Laivasse

I think it's entirely possible to have a guy who's terrible and not good enough to start for us, yet who is also at the same time a good prospect for the future, especially when it comes to defenders. In about 4 years, with some top quality coaching, I think Bennett could be a decent prem LB. As it stands, he's not good enough and as long as he starts he's liable to put in atrocious performances like the one last night. He was totally the wrong purchase for our situation. Tbf I don't think Lowton's any better.

Aside from GTA V there's not much I have my eye on. I am interested in seeing how CDProjekt's Cyberpunk RPG shapes up, as well as any further instalment in the Witcher franchise, but both of those will probably be 2014 prospects, as will Project Eternity. I'm counting on there being some sleeper hits, Walking Dead style, otherwise it'll be a barren year for me. As for MGS: Revengeance, though, the GiantBomb quick look made it look surprisingly great. If you're a fan of the series (I'm not), you should check out that vid.

As someone who came to TW2 from the first game, which was slagged off a lot for the combat, I didn't find the combat in TW2 too hot either. It seemed like the designers had been playing a lot of very tough trial-and-error type games like Demons Souls, so they had sequences where you essentially had to memorise that there was an extremely hard fight around the corner, cheese all the prep with your prior knowledge, then spend most of the fight dodging around avoiding all damage (or spamming the forcefield - again cheesy). Aside from being a massive departure in gameplay style from the first game - where you could drink potions during combat, dodging was an afterthought and blocking was automated based on stats - I just though the controls and collision detection weren't tight enough for what they were going for. Still, I found the game world and story solid enough to compensate.

That's understandable, the 9400 would probably struggle with TW2. It has standard WASD and mouse controls which are fine. However at 30-40 hours, with a lot of dialogue and character interaction, it's not really an on-the-bog kind of game. Also your laptop will need to be fairly powerful, graphically.

****.

HAHAAAA daylight robbery but COME ON!! Brilliant. Benteke has been immense late on in this second half. Really hope he continues to prove me wrong because until now I was getting the impression he was a player with stamina for only 60 minutes.

YES! Cmon bastards.

I meant the type of ACL injury he got, specifically, not just any old injury. However for all we know it was caused by his shit tackling and I agree he shows every sign of not being good enough, at this point in time.

Swansea's inability to capitalise on their dominance seems to have got them all flustered. Their passes are all over the place and they haven't had a proper chance in ages. This could be poised for a real steal and we need the points. Although... Lambert needs to know what he's doing for that to happen

He has turned out to be horrendous. But to be fair at the time, before we got a chance to see if he'd live up to the price tag, he got an injury which has derailed many a footballer's career.

This Welsh lot don't look much more solid than we do at the back. Would be nice if we could play football, might be possible to take the initiative.

He booked Weimann for kicking the ball away, which is a nailed on booking every time. Since when has 'right' ever had anything to do with how you're allowed to react to a call.

It's been a long time since anyone could have been in doubt about Delph's tackling. Even MON was criticising him for it very early.

I actually think Halsey's been pretty lenient, he let Clark get away with murder before the eventual booking. Now that our youngsters are getting stroppy all over the pitch I expect him to tighten up and not give us an inch though.

That came off Brad. Another incredible stop.

What card do you have? Tried updating your drivers? I've heard TW2 actually scales pretty well for older tech, even though it has a reputation for being about the most graphically demanding game around.

Exactly, it just proves he played a lot. Any player that plays more than the rest is probably going to be there when we pick up points, statistically speaking. Our season's been poor so far and there's no worthwhile correlation to speak of between players and points, especially since we have so few of the latter.

It's a great game. The main character is a likeable roguish womanising type. Believable world. Pretty gripping and immersive. Interesting branching storyline. Personally I prefer the first Witcher game though (which is €2 in this same sale). That might be a minority opinion, but I think it's because I'm an RPG fan, and TW1 has more of a classic RPG flavour while TW2 is more action-focused. Generally I also think the first game had fewer pacing and balance issues, plus a bit of a richer atmosphere throughout. For a measly €2 I think anyone who considers themselves an RPG fan would be out of their mind not to get the first game as well. Anyone else could probably take it or leave it. Combat in TW1 takes some getting used to and the character faces in that game look pretty rough nowadays for a start. However you absolutely don't need to have played the first game to understand TW2. The stories are self-contained, with some very minor character continuity. Even if you buy both at once, TW2 might be a more accessible entry point depending on the type of games you're used to.

He's just bad. Saying 'we scored most of our points with Bannan on the pitch' proves only one thing - Lambert likes him. He's played Bannan 17 times in the league, including 14 starts, which is more than any of our other midfielders apart from Holman. So what? It's one of many things Lambert has got wrong. If anything, as one of our most regular midfield starters we should be asking why Bannan hasn't made more of an impact on our season (hint: it's because he's shit).

Maybe this Jimmy Haslam III fella likes football...?

Huth signed a new contract in summer, Lescott would cost silly money. Doesn't stop me wishing, of course.

Sums up how I feel & I've been one of his biggest defenders. Although I think this is probably Ireland's worst performance in a Villa shirt. He went around tackling like a stroppy kid, clattered a guy in our area and would have given up a pen if not for the shite standard of refereeing we've come to accept as standard.

It was supposed to be Benteke marking, but just like much of the time in the last three games he looked like he couldn't be arsed.

I think priority one is a solid, reliable CB, even if it breaks the bank. Lambert should have bought at least two in the summer as it stood, but only bought Vlaar. If we get an experienced, level head in that back line, it can free up Herd and later Clark to be used as midfield spoilers. Granted they are not very good options, but lack of investment has left us at a stage where none of our options can possibly be 'very good'. Then we need to supplement that with another solid buy in midfield. How is Frimpong doing at Charlton, anyone know? Also a winger or two. Of course, all that's assuming Lambert is the man to be spending this money...

There was no mistake made, you just seem to be very forgiving of ad hominem attacks when they suit your perspective. You acknowledge that generalisations were made, but don't seem to mind that they were negative generalisations that undermined fans of a certain perspective. I don't even have a dog in the 'moaning brummie' race since I'm not from Birmingham. Nevertheless it's obvious to me that dismissing someone's, anyone's, viewpoint because they weren't at the game or because they fit some stereotype of fickleness, is questioning their worth as a fan. Plain as day. He was using that stereotype to undermine the worth of any opinion from a certain set of fans. It's not me who's trying to silence anyone, it's the idea that your support is only worth something if you're saying a certain kind of thing in a certain kind of way. The site rules shouldn't just exist as a tripwire that fires when someone does a naughty, they should guide the spirit of discussion, and stuff like 'people who say X are just Y-type of fan' clearly goes against that, not that I think it's worth narking on anybody for.