putting the discs in through the fan area. It's an accident waiting to happen.

Aw man, you are in for a treat. That DLC looks stunning anyway, but it's going to look even better now. Not only that, but the quality of the quests, the world, and the production values are really high. It's the best DLC I've ever come across.

Hahahaahahhaah

I've got to the end of the learning/skill tree for Italian on Duolingo. Done it for Spanish and Dutch too, so this is my third one. Planning to go through it all again and uplevel things, eventually to level 5. I've also started the Spanish to Italian tree, so that'll be fun and a bit of a mindfuck. I wish the Italian tree was the same length as the Spanish one. It's too short. The last checkpoint area is much harder because it covers a load of tenses in a short space of time.

Speaking of Chelsea and their spending, don't forget to all get your teams ready for the N-Europe Fantasy Football League!

Not shocked that he's staying there, although it's mainly on a technicality. I'm sure the mood in that dressing room is going to be great this season.

Best game of the generation is getting upgraded for next generation. For free?!

That's a pain. A big enough difference to make it worth waiting a bit longer for the base game in a deal. How annoying.

Is there a huge price difference between the base version and DLC version when both are on sale? If it's only a couple of quid, it may be worth doing anyway.

Go to 0:54 for the magic to happen.

Watched The Prestige a few nights ago. Amaaaaaaaaaaazing film. Love pretty much everything about it. Great cast, too.

Going forward, I think it's wise for the PS4 games to be playable on a PS5 or at least for the digital games to carry forward, likewise for PS5 into PS6. Do I expect PS5 to play PSOne or PS2 discs? No, not really. It's not designed for that in mind and I'm pretty sure it's not as simple as that. You can't just put the disc in and expect it to work like magic. If it was that easy, it would already be possible. It isn't, so it doesn't work that way. Am I bothered? No, nope really. I think the future of gaming is for games to go digital and for this to be less of a problem. If the games are tied to an account and that can be transferred between consoles, or maybe even games streamed, then that may be an idea. We're not quite there yet, but it's going towards that way of content carrying forward. Let's not kid ourselves and forget that the reason we're buying new consoles is to play new games, new content. Having a new machine, imo, is there for newer experiences and to push things forward. Sometimes I feel that BC is like an anchor that is preventing things from going forward. We seem to be obsessing over this, yet forgetting that the whole idea is to keep pushing things forward. Newer games, newer experiences, newer ideas. I am buying a PS5 to play the next generation of games, not to relive the past.

Absolutely, looks like he'll be a quality addition to our team. He'll help to keep things fresh because there is a danger now that we'll be overly reliant on Bruno and Pogba in midfield, so having another talented player in there who can change things up is going to be important. I can imagine him being very useful when we're playing against teams who sit back or don't give us too much space. I'm very optimistic on this one. My only concern is that the midfield-attacking end of the pitch looks great, but the back end is not anywhere near as good. VDB, Pogba, Fernandes + the front three of Greenwood, Martial and Rashford looks like a great setup. But, Matic is still our number one DM, and we need to get someone in for that position in the long term. After that, the quality of the back four is a little hit and miss. I'm not sure that the back four of Shaw, Maguire, Lindelof and AVB is a title challenging back four. Wouldn't mind a top class centre back alongside Maguire and then an attacking RB. Shaw's injury record isn't amazing, so may even need a new LB, or at least one to challenge him/for cover. It's one of those things where the more you look, the more that needs to be done. I'm pleased with our last few signings, so we're going in the right direction. It's just a lot of ground to make up.

What do you make of Chelsea's transfer window, @Kav? They're bringing some tasty players into the club. Although, I have to say that it merely shows that last season was just about surviving the transfer ban, and that the team they were playing wasn't the one they were building for the long term. Werner, Chilwell, Ziyech, Sarr and Silva have all joined, with Havertz on the way, too. That's half of the starting 11 changed immediately.

I'm not sure where the tech demo stuff is coming from. Surely every "big" game or every first party game is a tech demo in some way, as you expect those types of games to push the system more than your average game will. It looks brilliant, imo. Looks fun, colourful, humorous, gorgeous to look at, and I'm sure it's a blast to play. Definitely interested. Never played a Ratchet game before, so going into it with low expectations.

What is your approach these days with reading reviews for films, games, tv, etc? I'm increasingly finding that I just don't bother reading reviews for things anymore, for lots of reasons. One of these reasons is that once you've read a specific thing in a review, you're almost looking for or thinking about that specific factor even more so than you may have done beforehand. E.g. if a review was to say that the story of a game has a really terrible ending, you're already going into the game with that in your head, so it's influencing your judgement before playing. There's also a lot of bandwagoning that goes on, where people will start quoting particular reviews and passing those views across as their own opinion, even if they haven't watched or played something. I found that happened a lot with The Last of Us Part II. Another one regards the recent Tenet reviews, specifically from The Guardian. Two separate reviews, but with two different scores. 2/5 and 5/5. So...you have one place giving two wildly different viewpoints, which I think is the crux of it. A review is just somebody else's opinion, that one person's opinion, on that specific day when they were writing the review or watching the film or playing that game. I find that it's sometimes better to get a general consensus on forums or through friends, when you know them a bit better and can sort of judge what their tastes are like, or what they do or don't look for in their media. I find reviews strange because it's like we're seeking reassurance off somebody about something we're already interested in, rather than judging it for ourselves. I find impressions or first looks to be more revealing, because then you can get more of a feel for what the film or game is like without having too much spoiled for you, plus you're not having your judgements already clouded beforehand. These days, if I'm going to read a review of something, it's going to be after I've seen it, watched it or played it. I think that's interesting where you can compare your thoughts after finishing something, plus there's no way of things getting spoiled (which happens too much these days) and you can see if the same bits that stuck out for you also stuck out for other people. I'm finding it quite liberating to watch films or play games without knowing too much beforehand. I watched zero trailers (bar the stuff that was shown at E3 aaaages ago) or read zero reviews before The Last of Us Part II. It was truly exciting to have no idea what was going to happen next. For Tenet, I've only ever seen the one full trailer, which is very old now, not even from this year, and I've read zero reviews, which I plan to keep on doing.

Meningitis is not fun, but it sounds like they've dealt with it early and quickly. Good luck, hope he makes a full recovery!

Yeah, I don't think there's much direct teaching as stuff, so I think you have to work out a lot of the stuff yourselves. It seems similar-ish to Duolingo, although I think Duo does a better job of offering translations and telling you where you went wrong. E.g. if you were to click on the wrong picture or put the wrong string of words to make a sentence, it would give you the correct translation. Tempted to just stick with Duo and Memrise for know, unless anyone else can offer their viewpoints.

Shit, sorry to hear that. Hope he makes a full recovery and gets better soon.

How is everyone doing with their new-found hobbies? Sticking to them? @Eenuh is still obsessed with her garden.

Anyone ever used Rosetta Stone before? There's a deal going around at the moment where you get lifetime access to all 24 languages for something like £199. I had a 3 day trial for this and used it for Dutch. It's hard to judge what I thought because the Dutch activities I had access to were very early on, so it was information that I already knew. It did feel repetitive, but you'd expect that with most learning tools, I think. One plus side is that I did feel that there was a lot of speaking into the microphone for pronunciation, which is a good thing. If I wasn't already using Duolingo and Memrise, I would 100% go for it, but just curious at the long term value of it and how much depth it goes into. The end-point, I guess. Anyone have any experience with it?