Eenuh

Getting a bit annoyed with all this... we are still waiting to hear about our Agreement in Principle... Think it's been two weeks now. They keep coming back asking for more information. Now the broker is asking to send over our credit reports, but I will have to order them from Experian (only £2 each, that's not the issue), but that can take days and then it's not guaranteed we'll get them anyway... And they might come back with questions themselves. Urghhh. The reason we used a broker was to simplify all this mortgage stuff, but at the moment it's all just a big pain.

I have Tropico 5 on Mac and really liked the game. Never got to finish the campaign as Steam managed to erase my game file twice... But I did play the sandbox mode quite a bit! If you like these sort of city building/managing sims (not sure what to call it), then give this a try! It's got a great sense of humour too.

I have to hang my head in shame as a Belgian and say that I don't actually like beer... I prefer white wine and cider to be honest. Though the one type of beer I will drink (and which is hard/impossible to find here I think), is a kriek. Basically it's a beer with specific cherry flavour (the type of cherry is called kriek, hence the name). There are versions with raspberry too I think. It's a lovely beer to have on a warm Summer's day, sitting outside in the sun at a café (Belgian pub). Other than that, I use Leffe Brown to make my Belgian beef stew. I haven't actually tried it yet by itself, but I can tell that it's quite a strong beer. Works great in the stew though!

Nevermind, it has been done!

I am really enjoying it actually, didn't think I would when I started this game! It's definitely a grower. Thought it was very frustrating at the start, but once you figure out the way the game works, it's a great game. It's all about working out a strategy to handle an area and its enemies. If something doesn't work, change your strategy (use different gems on your weapon, wear different attire, run instead of attack, do more evading...). There is no hand-holding in this game, so you pretty much have to figure it out yourself.

I feel like I've been discovering loads of new places in this game, but that might just be an illusion after running around in circles in the Forbidden Woods! :P

I did one in three different places (I think Experian, Clearscore and Noddle), and they all came back with different scores. I know the scores don't mean much but there wasn't much else to look for... Had my electoral roll address fixed on Experian though. But apart from that, not much there... Can't check Jim's on Experian as he's had a trial in the past already. Don't think I could even find him on one of the other sites. We are worried that his names might be causing an issue, which is why Nationwide (where the broker went for our Agreement in Principle) is now checking things manually I think. Fingers crossed that they come back with positive news! Yeah someone we know gave us a name for a solicitor to contact, guess I might ask them what their fees are... and if they know how to do the ISA thing. :P

I think she means she has been waiting 14 weeks already for things to move along? And she said her mortgage offer ends in July I think... Still waiting to hear back about our mortgage. Getting a bit stressful, worried they might deny us because of lack of credit history or something. Also, the mortgage broker told us to already look for a solicitor, but what do you ask them when you don't even have a house yet you plan to buy? "Hi, are you good at being a solicitor? Can you be ours?" :P

I'd like to know that too. :P Though I think he got the enemy confused with the actual NPC I talked to a minute afterwards. But still! Almost got me killed!

That is shit, I thought they would know to do that... I will have to make sure to mention it to our solicitor (need to find one first) when we get a house. We are currently dealing with our mortgage advisor, he is trying to get us an Agreement in Principle. Had to send over lots of documents, apparently it's gone to an underwriter (no clue what that means) so we have to wait and see what happens now. Stuff is getting real though! Thing is I haven't even seen a house yet that I like and that has the things we need for a price we can afford. This is getting frustrating.

As Jim was using my laptop today to do work, I had to find something else to do. Easy decision to make, Bloodborne was put on. For quite a few hours... Oops. :P

Yay, did another boss today!

That looks really nice Shorty! Hope I can have a garden like that when we get a house! It is one of my requirements! Jim can have the garage, but I need my garden! :P We actually had our first chat with a mortgage broker yesterday, nice guy. Think it helped us a bit more to understand what we are getting ourselves into. He is going to find out now what we could possibly borrow, but the estimate he gave us was a bit higher than what we thought we could get, so that's good. Gives us a few more options for houses to look at, though not by much heh. I think our main worry right now is our credit checks, as we haven't built up much of that yet (especially me as I am a dirty foreigner)/might have issues with names. Fingers crossed it all works out fine!

Ah sorry, didn't actually know that. I wonder if that means the UK might get a second print as well...

Not sure if the link I posted even works properly (doesn't seem to for me right now), but here is the limited edition again: Fire Emblem Fates SE You should be able to order it from Amazon.de, however I am not sure what the shipping costs are like. They also seem to have set up a limit of 1 item per customer on there, so no point trying to order more than 1.

I'm not 100% sure, but it seems the SE might still be available on the @S\.C\.G. @Blade

I have no idea what you do in this game, but it looks beautiful (like their previous games) and again the music sounds amazing. I still regularly listen to the soundtracks of both Bastion and Transistor. Interested to see more about this game, though indeed 2017 is still a long way to go! But yeah, their art style is just amazing, makes me wish I could create stuff like that!

He's been checking it almost daily, waiting for the price to come down. Think we'll get it at that price! Thanks.

My poor heart, please calm down.

As Jim has said, I defeated the Cleric Beast yesterday, whooo! I had leveled up a bit and upgraded my armour/clothes, and after stocking up on about 10 molotovs, decided to face him again (this was the 3rd or 4th time, 1st time doesn't really count as I stumbled upon him with no vials left haha). I was so happy I brought along those molotovs, as they really helped! It's basically a case of dodge, dodge, dodge, slash slash slash, dodge again, heal, throw molotov etc. I managed to do it on this try, yay! Heart was beating so fast haha. After that, I spent more time exploring the area, and actually found a lot of doors I could open! Yes! Shortcuts! I'm also stronger now and can handle the guys in the bonfire street, at least if they don't gang up on me. It's just a case of luring them out one by one and killing them. Had some scary moments, with enemies appearing from behind corners (or from above me, in the case of those ugly birds dropping down in the sewer/canal). But the funniest was trying to cross a bridge and having 6 or so guys coming towards me. I threw a molotov at them but then decided to run to a safer distance... only to have a flaming boulder pass right next to me. Scared the shit out of me haha. Will be playing more tonight, see if I can find the second boss and some more shortcuts.

Do you have a 4K tv? Planning to buy the VC headset? Are you bothered by the current framerate games run at? If not, then why would you have to upgrade? We have only had our PS4 a bit over a year, and got our second one not too long ago. We will still be able to enjoy them for a while to come. They are not going to stop making games for it just yet. So you're angry that your PS4 will be "old tech", even though it will still get games, but you're not angry that the Wii U will be old tech either? I am far more annoyed about that to be honest. The Wii U never properly got started, and yet they are already abandoning it for a new console. I wasted money on a console that won't be supported anymore once the new one comes out.

Wow, what's with all the anger? It's not like anyone is being forced to upgrade right now. Especially if this upgrade is meant to mostly be for games to run on a 4K tv... because how many people even own a tv like that? You will still be able to play exactly the same games. They might run better on the PS4K, but then they would also run better on a PC, so what's the difference? Nothing. You are still getting your games. And how is this different from the new Zelda possibly being released on both the Wii U and NX? It's the same, you get the same game, but it will look/run better on the newer console. Yet no one is angry about that? There are always going to be better versions of technology out there, and with the speed things move, it might just happen faster than we are used to. Better get used to it.

Can't you do 2D IMAX? I'm sure that's an option as well, no? I've only been to an IMAX film a few times, and basically it's just a bigger screen you're looking at. :P I usually don't think it's worth the money you pay for it to be honest, but then I also rarely go to watch films in 3D. Think the last one we did was Gravity? Watching it in 3D didn't stop me from enjoying it fully, it just added an extra dimension to the film. But if you are worried about not enjoying 3D, see if they have IMAX 2D.

So yes, I finally started this game, mostly because I didn't have much else to play at the moment (didn't feel in the mood to start the Uncharted trilogy for some reason). I knew it was going to be difficult from having seen @Fierce_LiNk play through this game, and knowing that I am not an amazing gamer, I was bracing myself for the worst. And the worst did come. I could handle the guys when there were only 2 or 3 of them one after another, but once they start teaming up on you, it seems almost impossible to deal with them. I tried many times to sneak past some of them (the bonfire part in the middle of the street), and this would quite often work... but then I would get killed by something else further down the line and have to start all over again. I think I spent about 2 hours going through that first part again and again. I did stumble upon the boss by accident somewhere in those first 2 hours, but I think I only had one blood vial left at that point so I didn't last long. :P The game was getting very very frustrating at this point, I was just getting tired of having to do the same bit over and over again and losing my blood echoes every time (hadn't done any upgrading yet at this point). Eventually, thanks to a tip from Fierce_LiNk, I managed to go all the way around the level and open that door that leads back to the lamp! Hooray, shortcut to the boss! So now I have been farming echoes for a bit and gone up to level 14 or 15. Don't have any armor yet though, do I just buy it from the bath messenger? I will probably try the first boss again tonight, after stocking up on molotovs. Will see how it goes. Probably not going to end well. :P

I've filled in the spreadsheet, but to be honest we don't know yet what our plans are this Summer. Not sure yet if we are going on holiday/going to see my family in Belgium. 30th would work most likely, 13th might be ok (if we go to Belgium, we can go straight from London so that's alright actually). But then we're not sure yet if we're coming anyway so don't pay too much attention to our dates. :P