Fierce_LiNk

It had to go in. Butland is a cracking keeper though. We have defenders who can't defend, attackers playing as wing/left/right backs, midfielders who don't move, pass, defend or attack, "attacking midfielders" who don't attack and strikers who don't score goals. We're a right mess. We've scored the same amount of goals as Bournemouth have in the league...Watford have more league goals than us. These are promoted teams... It's not even about the losing. It's about the challenge. When you watch a football match, at any level, you want to see your team (whoever that is) put up a fight and at least make an attempt to score goals. We are such a weak team...there's no fight in any of them. I know nothing will change for the next match either because the team don't want to fight to get themselves out of this hole. I got jealous watching the highlights of the City match and seeing De Bruyne singlehandedly taking on other players, getting goals and assists, making chances for others. Why isn't Mata doing that, or Memphis? Or Rooney?

The Stoke attack is pretty good. They've got some excellent players now and play exciting football. Saying that, I'm glad we've dropped Rooney and think that we may pick up a win today. Looking at our team, Fellaini aside, it looks decent enough to score goals. I can see Herrera and Martial getting a goal each today. Would love a 2-0. But, I think we'll concede as this Stoke team look dangerous. Edit: Well...25 minutes gone and we're 2-0 down. In fairness, I don't even think we've been playing that badly. But, two individual mistakes have cost us. Memphis fucked up with a header back to the keeper and Ashley Young gave away a needless freekick which led to another Stoke goal, which was a great shot by Arnautovic, who I really like. Now we'll see what these players are made of. Sure, Van Gaal has to take the blame for a lot of things, but the players have to toughen up and show some grit. We are far, far too soft. Memphis in particular has been so disappointing. Edit 2: The players look shell-shocked. Rooney will most probably be coming on. We need to start the second half well and get an early goal. I can see us losing this by 3 or 4 now...wouldn't even bet against us conceding 5 the way Stoke are playing. It's horrific that we can't get the ball into the box and can't create anything. What are we doing in training?

I saw this today with @Eenuh's family. Finally! Will be seeing it again next week with my friend for her birthday. I was about 95% or so focused on the film, whilst the remaining 5% was tempted to hit the stranger sat next to me, who was breathing as loud as Darth Vader himself and wouldn't shut the fuck up talking to his girlfriend throughout. I think that stopped me being as fully into it as I would have liked. Hopefully the second time can rectify that. Overall, I enjoyed it!

Merry Christmas, everyone!

I agree with both of these. The Witcher had this absolutely spot on by having you leveling up whilst doing sidequests and main quests. At no point did you have to go out somewhere and repeat the same monster killing shit for hours until you were strong enough to go back and progress with the main story. I felt like I was able to do all of my exploring and enjoy the story, which is what the game is there for. I didn't feel like I was wasting my time. I can understand it if there is a reason why you can't progress and then you have options to do something else worthwhile until you can progress, such as questing or challenges, etc. But, having literally nothing else to do but grind seems lame, imo. I would definitely count it as bad game design.

I let out a really evil movie villain style laugh when I read this. YOU HAD YOUR CHANCE!

Inspired by @Hero\-of\-Time in the Gaming Diary Thread. So...the Grind. Specifically, in RPGs. How many of us actually enjoy these elements? To me, it's probably the thing I enjoy the least about RPGs. It's one thing that annoyed me about Xenoblade, particularly how there were several difficulty spikes where you couldn't use your skill in battle to overcome the enemy. You had to go out to a field somewhere and grind until you were strong enough to come back and defeat the enemy. I don't like the repetition of it. However, others may feel differently. What say you?!

I'm eyeing up Wolfenstein: The New Order and The Old Blood. The Evil Within is only £12...hmm. Rayman Legends is a tenner, but I'm half tempted to wait for that on Plus. Don't know if I should just jump in at that price. Never played a DMC game, so tempted by those. The one I really wanted was Life Is Strange! Gutted it's not there. £16 for the whole thing though. I'm just being greedy!

Think of it this way: Rather than going to a field and having to spam your attacks over and over again to gain XP in order to fight a boss/become overlevelled for the rest of the game, instead you are treated to sidequests that are better than the majority of stories that are told in other videogames. You'll end up doing the quests because you want to, rather than doing it because you feel you have to. If it's not for you, then fair enough. It won't be for everyone. Buuuut, this one is worth gambling on, in my honest opinion. Finest videogame I've ever played.

True, the adverts suck balls. But, it's worth it for Peep Show, Les Revenants and the other brilliant stuff shown on Channel 4.

Apparently there's now an ALL4 App (Channel 4 app that is the replacement for 4oD) on the PS4 now. I can't check as I'm not in the UK. If that's true, then woooooo. Been waiting for this for ages.

You won't be able to do that in the Witcher. At least, not in the same way. You can't go to a field and keep killing Nekkers over and over again as the XP you get from them is so, so small. The game isn't built to be grinded in that way. It works differently here and it's muuuuuch better than a lot of other games for it. You get more XP and rewards for doing the main quests and sidequests. Due to the way that the game is structured, it's very, very unlikely that you'll be overpowered for the final boss, at least not in a way to make it a walk over. It's a refreshing change, tbh. I HATED the difficult spikes in Xenoblade and loathed that the only way around it was to go into a field somewhere and do the same shit for hours until you were strong enough to fight a boss.

You do have to be very careful with the missable trophies. The problem is that with some of them, it does feel like you're playing for the trophy, rather than letting the story play out the way you want it to. There are some hard choices that you have to make in the game, which I'll tell you about after you get to those bits. I fucked up in the story about a third of the way into it which actually had an impact on some events later down the line (in the final quarter) and meant that I missed out on a big trophy, plus it ended up not playing out how I wanted it to go. Still haven't forgiven myself for that! It's a game that you really should play for the experience, the story and for enjoying the world it creates. I don't think @Eenuh even deciced to go for the platinum until towards the end of the game, where she realised that she had most of the trophies anyway and decided to go for it. For an RPG, there's not really any grinding. It's one of the best examples of a game where you do the sidequests because they're like little stories in themselves, rather than doing it for the XP or rewards. Fuck sake, just go play it already so we can talk about it! I've still got the DLC to play through and I can't wait for Blood and Wine next year...it's going to be fantastic. Hnnnnnggg.

Come at me, bro. The game blew. Biggest disappointment for me in the GameCube era. But then, I didn't play Starfox Adventures. I can't imagine it's held up well. I didn't enjoy the mechanics of it at the time and can only imagine it being even more outdated now. Both games blew. I, at least, respected both games for what they tried to do. Halo's maps were a bit boring and far too large for 2/3 player multiplayer. I never bothered playing the second game. Nintendoland: Fun whilst it lasted. The Animal Crossing and Luigi's Mansion games are great, but the rest are forgettable. One of these games that you play when your mate is over for about an hour before you order a pizza and watch a film afterwards.

Platinuming that is no easy task. I've seen people on other forums attempt their third run-through of the game in order to get all of the trophies! @Eenuh is actually really close. Think she just needs to do the game on Death March and she's done it. I've not got the energy to go through it again right now...it was amazing but exhausting.

I can't begrudge Leicester being top at Christmas. They've played the best football so far this season and they deserve the top spot based on the that. In this league, you want to see the better teams doing well. Overall, I think it just proves that the standard in this league is high. No single team can blag its way to the top. Anybody can beat anybody and it shows you that you have to be consistent over course of the season. You can't go into one match displaying 100% effort and commitment and then go into the next match showing a tenth of that. A team shouldn't win just because it says Manchester United or Liverpool on the shirt. The badge demands the effort, commitment and determination that should lead to victories, not the other way around. I don't think we've got single or dual team domination like some of the other leagues have, at least not at the moment. In theory, if a team like Leicester keep putting the performances in and have a slice of luck with few injuries, then there's no real reason over why they can't win the league. Looking at the table, Arsenal have got a great chance and City will still be up there fighting for it.

Never go full retard. Affleck looks immense in all of the footage and stills we've seen so far.

@Hero\-of\-Time, now that you've finished Dragon Age, you should leave it a while before you start on The Witcher 3. I feel that the games may be too similar.

@Eenuh actually predicted a 3-1 home loss for us today. So, I guess we showed her! I knew we'd lose today, like I knew we'd lose last week. The players and manager are doing absolutely nothing to prove the fans that they are good enough to be at this club. If I performed like this for my job, I'd get slaughtered, never mind the actual amount of money that these guys are on. Norwich didn't even have to work for that. They strolled to victory. Fully deserved. We deserve to lose every game we're in as we are second best in every department. I also think it's time to admit that the Phil Jones experiment isn't working. He's a complete liability, gets injured far too often, is too gung-ho and gets caught out of position far too often to be in the starting eleven.

I hated Timesplitters 2. It was a game that just felt soulless and...just not that exciting to play. It's a shame, because it seemed to have the right components for success. The map maker was amazing. But, I didn't like the weapons in the game and the shooting didn't feel satisfying at all. Probably my biggest disappointment on the GameCube. I spent more time creating maps and trying different things than I did on the actual gameplay, which was average, I thought. The only people who seem to love the game are Nintendo fans, possibly because the GameCube wasn't that amazing for shooters from what I remember. (going down the route of Metroid Prime being more adventure than shooter) Xbox fans had Halo, so they took that and never looked back.

Fuark. First this and my best friend for lyf messaged me today letting me know that he got his PS4 today. I'm now in Belgium with @Eenuh's family for Christmas. Suffering from Battlefront withdrawal already.

First track I ever downloaded off Napster was Kid Rock's American Bad Ass. Dem WWF (NOT WWE!) days. *fingers crossed for Blockbuster support*

I do think a lot of the blame has to go with Jose. From what was said in the first few weeks of the season, the Chelsea team prepared poorly in pre-season, winning none of their games. The argument with the club doctors damaged the morale of the players who were on very good terms with her. He's sabotaged his relationships with players and staff from within. I don't think he handled the John Terry situation very well. Sure, the player needs to be eased-out gently as he's coming to the end of his career, but he did it in the wrong way. Overall, I don't think Jose has done himself any favours. The players haven't performed well and must also shoulder the blame. Whether or not you like the manager or are getting on with him or not, you're being paid a bluddy big wage to perform. It annoys me greatly that players are being paid more a week than we'll earn close to a decade, yet don't perform or even seemingly look like they give a toss. I don't like to see him go because I do like him and think he's a good fit for this league. If he were my manager, I wouldn't like to see him go. However... I wouldn't like to see Van Gaal go and Mourinho come in. Yes, we'd win, but Mourinho doesn't entertain. We're playing boring football at the minute and that would roughly stay the same. Someone like Diego Simeone would be a brilliant fit for either United or Chelsea, somebody who can get the players playing exciting and attractive football.

I agree with all of this. Although, I'm more pissed off that Garry Monk got sacked by Swansea. Unfortunately, the shelf life of a manager is pretty poor. A few bad games, then you're up for the sack.

Wasn't the Jakku stuff free? I think there will be the odd free thing, whether it's a map or new game mode. We'll get an idea of what they're doing once we see what the first DLC pack includes. Maybe some modes will have maps "attached" to them, like a space-themed map. One could be a Death Star assault or something, so you'd not be able to use that map in any other mode. I could see stuff like that happening. New weapons are definitely a must and new cards. I could see this being split, so some being free and some being part of the paid DLC. I do wish that the price of the season pass was capped to £20 or something as an industry standard. It doesn't make sense to me to have DLC the same price as a game.