jayseven

If a great game has a bad cover then I see no problem. If they're altering the aesthetics of the product's shell but leaving the game itself untouched, in order to satisfy a wider market, then I see no problem. Yeah sure, admitting that this is the way the business works is unsightly and not what we, the vested (what a word) people, want the industry to be. That they have basically admitted Bioshock: Infinite is basically a new IP shoved under the Bioshock 'brand'. It's ugly to read that a company wants to make more money, but it doesn't have to be disjointed from the company wanting to make better games. Even if that is the case most of the time :P I've just started playing Binary Domain which I picked up very cheap, and I adjusted my expectations accordingly. The cover art suggests an 80s film poster and the 'retro' look kinda cheapens the game. Plus it was a whole new IP and I hadn't especially seen it touted by any media sources anywhere. The game actually plays like a cross between Mass Effect and Gears of War - it's highly polished visually and is much better than I thought -- the thought based, largely, on the cover of the game. If that's what I did then it's clear that the 'average gamer' would've overlooked the game too. If companies can't get their game to sell then what happens, hmm? TL;DR - The underbelly of the industry looks similar to the inner workings of every other for-profit market. Pains us 'loyalists' to see it, but it's reality.

Muppet Christmas Carol is superb. One of my most treasured VHS! @Tales I love hearing about the traditions in other countries. Even though it's fast approaching I've not asked anyone about the AUS traditions (I will do over the next few days). All I know is that there's a semi-fad every year for celebrating 'Christmas in July' but all that really results in is mince pies being on offer more often through the year -- which is always a good thing.

The only christmas 'movie' I watched as a kid was The Snowman. I've never even seen The Great Escape!

Picked it up on a sale. Wondering if anyone can tell me if it's worth plugging my mic in? Does the game dramatically alter with it? (I'll probably try it with the mic later tonight when everyone else has gone to bed so I don't feel ridiculous)

@Cube I've only read a few of Crichton's books - The Lost World and Prey - I remember nothing of the first, but the 2nd holds a place in my heart for sentimental reasons -- first [audio] book I read after my eye operation. If you had to make a top 5, could you? Managed to filter through 15GB of ebooks to pick up 300mb that I thought were keep-able. Probably half of that was books I'd read already, but also Michael Connolley's Harry Bosch books. My dad's been raving about them for years now. I finished the first, Black Echo and it was, as all best-sellers are, exhaustively gripping throughout. I'm about 20% through the 2nd book Black Ice, and I can tell that it is carried by the reader's expectation/desire to find out what happened next to the main character, even if the story so far isn't as enticing. I've always been fairly dismissive of best-sellers, and really I don't know why. I mean, I really enjoyed Time Traveller's Wife and the whole The Girl... trilogy. Why am I always so quick to dismiss the charts? Well, shades of bandwagon come to mind... I do tend to 'prefer' the award-winning books, but I have to admit I've clearly been missing out on something. Just because someone is skilled enough to be able to produce a book a year does not mean they are shit. I'm learning to appreciate this, and I'm enjoying the fact

I remember I once* had an essay due the next day -- luckily I hadn't started it earlier because my laptop broke and I'd've lost it all anyway. That's what I tell myself to excuse the all-nighter, anyway. So I went to the library and chanced upon a fellow coursemate in a similar predicament and we teamed up to take on the task, whilst ensuring the other was suitibly pepped throughout the night. We also egged each other on to do nefarious deeds; Include teh word "obfuscate" or reference a random book from the library walls. At some wee hour a third coursemate appeared - he, too was doing the same assignment as us. We were bantering about how thankfully the deadline was 2pm, so we still had x hours left to do y words. It was at this moment that our stupid, insane, foresightless bastard of a coursedweeb said "oh yeah? Well I have to do TWO essays, and the other one is due at TWELVE, and I haven't even STARTED that one yet!!" ... I graciously allowed him the evening standard of , and returned a few shades gladder at my own predicament. TANGENT: Isn't it a shame that shade has a new, dire connotation now? Another time I drank 24 cans of coke during an all-nighter. These days I've had to stay up til as late as 4am, stupefied by my cousin leaving coursework to the last minute. If I did uni again I would most definitely be doing more essays on the first night. *... one time amongst far too many EDIT: I know you said "finish" the night before deadline, but I'm bored and wanted to go for a ramble!

Go with it, Cube! Nothing to lose

IIRC there's no need to play on very hard if you're gunning for trophies, however going for pure stealth/low chaos then ultimately the difficulty shouldn't make much difference... except the enemies seem to be able to spot you from further distances on harder difficulties! Going for stealth and lethal seems to be the proper way to play it, I hear!

One of my favourite gaming experiences of the year @dr4khon Hope you enjoy it!

I did the level again on a skull/terminal playthrough on easy and blitzed this one, but didn't enjoy it. Couldn't imagine trying to do it on legendary in under 30ish minutes. There are a couple of rocket dudes near the end and they'll basically one-hit kill you, even on easy! The terminal videos were excellent, and having played Halo 4 they make loads of sense and really help with some background for the events to do with the Didact, and there are references to promethians too. It seems that there's no worry that any games that work on australian PAL consoles will also work on UK PAL consoles, which is great news, thanks!

Does anyone know if NTSC(J)* games work on PAL(UK) consoles? I got home to find my 2nd-hand Enslaved: Odyssey to the West is NTSC(J). Was worried, but it starts up and plays perfectly fine on this PAL(AUS) console. I also bought Binary Domain and Skyrim. Got all 3 for roughly £30 - a serious bargain by Australian standards. Enjoying Enslaved so far - stylish and clearly borrowing from PoP, jumping on the freerunning/climbing bandwagon. It feels a bit easy so far, but only on chapter 5 (of 15ish?), so we'll see. Pretty game, though. I don't know the correct formatting or stylisation

This year I want to try really, really hard at not getting any dvds, cds or books for anyone. Anyone. To punish myself further, I've basically only got a couple of days to get everything - and those days are likely to be jet-lagged nightmares. I went to a shopping centre here and I was just so, so disorientated by everyone everywhere all the time people people [ize=8]people!![/size] ... I managed to buy one gift; for a friend. I got home and sat down to write the names of people I want to get things for; mum, sister, bro-in-law, neice, dad, step-mum, gf, gf's family x3, hombres x3, x2, x3, cousins x2, uncle... ... ╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻ I have a few gift ideas i.e. some wine for my wine fiend father, ideally something that isn't shipped outside Australia. There may be some re-gifting options, and looking at the ridiculous number of books I've bought myself, I could easily give a couple to --- No! No jayseven. NO BOOKS... argle! Going to have to drop a facebook plea to Brightonians to see if they are willing to go mid-week... fat chance!

Well, no. Based on the last paragraph on my post it seems that it'd be 2 countries in group stage/last 16, then quarters in a neutral country, then semis/finals in 'a 13th city'. The suggestion for Wembley final means that, surely (and at least theoretically, which is where we're at) London would be city 13, so only 3 countries for England. I say 'only' 3, I mean that'd still be more countries than any Euro campaign so far. And most other nations would be hitting up 3 countries prior to city 13. (I like calling it city 13, though!) http://www.dw.de/uefa-seeking-expanded-euro-2020/a-16376153 I just wonder if that means England has a 'host city' that is supposed to be separate to the 'city 13' concept. Temerature fluctuations between the cities could be a factor. The more I hear about it the more I want to see it happen, to be honest! It could be a fantastic continent-wide event, and a historical oddity.

Two stadiums per group could mean one/two cities per group, so one country per group. Knock-out stages can be hosted progressively closer to London for the 'road to Wembley'. Teams and fans would know well ahead of time where and when they were playing -- but of course as a fan wanting to follow their team all the way to the final, it could be more complicated than trying to find transport/places to stay in one country, and you can imagine as the games progress the number of non-neutral fans would surely fall as well. I think it could work and could offer an interesting event to watch, though I'm sure there will be occasions of 'host' nations competing at the other end of the continent. Looking at the wiki article about Euro 2020; Countries that withdrew bids, prior to the novelty announcement; Netherlands Hungary-Romania Germany Bulgaria-Romania Bosnia and Herzegovina–Croatia–Serbia Belgium Countries with existing bids; Turkey ROI-Scotland-Wales Georgia-Azerbaijan (srsly? Azerbaijan is in Europe now?) I'm sure a solely eastern-european euros wasn't monetarily enticing enough to UEFA, but you can kind of imagine some of the above countries being grouped into 'zones' per group. So this suggests that my post up 'til now is pretty much wrong. I don't know how much of the current set up ensures that groups are split evenly between seeded and non-seeded, so I can't comment on whether this is 'fair' or not. Hum. Ponderous.

First and best thing you can do is start going back the fuck to class. Learning anything is about plateaus rather than a constant, consistent accruing of knowledge. If this other guy is making you a sucka then say it to him - get him to take care of his own shit. Goodluckandhopethingsaregoodagainsoon! P.S. Not a sad excuse dude, just reality.

Yeah the first time I was watching it I was just going ".... naaaaaaaa.... Naaaa! NAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!" (in a 'surely not!' kind of chavish way). Just gotten up to everyone's memorable air-lock scene in s04. Not other major comments - just

You're doing a sterling* job! *Unnecessary and tenuous pun.

My mum couldn't drive, so to feed us all we'd get a taxi back from the shops (fortnightly trip) or push the trolley home. Had to figure it into the expense, but it's a commonly done thing, and works out a lot cheaper than paying for a car if money's tight (which it was).

Well they've actually gone up an increduble $50 since I last saw, with two extra backers! Best bit is it's not on kickstarter, it's just pretending to get teh free moniez. Bring back the Phantom, I say!

^ I used to do a weekly trip to Aldi - 4 mile round. Always ended up carrying entirely unsensible amounts of food and getting home absolutely knackered! But at least I'd saved £20 ^_^ American Werewolf in London is close! Pretty much all the city-mouse-country-mouse movies I can think of end up with a distinctly Royston Vasey tone.

What is it about Hull that is so depressing? I've never been, but everyone who goes there comes back with Tales From Beyond The Grave, or something.

That's gotta hurt for Chelsea fans! Knocked out essentially on a technicality.

Probably missed lots of draamaaa while I typed this. I appreciate your reply, ReZ. The boards have been around a fair while, and I can promise you that at least once a year we have to hold a candle to what used to be. We have lost a staggering amount of good members, moments and threads. I'm beyond mourning each one. When one member's posts slow down it has a domino effect. I think it's fair to say that Overly Optimistic people have been simmering over the last few months (bluey reappeared briefly the other day! CB's busy with uni. Flink is here but busy, too) and that has an affect, I think. Otherwise, I think it's just a case of once you notice the posts you mention, you can't stop seeing them. You posted about discovering sultanas and I said the status was boring. It's been eating away at me :P You aren't the primary person I think of when I say that, but I do appreciate what you're saying -- and I want to reiterate it, too. It's a time thing. Can't hate on that. As an aside, my current 'phase' in life is, actually, the quiet, too-aware guy who only sees hypocracy everywhere he looks. I twist the words but the meanings, why, they were already that curly! The whole offense/offended debate is another story, and something I need to reaffirm my stance on -- and not really something applicable here (aside from the fact that you're getting offended on one hand, whilst purposefully aiming to offend on the other, which is the hypocritical thing I see here!) I think you breathe attention like I breathe cider. You don't need to use people's laughter as a crutch to make up for your self-loathing. You need to accept who you are, or alter it. This is coming from another (albeit slightly) overweight and visually disgusing bro who hates himself. And, remember, I'm not hilarious. I think that spirit is still here and still strong, it's just not where you left it. Consider the responses you're getting now - people reach out. I think this is an excellent post, and a great point to raise as it's something that's been bothering me for a long time!

I know this isn't directed directly in my direction, but I have a feeling I'm indirectly indicated... indeed. As someone who 'liked' Diageo's post, I have to admit that I was liking his post because it made me laugh, not because I wanted to pile on the pressure that you are feeling, here. I was under the impression that you welcomed the eye-rolls and sighs (I mean your signature has you calling yourself a moron). While I do think there's a discrepency between demanding the rights to free speech whilst denouncing someone else's free speech, I do have to agree that there should be a basic cameraderie that underpins any comments with an unsaid "but I love you really" -- and that's gone out the window on here a long time ago. I have sensed it between myself and others, and I know you have as well. I have tried to stop 'constructive' criticism of the things you do, because I know it's not helpful at all anymore. I know I posted something harsh on your fb wall a couple of months ago and I know you've not forgotten it (along with goafer/happenstance maintaining their self-imposed exile, which I'm certain they blame me for entirely, and with your proximity to them - I'm not sure anyone would've been defending me in that situation)... I know you think little of what I have to say, these days, I just wanted you to know that as well as certain members being perennial sour-pusses, seasonal pessimists and so on, there are also certain members that used to post interesting contributions to any thread but now seem to appear just to self-promote. While it would be good-natured to support the community in their endeavours, there is a line somewere, isn't there? On the one hand you are making rape jokes, abortion jokes, child molestion jokes, child abuse jokes, and on the other hand you're complainig that people are vocally saying "that's not funny" is an opinion that should be suppressed. I do want to say sorry, though. Up 'til now, you've never even hinted at being uncomfortable with the negative comments. I can see there is a difference between constructive criticism and the comments which could easily be called bullying, and I think that you are right and there is no need for the latter. I do also want to stress that there is a lot less intention to upset you than you may have assumed, again this is because the assumption up 'til now has been that you wear your think skin with pride, and that you actively invite such comments. I will personally make sure I'm not just pissing on you (just as I'm making sure to avoid your stuff because, honestly, I don't find rape/etc funny. Doesn't mean that you aren't funny, so don't take it to heart). [/trying to walk fine line]