forameus

As others said, if you look in the wrong places, you're probably right. But there are sites where you'll get more helpful reviews. The Jim Sterling one for this game was pretty much spot on. Had I read that prior to ordering, I probably still would've as the positives were still there and would apply to me, but I imagine most would have read that review and made a choice in the other direction.

I'm curious as to what the limit is for "not bending over and taking it" in terms of protest. Is throwing a severed animal head the pinnacle? I imagine not, as that was described as "a dainty wee protest", so where do we go from there? Stabbing an opposing fan? Burning down their property? Where do we stop Barbrady?!

I can see both sides of this. I can completely see where Edgarus is coming from, but same from Mr X's side. I don't think Sean Murray has deliberately misled people in the way that someone like Peter Molineux did. The latter said in interviews that he only talked about certain features to keep journalists interested, having no interest in actually realising them. I think in Murray's case, he genuinely believed in the product. I've not watched full interviews with him, but he does not look comfortable talking in front of a camera. I think a decent comparison is with Miles Jacobsen who runs the Sports Interactive studio. I think that's pretty much the same role Sean Murray holds. Now I know that SI have been around way longer, but you can tell that although Miles has an understanding of the tech (although I don't think he's a developer) he's a PR man at heart. A salesman. They wheel him out to do media for the game, and he does a good job. He also gets it right up anyone that starts on him, which is brilliant, but I digress. Murray's effectively been given his role, and he's terrible at it. He clearly had a vision in his mind about what the game would be, and instead of being diplomatic when asked, he found himself promising things that would end up getting cut. The problem though is that most people will see those interviews and then immediately swallow them. I remember being really, really excited when the concept was first announced (this was way back, like 2-3 years ago), but then heard very little about the game as I didn't seek it out. As soon as the mainstream media got a hold of it, alarm bells started ringing. Particularly when the hype train rolled faster. I don't think demanding a refund based on what a developer says pre-release really works in this case, because had you waited until reviews were released (and I understand developers can get pretty creative with the ways of trying to stop that happening) then you would have been able to see that the "promises" made were not going to be realised. The big issue is pre-order culture, and most of the blame of that lies with consumers in swallowing everything the industry throws at it. The real villain in this is Sony. Absolutely baffling to me that they let Murray out of the studio, let alone put him in front of the camera. But then they got what they wanted - they've made millions off the title, and it's no skin off their nose if it dies now.

Because using the whole "...not" bait and switch is ridiculously fresh. As Falcor says (is it ok if I quote other people?), heid's gone.

I'll address the actual point, aside from your flying off the handle, by saying pretty much one thing. There's a nice big middle ground to be had between "just bending over and taking any old shite given to them" and throwing a fucking cow's head onto a pitch. The latter should not be applauded for "sticking it to the man", as I can think of many, many other ways they could have protested without going that far. As Gordopolis said, although I'd hate to set you off for a third time...

Ali Crawford has always said that Ali Crawford deserves to be the first Ali Crawford to play for Scotland.

Do you get absolutely raging at nothing so regularly for some medical condition or just for a laugh? The problem with it is probably the whole throwing a dead animals head onto a pitch. That's just a smidgen too far in most people's eyes.

They are releasing updates, but the lack of patch notes is pretty poor. Every single update the articles have been the same - "we don't have an exact changelist, but here's the things users are reporting". I'd presume that as a software company they'll have some kind of ticketing system to cover bugs and features, which would make these kinds of lists pretty easy. Hell, doesn't even need to be a list, just say a few of the headline things that are now fixed. As for the regulatory body...I'm not sure the gamers themselves are mature enough to make that happen. We're at the stage now where people are DDoSing review sites when they disagree with certain reviews, sending death threats to journalists who report on delays. The sense of entitlement that some have would probably cloud the worse cases. Plus it's pretty subjective. I bought No Man's Sky for around £42 I believe. It hasn't been what I expected it to be, but I've always said it's around the 5-6 out of 10 for me. I've sunk a lot of time into it, and I'd probably say I enjoyed it. In my eyes, they've satisfied the base level of what I expect when I buy a game. Of course it could have been better, very much so, but I wouldn't want the developers hauled over the coals because a game was just alright and not amazing. You'd have a long, long line of games waiting to be tried if that were the case. But then of course there are plenty who didn't enjoy the game, and would completely disagree with what I've said. Who's right?

I didn't think the asylum match was that bad. It's not going to go down as a classic by any means, but it was fairly enjoyable for me anyway. The Kennel from Hell and Punjabi Prison matches are more egregious examples to me. Building a match type around a wrestler then having him not actually wrestle in it is bad enough, but the rules for the prison match were just baffling. Think it was Brian Zane from Wrestling With Wregret that said it was a cool idea for a match with the cage within a cage, and the bamboo stuff gave it a little extra, but all the stuff about the four doors just devolved it into farce.

Wasn't that the previous week?

The updates just keep-on-a-coming on PS4, up to 1.09 now. This one actually seems like it's changed a fair bit though. Once again Hello Games haven't released a change list (or at least hadn't last night) but people were reporting the game just felt a little different. Booted it up myself and have to agree. It feels a little bit smoother in terms of movement, and the ugly pop-in you get on flying over planets appears to be less obvious. Unfortunately, no gameplay changes. It's still an infuriating time sink.

There's a teaser video that debuted at Vicarage Road (if that's still Watford's stadium) on Sunday, and then got put up on Twitter afterwards. It doesn't really show much, but the 3D representation of the ME looks pretty smooth and much improved. Hasn't stopped people exhibiting some top-class knicker-wetting as usual about it all on the official boards though.

Pity party? You're the one saying that after a win we should be all doom and gloom because it's only Malta. What else do we have to judge on? Our last game before that (that mattered) is rapidly approaching a year ago. Even the friendlies this year are largely irrelevant, either through the main starters being changed, or us on some cruise of despair while we get pumped by much better teams. Although none of that really matters for the point you brought up. I don't really care what happened previously. You're talking about not judging because of one very recent result by wheeling out anecdotes about Craig Brown. We've had one match in the current qualifying, and for the most part we looked pretty good. He was talking positively about that match. And why shouldn't he? What do you really want him to do? Sit with his head bowed in every media conference, answering every question about how well Snodgrass played, or how much of a prospect Burke looks with a solemn "Aye, but we didn't qualify for the Summer tournament, guys. I'm pure scunnered by that"?

So you've seen Scotland struggle against weak teams, so now we win and win comfortably - at least in scoreline - we're not allowed to be in any way positive about it. How dare Strachan say anything like that, what an awful person.

That is just glorious Aw for fu...there we go, back to normal

Saying he did it just for clicks is though.

He was pretty harmless with it, yeah, but when I mentioned the Jim Sterling review where it got 5, he made the usual fanboy response of claiming that he just did it for clicks, because "there's no way the game's a 5". There's nothing wrong with having an opinion on a game, but when you're starting to rubbish other people's opinions on the game just because they disagree with yours, it makes you look a bit of a tit. Same as the people who seem worked up that someone might actually enjoy playing the game.

Pundits are never wrong, right enough.

I got kicked back to the opening page of the thread and came across the list of things Fide said we'd be able to do in the game. Obviously these are taken from somewhere else, so we're not completely piling on the guy, but I thought it'd be an interesting read given the press Hello Games and Sean Murray have got for being a bit economical with the truth. No Man’s Sky’s universe is infinite. Naw it's no. It's huge, and may as well be, but it isn't infinite. 0 for 1. You can only have one ship. I guess by definition this is right, but you can change them up. Only one at any one time though. You can’t customize your ship — but you can find one that you like. Yeah, pretty much spot on Earth isn’t present, but you might find something close to it. This is tenuous at best. What are they classing as something "close to" Earth? I'd chalk this one up to bullshit too You can play with your friends (although Murray’s previously said not to think of it as a multiplayer game). Bullshit. You can take pictures. A goal back You can swim underwater. And another. You can chop down a tree. Ok, kind of. You can mine trees, but you're not chopping them down exactly You can choose to be a pacifist (although that doesn’t mean someone — or something — won’t attack you). Again, technically correct, but the way the game actually came out, there's not really much of a distinction between a complete arsehole and a pacifist. It's not like saying you can be a pacifist in GTA or anything. Some planets are the size of Earth. I'm not sure about this one. Obviously they're huge, but as big as Earth? You might visit a “dud” planet. Frustratingly true You have a health bar. You do. And a needlessly complex one. You can land on asteroids. Nein. The game features black holes. Yeah, it does. They're not as exciting as they sound though. You will sometimes get bored playing it. Lol. It has no downloadable content. It will, either paid or free. So wrong again. You can’t select the gender of your character. True, but not exactly a good thing. You can't select anything about your character. In fact, you may as well just not have one. Not all planets can sustain life. True You can’t collect plants. True I suppose You can’t build a shelter. True again, although they seem to be talking about that for future DLC (the ones they said you wouldn't have) You can’t teleport to your ship. No, but you can teleport your ship to you in certain places. You can’t build a space station. Nope, although again could be something they do later. It has a shop. It does. It has no nonplayer characters. It kind of does...I suppose. If you like effectively cardboard cut outs that do nothing. You can’t terraform a planet. You can to a very, very basic degree with plasma grenades, but not on any large scale. You can’t destroy a planet. Nope You face many objective markers. Indeed you do, the vast majority of which mean nothing. You won’t notice any gravity differences between planets — your suit compensates. brilliant. You won't notice all these gravity differences THAT ARE DEFINITELY THERE GUYS You can’t reach the edge of the universe: “You can go into the darkness for as long as you want.” I don't think this is true. For example, you head towards the sun in a system, and you'll never ever reach it, given it's effectively a 2D background. That's not really going for as long as you want, as effectively you're not going anywhere. Again, it's another tenuous one that could mean anything. You can’t ride a dinosaur. True, because they don't really exist in the world. Just clip straight through them So all in all they got most of them right. 20 to 10 with some artistic licence. Still, it highlights some of the absolute verbal skitters that Sean Murray has come out with. I'm not in the camp of wanting to go burn down his house like some have been, I just think he's inexperienced, believed in a product and got wheeled out by Sony to talk about it. They allowed it to happen, so shouldn't have been surprised when he started spouting Molineux levels of pish about it. He should have been reined in, but he wasn't, and they all have to suffer as a result.

I watched a youtube video (with some soft American rock over natch) of the "highlights" of the fight, but going by descriptions it doesn't look like it cut much out. I don't watch much UFC, but from a completely novice standpoint Punk looked like he'd just been thrown in there with little training. Obviously he's been training hard, but he's not going to get anywhere near the degree that is needed to compete. Still, kudos to the guy. He had a dream and he got in there and tried it. He seems like a bit of a dick in real life, so would have been just as easy to have chipped off without putting himself in an octagon with someone who was going to knock f**k out of him. But he put himself in there, he lost, and he held his hands up after. Fair play.

Jim Sterling did one of his videos on this, and it raises some interesting points. It really needs Sony to come out and say the reasons why they took the decision. Rumour is that they would only allow it if Bethesda did QA testing on every single mod that went up. That'd be a pretty ridiculous thing to have to go through, but still, it would at least get it onto the platform. Still though, Bethesda packaged up the game with the intention that at some point mods would become available on consoles. Microsoft allowed them for the XB1, meaning that anyone who owns the game on PS4 now effectively owns an incomplete product. It'll be interesting to see how this affects sales of the Skyrim Special Edition on PS4 - the same policy will apply for that.

Finally finished Blood and Wine yesterday - spoilers ahoy

You have an absolutely massive amount left to do. Just wait until you get to the point - no spoilers - where you think the game's just about to end. Then you've still got several hours worth to go.

I had another go of it yesterday after finally finishing the Witcher, and forgetting that GTA 5 takes a few light years itself to install. Definitely benefited from having some time away, and after reading up a bit on the game and the journey to the centre I may well pick it back up again and try and get there.

Ooft, that's cold. Looks like Paige won't be too far behind if reports are to be believed. Shame for her, especially if she has to sit out of competition for a while due to legal disputes.