Chindie

Called that it wouldn't launch with a Halo title. ****, they actually did the price - £429. Thats about the most they can realistically charge I think... and thats too much imo. And here the thing from the old COD guys, Titanfall. They must be pissed that leaked this week.

'Enhanced by the power of cloud computing' **** OFF

EDIT - nope, Halo.

'Running in-engine' *shows cutscene*

It's inherently less impressive to show on a video, so they won't.

Witcher is the first thing I care about. ...I'll play it on PC. "XBOX MUTE!"

Panzer Dragoon as experienced by a deaf person then...

Hey look, it's Smartglass! Guys, SMARTGLASS! ...guys? ...please use it...?

Why the hostility towards cloud? Cloud generally is one of those buzzterms that doesn't really mean anything groundbreaking, meaning anyone using it to sell stuff to you should be considered suspicious... ...but when it's applied to gaming, especially the nonsense Microsoft has been coming out with for the Xbox One, it can **** off. They coming out with utter nonsense to justify DRM. They claimed it could be used to improve graphics and other core game components - exceptionally unlikely. So it can **** off.

The voice over talking about McLaren then just said something particularly daft - their new car is beyond F1 specifications... so do ****loads of cars. The idea of F1 is that there is a ruleset you have to adhere to. It's not the pinnacle of motoring technology. Drivatar? Cloud? **** off.

I'm fairly sure this was a Kinect game to begin with...

I'm assuming I've not missed much since I walked in to them talking about World of Tanks...

I might follow GiantBomb's coverage but I cannot stand Klepek so it might be a stretch...

Known whacko. He's come out with his alien beliefs numerous times. Nothing to see.

Funnily enough if there were lizards amongst us, Alex Jones probably is one. Sure enough he's barely human, anyway.

Oh yes. And trees are trees, and swans are swans. It's uncontentious. Where you going with that? Nowhere, beyond the difference ultimately being somewhat moot.

Corruption is corruption, I'm sure you'll agree Peter.

Those times are BST, indeed. They usually go a little off so they're more of a rough guide than anything, but it's pretty much the same schedule as it's been for the last couple of years. Halo 5 isn't a stretch, they'll be working on it certainly. Don't expect much though - I know P3te reckons it might be a launch title, I'm of the mind that it's much more likely a 2014 release. I don't think it's beyond the realms of doubt that a couple of Halo titles get shown off though - as villa4europe says they've got to milk out 15 exclusives as much as they can, and even with a bunch of XBLA shit I don't think they can hit that nmumber without Halo once or twice.

Alex Jones fronted a fair amount of the money for the 'documentary' Loose Change. For that alone I wouldn't piss on him where he on fire.

Mirrors Edge 2 seems to have become a bit of a surprise shoe in for EA's conference. Kinect enabled no doubt. A horror show waiting to happen. Something I'm very interested in seeing, actually, is Prey 2. It got shown a couple of years ago and then vanished, to the extent people believed it had been cancelled. But apparently the word now is that it's very much alive and been shunted to next gen hardware. It looked absolutely astonishing before, great ideas and design - I'd love to see what it's like now. Fingers crossed.

Alex Jones is a **** despicable human being. As for Bilderberg, I don't think I ever quite understood why people got so worked up over it. Bilderberg isn't any different to what happens day to day in government buildings the world over - rich businessmen lobbying politicians.

I'd like to say that that gif is justified, but it's not... Anywho, it's that time of year again, E3! This year should be a particularly interesting one as we're going to have 2 new pieces of hardware showing off what they can do. Whether that hardware is able to over come quite the terrible word of mouth the Xbox One, for example, is receiving, thats another story. Anyway, it's technically already started - Konami have done their now traditional pre-E3 video, showing off the new Metal Gear (IT'S GOT 24's Keifer Sutherland!!!!1!!), PES, and Castlevania Lords of Shadow 2. Nothing massively exciting although as someone who enjoyed the first Lords of Shadow, the second looks fun and, again, Patrick Stuart sounds like he was stoned whilst recording his lines. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jRvnyT1R8J8 Microsoft kick off the show proper tomorrow evening at 5.30pm. They basically need to have the best E3 ever as their console appears to have all the support of any piece of hardware whose major audience wouldn't touch with a shitty stick would have. I don't think they're going to blow anyone away and frankly I'm going to have the popcorn out watching for how much bullshit is spurted from the speakers mouths. Expect to see more COD, yawn, and maybe a nod towards Halo. Probably that weird top down thing they announced last week, though. Nothing earth shattering. Hot on MS heels at 9pm is EA. EA will roll out their usual shit - we'll discover what year it is in Madden and FIFA this year (defensive, attacking, engine change, graphical? Place yer bets), they'll tell us about the new raping of the corpse of Need for Speed and they'll try to convince us that their latest anti consumer bullshit isn't bullshit. Oh, and they'll desperately tell us how FIFA will be helped by the Kinect. Then we have Ubisoft at 11pm. Ubisoft stuff is always mental, expect to see some madness at some point, probably involving rabbids, before the usual roll out of this years Tom Clancy cash in and the big hitter of a proper look at the game that took E3 by storm last year, Watchdogs. Expect Watchdogs to not be quite as incredible as you hoped, but still pretty. Also expect Assassin's Creed to take a little more of a backseat than usual at a Ubi conference. Sony round out Monday at 2am. Hard to say what Sony will show, but expect a lot of games to be shown and, of course, a proper look at the actual machine. Sony could do with a good conference to cement their position so I expect them to be coy about a lot of what is actually going on behind the scenes with the PS4. Nintendo haven't bothered with E3 this year and aren't hosting a conference. Frankly thats probably a good move - instead they are releasing a prerecorded hour long Nintendo Direct which is expected to show off the new flagship Mario game, amongst other things. Rumours have flown around of a look at a new Zelda (not sure about that myself) and a possible pricedrop/eyecatching bundle deal. I think that could well be in the offering - the Wii U has had a disasterous time since launch and Nintendo need to kickstart sales - banging down the price in the wake of the new console announcements wouldn't be a terrible idea. Be interesting to see what Nintendo do with the 3DS as well - the console has picked up now and has grown a nice little selection of titles, they need to keep that momentum. Activision aren't holding a conference this year either - though given how big COD is, they'll feature on the stages regardless. Microsoft will no doubt have them up showing off a level from Ghosts and perhaps announce another timed exclusivity deal for map DLC. So thats E3 this year - it should be a more exciting one than recent years but, somehow, it's not got me at all hyped. I'm hoping for big things, but none of them are expected to be at Sony's or Microsoft's offerings imo.

I like the Bridge but I don't think it's as smart as it thinks it is. I still enjoy it, and it stands out in his straight fiction for being a less... straight story, really (he has a thing for variations on the bildungsroman, a number of his post Crow Road books feel too similar to that masterpiece), along with Transition, but I'm not sure how deep it really is. For his non fiction, Complicity and the Crow Road will always stand apart. Complicity is a simple book but raw and angry and darkly humorous in all the right ways, a brilliant journey read. And the Crow Road is just a brilliant coming of age story. I read it at precisely the right time - I was the right age, at uni, having the year all students have where you start to wonder where things are heading and go a bit mental, and having trouble with women and that's all there in that book. A brilliant, brilliant book. Even the adaptations of both are alright.

Nipped out earlier and went into a pub for something to eat. Sunday, early afternoon, as expected bit of a delay. That delay went on quite a bit longer than expected and we asked when we'd be likely to have out food arrive. Chap checked a couple of times, came back second time with our food and, completely unprompted, offered us a couple of drinks on the house. Excellent stuff.

I think I'll go through my annual re-read of The Crow Road and Complicity again soon, bit of a reminder of why I loved his book so much. I've still got loads of his scifi to work through - Hydrogen Sonata sits unread on my shelf still.