Griddlelol

How is the new sapphire/ruby in terms of difficulty? I really liked x and y, but was disappointed with how easy it was. I did a bunch of breeding, training and levelling for the elite 4, then just blew through them with one Pokemon.

I completely agree, that part was great. It could basically be a Lord Management game.

So, how much better are they than the level 9 opponents? I'm not good enough to win consistently against them yet! I didn't think I'd like the models so much. I kinda want one for my desk at work.

I have an amiibo! My partner gave me DK for Xmas (which we celebrate on the 24th here). I'm excited to go back home so I can use it, but that won't be for a week. So yeah...what do they do again?

With regards to Metal Gear Solid, I think I gave up on it. The controls are terrible for the last boss. I managed to best it once, but twice...seriously? Now I refuse to play 2 or 3 until I finish 1, which will probably be never. I liked 4 a lot, so I wouldn't worry about the story. It's bullshit anyway. They're basically just fun games with a throwaway narrative...come to think of it, like most Japanese games.

Have you tried DK tropical freeze? I'm going to pick that up after I finish Bayonetta 2. What about SSB? Such a high skill ceiling on that, although I feel like level 9 enemies are cheating. 2015 is looking like a good year for skill based games. Bloodborne (and DS2 rerelease), Hotline Miami 2 and Splatoon out in Q1.

The reason I went for mine was because there is an indestructible glass ceiling in my field without a PhD. The problem was, moving from industry into academia made me fall in love with the freedom and now I don't want to leave. My PhD is in Medicine, but I am not a medic, which causes a lot of confusion. It is terrifying never having a contract for more than 3 years, but I wouldn't give it up to work in the soul crossing world of big pharma. YMMV. If you do a PhD for a job, it's the wrong decision. If you love the field and don't mind being over qualified for everything except academia, then it's great.

I was pretty stringent with who I'd actually meet. I found that having a phone call before was a good litmus test of whether you'd get on in person. Much better than sending messages. If there was trouble making conversation on the phone, it'd be magnified in person, with the reverse true too. From other people I know who are currently online dating, the rate of finding someone they like is pretty low. And on top of that, only 1 has found a partner who she is serious with. I've not really met many girls or women "going out" and I'm at the point in my life that I really don't want to meet someone who frequents clubs and bars because I don't really enjoy those places. When I'm exercising, I don't want to talk to people, and I'm sure women in the gym don't want to be bothered either. Nor do I have a pool of friends I can draw upon for potential dates. My coworkers are either married, too old or you know...coworkers. So online seems to be the only way for me, which I don't really mind.

I got SSB4 from game in manchester. It's one of the first times I've used game in years simply because Amazon was sold out (despite a preorder). They charged me £10 more than any other retailer. Blew, I hate game. You know what's weird. TESCO doesn't stock Nintendo stuff. There is one with a massive gaming section 5 minutes from me, but not a single Nintendo item, not even 3DS or Amiibo.

I bested Dragon Age: Inquisition. Yeah, it was alright. I liked it enough to play for over 100 hours, but I don't really know why. It's biggest problem is that the combat can't decide what it wants to be. They should have gone either the transistor root, with a weird, semi-turn based thing, or a dark souls route, with an almost "character action" style combat. Dragon age really suffers for it. To the point that the combat becomes a chore. This isn't helped by the awful AI, and terribly customisation for the AI. Melee DPS warriors spend most of their time dead since they never get behind enemies. Mages will not pay attention to elemental resistances (one Mage had a ton of ice spells, but instead spammed his single fire spell on dragons meaning I had to baby sit him as well as my character) leading to difficult fights being frustrating, or requiring a lot of micromanagement with a system that makes micromanagement incredibly slow and difficult. The narrative is kinda boring too, it's old fashioned high fantasy style thing, which to be honest, isn't really my thing. Even if it was I probably would find it a little cheesey. Bad guy is bad because he's bad. You've got to stop him because...he's bad? It's never really explained what he'd do to people. I assume he wanted to hurt or kill people, but I don't really know why. What I did like about it was the mini-narratives. The politics, the interactions between characters and finally the world. Fighting the dragons was surprisingly fun, as you have to make sure each member of your party is behaving correctly, dodging attacks and dispelling debuffs. One of the greatest moments I had was The quests are pretty weak too, so many go here, collect this. I started off reading the descriptions as to why, but after a while it became like an MMO where I just wanted to get shit done. I doubt I'll ever play it again, but hey, it was better than skyrim.

That's a pretty good way to do it. Audience expansion: Binding of Isaac. Cultural ambassador: Gone Home Subjective best: I dunno, something by Nintendo.

My SO and I met by online dating. From what I've heard it's pretty rare that it actually works out. I really enjoyed my time doing it mainly because I met a ton of people I'd never have met by going out and doing stuff, simply because of different interests.

I'm not sure that's correct...at all. Orgasms have been shown to increase the likelihood of conception, but have nothing to do with the genetic make-up of the child. I might be missing your point but y'know...

I loathe this aspect of job hunting. The worst part is that it's all in the bloody CV, which you then have to attach anyway. It entirely subverts the point of the CV - you only have to make one (with obvious minor changes) and it's sent to everyone. I need to start finding another job soon (read in 6 months time), and I'm really not looking forward to it. My current job had an incredibly informal application - I sent my CV, a cover letter, then had an interview. I was informed I got the job, but that I now had to fill out all the online bullshit to make it official. It's great having a boss who cares less for the online crap than you do. Edit: Can this also be the Cronyism thread?

I get that too. It's infuriating. I recently had banana bread, but had no idea what flavour it was. Same thing with some cinnamon cookies. Weird how smells and flavours don't immediately bring up the word associated with them, just a feeling of familiarity.

Yay! Finally featured. It's a contraction of "the rest is just gravy" that developed in my high school, come to think of it...10 years ago now, where anything good was described as gravy. For some reason I still use it occasionally. Probably because I like gravy and super fast internets.

That's really interesting. I remember watching the first season practically enthralled (my first ever American drama show of the modern style), then the second season I just couldn't care less about and stopped watching the show pretty fast. I didn't even know it coincided with the writers strike.

The title to this thread is kinda ironic. Amiibos would be a wallet scourge, if they existed in any shop. Bloody things are impossible to find, and I refuse to buy them off scalpers for triple the price. Goddamnit Nintendo make more! People are going to buy them.

Starting that wouldn't be a bad idea. It's great to see classic games come up that I never played and gives me an idea of what I want to try. I asked about SNES/NES games a while back and found that Super Metroid is an absolutely fantastic game (which I've not finished yet due to my refusal to use a guide) that I would never have even looked at without people mentioning it. Also, something like DOTA2 in my opinion should be on a must-play list. I don't like it, I loathe Lords Management games, but I'm glad I tried it. So anyway: make the list. It'd be cool.

I finished Bayonetta tonight, the rerelease on the WiiU. Honestly, Bayonetta is a bad video game. I adored the combat, when it was good, it was the best, when it was bad, it was still better than practically every other game. The problem is, that just about everything else in Bayonetta is bad. The narrative - I ended up skipping cut scenes because they were uninteresting, and filtered through brown. The voice acting The visuals - where's the colour? The not-combat game play - walking around/jumping or being in panther form control like crap. They're not fun to use, making the platforming sections a chore. The instant fail QTEs - made worse by the placement of buttons on a WiiU. The shooting sections Urgh! The perviness The lack of explanations The incredibly punishing rating system - seriously, one death gets me stone? That's not an incentive. The thing is, I still really liked the game. The combat mechanics are just so good, and defeating difficult bosses or pulling off a parry feels amazing! So I'm kind of torn. I still think Bayonetta is an awful, frustrating game with a pointless narrative, but I'd still recommend it because at the core the combat is just...satisfying.

The BBC has a long history of great comedies...right up until the early 2000's, when they've not made something even remotely funny. Miranda is in my opinion another comedy that doesn't even make me smile. And to counteract the negativity of that comment because I've not seen it mentioned: Star Trek: The Next Generation Should be a mandatory watch, great show.

I had the embarrassment of hitting on a hot, gay, woman when I first started my job...for about a month. Everyone thought it was too amusing to tell me, including her.

This video gives a pretty cool insight into that from the other perspective.

To me SR3 was supremely better than SR2. I don't even remember playing SR2 it left so little impression on me. I actually remember characters and specific missions from 3 that I thought were hilarious or just plain fun. For me the series really started to stand out in 3, but then again, by the time 2 was out I had lost all interest in GTA and games of that ilk. GTA 5 was a massive flop for me too despite being incredibly popular with journalists and people I know.

I guess I'm not one of those. Mainly because I only cared about SR when 3 hit. SR3 just blows the previous 2 games out the water in my opinion, and Gat was no where to be seen in that. I didn't realise people cared about the story of SR that much either. It's so ridiculous...