Thursday Next

Worth noting that Sleeping Dogs is free to PS+ folk this month.

I never understood the "Sony won't allow it" concept. It's a win-win for the parent company. If PS trounces Xbox, great stuff. If Xbox trounces PS then Sony still get a cut of every disc sold.

Weekday GMT nights work better for me.

I pity the first lot of people who have to play this game with me. I have literally 0 idea of what class a given character is, never mind how to play that class.

The Last Stand is a solid Arnie film. Loads of fun!

General feeling here is it's PS4.

^What he said.^ Now whether or not you like that practice is entirely up to you. And yes, there are always discussions where content is laid out and the question is asked "What is main game content and what is DLC?". The issue then becomes, pre-dlc, what would have been included and what would have been dropped forever?

I agree with Ethan. It's not uncommon for niche titles to be delayed due to translation issues which is often met with calls of "Just release the game over here with the original audio." If that did happen, and there were decent (but not brilliant) sales numbers I could see a developer doing the language support at a cost if there was demand for it. Paying for native language support may be galling, but, it is easy to see where that cost comes in. You are paying for some professionally translated, performed and mixed audio.

Don't know what you mean by "developed and removed". I can assure that once Mass Effect was completed there was not a team of people going around CTRL-Xing a bunch of code from the files. Quite the opposite. A year in advance of release Publishers will decide based on projected P&L what they would like to go into the game and what they want to create for DLC. To extend the Pizza analogy, they will set out to create a Pepperoni Pizza, and will at the same time make a decision to have Mushrooms available at launch, perhaps for those who preorder. They will also plan to introduce the option to include Jalapenos at a later date. I have not, in my experience seen anyone set out to create a Pepperoni, Mushroom and Jalapeno Pizza and once it is baked remove the Mushrooms and Jalapenos to sell them later. I have however seen teams that set out to make a Pepperoni, Mushroom and Jalapeno Pizza, drop the dough several times, try to smooth it out, lose the Pepperoni behind the fridge, and run out of time to prepare the Jalapenos. They end up releasing a Mushroom Pizza and are not around long enough to charge you for the extras assuming they could have ever gotten their shit together.

This however is hilarious: http://blog.eu.playstation.com/2013/01/29/soul-sacrifice-release-date-and-pre-order-extras-revealed/#more-109597 Removing content from an already released game and then selling it is an interesting tactic to say the least, but where that content is the voice acting for the game? Odd. Would you pay to have characters speak in a language you don't understand? If you only understand Japanese, but live in Europe, then is it fair that you be charged extra to understand the plot?

I think what Plus is about is ensuring that people who would maybe only buy CoD and FIFA in a given year have a reason to throw another £40 Sony's way. It's easy to forget that people who buy a game a month or even a few games a year are not the norm. Also, the discounts have led me to jump at games I otherwise would not have, for example the current discount on PSASBR was enough for me to say I will have this game now, rather than wait for it to be free.

Doesn't matter when the content was created. It only matters if you feel you are getting the content you want at an acceptable price. If the Javik content did not exist would you still have bought the game when you did, for the price you did? That more stuff is added on top at a later date is irrelevant if your original purchase was satisfactory. If you feel that too much of games are being "held back" then stop buying them on release and wait for a sale or the inevitable GOTY edition. People can complain on forums all they like, but if they keeping eating it, publishers will keep serving it. You have to remember that the really big publishers have changed the way the industry works. It used to be that you'd sell the base game, then with those profits you'd make an expansion pack. That meant that you really couldn't afford to start work on the additional content until the game was on the shelves. Publishers now are able to take the profits of X Game that sold well and use them to fund Y DLC for Z Game that is not released yet. This means that content can be developed alongside the main game and delivered very soon after the games launch. This argument that adding features later devalues a product in the past is strange to me. When Apple release an iPad it is priced at £500, even though we know that within six months there will be a new one that will be worth £500 and this one will be worth £400. We don't try to skip ahead to the lower price point. So why do it with games? I see this a lot with PS Plus freebies as well. People will moan "I just bought Mortal Kombat last week and now it is free that's not fair." While it sucks for the person who missed out it is totally fair.

All the skins will be available to purchase at some point. Unknot your pants.

The more things change, the more they stay the same. Really need to fix product discovery.

As others have pointed out, the Chinese example is great for illustrating how a lack of ready access to guns saves lives. Even if mental health issues were addressed, there is nothing to stop a perfectly sane person buying guns and then going off the rails. We can't predict when a mental break will happen or what will trigger it. I tend to think of banning guns in a similar way to locking my car. Locking my car doesn't stop someone who wants to get in from getting in. So why do it? I do it to stop the guy who walks past and in a moment of weakness thinks, "Ooooh look, some pennies on the dashboard!", checks the door, finds it locked and walks on. I tend to find that people (myself included) are essentially lazy. It takes a huge amount of incentive for anyone to do anything, so the harder you make it for people to get guns, the less likely they are to have them.

I have never heard of this. What are we talking here? Couple of cells? A nugget? The whole turd? I can understand there being some revulsion to get over with most folk. Also, a plethora of "taking shit from other people" jokes.

While I wouldn't be surprised if people *have* over 100 apps, having over one hundred apps that are needed at the time seems unlikely. Especially if a number of those are retail bubbles. That said, I would appreciate a folder system or something to get around this, and just to make navigating the Vita easier.

Haha, I'm such a sucker for FF games. Oh well. Rewinding clock makes me hopeful of some Majoras Mask-esque wibbly wobbly, timey wimey stuff.

? ! Just a box.

Given that most of the NRA are Republicans and they HATE mandatory healthcare, I can't see them jumping at the idea of mental heathcare as a condition of gun ownership. Personally I would love to see everyone who wants to own a gun forced to have an extensive and expensive regime of psych tests. These should be conducted at the expense of the purchaser and should be retaken every time the person makes a purchase of a gun, accessory or any ammo more lethal than a plastic BB pellet. There should also be mandatory 6 month retests. If it turns out that you are mad enough to pay for and subject yourself to that much testing in order to get your hands on a gun then you are automatically declared too bat-shit crazy to own a gun.

It's part of a long game: All the gay players gather on Makeb. Death Star expansion is released. It can be used to eliminate a planet for an exorbitant fee. All Republican (GOP) players club together to rent the Death Star. Death Star is used to destroy Makeb. Gay players are able to continue their relationships on any planet they choose. That's obviously not true. Don't even think about quoting it as an "Official EA source says". EDIT: In other news Dean is not funny.

IIRC it's Christopher Tolkein who's the dick. He hoards his father's treasure as Smaug does Thror's.

Hipster Dean liked Arkane before they were cool.

If you are asking someone to confirm something that someone else said. For example if Dean said "Should of." I'd "ask are you sure he 'should of'?"

To be honest, even a rubbish knife that has been sharpened is a revelation. These German ones, I'm not sure on the brand are something else, they glide through stuff like it isn't there. In fact, a top tip for not crying when chopping onions is to use a really sharp knife. Bludgeoning onions in half with a blunt knife is what causes all the spray and tears.