Miguel Sanchez

I have too much respect for The Thread to let this Holloway patter pass off without comment. You can all do so, so much better boys.

I was on board until...

Yousaf's a fanny.

Good work on the thread everyone, go home and we'll come back at it tomorrow refreshed and reenergised.

Haas: Black with white Red Bull: Very dark blue Williams: Blue Alfa: Black with red AlphaTauri: Dark blue McLaren: Black with orange Aston: Dark green Ferrari: Red with black Mercedes: Black Alpine: ... why is this being launched at eight in the evening? Either way, blue. What a lineup.

This sort of patter is infinitely worse than wee nippy/Jimmy Krankie.

Was Danny Pink the PE teacher?

Return to Arkham Batman: Arkham Asylum (PS4, 2016 - originally PS3, 2009) 2009. You remember 2009. Grey, gritty films in which Batman ran around shouting I'm Batman! then punching people who said It's Batman! were all the rage. Grey, gritty video games were all the rage. I was trying very hard to not kill myself due to a prolonged period of emotional blackmail. The time was ripe then for a grey, gritty video game in which you played as Batman, walking into rooms and punching people after they'd announced It's Batman! In Arkham Asylum you play as... Batman, who arrives at the Asylum after having captured Joker again. Only something about it was too easy, and he doesn't seem too bothered by his reincarceration. Batman is an intelligent guy. What could go wrong taking the city's most notorious villain into an isolated island prison full of the city's next most notorious villains, as well as a seemingly endless supply of goons recently transferred from another prison? Everything, of course. What follows is Batman kicking, punching and sneaking his way through those goons as he tries to stop Joker's plan to poison Gotham's water supply. They even took the story from the films, but now that I think about it I don't understand why an island in the middle of some water is so crucial to the water of the whole city. When it was released originally, Arkham Asylum was a revelation. Here's a third person action game with flowing combat based on timing and skill. Enemies pop up and you press the attack and counter buttons in time with their attacks and you can take down a whole room in one giant flowing combo. Between those there are stealth-based sections, where the enemies are armed and you can't afford to let them see you. I never actually played this when it was first released so I can't speak to how revelatory it was at the time, but despite the flaws I'll come to it's undeniable that when Arkham Asylum works, it's very satisfying. When you get a combo right and you get used to the rhythm of the combat, you feel like Batman. Despite being a comic book setting there's still something visceral about the combat which translates well through the medium. The problem with that is it's not always flowing. It doesn't always work. Sometimes enemies will stand next to you and do nothing. Sometimes they'll sprint from one side of a room to another to hit you and mess up your flow, hitting you while you're in the middle of another action which spoils your combo. Or maybe one of the guys with knives will show up and because you need to press a different button to get his guard down, you'll target the guy next to him to make space and you'll hit the wrong person and you'll take damage and the combo will end. That's annoying, and one thing I can say about playing this in 2023 is that I know there's a sequel. I know there's a game where the formula is more refined and less annoying than this, and I'm not playing that, I'm playing something worse. The targeting problem isn't really something that you get used to as the game goes on, because to increase the stakes and difficulty all it can do is throw more enemies at you, making the chances of annoying interruptions greater. I played the PS3 version of this in 2014 and the stealth sections were much more prominent in my mind than they are here. They're very much telegraphed when they appear. You enter a room with stone gargoyles high up on the walls which you can glide between. There are a number of environmental tools you can use to take down enemies, and gadgets which you can unlock as you progress. Even though there are ultimately several ways to take people out, the opportunities to use them often feel contrived and awkward. Isolating an enemy to take them out without someone seeing you and shooting is possible but often takes much longer than just swooping down and spamming the square button to knock them out. Much like the combat, you get the feeling that these are mechanics which can be refined and made more enjoyable, but it's just not the case here. Reading about this game and the topic of Arkham Asylum in Batman media is quite overwhelming. There's tons of this stuff. Comics, books, TV, films, games, the amount of depictions of the location and the various characters is huge. There are lots of little references to various Batman characters which you can interact with, but if you're unfamiliar with them like me they won't mean much. With that said, the main story here is a bit... inconsequential. It had little bearing on the gameplay either. Outside of the punchy or stealthy bits you'll pop up in a room and need to find someone. Turn on detective mode, find a trace of who you're looking for then follow a linear path until the next bit of plot happens. Even as I was playing I couldn't really tell you what was going on. While the map of the Asylum is technically open world - three distinct areas with buildings which you enter at various points - there's really no incentive or opportunity to explore until you've reached the endgame. This in itself is fine while you're playing, but afterwards you realise the game ends up feeling constrained. There are some minor collectibles dotted around, but by the time you're at the endgame you'll have unlocked all of Batman's abilities so there's little benefit unless you're a completionist. When you're searching for things you'll also have detective mode on the whole time meaning the entire world is just a digital-style blue with red bits for enemies. In what's an iconic location, there isn't really much to see. With this in mind it probably says a lot that the most memorable sections are fever dreams inspired by Scarecrow's fear gas. You move around fragments of walls and buildings while avoiding the giant Scarecrow's gaze and fighting the inner demons he manifests out of the ground. It's a great couple of sections which almost say something about Batman the character, but even then not really. Come to think of it, the villains are probably the most memorable characters in the game. You can probably say that about most superhero fiction. Scarecrow's sections are good, Joker's voice acting from Mark Hammill is fantastic. But without a real sense of location of consequence to tie them altogether, the atmosphere ends up a little flat. I know Batman is... well, Batman, but there's very little said about him, and it's hard to care about him much as a result. Part of the reason there's little to see is the gritty grey grittiness I mentioned at the start. You forget just how dull colour palettes were in the first few years of the 7th generation of consoles. Everything in this game is some shade of grey, brown or green. The whole thing takes place at night. In the rain. The Asylum is a techno-gothic nightmare that's falling apart. It's built on a rock in the middle of the ocean. I think part of my problem with the map is that everything looks the same, so there's no sense of progression from the start of the game to the end. Interiors are all identical too. Even the enemies suffer from this. There were times where I was punched by guys who I couldn't see because they were camouflaged against the wall they were stood next to. I'm not joking. If you really like the combat and the stealth there are unlockable Challenge Rooms you can go into, trying to set a high score in the combat rooms and take out goons in specific ways in the stealth rooms. These only really matter if you're into completionism so naturally I drove myself insane. Think of the issues I had with combat. Now imagine that but with more enemies than normal, in a confined space, and a camera that's constantly moving around as you swoop boot-first from face to face while trying to keep a combo going. Don't be like me. It's a bit surreal to think this game is nearly fourteen years old, but I think it still holds up. If you're into Batman you'll love it. If you have no strong feelings about Batman but like video games you'll probably like it. If you have no interest in Batman and played Wii Sports once you might like this on a lower difficulty setting. I know I can't wait to see how close to madness I come when I'm playing Arkham City.

Maybe America leaving Afghanistan to the Taliban wasn't so bad.

I don't think it would be that bad going to the tunnel from there. I live in one of those streets and in terms of parked cars it's always been busier with a game at Ibrox rather than a Bellahouston gig, so from that point at least you shouldn't have as many problems. I'm pretty sure the Asda car park only has one exit so I wouldn't use that.

Detournement, m8! Welcome back.

One time when I was out for a walk I didn't have any money and really, really needed a drink. I found an opened can of Lilt in a field and drank some of it.

Let's have a recap of Bloc Party('s first four albums, with the original line-up). What characterises them? Despite coming from the time and area of the period rightly known as indie landfill there was always something different about the band. Musically they were actually talented and interesting. Russell Lissack remains the best guitar player I've seen live with a seemingly never ending array of pedals and effects allowing him to create... whatever he wants. Kele's vocals range from soft-spoken tender moments to full-on desperate howling, and lyrics that cover a range of topics from the personal to the global. Matt and Gordy made up a final rhythm section, and the band's actual music over those four albums was varied and always interesting, with a range of different influences and styles. What type of song is the main influence? So Here We Are? SRXT? 3x3? Ion Square? Hard to Beat by Hard-Fi, actually. NANANANANA.

Must be great fun being a Southampton fan. Here's our new manager! A guy who got sacked because a direct rival thought he was going to relegate them. Good plan.

I wish I had been on P&B to see this.

Another five before FT, please.

Not had one from the Hydro. Sounds minging.

Oh dear.

Looking forward to a square go in the commentary box in the second half.

We should have made up bingo cards for tonight. Ambishun.

Two great passes for both goals as well.

Chortle.