Fierce_LiNk

Spurs vs Liverpool is the first match today. Also, Klopp's first game in charge. I wonder if Liverpool will have a case of new manageritis and will put a shift in to get a win. Going for a Liverpool 1-2 victory.

It is a different game, buuuut the point is that lessons can be learned from it and there are mechanics or ideas that could be implemented to make a better game. It's exactly the same with Xenoblade. Xenoblade's overworld truly showed up Zelda big time and it is a far more engaging game as a result of it, at least in my opinion. I enjoyed that initial feel of walking around Skyloft, but I've often heard Skyward Sword compared with Mario Galaxy in terms of overworld and level design. It's...not that far off, tbh. I didn't feel like the world was one connected place and it often felt very disjointed. Imo, it didn't make for a truly engaging game. Xenoblade on the other hand was fucking wonderful. You could go anywhere you wanted, there were lots of things to see, each area felt different to the last, there were a large variety of environments and you had characters and quests in each area which were memorable. That's what I'm talking about really, I just want a more engaging world design. Twilight Princess was great at the time. I loved it, I was truly sucked in. It's still one of my favourite games. However, I understand the complaints and after playing games that have come after it, I agree with its flaws. Yes, the overworld is quite sparse and empty. Yes, there isn't really a lot to do. Yes, there aren't really that many villages or areas where hubs of people exist and you can go about doing a round of sidequests. But, I do like the scale of the game and how large it felt. Hyrule Field felt massive to me at the time. I don't think Nintendo can retroactively add NPCs and Quests, so I get that, but I do think lessons can be learned for future games.

Why are you talking about dungeons out of nowhere? :p All of this talk is about the overworld which people were criticising on the first page of this thread. As in, would it be possible for a Zelda game to have an overworld in the style of The Witcher 3? The world building in Zelda is in urgent need of a shake-up. If we're talking about dungeons, then Nintendo got it absolutely right with Twilight Princess. They had some really interesting designs with the Arbiter's Grounds, Snowpeak Mansion and Temple of Time being clever dungeons in locations that you wouldn't expect dungeons to be. They took a huuuuge step back in Skyward Sword, imo. The bosses in TP were fantastic too, imo. Nintendo got so much right there.

My class have consistently let me down all week. We had an assembly today and have spent part of this week rehearsing. They were given their lines on Monday and only really had a couple of sentences to read out. It had the potential to be really, really awesome. Basically, our topic is looking at coastlines and waterfalls, all about the sea, etc etc blaaah. We based it around that and created a news report (which we've been doing recently in class) and the report would be about a shark who couldn't swim, so he had to be taught how to navigate back to the sea. To top it off, the shark and characters communicated through rhyme. It really had potential. We painted on big sheets of paper earlier in the week to create a waterfall for our main character (shark) to walk through. We laid crash-mats out to look like the sea and even had tributaries coming into it. I woke up extra early this morning to set everything up. The trouble is, two of my girls (the reporters) hadn't really learned their lines and were reading off the script in rehearsal. In the performance today, everything was excelllent bar these two. They had the script there and STILL kept fucking up their lines and adding awkward pauses because they were searching the script to find their lines. Basically, what should have been an epic moment turned into a complete and utter let down. Usually, the classes I teach do pretty awesome assemblies. We usually have children and staff coming up to us afterwards and congratulating us, or they mention it to us throughout the day. I've got a reputation for doing excellent ones. Today, not a single person said anything. First time in a looooong time that my class have managed to let me down in such a big way. A bit sad that I kinda want September to come now so that I can have the next bunch.

I was waiting for someone to pull out the Majora's Mask card. Yeah, the sidequests were great, all 15 years ago. Even then, the style of the game is different and it's built differently to other Zeldas. It should be used as the template to create new Zelda games, but it isn't or hasn't been.

A lot of it will be, since part of a Witcher's job is to be a tracker. That's what the follow the trail bits are. He's tracking down an enemy or following the scent of a missing person or looking at tracks of a cart. Although, I do think they used those tracker bits absolutely right in the game, since it's used as a mechanic to advance the story and discover new pieces of information along the way. As for open world games: Yes, the Witcher 3 has definitely changed what should now be expected from open world games. It's redefined the whole concept of world building. The Witcher 3's world wouldn't work in a Zelda game (based on the last Zelda) because the Witcher often features complex or intertwining story arcs with multiple characters and dialogue that is dependent on actions and choices within the game. Zelda's storyline is far more linear, shallow and doesn't allow for any of this. In order to make the open world of Wild Hunt work in a Zelda, you'd have to ask Nintendo to focus heavily on multiple story arcs and Nintendo simply won't do that and I doubt that they could do something like that. They're not known for making story-driven or character driven games. I was a fan of Twilight Princess and I'd probably buy a HD-remake eventually. But, right now, I'd much rather take a newer and fresher Zelda.

My Hearts of Stone Gwent Edition box thing came yesterday. Hnnnngggg, the cards are glorious. Can't wait to get moaaaar. Hope they release the other two decks with the other expansion. Hnnnngggg. Gwent. <3

I'm on 52.5kg at the moment, although that's a real fucking struggle. It's a hard lift, imo. I do enjoy it, particularly when it all goes well!

Uncharted: Drake's Fortune I've never played an Uncharted game in my liiiife and think I might have spoiled this experience ever so slightly by playing the fantastic-fuckingawesome-Tomb Raider Definitive Edition. However, I did really enjoy this game still. There were only a few bits that annoyed me or that I felt slightly meh about, which I've talked about in the Uncharted thread. Aside from that, I liked the humour in this, the gunplay, the puzzle solving (best bit) and the environment/s. Great game. Worth the wait. Games of 2015 Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor - Finished and Platinumed Transistor - Finished The Walking Dead Season One - Finished and Platinumed inFAMOUS Second Son - good ending completed Watchdogs - started in 2014, finally finished main story The Walking Dead Season Two - Finished The Order 1886 - Finished BLOODBORNE - Finished Never Alone - Finished Hohokum - Finished The Witcher 3 - Story (and many other quests!) completed Journey - Finished FlOw - Finished Batman: Arkham Knight - Main story completed. Can't be arsed collecting all of the Riddler trophies Everybody's Gone To The Rapture - Finished Entwined - Finished Uncharted - Finish

I'm eager to try the second and third games now. I've finished the first game. On the whole, I enjoyed it. However, there were a few bits which wound me up a little:

Cover her car in glitter and give her a stern telling off (along with a snotty letter) about the dangers of pixie dust to our natural environment. Cover her bin with stickers with really bad puns. "You've bin naughty!" etc. Add more stickers to her car, including the windshield, until it is deemed not road worthy and she has to scrap the car because no fucker will buy it.

I hate difficulty spikes in games, especially if they're really taking the piss. I'll remember this!

At the risk of spoilers, is it the plot of the third that made you enjoy it the least? I'm quite enjoying the characters and story in the first game. I'm interested to see how it improves mechanically in the second and third games.

My advice would be to forget what every previous game has taught you about death in videogames. In this game, you almost HAVE to die in order to figure out the right way to approach things. You'll die in this. A lot. All you can do is learn from it and go again. Also, this game doesn't include a world map or any kind of map system. So, you're going to need to look around a lot and familiarise yourself with the entrances and exits. Every time you're in a new area, look around immediately. Spot the dangers, find the ways out and the quickest way to get through without necessarily fighting. Some areas I completely ran through the first time in order to get to the next lamp and then I'd go back later and feel my way around and learn it all inside out.

You must be in the 1% of gamers who didn't like Gwent. It's phenomenal. Such a brilliant game. I fucking loooove how you can collect cards in the game's world and how it's actually an important part of that world. It's how they gamble. That quest where you had to steal the Gwent cards illustrates just how important it is to that world.

I'm about 2/3rds into the first game. Hoping to finish that today so that I can start the second. I take it that the first is the weakest in the series?

I think it's a decent price for a decent selection of games. What they could do to make it better is bring it down to an even £10 or £9.99 a month. I'd go for it at that price. Netflix is around that mark, as is Spotify and they're both the leading streaming services in their field. The only thing that annoys me is that every game on the service isn't necessarily part of the subscription package. They should all be part of it. The good thing about the service is that it's a decent starting point and it'll only get better and improve from here on out. So, the catalogue should get better, the pricing system should be improved on, the streaming speeds should improve, so it should see a bright future.

I came home yesterday after a long day to find this waiting on the table for me. Fuck yeeeeah! Woke up pretty early by my standards for a Saturday (e.g. before noon) and have been playing this for around 3 hours. It's excellent. I'm really enjoying it. It's definitely inspired by ye olde Tomb Raider games and New Tomb Raider is inspired by this! IT'S THE CIIIIIIRRRRCLE OF LIIIIIIIIFE. I'm having a great year of gaming.

Interstellar I saw this at the IMAX in Southampton on release and thought it was good/great. Wasn't convinced by the ending and did feel at the time that it was a cop-out. However, I've changed my opinion on it now and think that the film is genius, a classic and that the ending is both thought provoking and intelligent. The film is stunning. The set pieces in this are incredible and I love the story that's being told. If this film isn't a 10, then it's close. Favourite scene is still Miller's Planet and the soundtrack that accompanies it (Mountains) is hnnnnngggg. I listen to the Soundtrack to this on the way to work. Fruitvale Station This film is grim. The start of it is a disturbing prelude of what is to come, yet it does keep you in suspense as you're eager to find out what actually happened in both the build-up to and the actual "event". I watched it with Ine and two other good friends and we were all pretty angry by the end of the film. There are some moments that you could argue are biased, yet I actually think the portrayal of the main character is good. He's flawed.

There were some parts to England's game that were good. I love Ross Barkley and thought that he was the best player on the pitch. Smalling's been great for United all season and think he'd be comfortable at this level. Imo, the problems came with the final ball, which just wasn't good enough. Crosses getting underhit, overhit, through balls not making it through and too many touches in the box. England just aren't clinical enough to worry the better teams. Saying that, 26 shots in that match with 9 on target. So, that's something. But, the shots need to be converted into goals.

Mine is on the way. Hoping to be able to start it on the weekend or maybe next weekend. Not sure what to expect. Hoping that Tomb Raider isn't going to ruin this game for me.

You can get the physical edition from GAME.

My football team took part in a tournament last week against other schools with a far larger pool of players to choose from. We didn't do that well, but didn't play too badly either. We were 2-0 down in the last game and brought the game back to 2-2 before losing it 3-2, so it was a close game. We gave a good account of ourselves. We had another match today against another school. On the way there, we discussed tactics and how we were going to start off quickly. Between their manager and me, we decided to organise the two halves into four quarters, so give the players more of a breather and give us an opportunity to bring on our subs. Within 30 seconds, we were 1-0 down thanks to so some sloppy play. Our team really kicked on from there. They listened to everything that I said and did all that I asked for. We ended up winning 9-2, which is my biggest ever scoreline as manager. My class captain ended up scoring four goals today, despite never scoring in any other match before. I drove the bus down to the ground and, as the team nominated him man of the match, he sat up top with me. I honestly thought he was going to cry when we were singing on the way back to school. Insane football. Completely dominated them.

I don't think it feels arcadey at all. It feels less pacey and slick than 15. I was a massive fan of 15 and I have to say that 16 has been a bit of a disappointment so far. The game seems much, much harder than 15 was on the same settings. I've already had to drop it down a difficulty and it still seems too hard. I've seen the same complaint online so I know I'm not alone there. The game doesn't seem as fun or intelligent as 15. There's quite a few back-steps, in my opinion. The commentary being less fluid or interesting as before. I quite liked how cinematic 15 felt at times. The only change I'm a fan of so far is how you can train your players in Manager Mode. Awesome edition. In all other departments, 15 is the better game. Edit: Fucking hell. I now know why handballs is usually set to off in the default settings. Fucking annoying to give away a freekick every few minutes thanks to a handball. Really, really irritating. It wasn't this bad on 15.

I had a lovely weekend with some friends who came down from Brighton to see our place in Bournemouth for the first time. Think they really enjoyed it! We spent today chilling out, playing some FIFA/PES, visiting the beach and eating naughty food. I had some delicious salmon on top of scrambled eggs on toast, with some afternoon cream tea on the side for my second breakfast. Hurrah! It's been a busy week. I'm exhausted now.