forameus

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.

He threw a massive strop when I said I broadly agreed with the 5/10 Jim Sterling gave it, said it would just be for clicks. That's pretty much exactly what I've done. I was exploring everything to a great degree, trying to 100% planets, but the last play I got of it was just jumping from system to system to try and get to the center. In fact, I'd agree with pretty much all your post. Exactly how I feel about it. Definitely potential there, and I hope that they take on board everything that's happened and maybe come back with the game they wanted to make. It's unlikely though, as it seems the default reaction is not to accept they tried, but to tell them to f**k off entirely for failing.

Has he done it again?

They do talk some pish, but in this case they're absolutely right. That would be an incredibly stupid thing to do. It kind of helped Wales that the people coming through at that time were so good - what would we have to bring through? The U21s? The ones that got beat off Malta then pumped off of Ukraine? Haud me back...

You're forgetting the internet these days when it comes to video games. If you're not violently on one side and threatening the other side with death, calling them an SJW or a fanboy, then you're not doing it right. As with a lot of arguments, it has some weight, but of course it isn't ruining the franchise. Some people who loved the original will hate it. Some will be the complete opposite and will now love the thing. The sense of entitlement some seem to have is baffling.

Definitely. Obsidian wrote a far better story, but the world itself wasn't up to the polish of the other games. A Fallout game crafted by the usual team and written by Obsidian would clean up. Fallout 4's writing is pretty poor in comparison.

I don't think Sony's blame can be in them over-hyping. They can be blamed for not reining in Sean Murray. Through all the wailing and gnashing of teeth, it just looks to me like they threw a guy out there who was immensely proud of his game, and promised things that he really, really wanted to deliver. A lot of them probably got left on the cutting room floor, so they shouldn't have let the guy go out and do that. I don't think any of it was malicious in any way, just inexperience and exuberance. It's a real shame, because there's several aspects to the game that are either good ideas, or have the nucleus of something great. All combined together, you've got a decent product, but one that could - and should - have been so much more. For example, I think the language stuff is pretty underrated. It's quite original in that you have these aliens that you have no chance in understanding, but there's a mechanism in the game that allows you to gain an understanding slowly. Unfortunately, like a lot of things in the game it feels like something that needed a few extra steps to really make it to brilliant. DLC wise too, I'm not really sure where they can go with it. They've burned a lot of the bridges they had with the player base, and by the sounds of it numbers have dropped off a cliff. Is there really any feature they could add in that would make people flock back? Multiplayer could be added, but by design you're extremely unlikely to ever meet anyone. Base building...what's really the point? The game isn't about that. They essentially need to build another game on top of it. Personally I'm now just about done with the game. I'm now making the largest warp hops I can just so I can make it to the center and feel like I've "completed" the game. I was really enjoying the discovery aspect and trying to 100% each one, but there just isn't enough there to hold your attention for as long as you require to do that. I've maxed out my exo suit and got the upgrades I feel I need. I managed to mine enough Gold, Emeril and Albumen Pearls to get enough credit to pick up a decent sized ship, and then spent a long time getting the upgrades to allow me to warp long distances. Now it's just like "what's the point?". I'll get to the center, and then I think that''ll be me. I've still got the Witcher to finish, and finally picked up the season pass for Fallout 4. I'd downgrade the score I originally gave it (6.5 I believe) to a generous 6. I don't want to place it at 5 as I think that's a little unfair. It's above average, and there's enough in there that makes me want to come back to it. But it's a massive missed opportunity, and that's the saddest thing.

Aye he does. He has shite hair. Spot on, particularly the pressure part. That's why in the past couple of weeks I said how ridiculous it was to be hyping this guy up and saying he's going to be world class. Because when he has a game like yesterday - one where he wasn't bad but wasn't that great either - then those sky high expectations are only going to be dashed. He's now got a few weeks to get his head down at his new club before the next squad is announced. I don't doubt he'll be in it barring injury, but he has to prove he deserves his start just like everyone else.

Of course they can, but the big difference is that they're sensible and don't want to give them that. They have no incentive to. I don't doubt that there's a reticence there on the player's part, but it's a massive part of it that average players can earn far larger amounts at home due to the way the PL is.

I'd imagine the fact that an English player can earn many, many times more playing at home than they could be moving probably contributes more.

Fishing only really works when you don't make it totally obvious you're havering absolute pish.

Two things on him First, I'm quite glad he's gone. There always looked like there was a player in there, but he never quite got out. There were flashes of what he could do, but for a big imposing guy, he didn't impose himself very often. And he couldn't jump. Or more accurately, he seemed like he wouldn't jump. There were times he'd get a decent leap, so it was clear he could do it, but he didn't seem to want to. His best work seemed to be when he had little time to think about it. Quick touches off his feet into players looked good, but when you're getting one of them every few games, it just isn't good enough. Good luck to the guy, but he just didn't fit in. Second though, it does leave us short of a guy. For all that he was almost useless, he was still an option to have. Doolan is not going to be your always-on striker who scores you 30 a season. He's going to go through poor spells, and he could even get injured. We got Azeez in which was good, but what do we have beyond that? We don't even have Stevenson to impersonate a forward anymore. I'd be a lot happier if we brought someone else in to replace Pogba, but understand that we've probably left it a little late. A free agent could be a possibility if there's one out there that doesn''t want a fortune.