Ginko

Well, I guess unless we start playing some better football and winning more games next season then it won't matter how many Villa shirts Macron get into shops around the world. If you lived in a foreign country, watched the Premier League and had no ties to a particular team through family or otherwise, based on the last couple of seasons would you choose to buy a villa shirt and support us? I don't think I would.

Ah well it's not for everyone and considering games have come on a lot since 1997 I could understand if you were put off somewhat. If you wanted to give a more modern Final Fantasy a go, I'd definitely choose FFX on the PS2. The graphics aren't HD obviously but they're still really good, especially the cutscenes. The story is good and the battle system is one of my favourites in the series too. It has an awesome little minigame called Blitzball (the first game you ever play is very hard to win, but it is doable, if you lose though it's not really that important). You might like FFXIII and XIII-2, but they don't really feel like Final Fantasy games to me. Also there's a ridiculous amount of detail in the story, far too much in fact, and a lot of it is conveyed in long, drawn out text to read. It seems like something new pops up every 30 seconds and it can get very annoying. It split up the gameplay too much for me, I ended up getting bored. Of course you don't have to read it if you don't want to I suppose. That wasn't the only bad thing about it though, but others have mentioned it in this thread. I don't really like the story as a whole, or the characters, or the battle system really although it grows on you. I'd say give FFX a go though if you can. EDIT - FFX is getting a HD remake sometime soon, it doesn't have a release date yet but it's going to be available on PS3, yet another reason to buy the console.

Ah thanks, I did see the gamefaqs and IGN guides so I'll look into them too when I start on VII again. I'll do it after I get all the endings for Catherine. That sucks about your save game though. Always make a copy! You learned the hard way My mate stupidly lent out his copy of FFVII to another one of our friends and then forgot about it. When he finally remembered a year and a half later, it turned out the guy he lent it to had traded it in because he thought it was his. Dumbass. One of the greatest things about working in Game when I was 17 was that I got first dibs on the pre-owned games that came in. I got FFVII,VIII and IX that way, good times.

Ugh, I have so many games still to play and you guys really aren't helping. Now I want to go and do another playthrough of this, but this time I want to get it all. I'll have to get a torrent of the Strategy Guide. Damn you all.

I just finished watching Troll Hunter, I didn't enjoy it very much. Maybe I just didn't get it but it was like it was trying to be a documentary, but it was so clearly fake, I mean the CGI was good don't get me wrong, but it was still obviously CGI. So yeah, mixed feelings on it really, I don't think it really knew what it wanted to be as a film. Maybe I was taken off-guard though, I didn't know anything about the film when I bought it, I assumed it was a normal film and not a 'Blair Witch-esque' piece. Overall, it was just a bit too silly for my tastes. EDIT - Well I just researched it a bit on the internet and it doesn't seem to take itself very seriously. It also uses famous Norwegian comedians so I guess the Norwegian audience would have understood and not tried to take it quite so seriously. Either way, I still thought it was a bit rubbish.

Ha nope, I thought the exact same thing, we used to use those gradient effects when I was in school back in the 90's!

Really? I'd say VII is generally considered to be the best of the franchise and by many the greatest videogame to date.

Both Demon's Souls and Dark Souls are well worth a purchase, they're unlike anything you'll play for a while, guaranteed. I really love the control scheme, even though the movement is a bit sensitive and it's far too easy to fall off of walkways, but the fighting mechanics are brilliant. I wouldn't say the games are hard, I'd say punishing is a better word. If you go in hell for leather then you'll get your ass handed to you, if you go in very carefully and prepared, you still have a good chance of dying against some of the enemies, but you'll learn from it and you'll get them next time. That's not to say the game isn't frustrating at times. One time I was playing Demon's Souls on The Tower of Latria's second stage. This can be a tough level because there's a lot of narrow walkways and big drops (and also has the hardest boss in the game according to many players). Without going into too much detail (the people who have played this level will know what I'm on about), I effectively got right near to the end of the level before the boss and was moments away from creating a shortcut, meaning I could return to the Nexus, dump a load of items and souls, and then head back and go more or less straight to the boss of the level without having to go through the entire level all over again. Well, unfortunately, the way to unlock this shortcut is up a tall tower with a lift. I went up the lift, got a bit complacent and a Gargoyle flew at me. I lunged a bit too far and fell down the tower where the lift had been. I had to do the entire level all over again. The moral of the story is, if you ever feel yourself getting cocky or complacent when playing these games, then check yourself before you wreck yourself.

XIII was the first one on the 360. You'll need a PS2 or PS3 to play IX (you really should it's awesome), X (you really should it's awesome) and XII (I haven't played it, I heard good things but Chindie knows his stuff more than I do and he said earlier in the thread he didn't like it). XI was online only I think, I didn't play it and didn't miss out from what I read.

I know what you mean, he does look a little underwhelming, especially how he is portrayed in the recent series of Arkham games by Rocksteady and a lot of people will have played those and be used to that iteration of the character. The Nolan series of Batman films are very much set in the real world though and have more realistic characters, so it doesn't surprise me they went for a more realistic Bane. If they had to CGI him to make him as humungous as he is in the comics it wouldn't really fit in with the style of the other films in my opinion.

You might be right, but every little helps. To be fair, I had a little accident in the same year which was my fault so a few weeks ago I did some insurance quotes from a few places and it shot down by about £100 when I took off the SP30 and the accident. I always thought speeding fines were taken off after 4 years but every insurance quote I've done has asked me for any incidents in the last 5 years. Either way, it'll be cheaper. The accident increases the quote way more than the SP30. Also, they can ask about last 5 years but they cannot increase your insurance on a spent conviction, your SP30 is exactly that - spent Ah fair enough, thanks for the info. A little off-topic, but the accident I had was a little unfair too. I was to blame in the strictest sense since I drove into the side of the other car on a very small crossroads in a built up area with limited visibility and cars parked all over the place, but the woman driving was definitely driving closer to 40mph so she was speeding. Ah well, it's in the past.

You might be right, but every little helps. To be fair, I had a little accident in the same year which was my fault so a few weeks ago I did some insurance quotes from a few places and it shot down by about £100 when I took off the SP30 and the accident. I always thought speeding fines were taken off after 4 years but every insurance quote I've done has asked me for any incidents in the last 5 years. Either way, it'll be cheaper.

I got caught by the police doing 40mph in a 30mph residential area. They were there parked on the drive of a house around a blind corner just after a mini-roundabout pointing the speed gun at any cars coming round. I got 3 points and a 60 quid fine and not a mention of any course, unless that's something that's only been in effect for the last couple of years? It'll be 5 years ago since the incident in April this year so finally it'll be off my insurance at least. The thing that really pissed me off the most was that 2 weeks earlier this bell-end I knew had just passed his test and decided it'd be funny to overtake me doing 80mph in a 40mph zone in the same town I got caught in. The police pulled him over and let him off with a warning! There's no justice.

So you truly think that Randy appointed McLeish with the hope that he would fail just so the fans would direct their animosity towards the manager and not his self? Sorry, not buying it. Aside from the fact that Lerner couldn't know for sure at the time that McLeish would be a failure (although his track record would strongly suggest he would be), I don't think Randy and the board would be dumb enough to think that the fans wouldn't think they were responsible for appointing him in the first place. Ridiculous.

Or that McLeish was the only manager who fulfilled the "must have Premier League experience" requirement who would take the job under the restrictions Lerner and co. specified.

I said no. I've never thought he was a good manager even before he came here. The players don't seem to buy into his vision and even though defending against Man City for long periods was inevitable and the team held up pretty well, it wasn't the right way to go about it in my opinion. I also have no faith in his abilities in the transfer market. Even though the managerial pool isn't exactly brimming with people I'd be excited to see here (I think Rafa would be the only one who might come here that I would be happy to see somewhat), I think just by getting rid of him and getting someone else in would have a positive effect on the club right now.

I was Villa mascot in 1999. We played Hull City in the FA Cup Third Round. During the warm-up I had a kickabout with Stan Collymore and Gary Charles and they both told me what a great left foot I had. Years later when I was at university I tthen saw Stan shopping in Tesco in Stafford with his mum, but he didn't recognise me. I haven't seen Gary Charles since that day though. I wonder what he's doing nowadays... didn't he do something rather drastic in his car?

Defending a goal lead better than defending a nil-nil but neither of them are good game plans. The Villa fans know this to be the case, the amount of times over the last few years that we have defended 1-0 leads for the majority of games only to eventually crumble under the pressure, it doesn't bear thinking about. It simply isn't a good gameplan for any football club to invite pressure on, it's incredibly risky, especially for a club like ours at the moment where our defence are atrocious and costing us from an alarming amount of stupid mistakes. Aside from that, and granted I know we were playing Man City today, but we were the home team, and the fans are all against Mcleish already. It's hardly the right time to go out and play defensive, especially when you've been throwing out various quotes to the media rubbishing that you're a defensive manager. Believe it or not, most Villa fans knew the chances of us winning today were slim. Mcleish could have at least made fewer enemies by going out and having a go. Norwich and Swansea go out and have a go for crying out loud, look where it gets them.

I can't believe he just said all of that in his post-match interview. The proof is there now, he admitted it was his game-plan. Absolutely atrocious, I know it was Man City we were playing but we were the home team. Disgraceful. Sky are also disgraceful. They really only give a crap about the title chase don't they? They made that entire game about Man City and just touched on us for the last few minutes. Bollocks to you Sky, and McLeish, there's no excuses for that performance. We need changes, and lots of them, but it's just not going to happen. Sad times for our club.

If you search for Brazil's home and away for 2012/13, they also have these big bands on the sleeves too. Maybe that's Nikes 'thing' for that season.

I thought I'd ressurect this as I'm always interested in what you guys think and maybe it'll give me a few ideas for little gems I may have missed. Here's some of my all time favourites... The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past & Ocarina of Time Ico Shadow of the Colossus Metal Gear Solid Final Fantasy VII & X Skyrim Deus Ex & Deus Ex: Human Revolution GTA 3, Vice City and 4 Batman: Arkham Asylum & Arkham City Fallout 3 Catherine (which is out tomorrow so buy it!) I think that's pretty standard. I don't think there's anything particularly out of the ordinary on there.

I've had a few games on Emu too over the years. It's a pain in the ass running after them through the fields when you're in the middle of a boss battle, but it keeps you fit at least. Take THAT Wii. 1997 was a great year for games. Ocarina is one of my all time favourites too.

I played this game (my friend got the US release on his PS3 because it wasn't region encoded) and it's absolutely fantastic. It's out tomorrow for us in the UK and I just wanted to give my opinion on it if anyone was thinking of buying it. The story is really quite something and contains things that are very meaningful and identifiable to everyone. That's not to say it isn't at the sametime ridiculous wacky and zany, but then again it is Japanese. Gameplay is split into going around a bar, getting drunk and chatting to the patrons and your mates which unveil more of the story, but the fun really begins when you leave the bar and go to sleep. You get trapped in a nightmare world where you have to scale towers of blocks, pushing and pulling them to create ways up as the tower below crumbles away. If you die in the nightmare, you die in real life, well the game world's equivalent of real life, you know what I mean. It has that supernatural thing going for it too. Anyways, I don't want to tell you guys much more, or maybe you already know about it, but I highly recommend getting it. It's a lot of fun and something a bit different too. It's also highly sexualised so don't let your mum catch you playing it

Actually, I think you missed the point a little Rob, I don't think you read far back enough in the thread. If trawling back through the pages doesn't appeal to you, and I don't blame you if it doesn't, just read the post I made on this thread before this one. I don't want to bore everyone by repeating everything I said.

I assume you mean third to The Avengers and The Dark Knight Rises? You may well be right, although personally I'm not that fussed about The Avengers film. I liked the Iron Man films, Thor was ok but a bit meh, The two Hulk films they did were ok, even though I think Mark Ruffalo is playing Bruce Banner and not either Ed Norton or Eric Banner which seems a bit weird but Ruffalo is a good actor anyway so that's not a problem, I didn't see Captain America but I didn't hear great things about it and as a whole, that bunch of superheroes were never my favourites as a kid. It'll no doubt be better than The Fantastic Four films though, they were dire in my opinion. Spider-man is probably my favourite Marvel hero so I'm looking forward to the reboot, but I know what you mean about it being yet another origin story. To be fair though, from what little I know of the film, I think it has enough different about it than the Raimi films. Parker seems to be a bit more science-orientated, they seem to be focussing on his dad more too, and The Lizard and Doc Connors should work well, since it was only ever hinted at in the third film I think. I think it'll be different enough to be fresh and exciting, although what you say about the battle for the movie rights is probably true too. I guess, as with most things, we'll just have to wait and see. I think I'm probably more excited than most because I'm a Spider-man fan and I'm looking for a film that finally does the story justice, a sort of redemption perhaps after Raimi left a bad taste in the mouth with his final film. That being said, I'm still looking forward to The Dark Knight Rises more than probably any film this year. But then again, I'm probably a bigger Batman nerd than I am Spidey.