Wrestlevania

Dell have just slashed the price of their 24" 1080p flat panel monitors to under £200. What's really worth noting is that - unusually for a monitor - this really is "proper HD". It has a 16:9 aspect ratio and a screen resolution of 1920x1080. Sorely tempted, but not really the right time of year for me...

Is that the one you have to change your pyjamas after? I forget.

Ooh ooh and me! Let's set the world to rights at ~200mph, in a shower of exploding carbon fibre!

I didn't even know it had built-in speakers until I flipped it over while installing it on my desk for a short while. Still never used, and besides: every time you use built-in audio for anything other than OS sounds, God strangles a badger.

Yeah, I noticed that too. Thought it was just going to be a chromium card, but no: complete deck it says, plus the special card. I collect limited stuff like that, but the nearest comic shop offering them is the other side of Bristol from me. So I've still not got mine yet.

“Nevermind the length—look at its DLC!” –IGN.com

I know what you mean, though it's not really an issue for anything other than the Hunter. It's not uncommon to have three player-controlled Hunters leaping around a level at some point, though you never get more than one of the other 3 Specials at any one time it seems. Wouldn't expect Valve to patch that into the original game to be honest, if they were to even entertain the idea. But, if they do look at adding at least one new Special into L4D2, Infected players might need the distinction more to help organise the team. Mind you, that's pretty much relegated by having everyone's names hovering above them in dark red text most of the time...

Pro'ly, the vEDGEtable. amidoingitright?

I don't understand why you can't play as regular Infected whilst waiting for the Specials timer to tick over again. Seems like a missed opportunity, or maybe it was horribly frustrating to get endlessly cut down with a couple of shots? Barricades I'm not sure about. I think that might break up the flow too much. There's a very natural feel to the game, pushing players along a series of tubes with the horde as the stick. The emphasis should still remain on the climax at the end of each scenario in my opinion. But it'd be good to see one more Special added to the mix, though they're presently very well balanced I think. Only thing I've not really liked about the L4D2 footage so far is those incendry ammo for the machine gun. Whilst I appreciate this is a game about shooting reanimated corpses, fire bullets is pushing things a little too far for me...

Odd. I've run this both over HDMI (for my PC) and VGA (for my 360) for months now with no problems. There's not some nutty little switch on the PS3 video cable, is there..? There's one on the 360 and I'm aware that's caused people problems before now. Also: having said it's worked flawlessly, I expect it to explode in my face tonight.

...that doesn't work when there are floors/ceilings to contend with, though. Unqestionably, it's some of the best multiplayer game design I think I've ever seen. It's exactly for this sort of reason I'm now giving L4D2 the benefit of the doubt; if they can tweak this sort of aspect of gameplay, and expand it with new ideas, then it should be bloody brilliant.

Watched Valkyrie at the weekend with Mrs V. Steady, sombre affair. Couldn't quite decide whether it wanted to be a muted Hollywood blockbuster or one of those highly polished and insightful TV films. I suspect it started as the latter, then swung towards the former as interest grew and Cruise signed on--which I'm not saying is a bad thing at all. Cruise's trademark "Shouting is Acting!" - which twunts like Ben Affleck have since copied to much worse effect - is also kept in check, except for two passable occaisions. Everyone acts well, including Cruise, and it's a solid, insightful film about a failed assassination attempt on Hitler and a rapidly deflated military coup. In all honesty, I was expecting a thoroughly grim and torturous (literally) climax. But it was all quite swift and civilised, especially considering the subject matter. If you're idly browsing for a film to rent, see it.

Yes, that was distressingly masterful. Another frustrating run with the Tanks for my team--just seems to be really hard to get it right. If you're not getting stuck behind things or generally not able to catch anyone, the AI Director seems hell-bent on taking control off you. Prior to the climax level of No Mercy, the AI Director took the same Tank off me and then Thayer, before evidently saying "fuck the human players" and taking control itself. Then dying just as pathetically. However, I think I redeemed myself with that last run on the rooftop. Managed to club all of you to the floor in turn, which was hugely satisfying! Then you pulled your Smoker stunt immediately afterwards.

Oh fuck... I'm stunned. That seems just so incredibly stupid, not to mention almost entirely pointless. I agree; this almost kills the game outright for me now. I was known for having a very odd, unorthodox black deck, with a couple of blue and red cards mixed in. Not being able to recreate that is crushing. I'm sure there'll be a petition about this, or maybe you still need to unlock this option as part of the campaign..?

“This series just keeps going from strength to stren—oh, it’s been cancelled…” –IGN.com

I read Derek Yu's thorough editorial on TIG Source last week, regarding Langdell's bottom-feeding approach to business. Very interesting and definitely worth a nose if you have even the remotest interest in branding and trade mark "infringement" (read: feckless, lazy money-spinning). Any news articles on how/why Mobigames saw fit to (presumably) ignore The Langdell's punitive legal threats and put Edge back on the iTunes App Store?

Ace. Hope the work's as good as you were hoping for--sounded excellent when you were telling us during Grand Thumb Auto a couple of weeks back.

One more Idle Thumbs Redux attribution and I promise I'll stop: “It's the mother-fucking Wizard!” –IGN.com

It's good, but I'll raise you: “Like fucking a wizard.” –IGN.com Alternatively: “Like fucking The Wizard.” –IGN.com

Someone must've been naughty then.

That is wonderful (though not something I'd show my kids just yet).

NEVER SATISFIED :( :( :( :( But no, I didn't. I only have one ethernet cable (coming from my router elsewhere in the house) in the room where my PC and Xbox 360 are, and I was using that to pump you full of lead at the time. Why, was there a special surprise?

You're so last Tuesday.

I agree with Dan. It was very close, and definitely the most thrilling match I've played of L4D yet. The close scoring was indicative of how well matched our teams were, with you guys pulling ahead through consistently better coordination as Infected on your part in my opinion (though we did really enjoy wreaking havok when it did come together for us). I don't think I've played Versus on Death Toll either, myself. Thinking about playing as Infected in those tunnels already has me grinning like a loon... I'm not a fan of Survival though. I like something with a definite goal, so time attack style games don't really appeal to me usually.

So I downloaded TF2 last week, haven't ever played it and then tonight it complains it can't find a specific model when loading a level and crashes out. Ran a file integrity check in Steam, the result of which is Steam is currently re-downloading the entire game from scratch. Really fucking angry. Bring back cartridges!