Horse Bag

It's an odd feeling, waking up one day to feel like a stranger in your own country. Things would have been strange for a while if the UK had voted to remain, but I feel it would have settled down in time. The underlying tensions wouldn't have gone away, obviously, but those appear to have very little to do with EU membership; you certainly get the impression that most people asking to leave didn't actually know what they were asking for, equating leaving the EU to spurious notions of the vote actually being for tighter immigration control and more funding for the NHS. Misguided or not, more people voted to leave than to stay. Divorced from the greater context I consider this a mistake in itself — naturally the EU isn't faultless, but the UK has always seemed to get more out than it puts in — but the truly depressing part is how this isn't just a victory for those wishing to leave the EU but also, inextricably, a victory for xenophobia and bigotry. You don't have to look far today to see all the racist idiots emboldened by 'their' victory, harassing British citizens that have lived in, and contributed to, the UK for years. I feel like a stranger and I have it pretty good, all things considered: my city voted to remain, I'm white, my surname's boring and I have a nondescript accent. Imagine if one or more of those things weren't true: I wouldn't just feel like a stranger in my own country, I'd feel like the enemy; I wouldn't just feel empty, I would feel afraid.

I would say the first few Chalice dungeons make them seem more homogeneous than they actually are. Not that there's a huge amount of visual variation, at least in my experience, but they quickly layer in more enemy types, environmental hazards and traps at a depth of 3+. Naturally they aren't as tight as the hand crafted areas, but I've already encountered my fair share of surprises, interesting combat puzzles and devious deaths. They're a nice end-game addition, a side dish to the meat of the game.

In regards to the FW shortcut:

It might outstay its welcome, but sometimes the loading screen makes for a pretty perfect title card: (minor spoiler for the FW area) If you're avoiding all media, here's the video in emoticon form, albeit lacking the gratuitous ShareFactory goofiness:

I'd like to introduce folks to one of my favourite bands, Psapp. Say hi, Psapp! As I'm not a fan of inscrutable sub-genre tags I'd describe them as found sound electronica with a strong lyrical aspect, incorporating a range of traditional instruments. They also have a thing for cats. This recommendation wasn't spurred by a new release, although they are still active as far as I know; I don't really follow any bands, just check in now and then for pleasant surprises. Hopefully Psapp is one for someone else. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NXXirzLbxa0

It isn't really an upgrade as it doesn't require the PS+ Edition, it's just the full game at a discounted price. That's why the regular listing isn't available to you as a Plus member, the Store's stopping you from accidentally paying full price.

It sounds like Kansas arrived at our nightmare future early.

Are you just referring to the first series? I feel like you wouldn't be so positive if you'd just watched the third. Speaking of crime drama, I have a lot of time for the French show Spiral, or Engrenages, which has just started again on BBC4. Wikipedia suggests that you can watch the first three series in the US via Hulu and it's definitely a show I'd recommend so long as you have a stomach for subtitles and horrendous criminal acts.

Whilst a somewhat ironic response, this prescient exchange in The Longest Journey is a pretty pithy visual representation of my feelings on Twitter: In theory I appreciate the service as a kind of interpersonal RSS feed, where people have direct access to individuals they might not otherwise, but in practise I simply find its penchant for teacup storms and context-stripping microscopy to be incredibly draining and often times depressing, Not because it represents an erosion of humanity, rather the nagging feeling that it's an accurate representation of it. I appreciate that this isn't a particularly constructive post, but perhaps it can serve as an example of how our increasingly 'social' existence can end up leaving some feeling evermore isolated.

When it first aired I skipped Ripper Street, the name and adverts having suggested a high level of shlock. As such it made for a pleasant surprise when I gave it a watch earlier last year, and an opportune trial of Amazon Prime — which picked up the show in the BBC's absence —.has allowed me to devour the third series over the holidays. I don't know if the change of venue played any part, but I'd say this latest run is the best of the three. It has a more pronounced narrative through-line and a lot changes in the space of 8 episodes, making a nice change from the drip feed of character development you typically get with crime dramas. I want to say women are better represented, too, with a wider net cast and far more female roles outside that of victim. For those in the US, apparently the third series will be on BBC America in "early 2015".

Was this in a single sitting? If not you might be able to pull down a cloud save, unless it's been overwritten: Settings > Application Saved Data Management > Save Data In Online Storage.

It's bizarre that research items get lumped into Valuables rather than given their own category. It meant I never used the theoretically convenient Sell All function as I didn't want to blindly hand everything over; it doesn't help that the research table is comparatively out of the way. As to your question, I never came across anything other than the labelled researched items that were of use. I do know of one exception, though: the Sad Splinters you can loot from a Keep's broken door when you're storming it are needed to craft a novelty weapon. Oh, as SgtWhistlebotom points out you need certain Valuables to fulfil Requisitions. To be honest I don't think they're worth doing in the first place, though: doing proper, non-repeatable quests will see you flush with far more Power than you can possibly use anyway.

As the fidelity and complexity of GTA's worlds have developed I find its tone only becomes more ill-fitting. Its on-the-nose approach to satire gelled with the ridiculous top-down incarnations and even the PS2-era representations were crude enough that there was an argument to be made for caricature, but with IV and V it feels increasingly mismatched; the game worlds are incredibly impressive in their realisation and reactivity, but the populace of those worlds inspire misanthropy rather than a wry smile. Further to that, the representations of stripping and prostitution feel even more incongruous as they're played fairly straight. By rights the games' pervasive lazy satire should stretch to your interactions with those NPCs, but to me their inclusion seems designed to titillate. And we aren't talking about GTAIII's inclusion of sex workers that might have been one programmer's 'Easter Egg' that happened to have an unfortunate systemic side effect, these are NPC interactions with voice acting and bespoke animations; time and money was spent on their inclusion. I don't really think there's any chance of GTA leaving its adolescence — or should that be adolescents? — behind, but at the very least they could give us a female protagonist and the opportunity to molest meticulously mo-capped male strippers. Not exactly an admirable goal, I grant you, but it would still be a step up. Which says it all, really.

Sorry, back in 2002 I only had ears for the Jet Set Radio Future soundtrack.

#4 had me stumped for a while, as I knew I'd heard it a lot but couldn't quite place it. Cue something of a eureka moment when I realised it's...

Allow me to assist you with tiered spoiler clues: #2 #13 #16 #18 #19

You can view everything in the Capture Gallery, accessible via an icon on the main app list, and copy media to USB if you want. ShareFactory can also be used to edit video on the PS4 itself and is actually pretty decent. Direct YouTube uploading should be in the next firmware update, too.

I won't quite be troubling tegan's record, but the early bird and all that.

Following on from my last post, Gravity Rush also features a vocal track sung in a fictitious language: It's reserved for the credits, but as the same language is used throughout the game — and the excellent soundtrack is so core to the tone and personality — I feel vaguely justified in exposing more people to it. Whilst trying to think of suitable inclusions for this thread I realised that vocal tracks are actually fairly common in Japanese games. A notable example would be the Silent Hill series which encompasses many lyrical works which relate to the events of the games or recount a particular character's perspective. Naturally they tend to be rather less effervescent than the above: I'm having a much harder time recalling instances of characters themselves singing. The only ones that spring to mind, other than the synthetic warble of the opera scene from FFVI, are this rather spoilery example from Valkyria Chronicles: And Jodie's optional busking from Beyond: Two Souls: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsZak4SALG8

The Invective can be really useful in both PvP and PvE as it's a full-auto shotgun. Naturally any players that engage you in close quarters stand little chance, but it's also effective for bursting down tougher AI opponents; anything with a Solar shield will crumple, but I've also found it handy for enraged Major Minotaurs. Personally I really want Hawkmoon, mainly for its looks: Unfortunately acquiring it is all down to luck.

Alan Wake features this original song quite prominently: In the game it's attributed to the fictitious band Old Gods of Asgard, the lyrics serving as a roadmap of sorts; Max Payne 2 soundtrack contributors Poets of the Fall are the actual talent behind it. Likely a purer example of what you're after is Leliana's Song from Dragon Age: Origins. Its is as awkwardly animated as your average BioWare sex scene, which does rather ruin the moment. As for the lyrics, they're supposed to be Elvish so I'm not sure if they really mean anything, although based on the tone they probably buck the Elven trend by not revolving around shanking shems.

Click here for one weird trick, discovered by a reader:

A daily reward gets mailed to you for completing one of the timed events that can occur in the shared spaces. It's obvious when one's happening as the sky darkens and you get a notification on the left of the screen. I believe they're on timers if you want to dig into it, but generally speaking the easiest way to run into one is load up a Patrol and hang about in the more open areas, like the aircraft graveyard near the Skywatch in Old Russia; you can run into them whilst doing Story missions, but the Patrol requests give you something to do whilst you wait. Speaking of which, I've also come across a Strange Coin in a regular chest. Always worth seeing if you're lucky should you hear the tell-tale tinkle of one nearby.

I believe the attack rating of weapons is moot in PvP. You do want to be mindful of the stat bars, though, as those percentages do carry over. In your case I suspect the blue Hand Cannon has a higher Impact rating than the green, meaning it does more damage per bullet. Naturally it will fall short in some other regard, like quicker damage drop-off or longer reload speed, but in competitive play stopping power is pretty crucial to that weapon type given the shallow magazines. Changing the subject, I'm actually baffled by how poor and unfinished the story feels, as so much else about the game is polished to a sheen; it's like they were so focussed on their 10 year franchise plan that they forgot to make the first part in any way satisfying or interesting. It's bizarre as Bungie have clearly spent a long time filling out the minutia of their universe — history, iconography, company names, etc — so obviously it's something they care about, yet Destiny's 'campaign' is one of the most meaningless I've played in a long time.

I've no idea if they made good on that promise as I didn't particularly feel like paying them more money for the actual ending. Given that they also made Lightning Returns, which I haven't touched, I assume it wasn't very final. Fantasy. As for the spoiler: I often wish my brain was as much of a sponge for useful information.