forameus

Packed Kane from a Small Electrum Pack from one of the Player Transfer SBCs, and pulled in around 150k from that. Nice little boost early on, certainly the most valuable player I've ever gotten. Only issue, prices are still ridiculously high for all those lovely Serie A players I enjoyed in 18.

All of it really. I doubt I'll touch training, never really have. Tactics are a difficult one to say - I'm much more of a player to set out a formation and just hope it works rather than go into great detail, but if this makes it less tedious and error-prone to do so, then great. VAR I really don't see the point of though. I'd need to see how it's working (there's a youtube video on the announcement but can't see it in work) but just seems like pointless fluff that's only in there so boring people can say how realistic it is. I fail to see what it adds to the game.

All very Alan Partridge shrug. Don't remember any feature announcement being much different though, despite the hype. I'll no doubt get the game, as most of the changes you pick up are never talked about and build up to make the game more fun to play. Hopefully it is this time.

Taking attention away from Terry "The Red Rooster" Taylor IMO.

So after finally building up an office that actually has space rather than a room everything gets chucked into, I've bought the components to build a desktop. It's not going to be top of the line, but it'll be enough to play most games out there in at least a good way, if not fantastic. So, having been largely away from PC Gaming for ages, and already having a PS4 with a lot of the main titles on, what should I be looking to experience on Steam? Preferably something that is close to PC-only, or at least has something you can't get anywhere else, like particular mods. Not against picking up a game that I've already got on PS4 if it offers me something different (I've had to stop myself buying the Witcher just to see how good it looks) but definitely erring on the side of not buying huge, sprawling open world games given I'm unlikely going to be able to spend hours and hours on them. Something I can dip in and out of would be good.

I don't want the Bellas sacked. I think it will be quite interesting if they stiff Ronda in their rumoured match at Evolution. She might kill them. I hadn't realised from the initial gif, but seen a few since and knowing the context around it, it looks horrible. You can see Nattie just stop doing the yes chant with the last frame as Morgan just crumples. Nasty. Like Wilkins says though, the problem isn't the botch itself, these things happen, it's that she seems to just fire in and keep going. Seeing her roll over a visibly conked out Morgan is bad to see, and I've yet to even see the suplex that followed. I know it sounds like Morgan also wanted to keep going, but for f**k sake keep going. I'm all for things looking real, but not potentially fucking up a young woman's career for a shite spot on a shite episode of Raw.

Loaded up fine, started it up to see if it triggered the pre-order bonuses, and it did. Got absolutely f**k all from the packs though. Will give it a first shot tonight if I get a chance, see just how poor my Scottish-only squad is.

Early news seems positive. But to be honest, it's Rockstar. With these kinds of games they usually deliver on what they promised. Only question mark is what they'll do with the online. GTA Online was brilliant at first, and the exact sort of thing you always dreamed of them doing with the World. Then it became a fucking travesty of micro-transactions and trolls. Doubt they're going to shy away from the former, and the latter will always be there. At least the single player will always be there

Yeah, the daily rewards stuff is apparently a bug on their end. One they don't seem to be too arsed about fixing, but then I guess I shouldn't be surprised. I spent the coins I had on getting an all-Scottish XI to start the game with, so not much I can do with my 200 odd coins without reward packs to sell. Did manage to pick up the TOTW Fraser card to play on the left, other than that the team is fairly obvious. Gordon, Griffiths, Forrest, Brown, Tierney (Robertson to replace him once I get the coins), Berra, Souttar, Shinnie, Naismith. And O'Donnell because he's a wee ride. Bit worried that my pre-order didn't go through though. Think I ordered it through FIFA 18, and I've got emails saying PSN took the money, but looks like I can still pre-order, as though I never did. Hoping I don't get to Wednesday (paid for the early access) and find I've had it bumped.

Packed Buffon in a Premium Gold Pack, think I only managed an 88-rated once in the entirety of 18 (outside of TOTS etc). Going for 14k now, but will sit on him for a little while and sell him once he rises. Decent money source to be sitting on at this stage, even though I've yet to actually get a team I could play a game with.

All the log-in bonus packs so far have been Premier League branded Premium Gold Packs. What's that? You don't want to play with PL players? Why don't you f**k off

I think they've added more EPL players to packs than anyone else. I've managed to get a lot of low 80s players from packs despite having no interest (I picked Italy, got f**k all). Total anti-climax with the web app. Was really looking forward to getting involved from the start again, but when it's just that and no game, and then you get the same old pack shenanigans...it's just a bit shit. Expect me to change my mind the minute I get anyone decent, or win a game.

You know what? That's a great question. I'd imagine if they had planned that bump through the cage, they just would've said so. The first one was bad enough, so seems odd they'd hide the second after it happened. But then what was the plan? Toss him through the 2nd table?

Yeah, physically he's fucked, but with all the punishment he's taken, you'd think his brain would be CTE Soup by now.

They're absolutely marvellous if you like that type of game. Very well put together.

Finally got into the webapp late last night after EA's email system went screwy and refused to send any security codes out. I got some pretty decent pulls from the returning player packs, going to hold on to them a little while then see what I can get for them. Not really trying to build up a team yet, suspect I'll have nowhere near the trading nous to actually build anything decent without wasting coins. I'll start building seriously once the game's out.

I'd give one to Dryhorce #gonebutnotforgotten #onelikeoneprayer

So when do we think we'll announce that we've given up? Can see no way of him ever actually taking to the field for us. Unless he does the 50/50 draw. "So Souleymane...Egypt are pure bawbags aren't they?"

Cities Skylines also made its way over. Picked it up as it seems the best option for someone who loved SimCity 4 before EA shat all over the series. So far, they've done a very, very good job of porting the control scheme. Yet to put that much time into it, so suspect there'll be some issues, but it's quite intuitive.

Got a hold of the demo last night. Bottom line, it's just more FIFA really. Not a whole lot changed, and still the same problems. In the space of the one demo game I played (Juventus vs Man City) the commentary is still absolutely dreadful (every shot is now accompanied by the guy extending the last letter, so RonaldoooOOOOOOO...every, fucking, shot), a penalty was given for me for absolutely nothing (Kompany slides in, takes the ball cleanly, and gets given), 2 penalties missed thanks to the twitchy penalty mini-game, and a whole lot of Ronaldo wanking in coverage and commentary. Still, pre-ordered it ages ago. I got on quite well with 18, so expect it'll be the same this time. I'll be a FUT mug.

And seeing as it apparently still needs to be said, we actually won the game. The opposition doesn't matter. If we turn in 6 shite performances but still end winning those crucial last two, I couldn't give any less of a shit. Not that we did, as for once we actually made ourselves look good for the most part.

While I'm not spitting "Archie out" like some, if you're building a new team, you usually need to actually sign enough players to fill out said team. If this is him building, he should probably do it better.

I like Renee, but any clips I've heard of her she's just got the same stilted delivery as all the other commentary team thanks to the shite script. Hopefully she can rise above it like someone like Graves has, otherwise she'll be punted unfairly.

They are indeed. It's glaring when you see teams like Lithuania and Georgia - our traditional bogey-teams - look far more technically proficient, despite still being worse teams overall. They never used to have that, and we used to beat them. Now they've improved that aspect of our game, and we've stayed static.

From my perspective (I'm in Bearsden, previous to that I was in Anderston), Hampden isn't hard to get to or away from. If you fancy the walk out there, it's walkable (long though, granted). If you want to get the bus, you can, although it'll start to choke up a bit close to the stadium. If you want to get the train, get one of the many services that go out that way, including the dedicated Mount Florida ones they run. Or, as of recently, get the completely free buses put on by the SFA that have been quite a good option. On the way home you can queue for the train, and depending on where you were in the stadium and how you got out, you might not have too much of a wait. Or just walk it, like many others do. If you're in Glasgow to start with, it really, really isn't hard to get to Hampden. But I accept not everyone lives in Glasgow. Murrayfield then just has the same problem. It's fine once you're at Haymarket, but you've still got to get there first. Good news that we're staying at Hampden, and that they're open to change. At least I know I still have the opportunity to go to the games, because if they moved to Murrayfield, that'd likely be it.