Fierce_LiNk

I've not done Fantasy Football in years, as I usually get very into it at the start and then drift away towards the end. Tempted to stick with it this time around. Would be great to get the crowd from here into it!

The Ace Ventura theme is a bit unusual, and a bit of a random movie/theme to choose for an escape room. I had to double check that I had heard it correctly when our friend mentioned it. But, the actual escape room itself was cool and very different to the other two which we have done. It's true to the "When Nature Calls" film and has a more tactile approach compared to other escape rooms. You have to touch everything and check all of the panels, pull everything that you see, etc. This one puzzle took us aaaaaages, around 20 minutes to solve and in the end the solution was quite simple and we had just spent a bit too much time over-thinking it. The last one we did was my least favourite so far. The theming was great, but it was a bit toooo dark inside and was very hot due to the weather. The opening and ending puzzles were great, but there was this big puzzle that we had to solve in the middle that took us ages and we were stuck for so long. One of the clues was very misleading due to the wording of it, and I don't think it was meant to be genuinely misleading on purpose. We still (somehow) made it out. So yeah, a big fan of these. Looking forward to the next one.

Mice. Rats. Rodents. They still do. We had one that ran through our kitchen from the back of the house when I was a kid and it just disgusted the fuck out of me. Its tail was soooo long and the way it just ran and scuttled about freaked me out. It was the first time I had ever seen one and I still remember it pretty clearly, think I was around 7 or 8 at the time. When I was living away in Brighton, we had a big mouse/rat problem because the people next door were just shitheads basically and didn't clean up after themselves, so the rats would occasionally make it over to ours. We had someone come around to set up traps and one of them went off in the kitchen. I opened a cupboard down and this huuuuuge fucking rat just dropped to the floor and landed on my feet. I ran the fuck out of there instantly and, not going to lie, I think I squealed a little bit. Didn't even care. Hated it!

Urgh, that's horrible. I'm certain that this practice takes place quite often in the tabloid gutter press, but it's shit to hear the details about it in this instance. Wish that they had published that Team Rocket story, though!

I'm planning to just completely start over. It seems to make more sense to treat this almost as a reboot, so start over, I say!

It's not surprising given the way of the industry at the moment. Racers are just not as popular as they used to be, and the ones that are popular are the big name games such as Forza. It's moved into a very online-driven FPS world and racers don't have the appeal to dislodge that. I guess the best we can ask for is an indie with a middling budget to provide something, as I don't see many of the bigger studios willing to do that unless they can bring in big numbers.

There are quite a few good shouts for relegation there. Southampton were poor last season and I see no reason why they wouldn't struggle again. Then, you've got teams such as Huddersfield and Brighton who were down there, too. Cardiff and Fulham will also struggle to pick up points. Think there's around 6 or 7 teams who will involved in that battle to not get relegated. The league is essentially split up into three now, as you have the top 6 who are aiming to get Champions League spots, then a sort of middle 8 who are not doing well enough to challenge for Top 4, but could sneak 6 or 7th, and then you've got the bottom 6 who are trying not to get relegated.

Nice screenshots, @Goafer. There wasn't a photo-mode when I first played this, so it's nice to know that it's there waiting for me when I jump back in.

I think part of the issue is that the market has gone towards realism and the sim experience. It's all about recreating real-life and it means that some of the more "alternative" genres, the niche ones like you say, just don't get a look in anymore. Maybe there will be a revival for alternative racers at some point, it would be good to have a bit more variety. It's mainly just about Forza and Mario Kart these days.

It's a really tough game, imo. I had to definitely put time and effort into it, but it's such a fun game that you do feel a great sense of achievement when you make it through. F Zero GX has a similar level of challenge, especially on the higher levels. A shame that we haven't had more Wave Race or F Zero games since.

We should do some predictions for the forthcoming season. I reckon Top 4, Bottom 3, FA Cup Winner, League Cup Winner (or whatever they've called it now...the Mudkipz cup) and Champions League Winner. Top 4 1. Manchester City 2. Liverpool 3. Manchester United 4. Spurs Bottom 3 18. Huddersfield 19. Brighton 20. Cardiff FA Cup: Liverpool League Cup: Manchester City Champions League: Barcelona

I've put off buying these games on the Dreamcast for so long due to the prices being a bit high on Ebay. Not mega high or as expensive as some games, but expensive enough to know that I should have bought these games much earlier on! Really looking forward to this coming out. I remember that they used to show lots of footage from this on GameNetwork back in the day and I would watch it thinking it looked like the best game eveeer. Going to go into it with my Dreamcast/GameCube-era googles on.

Happy Birthday, Serebii!

I've put over 30 hours into this since restarting this and I have loved every second of it. Everything about this game is just well crafted and I'm spending so much time just wandering around doing quests here and there and just taking in my surroundings. I've done that epic Bloody Baron questline: I've just made my way over to Skellige and have done fuck all except for wander around and take screenshots. Beautiful location, truly stunning. It feels like you're in a completely different game entirely. Can't wait to go to Toussaint later on! With my character, I'm going to continue levelling up until around level 25 or so and I should have tons of ability points. I'm going to use the potion of clearance to then wipe all of my abilities so that I can start a new character build. Tempted to go alchemy and sign heavy this time, as I went really physical last time around. Decisions, decisions!

That home grown rule really is a load of shit, isn't it?

I still use the microphone/headset that came out of the box. When I'm playing a single player game, I've got the Sennheiser HD206 pair, which only cost me £30. I actually bought/use it for my guitar for its primary purpose, but I also use it to game on the PS4. It's a really comfy pair, but it doesn't have a microphone, since I didn't actually buy it entirely for gaming purposes. If I was going to get a proper headset, I'd go for the Sony headset that @Sheikah mentioned. Seems to be well-liked by many and the feedback seems to be good. The fact that it's wireless too is a bonus. I imagine I'll get it at some point.

Bwaahhahaha at the special effects, Craig Charles and tons of the other stuff in that video. Also, did they ramp up that Starwing footage speed by 9000x or something? I was hyperventilating watching that. Also, fuck the Nintendo scope. Hated that with a passion. Never seemed to work properly or accurately whenever I tried it.

Ah, uh, hmm...that really should have given you more time to play then! That's hardcore, maaaan. What's it like on Pro? Think my playtime came to over 300 hours or so, but I also spent loads of time trotting around in the fields and staring at the sunsets, or sailing around Skellige doing fuck all. Loved it, tbh. One of those games where you can waste lots of time doing not an awful lot. Do it, man. I've just arrived in Novigrad and am taking in all of the sights. In the middle of the Bloody Baron quest and am about to do the Botchling bit. Planning to get it on with Yennifer, Geralt's true one-it is. Previously I wanted both Triss and Yen, but that led to that hilarious "threesome fake-out" scene towards the end of the game. Gwent is too addictive. I bought the physical expansions and got the Gwent Decks to come with it. I just love it.

I'm not that bothered about having to have all of the films and tv connected. From my point of view, it's actually been one of the reasons why I haven't gotten into the Marvel films. I watched the original Iron Man and didn't think much of it. Then, I didn't watch Iron Man 2 or 3, I didn't watch Captain America, and suddenly there's a whole universe that has appeared. As someone who hasn't kept up with all of the films, I didn't watch the new Avengers film (despite hearing that it was very good) as I hadn't watched the 15 or so films that came before it to fully appreciate it, especially all of the references and character motivations. There's a difference between having to watch movies 1 and 2 to understand the plot of 3. But, with the Marvel universe, it's a bit more complex than that. I'm sure it's great if you've kept up and I imagine that it's really cool to spot all of these little things. But...that's a bit of a commitment to make. Imagine if you told James Bond fans that they had to watch all of the previous films to understand Spectre or Skyfall. For me, there are bigger issues with the DC films. Take The Dark Knight trilogy and look at what made those films universally loved. The writing was great, the dialogue was stunning at times, the cinematography, the soundtrack, the plot points, the characters, etc. They were good films in their own right. Compare that to something such as, say, Suicide Squad. Could have been great, should have been amazing...yet I thought it was easily the worst of the recent DC films. Because it lacked in all of those departments that I just mentioned. What's the point in a connected universe if the parts themselves are weak?

I've been having a think today about gaining qualifications for languages and the usefulness of it, how to go about it, etc. I've got a GCSE in Spanish and an A Level in French, but the reality is that my Spanish has improved a lot since then, I am pretty good with Dutch now and am learning Italian. It would be quite useful to actually be able to put some qualifications down to recognise this. Plus, it's also quite useful to know what "level" I can use that particularly language. The trouble is, I don't really know where to start. Does anyone have any knowledge or experience of this? Is there really any point to it? Is it expensive? The other side of it is that @Eenuh will most likely need to do some sort of exam to pass the British Citizenship test. To, ahem...prove that she has a suitable enough knowledge of English. So...how?

Why did you stop in the first place? Start a fresh save. Do it aaaall again. Love it. You're looking at over 20+ hours for the expansions. Actually, probably triple that. It's a huge time-sink. I can understand why it's off putting to get started. My advice would be to start with Hearts of Stone first and then do Blood and Wine after, since that's longer.

Leeds are a good example, but that was just over 10 years ago and the climate of football has changed a little bit since then. It should have acted as a warning to other teams, but you could argue that others haven't heeded that warning and we could see more clubs going through dire straits like Leeds did.

Shazam looks great! Really looking forward to it now. Aquaman...I hope it'll be good. Please be good. Can't really tell from the trailer.

I never fail to be impressed at how so many people can remember stuff like this.

It's simply unsustainable and there will come a time where a Premier League or Championship club overspends and ends up in serious amount of financial trouble. The way forward surely has to be promoting youth and putting tons of funding into the academy systems. £50million for Richarlison is insane. Suddenly, that price for Alisson doesn't seem quite as bad anymore, I guess it's all relative. There's lots of talk about Barcelona putting in bids for Willian. With Courtois and Hazard being linked to Real Madrid, it could end up being a very different look for Chelsea next season.