McPhee

Been meaning to re-play Mirror's Edge. It was a flawed game, but I really liked the concept (it just needed either better gunplay or else no guns). It's a shame the sequel has been cancelled, but not exactly surprising. Hopefully it gets revived some time, or they release an XBLA game focusing on the free-running/time trial aspect with extra levels released from time to time as DLC (i think that could really work tbh).

If it ain't real I don't see it being far from the truth. I'm sure the DNF release will be milked as much as possible. Personally I ain't buying any more CEs after the Fable 3 debacle. It's a cracking CE, but somehow it goes for less used than the retail edition. I'm bored of the game, but unless I want to take <£10 for the game, playing cards and coin I ain't likely to shift it.

Try PingTest.net If you aren't getting any packet loss then yeah, the connection strength of the WiFi doesn't matter. It's only when you drop packets that connection strength comes in to play (stronger connection = fewer dropped packets. It does not = faster connection).

The mods are shite. Was hoping for something worthwhile, but it's all basically character/vehicle skins, rediculously overpowered weapons (1 hit kill, perfect accuracy, instant reload, infinite ammo, no recoil guns) and cheats (god/ghost mode). I was hoping for balanced weapons really, wouldn't mind a larger selection of guns but not if they're going to make combat a bigger cakewalk than it already is. Some texture packs wouldn't have gone amiss either. There's a couple of cloud replacers and a mod that adds all vehicles to the BMD. There's also a mod that's aiming to bring Superman to Panau and other for Ironman. The mods are shite. Was hoping for something worthwhile, but it's all basically character/vehicle skins, rediculously overpowered weapons (1 hit kill, perfect accuracy, instant reload, infinite ammo, no recoil guns) and cheats (god/ghost mode). I was hoping for balanced weapons really, wouldn't mind a larger selection of guns but not if they're going to make combat a bigger cakewalk than it already is. Some texture packs wouldn't have gone amiss either. There's a couple of cloud replacers and a mod that adds all vehicles to the BMD. There's also a mod that's aiming to bring Superman to Panau and other for Ironman.

http://www.getgamesgo.com%2Fcatalogue%2Fgame%2Fjust-cause-2&sref=http%3A%2F%2Fforums.hexus.net%2Fcurrent-bargains%2F198974-just-cause-2-4-99-a.html Just Cause 2, £4.99 at GetGamesGo (Eurogamer). Picked it up last night for £2.49 before they put the price up. Cracking game! It looks absolutely stunning (especially in 3D). Just taking a peek at some of the mods for it now.

I get 2Mbps tops on the landline. Mobile BB with Three tends to be 3-4Mbps. You can bridge the connections, yeah. Tye SIM itself won't limit the number of connections (got mine in a MiFi and can use several devices at once).

Debunked: http://goo.gl/QMET

This: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Original-Broadband-Ready-Preloaded-iPad/dp/B003Z0T3X2/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1297306004&sr=8-1 Along with this: http://uk.webuy.com/product.php?sku=SUSB3G3 Amazon also do a 1GB SIM, but at £4.99 not such a great deal. The 3GB lasts for up to 3 months, the 1GB for only one month.

So... how many years until the inevitable Call of Duty MMO, followed by the scrapping of every other title/franchise apart from World of Warcraft and Call of Warcraft: Universe, some bizarre crossover where you either play some douchebag 'Spec Ops' guy with a pussy heartbeat sensor who spends his days sprinting everywhere while trash talking everyone for no good reason, or some douchebag fantasy creature that wields magic/shoots arrows/kills enemies with his giant sword but never actually does any of those things because all he actually does is stand around chatting to other virtual characters in the hope that one of them will give him the love he desires now that his IRL wife has left him and his mates have forgotten he exists? My guess, 4.

I've never played an Ace Combat game so... no. I've never really bothered with flight sims. Might have a go at this though and will probably pick up Microsoft Flight (the rebirth of Flight Simulator) along with a stick and maybe some other controllers when it launches (hopefully) this year.

Still got room for another two drives anyway, the two SATA III 6Gbps connectors are perfectly fine. The problem only affects SATA II. You can always install a different SATA card with more ports if you even need more that four (highly unlikely given the price of 2TB drives these days, £60!). I think one of my SATA ports has failed. Been having problems with my computer all afternoon, then it wouldn't boot, tried all sorts and wound up reinstalling Windows (which took forever, far longer than normal). It still wouldn't boot. Then it wouldn't POST. Switched the SSD to a different SATA port and suddenly... IT LIVES! Odd, I thought it was supposed to take rougly 3 years of regular use to kill them? It took Intel months of high-stress, high-temperature testing to kill some boards but mine has failed within weeks? Ever feel like your being lied to?

It's the chipset on the motherboards that are faulty, see here; http://www.anandtech.com/show/4143/the-source-of-intels-cougar-point-sata-bug http://www.anandtech.com/show/4142/intel-discovers-bug-in-6series-chipset-begins-recall They're going to recall all motherboards. The plan from there seems undecided yet, but personally I'm expecting a straight swap. I wouldn't be happy with waiting a week or two for them to repair the board and ship it back to me.

General prices. Graphics card and hard drive prices are falling all the time, memory prices are all over the place and there's always new stuff coming out, driving prices down. An nVidia/ATi price war seems to be kicking in to gear at the moment and if AMD's new CPUs can compete with Sandy Bridge then there could be similar stuff going on with CPUs and motherboards. Personally I'd be asking PC Specialist what reason I have to leave my order in place, it doesn't seem that there's much (if any) advantage to doing so. You could ask them to switch you over to the i7 950, an X58 motherboard and 6GB (or 12GB) of RAM (the older i7s use tripple channel memory, you need 3 or 6 sticks of RAM). That should get your system to you faster. It's also possible that they might be able to swap your motherboard for one unaffected by the problems, but you'd need to wait a few days for more details on the problem to trickle through.

Intel have to manufacture new chipsets and ship them off to the motherboard manufacturers, who then have to manufacture new motherboards and ship them out to retail. PC Specialist then have to build your PC. I'd say a conservative estimate, yeah, though I bet you're near the top of the queue for their stock so they might manage it. It's a load of utter wank. Hopefully Bulldozer hits the market soon (and works).

Lame. I'd cancel the order or switch to the old school i7 chips tbh, prices are likely to change over 8 weeks. Last time I buy Intel TBH, got to send my motherboard back come April when the fixed ones are in circulation. Right pain in the ass (though not quite so bad as your delayed order).

CBA to even download the Crysis 2 Xbox demo. I expected it to be crap. It's a tech demo for selling the CryEngine. The single player game should be worth a play through, but the priority is on showing the game engine to it's fullest potential, not on creating the next "Modern Warfare" or "Halo". I'll buy the PC game, but I can't really see the point in an Xbox multiplayer demo.

http://www.mcvuk.com/features/808/OPINION-Retail-vs-Steam That makes for an interesting read. I've started to use Amazon for trade-ins. They give pretty good prices, plus Amazon credit is genuinely useful (especially as a Prime member). If the devs really do get considerably more cash from download sales then I'll move towards that though, as long as pricing is competitive. Gonna thrip this when I get home (on the iPad at the moment), think the discussion is worthy of it's own topic.

Blame Game. Over the past year they've decided that downloads are the devil and will kill their business off if they aren't controlled. They've started to demand that publishers price digital versions of all games at (or near) RRP, threatening publishers with everything from lower chart positions to not stocking the title on any format if any download is priced too low. They've even been demanding that developers drop support for Steamworks, with the promise that if they don't then Game will not stock any titles using it. It's put me off buying from them TBH.

Don't knock it 'til you've tried it Fucks with the eyes something awful though (I hear that eases with time, hope so or the 3D glasses will be going back). Had my 3D gear arrive this morning and so far... Metro 2033 is still 'meh' despite what I've heard. Napoleon: Total War doesn't work in 3D (well, it does, but not everything is 3D so it looks weird). Arkham Asylum looks the shit in 3D though. Bad Company 2 next.

Hasn't this been done to death already?

I'd buy an old-school Nokia phone over the new Symbian handsets TBH. They're well built, but the software (especially the keyboard) is a bit poor. They're a half step up from the likes of Samsung's Tocco and LG's Cookie handsets.

Haven't we always? It's just since the Wii that it's become "cool" to shrug off the value of stunning visuals.

Not that you're shamelessly gloating or anything... :p

Same here. Need to give this monitor a run through it's paces. 24" is HUUUUGE (obligatory "that's what she said" before someone else does).

All hinges on battery life for me. As a portable gaming device 3 or 4 hours of play is perfectly fine, but for browsing the web and using simple apps I'd expect a lot more. That's why I'm happy with the iPad. It lasts freaking ages! Sure, the games aren't that flashy (somewhere between a DS and a PSP at best) but they keep me entertained and I know the battery will last. If Sony want me to buy a PSP2 then they need it to have excellent battery life. It needs to replace the iPad (or the smartphone, but I can't see that), not complement it, because I won't carry a third device with me. I'm already suitably entertained, there's no way I want another device just for some flashy graphics (same goes for the 3DS).