CAREBEAR LUVVA

Saw The Hives again last night, for the second time in a fortnight (fifth time overall). It was a last-minute show that sold out in less than a minute, which meant the crowd was made up of hardcore fans who knew all the songs and were all happy to be there (it was one of the most good-natured crowds I've ever been in), and being in such a small venue (the 900-capacity Leadmill in Sheffield) made everything feel so much more intense. I love how the band has been around for 30-something years but they still all seem like a bunch of lads just enjoying themselves and having a laugh - there's no pretentiousness, they all seem like they'd be perfectly affable if you bumped into them in the street, yet all together they make some of the finest and most entertaining punky rock n' roll imaginable. They really are an absolute treasure.

Just got back from seeing The Hives on the first night of their current tour after a four-month break. I was expecting pretty much the same 15-song setlist that they've been doing for the last year or so, but they've added about half a dozen extra songs from their back catalogue. We got a few songs that haven't been played for 6 or 7 years, and one from the latest album that's never been played live before. It was strange to look at the crowd and realise that I first saw The Hives in about 2001 when I was a youngster, and now 20-odd years later there's loads of kids the same age as I was back then going mental to those same songs which are still being performed with as much energy and enthusiasm as they were back then. Absolute joy, ridiculously good fun, a truly ten out of ten evening.

Hang about, did you start a new game just to try a different class? Just go to the vocation guilds, you can change class there whenever you want...

Last night I did loads of exploring and found a semi-secret area with a fairly long-winded questline that was split into five parts. I did the first three bits, then the fourth asked me to go back to the exact spot where I picked up my first seeker's token. Absolutely no idea where that was, and the only way to find out seems to be to check an online map of where all the tokens are and go around all of the ones that are in areas that I've already visited. I'm guessing I probably picked one up in the opening areas, but who knows. It feels like far too much hassle to bother with, so I'll just let the quest expire (I think it said you get six in-game days to do it). Complete nonsense.

The lack of lock-on is absolutely infuriating. Equally annoying, I can't seem to find a way of setting hotkeys for inventory items. If I'm halfway through a battle with a big fuck off ogre, I want to be able to just press a button to use a stamina potion or a fire spell or whatever, not fanny around in my inventory and scroll through everything to find whatever it is that I want to use. Also, I wish the pawns would shut the fuck up.

Not in the slightest!

I almost drove into Gail Platt from Coronation Street's car when she pulled out of a petrol station right in front of me. I saw her looking and I immediately thought to myself "oh look, it's Gail Platt", then the next thing I knew I was slamming the brakes on to avoid going into the side of her car. There's no question I would have hit her if I hadn't stopped, and for all I know she may well have died from her injuries. Just a few months later, and indeed just a few streets away from the Gail Platt incident, I was almost killed by Toyah Battersby when she pulled out of a side street into the main road without slowing down / stopping / looking.

This. Absolute shite, but I watch it quite often, maybe every 6 months or so.

Yep, another thumbs up here for Arcade Club in Leeds, it really is excellent. It seems pricey to get in, but when you consider the fact that you can stay as long as you want (you can leave and come back later the same day if you need to pop out for a bit) and all the games are free to play, it's a pretty good deal. There's an excellent variety of cabinets, the staff are super friendly, the food and drink prices aren't extortionate, and it's all nice and clean which is a bonus. They've even got free deodorant in the toilets to encourage the clientele to not stink. It just looks really cool too, especially after dark when all the neon lights show up a bit brighter. A cracking place to spend an afternoon / evening.

9 minutes ago, Jazzy G said:

Did I spot Martin Kirby in Wesley's introductory VT?

Nah, the baldy fella was JC Thunder. Wes is currently the champion of the promotion that JC runs.

Saw Neil Breen's latest "effort" this afternoon. "Astonishing" is the only word for it. The entire thing has been done with a green screen (or Breen screen), and looks absolutely terrible. The special effects are atrocious, there's a CGI tiger that looks like it was lifted from a PS2 game, the plot is so muddled that it's impossible to follow (countless re-used scenes and lines of dialogue make things even more confusing), and I couldn't even tell you what the resolution was at the end even though I only saw the sodding film less than half an hour ago. I love shit like this so I can't say I didn't enjoy it, and honestly I did find it to be the most watchable out of any of his previous films, but in terms of being a "good" film you'd be hard pushed to even give it one star. Astonishing.

2 hours ago, Merzbow said:

Tomb Raider 1+2+3 Remastered came out today, graphically they're not super high tech or anything and it seems super faithful to the originals with just an newer upscaled look. Runs flawlessly at 60 fps even on Switch so finally we have definitive ways to play the originals, it felt like for years if not decades that the OG games were lost to time.

There's modern controls for those who want them, I'm sticking with the old school tank style though.

Apparently they were aiming to make the remaster look like what 90s players remember the games looking like in their memories of having to sort of fill in the gaps and imagine what the environments actually looked like, if it had been possible to see things properly through all the rough jagged edges. Which is quite a nice thing to go for, really.

Been playing Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden for the last couple of days. The combat's not up to much (it's fine, just nothing special) but everything else is pretty great. You play as a pair of ghost hunters in 17th century New England, trying to rid the town of a curse but ending up having to investigate loads of hauntings and banish all the spirits. It looks like it should be open world but it's one of those games with a lot of linear paths that take you to your destination, but there's plenty of opportunities to break off and look for hidden stuff. The story's been good over the first 4 or 5 hours that I've seen so far, the characters are likable, there's some really good voice acting, it looks and sounds lovely, some of the enemies are really nicely designed, there's been some decent puzzles as you try to figure out how to get around each location, and some of the "moral choices" you're forced to make are really quite emotional. Enjoying it very much!

4 hours ago, RedRooster said:

For anyone who has played it (perhaps you, Merzbow?) - is it similar to the FFXVI demo, in that you can continue progress into the main game; or is it an excerpt that you would end up having to replay?

Taken from the press release:

After players complete the "Fall of a Hero in Nibelheim" content, the demo will receive an update on February 21, opening another playable section entitled "Dawn of a New Era in Junon." In this special preview made specifically for the demo, explore a small piece of the massive in-game world around the harbor town of Junon. The Junon area featured in this demo has been altered to make the content more compact, so progress cannot be carried over to the full game. However, fans and newcomers will get a chance to experience new forms of exploration, new synergy attacks and the powerful character bonds expressed through thrilling combat.  

Players with save data from the demo will receive the Kupo Charm and Survival Set in the full game. These players will also be able to skip past sections covered in the "Fall of a Hero in Nibelheim" demo. Players must ensure their game is fully updated to take advantage of these benefits. 

Suicide Squad is one of the blandest games I've played in years. The shooting's fine and a couple of the characters have got some decent traversal mechanics (the other two are a bit too fiddly and clunky to pass as "fun"), but the fact that they've gone to all this trouble to create quite a nice looking city and then decided to give you next to nothing to do in it is absolutely bizarre. There's a few Riddler trophies to collect and the odd bit of "race through the checkpoint" nonsense which I'm pretty sure nobody ever bothers doing, but other than that you're pretty much just going from A to B and repeating the same few objectives over and over again. The mission rewards are generally less powerful than the gear you've already got, making the whole thing feel absolutely pointless (and is absolutely mental considering they made such a point of how much loot there is and how many ways there are to beef up your characters). They're an annoying bunch of cunts, too. It's shite, folks. Don't do it unless you're 8 years old and have never played any other games before.

I visited Dondoko Island on Infinite Wealth this evening (you're forced to go there at the start of chapter 6). It's pretty much a full-on Animal Crossing / Stardew Valley knockoff where you slowly clear parts of the island, build lodgings to attract visitors, then build facilities and entertainment to keep everyone happy and, in turn, attract more visitors. I found a blueprint for a bondage chair in a bottle on the beach, so I'm hoping to create a sleazy S&M dungeon area at some point. There's so much to do that it blows my mind to think that this is just a "small" part of the overall game. You can travel to and from Hawaii to carry on with the story whenever you want, but I reckon I'll be quite happy staying here for a fair while yet.

I'm about 6 hours into Infinite Wealth, and have just encountered "Miss Match" and her dating service / app. You set up a profile, match with other users, then chat to them and see if you can convince them to meet up for a date. My first conversation was going quite well, and after scoring a certain amount of points she decided to send me a photo. Full-screen woman's arse, crouching down, shown from behind, with one cheek hanging pretty much all the way out. For fuck's sake.

I'd drop my knickers in a heartbeat if Harry looked at me the way he looked at Mollie over that dinner table. 

Despite the cliffhanger last night suggesting Diane's about to be murdered, in one of her interviews she mentioned not being 100% sure whether Ross is a traitor or faithful. I wonder if that was foreshadowing a possible storyline between the two of them, where one of them (probably Ross) gets recruited in a later episode. Perhaps Diane doesn't drink from that cup, maybe passing it on to someone else or the clock strikes 12 before she gets chance to have a drink or something like that. I hope so anyway, I quite like her. I wouldn't mind her winning the whole thing.

Watched the Australian series of The Traitors this week. It's weird how one contestant made it to the penultimate episode despite barely being shown on TV at all - he was edited out of most of the round table footage, never shown during tasks, and only said about 3 sentences during his entire time on the show. I wondered if he'd had second thoughts after filming and refused to give permission to be shown on TV, but the official story seems to be that they couldn't get enough usable footage due to him talking about behind the scenes production stuff all the time. Sounds like the producers just got fucked off with him for some reason and decided to cut him out!

I'm giving the first US series another try now. I'm only a couple of episodes in, but I've warmed to Alan Cummings a bit. He's still Ed Tudor Pole to Winkleman's Richard O'Brien, though. A lot of the contestants' overly enthusiastic behaviour is extremely grating, but I guess that's what American reality stuff is often like. Fingers crossed the worst offenders will be booted out soon enough. Also, none of them seem to have clicked that they're meant to be trying to figure out who the traitors are - there's a lot of talk about voting off "weak links" or people they don't get on with, as if they all think they're on Big Brother or something, which makes it all seem a bit odd. It fills a gap while waiting for the next UK episodes, but so far the US one is my least favourite out of the series that I've seen.

I've just started a co-op farm with a pal on Farming Simulator 22. Neither of us has a clue what we're meant to be doing so we're making it up as we go along. We bought a lawn mower and I watched with glee as my mate mowed a massive penis into a field. Then we bought a forage wagon and collected all the grass, and now we're trying to decide if it was even worth it. I think we're going to buy a silo and put the grass in there until we figure something out. All this took three hours, and we both enjoyed it immensely.

I've just "acquired" the US, Australian, Canadian and New Zealand versions of the Traitors. I started watching the US one tonight, but only lasted a few minutes because one of the contestants - while doing their solo intro piece to camera - claimed to be related to Sherlock Holmes. I'm not sure if I can bear to watch anyone that stupid. Alan Cummings seems like a shite choice of host, too. Far too kooky. 

These fuckin' Traitors cliffhangers, man. It's like how TV used to be in the old days, where an episode will leave you right on the edge with no choice but to wait until next week to find out what happened. I love this show so much.

On 12/21/2023 at 9:33 AM, Merzbow said:

If you like 3 I'd say go for Blood Dragon next, it's a small standalone DLC set in 80's Synthwave like future. Really stupid but I remember enjoying it a whole lot.

Currently £2.99 for an Xbone / Series download code on Amazon, which is a bargain considering how much fun the game is.

Free Christmas-themed Powerwash Simulator DLC out today, chaps!

Not a fan of this at all. Bin it all off and get back to doing fun stuff like "My Nob's Bigger Than Your Nob". And do a solo tour of shitty bars and nightclubs like it's 2007 again.