Daweii

In the middle of pre-loading this game now. I'm not all that excited. I played it for about an hour at EGX and wasn't that impressed, but most of that was the shit frame rate which I hear has been fixed somewhat. So I will be playing it tomorrow like many many others, but my expectations are super low right now.

Sounds like a very in depth update with far more going on that the trailer let on. I am glad that they did acknowledge the base/travel issue by allowing the player to teleport to base from any Space Station. That's neat. I will give it a try at some point this week and see if it's worth diving back into properly.

It's main selling point is it's modularity. You can change and customise the controller pretty extensively. You don't just get the controller when you buy it. You also get 6 different thumb sticks (2 standard, 2 tall, 2 domed), 4 paddles for the back which can be mapped to anything on the controller and Trigger locks so you can fire faster in shooters that support them. The entire internal construction is metal so vastly more durable this includes metal triggers, bumpers, thumb stick stems and d-pad. On top of that you can fine tune everything about the controller. It has a built in memory profile allowing you to store two presets. So say you play Call of Duty and Forza a lot you can map each game to a profile and switch profiles on the fly at the click of a button. These controllers are for the enthusiast gamer or at least the gamer that manages to break controllers a lot. The Elite Controller is nigh on indestructible and offers a plethora of in-game advantages to boot. It's expensive, but that is the enthusiast market in a nutshell.

For those interested in checking it out. The Foundation Update is now live for everyone that owns No Man's Sky. The trailer below not only shows off the update in great detail (it's huge), but it also shows a change in marketing style. There is more information in this 6 minute trailer than Hello Games divulged for the entirety of the main game. If anything good came from their colossal fall from grace it's that they are a way more transparent company than before.

I still own the game. Base building likely won't bring me back though because base building goes against the point of the game. The whole point of No Man's Sky is exploration, but because solitary planets don't offer enough diversity to stay on just one there purpose is solely for harvesting. The game is built around warping from system to system never seeing previous planets again. If I was to build a huge base on a planet only to warp 25 systems away, I am never coming back to that planet meaning I just wasted my time. So I am glad they are still working on something in No Man's Sky, but base building seems like the most pointless thing to add into a game like this.

On Amazon right now (while stocks last); Battlefield 1 [PS4/Xbox One] - £32 Call of Duty Infinite Warfare (Amazon Exclusive Edition) [PS4/Xbox One] - £32.99 Destiny: The Collection [PS4/Xbox One] - £19.99 Dishonored 2 [PC DVD] - £24.99 Dishonored 2 [PS4/Xbox One] - £29.99 FIFA 17 [PS4/Xbox One] - £29.99 Fallout 4 [PC] - £9.99 Fallout 4 [PS4/Xbox One] - £12.99 Metal Gear Solid V: The Definitive Experience [PS4/Xbox One] - £19.99 The Division [PS4/Xbox One] - £15.99 Titanfall 2 [PC - Code In Box] - £24.99 Titanfall 2 [PS4/Xbox One] - £28 Watch Dogs 2 [PS4/Xbox One] - £32.99 I am sure there are even more great deals on Amazon. These are merely the highlights. At HMV right now (while stocks last); Titanfall 2 [PS4/Xbox One] - £19.99 Gears of War 4 [Xbox One] - £22.99 At ShopTo.net right now (while stocks last); The Elder Scrolls: Special Edition [PS4/Xbox One] - £29.99 Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor - Game of the Year Edition [PS4/Xbox One] - £13.86 DOOM [PS4] - £15.85 (No Xbox One version in the sale unfortunately) Mad Max [PS4/Xbox One] - £13.85 Far Cry: Primal [PS4/Xbox One] - £16.85 Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection [PS4] - £22.85 Uncharted 4: A Thief's End [PS4] - £22.85 Be sure to check out ShopTo.net for more. These are merely the highlights. On Steam right now (until 29th November); Just Cause 3 [PC] - £9.99 Far Cry: Primal [PC] - £19.99 Far Cry 4 [PC] - £12.49 South Park: The Stick of Truth [PC] - £5.99 The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim [PC] - £3.29 The Elder Scrolls Online: Tamriel Unlimited [PC] - £6.59 Grand Theft Auto V [PC] - £19.99 Batman: Arkham Knight [PC] - £12.50 Saints Row 4 [PC] - £2.74 Grim Dawn [PC] - £11.99 There are hundreds more but those are just some of the highlights. Anyone on PC check out Steam as it kills it year on year, multiple times a year for deals not just during Black Friday.

C:\>CHKDSK /F by Master Boot Record This album is so loud and brash. There are no vocals just incredibly moody and dark soundscapes. It's the kind of music that makes me feel like I'm in some dystopian sci-fi nightclub. While this isn't for everyone, those that like Metal or more aggressive sounding Dance music may like this.

Battlefield 1 destroyed it. That said it didn't help launching so close to Call of Duty either. Yes Infinite Warfare sales were down 50% from Black Ops 3 yet it was still the 2nd highest selling game of the year behind FIFA 17. Not even Battlefield 1 came close in sales to the weakened Call of Duty brand, so Titanfall 2 was off to a loss being book-ended by those two giants of gaming.

Scorpio won't be scaled back I can say that with a fair bit of confidence. The Xbox One S was slightly overclocked and in games like Project CARS those on Xbox One S are running that game at 60FPS. Those on the standard three year old Xbox One are getting 50FPS in the same game. Microsoft understand the whole PC mentality of gaining advantage through merely having better hardware, I don't see them scaling back Scorpio unless there is legitimate reason for it. Now there are legitimate reasons for scaling performance back; The game may break when ran at vastly higher frame rates depending how it was coded and designed. Some games tie the physics engine to the frame rate so faster frame rate breaks the game. Some games with an unlocked frame rate cause GPU overheating when running at excessive frame rates. Those are reasons to scale back and some games may need this as Scorpio is 4x more powerful than Xbox One it's a huge upgrade. I mean this thing is practically 2x more powerful than PS4 Pro. That said if history has shown anything Microsoft won't scale anything. They let the Xbox One improve Xbox 360 games which offers advantage online against a kid playing on an Xbox 360 still. Not to mention the aforementioned Xbox One S which also isn't scaled back in any game it runs better.

Yeah the latest update has scaled back performance during multiplayer in BF1. I personally think a lot of this was likely mandated by Sony after it was discovered the hardware advantage was there. DICE likely made a deliberate decision to give PS4 Pro players a frame rate advantage. So it is concerning that Sony don't seem to know what their plans are for this system.

It's Nintendo's worst selling console not counting the Virtual Boy which failed primarily because it gave it's owners migraines. Wii U started off strong it sold 4-5 million units in its first month on sale. It's issue is in the 4 years that have followed where it has sold an additional 8 million. Wii U's total is at 13 million after 4 years which is only just better than the Dreamcast which was classed a huge failure. To compare Wii U to Nintendo's other output; NES - 61 million SNES - 49 million N64 - 32 million GameCube - 21 million Wii - 101 million Wii U - 13 million Now Nintendo have always had rather middling sales in the home console space. I mean until the Wii their sales were in decline generation on generation. The Wii changed things but solely because they sold their soul aiming the system to Mom, Dad and Grandma which was neat but it paints a false narrative somewhat. The Wii may actually be part of Wii U's downfall as the Wii burned so many bridges with their loyal fan base and it seems very few came back. Comparing Wii U to other Gen 8 consoles the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. The PlayStation 4 in 3 years is on 47 million shipped, almost approaching what the SNES did in 10 years worth of sales. The Xbox One largely considered the "failure" of the Gen 8 sales wars is on 23 million in 3 years. So even compared to its sales rivals it's not stacking up well at all. Will this have an impact on the Switch? It depends on if the Wii did permanent damage to their loyal fan base. There were lots of people that were Nintendo through and through burned by that system. So it'll be interesting. Initial hype suggests that the Switch may do well, but among gamers the Wii U had a fair bit of hype as well and that tanked pretty fast.

Survivor Series this year was really good. Some great matches on the card with some very interesting and surprising finishes.

Agreed. I have had the album playing much of the weekend it is really great stuff. What I love about it is that the band sound comfortable in their own skin again. The album isn't trying to be anything from their past which is where 'Death Magnetic' fell short. The album is almost a love-letter to their past acknowledging it while not trying to replicate former glories. 'Hardwired...To Self-Destruct' is an album that has tracks on it that encompass their past so well. 'Hardwired' is absolutely 'Kill Em' All' era Metallica, but then two tracks later you have 'Now That We're Dead' which is 'Load/Reload' era with Black Sabbath style chunky riffs. The whole album has moments where it feels like you're listening to any Metallica album from 1983 to 1997 yet it never sounds forced. I love 'Hardwired...To Self-Destruct' it is like you said their greatest work in 20 years. I just hope we don't have to wait another 8 years for the follow up.

Maybe I'm just tired but I stopped watching The Grand Tour at around the 50 minute mark. I was enjoying it until the time wasting happened with the drawn out skit with the guests. I will watch next week though as maybe that one will be better. That said it may just be because I'm tired and have very little patience for a show dragging on.

It's in limbo right now. 4-days ago Eurogamer's Digital Foundry claimed that their testing gave PS4 Pro users a 47% frame rate advantage in scenarios where the engine is under stress. Since then the 1.04 patch for BF1 has gone live which has seemingly removed any advantage in multiplayer for PS4 Pro users. Performance gains are still there in single player, but Digital Foundry need to do more extensive tests to know for sure. Personally if DICE or Sony have limited the PS4 Pro version because of an advantage I'm not impressed. I come from a PC background where skill counts for a lot, but also how much money you have is a factor. If someone has a 240Hz monitor and can play at 240FPS they have an advantage over me, but fair play they spent the cash to enjoy the game better than me. So hopefully this is just a messed up patch that wasn't meant to limit PS4 Pro performance cause it's not great form to artificially limit a system.

C'MON Villa!!!

Are we seriously questioning Bruce's decision after our form under him? If he thinks that starting eleven will win then I trust him. If it doesn't win then questions can be asked...

See this sounds scary but it just isn't. The logistics of such a device make it incredibly limited. I mean this isn't a USB stick so you can't really perform a USB drop attack with it meaning physical access to a device is required. Now that brings up the issue of how do you use this? In public just sitting down at a random Laptop that isn't yours may work, but likely isn't going to work most of the time. Is this more of a business attacking device? Perhaps, but you would have to choose your target wisely as most places network security would foil such an attack, provided that business even allows their employees to use USB drives so the ports could be inactive. The form factor stops this being effective. Now this tech condensed into a USB stick could be concerning as then hackers could start mass producing these drives and dropping them all over the place. Though even then there are devices like USB Kill which fries the motherboard upon insertion, but no one uses them in a USB drop attack or in coffee shops either so I'm just not sure the threat is there with this tech. It would be more effective as a USB stick in a standard USB stick sized format as there are still people that will plug in lost and found USB sticks, less people I hope would plug in a weird looking credit card with a wire coming out of it.

So Persona 5 has been delayed until April 2017.. I am actually rather happy about that as it was coming out in February with like 6 other big games. So to have that month free'd up a tiny bit is great and April needed an extra game anyway..

2017 is gonna be a great year. I have a high hopes that it will be one of the better years in gaming as 2016 just wasn't all that great really. As for games I am looking forward to? There are quite a lot actually; I had to spoiler them in the end as this post would have been a page long otherwise. There are loads of games I am excited for next year. I have played 'Tekken 7', 'Yooka-Laylee', 'For Honor', 'Halo Wars 2', 'Sniper Elite 4' and 'Nioh' already so I know those are going to be epic, but the rest are hopefully going to be great as well. Looking forward to 2017 a great deal I must say.

What a hard list to make!! I think a lot of my list will be nostalgia driven and not an accurate representation of my actual Top 10. There are so many games that could make this list so let's get started; Jetpac (ZX Spectrum) Commander Keen (MS-DOS) DOOM [1993] (PC) Tomb Raider [1996] (PC) Zelda: Ocarina of Time (N64) Metal Gear Solid (PS1) Counter-Strike 1.6 (PC) Diablo II (PC) Star Wars Galaxies (PC) Bloodborne (PS4) Notable mentions that got left out; There are so many games I could list. I haven't really included anything super recent apart from Bloodborne solely because I think age truly tells us what is great and what isn't. Any game that is still amazing 10, 20, or even 30 years on is truly great and maybe in 10 years some of the games released in the last 5 years will make the list then.

Just started the tutorial in EVE. It'll be my first time playing EVE since it launched like 13 years ago, I am so glad it has a tutorial now as I have no idea how to play the game these days.

I will get it for that price. I just hope it has a fair selection of games at launch as with Zelda now not a launch title I don't know what it's launching with anymore.