I'm still not understanding all the FIFA love at all. I really want to love it, I really do.... but having played it for a while at GAME yesterday with a friend I still cant help but shake my head in frustration at it. First game, Barca vs Chelsea I had 6 shots on goal and scored 6 times (most of these from the edge of the area), he had 3 shots on goal and scored twice. It just seems ridiculously easy to score with anyone half decent.

What difficulty level are you playing on?

Watching Plyr at a quarter to one on Sunday morning I saw a preview of Borderlands a FPS/RPG type thing. I can't recall seeing it before and a check on Wiki reveals it's out on the 23rd. I'm normally not too optimistic about games that seem to appear out of the blue like this with little hands on coverage in the independent gaming magazines but I have to say it looked rather awesome.

Just whatever was default, is there a difficulty setting for 2 player games then? Something that sets the competency of goalkeepers? I know there's something kind of similar in PES where you can set the condition of the players beforehand but I didnt see any such options when we were setting up this game.

Yes I believe the difficulty setting affects the way the goal keeper and computer AI plays. However, if you were both scoring quite easily, and I don't mean this offensively, but maybe your both crap at defending.

Haha, the defending may have been to blame for the first couple of goals but after that we were just taking pot-shots from 25 yards out and scoring every time. But if there's a difficulty setting that affects this then thats probably what it was, as I say we were playing on a machine in GAME so its possible whoever was playing before had set the striker level to "Darren Bent current form" and the goalkeeper level to "Ben Foster current form"

It certainly sounds like it. Or maybe I'm just crap at scoring.

Modern Warfare 2 campaign trail:

http://uk.xbox360.ign.com/dor/objects/1428...ler_100209.html


Want. Now.

Yeah that looks sexy as hell.

Where's the best place to get Xbox live gold cards these days? Last year I got one of those 12+1 e-mail cards for about £25. I've had a quick mooch around ebay and they look about £27 for 12 months with the similar e-mail cards. Any advance on that, anyone?

I'm also on the lookout for cheap xbox points. 2100 points for about £16 seems the best I can find. Is that decent, or can anyone top that?

The music on that video is fucking awful.

25-27 is still about the standard for those 12+1 month email deals. You'd have one hell of a deal if you did better than that as it's already a bargain.

There was that offer mentioned on here a few weeks ago, with a discount code giving you £15 off your first order when you sign up for Littlewoods online shopping. 2100 points for £22, £7 with the discount applied. I did it, and so did a few others, and it worked. No idea if the offer would still be valid though. Click back a few pages and you'll find the details!

No offence but you were playing as Barca and Chelsea. If Barca had 6 shots on goal in real life most of them would go in aswell. That's why they are a world class team. You need to be good defensively as well as in attack. If you are shit in defence then the other team will score loads.

If anything, that is ultra realism.

Got SFIV and a year worth of LIVE so hit me up for a few games if you're on. For those who know what I was like, I don't use Abel anymore and usually stick with Dhalsim. I'm also (more) rubbish now.

Ahh.. the long awaited rematch... if my idiot housemate can stop playing nazi zombies on COD for 5 minutes.

I hate fighting against a good Dhalsim... good thing I won't be.

Ohhhh! I went there..

Well that's an interesting development. I hope you stay interested until SSFIV comes out and we can lobby it up. Spectator matches with accompanying jibber-jabber are a beautiful thing.

Is that a confirmed feature, or are you just sayin'?

Because I loved the idea of that from when you first mentioned it way back when added championship mode..

Well Mr. Ono (producer) is a non-committal motherfucker, so it's not 100% confirmed. Only the inclusion of T. Hawk, Dee-Jay, Juri, at least 8 not yet named characters and multiple ultras are confirmed via official trailers/announcements/hard evidence.

Ono has strongly hinted about lobbies, bonus rounds and which other characters might be added, but won't commit to any of it. They're big on responding to fan feedback though, and the lack of lobbies when SSF2 HD Remix, Marvel vs. Capcom 2, BlazBlue and King of Fighters XII all have them has been one of the loudest and most sustained cause for complaint.

People are operating under the assumption that they couldn't be stupid enough to leave it out again, but no, it's not 100%. If they're not included I'm going to be piiiissed. So many of the best players on RLLMUK and everywhere else I've been have been entirely turned off this game due to the fact that a lack of lobbies does huge damage to the community aspect. If you ever venture over there you should read the HD remix thread and see how people gush about six player multiplayer sessions. A lot of people there have totally abandoned SFIV and will only return to it if they sort out that one glaring omission.

I'm glad that the general consensus re: "nerfing" certain characters has now turned instead to "buffing" weak ones.

i.e. Instead of making Sagat and Ryu weaker, just give Cammy and Rose the tools to be competitive against them. I'd much rather they went down that route too, but we'll see. Adding at least 8 new characters to the roster is a massive step, I can't help but feel that some of them will end up being totally useless as there's a LOT of balancing to be done. On the plus side, T. Hawk and Dee-Jay were clearly close to completion before SFIV came out and should slot in very naturally.

Been playing a lot of HD Remix recently and I use Dee-Jay as my second on that. Can't wait to try him out in SSFIV.

Yes this is me banging on about FIFA again but with good reason, which will also lead to a general question.

With the amount of bugs FIFA seems to be plagued with, and the vast majority wanting a patch ASAP, do you think that with the ability for downloadable patches and DLC in general, that games developers are becoming increasingly lazy?

Before DLC and patchable downloads, game developers had to ensure that the game was in depth, interesting and aimed on 100% perfect before it was released. Games had to have enough content to tide it over to the next release and you only had to pay one price for it. Replayability would be a factor too. Now we get a half arsed games that seem to be full of bugs and glitches and people hoping for a patch sooner rather than later, when in actual fact the game should be relatively bug free anyway (especially major ones), with patches curing the little niggly gripes and glitches.

Whilst I think FIFA 10 is a great game, EA should be ashamed of themselves for releasing this game with so many errors.

I don't understand why they'd do it. Presumably they've rushed it out to get their customary head start on this year's PES, but if it means releasing a game riddled with errors then it can only be counterproductive. Also, yes, it is frustrating that console games can be patched these days. It means that console games can be put out in an unfinished state like so many PC titles and that was one of the reasons I don't play PC games in the first place.

Cheers for the update.. getting me more hyped with everything I see or hear about this!

More than 8 new characters does sound like an awful lot. I like at the moment that, apart from Ryu and Ken, there are no two characters that play overly similarly which is a problem that you seem to get in fighting games with shitloads of characters.

I will of course reserve judgement to seeing the new characters, and whatever the case the novelty at least will be good fun.

Also, apparently the guy who wis in charge of the manager mode development got married on launch day and is currently on his honeymoon. Now whilst I won't begrudge the man for getting married and pissing off for a couple of weeks when there is clearly work to be done, it was still pretty bad timing really.

why bother paying beta testers when the general public will pay to beta test for you?

who gives a fuck if not every one of said testers can get the fucking patches.

I think FIFA is pretty good, yeh there are a few bugs in it, but nothing majorly majorly bad.

JLM, I hate to tell you this but King of Fighters XII is awful. I have played it for a few days now.

The presentation of the game is just so poor, basic menus, only 5 fighting areas, the graphics are pixalated to hell, Sit as far away fromn the screen as you can when you play it.

No story mode whatsoever, and as for online??

Its shockingly bad, the lag in the games you get is unreal.... and i was playing a guy on ranked match last night who must have been determined to get the acheivement for 300 online fights cos all he did was light kick all the way through for about ten fights.. must have just had some device that kept pressing the A button.

I'm gonna play some Marvel UA 2 later for the first time, but am so looking forward to Ghostbusters, BlazBlue, Tekken

I haven't bought KOFXII and won't until someone suggests that Ignition have fixed the thing. I'm a 2D beat'em up obsessive and I adore the KOF series, but I won't be mugged by a clearly unfinished game with broken netcode.

Looks like one of the most worst botched home conversions in a while because the arcade version is supposedly excellent.

BlazBlue is amaaaaaazing. It will not disappoint (unless you're shit at it, it makes no effort to be accessible to the novice) and I don't regret splashing out on a PS3 so that I can play it now. Will probably buy the new version on 360 in the spring as well.

It's a weird one. Games have to go through the most incredibly rigorous testing for console releases - not just the internal QA department but they also have to pass some really stringent Platform licence testing. So once you think your game is bug free, you send a copy off to SCEE or Nintendo or Microsoft and they then check it for both bugs and "compliancy" which nowadays includes a whole lot of online compatibility.

I think the fact that a lot of bugs appear to be in or around the online parts of games is indicative of how complex that area is. It's actually bloody difficult to get your game to stay running when you're relying on a quite inconstant stream of data over a completely unpredictable internet connection. In the old days testing was easier as a single-player game on a single platform had a lot less variables.

Also, in relation to FIFA, EA made 30% of their staff redundant last Xmas, and lost a lot of indispensible knowlege in the process which they have struggled to overcome. They've also tried to move their QA departments overseas to save costs. You get what you pay for...

I think them sending a lot of the QA overseas last year is starting to really bite them in the ass at the moment, as it's not just FIFA thats falling apart. I agree with you that multiplayer games are incredibly more complex to bugtest than single player games, I have had to do so myself with multiplayer flash games (infinitely more simple than EA's offerings but same principle) so I have some sympathy with them there, but some of the bugs in the single player manager mode (the "all assists go to the goalkeeper" and "loaned players getting sold off by the team you loan to") are completely inexcusable and should always be caught by QA team.

Just to reply to my own question from a couple of weeks ago, it starts next Tuesday (27th)

is this when Facebook, Twitter and Last FM launch on it too?

Yes.

The vast majority of console game producers believe they don't need to hire final beta testers, as the general public will do it for them, (or it seems that way) to say "there's going to be a patch" does not excuse releasing shoddy, barely tested, material.

OK, most consoles are online, but what about those who aren't? they get stuck with the wank companies release before patching to fix the shit they should and would have caught back in the PS2 days. See, not a generation fucking old, and it had more bug free releases out of the box than 90% of today's consoles.

no, thats november. 17th I think it might be.

Anyone else playing Brutal Legend? As a metal head and big gamer, this is an absolute dream for people like me. It really is unlike anything I've ever played before.

Is Brutal Legend really worth paying £40 odd for?
I'm not a huge metal fan, but never the less, I still enjoy the stuff. I don't wanna buy it if it only relates to true 'metal heads', or if it isn't gonna last long.

Gamecentral gave it an average review (7/10) and said the thing that brings the score to this level is the dialogue. So because of that I think I'll be waiting until it's cheaper before I buy it.

I purchased a copy of Operation Flashpoint:Dragon Rising a few days ago, on a recommendation of a friend (itll keep me going till MW2 apparently) was wondering if anyone else had this Gem of a game?

Its a bit like GRAW, but im loving the frustration im getting from the real=world feel. Dying in this game is a fast and esy as sticking your head up when theres a sniper a mile away

What this guy said. The demo is fun (I particularly like the way you choose your language & violence settings) and the graphic design is fantastic, but I'll wait till it's cheap and second-hand.

In "WHAT PLAY YOU"-type news, I'm hooked on Shadow Complex (XBLA, 1200MSP). It's essentially Flashback with MGS overtones and a nod to parkour and I love it. There are some head-scratching moments (I've yet to work out how the prologue where you play as a different character fits into the story and I don't know how my character knew what the unidentifiable, high-tech SCUBA mask was before he picked it up), but the gameplay is great, I'm really enjoying it and stamp it with a hearty "RECOMMEND" >big red letters<.

Heads-up for anyone using a third party memory unit:

http://www.techradar.com/news/gaming/micro...ry-units-643296

I think, despite whats been said about, that you really do have to be a fan of metal to get the most out of it. It doesn't only relate to fans of the genre, but much will be lost on those with little interest. Like I said though, if you are a fan its awesome. The writing is slick, funny and clever, the gameplay is a nice blend of different elements and its just damn fun. Unfortunatly, it is very short. Just playing through the story took me about 7 hours on normal difficulty., and although there is side missions and mulitplayer, 7 hours is pretty short. It's definatly worth a play for most people, whether its worth rushing out and spending £40 on, especially when there's all the big titles in the run up to xmas coming out.

For me though its just wicked, I've got shitloads of exploring and side missions to do. The art design of the world is just fantastic, so much iconagraphy from album covers I grew up with. Its a shame the single player story isn't a few hours longer, it easily could've been, hopefully they'll be some DLC for it upcoming although I haven't heard anything.

Just wanted to give props to Microsoft for repairing my console and sending it back in 1 week. Not bad.

When I got mine back I had to laugh at the letter that came with it that started with "In the unlikely event of future problems please retain...." Hah! It should say "keep the fucking box because you'll need it again in a year".

Ive kept my box

By third party memory unit, is it referring to those Xbox memory cards or to things like external hard drives and USB sticks?

Just the external hd's and usbs I believe.

What a bastard. I like downloading things, then watching on TV via the 360 and usb drives. I'm glad I got a PS3 as well now.

nono, you'll still be able to do that, just you can't copy a profile to USB, makes it easier to haxor.

Oh right, fair enough. I never knew you could copy profiles onto a standard USB anyway.

Neither did I.

I didn't think you could connect external hard drives to 360's anyway. Might doesn't work anyway, I have a 500GB Western Digital and it won't pick it up at all.

You can connect if it's part of a network. So if the drive is connected to a computer on your network or it's a network drive (a NAS) then the 360 can access media files off it. So for example I have a NAS which I download wrestling torrents onto, and can then watch them back on the 360 across my wireless network.

Yeah that's what I'm doing now. I just meant it doesn't pick it up if I connect the EHD directly into the 360. I have no need to do it other than if my PC went kaput, all my HD movies, TV shows and music are on there. I woudln't be able to cope without them.

http://shop.gameplay.co.uk/webstore/produc...:_arkham_asylum

Bargain there for anyone that doesnt already have Arkham Asylum.

Really? I have a 500 GB Western digital plugged into the 360 via USB and it works fine. I've got it packed full of movies and tv shows that I watch through my 360. I think it depends on how the drive is formatted, but I just plugged mine in straight out of the box and it worked fine.