Chindie

Because we get our rota's done at work very haphazardly and at really short notice I've had to cancel (hopefully) a hospital appointment next week that I've been waiting for for donkeys because I both can't afford to not go to work and don't want to cause hassle for everyone rearranging things at such short notice - assuming anyone could cover me, last time I needed to swap shifts I got screwed over.

It is just a fun game, even for all it's flaws. I never took it too seriously online - I was both not good enough at it, coming too late to it and not commited enough to it to take it that seriously, and so the flaws didn't overly bother me. Come to think of it, the only one that did was quickscoping, which was frustrating because it was quite so dumb and largely inescapable in any game mode.

You really should, it's a great game. It has this curious quite old school feel to it that I really liked. It's a completely modern game that taps into the nostalgia of an old action adventurer. It could almost be called a bit Metroidvania-lite game in 3D on reflection - progression of gadgets to open up new routes and options, very old school style bosses, tight fight mechanics... If you like Batman, or remember the 90s animated series (where everyone had a very square jaw), it's also like a 20 hour long geekgasm.

Have a better all round game. If he was good enough, he'd be playing for them now. I think these days it takes more than just goals to be a big money player for a top team, which is part of the reason I think when we bought him the talk comparing him to Rooney and Drogba, whilst accurate, was slightly disingenuous. Bent, unfortunately for himself, finds himself in an odd niche, imo. He scores enough to be compared to the very best, but that is the pinacle of his game and the rest of it is lacking behind. Because of that though, and his being English also working in his favour, he's in demand amongst a lower tier of clubs, clubs who simply desire a goalscorer, and because of that his price and his stock has risen to the point where the big clubs, who might have liked a simple proven goalscorer at the right money now look and think he's too expensive to justify what else he brings to the table. IMO, basically because of his appeal to a small niche of clubs who will pay over the odds for a goalscorer alone, he'll be stuck below that elite tier until he either runs a contract low enough to become considerably cheaper, or until he becomes a much more well rounded footballer. Otherwise, he will carve out a (good) career at the likes of our level, not at the very top but more often than not in the also rans of top half football. Its for that reason that I think he'll probably move on from here in a couple of seasons. Someone around our kind of level, maybe a little lower, with a bit of cash, will approach us for him with a decent offer that we take in the hope we can invest in a striker that has that little bit more to his game.

Bubba Ho-Tep is a great film. Not for everyone though. The idea that JFK is alive and was dyed black was enough to sell me on it. And thats before you get to Elvis v a mummy.

It Lives! And appears to have big ideas on where it sits in Alien canon - appears to be sticking itself as a direct sequel to the events of Aliens. Big ambition. I still suspect it might be a bit crap.

More and more getting revealed about this, and it's looking great. The latest reveal is interesting... if also could be construed as quite a big spoiler. Not so sure about that choice myself, but the rest of it looks great. It looks like they intend to make it a little more open than Arkham Asylum was, which I buy into, but not quite making it open world. It also looks like they just plummed what was left of the roster for the bosses - Two Face, Penguin, Dr Strange all confirmed, and the Joker is, of course, back. Really looking forward to it, the first game was great fun.

I played enough to see where people were coming from, it just didn't bother me too much. Spec Ops is fantastic though. The mission where you need to clear the mansion of enemies, if you play that with a mate, is superb. We spent like a good few hours doing that one upto 3 star, great bit of gameplay. It gets **** hard true, but still enjoyable.

I never really had a problem with the grenades launchers and whatnot. I didn't play online all that much but when I did, didn't bother me. I actually found some of the streaks more annoying than anything. Hence I just shifted to playing barebones. Plus theres Spec Ops, which with a mate is superb (genuinely some of my top moments in this gen of gaming came from that mode), and the singleplayer, whilst dumb as hell in it's script, is tight taught fun. It's come down fairly decently priced in the second hand market, definitely worth some fun time. I was never that good at it either, but I enjoy it to this day.

I don't see Bent being picked off any time soon. The main issue being - who buys him? He's not going to a CL team, because he's not good enough. And who else is out there who can afford to throw the money we'd want to sell him already at us? The moment he went for the money he did, to us, he was basically secured as not really going anywhere for a while at least. In a couple of years time, different story, as I said.

I did a post uni cull and another recently along the same lines as Stevo985, I just got fed up of inane shit being posted. Mostly people I knew in school. I've only got 3 VTers so don't have Mike's issue on there

Even in the 9 years he carried on after 2011 he was still absolutely banging in goals, and he was still struggling more and more for fitness. I mean if you take his club form post 2002, across 3 leagues he's still scoring 0.6 goals a game. And that includes his worst period of form in his career (as a bit part player at Milan, where he still only just misses out on 1 in 2). He was just a superb player. Best player I've ever seen. Better than Messi for me.

Do, it's great.

I meant the Brazilian. And I think that because he was, throughout his career, playing in different teams and different leagues, when his knees were falling apart and he was unfit, consistantly devastatingly good. I rate that consistancy of excellency despite the problems with injuries and fitness he had - he scored absurd amounts of goals everywhere he went, he was world class on every stage he played, even when he was off form, out of shape and struggling with injuries he was great. If Messi can do that, he'll overtake him in my list. But since it's very unlikely he'll leave Barca any time soon, it's not likely he'll do that. I have said before now I believe C.Ronaldo to be a better player than Messi, that's no longer the case - though I do think C.Ronaldo is a more flexible player. I think the Portugeuse could go to more or less any league and immediately be in it's top 2 players (if not top full stop - he's behind Messi in La Liga of course), whereas Messi I think might struggle a little more in England for example. That doesn't take away from the fact that Messi stands ahead of him now though.

I really don't think Darren Bent will ever play for an elite club. If they thought he was what they wanted, they'd have bought him by now. He will leave us eventually. My bet since day one has been inside 3 seasons to someone else in the midtable/top half mire.

I'll assume you just ignored the bit where I said 'faced troubles'. The point is a manager has to overcome them. And Ancelotti really looked like he couldn't to me, when I watched them Chelsea looked considerably different after than and he seemed to have largely given up. The points drop equals roughly 10 points over those games as well. Taken on a individual game basis, its not much, over 29 games, it's pretty big. Never mind though, we just disagree. It's all academic because theres more chance of us digging up McGregor and putting him in charge than Ancelotti taking us over.

He's one of the few English players I can remember seeing that genuinely had extraordinary vision. It was never so much that he could hit a pass for me, but more that he even saw that the pass was on and viable. I can remember when I was younger with Manchester United on the telly for whatever reason that it almost seemed like he did have the clichéd script of the game in his head and he knew that that pass was on and that would lead to this... . And of course when he scored it was usually spectacular. Anyone for the patented Beckham to Scholes volley corner? Great goal. If he could have learnt to... time () his tackles he'd have been one of the best midfielders ever, unquestionably for me. As it is he's just a really really **** good one. In Europe they'd have killed for him, he'd have been a superstar in many countries, more than he was here by a long shot.

Rubbish, Ancelotti is one of the best managers in Europe. Ive got to ask how you know he could do the job we require better than Hughes or Moyes? Ancelotti has had the benefit of managing great sides. Look at his time at Milan - they start off as a great team that was going through the motions, he comes in makes a couple of changes end up winning a league under him with a team in it's prime, then it starts to chug a bit and they became a very good side that won cups and stuttered in the league. By the end of his time there Milan had had enough of him - he struggles to change sides once he gets things working. The legacy of his time there is a team slightly past it's best. Even his Chelsea side, facing troubles this season, he struggled with, Chelsea this season regularly looking pretty average and him seemingly clueless as what to do about it. At one point he had Drogba playing right wing. I'm not saying he's a bad manager whatsoever. I'm saying he's a manager of top sides. He's little experience of management in the doldrums - he took a side to a promotion 16 years ago, and he took over Parma when they had some genuine (world) class in their side to surprising heights, but that's it. And Italy is different to here. The vast proportion of his time as a manager is with title chasing sides in Italy, I don't see him coming to Aston Villa and being a huge success (and saying that I wouldn't see Mourinho doing it either, not at the moment). I wouldn't be upset in the extremely unlikely event we did get him, but I don't think he's a magic key to us being successful, as I really don't think it's a job his style would cut him out for.

I wasn't massively sold on Houllier but I did think of the list of candidates we had he wasn't the worst by a long chalk, I guess you can say that when he was given the job I wasn't happy with it but I relieved it could have been worse. I wanted Jol at that moment in time IIRC. Anywho... I think it'll be the obvious choice, Hughes. And I'll be fairly happy with that, I think he's the kind of manager we need at the moment. All of his sides he has taken over have had flaws or weaknesses and generally he's looked at what he has and played to it's strengths (compare his Blackburn side to his Fulham side - his Blackburn side started out rough and hard to beat, then he adjusted them as he gained players to become less reliant on being rough and they started to play a bit. His Fulham side became resilient and can also play a bit now). I think we need a man who can look at the squad and say 'Right - we're good at this and this, we'll play to those strengths and sort out the rest as we can'. I don't actually like Hughes as a man - I find him to be a bit of arse, and despised the way he acted at Citeh, but I'm happy to see him come in, he's realistic, gettable and will do well for us I feel. He's also fairly young, he could, if successful, make a proper side in his image of us for a while yet.

I genuinely don't think he's the right man for scrapping in midtable in the Prem at least (and arguably perhaps any league - he's done it once with Parma, but that was a Parma side that had some top players in it - Buffon for a start). If we were a top side, cruising with no issues, he'd do well, steady the ship and lead it to good things until things had to change drastically. But for a side that needs work, a fair amount of work, and isn't up there in terms of quality throughout the side, I really think he'd struggle to get far. It's not his bag imo.

It's apparently going to be called the Playstation Vita, or perhaps just Vita. ...What a shit name for something.

It's a social community thing with added in features effectively nicked from Halo Waypoint. It provides you with stats and heatmaps of your online performance, and also will have a communities thing that allows you to connect with people with similar interests (Steam does a similar thing), and also seems like it's going to have events and stuff on it. They claim some of it will help you improve your game but theres few details about that at the moment. It's been said that some of it will be free and some of it behind the 'paywall', but it's not clear what will and what won't. There's also the suggestion that a paid subscription to 'Elite' will let you get the map packs for either no extra cost or discounted price. It's something that'll become clearer in time of course. Personally, I hope no-one signs up for it because it's just another step to subscription based multiplayer. It's cost creep in action - you can guarentee that Activision are damn keen on gettin people paying to play online, but they need to weaken people's resistance to the idea. Heres the first blow.

That Google Chrome advert, with it's faux contrived sentimentalism. **** off. It'd only be worse if it had some sentimental song over the top, like a certain John Lewis ad I also despised.

Mancienne off to Hamburg it seems.

EDIT - Talking out of my arse.