Chindie

The controller became the smart money bet over the last couple of days unfortunately. Kinda had enough of Valve's pisstaking with HL3 at this point.

GTAV shouldn't be difficult to port to next gen. There will be a PC release, and next gen consoles are effectively just gaming PCs in shiny boxes. I think we'll see it.

Valve are making 3 announcements on Monday. One is definitely something to do with the Steambox, they've basically already confirmed that. But the other 2... Of course Valve know everyone is looking out for clues to Half-life 3 in everything they do but they've gone completely overboard with the references to 3 this time. Will Monday be the day? Or will it be Dota 3/L4D3/Portal 3?... We shall see. Fingers crossed. My bets are Steambox details/reveal, Steam overhaul, and a new game - I hope it's HL3 but something won't let me believe it so I'll go with Portal 3. But I hope I'm wrong.

Binmen have been quite well paid for years. My dad spent his career as a carpenter for the city council and even when he was starting out in the early 70s binmen were amongst the best paid manual council workers and also had the best contact package.

Played a few minutes. It's GTA, its odd getting used to the weight of everything again. The thing I've noticed most so far is that it's an strange looking game. At one moment it's genuinely quite impressive for this hardware and the next it looks a little rough. Some textures are, as expected, shite, the frame rate is perfectly playable but feels sluggish (because it is, again expected) and the lighting is a little harsh at times, but the real annoyance is the aliasing. It really detracts from everything somehow. But I'm sure that's something that I just need to settle into. It immediately strikes you with the polish on it.

There are some piss poor textures in it from shots I've seen but that is to be expected, it's one of the easiest things to cut to make it run better. It's bound to run rough in places, but it seems to run OK from what I've seen. Not brilliant, but OK.

I'm sure I read that one of the initial plans was to give a bit of East Africa over as the new homeland for Israel... Uganda possibly ? Madagascar.

The code for the 360 version has been dug into and references to a PC and PS4 version are supposedly in there.

I wouldn't have been too concerned - I have regularly preordered items from Amazon, and received a dispatch notice late or even after the item has arrived on release date. They're quite good for release day delivery.

Preorders got the Blimp as a bonus download. Interestingly it looks like a lot of people in Northern Ireland got theirs this morning - cock up by Amazon. I wouldn't hold out for Monday deliveries, incidentally.

I'd have said this but for 2 things - the revision of the CX-300s made them worse imo, and they have a brilliant record of breaking. I have these, and they're great. http://www.amazon.co.uk/SoundMAGIC-E10-Earphones-Silver-Black/dp/B005HP3OB0/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1379179878&sr=8-1&keywords=soundmagic+e10

It depends. Because huge queues are expected they might say they're only selling to people who have pre ordered. Places like Blockbuster might be a good try. I used to work for Game Group. There is not a chance in hell they will only serve preorder customers. They'll be absolutely pissing themselves if there are massive queues.

Never had a problem with Shopto.

Draw.

I got persuaded that holding off for the PC version and missing the zeitgeist at release would be something I'd regret, so looks like I will be dusting off the 360 next week. The PC version best not be too long behind though.

Here's mine (in no particular order): 20. Drive 19. Tell No One 18. Inception 17. A Prophet 16. The Incredibles 15. The Secret in Their Eyes 14. Untouchable 13. Donnie Darko 12. Pan's Labyrinth 11. There Will Be Blood 10. High Fidelity 9. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon 8. Requiem For A Dream 7. Whatever Works 6. Melancholia 5. The Devil's Backbone 4. The Master 3. Black Swan 2. Sparrow 1. Avengers Assemble I've gone for a mixture of films that I like. Some have amazing cinematography, some have great acting and others are just great entertainment (one or two are pure popcorn entertainment). In the case of 'Drive' I personally think it ticks all of the boxes... Certainly have more time for this list. Whilst I like a lot of the movies on both lists (a lot), Briggamans reads like less of a list of worthy films, precisely because there is some 'popcorn entertainment' on there. It's more balanced than a list of universally renowned as 'worthy' movies. As for the Prestige being the best movie of the 00s... nah. I adore that film, truly, and I do think it's brilliant, but the film suffers for it's plot. It's cleverness, playing with the viewer and replicating the three acts of a magic trick in the structure of the movie is completely undermined when the film's 'Prestige' takes a step too far and it's final 'trick' becomes too cheap. It's a slight issue but it harms the film and stops it being a stone cold classic, imo.

I'm certain that Foster originally spoke with a French accent in the movie which was subsequently redubbed. Every line of hers sounds like it was hastily rerecorded with a bizarre faint accent.

WP is a perfectly legitimate tool to provide rapid smokescreens, it isn't supposed to be used as an anti-personnel weapon because it's very nasty stuff, although it's very effective when used in grenades. Depleted Uranium is also being slightly misrepresented here too, it's not used on civilians like Sarin , VX or mustard gas, it's a part of certain shells used in the anti tank role because it goes through armour like butter. DU was used in Bosnia and GW1 to kill tanks and I don't recall people accusing the western armies of trying to poison people then? Isn't that the point with white phosphorous though? It might have legitimate uses, and however much it isn't supposed to be used as a weapon against individuals, it clearly has been. If somebody douses a building in petrol and sets fire to it, the petrol goes from being a legitimate fuel for a vehicle, to being an accelerant in arson. I take your point about depleted uranium shells, but it's hard to accept that a substance like WP that will burn somebody through to the bone isn't a chemical weapon when misused. It isn't a chemical weapon, still. By that thinking a thermobaric missile is a chemical weapon - a bomb that uses a vapour cloud of fuel to cause a massive pressure wave once ignited that, in essence, makes everything in it's path go 'pop'. White phosphorus certainly shouldn't be used against personnel, it's horrific, but its not a chemical weapon. It's an incendiary weapon - it may be toxic, but it's main use is in it's propensity to burn. Chemical weapons predominate use is in their toxic properties.

They aren't in denial, they just don't give a ****.

They don't just ask if it's hot, they get the bloke behind the till to bag it up so they can feel it.

I may have moaned about this before, but people who insist on knowing the temperature of the sausage roll/steak bake/whatever in Greggs before they buy anything. **** OFF. I'm on my lunch, I've got a set amount of time, and I don't want to spend it stood in Greggs waiting for you to feel how hot the bastard food is - it's **** Greggs, I didn't see the Michelin star on the door, evidently. You're holding everyone up because you can't contemplate a room temperature pork product. Not only that, the staff will bloody bag the thing up so they can fondle it. Which adds to the time needed to get the transaction done while they molest the merchandise, but also means if they don't want it either the thing goes back to be sold or in the bin, which is either wasteful or potentially selling whoever comes along next somewhat soiled goods. Anyway... **** OFF.

Glad theres others interested in Rush. Looks brilliant, and that whole era, and those 2 'characters' in particular, are fascinating. You could do a pretty good biopic of Hunt alone to be honest so the story of the most infamous point of his and Lauda's careers done well (which Howard generally is) is something to savour.

That would just never happen. It will. The Kinect is already capable of identifying people (amongst other things the new one can do...) - it's not much of a leap to get it to recognise how may there are watching and then connect that to license limits. The move in media is towards to monetising it at every turn - that is simply an extension to the idea. Microsoft already attempted to sell a more profitable (for them, and developers) future with this console at the consumers expense. That patent is them spotting another avenue and getting in early. It will happen. The gaming industry already considers every gamer that lends his mate his copy of the game a thief, you really think they and other industries are happy about getting 1 sale and letting in theory a whole family and their friends sit down to watch a movie or tv show or whatever? It's a natural progression that digital media is headed towards. It's the kind of endgame to the path that stuff like in app purchases and free to play microtransactions are currently treading. Bleed every penny, control the product in favour of that goal of every last drop of money from it.

I don't think it does allow Dualshock 4 use, the bundle shows a Dualshock 3. And don't expect it to retail anything like £60 once released.

The best thing about that Robocop trailer is Samuel L Jackson being given the worst haircut in history. And Gary OIdman shouting out plot exposition.