Fierce_LiNk

... ...and it ain't no man. It's a birthday cake, as it is ViPeR/Joe's birthday! The sucker will be 25. Which means he'll probably be going grey/gray/charcoal/BLACK quite soon. Joe is a good guy. He was..uh..my friend. Happy Birthday, Friend. I hope you have you some fun tonight. OH YEAH.

Don't be so grumpy. You Grumpster. Although, I don't like them either. They're a bit too annoying for me. Also, I was in the shower yesterday and sang Jesus Christ Pose. I'm dedicating that one to you.

I think there needs to be a bit more information released for this and Lost in Shadow. Both seem really interesting but they'll most likely become forgot about as time goes by. Kinda like Muramasa. It got the wow effect at first, but then dropped off the radar. I still need to pick it up.

I mean he could ring up to see if they can guarantee/keep/see if any seats will be free.(as unlikely as it is) It might be better than him travelling all the way there, which could end up just wasting his time and spending money.

I was just about to say that it would be difficult to get on to the Eurostar. Maybe if he rang up first he could guarantee himself a seat for him and his girlfriend? Like the helpline I rang last time. Hope you can find a way to get home, dude.

Aye, I'm quite happy for them. My Mum has family ties there still, so I look out for their scores whenever I can.

Simples. The clever ones buy their games online, or shop around first. Some of the prices for HMV are shocking, you'd have to be a tart to buy from there. Actually, somewhat anecdotal, I popped into the HMV in Newport the other day to buy the Zidane Dvd. 25 fucking quid! I went to one in Cardiff a few days after, as I was in the area, and found it for a fiver in another HMV. Exactly the same edition, the more expensive one wasn't some kind of extreme edition. Some of the prices I've seen in HMV and similar types of stores for games are just...insane. How they can expect people to pick up games for 40 quid is beyond me. It's going to sound like a generalisation, but a lot of these people who pick up the games you mentioned, the ones with family or sport in the title are ones who just pick up the first thing they see. They see it on the shelf and just go with it. How many of us here would go into town and pick up Red Steel 2 for 35+ quid? None. Because it can be bought cheaper in places like Amazon. I hope it was HMV you used to work in, otherwise I look like a fool typing this. Anyways, we're allowed to slag them off as you managed to escape from there.

What a day. Fucking hell! We looked really up for it in the derby. There was some good football in the first half, and I was impressed with how Valencia handheld Bellamy. Tracked back nicely to help out Neville. I was worried about how Bellamy would do on the side against Neville, but he looked off the boil today. Vidic and Evans are both unsung heroes from today's game. They dealt with almost everything that came at them. Looked very comfortable together. Scholes was brilliant today. He's had a few games this season where he hasn't been at his best. But, when he's been on form, he's been fantastic. Bossed that midfield and turned back time with that performance. No other person deserved the match winner apart from him. I had tears in my bluddy eyes when that went in! Literally, I had my hands together almost praying. "One Last Attack, just get the ball UP THERE! Evra...SCHOLES! FUCKING HELL AHHHHHH!!!" After the game, I was moving furniture so managed to miss most of the first half of the Spurs-Chelsea game. Tuned into Radio 5 and Bale put them two up almost immediately. Couldn't believe it. Then Terry getting himself sent off. What a day. What was that about football being unpredictable?! Before today, I bet the odds were on Chelsea and City to win both games. He's on about scoring four for Man United against Newcastle. I didn't reply to it directly because...I really don't remember that game. I've tried googling it, but found nothing either. It definitely wasn't the 1998/99 season.

Yeah. It's not like South Park just pick on ginger people. South Park rip into everyone, haha. That's what makes it great. They don't leave anybody out.

Word. Pokemon probably gets a bit more stick than it deserves. I guess it just depends on what people want. I think many fans would welcome a Pokemon MMO, but I can only see that happening on a home console. So, in terms of the main off-line game, what do they want? Maybe a bigger landscape with many more things to do, who knows.

Yup, and thus the cycle of "The Series Is The Saaaame" will continue. Probably.

Witty isn't a word that ReZ has been acquainted with yet.

***Pokemans. You make a good point, MCJ. I think there's a risk of devaluing some Pokemon if you have so many, such as when you mentioned the Legendaries. With the battle animations, are you saying the animations should be better, or quicker, or just turned off altogether?

So, kinda like Monster Hunter? Mass Pokemon Catching Adventures? That would be quite sweet. Or do you mean where you have a huge meeting place where trainers can battle? Or both?

I think Pokemon (the game...not the Pokemons themselves) will keep getting a hard time until there's a 3D home console version which is set across beautiful landscapes and where the character can run a tune of orchestrated music. Where exactly can the series go? They've added more Pokemon, there's online modes now, making sure that the multiplayer isn't exclusive to people who have friends at hand who love their Pokemons, too. The game has evolved a fair bit, and it isn't simply about catching and then training. At it's heart, you can still play the game that way and enjoy it very much. But there's a bit more to it. There's only so far you can evolve things before you start alienating gamers, there's a risk that it'll become too complex if it starts becoming this...big other thing. So, what do gamers want from it? Ideally, I just want to get to know the Pokemon. I feel a bit overwhelmed when I think of all these different types and stuff, but then it means you can have really interesting lineups. Ramble, Ramble, Ramble.

Vote for Pedro. I wish I could.

It's funny. You talk about autism, yet I can't stop staring at your avatar. Haha.

Hehe, there's no harm in treating yourself. I look for reasons to buy stuff. "oh, I deserve this because...I...did well in work the other day. Yeeeeah. Gimme that item!"

God, since June?! I have to get mine done every 4 or 5 weeks. Do you mean you've done 2500 today? Or are you combining yesterday and today's work together? That's a pretty good amount. Take a break, go look at it again later, and you'll be fine. You're doing well. I sent an application off to my agency, and the woman replied saying that it was pretty good. She called my syntax "fab." Haha.

In a few years time, there will be a similar thread to this, but this time about Mobile Phones/Handhelds, etc.

Is there an option to use the D-Pad with the Zeldas? I can't remember off the top of my head. That game is an example where they should have offered both sets of controls, I think. At least for moving Link. But then, as you say, it would've been fiddling using the stylus to use the sword and use the d-pad for moving, and still finding a way to use the other buttons. There needs to be balance, I think. Brawl had the right idea, where you had Wiimote only controls, Wii and Nunchuk, Classic Controller and Gamecube Controller options. In that sorta game, nothing was gained from using the pointer controls, so ultimately it was just down to preference. It's not as "messy" as reworking other games which heavily use the Wiimote controls. Galaxy for example, where you use the pointer to pick up star bits. Dunno how that would've worked without the pointer. Unless you use a Gamecube/Classic Controller and use the second stick to look around.

Haha, I know. I don't know whether to be impressed or scared.

There's been a focus in the last few years (in Secondary Education) where the emphasis has been on teaching pupils transferable skills that can be used in many different circumstances. It works in Primary, especially with "Topic Based" learning where you focus on one subject, say every term, across the curriculum. So, one school I worked with recently researched types of technology available in Japan, then we would look at how technology has evolved in Japan (Science and History), then we would compare Japan with the rest of the World (Geography). Finally, we would work on paragraphing, listing and how to convert notes into prose in Literacy. So, it's very creative, and you're using so many different skills at once. This can then be applied in more than one area. At the end of it, they had researched something and had then written up some great work about what they had found. As interesting as it is reading novels in Secondary School, sometimes teachers forget why we read books in the first place. Yes, it's entertainment, but usually there are "real world issues" in the novels that can apply to most of our lives. One of my favourite films as a kid was Stand By Me. What I loved about it was that it dealt with the themes of friendship and coming-of-age, but it did this in a certain way. Now, you can learn more from a 2 hour long film than you might do from a series of 10 lessons looking at something else. I think they need to be taught how things can be applied to life and the outside world. Give them reasons why they are doing what they are doing. That way they'll take things in more and they'll understand what they're trying to do. If you had a phone, you could try cheating. But, there's only a select few that would try. If I was in a room filled with people, with exam invigilators on patrol, I wouldn't think it was worth it. Purely because there would be a very large risk that I would have my exam paper torn up and given a zero if I was caught. The risks outweigh the gains.

Nintendo didn't abolish traditional controls, though. Mario Kart DS used traditional controls. There were just more things for developers to play with. As a result, there's a lot of things that you can create on the system. Some of the best games use traditional controls, and some of the best use the stylus and touchscreen. I've never been one for handhelds but I much prefer the DS to Nintendo's past handhelds. Sure, I've enjoyed Pokemon, Tetris and Metroid Fusion in the past, but ultimately I've always felt like handheld games were just console games "minimised." Smaller. Because of that, I've much prefered playing home consoles instead of handhelds. So, the DS has been something quite different for me. It's not just a home console game made smaller. It's been a different experience. I hope Nintendo continue with that path.

If you ever get the chance to go into a Primary School, do it. I think you'll be surprised by some of the things going on there. It's a very creative learning environment. Generally, I think the children just seem more valued there and the community of the schools seems that bit more tighter. When you go into high school and University/College, I think so many of the kids/teenagers feel so lost and overwhelmed. I don't think it's a coincidence that they feel lost and uncared about when the schools can contain over a thousand or so pupils. Course you can. I don't know how it worked with you, but all mobile phones were turned off/put into silent mode at the beginning of the exam and were collected by the teachers and put into boxes (for the smaller exams where there was only one class in the room). For the big halls with exams, the phones were placed into bags and the bags were kept at the back of the room. Our school was quite rigid with this. In a hall, there were half a dozen or so members of staff. Simply put, you would have to be Jason Bourne to have cheated in those exams. Thank you, your excellency.