Chindie

It's not really just geography.

I am genuinely staggered someone would not have known what was meant by 'British'.

...you're taking the piss right? British - a citizen of the United Kingdom/of the British Isles, which includes amongst other places Scotland, Wales and England. You can be Scottish and British.

The 'puntastic' time of year that is Easter. Got a sale on for Easter? It's not a sale! It's an 'EGGstravaganza!' **** off.

Seen a load of people love the sniper rifle, I've pretty much not used it once in my play time. Might have to give it crack, see what the fuss is about .

The Ceph are definitely less fun to fight than the CELL soldiers. The inescapble feeling I had with them was they were there just to absorb bullets - they appear to take slightly too many hits to die, even the bottom rank of them just keeps taking bullets unless you nail the vulnerable areas they have. And then the game takes away that vulnerability and you're left just emptying magazines into them. You can get round that by sticking to stealth kills but towards the end it becomes less viable to stealth an entire group. This does have the offshoot of forcing you to think a lot more about the later encounters to be fair however.

Loads of geographical features have names which mean what they are. River Ouse just means 'River Water' for example. Mentioning the Avon, the Welsh word for river is actually 'afon', pronounced pretty much the same as Avon. Etymology can be quite interesting with things like that.

This man... is all that stands between us and being like Portugal. ...apparently.

Blackpool had an earthquake the other day.

She was with some bloke who looked embarassed that she'd done it. Some other bloke came up to me straight after and 'had a word' but quickly discovered that I wasn't drunk or aggressive and had only reacted to the stupid thing she'd done and then sauntered off. Small bottles, one in each hand, entire movement done so quickly that she was still waiting to see my own reaction to being drenched . Pretty much a reflex reaction. She also couldn't really go anywhere as the dancefloor where she was was rammed and about a foot lower than where I was.

I'd have apologised if she gave me chance (not that I'd actually done anything wrong). But no, instantly threw her (full) pint over me with that bloody look on her face. At that very second any chance of me being reasonable went out the window, and my 2 recently bought bottles got poured over her head to give her something to be annoyed about. I hope it knocked her down a peg or 2.

Went out last night for the first time in donkeys, was properly looking forward to it. 2 things put a dampner on it - the night was pretty dull, but the thing that really pissed me off was this. Was standing chatting with the lads next to the dancefloor, fairly rammed, bit tight. I turned around to put down my drink and completely accidentally knocked over another drink someone had left there. A tiny amount of the drink missed the floor and hit some girl, who promptly looked at me like I'd just stabbed a child and threw her pint over me. This shouldn't piss me off because I promptly poured 2 full bottles over her, but it does. It was the look on her face that got me, she looked at me like I was absolute dirt and that I had intentionally and purposefully set out to ruin her night. Bitch.

Mortal Kombat has suddenly piqued my interest. I've not played a proper fighting game for any length of time since Soul Calibur 2 (on the Gamecube...). But I loved MK back in the day...

Don't work for Game mate, so couldn't tell you.

It's not upselling 6 items, it's basically 1)Loyalty card - either invite to have one, or use the one they've already got 2)Upsell - the usual one is, if you're buying a 360 game for example, is to ask if they need any Microsoft Points (this actually stupid because they are sold at cost apparently, but hey) 3)Inform about trade ins 4)Preorders 5)Online and then theres something else that slips my mind. They've made it easier at the moment because theres a 'bag in' sheet on a couple of those things you just throw in with the receipt which counts as hitting the point. The really mindboggling point is that we're also supposed to do this for phone inquiries. You should be given a medal if you can fit all six of those things into a phonecall without someone hanging up. You get someone ring up and ask if you've got, I dunno, a Kinect in stock, and then you have to rattle that lot off before the phonecall ends

I don't work for Game, but they do have their name on my contract , ahem. I don't mind working there at all really, it's a laugh a lot of the time and even when it's dead theres something to be getting on with so you're never kicking your heels. Only issue at the moment is I don't regularly get enough hours but thats not unusual in any retail job I guess. Couldn't complain otherwise and benefits are decent enough. Game tends to employ people who are just shop workers rather than people who know what they're selling which is why it tends to get a bad rep sometimes. The upselling thing is tedious, I've never been that comfortable with it when it's as forced as it is at the till. On shop floor it's ok because you can drop things into conversation about things that people usually are genuinely interested in or you're advising people about something in an informal chat kinda way, and generally they like that it's more advice than being sold something. On the till however, we've got this list of things we have to hit with every sale and at the moment in particular (it's prime mystery shopper season because it's the quieter time of the market but theres still enough out there for us to be on our toes, as opposed to summer where the games industry dies and going into store then doesn't really represent what it's actually like) we've absolutely got to hit them as we're being rated and stores can end up suffering as a result. So it's working through this monotonous list of things - add ons to the sale, inform them about trade ins, invite to loyalty card, etc etc. It's completely unnatural, feels forced and nobody likes doing it - I just have this like script in my head now about it all and tick it off mentally with each customer. Customers kinda expect it and thankfully we have got it down so our store rarely leaves someone queueing for long. But yeah, at the till the upselling thing, the only thing I can say is, generally, the guy on the till doesn't really like it either but the job says you do it so you have to.

I find it annoying, but it's now part of my job to do it. I have to 'mention' 6 things with every sale, the most important of which is to link products to add to a sale. Trying to run through those 6 things every time and making it sound natural is difficult, and makes you feel like a prick every single time.

Valve are currently, seemingly, messing around a lot with a so called 'ARG', or Alternate Reality Game. This goes across a load of Steam titles that they've recently patched with numerous puzzles and whatnot. It's all really complex and includes, in some cases, masses of new properties hidden in games in complex manners. The puzzles and clues pop up all the over the place, even in actual real life places, and seems to just keep going. It seems to have started on April Fools so could all be a complex gag, but it really does seem to be a lot of effort for nothing. Possibly leading towards a hint to what their big secret with Portal is? (I would add that any hope of anything particularly big is a bit ambitious, since theres a few out there hoping for the Portal release to be a mask for another big, perhaps Half Life related, release. If that was to be the case, that would be the biggest ever hush hush job in the entertainment world full stop. But hey, I hope this ARG is leading to something cool coming with Portal 2).

I assumed Rev was referring to the level where you... Spoilers Return to the setting of the original MGS /spoilers

Wasn't released on the Gameboy Color /pedant

Ok Computer was first considered one of the best albums ever only months after release. Quality doesn't need time to shine out or garner a patina to embellish its greatness.

The frame rate isn't that big of a deal. A good PC runs it better than either of the consoles with regards frame rate and graphical quality but my experience with the 360 version is that while the frame rate isn't CoD style smooth as a babys arse (exceptionally few games are tbf), it rarely drops to the point it genuinely affects your ability to play, and it stays fairly stable throughout the game, I only noticed a couple of moments where it dropped a little. If you're used to COD, you'll notice it but you'll get used to it quick enough. The AI bizarrely switches between a bit dumb and decent. A number of times I've seen it get stuck in areas or run around in circles so to speak but a few other times they've been quite good at seeking me out whilst cloaked and also searching for cover. It's the not the best AI on earth, nor is the worst imo.

Oh and a couple more recent outside bets that I've absolutely adored

I was nearly swayed into buying a PS3 solely for MGS4, and while I'm still yet to play it, I know the level you're on about here and it only makes me want to play it more .

Goldeneye I still love but as Rev says, it's an absolute mess now. It looks atrocious and plays horrendously. Some that jump immediately to mind... (I don't think I could definitely say a 'best' for me) (probably the only game I could play start to end from memory with no trouble). And then a few more like Vice City, RDR, Elder Scrolls Oblivion... There've been some truly great games over the years.