Chindie

Perhaps I'm just overly cynical of Top Gear these days

Dear God no.

At work the shop is basically impossible to hit a decent temperature consistantly. The heaters only heat an area directly under them on the shopfloor, so it's generally freezing. Behind the till there's only a little heater/cooler thing that also only helps if stood directly in front of it. And then if you go upstairs to the stockroom, theres nothing. Just cold shelves and cold concrete. In this weather up there your hands start to hurt. And then when summer comes round it turns into an oven.

It was better than the Christmas special, but then so would be 90 minutes of the test card. It kinda felt like they were struggling to fill the show, they had the main feature, and it was only broken up by the news, which is becoming painful as it increasingly turns into a more knowingly 'slick' comedic section, and the Star in the Reasonably Priced Car, which barring a couple of exceptions, has universally been shit, and that was it. Usually they at least have another minor segment. The feature was decent but was undermined by the acted/scripted bits, almost universally for me by Richard Hammond. I don't how it hasn't dawned on them yet that he's terrible. He cannot do those bits, he's cringe inducingly bad. The standing around waiting for the tow truck, come off it lads, it wouldn;t have been funny if it'd been the other 2, it certainly wouldn't with Hammond. And the 'broken clutch' - **** off, **** off did it happen and **** off do I believe Hammond got it out for you. It ruined the segment a little for me. The increasingly obvious act (and seemingly confidence in doing it, even on Hammonds atrocious front) is shit. Stop it. The preview of the series looked decent but I spied an obvious 'challenge/build' skit that featured Hammond being all 'dumb funny, lolz' that immediately made me think 'I bet that episode is going to be painful'.

Fastest car in the world for a while. By a while I mean about 5 minutes - the McLaren F1 blew it away pretty quickly.

As ever, nationality is meaningless in many things but especially football. As for who the next England manager is, meh. Someone good'll do.

I hate QTEs. They're shite. I was starting to get a slight bit of hype for Street Fighter x Tekken. And then Capcom announced 5 Sony exclusive characters. And then rumours began circulating that there could be upto £40 of day 1 DLC, possibly including day one character DLC. If that all comes to pass, Capcom's reputation for screwing over consumers on the DLC front will take a step up to the next level of idiocy.

Just 1000/1000'd it. Immense game. Glorious, brilliant. And featuring Pacman.

Had my Drive Steelbook come Friday (along with Tinker Tailor steely too). Gorgeous, and an utterly superb film.

All that article actually says is 'We dunno'. The garage seems like an odd place to go for an asphyxiwank.

Utterly dismal player. As expected.

Speaking of the Girl with..., I finally watched the extended cut of the original, Swedish, film the other day. I thought that it was inferior to the US remake in pretty much every capacity. I can't quite see how anyone thinks the opposite.

We got our demo Vita yesterday and after an afternoon at the boss' place, had it all set up today. Messed about with the front end stuff and also got some time with Wipeout and Uncharted. Wipeout is... er... Wipeout. It's smooth and pretty and appropriately fast - I can't say more than that since I've never been a fan of the series. Uncharted... well, I don't like Uncharted, admittedly... but it blew me away. It looks absurdly good. Taking into account the smaller screen it's almost as impressive as the full scale title. It plays pretty much identically in the few minutes I had with it, bar a few usages of the touch screen - the main one I encountered being basically using the touch screen to 'trace' the path you use while climbing. You literally drag your finger across the pieces of terrain you want to head along and Drake follows. I'm not sure how much I like this, but the system 'works'. As for the machine itself, the thing that first hits you is the size, it's a bit of a beast, chunky with a big foot print. But then you hold it and feel it and it feels so good, it's well made, and feels quality. Everything has a slight premium feel to it. The screen is very big and quality too. It's not faultless though. I struggled to get comfortable holding it. I've got fairly big hands and never quite settled into a comfortable position holding it, it almost felt like I was holding it right on the edge of the machine. The back has slight indentations to settle your fingers in to, but to me they felt awkwardly placed and that didn't help the trouble with holding it. The buttons also felt a little small and I never felt confident hoping my right thumb from the right stick to the face buttons. I dunno if this would come with acclimatisation to the machine or not, and I'm sure not everyone would have the hand issues, so I'm loathe to overly criticise it for that. It's a very nice thing. It needs to be at that price.

My take, were I in the market for a handheld If I wanted a 3DS, I'd wait. The Circle Pad Pro came out this week (with Resident Evil Revelations), and it's a nice addition to the 3DS that is also a ludicrous one. It's an eyesore that undermines the portable aspect of the console. And it's £20. It effectively says, in big bold neon letters, that Nintendo **** up. Now bear in mind that Nintendo has a history of revamps. And that the 3DS has other issues - battery life, some aesthetic issues, a couple of design flaws that lead to stuff like marks on the top screen. The next iteration of the 3DS I would bet a considerable amount will be better than the one we see now, indeed I reckon it could have that second circle pad it desperately needs if it wants the capability to do high end 1st and 3rd person titles, built in. The bottom line with the 3DS for me is Wait. Even in the 10 months since release it's made itself a far smarter purchase, and I think that's a trend that will continue, especially if a revamp appears and even if that revamp costs a little more than it does now. The Vita is a lovely machine. It's not perfect, I think it makes some odd decisions and the touchscreen/pad feels a bit taked on straight away. And it's eye-wateringly priced. And will maintain to be if the games prices don't settle lower. The launch lineup is decent and the opening release window looks good too - if padded out with lots of console ports (a testament to the console's capability). But the price kills it. As does the gamble you take as an early adopter. I don't think you'll be making a mistake to wait with the Vita as well. Give it time to find a market, give it time to settle in it's price, and let it have some time to give some indication as to where it's going to head. Think of it like this - the price ain't going to go up. In 6 months you could be considering buying a quality console with a nice catalogue of games (that will have dropped in price, and also have a preowned market to dip into), that isn't £230 anymore. Or, if you bought it now, you could be looking at having paid over the odds for a machine that flopped. In both cases, waiting won't hurt. I actually think the 3DS is now a decent bet as it's catalogue has got better (though could still improve), but the knowledge that it could be improved, and Nintendo almost certainly will, possibly with a significant addition, would prevent me taking the plunge. And the Vita is too expensive and too much of a gamble (more so than most early adopter gambles imo - I reckon that a price drop will arrive in the manner of the 3DS, but not to the same degree). I definitely recommend going into a store and having a play with a Vita - Game and Gamestation stores will have gotten theirs this week, so go in and have a play. Just don't go for one just yet

EDIT - Wrong thread, woops.

Still absent. Snigger. At this rate she'll never be able to come back... I can't decide if that's This Week's gain or loss.

**** adore that film. 'This too shall pass' is a lot shorter way of saying that though . It's reasonably accurate though, I think, and can be a good way to think about the way of things.

What should pass??Story behind it sounds intresting but makes no sense without knowing what is meant by it It's a saying, really, meaning endure, stick with it... but also to be wary of the good times. Everything going wrong, feel shit, nothing going for you? Don't worry, 'this too shall pass', things will pick up. Enjoying a boon, nothing at all that worries you? Remember, the good times don't last forever, 'this too shall pass', things that go up must come down. It's something worth remembering, sometimes. It can open your eyes to a different perspective.

Late to reply but some vague answers for you... I'm sure there will be bundles made up by stores but quite what they are gonna be I dunno. I've heard that one company is doing a bundle that, at least, includes a 16gb memory card IIRC. Shopto have bundles for the Wifi one with one of 3 games that go for between £240 - £250 dependant on the game you want. The back pad is definitely being used by some games, whether it's a necessity that can't be altered I dunno. But it's definitely being used for gameplay, some games using it for series gameplay elements. Even stuff like Uncharted does. It does appear to be unwieldy, and dumb, but hey, 2 touchpads > 1, therefore Vita > DS, right?! The 3DS represents better value but the thing with the 3DS is you could bet your house on Nintendo making a better version soon enough. Whereas while the Vita will get a redesign the difference won't be too massive, if the PSP is anything to go by. What can be said is that the Vita is an absurd price. It's a great bit of kit, but you could seriously buy a PS3, a top end one, probably with a game if you shop around, for less than just the Wi-Fi Vita. For the 3g enabled one, you could get a pretty good PS3 package for that. Bearing in mind that you also need to invest in memory cards (which I suspect will not be cheap), and the games are going to be comparatively expensive, some coming in at comparable prices to home console releases. I think this thing is going to follow the same path the 3DS did... but without the 3DS' resurgence. It's a nice bit of kit, but they can't expect it to fly off the shelves, it's too expensive, and I can't see it dropping markedly. I'm also yet to see how good the battery is, but if the 3DS is anything to go by, it'll have laughable life.

'Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we oft might win, by fearing to attempt' - Shakespeare

wasn't Walt anti-Semitic .. thus the association with Joy Division could fit rather well * * the name and it's association , not the band Ha, hadn't thought of that. Appropriate after all, add it to the Disney Subliminal Evils File.

I'm totally fine with that. I'll probably return to it at some point. But Blighttown should not have got into the game in that state. It's one thing that it seems keen to up the ante absurdly there, it's another that it runs horrendously.

When I read this story yesterday they mentioned that the description of the short no longer referenced Joy Divison at all, having originally done so. I'm slightly bewildered why they thought that that album was something to associate with - the only thing less Disney than it is it's follow up. And its not like they don't know it's Joy Divison either.

Thanks. I don't think it's a scam - the company seems quite genuine, from what I know of it. They just appear to have some rather undesirable tactics from a sales point of view, if trying to gain investment is what you'd call 'sales'.

This one really shouldn't piss me off because really it's my dad's problem, but it still annoys me. A few years back he got effectively got given a choice between redundancy and early retirement, he took the later and got some form of pay off, which subsequently went to the bank and got shoved into a few ISAs and the like. They never did much and he packed them in mostly, and was going to look to do something else with the money (which isn't a huge amount really). Somehow he got to looking at some company investing in some environmental thing or other, got some details off them, to have a mooch at. I've no idea if he approached them or they approached him or he was recommended looking at them when he sorted out the previous investment. The 'opportunity' hadn't filled him with that much confidence and he decided to give it a miss. Unfortunately this company seems remarkably unable to take no for an answer. I'm at home rather more than I'd like to be so have gotten to see this company get my dad to hop on the computer and manually ask for more details, and I've heard him have a half hour long conversation that turned quite sour when the fella on the end simply would not accept that my dad simply had decided not to go along with it. This chap demanded a reason why, refused to allow 'I've just decided it isn't for me' as an answer at least 10 times, eventually getting quite arsey it seems and accusing my dad of being a timewaster who never had the money to invest in the first place. After that conversation we all thought that would be an end to it. But no, this afternoon the head of some arm of this company rang and asked if my dad would be investing, and then also demanding to know why, 'because we're men and we should discuss why you've made that decision like men'. Which lead to my dad, again, saying he just had decided he was not interested, he had no reason to defend or justify that decision, and that he would not waste any more of his time on it, and hung up. I'm fairly sure there's some legislation or something against badgering someone like this. The 'sour' call in particular I was actually getting angry just hearing my dad's reactions to this fella - like me my dad's not blessed with a temper but on the phone he's normally overly polite, with this chap the badgering and refusal to take no for an answer I could tell was trying my dad's demeanour, and mine if I'm honest, to the point I almost just grabbed the phone.