Straggler

Finished the main storyline of Valhalla last night. 

So overall conclusion. It was good enough for me to sink 100 hours into to finish it. I can see why people say that it suffers from its size. To get to 100 hours I've probably had the game installed for a year. There are characters that die, than I'm sure are supposed to be impactful, but the cast is so large that often  I can't remember who they are so it falls flat as a moment.

The combat is decent. You can have fun with it. I've seen on this thread it described as better than ghost of tsushima, on that I would disagree. Ghost was more satisfying and technical, which I suppose suits a Samurai game. Valhalla is simpler and brutal, which suits a Viking game. There is nothing in Valhalla that came close to the duals in Ghost though.

A fun enough romp, Odyssey was WAY better too, looking forward to Mirage next.

What really grinds my gears is that there are really excellent pundits out there, but we end up with joyless clearings in the woods like Danny Murphy getting airtime.

As an example I give you Stuntpegg 

A lot of you will remember her from he coverage of Villa when we were in the championship, as she was one of the very few non Villa related channels to actually do the research, watch the games and actually provide some interesting analysis. 

She doesn't stray out of the lower leagues much, which is to her credit as it is clearly a passion project for her. She also appeared briefly on the Wrexham documentary. Her videos are always well researched, full of insight and display a love and understanding of the game conspicuously absent from the average Sky pundit. And she is funny. 

The only thing she does not have is the professional footballing career behind her, but to my mind you really don't need that if you can evidence thoughtful, accurate analysis that fans actually crave as Nieve can. 

There is real quality out there, but we still have to suffer the old boys network of junk on most forms of high profile media. It's the same attitude that allows Gerrard to become a manager. Elevating people to positions beyond their capabilities because of profile and reputation in a different field.

These days I hardly watch the pundits on TV even for the games I'm watching live. Most people watch TV with another device or two Infront of them and I'm no different. At half time I'll mute the TV so I don't have to suffer the 13 minutes of adverts and 2 minutes of bland platitudes. Instead I'll probably be on here or joining a live watch along on YouTube or something.

At the final whistle I'll do similar. Post game analysis I'll watch on YouTube. And MOTD is rendered irrelevant as Sky publish all the highlights pretty quickly anyway. I'm still consuming an awful lot of football content, but very little that involve Danny Murphy, Graham Souness, Micah Richards, Joe Cole, and the rest. They are an awful long way from drawing me back in.

I flipped on my ps5 last night to find that at some point over the weekend I had purchased Mirage whilst tipsy enough to have forgotten that I did it. I was always going to get it but I wanted to finish the Valhalla main storyline first (I am most of the way through, but kept avoiding it as the main person you are supposed to want to rescue is to my mind the most stabbable character in the game).

This is the second game I have ordered this year whilst drunk incharge of a ps5, which is becoming an expensive problem (eafc being the other which sober me was really pissed off at drunk me for).

Anyway I am actually looking forward to jumping into Mirage, but am sticking to my guns and finishing Valhalla first.

51 minutes ago, mykeyb said:

Has everyone given up watching?

Yep, gave up months ago. As an anyone other than Max fan this season has been an unbearable procession.

30 minutes ago, HKP90 said:

I normally do but I was waiting a little before I did it this year as it usually takes them a little while to refine them. Time may be now.

I've been using them for a while now. I found the game as it shipped unbearable. Same as you I had regular 10 goal plus games. If it wasn't for the sliders I would have binned the whole thing off already.

7 hours ago, HKP90 said:

Why can't I defend any more? I've played every iteration of Fifa since 08 on World Class or Legendary, and now I'm conceding 3-4 goals a game, no matter what team I play as, what defending type. Mental. I can usually score 4 or 5 though, making each game a basketball score. 

I played the Beta and had no problems defending at all. 

Wtf?!

Us the Operation Sports community sliders.  They will prevent the cricket scores and will slow the game down significantly.

1 hour ago, ml1dch said:

Why on earth did they think that announcing that they were scrapping a massive piece of national infrastructure would suddenly mean  more people would want to vote for them?

I believe it is a combination of desperation, delusion and simply being wildly out of touch. I can imagine them brain storming how to win back the votes of the British public, but they have so many red lines (some they are conscious of and others they are not) narrowing their options.

The red lines are

1. They cannot build anything. Consciously they know they don't have time, what they won't admit to themselves is that they have none of the will, talent, capability, or motivation to build anything of value to the public.

2. They cannot promise anything. Consciously they know that a promise simply won't move the dial as it will remain intangible. Unconsciously they know that the British public would not believe them anyway.

So they are restricted to cutting or destroying. They can cut taxes, which is the go to Tory tactic, but my bet is they already have that in mind for closer to the election and need to keep that powder dry. 

So what do they have to aim at to destroy that they think the public hate that they have not already had a massive go at? HS2 is going to be on that list. It is expensive, it probably polls as unpopular and the bit they won't admit to themselves, they have no idea how to deliver it so would love to have it off their theoretical to-do list.

So there you go, they sit in a room and talk themselves into believing that binning off HS2 is the best option they have. They lack the intelligence, insight and care to know it won't work combined with the narcissist tendancy to believe that any decisions they make must be good ones. The surprise it didn't work is the same surprise that Liz Truss had that her economic vision didn't work. It is the consequence of unearned confidence meeting reality.

There is a lot wrong with this game. I didn't intend to buy it, but one night I accidentally drank a bottle of wine and woke up to find it downloaded. 

The game breaking when you try and fire a coach is unforgivable. The disrespect this shows to EA's customers that they released with this very obvious bug in a headline new feature is overwhelming.

Fortunately the coaching feature adds so little to the actual gameplay that not using it makes no noticeable difference.

The player models are weird now. Everyone has been to the gym and have massive upper bodies. I would have said in previous generations that the player models were a little skinny for some of the larger guys, but EA seem to have overcompensated and turned everyone into cartoon superheros.

There are so many visual bugs that I can't mention them all, but a few notable ones are....

Invisible players on the pitch (doubles up as a gameplay bug and another absolute shocker from EA)

Handing over the match ball to a hatrick scorer fails so the player walks away holding a ball that isn't there.

When it's raining, during the halftime cut scene it is still raining on the manager whilst inside the changing room.

The news feed occasionally features players that are clearly time slipping like Loki or extras from Jacobs Ladder.

Transfer cut scenes frequently feature players showing off a generic placeholder club shirt not that of the club they are joining.

I've done some pretty shameful things whilst drunk and buying this game is up there with the worst. EA made the decision to release this broken sack of shit whilst stone cold sober. They should have to do the walk of shame. What a bunch of spunk trumpets they are.

I'm happier now they have released the audio. It brings no satisfaction regarding that one decision, but I am happy that the substandard decision making process that I suspected was there is in fact the case. It seems the main reason the live process isn't broadcast is because the officials don't want to expose how bad they are at their job. This goes right to the top, it is not a matter of knowing the rules, it is organisational, process, training, communication. There isn't really an excuse for how badly handled this moment was. Yes it was human error, but given the time, money and experience that has been plunged into VAR the atmosphere and confusion evident in the audio should not be possible.

I don't feel sorry for them at all. Calm decision making under pressure is the job description. Loads of professions do this sort of thing every day. Think of a Dr working in A&E. The actual consequences of a poor decision from VAR in the big scheme of things is hardly life or death, there is no excuse for any hint of rushing. It should be calm, precise and clearly communicated.

If they were confident in their work and their processes there would be no problem with having them visible. At the moment it looks like the lack of scrutiny has allowed them to build an organisation that is fundamentally flawed.

No booking for the late challenge on sjm?

Has Labour even committed to repealing the voter ID laws? I can see a few comments from them saying perfectly correctly that it is voter suppression, but all I can see from Starmer is that he refused to be drawn on the issue. 

I'm really not a fan of calling something undemocratic but then being a bit vague if you would do something about it.

7 hours ago, Seat68 said:

Matt Berry, being very Matt Berry from the latest series of What We Do In The Shadows

 

I fricking love this show. The Go flip yourself episode had me rolling with laughter.

32 minutes ago, choffer said:

Right lads. We kill @Straggler first. Sounds like he has all the kit we need to survive. 

I've got enough for one of you, you'll have to hunger games it to see who gets to keep it all.

I thought VT would be a hive of useful skills! I love wild camping so I can do all sorts of simple skills. Probably the most useful is making a fire with several different techniques from bow drill to magnifying the sun using just a clear plastic bag and water. I can make all sorts of rudimentary shelters and I'm pretty handy with a bow and arrow for hunting (although I've never shot at anything living I have taken loads of hours of classes). I've never done the butchery job on anything other than fish but I'd give it a stab. Oh yeah, I can fish too, but I am a bit crap at it. I seem to just slowly feed fish bait from the end of a hook, but I'll get the odd one in and I know in theory where to look.

I also already have most of the gear I need to survive in the wild, although I could really do with a decent axe.

So yeah I think I'd be useful, but I do have a bad back so I'm not carrying the rest of you lot.

On 11/08/2023 at 13:50, hogso said:

Bear **** simulator 3

It is undeniably a bit of a horney game

Baldur's gate 3 looks absolutely fantastic. If you like RPG dice rolling games it looks genre defining.

6 hours ago, omariqy said:

Since I have been playing games since the Commodore 64/Mega Drive days there has always been at least 1 good football game to play. Or at least a passable game to enjoy. Seems like this will be the first year where there is nothing on offer.

I know how you feel. It all started for me with Match of the day on my zx spectrum, which I know dates me horribly. I love playing football games, but EA seem to be doing their best to turn me off. I was going to start a new thread for the new game, but realised I just don't care enough to be bothered.

Seen the "deep dive" on the EAFC career mode. A few new cut scenes and doubling down on those god awful training drills. it literally could not be worse for me. At the time of writing this game is a hard pass for me.

Bless, he just saw that X Twitter user was massively popular and this is where we ended up.

6 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

I’m currently working from a little independent coffee shop with my ipad open for all outside to see I’m an important undiscovered novelist.

I feel so seen right now.

21 hours ago, rodders0223 said:

It was Asia iirc and some other task to do with signing Englishmen. I've loaded the save 3 times and nothing I can do will stop the sack. Signed 5 English free transfers and it is inevitable.

What a stupid **** game.

You need to give them a crucial role at the club to get it ticked off, signing them isn't enough. 

37 minutes ago, Enda said:

One argument for Brexit was the Global Britain brand, in all its rocket polisher glory focusing on the whole world rather than Europe. Beat ‘em at their own game they said. Get the best of the best they said.

Meanwhile, in the real world…

My American Green Card cost about $7k all in. I think the equivalent cost for Irish visas is about €800. Now the UK are making it £20,000. The Tories are intentionally making it very, very difficult for normal high-skilled people to move to the UK.

Let’s call a spade a spade. Brexit has always been about making Britain white again.

Sorry but I've been on the appropriate training and a spade is in fact a Manual loose materials and earth relocation facilitation implement. The MLMERFI as it is often abbreviated to.

2 minutes ago, one_ian_taylor said:

Can you imagine? Dr Tony on steroids

Getting the richest person on earth as Chairman and worrying for the future of the club. That would be weird.

14 minutes ago, jacketspuds said:

This.

Please can we stop signing players that want to get married or have a holiday.

Agreed.  Wanting to get married shows worryingly poor decision-making.

If you are a soldier is he really a guy you would want in the trenches with you?