Wrestlevania

It's got nothing to do with that, for fuck's sake. Christ, how the fuck did you ever come to that conclusion? I've clearly restated the point I'm making about this one particular Yahtzee review several times over above already. Can I not make it any clearer? And the reason I didn't reply about fucking Table Tennis was because, through some utterly bizarre logic, you took my response as some personal slight. n those instances, circumstances like that are just best walked away from. Wish I'd been able to spot it here as well...

Fixed.

Message to all Thumbs All future discussion is to be conducted in pedantic absolutes alone. Considered observation, notable exception and occaisional deviation are BANNED. And stop that "thinking" and "reasoning" stuff too; it's dangerous and certain parties don't want decent, enjoyable and healthy discussion, apparently. -~-~-~- On a more serious note; pull your head out your arse, ThunderPeel. You've contributed to good discussion on here before, so stop fucking about with the lame witticisms of late and get back to it.

Unlike many of the other reviews, Yahtzee is clearly a devoted fan of the Silent Hill series. And the points he makes this time are genuinely insightful, informative and considered -- because he's passionate about the fiction. And the fiction is all that draws me to Silent Hill, so if it's shit I'd like to know before wasting my money.

OK, fair point. I'm forgetting my canon whilst in the depths of rage. I expect it quite possibly would have been epic though... Not sure how Sony would feel about this, so I'm leaning towards <luke>"Never!"</luke> at this point.

Right, but the most important aspect of a game like Silent Hill - call me wrong - is the story. And Yahtzee's seemingly-valid point that the story is balls holds water for me. Especially given how much time he gives going over why it's a load of horse-shit. Furthermore, the gameplay changes sound stupid and very much done because a) "we can," and "we didn't have any other ideas on how to make this one noticabely different from the previous games". I'm well aware that the developers were charged explicitly with making this instalment more Westernised, but the shitty allusions to it being some kind of action-RPG now is as piss-weak as the new in-game weaponry would appear to be. As I made mention above, the Eurogamer article didn't go into the sort of historical depth in their whole review that Yahtzee managed in 3 poxy minutes. And, seeing as he rationalised why the gameplay changes sucked (at least for him) in a way I can empathise with, I'd say he's more than likely on the money with this aspect too.

What's worse is that Namco have yet again decided to split up the thematic add-on characters to one per platform; Vader for PS3, Yoda on Xbox. "Matches the branding, you see..." Mother-fuckers! So you won't even be able to recreate one of the most epic Star Wars sword fights anyway, and thus entirely missing what should have been the point of including these additional characters in the first place! Aaaargh!!! Utter, utter cock!

Blimey... and here was me giving serious thought to buying a PSP, finally (somehow), on the "strength" of Silent Hill: Origins. How disappointing. Interestingly enough though, the game scored well with Eurogamer. But then they have an apparent editorial rule which states that controversial sequels to lesser franchises should be reviewed by people who've never played any of the previous games in the series. So maybe it's just that in effect (yet again).

Anyone else horribly disappointed at how focus-group led this piece of shit would appear to be, from the demo at least? It distinctly reminds me of playing Need for Speed: Most Wanted, but with utterly predictable "multiplayer" thrown in for the hell of it. Call me a bitter, jaded cynic, but I don't give a shit who's just pulled the longest handbrake turn in whatever random part of the available play area someone happens to be bumming around in at the time. What's the point? For a (principally) point-to-point racing game, Burnout: Paradise seems to be more about cock-waving than actually seeing who's the fastest from A to B. It also seems to be about griefing and generally being a complete dick. I really can't see how the full game can be any better than this, except you get more pretty scenery to whizz past / fly over, along with more flash motors to do such in. The crash physics? Great and spectacular as always. But where's the soul, man? Burnout seemed to be about smashing as much of the bubbly black crap out of your opponents' vehicles as possible before you hit the finish line. Paradise's modus operandi would appear to be focussed on simulating late Wednesday night in the local McDonald's car park in Weston-super-Mare.

Spanking! -~-~-~- Mrs V and I didn't actually get started on Dexter the other night as planned -- she wanted to watch the umpteenth reinvention of Sense & Sensibility. But, thanks to a particularly nasty case of acute tonsillitis, the lady of the house has been bed-bound for several days with just a crappy 4-channel terrestrial tellybox for company. So we've taken to watching a couple episodes of Dex season 1 in bed most nights. We're currently up to episode 8 and are both completely hooked. Thanks all for the recommendations!

I played FlatOut 2* extensively before Christmas, as part of the AWOMO beta, and loved it -- fantastic racing game! I'd say definitely look at that before going anywhere near Burnout: Paradise. * Ultimate Carnage is pretty much identical, except it's for consoles and has many more physics-influenced track baubles. Still great though.

...because it's actually a forward-slash you should be using for commands?

Aw, have for your trouble.

Indeed; as Public Enemy once said, "don't believe the hype."

/me strokes emo-jo Shh, shh... I'm told it'll get better, honest! Mrs V's trapped in bed with acute tonsillitis at the moment, whilst T rages all night until 4am fighting a persistent virus. So yes, it's seeming pretty shit this end of things. I'm trying to keep a positive outlook for the moment -- at least until the bailiffs come knocking.

Do -- the first season's superb so far. And I believe they've just wrapped shooting of season 5, which should air later this year.

"Fifth een's oot," as they say in the vernacular. This episode, Fat Rab and Fat Ryan heartily eviscerate: Kane & Lynch (and the Video game press, too) Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games Dr Who! Plus some other treats. Me like! Pop Quiz: Which videoGaiden host did I headshot at the weekend, whilst playing Call of Duty 4?

When the world finally slips into the sun, either through our own stupid efforts or those of natural astrological progression, there should be a thousand-foot monolith left in space with this written on it as a warning to others.

Then that's criminal, as it appeared to have a fair amount of potential judging by those few minutes of action.

But does the sex-bot taste good..? Back on topic: My interest in Crysis has been virtually non-existent, once the initial wow factor wore off. The early teasers, which included fighting a huge alien machine on the deck of a ship were quite exciting, but it's nothing particularly new or revolutionary. Come to think of it, did that part make it into the final game? Or was it, as I have suspected since seeing it, just E3 eye-candy?

I agree. Doctor Who has always been quite an intimate character, typically dealing with just a couple of other key characters in any one particular story -- regardless of whether he's actually saving an entire race or otherwise.

The early stuff was generally superb and definitely compulsive viewing in our house. It's maybe been a little too back-to-back, in terms of seasons, and so is perhaps burning itself out quite rapidly now despite some great ideas still coming through.

If Gamespot are working hard to achieve anything, it's this. What with the Christmas break and the fickle, tardy nature of reporting nowadays, it'll likely never be brought up in any meaningful or insightful way again.

You can't link to that site, being crufted from Satan's own foreskin as it is! I thought it would be 'hilarious' to keep the paranoia and vitriol rolling into 2008.

Just caught up on Episode 4 and the Christmas special. Enjoyed both of them, especially the appearance of Dominic Diamond. Frank Sidebottom was a nasty surprise though -- that fucking freak has terrified me from a very young age.