Chindie

Just completed one of the best boss battles in videogame history once again, the End. But I **** forgot he is a (the only...?) boss in the game that you don't get the camo from by stamina killing him, and his camo can be really useful. I spent ages running round trying to find him to pump him full of tranqs and only when he was finished and didn't give up the camo did I remember you have to hold him up to get the camo off him. Argh! But still, such a good fight. MGS3 is a complete gem. Barking mad. But a gem.

Ah, yeah. That's caused by the way they made the game, essentially. The backgrounds are what is known as pre-rendered - they're effectively 'pictures' pasted onto the background (which is why they use fixed camera angles too, because obviously everything is flat as it's just a picture in the background). Because it's effectively a picture as well, it isn't 'lit' by the game engine, the lighting on it was done by whoever drew it. And then because Square were still finding their feet with polygonal models, they made what would today be considered really, really basic polygonal models for the characters in the overworld with next to no texture work. Couple that to the fact the models are lit by the game engine (incredibly basically - to the point some might say they're not really 'lit' at all as we'd know it today with complex lighting engines) which won't match up with the lighting the pre-rendered backgrounds have. They got a fuckload better with all that stuff by VIII, which is far better looking game (though still as flawed at it's heart - they didn't move on seriously until... FFX I think) It's not helped playing on a HDTV either - it has the effect of showing up all the graphical flaws/basic-ness.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-tnxzJ0SSOw. Looks alright. I don't think we need to see a Spider-Man origin again. I was glad that they finally decided to do the Lizard as a villain, but it now seems they've cocked it up. The character design they've gone for is the 'man lizard' interpretation of the character, with a very human face. In fact he looks like the Goomba's from the Mario film, or Marlon Harewood. I guess they've done that because the character needs to talk and have some empathetic nature, which is difficult to put across if you go for my preferred interpretation of the character - an overgrown bi-pedal lizard in a lab coat. Oh well. Coming this summer.

Altruism doesn't exist in IP. When the benefits to helping Syria outweigh the cost of seriously intervening, and we (the 'countries with power') feel capable of doing so, we will. Until then... well, talk is cheap. (Saying that, theres something else cheap that meets the requirements somewhat of the 'formula' above, under the table low level support on the quiet which we are almost certainly providing opposition with already, in the hope they can make headway on their tod and remember who gave them a leg up on the quiet)

Oh it was never a pretty game, even when it first came out the models weren't going to blow anyone away, its just that is marked nowadays. How'd you mean?

I'd forgotten how different MGS3 was. I feel **** lost without the radar. But it's still so good. I also love that the HD collection has made some of the old Easter eggs from the games into achievements - like the ability to make a time paradox in MGS3 if you happen to do a certain thing

If you were really desperate to play FF7, I'd look into the PC version. Might take some jiggery pokery to get running but it should run on pretty much anything these days (as said, people have got it running on phones without a hitch). Only issue would be finding a 'legit' copy, I don't think it's been rerelased for download and I'd imagine retail copies 2nd hand are like rocking horse shit. Or better yet, don't bother and cherish your memories of it. It's going to be showing it's age now pretty badly, it's what... 15 years old?

Worth bearing in mind the series is very different these days, you might want to have a look into the new game before taking the plunge - I know, despite loving IX for example, that the new one would do nothing for me at all.

Yes, 7 got released on the PS1 on 3 discs. The PS2 and PS3 will play PS1 games (although they will look particularly rough these days on modern tellys, particularly large screen sizes). They also released it on the PC. EDIT - It also playable on many smart phones via emulators and ROMs, but thats a pretty grey area. You'd want a PAL one mate. NTSC basically means Yank or Japanese compatible.

FFVII? To play that you'd need a PS1, PS2 or PS3, or PC. FFXIII-2 is on the 360 as well as PS3.

Seen spyshots of it, even under the camo it looks grim already.

See, to me, that's exactly what makes it beautiful Nah, for me it's too brash and lacking subtlety to be beautiful (like most 4x4s in that) and it lacks the quiet stylishness that things like the original 'new' Range Rover had (which Land Rover went on ruin by constantly fiddling with it).

Like Shawshank redemption , but I fear we are going way off topic now ... Not quite the case, Shawshank was critically acclaimed, just nobody went to the cinema to see it.

I finally saw an Evoque on the way to work the other day. I still think it's a pretty ugly thing. I think I said before that it looks to much like a concept car, and exactly like what a comic book artist would draw if you said 'draw me a Landrover from 2050!', and it really, really does.

NHS dentistry requires payment unless you qualify for certain benefits, but they can't really scam you on it as IIRC they have set prices for differing levels of treatment. I used to be at a private dentist who to this day I reckon tried to set himself up for some work with me. He had a look at my teeth and said something about having a an overly sharp point on a molar, which he scraped down there and then. Except it left me a tiny hole there there. Thankfully it's never caused any trouble but then neither had my sharp molar,.

May get access to a ME3 demo this weekend

Halifax mysteriously charging me £28 the other day, as a 'planned overdraft fee'. Except they said to me I only get charged a pound a day if I'm in my overdraft... I've not been in my overdraft in 2012. Hmm. Not impressed.

The FA keen to maintain it's status as a circus, clearly.

No. It's posturing. IIRC the Argentinian premier is incredibly popular and appears to be using the Falklands thing as a way of putting the tin hat on her popularity, as well also protecting against that popularity waning in the difficult political and economic times we have now. And we're happy to let her do that because it benefits us as well, we still feel strongly about the Islands, obviously, and Cameron can easily win favour by returning the posturing in kind. It's unlikely to descend into conflict largely because we won't let it - we would struggle to defend the Falklands now from Britain, and so have spent rather a lot of money making the Falklands increasingly defended on their own merit, something we will continue to do, making the Islands unappealing to take and more obviously causing any attempt to take them be an act of conflict immediately, again something that would deter the Argentines from trying it. Add in the warship and we're flexing muscles we don't really have any longer, with the distinct message being 'Come on, pack it in...'. In 1982 the only reason they took the Islands is because the Junta was in trouble and wanted a swift shot of nationalism in the arm to aid their popularity, and they thought we'd not escalate the situation, perhaps not even bother to stop them at all, making things easy. None of that would happen now. There is indeed believed to be rather a lot of oil off the Falklands, something that's been suspected for donkeys but was always known to be difficult to get to given the ocean conditions in that part of the world, and the Falklands would be the perfect staging point for an oil extraction endeavour to begin now that it's more viable (and possibly pressing). NATO would probably not get involved either, by the way. They largely didn't last time (although the Americans aided us the quiet). I adore the irony of Argentina's pouting on this, by the way. They accuse us being a colonial power (snigger) whilst proposing some colonialism of their own. Hypocrisy at it's finest.

I never felt comfortable with it. It's the first game where they really started to evolve the battle system, allowing you to set up an automated system (you know, you could set a character to heal you if your health dropped to x% automatically, or always attack the highest health enemy with x attack, etc) that on paper sounded fine but I never settled with it. And they then decided to make unlocking aspects of that system be part of the gameplay, you had to unlock the conditions under which the system would work, either by buying them or finding them. And the added the ability to move around during battles that I never quite got the point of. It was all very 'MMO' esque, and having never been a fan of that sort of thing it put me off. But other people loved it, loved the switch to wider strategy that the 'gambit' auto system allowed. And then I never felt happy with the characters, stories, art design. It's the blandest Final Fantasy I know. Every character pretty much has the same 'look', even the rabbit eared race has the same style as everyone else. The main story is utterly forgettable, evil empire stuff played without a single original thought from what I remember, and the character arc stories I can't even remember at all. I can't say that for the FF games I loved. Even the villain is crap. It was the first FF game I'd played where I just didn't care to finish it. I even had the guide just in case, hardback, and it didn't grab me at all. I like(d) my Final Fantasy old school I think, I shan't play another.

Aye, the Twin Snakes. I actually really enjoyed it but it's not well held with the fanboy community - they re-recorded some of the dialogue which lead to some off sounding sections, even bits with voice actors sounding bored, and they also fiddled with the cutscenes giving the whole thing a bit of a John Woo feel, Snake at one point jumps on top of a missile for example. Making the whole thing even sillier than usual. regular_john is right that the MGS2 gameplay also made the thing stupidly easy, the game was never designed to allow for things like first person viewpoint shooting so some sections became absurdly easy. Sadly it'll never be seen on any other consoles. It's also quite in demand still and can demand decent money even now - hence why I've still got my copy . As for dislike of Raiden, nah that was definitely a fairly universal opinion. He just wasn't a great move on Kojima's part, although playing from his perspective had the effect of making Snake seem all the more badass. At times in the game(s) you can tell that Kojima kinda knew he was never going to be a popular character, the President mistakes him for a woman, he has a 'cameo' in MGS3 that may not be construed as flattering, in MGS4 you discover his character has gotten **** over even more (before getting some badassery added in)... he's never going to be popular. MGS3 is superb, btw.

Well, got it myself. And polished off MGS2 for about the 6th or 7th time since it came out on the PS2. It never really struck me how ahead of it's time that that game was. Even with all the quirky controls in some ways it's better than what came after it, stuff like what amounts to a cover system I feel better with than things like Gears 'snap to' cover, even if sometimes it does have some issues. Its showing it's age but at times, and it's a testament to how good the original art design was, it still looks decent enough. I'm hoping 3 stands up even better.

Thats an odd one for me. I think that particular interpretation, the urban anarcho-terrorist take, Ledger completely nailed and indeed I couldn't see someone else do it. But it's a very different take on the Joker and I think other actors could play the role in other, more classic, interpretations. Though not Nicholson, who just played himself with added murder. Anywho... Robert Downey Jr as Tony Stark Richard E Grant as Withnail

Awful. Hated it. Couldn't bring myself to go more than about 10 hours in.