nobler

Rosicky seems to be finding a bit of form at the moment, for pretty much the first time in his Arsenal career. Sort of forgot how good he used to be.

Finished this last night. I would have gone for Platinum trophy but I sort of messed up, not realising that to get one of the trophies you needed to start the game on hard and couldn't be changed during playing. Annoying as I switched over to hard about two hours into it. Can't really be bothered to play through it all again. Anyway, a pretty solid game. A fun adventure for the time you invest into it. I just got to the level cap and missed hundreds of quests/dungeons and more or less an entire zone and faction. After 40 odd hours though, the combat started to get pretty repetitive and I started messing around with various hybrid specs, archmage specs and it sort of ruined it a bit as I started as a rogue, it didnt really feel right... but i felt like I needed to change combat style to just keep me interested. The story was, umm... fairly underwhelming and forgettable, not very interesting. The last boss was just... a joke really. Obviously, don't want to spoil anything, but there's really not much to spoil, it's all very straight forward. I've come across quite negative but I actually had a good time with it and am pleased to have played through it all; a lot of effort has gone into the game and I hear there's a lot of DLC planned in the future: higher level cap, new zones, monsters, quests. I'm not too sure if I'll go back to it though.

These are some scores so far: Eurogamer 10 Game Informer 10 IGN 9.5 CVG 9.4 Giant Bomb 4/5 Distructoid 8.5 Gamesradar 9/10 Gametrailers 9.5 Gamespot 9 I'd like to know how the PS3 version shapes up, as I'm a little torn between that and the PC version. I played ME 1+2 on PC and fancy a change of controls, etc. A bit annoying that it's barely been mentioned at all. IGN didn't mention any extra PS frame rate issues, both PS and Xbox version suffer frame rate drops in heavy combat, but nothing to be put off about. The demo, it seems, was an older script. They did mention a PS 'falling through floor' bug that happened once or twice, but should be easily fixed.

The first time I've said I want McLeish out, but there really is no case any more. Our existence is a misery at the moment. I've never known such negativity in the time I've watched us play. We're often getting tactically outdone later in games, it's becoming a normal thing. Our players are weak minded, the manager has failed to install any confidence in them whatsoever. Football is meant to be fun, about scoring goals and giving fans something to shout and get excited about. I can never see this squad flourishing under him, because in all honesty, I don't think he knows what to do. 6 wins in 27 is astonishing. I want football to be fun again

So depressing it's unreal. Played some decent stuff first half, really had the chance to go all out and give it a good go against a very poor side. I don't know if McLeish directly tells them to sit back and hold onto what they have but we have a serious mental issue here, instilled by him. Something needs to happen to put us out our misery; anything. I can't bear these dour draws and negativity.

Well, least we look like we want to score a goal today.

Blimey! You are a brave man.

Good to see Herd back.

@StanCollymore #AVFC Given Hutton Cuellar Collins Warnock Albrighton Nzog Ireland Gabby Herd Petrov

Looking at the fixtures of other teams, it seems we'll probably just about hobble over the line. We have to play five of the current top seven, whereas most the others have to play about four, but of course we have a nine point advantage and superior goal difference. I only think we'll win one more game this season, but as long as we get a few draws, I reckon 34/35 points will probably be ok. Bolton, however do have a good set of fixtures to get a run of form going. Uh-It's so depressing to talk about this. Our Premier League existence is extremely miserable.

Gabby is captain according to Matt Kendrick.

I'm playing it; around 20 hours in with a full finesse character. It's a strange one. The story is dull, generic, and I'm yet to come across a quest that has made me laugh or kept my attention. The difficulty tuning is also disappointing, I'm playing on hard and yet to die, there have been a few hairy moments against magic user ambushes, but generally it's pretty much a breeze through without much thought and similar enemy attack patterns throughout. All that said, and this might sound crazy as the major fundamentals of the game are a bit bland, but it's somehow really good fun. I've accepted that the story isn't really a thing and I'm taking it for what it is: great combat (you feel like quite a bad ass). As a rogue, the sneaky attacks are pretty satisfying; well thought up talent trees, ridiculous amount of quests and items, strange Irish accents and some excellent artwork and really nice environments to investigate. I'd recommend giving it a go if you've got a load of time - It seems to be quite a huge game.

Like others have mentioned, McLeish is really just the result of a series of catastrophic board decisions over the last few seasons. He's terrible, yes... but we knew this, everyone in football knew this, except our board. He won't be sacked, not after paying compensation to get him. Bizarre decision no. 45738. I honestly think the board will stick with him even if/when he relegates us and what actually would be the point in sacking him? The board have shown to be completely and utterly useless in selecting the right man to take us forward. I fear future appointments could even get worse, if that's even possible. So for me, my anger and frustration lies with the board, more than Mcleish - I don't blame McLeish for taking the job - He's just not very good at managing football teams, not his fault. The board should know this.

Home loss I'm afraid, 1-2

Think we could win this. Won't be too bothered if we don't.

That's a shame, Chindie I'd say stick with it, because you wouldn't have felt many rewarding experiences so far. But of course, that is completely up to you, if you feel it's a chore, I wouldn't bother either, that's not what you play games for. Blight town though is a pain and yes, it's the area of the game that does run rather poor, (the draw distance is insane and probably a little over ambitious) but it's probably the first big test of patience. You can actually take a short cut, like a back entrance from firelink shrine>through londo ruins/valley of the drakes and just take the water wheel straight down to the bottom, straight to Quelaag's domain and skip virtually the entire annoying- mosquitoes/throwing rock dudes and swamp running. A lot of people go back to Blight town later on in the game with higher poison resist, to pick up a few important things from there. Other than that it's not an area you particularly need to visit, after killing Quelaag. After you ring the second bell the game opens up and becomes more of an open world to explore and doesn't guide you in such a way. Also, if you do plan on going back, a great piece of advice would be to pick up the spider shield from the depths, it has great poison resist and completely resists any poison damage at all from dart throwers and those large troll things.

Played the demo - My initial reaction is that it seems like it could be quite a bit of fun, however, it's not remotely original and I wouldn't expect anything ground breaking. It plays exactly like an MMO, but it's single player (collect herbs/profession reagents, MMO style talent speccing, stuff like that) ,the art style is very similar to Warcraft and it's generally very cliche characters/story, etc. That said, the combat is smooth and flows great, tons of special moves and specs to play around with. Lots of button bashing in the early stages but that'll change later on, the combat is sort of feels like God of War.

Kingdom of Amalur looks pretty interesting, could be a surprise hit.

I just feel really sad watching this, how has it got to this state? The wave after wave of hoofing the ball to nothing, no attempt at all to build from the back, keep possession, create space. It's just boot it down the pitch, get it back, boot it back down.

I got: Deus Ex: Human Revolution Bastion LIMBO Portal 2 Tales of Monkey Island (chapters 1 to 5) Some absolutely fantastic offers, really chuffed

It's a funny old game. Magnificent! Everyone deserves praise for the character and belief shown today. Happy New Year all!

You'll be able to finish it Chindie, it honestly isn't that difficult, if you can get through the first few hours, it doesn't particularly get much harder. You may face some frustrating moments in certain places but the game will always encourage you to carry on, even if you might feel a little frustrated. Remember you can take the game at your own pace, there's no limit on when or how you level, so you can even overpower yourself if you feel certain bosses are giving you real problems. You'll put down the pad and the game will pull you back Without going over the top or just being caught up in the general Dark Souls/Demon's Souls thing, I think this has become my favourite game series of all time. I say this for a few reasons, I've probably pumped more hours into it than any game other than an MMO over the last 10 years. Also, I've just gained some weird emotional attachment to it, i'm studying the lore, the way the developers work, been doing a lot of related fan art. The whole experience is just perfect for me. As Chindie just pointed out, there is quite an incredible depth of story in this game but it's not handed to you, you have to seek it yourself and when you do you get quite attached to certain characters, i.e Solaire, I love that dude Big Hat Logan/ the Catarina knights, all producing certain theories to what they represent, etc. I randomly found an entire optional zone while exploring recently too. The great Hollow and Ash Lake, completely blew my mind. I'm still discovering new armour sets and weapons all the time. I'm currently just finishing up my second character playthrough on NG and starting a NG+. There's always so much to do, I haven't began to get remotely bored yet. I'd urge people to get online too, co-op, pvp, whatever - it's a very enjoyable experience. I'm a warrior of the sun atm, so i'm mainly co-oping with people to kill bosses; I'm basically getting my arse handed to me one on one pvp, but i'm sure i'll learn the ropes soon enough. But yeah, I really urge any action/adventure/rpg fan to really give this a go. It's just a modern day masterpiece.

I'm sure it was this version that had a guy called 'Joao Paiva', a 17 year old, Portuguese kid available on a free at the start. I used to buy him for my non league teams and when coached/trained properly he turned out to be an absolute legend. I won the Champions League with Farnborough; definitely my favourite version.

Don't know if I've had too much whisky but I'm tipping us for a draw

I got this for Christmas; not played any of the previous ones but generally have an idea of the characters/story etc. I must say i'm extremely underwhelmed so far. I can't knock the graphics/presentation, they are pretty phenomenal, however, I don't know if i'm missing the point of the game but the depth of gameplay is so thin it's incredible. Everything seems sort of automatic, like you barely have to do a thing and requires no real skill level. The shooting bits are quite sloppy too, which is a surprise. I dunno, I may get more in to it, but I think I prefer games to be games and not films, which it sort of feels like.