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I am cursed. After three weeks of waiting, Zavvi eventually cancelled my Xbox order, so I ordered one from Shopto, it arrived today and it doesn't recognise any discs at all. I've tried every little trick or piece of advice I've been able to find online so far, but nothing has helped.

If anyone has any experience with an Xbox One not recognising any discs and knows anything that could help, let me know. Otherwise I'm going to have to send it to Microsoft tomorrow and be without it over the whole holidays.

Ugh, I am being screwed by Zavvi. On Black Friday I bought a 1TB Xbox One with Rise of the Tomb Raider and an extra controller for £289 and now, because their website/system is so useless, they're advising me to cancel the order. They apparently can't process payment (even though my card works fine and there's money in the account) and there's literally no button on the website that would allow me to add a new card*. And the customer service is so bad I honestly feel as if I'm being trolled into cancelling so they don't have to honour the price. Super frustrating.

Now I can't find a deal that won't cost me at least another £40 to get the same things.

Can anyone recommend any shops that are cheap/reliable I could check? I use Shopto, Simplygames and Amazon usually.

*There usually is. I've seen it. But now it won't come up and the problem's apparently so common that it's in their FAQ section.

Games are installed onto the Xbone and they take up a lot of space. If there is a good deal for a 1TB version then it could be worth getting it, but if not then no major deal- you can just get an external hard drive if you end up running out of space.

 

FYI mine is around 27% full at the moment, and I have installed FIFA 15, Witcher 3, Far Cry 4, Fallout 3 (significantly smaller than the other games, as it is a 360 game) and a few smaller arcade-ish games and demos.

Alright, cheers. I can get a 1TB external for about £40 so if the 1TB Xbox costs any more than that over the 500GB I'll just settle for that.

I'm looking to buy an Xbox One over Christmas, or maybe as soon as this week if the sales are good. What I was wondering was: is it worth paying extra for a 1TB machine or should I just buy the 500GB for cheaper and get an external hard drive when I need one? My instinct is always to go for the bigger machine but does it make much difference? All the best deals are on the 500GB, but I worry about whether playing off an external makes a difference to speed/loading/glitching etc. Anyone with any knowledge or experience who could point me in a direction?

It's ridiculous how often I have this fantasy now that all politicians are forced to take one of those "where are you on the political spectrum?" quizzes and are then sorted into parties like the Sorting Hat does in Harry Potter. All this in-party bickering and lack of clear ideology is driving me mental.

I know this will sound like I'm being contrarian, but I really liked the Shireen burning scene. We'll have to see how it plays out but I thought Stephen Dillane knocked it out of the park with his facial expressions. One part, "this is what I have to do to be king", one part, "maybe doing this means I'm no king at all". All in the eyes. If the complaint is it's uncomfortable viewing, I think that's fair, but obviously it's supposed to be, just as Robb's wife getting stabbed in the stomach was. It's a heavy show. If the complaint is that it was only there for shock value, I think people are probably jumping the gun. You can't say it came out of nowhere - they've been banging on about king's blood sacrifices for ages - and it raises interesting questions for the future. How is Stannis going to react to this? How are his men going to react to this? Will the king's blood sacrifice actually help him and, if so, what does that mean for Melisandre's overall prophecy? Personally I'm more interested in Stannis' story than almost anything else at the moment.

I don't actually think this will happen - if anything I expect the opposite -  but it would be great to see him kill Ramsay with his reinvigorated R'hilor voodoo. Seeing Ramsay die, the internet would suddenly be like, "burning Shireen was totally worth it!".

I can't see why people are still fighting Ambrose's corner, to be honest. I find him so terrible. I know being a good wrestler on its own isn't enough, but for me he's as big a let down in the ring as Cesaro is on the mic. Bigger, in fact. I would rather watch a bland Cesaro promo than see Ambrose doing that awful, awful clothesline off the rope bit again. There's just nothing in his in-ring repertoire that does him any favours. Quite honestly I'd love to see the guy take a long break and come back retooled and refreshed.

Alright. Cheers for the recommendations. I'll probably see what's cheap out of those.

Could anyone recommend some good stealth games for Xbox 360? I've had my Xbox a couple of years now and the most fun I've had by far are games like the Assassin's Creed series and the Batman Arkham series. I just played Dishonored and I liked that too. Are there many more good games like this? I have Hitman: Absolution from my Games with Gold so I figured that's probably next on the agenda, but I'm looking for stuff to put on my Christmas list.

Jesus. I actually laughed when I saw that first shot because I thought you'd posted a picture of some random, fucked-up looking old man to take the piss a bit. Goddamn. I think in the Robin Williams thread when I said I wasn't massively shocked, someone said "what would shock you!?". Well, I find this bloody shocking. Different disease, similarly predictable trajectories, but the visual...  that is just awful to see how he's wasted away. He's honestly not looking much better than George Best in his death bed photo. Terrible.

I haven't enjoyed Paige's run so far, but I don't think she's been brutal. In ring, as far as Divas go, for a first run she's actually been pretty decent. Think back to the first few months of almost any Diva's career and the matches are almost always pretty rough. Worse is that she's lacked a character, but maybe now that can change? If that was supposed to be a double turn, maybe this is the opportunity for Paige to kick into the "Anti-Diva" thing everyone was talking about. It'd be understandable if WWE didn't want their new babyface Divas champion to try and get over by running down what their whole female division stands for. For a newbie to come in and say "all these women are bland clones, I'm different and better!" diminishes every other babyface Diva. If she's a heel, though, she can do that, ham it up and show a bit of personality. It'd be a much easier assignment.

Bo Dallas for IC Champ, please. Easily my favourite thing in WWE right now and his gimmick seems like it'd suit some gold. I don't watch NXT though. Was he in this character when he won/had the title there?

I'm going to finally get on to Stick of Truth. I notice on Amazon that the regular version is

I wonder if they reckoned on "Believe in Evolution" drawing extra heat in Birmingham, Alabama.

My favourite moment of this Raw was the crowd member who shouted to Brock something like, "you're from UFC, not KFC!".

With everyone ragging on Daniel Bryan's promos, here's a question: excluding John Cena and The Rock, has there been anyone in the last few years who has been able to play a high level, competitive babyface with any skill? People started moaning about CM Punk as soon as he turned, Sheamus was terribly dull, ADR was poor... I genuinely struggle to think of any modern superstars who managed to pull off the fired-up babyface routine for longer than five minutes without it becoming boring.

My memory of Heroes was that only the first part of the first season was any good. I want to say nine episodes maybe? Terrible from then on.

I quite like Ryback, but it's a tough one. It may sound counterintuitive, but I'd be happy for Ryback if they just gave him some nice lower to mid-level card feuds against people like Kofi and Cody or even Sami Zayn as people have suggested. I think the problem with him is that people see his star potential and keep trying to push him as a monster in an era where monsters are increasingly irrelevant. He gets higher in the card, ultimately takes a few losses and then people complain that his aura and mystique is ruined. Sending him to developmental would be an idea, but then he'd come back and unless he had improved a lot the same thing would happen: he'd get that quick slingshot up the card and then fall down the second his balloon gets popped. I think he'd benefit more from just sticking around, getting better and having people get used to him as a part of the WWE furniture. People like Kane, Mark Henry and Big Show have all been in the same boat and it's not a terrible thing. Monsters' careers work in boom-and-bust cycles. Ryback could fit into that set perfectly. Being precious about protecting his character's aura is pointless because it has an inherently short shelf-life. All you can do is keep him working, hope he gets better in the meantime and hope that the next time his turn at the top comes around he'll be better equipped to perform.

Blah blah blah. I guess I'm just saying I still like him and his potential, but there's no point trying to force it. I think this midcard bully gimmick suits him well and is a good place to re-start.

Watching a Tito Santana/El Matador match on Smackdown recently I said to my brother, "there's no way they could do a matador gimmick nowadays and make him a face, is there?". I thought pretty much everyone looked down on that whole stabbing bulls for fun thing and it wouldn't fly in the modern age. But now... Los Matadores! Which all looked pretty babyfacey, right? (Unless I'm misjudging it). I'm surprised.

As far as complaining about book changes goes in this context, I think the most important change is how much focus the show has placed on Robb in the first place. Yes, he's been kind of lame for a while, but they've invested two solid seasons of making him primary in a way he's really not in the books. And I'll admit that I had been fairly unimpressed/bored by most of the changes regarding his wife in particular, but for me the Red Wedding made it all worth it. The sheer horror of the stabs to the stomach... Sweet jesus. I thought basically everything was pitch perfect.With regard to people avoiding the books... my family are always saying to me, "doesn't it ruin it, knowing what's happening?" and the answer is no. And I think for most people that will be the case. Ultimately you still feel all the same things when you first experience the Red Wedding or other stuff, you don't have to wait and there's even more depth to things. And then, sure, watching the show's a different experience, but it's icing on an already delicious cake. I'm not going to say "you have to read it!" or anything, but if you like to read anyway, I don't see any reason why you need wait.

Ta. Any other recommendations are much appreciated.

This may not be exactly what you're looking for, but I'd highly recommend joining a fantasy baseball league of some sort. I can't tell you how much it helped me learn about the game in my first year as a fan. I was lucky in that I started in a league with friends who knew I was a complete newbie to the sport, but it gave me a feel for so many things that might otherwise have taken much longer. You learn about the numbers/stats aspect of the sport, you very quickly learn what players are good or bad, and - I believe at least - you develop a much broader knowledge of the game than you do if you just pick one team and follow them (it can be easy to get sucked into paying attention to only your team's division/league in that case).

Obviously you want to watch as much as you can, but playing fantasy is an amazing supplement. It really keeps you locked in while you're still learning.

This message board has a place where you can find leagues or you can join random public ones on sites like Yahoo!. If you explain your situation you might get lucky with a bunch of nice people who will help you out.

Pretty new Xbox owner looking for advice on a couple of things...

1. Shopto has WWE 12 (Wrestlemania Edition) at

I really like Josie Long and I usually leave her shows feeling happy and inspired, which is a good thing. But I saw her new show the other night and I wasn't massively impressed. It's a lot of what you'd expect from her - "I hate the Tories so much!" but with effusive, infectious, girlish personality - but this time it's actually a bit light on jokes. As I left I heard a lot of people sounding very satisfied, so maybe I'm slightly harsh, but I'd say it's definitely her worst show for a few years.

That all said, as noted by others, you can't really go wrong for free, can you? I may think it's her worst show in years, but if it's your first exposure to her, maybe you're less likely to be disappointed. Unless you're an ardent Conservative - in that case there's a 95% chance you'll loathe her.

Steve Corino?

Here's one stab at Jim Ross...

And then here's another possibly a bit more fitting with this thread...

Appreciate the compliments. That was pretty much my first attempt at ever drawing something in Paint.

Judging by this Rick Rude, it may also represent the pinnacle of my achievement...