Thrik

I resisted in the end. At this point I'd still largely just be buying it for SM3DW, which I can't really justify so I'll wait until next year when some more of the first-party stuff is out. I can't see me doing much third-party gaming on the Wii U, having had another look at how things are going on that front. This game does look so sweet though. I'm guessing the gratuitous use of Koopa Kids and timers is because the game is meant to be a bit of a hybrid of the 2D and 3D Mario games, and the timers did add a layer of challenge/threat to the older games in the same way Spelunky's ghost does. On the other hand, Donkey Kong Country was excellent without one.

Sometimes the resolution choice is limited when you have both screens running because your computer can't handle so much screen. You might want to experiment with disabling the screen you don't want to actively use so your monitor is the primary (and only) screen that's enabled.

If you right click your Windows desktop, the 'Screen resolution' section allows you to control this kind of thing. Pressing Windows+P is also a good mode switching shortcut to be aware of.

Any will do, it just comes down to what level of picture quality, built-in speakers, and extra HDMI slots you're willing to pay for. In terms of pure features they're fairly equivalent across the entire price field now. The only small thing to make a note of is the actual version of HDMI the TV supports, as this does vary and it is possible to get problems between old TVs and new Blu-ray players if you're wanting to show 4K imagery or 3D for example.

You're just looking for a monitor with the ability to handle multiple inputs. There's no real name for what you're after, and to be honest the inputs vary on a per-monitor (and per-computer for that matter) basis. Nowadays people often use HDMI or DVI out of their computers, so it's not like the inputs are specific to computers or TVs. The real distinction between a monitor and a TV is the resolution support and image processing. TVs often only support standardised TV resolutions, meaning that if you try to run some old game that only runs in a certain resolution you've potentially got problems. Conversely, monitors tend to support just about any resolution. As for the image processing, TVs usually have more advanced chips and software inside them that handles upscaling standard-definition broadcasts and such really nicely — but it can easily introduce input lag, as well as colours and contrast that don't quite look right for desktop computer use. Unless you get a really good TV it's best to just go with an honest-to-god monitor for games and computing. In terms of recommendations, if there's one component I advise people to spend a lot of money on it's a monitor. While I spent about £450 on my Dell 2407 six–seven years ago, it really does look as good as new despite unbelievable amounts of use. And even today its colour rendition and general quality surpasses the majority of monitors I see in workplaces and other peoples' houses. I highly recommend waiting for a while if need be and investing in a monitor that'll both look great and last. Cheap consumer monitors are a false economy because you end up replacing them more often and have to live with sub-par visuals. TN panels in particular are to be avoided if strikingly better image quality matters to you (it doesn't to everyone, notably competitive gamers). Edit: Worth reading this as it explains why some panels are so much better — http://reviews.cnet.com/monitor-buying-guide/

Jesus Christ. Not a day after my earlier post, Amazon UK is now doing Black Friday deals with the Wii U Premium being £50 off — and with a time limit. I expect similar deals will appear during the day but I'm feeling some serious pressure right now.

Not my shit per se. A bunch of guys who met on my forum and who I have a lot of respect for got quite far with developing a space pirate-themed platformer, but unfortunately had to shut down development and go back into full-time work last year because they just couldn't get through to the end. While in need of more work, what they had was going in a really nice direction. They did a Kickstarter, but it's been really difficult to get any of the big sites like Kotaku to post about it — I guess articles about Japanese toilets or whatever the fuck get them more hits. They're only a few days from the end now but they're barely 50% there, so they're doing one last push to get some of that all-important exposure. Here's the Kickstarter, please do check it out and back it if you feel it worthwhile: Pirates of New Horizons And here's a cute image they did about the game's origins: http://imgur.com/gallery/RWq5Jph

There's no doubt that some good metal renditions exist, I've heard some excellent ones over the years. But I'd say that overall there's a lot of mediocrity to wade through before finding the gems, to the point where it's easier to just not bother with any of them. Unless they're posted in a thread like this!

It's funny how I feel right now. I'd pretty much written the Wii U off, and while I still question some decisions Nintendo made I would actually go ahead and buy one right now if there were one more price drop. My excitement for the PS4 and XBone has almost immediately dissipated now that they're out, because as expected the catalogue of games is paltry and it's going to take at least a year or two before things really pick up. That's time I could be playing sweet-ass Nintendo games! And as long as I don't actually own a PS4 or XBone, it just feels like extending the current generation a bit longer. I'm perfectly OK with that considering that I'm yet to even get round to games like The Last of Us. The fact the other consoles are borderline impossible to get hold of only reinforces this, and avoids me doing any impulse buying — which I've been tempted by and would have almost certainly regretted.

Also, that art in the video really just makes me want to dive right into that shit. This is exactly the kind of game that makes me wish I had kids to lavish this experience upon.

Sold.

Jerky. Probably.

I'll happily take the girls with violins over beardos playing mediocre metal video game cover #296,488,326. The two albums I linked to are fully licensed, etc. They're on stores like Amazon and iTunes too. That diskette Monkey Island is ridiculous and superb.

I wasn't a big fan of Sunshine, although I can't say I actively disliked it. I think it was more the overall theme of the game that turned me off, I know some people loved the 'Mario on holiday' angle but it just didn't feel that much like propo' Mario to me. Also some parts of the game were artistically quite rough IMO, which is a surprise for a Nintendo game and especially so against what seemed at the time like an impossibly slick Mario Kart. Mario is necessarily abstract and crazy, which is why Galaxy was such a splendid comeback and it looks like this has continued the trend.

OK I've just found an even more awesome album so I'm renaming the thread. Holy fuck, the London Philharmonic Orchestra (same one that did The Lord of the Rings' soundtracks) performing some of my favourite game music. Just... yes. The whole thing can be listened to on YouTube: . The Greatest Video Game Music Weirdly, they also covered Majesco's massive Psychonauts-era flop Advent Rising. Turns out it has a pretty nice soundtrack.

The main TiVo functions aren't laggy (rewinding, etc), but navigating through my recorded shows and through pages of TV listings feels much more sluggish than what I experienced with Sky (satellite-based). I'm not sure if it's my provider using underpowered TiVo hardware or cable inherently being slower than satellite due to the two-way communication.

That stack looks absolutely terrifying to pluck a book from.

I'll buy it from you for £100.

My TiVo is ridiculously laggy, how could the XBone improve on this? I've never quite understood how the TV thing works. Can it just send signals directly down my fibre to the provider as if it were the TiVo (which it uses purely for authentication) or is it really just interacting with the TiVo menus quietly under the hood? I loved both those shows. If you can get through the 'we're not sure if we're going to be renewed so let's tread water' first season of Fringe it's worth it, as it very quickly deviates from X-Files to an epic end-of-universe arc. Whereas the X-Files just indefinitely alluded to things, Fringe actually goes ahead and does them and basically changes the world every season. Also, you just can't go wrong with the 80s episodes:

That's just stupid, really. You can't just keep perpetually editing the same review and score, and you're losing the ability to go back and reference that original review. Maybe review new revisions of the console or do it by year (e.g. Wii U - 2013 review).

Impressive.

I'll be playing in a few weeks when I have a computer that can handle it at more than 1 FPS.

I'm sure there was more to it than that. AFAIK the models of PS3s and 360s that had minimal hard drive space still sold very well — people just dealt with the limitation. But there's no such option this time. Sony could have easily bumped up the cost a bit to fit more space in, but would that have made sense when those who really want more space can easily upgrade when they start to run out? A 500GB target would have been a conscious decision, not merely 'How much GB can we get for the dollar right now?'. It's not like 500GB is tiny, either. My PS3 was about that size and it still has 100GB+ of space left on it after six years, despite my entire music and video collections living on there along with every game I've ever installed. Sure data is bigger this time around, but not so much so that 500GB counts as paltry. That's still 10 AAA games you can have installed at any one time. Not particularly bad, and if you really need more there are innumerable very cheap options. Have you seen how cheap PS4-compatible hard drives are nowadays? Personally, I think it's better for developers and gamers alike if it can be assumed that everyone has a nice 500GB hard drive rather than the obscenely small ~12GB ones that the last generation had which were literally impossible to install games on. I don't think it was a good thing having the confusion of multiple models and hard drive options, and I hope that Sony's realised that. Maybe an even bigger version would be a nice variation, but right now 2TB hard drives are much better value for money than 1TB so I wouldn't even go for that.

There've actually been three guys already on my forum who received DOA/faulty PS4s yesterday. This is slightly worrying, hopefully it's just some weird statistical thing rather than evidence that there's widespread issues.

Better not be. The wit was a large part of Uncharted's broad appeal I feel, certainly for my girlfriend who is otherwise quite disinterested in shooters. I also love it.