SpiritOfTheForest

Dawn of the Dead is better than Night of the Living Dead. I get that Night was revolutionary but the sequel takes things to a whole other level. 

One of my old local post offices used to function as a small shop and, on the shelves next to the PO queue, my gaze would always be drawn to these tinned hamburgers which I'd idly stare at in quiet wonder. They looked absolutely vile things. 

This was them.

Irn Bru is the ultimate choice of beverage with a fish supper. Some things can't be argued with and this is one of them.

Absolute shite. It worked at first when she was presented as a super awkward and nerdy type like a female Mark but gradually she became some weird forced hipster creation and soon became insufferable. As an aside, Season 9 of Peep Show can get in the bin (even though Dobby isn't in that one). 

Edit: in reply to Keith, messed up the quote tags there.

Edinburgh are wrong 'uns though. Salt and vinegar is the way to go. West knows best. 

For a few years, going to guess approximately between the ages of 7 and 10, my parents would take us on mad road trips for a couple of weeks every summer holidays. We'd take the boat to Zebrugge and then drive off on various routes across continental Europe stopping off along the way and then circling back. I only wish I could have appreciated it more because at that age you can't really but looking back it was cool as fuck. Because of these journeys, I've now been to places like Liechtenstein, Bratislava and Krakow and I'm sure it was these holidays which instilled my later love of travel and adventure. 

A few years later, my parents got tired of the ambitious (and I imagine often stressful) trans-continental exhibitions with 3 children and instead just went to Spain every year. Each year they'd pick a general region of Spain and spend 2 weeks travelling around there. In this case, I'm certain that this is where my love of Spain began and many places I was brought as an obnoxious teenager became places I travelled to - and even lived in - years later. 

It's a bit humbling when you remember how much of an outwardly obnoxious prick you can be at that age when, looking back, you clearly loved it and it really gave you so much for the future. 

Just paid in a tenner. Cheers mate. I've been invited into the inner ring (I think).

I feel this thread is as good a place as any to ask and hopefully give the issue some prominence so some others follow suit but how exactly do I donate to become the coveted Paido? After all the joy this place has given me over the years, I think it's worth me giving something back.

I was a regular on the old TWCF all those years ago and when that place closed I migrated over here. I've been lurking ever since. I never really posted at all until fairly recently (I was totally put off by the old down vote system which made it quite daunting for somebody "new" to get involved) and, honestly, the UKFF has become a staple of my day. I always enjoy reading it over lunch or dinner and on the occasional time there's been a malfunction and the board has gone down for a few days, I've definitely missed it in my daily routine. Maybe it's a comfort thing. I've read a great deal of daftness from the sidelines over the years, and often roared with laughter. The creepy guy who kept posting photos of him with his female friend, Bensons For Beds, cheese on, the "trying to return the shoes I was already wearing" incident, the arsehole dog, Neil's name change threads (sorely missed)...good times, great memories. I can also thank the UKFF for helping me make a couple of mates away from here in the form of former posters Richie Freebird and Stormy Weathers, which in turn helped me discover some cool movies and other good stuff. 

The UKFF...a great bunch of lads. Long may it live on. 

From a metal perspective, the trait that I've occasionally seen that annoys me the most is the Over Protective Boyfriend. This guy will be with his girlfriend near the front with his arms around her, seemingly always stood directly in front of the pit. At frequent intervals, someone behind this couple is pushed forward a couple of steps by someone from the pit, inevitably causing a domino effect which leads to people falling into him him and his lady. A pretty obvious inevitability given the situation, but this guy seems to take it as a direct attack on his lady and gets on the hyper defensive - turning around glaring at all in the vicinity, suddenly lunging backwards with pointed elbows outstretched, on sometimes even lunging towards an unassuming bystander and pushing him backwards. Definitely a twat thing to do. 

The other stuff that annoys me like suddenly having my pint thrown out of my hands by an unexpected crowd surge or having to always keep one eye on what's happening behind me lest I get a boot to the head from a crowdsurfer or something all comes with the territory. 

I saw Edouard came on from the bench and scored twice this afternoon. While it was frustrating watching him not be arsed for months, it's still nice to see he's off to quite the start. 

Horrible news. She was clearly not in a good place on an Instagram live yesterday apparently which caused a fair bit of panic from fellow wrestlers and fans alike. While I never saw WCW until much later, I'm not at all ashamed to say that after seeing a pic of her in one of the old wrestling magazines, I immediately fancied the fuck out of her. Later on, I enjoyed her appearances in TNA. RIP Scream Queen. 

Kirsty Gallagher. Discovering Kirsty's Home Videos certainly helped me take huge steps from boy to man.

Timesplitters 2 was the ultimate Friday night with your mates party game back in the day. Now there's one I'd love to see get the re-release treatment. 

Crash Bandicoot 2 Platinum. Now my rarest trophy with only 0.6% of players getting this one. The overall difficulty is far easier than Crash 1 but the time trials are still fucking brutal, There was one level called Hangin' Out which had me stuck for 7 hours! Without exaggeration, you had to get every timing completely perfect even to get the gold relic on that one. This game was so brutal that my thumb quite literally has a big purple bruise. I never thought I would be capable of doing it but that's me now got the Platinums for both Crash and Crash 2, Madness!

If debate is discounting almost 6 lines of text to the first 3 linking words then yes it is a pretty pointless thing, I suppose!

Give the complete shambles of a club Ange inherited, I don't think it's at all fair to label the defeat to Midtjylland a failure on his part after a week in the door. Since the Hearts game though? There's been a somewhat noticeable improvement. 25 goals in 7 games? Aye, I'll take that! 

Well yeah, but by the time Midtjylland  came around Ange was just in the door. Were that tie to take place now, I would have Celtic to go through pretty comfortably. Like Rodgers' first game for Celtic against the aforementioned Red Imps funnily enough (although on a much less grand scale obviously).

I don't intend to insult Qarabag but a team from Scotland should be beating a team from Azerbaijan especially at home. Qarabag, along with  most teams from that part of the world in European competition, are notoriously poor travellers too (they got beat by Linfield a couple of seasons ago) and even at home last week with that laughable pitch Aberdeen were unfortunate not to get anything. Aberdeen should probably have beaten the Horsemen tonight. 

Also shout out to Sheriff becoming the first Moldovan side to make the Champions League group stages last night. I'd argue that could be even more impressive than the Red Imps. 

I'm absolutely loving Ange ball but goodness me tonight sure showed our frailties. We're through after beating AZ. Interestingly, both of the goals we conceded were not from Alkmaar chances but from our own self-inflicted defensive calamities. Still, we advance 3-2 on aggregate and AZ are arguably better than any team we'll play domestically this season . Also, I adore Kyogo. 

Saints fought well tonight but it was all downhill after Wotherspoon got himself sent off. All for nothing which is somewhat disappointing after Callum Davidson's heroics but what a run they've had to even be in this position. LASK are no mugs either. Aberdeen though, totally disappointing. 3-1 at home to a team from Azerbaijan? (I should point out at this stage thatI've only been reading the live text of the other games as I was watching Celtic) That's embarrassing. Indeed, for Hibs, Aberdeen and St Johnstone all to crash out of Europe and for the Old Firm to once again be the only ones playing in Europe this season is disappointing. I had expected Aberdeen to get through and St Johnstone to have a very good chance. For dross like the Red Imps to make the Conference League while "the best of the rest" in Scotland all crash out is pretty sobering. 

5 hours ago, SuperBacon said:

I'm having another one. It is my favourite game of all time, but it's also one of the best soundtracks as well.

 

Yasss! "You are about to embark on the Great Crusade, toward which we have striven these past few months. The eyes of the world are upon you. The hopes and prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere march with you." Love that game. I think my favourite track on it is Arnhem. It worked perfectly with navigating your way through the desolate ruins of a destroyed city. Here's a game I would love to get remastered on the PS4.  

18 hours ago, LaGoosh said:

@SpiritOfTheForest you are a fucking mad man. I tried Crash Bandicoot and was shocked at how insanely hard it was and how quickly into the game it got so hard. The idea of platinum-ing that game is horrifying to me. Well done, sir.

I just finished Little Nightmares 2. The look, atmosphere and sound design of this game (and the original) is absolutely superb and incredibly creative and unique. Worth playing for that alone. The gameplay and puzzles are pretty good for the most part except for one particular section where the controls just feel broken and not done properly so getting through was very, very painful. I think my PS4 is coming to the end of its shelf life...I'm really struggling to find new stuff to play.

Cheers! It was brutal but it was mostly about patience and trial and error with a fair bit of luck in a couple of levels. Games like this are all about muscle memory so after multiple tries various parts of the levels would become second nature. Indeed, for The High Road I eventually found I played better when my mind wandered a little and I was effectively playing on autopilot. I treated the harder levels the same way I did Flappy Goat: as soon as I could feel myself becoming stressed out or overly annoyed, I took a break and treated these levels with good humour and a "Haha maybe I'll get it next time" mentality. Getting raging at this game is recipe for failure. Apparently, 1 is the hardest, 2 is slightly more lenient but still hard and 3 is a fair bit easier. Think now I've got the first I'll move on to the second after I've played something else first to freshen things up. Would be nice to get the whole trilogy Plat-ed one day!

Latest games done:

Crypt Of The Serpent King

With a title like that, I knew I had to play it. That's so my dungeons and dragons and medieval fantasy vibe. Cool name and some pretty good music but sadly those are the highlights. It's an incredibly simplistic game - 7 levels where you meander around a dark and dingy dungeon picking up keys either by passing through fire gates or by jumping over an obstacle, all while avoiding a host of enemies. Then when you have all the keys, ranging from 7 to 14 of them, you make your way to a room where you can fight a boss. Repeat 7 times and that's Crypt of the Serpent King. Oh, and the levels are all randomly generated. Enemies are restricted to one of each type per level i.e in one level you will be fighting skeletons and another goblins and so on. Getting the platinum here simply requires you to complete the game 3 times on each difficulty mode. I actually found some of the hardcore mode, especially the final boss, to be pretty difficult. This is only worth a buy if you like the aesthetics and want a short distraction in between longer games but based on the gameplay, it's hard to recommend Crypt of the Serpent King to anyone. 

Crash Bandicoot (the first game in the N Sane trilogy)

Holy shit. This has to be my proudest platinum to date! For what is ostensibly a children's game about a small mammal jumping across a variety of colourful landscapes, Crash Bandicoot is hard. Like, really hard. You're jumping and spinning along on your merry way through the first few levels and then Native Fortress enters the frame with a punch to the face. Some of the platforming to be found is indeed "n sane" and requires the utmost in timing and precision to even make it to the end of the stage. That's before we get to things like having to do some of the harder levels without dying once to achieve colourful gems which unlock different paths in other levels and especially the time trials where you have to sprint headlong through levels, jumping recklessly between platforms which clearly were designed with patience and timing as being paramount. You need at least Gold ranking on all 26 levels and some of them were nothing short of hellish. Road To Nowhere, Sunset Vista, The High Road, The Lab, Fumbling In The Dark...these names will become almost traumatic if you decide to complete this one.

I'm soooo glad I managed this though because Crash Bandicoot has a special significance to me: It was my first ever game! I must have been 8 or 9 when my parents bought me my first ever games console. I never had a Nintendo 64 or anything like that so didn't know who Mario was. Crash Bandicoot was my very first glimpse into gaming. Of course, I sucked at it and don't even think I got halfway through before playing Warped instead (which I recall being a bit easier). Completing Crash Bandicoot all these years later, it struck me in the later stages just how much better at the game I had become. I know that sounds obvious. But really, at the beginning it took me multiple game overs simply to make it to the end of Native Fortress. By the end I, could see even more challenging obstacles approaching and tackle them without thinking. There's certainly a great satisfaction in completing this game. And, as I mentioned, it's my proudest platinum and also my rarest! According to the trophy page on PSN, only 0.8% have the coveted Platinum in Crash Bandicoot. And now I'm chuffed to be one of them!

I think now I'll jump back to Horizon Zero Dawn and do the Frozen Wilds DLC before I think about Crash 2. My thumbs are actually aching and I need a break from the madness.  

Reminds me of this. 

I still hear "World Wrestling Federation....one moment. World Wrestling Federation...one moment" bubbling to the surface of my mind at random times. 

With the ridiculous amount of spare time I've had over the Summer I've been platinuming a few games. The last 3 along with a few words:

Doom Eternal

This was my first Doom game. It took me a while to warm to this one and I actually put it down for a while to play other stuff after only the first level. The game introduces you to a ton of different mechanics all at once which, coupled with the fact that Doom Eternal is fucking hard anyway, made for a pretty steep learning curve. However, I returned, put the difficulty down a little while I got used to things and I ended up having a grand old time. Very glad I went back, If I could pick one word to describe this game, it would have to be "Badass". To this day I have very little idea of what the story of this game is all about - and there's clearly been a large amount of effort into creating all the lore you delve into in Doom Eternal through the collectibles - but to my simple mind, this is a game about walking through a series of halls blasting the absolute fuck out of hundreds of aliens in grotesque and gruesome ways with a plethora of cool weapons, all to a pounding soundtrack. The big negative is that the multiplayer is pish and getting the required online trophies was a joyless grind (seriously, fuck multiplayer trophies) but all the single player stuff was a joy to behold after getting over that initial learning curve. I had a great time with this one. 

Peasant Knight

After completing a big game, I always like to play through something short and often a little daft before I commit to another lengthy, time consuming game. Scrolling through the Playstation Store, I found Peasant Knight, a name I found instantly appealing and so I bought it without reading up on it. This one only costs £2 or so and it's 2D side scroller. It's an odd one, your little peasant knight must get to the other side of each stage within a very short time and you only have two buttons - one to stop and one to jump. It starts off pretty easy as expected but some of the levels actually get quite challenging. I think I got the platinum in about an hour but the difficulty of some of the stages put this a wee bit above cheap, easy platinums like Chickens On The Road or My Name Is Mayo. Recommend this to anyone who is looking to play through a new game in an afternoon who is a fan of retro games and especially side scrollers. 

Horizon Zero Dawn

Achieved the Platinum in Horizon Zero Dawn last night.

I started off sceptical but I grew to really like Aloy. She was....lovely and so very wholesome. This game is gorgeous and the wide variety of locations ranging from snowy mountains to scorching deserts to majestic plains to leafy forests, along with a really good weather system and seamless day-night cycle means that you'll never get bored wandering. The wide variety of machines you'll encounter and the combat strategies who have to adapt for each one also ensure things never get dull. On the negative side, I thought the combat was a bit poor when you are using your spear (which I was likely to do), and it wasn't always very obvious which parts of the landscape you could interact with.

The absolute highlight of the game was the story. I can't really say too much about it here because spoilers but the level of detail and realism put into the story was so impressive. Some of it gave me goosebumps sometimes, honestly. The absolute best time I had in this game strangely enough was when I was being more of a detective than a hero, sneaking around subterranean chambers looking for audio files and text transcripts and trying to piece together the story of Earth a little more.

So Horizon Zero Dawn is another cracking game I've played this summer. I would recommend it. Apart from these ones I've also (finally) got the Platinum on Skyrim after 10 years (I only needed to tidy up a few odds an ends so didn't do it all this summer), Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy (great colourful fun full of personal nostalgia) and Goat Simulator (absolute daftness but I love daftness. Flappy Goat was a chore and a half but finally managed it after taking regular breaks and stopping every time I could feel myself getting frustrated).

I haven't really been that into games since I was a kid but with the lockdowns I bought myself a PS4 to entertain myself while locked inside in a new country and I've gotten right back into it! Really liking the ol' computer games at the moment. 

40 minutes ago, The King Of Swing said:

 

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I'm currently siding with Amita even though I usually go for the "lives before Intel" route because I can't shake the feeling that Sabal is a using twat only interested in exploiting Ajay's parantage.

Also fuck traditionalists.

 

I was firmly beside Sabal because of the last bit. It's so cool that the game really did allow you to choose whatever way most spoke to you. I platinumed Far Cry 3 and 4 over the last couple of months and had a blast with them. 4 especially seems pretty underrated and Pagan Min is a fantastic character who steals every scene he's in. I picked up 5 on the PSN Summer Sale for the ridiculous price of £7 so I'm going to check that one out relatively soon (never played that one before).