TheFlyingGerbil

Bought the extended battery for my game pad. Hopefully the improvements as dramatic as advertised as it's bloomin' expensive for an accessory. nearly as dear as a controller, in fact.

My PS3 doesn't charge the controller when it's off. In fact I hate charging the PS3 controller, it doesn't want to charge on any of my USB chargers, only on my PS3, and only when on. Which is rubbish because the cable is about a metre long so you can't play it when it's plugged in. I'll try leaving it in overnight and see if it charges when the PS3 updates as Strangelove suggests. Not happy that I have to leave all that junk on display, but it beats having to buy a solution. As for the Vita, I charge that over AC. I read that it charged via USB and was pretty happy about it. so when I bought it and found out it was a proprietary port on the actual vita and only USB on the other end I was pretty hacked off. That's another cable I need laying about and I really wish they'd made it more obvious which was the right way up. Not sure what it is with Sony and charging stuff but I really hope it's less of a mess on the PS4.

any one have any hints for making foo yung? While I was looking for recipes it seems USA has it with a gravy while the uk doesn't. Seems like everyone was calling the sauce an abomination but I can't say I'm bothered about authenticity I just want it to be tasty. is it a worthy addition? also, my favourite meat in it is Chinese roast pork (char siu) but I can't get that around here is there anything that's similar but easier to find or simple thing to do to pork that is an approximation that doesn't need a dozen ingredients i'll only use once? I want to start making some of the dishes i enjoy from the take away but i've only ever made fried rice and need to broaden my horizons.

she's not from a zelda game - she's created especially for this that's why you wont recognise her. The plot iS bsed around her and her sister.

She doesn't look very Zelda-y to me. I love that she's happily facing down a load of monsters but Cuccos strike genuine fear. That makes me a bit less excited. I just had a look and there is a plot at least to tie things together. I can't decide if I'm excited or not.

I've never played a Dynasty Warriors game. They seem to get very mixed reviews/have inconsistent quality. Hopefully with Nintendo involved they will make sure the rough edges are polished off. How similar is this to the standard games? I only ever seem to see people killing hordes of enemies in an arena. How does the game progress? Are they levels you're plonked, kill everyone and you're taken back to the menu screen or do you explore a large overworld (with other things to do) and happen upon these areas. I have to admit I like the low skill combat of things like zelda and assassin's creed, so the idea of cutting a swathe through ranks of minions appeals to me.

Bonus elephant for you, Dean:

You live life on the edge ordering from an unknown seller! How does $30 compare to the used price in a game retailer? Is the saving wroth the risk or was it just convenience of buying on line. It reminds me of how on eBay when a seller says "this item is for sale elsewhere and may be withdrawn at any time". If my bid is final why the heck are they allowed to pull out? Makes you wonder if they will just because the price isn't what they're hoping. I'm surprised eBay allows it to be honest. Anyway, the reason I actually came here: Nintendo finally put Earthbound on sale (40% off) I knew if I waited long enough it would happen eventually.

If half chips, half rice a thing in America (or the rest of the UK come to think of it)?

minis march again is supposed to be good if you like puzzle games. I keep meaning to buy it. I'm getting pretty bored of the selection in the EU stars catalogue. It needs an major injection of new stuff. Accessories for the DS, Wii/DS points cards - can you even use those anymore? . I really hope none of my points are coming up to their expiry dates as I would definitely be wasting them just to use them up at the moment.

I think I liked Heroes longer than most people managed to - up until the carnival and that man you just mentioned (just saw he's an American, didn't he put on an awful British accent?). Can't remember how it all ended though. I thought they'd all died to save the world but that can't be right if they're making more of them.

I'm not too bothered about missing collectibles so long as they don't impact the gameplay too significantly, so clothes, weapons when a comparable (maybe less powerful) one can be obtained more readily. Do not want to miss something like a different class of weapon or an item that grants significant new abilities (like Zora's flippers in LttP) so I think you should be guided toward that sort of stuff and it shouldn't be missable. The thing that annoys me most though is branching storylines and multiple endings as it forces you to miss great swathes of storyline and gameplay. Obviously there's different levels of this and I think Heavy Rain handled it well as I think the progression of the story was logical based on your choices, the story and game still felt complete, and I don't feel like there was a "right ending" just the one you ended up with. Some games seem to make it obvious though that you made that inconsequential choice 5 minutes in to the game so now this village has been burnt to the ground forty hours later so there are non of it's side quests open to you. Or the story writers had a clear idea of what the story should be so if you ended up with a different ending you really made the wrong choices somewhere along the way. To me this is the worst sort of missable content because even if you have a walkthrough open the whole time you play you still have to miss out on stuff.

I was conscious I'd been rambling so I guess I over simplified my summary. I meant the following points: Yes Nintendo is selling less consoles so I know it's doing worse what I meant was it's too soon in to this generation for any console to be declared dead or a success. This is entirely anecdotal but I don't feel people are rushing in to this generation with the same fervour they were last time as I don't think the upgrade seems as significant. So yes Nintendo have sold less but I think if all companies underperformed Nintendo would be last to abandon hardware. I think I've said it before but and I'm not saying it's going to happen, that it should nor that they're at a place where it's a good idea but I think MS would be the first manufacturer to jump ship if things were not going to plan. It seems much more like a department of a large company that is kept at arms length ready to be sold off at a moments notice. I think you can see this attitude in their game software side too. Sony gives the impression that PlayStation is much more integrated into their business and I can more easily imagine if they stopped making hardware for whatever reason they would keep any profitable aspect of games development and publishing on other's hardware while there's no way ms would. What I hope Nintendo does in the future is keep it's hardware away from cutting edge and not add gimmicks (as defined in the long bit of my last post,sorry!) that drive the cost up. That way it can be an easy sell to families and easier to persuade people who buy ms and Sony consoles/pc for the big games to have it as a second gaming platform for the unique experience Nintendo provides.

you can't leave one unfinished! You should finish spirit tracks before you replay another one. If you're near the end you won't have to put up with much more of the trains. The warping on the tracks was my least favourite method of getting around the over world of any Zelda game. I never ended up where I wanted to be

I've just written a rambly post that has been open for a few hours, so there are several new posts, but damned if I'm not going to post it now. As a concession I've condensed it down to one paragraph: I don;t think Nintendo is doomed (I agree with the last post about all consoles currently struggling to adapt to the new landscape and Nintendo isn't doing any worse than the others). But what does everything I have just written have in common. "This is the console with motion controls!", "This is the console with 3D!", "Look it's got a tablet that isnt a tablet!". These are attention grabbing differentiators from the competition - practically the dictionary definition of a gimmick. Motion control worked for advertisers but not for gamers, 3DS sold inspite, not because of 3D, and the gamepad is good, but the it doesn't add anything unique enough to justify the extra cost. You can read the rest if you want to: You will not find a bigger Nintendo fan on these boards than me and I personally love all the Nintendo innovations, and I hope they keep on with them - as some of them stick and are industry changers. We all know the aspects that were popularised if not invented by Nintendo and Nintendo are the biggest reason controllers are the way they are now. BUT, not all their ideas stick and whether or not they are good, they do not catch the imagination of the developers or the public for whatever reason and they are considered as gimmicks. The most often cited would be 3D, gamepad (also second screen on 3DS) and motion controls. Motion control can be put to good use, and definitely adds to some gaming experiences. The thing I liked best was the pointer for ersatz mouse funtionality. However, for the handful of games it improved (or made possible such as Wii Sports) it more often than not it was poorly implemented, inaccurate, distracted from gameplay or simply ignored completely. The simple fact here is they dropped it as the main control method for the Wii U so Nintendo themselves tacitly admit this was not a success. I love 3D and have it on on the 3DS whenever I can. But I cannot hand on heart say it improves or changes gameplay. In fact, I think we can all agree 3D has pretty much died the death. While you couldn't move for 3D TVs a couple of years ago, now it is often being left out in favour of smart functionality in the mid range. I'm looking at new TVs at the moment and it's really narrowing my choices, and I don't even know why I'm limiting myself because what would I put on it? Both the the PS3 and 360 were capable of 3D the games supporting it were few and far between, and no one exactly trumpeted it from the roof tops. I don't even know if PS4 and XOne support it, and even if they do, do the games? I can't imagine they do when they are already mired in resolution-gate, 3D would almost certainly be dropped to make room for more pixels on screen. Again, Nintendo quietly admitting defeat here - While it started as the main selling feature of the 3DS console, it is no longer advertised as a feature and indeed the 2DS removes it completely and to this end, many games adverts actually say you can play it without the 3D on, so it is not the feature that you can turn it off! And let's not forget the ungodly price the the 3DS started out at because of the cost of the 3D screen. It didn't start selling until they slashed the price (making it the first console they sold at a loss for a short while) Now to the more controversial second screens. Most people like the funtionality they add - it's nice to have the menus and maps moved off the main screen and touching menus is a lot easier than scrolling them. We all love off-screen play and I frequently hear people here mention their use of it. But even if the people who have the gamepad enjoy its features, it is not causing the public at large to rush out and buy the Wii U. In fact, it may well have had the reverse effect. The gamepad confused people who thought it was a Wii accessory they didn't need and those who knew it was a new console baulked at the price because it meant the console itself was current gen powered but next gen priced. This was directly caused by the addition of the gamepad. Without it, Nintendo could have released the Wii U console alone, at a similar launch price to the Wii U (and profitably) with the simple message "play the nintendo games you love in HD" We can never know, but this seems like an easy sell. Instead they had a confused public wondering why they should spend nearly double the price (even though it cost Nintendo a loss on the hardware).

I grew up in a small village and consequently did not see much diversity until I moved to a large city for university (e.g. in my primary school class (4-11yo) there was one chinese girl and everyone else was white). The smallish town I work in I see minorities everyday, to the point that it is unremarkable but not nearly as much as my uni city, so I would say there is a strong correlation between a population size and its diversity. I would guess places like Uk and France (because of empires) would have more diversity than most and Scandinavian countries are generally considered less diverse. Immigration is often an issue in the scandi-noir shows that are popular recently. Racism has always existed but here's a recent potted history of the UK. Obviously racists will happily hate everyone but these are what you'd associate with/made the headlines in different recent time periods. During the 1950/60s UK encouraged immigration of black people from west indies and asian people (mostly from india an pakistan) to fill skilled job vacancies (Mainly in the fairly new/expanding national health service). there is an unfortunate amount of TV "comedy" based on racism towards these groups during the 1970s e.g. about how awful it was to have a black family move next door and shameful caricatures (including brown face make-up) of Indian people. These were the most prominent target until the 2000s when ALL MUSLIM PEOPLE BECAME TERRORISTS, radicalised against the decadent west. Since the economic downturn and the expansion of the EU to include poorer eastern european countries the most recent target is toward these EU migrants. Reasons given (freely and frequently) are 'coming to take our jobs', 'coming to live off our benefits', 'coming as organised criminal gangs'. This has actually led to a resurgence of right wing politics in Europe and has effected recent election results. The last is the only sort of racism I actually personally hear on a regular basis and from a surprising number of people and people I wouldn't expect it from and I hazard to guess wouldn't think of themselves as racist - I'm guessing because they class it as politics? It's kind of scary.

If you refresh the page and click in the text box, at the bottom it should have the option to restore auto-saved text. Too late for that post but it's saved many of us here several times, especially when the boards are being dodgy.

Zelda Four Swords would be good for the gamecube.

It is my mission in life to find some open shoes (sandals or mules, etc.) that don't give me blisters or make me look like a geography teacher. So far I have failed.

Mario Maker doesn't seem like a very flexible system (compared to Little Big Planet) from what little I've seen of it, so it will be interesting to see what sort of levels people come up with. That would put me off buying it straight off the bat. I would be interested if it's a £10 download (£15 if they do one of their offers with it) but if they try and package it as a £40 retail offering I will not be impressed. Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker looks like the sort of game I'd love. Apparently there were similar bits in Super Mario 3D World, but I haven't played that - can anyone who has tell me if I should be excited?

If you click on location, between the toggle on/off button and recent location requests, does it say mode? If you choose battery saving that only uses mobile and wifi. Does it make a difference if you go into the full settings menu rather than the quick menu, or do Samsung meddle with the main settings too?

Hi, TC. Welcome to the forums. People get a bit over excited by fresh meat here. Once the welcomes are over and you've moved in to the rest of the forum you'll see we're a decent bunch. I see you've made some good posts around already, so I look forward to you becoming a regular. Good luck!

Oops. Bit slow there.

I'll definitely go back to it. Just probably only play a few days at a time and I'll probably have a read around on strategies for simpletons.

I can see it's a good game, I just can't enjoy it, unfortunately. I only got to the first boss - lost a truck load of pikmin and remembered I can't deal with the stress of deciding how many pikmin is an acceptable loss or whether to restart the day - plus there are the fruit supplies to worry about so you have to decide if you've been productive enough that day to justify a juice being used up. Pretty much I'm always second guessing myself and hesitant to press on. I think to enjoy it I'd need it so the only constraint is finishing your tasks during the day/night cycle. Losing pikmin would be fine if I knew I could spend the next day concentrated on growing more, but in the current game that would be a waste of juice.