Will

I don’t know, the only competition the Mercedes have is each other, and Hamilton looked faster for the most part today. Won’t take much for him to be back in it.

What a great race! So much action in the last third and impossible to know what was going to happen right until the end. I think this sets us up for a great season.

Well this safety car will make things interesting. Albon on the soft tyres has a car that could really cause the Mercedes some trouble.

Yeah, didn’t expect them to be coming together so soon. The Ferrari really is a dog of a car this year. Looks like the Mercedes have called off the racing and are just cruising to the end. They really are way ahead but it’s good to see how close everyone else is.

Brilliant moves from Vettel. Can totally understand why Ferrrari didn’t even bother offering him a renewal.

As a huge non-fan of his I’m not too upset by this development.

I guess somebody on the stewards panel is a fan!

Oh ok! I haven’t seen that reported anywhere. I’m very jealous!

Sorry, I think we managed to post at exactly the same time, you’re right too. I still think it will be a Mercedes 1-2, but will be interesting to see how it develops. @londragon - do you have to suffer Fox Sports coverage too?

I don’t think that’s the case. If they’d deleted the lap time and used his previous time he’d have still been 2nd wouldn’t he?

What doesn’t make sense to me is why they didn’t have that information when they made the first ruling. I’m not sure why they wouldn’t just delete the time rather than keep it and give a grid penalty though. Got to make this a great chance for Bottas to take the win.

I stand corrected! Had no idea that it had sold out. I agree with you guys that the Pocket probably isn’t coming out this year, which is a shame. Was planning to get one for me and one for my Dad for Christmas. @Ike - I’ve been thinking of buying some of the upgrades and self modding a gameboy too. I’ve been casually looking for a gameboy pocket in the DMG orginal colour scheme to do it with but haven’t managed to find one. Think it would be a fun project but I’m not sure I’d have the required skills.

It does look awesome but yeah, $500 is not something many people will pay. I wish they would give an update on what’s going on with the Pocket - that one I’m very interested in picking up.

3D Platformer I think with this one I could have gone for any of the main line Mario games. I have played every single one of them to completion and more often than not to 100%. They’ve all added a unique thing that seems perfect and, to me, I’d happily pay for a Nintendo system just to play the Mario game for it. In the end I’ve gone for Mario Galaxy, really fit the Wii controller well, great music, and just an awesome gameplay experience.

I think you might be right on that one. They seem so far ahead right now I could see them winning every race.

Favourite Villain I think for this I have to go for a video game classic, and pick Dr Robotnik. I always liked the general design of the character and the use of his gadgets that allowed him to constantly evolve throughout a game made him always feel fresh. I also quite like the fact that it makes zero sense that he’s even part of the Sonic universe, yet somehow is totally essential to it.

Moved over to the English dub of Dark and it did improve how well we could follow things, will carry on watching with it. I have to say the quality of the English dub is pretty bad though. The translation is not consistent with the subtitles and I can only assume they chose the voice actors with a dart board. Not only do the voices not seem to match the characters but they are totally the wrong age. Every character sounds like an early 20’s American college student. I suppose I shouldn’t complain given I’m the one choosing to watch it like this, but it would be nice if they’d put a bit more effort into it.

Well I hope the other teams were running very different programs. That Mercedes looks effortlessly fast from the practice sessions.

Yeah I think this was the last Mario Kart where you could really screw someone over. Hitting that lightening just as someone got to the jump in Wario Stadium was a thing of beauty. We’d often end up having a mini battle mode at the bottom of the ramp or watching a leader cower in fear as they try to outsmart the lightning holder. This was very almost my choice too.

Oh I didn’t mean to be humble about it at all, I was amazing at that game. I’m fairly sure that had e-sports been a thing back then I’d have been the world champion of Goldeneye. Of course I haven’t played in years so nobody could possibly put that to the test anymore.

Local Multiplayer Another one where I’m a little torn as to what to go for. One thing I’m certain of, however, is that this one has to be an N64 title. I went to a boarding school and a few people had the console, which meant there were enough controllers around for us to always use the console to it’s fullest and play 4-player. 4 player! It was a total revelation at the time and actually I think having four controller ports was the best thing about that machine. I have no idea how many hours I put into that console, and the vast majority of play would have been on a handful of multiplayer titles. So which game to pick? In the end I think I have to give it to Goldeneye. Such a fantastic FPS which we hadn’t really had on console up to that point, and the multiplayer was just sublime. We had all of the cheats unlocked and would play through pretty much every mode available. We also had a handicap system where character heights would be selected based on skill level. I was ALWAYS Jaws.

Almost time for the first session! Can’t wait to finally see some action on track. I expect a lot of people will get out there and do a lot of laps to get back into the swing of things.

That’s interesting, I do remember liking the setting of 4 I could just never get into it for whatever reason. What did you think of the earlier 3D games in the series? At the time I loved GTA3 and Vice City, and San Andreas was awesome but maybe I had less time by then and so don’t remember it as fondly. I decided to run through them again a few months ago and found that now GTA3 for me is by far the most enjoyable, I could probably quite happily play through that once a year on a new system.

Six years and nine months after I first started playing it, I just watched the credits roll on GTA5. I've just been playing a couple of hours each day on a new save, not really worried about getting to the end and just enjoyed whatever I felt like at the time. Such a good experience, I wasn't a huge fan of 4 and don't think I ever completed it, but this one I felt like it was my expected progress from GTA3 and it's sister titles. Such a rich world with so much to see and do, I could enjoy just being in the world for hours at a time. It will probably be the last game I get to focus on for a while, now that lockdown are being lifted and life starts to go back to normal. It has made me want to free up a bit more personal time to get back into gaming a little though.

I think it counts, I almost went for specifically this too, considering it to be the ending of the opening phase that sets you out on your main adventure. The big hit of that music is still one of my all time favorite gaming moments.