Wrestlevania

We should play again—it was a huge amount of ridiculous fun.

Good point. I hadn't considered the Augmented Reality features, as I'd only played with the AR cards and Face Raiders the first hour after I unpacked the console. Do many games support actually support AR though? I assumed it would be a killer app for 3DS, but haven't seen anything use it in the (admittedly few) big-name titles we have. Regardless, credit to Nintendo for not breaking compatibility. And it'd be nice to see more of it; my kids love it.

I'm not liking the interface layout either. If they'd made the lower screen a little bit smaller, they could have more neatly tucked in the controls next to it, nestling everything under the bigger main screen—it could even have been a nice echo of the original GBA layout, with the extra screen on top. But if it is just one big panel, then that'll be why they can't do something like this. Having identical PPI on both screens is nice, I suppose, but also I distinctly remember the touchscreen being more muddy and less crisp than the main one on my 3DS XL? (I gave it to my eldest, and she's not here atm.) Also, wtf is this idiocy? “It even has the 3DS' twin camera on its rear so you can take 3D photos. These are displayed in 2D, naturally, but can be swapped over to 3DS via SD card to be viewed in three dimensions.” That's just completely bizarre; I'm sure keeping the second camera wasn't expensive, but the process of viewing 2DS-taken photos in actual 3D is pointlessly overwrought. Almost no-one is going to waste time doing this—particularly for a nagging <7 year old constantly pestering their older sibling. (And have you seen the average photo a young child takes..?)

If it is, it doesn't look like you'll be able to use it—there's a pane of clear plastic over it, unlike the lower touch display.

Assuming they release the game via Steam, I hope Rockstar support Steam Workshop with GTA V. Would get around all the problems with not being able to use mods with the Steam version of IV, and give their community intentions a healthy boost as well.

Whilst I have much the same sentiments as Miffy regarding day-one purchase frenzy, I also hope the PC release isn't another almost-8-month-wait like GTA IV was. Mind you, I've no intention of buying it for Xbox 360 unless the overwhelming majority do so. (I've definitely no intention of buying either of the new consoles.)

Is there a day during the week that wouldn't clash with school? I'm guessing probably not.

I won't be around next week (w/c 19th Aug) so you'll need to organise yourselves. I'll stick something in the Steam calendar as always though.

I thought the cars looked like they might handle with a much better sense of weight this time. Instead of being like, you know, hovercrafts made of jelly.

Just had another thought, though it's a stupid one: if they allow players to chose to be cops, that would be a massive "fuck you" to Realtime Worlds and former DMA Design (aka Rockstar North) boss, Dave Jones. Actually, that'd be a very Rockstar thing to do... I guess there would be nothing stopping you being a vigilante, which I'd probably quite enjoy, assuming there would be a mechanic for returning stuff rather than walking off with it yourself.

That would make a lot of sense, especially if they can somehow make the character-driven stuff coherent from one character to the next. I very much enjoyed GTA IV's linearity (so shoot me) for this reason, particularly when the Episodes characters were neatly intertwined with events that happened in the main storyline.

A friend's just rightly pointed out the potential for griefing, however. If this is all open world, and everyone's in the same space, there could be endless opportunities for fucking about and ruining other people's games. Will be very interested to see how Rockstar deals with that. On the one hand, I can see how cool it would be to secretly camp out somewhere lucrative and then rip-off another group after they've done the work. On the other, if you're getting ripped off all the time by other gangs, it's going to make for a pretty miserable and fun-free experience.

I'm glad the lobby's gone, and you can (apparently) just flow through the city from one activity to another as you wish. The bits of Grand Thumb Auto when we dick about are often the best, so it'll be great not to have to sit in menus any more and just smoothly flow from one thing to another (or not). I'm going to guess that activities will work similarly to Burnout Paradise's races, in that you'll see them all over the map by default and can choose to start them by driving/walking up to them and opting in. I would guess quite a few of them will require crews of players to do them, and it'll be interesting to see just how Rockstar copes with the huge demand. It'll be interesting to see how the character-driven activities work, too. I'm anticipating they'll be like finite bundles of missions, with progressively bigger rewards—either content unlocks or ever-greater piles of in-game cash.

I fucking well hope not.

We're going again later today, so come along if you can make it! I forgot to ask how everyone felt about trying some Episodes multiplayer this week, so we'll start off with the regular GTA IV to begin with, and see what people would like to do as we go. Also also, we had some twitchiness [read: bullshit] with the game's lobby and privacy settings last week - sorry Patters, no idea why you were banned - so we may need to have others try hosting if it's still a problem.

I'm playing with a small group of friends most Sundays at 8pm BST. You'd be welcome to join—anyone is.

As I was saying... http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-08-09-id-creative-director-matt-hooper-joins-oculus-rift

Since Carmack got the MegaTexture concept working, I've heard far more about his rocket-building than I have anything to do with id’s gaming output or tech developments.Given how progressively ordinary – even mundane – id’s games have become, I don't think he'll be the only one bored over there. There aren't many of the original dream team left already anyway. And I agree with toblix; given Carmack’s ferocious reputation for computational performance, this could prove a huge kick for Rift.

Well that's jolly exciting, albeit under very sad circumstances.

Of course, assuming the majority has the episodes..? Let's leave them a week or so though. We can ask next session (this Monday!) who has them and give people time to download them if they need to for a later date.

I've got Lords, and was really excited to play it having somehow missed it completely when I had a Spectrum. I'm struggling to get into it, though; it doesn't seem to be the easiest thing to just pick up and play. Any tips..?

These are a lot of fun to watch back.

Painting it in what we shan't clarify, however.

I like them a lot more with the voiceovers in place, even if I hate the sound of my own voice.

Having changed the day, I'm now going to be late—go me. A friend of the family has called in a last-minute tech support favour, which I'm going to try and get done as quickly as possible after work in a bit. So if you're on Steam or Mumble later and see other like-minded Grand Thumbers, get yourselves a game going and I'll be along as soon as I've finished.