Chindie

Having had another crack at the multi, it improves immeasurably with mates playing. The really frantic death/kill rate and odd random deaths become less galling and more outright funny.

Partly related, part of the reasoning behind the EU's quick expansion east was to get as much of Eastern Europe on side to exploit as fast as possible, opening new markets and brain/brawn draining the states that were newly ascended (if you take the entirely cynical view, which has merit). It also does deals for itself with the countries on the periphery, like Morrocco for similar reasons. The EU has put it's arm round the shoulders of a number of countries on it's borders and said 'You probably can't come in, but we'll give you a pass for our benefit and yours... you won't be a member, but you'll be a friendly face'. This include pretty much all of North Africa for example. See the European Neighbourhood Policy for more.

Apologies, it's been a long day. I knew I'd done something wrong there too, just couldn't notice it somehow.

Yep. I've never bought the 'memorandum of understanding' talk either. If it did exist, whoever signed it should be sacked for being dumb as ****. If it didn't, whoever let this transfer go ahead should be sacked for being dumb as ****.

Hannan by any chance? Hateful man. I'm surprised he's had time to write anything given how much his balls got fondled by the right of the US media. I think the easy angle he's gone for, that the EU runs the country, isn't quite correct and is a simplification to the point of being wrong, but is a rather prevalent idea so I doubt it's going away. My understanding is that the drift in the EU away from trade was in effect started by the desire to aid trade (the simple logic being trade is in one way or another dictated to by law, policy, etc etc) and that by largely consolidating a number of those laws across the trade area it would make things easier for trade to take place? Of course that has further grown as the EU itself grew in might, it now represents a major player on the global economy and again it makes sense to as far as possible be united on policy. Its been done in a cack handed manner and is a mess, but at heart I don't think it's a bad thing. The democratic deficit is a hangover from it's beginnings and is something only now starting to be sorted out. The EU today is the most democratic it's been. Still not enough, of course, but better. As ever, they'll be no agreement here. I accept the EU is pretty damn flawed and I'd like it to be better, I don't think that means it's an evil thing that we must leave immediately. I think on the whole it's been good for us, and what we should do is look to influence it's path from here on, failing it collapsing entirely and allowing us to start again with the chance to right it's wrongs in one fell swoop.

Is that not the problem with the EU however, that it wasn't drawn up from word go with a strict plan of action? It's evolved from one thing to another, picking up bits as pieces that are a mess as it goes along and grew and changed. It's had 61 years of evolution and never really trimmed the fat or simply sat down and decided it's direction. the few times it has tried to give itself a bit of a redesign and restructuring it's viewed with deep cynicism, the most obvious example being the Lisbon Treaty (which also made a slight attempt at trying to give it some more democratic accountability too). Even Lisbon doesn't really go far enough to sort out the mess of the EU but it seems destined to once in a while give itself a trim in the hope that eventually it becomes something that has some element of of the well thought out pan-European pact. Unfortunately the only way that may happen is if the whole thing completely collapses and that I can't see happening even with the issues with member economies going pop. The EU might collapse if it's members where all so heavily invested (by which I don't just mean monetarily invested, by also fully politically invested in it, taking the whole union deadly seriously in the way the member state is run) in it that they played exactly by it's rules all the time. Instead they faff around the rules and when it comes to the wire, downright ignore the fact it exists (see the moments when economies throughout the union started to go tits up - a number of influential leaders in the union asked that the union work together - what actually happened is a number of members give the union the finger and worked on their own initiative). That flexibility probably makes it far less likely to fall apart. Even if it became totally ignored it'd still hover in the background because it occasionally would have it's uses. I completely agree that ideally you'd look at the EU, go through it's policies and treaties and whatnot and trim out the rubbish and reinstate the good parts in a new structure that was designed ground up as an intergovernmental political entity. It's just not going to happen though imo. Even if it did, there are too many people wanting to take the EU in too many directions (backwards to a trade organisation again as it was in it's infancy, sideways on a continued path of what it is now, forwards into a proper republic, etc etc) for that to happen for a very long time. The best we can hope for, if you are a fan of the EU, is that the differing opinions and bureaucracy and the tug of power in all different directions means that as it evolves it gradual mutates into the thing we want, or at least something approaching that. For my money, that's pretty much what it is doing already, although I think it needs to prioritise a little on that - it seems rather more interested in looking outwards and introducing more problems into itself whilst giving looking in at itself a little bit of a back seat.

And there is a sight for sore eyes, Michelson. Nice to see a post from you again. And a good'un too, fantastic.

I think I'd struggle to approve of someone less in reality. He's been atrocious from word go. He has done the exact opposite of deliver on the pitch, presiding over an horrendous run of results. Off the pitch he seems to have the Midas touch for pissing people off, being a PR disaster from the fans point of view. He also seems to be incapable of acting off the pitch to solve the problems of results, at one point straight up saying he won't solve an issue now, despite it being a pressing problem needing treatment. He's had at least 2 moments that anyone else would have been given marching orders for. I didn't much approve of him in the first place but even I've been shocked at the raging disaster he's been. The last couple of months just further put the tin hat on an utter failure of an appointment.

Redknapp's a dodgy prick. ...no sorry, according to the brown envelope I've just been handed, he's actually a stand up chap and a proper scamp.

Speaking to the few Spurs fans I know, they appreciate what Redknapp has done for the clubs successes, but don't actually like him.

A resounding no. Awful manager.

He seems not to quite know his role here yet, whilst also finding his way in the league. He's certainly a different player to the one I watched a bit at Lille for us. That player was Essien like, not as good but a similar mould. The one playing in our side at the moment bustles about a bit with some neat passing and then does something a bit reckless and vanishes. Next season will probably be the making of him. I hope anyway.

Being able to return to missions after the game is done, with all the attachments and augments you opened on your main playthrough is a great feature. Makes the early levels a helluva lot more fun than they were even the first time. I'm now going achievement hunting.

Someone good'd be good. Hell, a negative of Houllier would be good (by which I mean the opposite, not something like 'his curious ability to **** off everyone' from the list of cons the Frenchman has).

Expected a draw. At the moment, a draw doesn't do a lot for us. The table is now truly frightening.

Can't see past a draw at best. I don't think a draw would be quite good enough somehow.

So no, you don't understand at all what I said. Oh I did (PC games and gamers are held back by the console market because thats where the money is and thusly games are therefore catered for that market rather more, to the PC gamer's chagrin, with the implication that PC games are always the bleeding edge of gaming for many genres).

Oh I think many 'consolers' do understand that the PC regularly will outdo anything a console can, especially at this point in a consoles life where they're starting to creak. But they don't really give a ****. Because they want to play games on a console, because it's a more affordable/accessible/comfortable experience for them. The original Crysis was beyond the realms of many hardened PC gamers even at release, and by and large many people say that while the original was impressive as a technological feat but was a little lacking as a game, this one has focused just a little more on making a game.

Released on all ME2 platforms. It's not terribly long. Plays a bit differently since you're without your squad. Not the best bit of DLC they've done Thats according to a bloke I know who downloaded it asap and blazed through it because he's a huge Mass Effect buff. I dunno about how it acts like a bridging piece, as I didn't want anything spoiled... but I have adjusted my expectations of it downwards sadly.

The crocodiles don't age thing is not as simple as saying 'crocodiles are immortal'. Nothing dies of age. Age in many things makes death more likely, true, but a lot of large reptile species have 'negligible aging' giving them no real negative to the length of their life. Scientifically 'age' (as in the march to becoming elderly) is measured on the functionality of the body becoming curtailed over time. In these creatures that have negligible aging, the point at which they have their body start to fail or lose functionality never comes, and so scientifically, they don't really age. Time is still passing by for them obviously and their cells are still aging (meaning they're not immortal), but this does not cause them to lose functionality. All that means is that they can live, in ideal conditions, for exceptionally long periods of time. They'd still die eventually, simply because chances are, longer you live, the more chance of something 'going wrong', i.e. being killed, starving, catching a disease, developing a genetic disease, etc. It's basically the same thing a tortoise does, and we're not amazed that tortoises live for a couple of centuries in some cases. Theoretically, because nothing dies of age, anything could become immortal. The only reason humans (assuming we live perfect lives and don't succumb to things like heart disease or strokes, or contracted disease) die is that our biology starts to show faults as our cells divide and we inevitably get cancer that will sooner or later kill us, or our genes cause other diseases that eventually cause our death. Solve the problems of our genetic makeup and we may never die. That would solve aging as well most likely, although ironically we need our cells to age to stop cancer occuring (as cells age they become more likely to 'go cancerous', they have a biological clock that encourages them to self destruct at a certain age - cancerous cells are often cells that simply were prevented/'forgot' to die), so we would need to develop a genetic solution to not age as well as stop cancer. The unfortunate thing with that occuring however would be we'd actually be doing more damage than good - it's good for the species for the elderly to die sadly and it's good for the species for it to have the elderly to die. If we all ran around in our prime for ever we'd rapidly destroy ourselves. There are a number of animals that are bonfide immortal - only dying through trauma or disease. There is a type of jellyfish that, after fulfilling it's role in sexual reproduction, effectively puts it's life in reverse, growing young again, then bouncing back to maturity again IIRC. And then there's water bears, a creature that not only doesn't age whatsoever, is also **** hard to kill - if they find themselves in an environment that may kill them, they shut down until they reach an environment they can live normally in again. They're able to live in this shutdown state for long periods of time. They can survive being released into space for a while for example, an environment that obviously has nothing they require to live and is also exceptionally cold and radiactive.

I had a crack at the MP this morning to be fair. I'm not the best shooter multiplayer player in the world, I can just about hold my own on MW2 but nothing fantastic. This... it's ok. I won't put much time into it though. I'd like to, for sure, but it feels too random for me. The few rounds I played I got consistantly tonked, and I'm not that sure why to be honest. I was hitting guys, unarmoured, with round after round and they were able to take me down with about 4 hits. It feels like it could do with a bit of tinkering and could be decent. It's a different feel to COD for sure - an unarmoured headshot is instant death (fair enough) and it's considerably slower, and the armour is an absolute necessity. It also needs a bit more artistic variety in the maps, the layouts are decent enough but everyone is variations of grey and dull blue and it all becomes a bit of a mush. The multiplayer feels like a competant companion to the single player, which is the clear showpiece of the game. It's not going to drag people away from COD, because its a) not COD, and not quite good enough. This subsequently makes a mockery of one of the achievements, which asks you play the multiplayer 6 motnhs down the line to earn it. Which is going to annoy achievement hunters out there .

To be fair to 3d, which I'm loathe to do, there is a convincing argument for me that states that once you stop noticing the 3d in favour of the film/game/whatever taking your interest more, the 3d has succeeded. You're not spending your money for a 3d showcase after all, you're spending your money to see a film/play a game in a way that is hopefully more engrossing, exciting or however better than it might be in 2d. Sadly, that rarely happens because 3d, especially in cinema, is anti-immersive on the whole. As for the headache/nausea thing with the 3DS that made the papers today, that goes away with familiarity with the devise. Especially if you're not a moron and set the 3d to the right level for yourself, which varies person to person and game to game.

Ignoring the single player is totally alien to me. Anywho, I finished this tonight. It's an enjoyable ride. It's story is a bit of a mess, and the pacing is utterly shot, but I found it good fun. It's nice to have a meaty campaign in the COD era, though some may say the game out stays its welcome a little - it has a bit of the LOTR:ROTK in that it feels like its about to end a couple of times in the final 3 hours only to chuck a bit more at you. The final hour is a bit grim and it ends ona slightly damp note, but its a breathe of fresh air in that it plays differently to the competition in this genre. It's a more thoughtful experience than COD, its more than 'if it moves shoot it in the head' because patience and planning are often rewarded much more than wandering in all guns blazing... But even then the game is fluid enough to let the play style work, and indeed in later levels as you get more geared up, that tactic starts to have its benefits. It's certainly not a flawless gem. It's got a couple of niggling bugs that sometimes occur, and it feels a little curtailed in the weapon department - you can easily clock it using 3 guns you pick up in the first hour. Other weapons open up some differing tactics but you rarely need them and generally whatever these other guns bring to the table is outweighed by something else - usually that they have next to no ammo capacity. It pulls the 'dramatic event happening in glorified cutscene' trick a bit too much too. And the aliens are never as satisfying as the human enemies, they feel more like bullet sinks than anything, designed to be slightly time and resource consuming to kill (unless you get a few aimed shots off at vulnerable areas, and even those disappear later on). And it's pacing is definitely off - its a game played at one speed, perhaps the only flaw of allowing the player a lot of freedom in how they approach the combat, it doesn't allow for the creation of choreographed action set pieces that either cause, or give the impression of, the game kicking on a gear. But for 11 hours, i really had fun, sneaking about, surveying battlefields, popping off silenced shots and twisting unsuspecting soldiers heads round Exorcist style. It's a good laugh and for it's flaws, I enjoyed it a lot more than my recnt BlOps playthrough. And its a looker. It's a breath of fresh air. I'm tired of COD.

We had the Nintendo rep round today, wanted to know how it's been going with sales. I got the impression that pretty much everywhere it's a steady seller but nothing more. Doesn't surprise me to be honest. Even the rep said the launch lineup was a bit lacking.

Theres a 'goodwill' pack in - it adds a couple of things to get you kick started in multiplayer, but nothing like a single use Online Pass or anything. You won't miss it if purchasing preowned.