Thursday Next

As you'll be aware by now, the 5th level of the "Crystarium" doesn't unlock till you beat the game. So really, the whole game is just one big tutorial, post game is where it's at.

Son, I am disappoint. I mean, Shepard has goddamn cybernetically-enhanced muscles now. I was expecting some crazy Captain Falcon-esque stuff. Maybe they will grow out of his hands like Wolverine or some such?

It's about 8am in the US (depending where they are), I imagine a large proportion of the 77 million PSN users have just woken up and hit the servers like a ton of elastic-top jean wearing, burger scoffing, F-150 driving bricks.

No one is ever the only one. Ever. Liked it better the second time around, just crashed through everything up to Chapter 11. Spent ages on Pulse, then had a quick dash through the end-game so I could finish levelling and complete all the hunts. Still never managed to get my hands on a Trapazohedron thing though... stupid Adamnatoises.

Looks "Trine"-ish. Not read the review yet, just basing that off of the level play-through.

X-Men First Class was pretty damn awesome. Well paced throughout, Charles and Eric's relationship was well played out. A few things didn't make sense, presumably due to a lack of knowledge of the appropriate lore. Other than that, they did lamp-shade a lot of fan references, I lost count of the number of times they referenced Charles losing his hair which I found a little tedious. Also, I find superhero names in general a bit... cringe-worthy. I think it's just something I've grown out of. Much prefer Charles addressing them by their actual names. One final point, people were queueing out the door to see the Hangover 2. What gives? I saw the first one, thought it was okay in a, "Isn't this just 'Dude, where's my car?' without aliens?" sort of way, but people seem to be going nuts over the sequel. Feel like I'm in some kind of bodysnatchers film where I'm one of the few people who can't be turned.

FFXIII... again. Nearly finished "Stacking" last night, but then I realised it was 3am...

Much as I hate to get involved in this discussion again... The gunplay was perfectly functional, you put the little cross-hair thingy on the mans, press R1 and they die. How is this broken?

No idea what the daily play numbers are on 1943, it is one of the best(subjectviely speaking) and most successful XBL/PSN games out there. Also, don't read too much into DICE's Gun Wall, it's been there forever.

Ahhh, I see. Yeah some cataclysm that the Doctor was involved in that made the Grand Canyon or the like. Or something in Ancient Greece where he gets mistaken for a god. Thought it was the villains in general you wanted rid of, rather than being concerned where they came from.

You are suggesting that they drop the mild peril? Are you quite mad? I'm all for dropping the Daleks for a bit, if they do have to include them, they should give the Daleks a victory, a real, meaningful win. Have them off Amy or Rory or something, permanently not the way Rory normally dies. At least have them wipe out a civilisation. Moffat is right when he says they are the most reliably defeatable enemy. If they're going to keep their "arch nemesis" crown then they should be allowed a win every now and then.

I always read the manual, normally while the game is installing and I am having a poo. FFXIII was basically one huge narrative tutorial leading up to the actual fun, challenging gameplay of completing all the hunts. The fact that you can't actually unlock the top tier of skills for your characters secondary roles until after you have beaten the final boss and watched the credits roll is testament to this. It definitely wasn't the way to go, as evidenced by the consumer backlash. In fact, I think FFXIII thought it was a lot more complicated than it is.

You do have a point though. Chewie's chums are no David Bailey.

Yeah, but "PSP" tripped off the tongue.

I like the name "Vita" on its own. Think "PlayStation Vita" is a bit of a mouthful and "PSV" just reminds me of the Dutch(?) football team PSV Eindhoven.

Made up words like "Wii" are easier to get trademark protection for. Same goes for words unconnected to the product description like "Vita" and "Dreamcast". Descriptive terms like "Dual Screen" are hard (if not impossible) to protect, at least initially, in time they can earn enough brand equity to be protectable in their own right, which means that they always, or at least in their formative years have to be accompanied by a brand name like "Nintendo". A name like "Vita" could imply that Sony want to be able to call it the Vita™ without having to use the whole name "PlayStation Vita" or trying to establish brand equity in both "PSV" and "PlayStation Vita" at the same time. That said, they could just like the name.

Yeah, seeing the Vita / Vista confusion. Don't much care what it's called to be honest, I don't find Vita offensive but it's not setting my world on fire. I'd have been as happy with "PSP2". This is a deeply sexy system though. Day one purchase.

I can only imagine that this looks something like the beginning of 2001. As soon as one of them learns how to use simple tools, we're in a lot of trouble.

Yeah, ok, that works for me. Let's go with that then.

I do love it when the Doctor gets all "Oncoming Storm" on people. The Jen monster was a bit contrived, but they did manage to justify it with the discarded alive Flesh (at least I felt it was justified).

Someone needs to make this movie. I'm looking forward to seeing this tomorrow. Just need to find a willing partner to Wednesday a l'Orange it with me.

Oh Activision, you crazy, crazy cats. Why are you charging for Need for Speed Autolog? Most likely because you can.

This about sums it up. The trailer did not appeal to me. It makes the film look like Team America played straight. Being not an American and unfamiliar with the comic I have no interest in seeing Captain America. Apologies for the wholly unintentional de-railing, I'll get back on track with an opinion on X-Men First Class tomorrow.

The Xperia Play has dropped Memory Stick in favour of MicroSD. Don't see why NGP wouldn't do the same.

Is it possible to "professionally" give knee jerk reactions with absolutely no background knowledge? I mean surely, if someone said to you: "Hey, want to come see WH40K and write a short piece about it?" you'd maybe, just maybe hit up Google to see what it's all about. I'm not saying that he should necessarily know an Eldar from an Orc, but even the most cursory image search would clue you in on the general art direction of the universe.