FLips

Excellent job Rooster, and everyone that did a write up. A really enjoyable list that brought back so many memories!

There are some games on there that if we could pick more games definitely would have made my list. Here Comes The Pain and Vice City for sure. If push came to shove those two and Timesplitters would make up some of my favourites on the PS2. I'm sure I learned the Vice City map off by heart!

Champ Man 01/02 as well. I didn't have a PC at that point but I would go round my mate's house and hammer that, Age of Empires 2 and some absolute shovelware game he had called Inca II: Wiracocha. We'd have pizza from Milano's and cans of pop from the corner shop, we'd stick wrestling tapes on and just have a blast on them.

I remember Pro Evo 4 being the year where our group of mates all collectively decided Pro Evo was better than FIFA. The gameplay was just an absolute blast.

I still haven't played Red Dead 2 so that might finally need to happen. Everyone I know who's played it adore it but I'm still mad about the ending to the first one!

My wife is an Orioles fan and I find I enjoy watching them much more than the Mariners. Exciting team, great ballpark and fans, and the home commentary is consistently good.

"We're Pepsi and they're Coke" isn't going to get the headlines or people online talking like the Weinstein line has and that's likely all there is to it. It doesn't change the fact it was unprofessional and embarrassing, and like others have said maybe he should look inwards at his own company.
It's straight out of the Eric Bischoff Monday Night Wars playbook to be fair to him.

2 minutes ago, Gus Mears said:

 Makes me pine for Hall of Fame Connections

Think about what you're saying here.

12 minutes ago, Vegeta said:

I never played the final fantasy games before and seen they have them all on the PlayStation store.

I bought the first one for 10 quid but have yet to play it, my main question is, is the pixilated/remastered version on the ps gonna give a true representation of the games and the series, or is it a case of the newer versions of them distorted it in anyway?

The Final Fantasy games should all really be held on their own merit. Everyone has their own favourites and least favourites for one reason or another, though obviously there's a select few that are deemed classics by nearly everyone.
If by "the first one" you mean Final Fantasy I then you're probably not going to fall in love with the series or get a full representation off the back of it. Like all of them it has it's merits, but it's the first attempt at a game they didn't think would even become a series. It's maybe good for the time but it's never going to live up to the ones that came later down the line.
All the mainline games are individual stories as well, so there's no reason to start from 1 and do them chronologically. If you want a better representation of the series then there is probably no better place to start than Final Fantasy VII or Final Fantasy X as they're both (in my opinion) two of the most accessible and also two of the better ones in the series. If you want to stick with the pixel graphics then IV or VI are the best ones to go for.

I don’t want to be too harsh on it because at least it’s something different, but I felt absolutely nothing as a fan watching that. It certainly wasn’t ever going to be Austin and Vince but it wasn’t even Dixie and Bubba Ray.

I wouldn’t say it annoys me or that I want to “shithouse it”. Just the concept of it baffles me. Like, what is it for? Is it to impress someone? Is it trying to start a trend?

I don’t know if they’re new neighbours or if they just have a newfound patriotism but those across the way erected a giant flagpole a month or so ago that is getting way out of hand.

It started with the England flag but has since then evolved into two flags at any one time and despite it starting in March they’re all poppy/rememberance day themed. LEST WE FORGET most of them say. They must have a shed full of flags, I’ve seen at least into double digits of unique designs. Two at a time at all times and they change them every single day.

When it’s windy all you can hear is the flapping and metal clanging as it gets battered. 

Who erects flags in their back garden? Are they ok?

Even though they deliberately put “scon or scone” I still read it as “scon or scon”.

It's car boot sale season!

Hope the weather perks up though.

I realised the other day I've never seen the Beverly Hills Cop films so with them all being on Netflix I gave them a whirl.

Beverly Hills Cop

Brilliant, loved it. Good action, really funny and the cast are all spot on. Ronny Cox shows up which is always a bonus, and Eddie Murphy is on top form. Steven Berkoff is a great bad guy and being backed up by Jonathan Banks is a good combo. Love the dynamic of the main cast, everyone stands out.
Obviously the theme song is a banger and they do really well interlacing different versions of it through the film. Enjoyed it so much I've watched it three times in a week while I've been working from home.

Beverly Hills Cop 2

Not as good but still decent. The plot is a bit overcomplicated for it's own good, too many moving parts. The first one worked well because it was clear who the bad guy was from the start and Foley just went after him relentlessly. This one tries twists and turns and loses a lot of the charm and humour along the way.

As Inspector Todd says "Don't think, Axel. It makes my dick itch".

Beverly Hills Cop 3

This one apparently got panned but I'd say it's as good if not slightly better than 2. It's got some of that humour back and the theme park setting makes a nice change.

On the whole I would say they were all good, the first one especially. 2 and 3 don't live up to that quality but they both have a few bits going for them in their own rights. Easy films to just put on and not think too much about.

He was shite from start to finish. Highlight was snake charming Santino's cobra, lowlight was his backne and world title run.

Good riddance.

Mr Five by Five.

24 minutes ago, waters44 said:

I’ve only ever had tiny gardens so never really noticed birds before let alone thought about them for any length.

When Dad died my step Mum told me the thing about robins - “when a robin appears a lost loved one is near”. Every time I see her she tells me about the robin (my Dad) following her around the garden etc. I’ve always thought it was her way of dealing with things and found it quite endearing

I moved house yesterday to a place with a conservatory and big garden. After the removals men left I sat down looking out to the garden. Two minutes later a robin lands on the tree a few metres in front of me, right in my eye line. I’ve honestly never felt so comforted in my life and I could easily cry my eyes out as I type this. I completely understand it now.

So I am now the newest member of the lovely birds club  

I think that may be a common thing as I've also been raised with the belief that Robins are lost loved ones. My Granddad used to love birds (and nature in general) so after he died my Mum's way of greiving was to start feeding the birds in the garden, something she never did while I was growing up. Her garden is awash with some stunning birds including a constant swarm of goldfinches and the occasional woodpecker.

My wife and I moved in to a house a few streets over from where my Nana and Granddad used to live. Same sized and layout house and garden, which now 17 years after they both passed has somewhat filled a hole in my own grief as I always wanted to keep their house after they passed, but at 17 I was too young so sadly we lost it.
During covid when we first started sorting the garden out, a robin would come and sit on the fence next to us and like yourself it was comforting.
Like him and my Mum, I also make sure to keep the bird feeder full so our garden is always full of birds. Nothing too spectacular yet other than a family of crows which are lovely, sparrows and a family of blackbirds that live in our loft. We get some gorgeous doves come and go every year and big fat wood pigeons. We also get Magpies which are stunning birds visually but they're shitheads and our dog hates them (and only them) so any time they land in the garden he's on them like flies on shit.

1 hour ago, LaGoosh said:

The first 40 minutes is the build to the rest of the movie when everything kicks off so maybe keep going with it. I haven't seen it in years but I remember it being pretty fun.

40 minutes is absolutely too long to build an action film. It’d be like Commando if it was 40 minutes of Arnie eating ice cream and petting deers with his kid. 

Man on Fire

We watched the first two Equalizers on Netflix and thought they were pretty enjoyable so moved on to another Denzel film as Equalizer 3 isn’t on Netflix yet.

I can only speak for the first 40 minutes as we turned it off after absolutely fuck all happened for the full 40. An action/thriller with no action for nearly the first full hour. Yawn.

The editing is headache inducing as well. Constant quick cuts and filters and rubbish camera angles. It’s like watching Raw at it’s worst but with awful early 2000s greeny brown filters over everything. 

Maybe it gets good but I’m not investing that much time into it to find out.

I had the non-energy drink version of the Watermelon one yesterday oddly enough. It’s like a Panda Pop. Quite sickly but I did like the taste.

My mate went to some big retro shop in Leeds and picked me up a copy of Castlevania 2: Simon's Quest while he was there.

The Castlevania trilogy on the NES is a bit of a nightmare to be honest, at least the English versions.
Castlevania 1 is fantastic and once you learn the bells and whistles a really fun game to bash through in one sitting.
Castlevania 3 is supposed to be one of the best games on the console but currently people are selling it for £300+ so it can fuck off tbh.
That leaves you with Castlevania 2 which has everything going for it, it's got great music, the sluggish but competent movement of 1 and then it adds in an open world with multiple paths and light RPG mechanics.
The issue stems from the fact that the English translations got butchered so every NPC in the game gives you bad information or in some cases outright lies to you. The way the map connects makes no sense either. You need a guide to play the game or you will never finish it. It almost feels like a FromSoftware game the way it's so vague and characters are just out to fuck you over. It's a damn shame because with a tiny bit of tweaking to the dialogue and maybe a map system (or better connected map in general) it would be fantastic,

Not sure if either of these count, but they both came to mind.

Sound and Vision by David Bowie. I prefer the original version over the stripped down 2013 version but they're both fantastic in their own right. Credit to both of them as well for having almost the entire videos as "Most replayed" on Youtube as one long segment.

Another one would be Jocko Homo by DEVO . The original version of Jocko Homo which had a much slower tempo and for lack of a better phrase, absolutely fucked music video. Then the album version which is much faster paced and the version they ran with for the rest of the careers, which is fair enough because it's much better.

1 hour ago, Hannibal Scorch said:

Must have been an Action Replay. Game Genie never got past the 16 bit era.

Very likely then! It was a teal colour thing plugged into the back ports of the PS1. I believe later models of the PS1 removed the ports entirely so people couldn’t use them anymore.

Similarly to others in here I had a disc version on PS2 that I used to cheat my way through Final Fantasy X.

6 minutes ago, SuperBacon said:

Nice little clip on the Game Genie here. 

I don't think I ever remember anyone I know having one to be honest. 

I had one on the PS1 at my Dad’s because he refused to get it chipped for I suppose legally moral reasons and this was a workaround. Don’t think I ever used it for cheats though, but I just didn’t know what it was at the time. I’d go mad with it now as some of the cheats you can exclusively get on them are mad. Someone else might know more but is it to do with the genie altering code for the game or something?

11 hours ago, lars85 said:

Question to anyone who's watched all of Fallout. Are there deathclaws?

Went for covers by artists I really like. Just think they’re neat. 

Fallout (full season spoilers)

He’s got triples of the HBK, triples of the Road Warriors and triples of The Mountie. He’s rich and he doesn’t live in a hotel.