Twilo

For me it was Chuckie Egg on my next door neighbour's C64, around 1989-ish. Having my physical actions reflected by an external agent was just too exciting for my young mind and I've been sold on computer games ever since.

I play Magic pretty seriously, but aside from that, a board game I really like is Acquire. It's sort of an ugly-ass mix of monopoly and a stock market. It's kind of hard to find (our copy is one of the old 70's versions made by 3M, all the money have sweet drawings of rankin-bass-style tycoons on them). The strategy is really deep, you just have to get past the fact that it looks like some sort of Scrabble-based abacus. Power Grid (based on theexcellently-named "Funkenschlag") is another nice one, but the scope for interaction is a bit low.

harsh. I was listening to the troubles of the organisers of the West Coast Warzone tournament who bought all their consoles new for the event, and hence had to go through each and every machine unlocking everyone.

Before I start I would like to disclose something (I admit that I disclose this with significant relish): I am a shit-hot Magic player. http://www.wizards.com/Magic/Magazine/Article.aspx?x=mtg/daily/eventcoverage/gpbar09/welcome#3a ("The Irishman") What I love about this (XBLA) game: Every match feels like a limited game, it is very good exercise for your skills when it comes to attacking, blocking etc. I like to play a game now and then against the computer because it has the basic instinct as far as punishing bad attacks or bad blocks go. It's probably the best way to introduce new players to the game (it looks very pretty and it seems simpler than magic really is). This is the main reason for this game existing. WotC are using this as promotional tool. Sales could turn it into a platform in its own right (I would approve of that). The weak points for this game: Point 1: Deck Customzation is very weak. I mean seriously weak. You can unlock cards for a deck (cool feature) but you can't remove cards FROM a deck to make room (uncool). What ends up happening (I played through the game with the "Elspeth" deck which I heartily recommend as it's available from an early stage and is actually a very nice dec) is you add some very strong cards (Paladin En-Vec etc) but can't cut the weak cards (Goldmeadnow Moth, Holy Day). You end up with an 80-card deck which is definitely not recommended as far as "real" magic goes. On the other hand, if there was better customization here, I think they'd be simultaneously eating into the "XBLA" community (people who grab the game to see what it's like) and the modo(magic online) community (people who could just go onto magic online to try out "real" decks). I can appreciate the decision here and in some ways I approve of it. Magic is too complicated for an XBLA game, (and Stainsteel did a fantastic job of bridging the gap). I truly hope this games generates some fans because I have a vested interest in the game expanding. The other big pooint I have issue with is how the game taps your lands for mana and assigns damage. The approach they had for this game was that the AI would manage the tapping of lands for mana, and the assignation of combat damage after blocks. I don't think I've ever seen the game do this properly; as an illustration: I have a Grizzly bear, a Pacifism and a Wooly Thoctar in my hand (1G ceature, 1W Aura and WGR Creature in hand) I have 2 plains, 1 mountains and 2 forests I cast Pacifism (1W aura) The game taps 1 Plains and 1 Mountain to pay for the Pacifism, In a "real" game, most players would use the one mountain for the Wooly Thoctar, not fot the "1 colourless" cost. This seems very odd to me, I don't get why the AI behaves like this. This being so, I would still recommend a purchase. This is the closest to playing magic against a computer i've ever seen, and the prospect of 2HG (the multiplayer 2-on-2- variant) play is astounnding. With more cards in the pool and a real deck-builder I can only see this getting better. With more sets an more cards (there are thousands in the "real" game) I can see this game getting as deep as they want it to go. ; The Challenges; I hope WotC never reads this, but the challenges are brilliant and I look forward to more games in this series.

I bet they can also generate free energy from proprietary mathematical teck-magicks I shall invest my savings immediately.

Quality confirmed, mission is a go. Only annoying thing is the "Turbo" which it could do without. Just make sure you don't press it.

Indeed, someone has been spotted logged onto XBox Live "currently playing Marvel Vs Capcom 2". Looking forward to this

:yep:

I got my Hori stick today (http://www.hori.jp/us/products/ps3/fighting_stick/index.html), it's very nice. I haven't tried it on my ps3 yet, but it's doing very well on the emulator with SFIII:3s I bought this in a Gamestop; I had to ask them to order it in for me on Sunday and it was there on Friday, which is obviously faster than ordering one online. There is an equivalent stick for the 360 (with unpleasant green and white casing). These are more or less readily available and fairly inexpensive sticks so it's a good choice if you had no luck getting the low-end madcatz stick or the dpad controllers. Windows drivers for this stick for anyone interested: http://forums.shoryuken.com/showthread.php?p=5929993 And a thread at SRK about modding it for sanwa parts etc: http://forums.shoryuken.com/showthread.php?t=136372

Oyajiiiiii!!!!!!

I discovered that the AI on easiest can't handle hard kick spam from 90% of the characters, seth got much easier after that. With some characters you might need hard punch. You can even use a "turbo" controller for this. I got Gouken yesterday, he's nowhere near as cool as akuma but he plays very differently to the other shotos. Going to make a run for Seth today, got quite a few people to finish it with yet.

PS3 also, mostly for the dpad (even if you have an arcade stick, you're still not subjecting any opponents to using a bad dpad if you want to play 1v1). I like fighters more on the ps3 for some reason too. My 360 is one of the early models with no HDMI so games tend to look better on my ps3, more of a personal concern.

Hah, man, exactly the same thing just happened to me. I ought to put it on 5 rounds next time. Bison (dictator) is brilliant for this though, the computer doesn't block psycho crushers properly in the first few rounds so you get so many cheese perfects, and his ultra is very easy to connect with (it starts with two of his forward flip kicks which can hit air or ground). Other news: Hori ps3 stick ordered, time to end this shoulder button nonsense.

How good are these for the left/right/left/right sort of motion? Also, how easy is PPP or KKK the "hard" way (without binding a button to it), can you do it with just a thumb? I really want a hori stick or the madcatz stick failing that, but probably not enough to go to the trouble of mailing one in; these pads are more likely to be stocked in the local stores.

http://www.siliconera.com http://www.rpgamer.com

I... I love this game. I want to marry it. Even the singleplayer AI is good, though Seth is superhard. I'm concerned about unlocking Akuma, Gouken etc. because you can't use continues, and Seth can sometimes just cheese you to death with his stupid Ultra combo where he sucks you up and smashes you off the screen. As for "cheap" characters, I didn't have any problems (although rufus confuses me, I haven't got a real idea of what he can do so I get caught by his weird moves all the time). My character of choice is chun-li and she's got the right tools to deal with most situations (though I lament the loss of her spinning upwards kick which is now only available as part of a combo and has no utility as anti-air) I have the PS3 version, I learned my lesson about the 360 dpad way back on castlevania SotN. I'm trying to track down a PS3 stick; while the dpad is perfectly adequate, I'm really hurting for lack of 6 face buttons. Trying to do chun-li's ultra is a little tricky: <(charge)><>KKK when one of the kicks is a shoulder button (or if you have a shoulder set to KKK, same problem). Sensitive combos benefit too, you can input much more quickly with your fingers than with just your thumb. A stick makes the back/forward/back/forward motion much easier too, you don't end up accidentally crouching or anything. The "player profile" this is great, I'm actually enjoying unlocking new titles and stuff, or the full set of taunts/colours for different characters. Only problem is taking the game over to someone else's house, where they won't have anything unlocked unless they own a copy too, so no sakura :/

"You mocking the power of Vegetables?!" Largo in Valkyria Chronicles "Look at me! I'm a receptionist! G'fa, ha, ha!" Ultros in FF6

Valkyria Chronicles (nasty tank on chapter 8, successful on the third attempt)

I'm 3 Elika "powers" in at the moment, and the backtracking for sparklies is infuriating. It's a pretty cynical game-lengthening exercise and it detracts from an otherwise very enjoyable game. Combat is weak but infrequent, so I can let that pass. It's nice to break up the routine of hipping and hopping around the place. My favourite part? The magical swishy spirit world you get to try your new powers in; shame it's like 5 minutes of the game altogether. Great music too, but there's only really one "healed world" theme and because of the aforementioned sparklies, you spend like three quarters of your gametime there :/ €27, can't go wrong.

autotwilo also: jtwilo and ustwilo when I am trying to get the nicy nice things from the other PSN stores, like:

Which is fair because I was making a gross sweeping exaggeration.

My name is Twilo I'm looking for Dialga and Raichu, or battles (no uniques!) PM me!

The jobs market in Ireland at the moment is such that I went back to do research in University rather than fight for a €26k job.

Reminds me of Joey Comeau's job application letters

As a hardened, incurable turnabout addict, all I have to say is: I love you, grown-up Ema Skye We can eat Snackoos together, forever.......