The Bard

Really. It punished lack of common sense? What brand of common sense exactly could help you predict that taking one of two equally viable routes through Darkroot Basin would lead you to a corner behind which there lies a knight that turns around and shanks you in the butthole for an instant kill? Or for example, that opening a door at the base of a tower in the same area puts you directly in front of a hollowed warrior with a club the size of a fossilised mammoth? The game is great - no doubt about that. But it also frequently uses death as a hand to slap any and all confidence out of you - and requires a sort of diligence and patience that not all gamers are accustomed to.

Defs was a dick move, but when you're a student living off instant noodles and discount wine, and your only real resource is a T1 connection, you make use of it.

Not sure that's a business model that would work with brick and mortar stores though. They'd be limited by their physical presence and the fact that films that might be high in demand during a certain time frame would be constrained by stock, and the fact that people could then keep them indefinitely - well past the time frame of the hype - due to a lack of late fees. Lovefilm probably works so well because it's decentralised, so popular demand for any given product in a specific area can be made up for by the lack of stock limitations.

I'm really disappointed how little the series has really evolved since Tekken 3, but I'm still thinking about buying this. The only problem is that after you get to a certain level of proficiency, the game devolves into you looking for an opening to pull off a launch and then keep the opponent in the air with a 10+ move combo that shaves off more than 3/4 of their health bar. Success and failure can be predicted so early in a round that it sort of takes the fun out of the game. I still love it for it's accessibility though - few fighters have such a broad appeal with the general public, or are competitively playable without an arcade stick.

True, but it wasn't just to scope out the new stuff, we'd look at the foreign cinema section and niche indie films that we might not have heard of otherwise.

Oh my god. I completely didn't remember about the cab driver. I was so on edge at that point, I was about ready to beat him to death with a shoe if he tried swindling us, which I was half expecting. I can't believe you somehow motivated yourself to leave a 9 and subsequently have an active day. I was dozing well into the afternoon, and then had to fuck off to a mates work party and get drunk all over again .

Is that your nerd camouflage?

I think the Triforce tees are usually pretty tacky and embarrassing. They're like the equivalent of the silk Dragonball shirts fat mulleted otaku would wear in the 90s. I do however have an extensive collection of rare Street Fighter tshirts, my favourite being one I got from Uni Qlo a few years back - it's turquoise and has nothing but the Hadoken command input on it. It's a good way of secretively being nerdy, because only other heinous nerds are going to know what the fuck it means.

I used to go into Blockbusters with my ex every week to get a good sense of what films we should torrent over the weekend.

Happy sexday birthface!

I get a few messages a month but usually all it takes is a quick glance at the thumbnail before I know whether I'm going to bother responding. I always take the time to write back to girls who send something clever my way though - usually just a couple of ancillary details from my profile tied together into a greeting. Back in communication with Eddie Izzard girl. Messaged her a funny, if lengthy account of the 2011 N-E meet where I spent the early hours making a debacle of myself around the streets of London with Charlie. I'm too sexy for my shirt.

They look really really pretty. That's about all they're good for.

I'm sure you'll enjoy it - the moment to moment gameplay is great, and Bioware built a great world. My whole reservation is to do with the fact that to me, it's one of the best experiences I've had this entire generation (and I'm pretty pathological about playing everything I can get my hands on), so I would reccommend people get the whole experience rather than a diminished, if still great one.

I think it only covers greater story points yeah. I agree entirely - watching your actions play out is the thing that gives the story personal significance. Without that, it's just another space opera. For example, the moment when you send Mordin into the shroud and he starts singing a part that you remember from a conversation back in Mass Effect 2 - that kind of thing is what gives the narrative whatever emotional weight it contains. Your friend lost Tali? That fucking sucks, I don't think I could do without her and Garrus.

I don't think there's very much point playing the game unless you've been with the series from the first iteration, simply because it relies on a great amount of holdover information and familiarity with the characters, a large part of which will be crudely glossed over in the summary. You won't really understand how things have a personal significance unless you made the requisite decisions withing the context of a whole playthrough of each of the previous games. It's a little bit of a shame really, because the first Mass Effect isn't on the level of its two sequels at all. There are portions of the game that wouldn't be fun to play at all if it wasn't for the promise of gratification in terms of story. I recommend you just get the games on PC, they're not that demanding in terms of specifications, and go ahead and play the original on easy.

Back to Karkand and Armored Kill are both super good. He might appreciate the former if he used to play Battlefield 2 a lot, since they're redesigned maps from that game.

Wow, nicely done Magnus. Wii, stop being a petulant little cunt, and shut the fuck up.

You'd think Ghibli would be able to hire a copy editor that ensured the title at lease made grammatical sense.

Yeah, I hated the look of Game. I'd get a burning, acrid sensation on my skin every time I walked in. Not sure if that was because of the lighting or because of the absolute blood sucking vampires employed there.

You have finally come of age, young Padawan.

There is no spoon.

What happened to the planned Dinosaurs with guns sequel that they had in the pipeline a few years ago? That sounded like hot shit. As in steamy, effervescent fecal matter.

Killing is... and So Far, So Good are both pretty terrible though. Rust in Peace however...there's no album like it.

Didn't have you pegged as a metalhead dude.

Man, I tried that too. The original Deus Ex is a pretty damn hard pill to swallow these days. I don't believe the original Bioshock will ever feel that way though, because a lot of what was worthwhile about that game came from the ambiance and the environment. System Shock 2 still plays pretty well these days.