Chindie

If you're going to comment on something like the Rab Florence article and following controversy, it's not enough to simply say 'I've linked the articles at the bottom'. Provide a recap, get people basically up to speed, at the very least give some idea of the nature of the case.

The opening diatribe of this is so poorly written in those regards that even someone like myself, who does know what this story is and has followed it, struggled at times to understand exactly what was being said. References to 'he' 'she', who? Theres more than 1 'he' and 1 'she' that have weighed on this, theres more than 1 'he' for sure who could actively be referenced as part of the initial controversy.

I don't think a 'journalist' should need that explaining.

With regards Rab himself, he's a great bloke, I miss Consolevania to this day. He wouldn't work on the Bombcast though - a vast portion of the audience wouldn't understand a word he would say, and I don't think an interview would put across Rab's personality terribly accurately/well either. He has a very particular style and humour that has to stand on it's own merit. I really hope he does come back with something like Consolvania or Videogaiden. There was nothing quite like it. His growing success in TV comedy might put those hopes on hold though.

I'm playing the game despite the art design. I really dislike the way the entire game looks, from the character design to the environments the art looks... well, garish, amateurish... it's (understandably) very DeviantArt. It's hideous to my eyes.

But I wanted to play and enjoy a game with that Metroidvania vein running through it enough that I'm trying to overlook it, which eventually you can manage to do. Unfortunately it's somehow harder to ignore the voice acting. Fidget is one of the most gratingly voiced characters I can recall of the last few years.

I used to work at a branch of UK retailer Gamestation (sister company to GAME - I was one of the 40% of the company closed off when it fell into trouble earlier this year) so have both sides of the coin with this issue.

As a customer, it doesn't overly bother me. I would prefer a totally sealed game, just because you get that nice 'new game' feel when you open it at home. But equally as long as everything that should be there is there (which I have never had a problem with), I'm not too fussed.

Having worked in a retailer, I know why it's done. Usually new releases would be accompanied by a pack, sent down from head office, of display sleeves, which you would then whack into some cheap empty DVD cases and make up enough for a decent display on the shelves, then when your allocation of stock arrived you just shoved them on a shelf behind the till and just had to grab one whenever needed. Unfortunately, particularly for smaller releases, display sleeves wouldn't be provided (the effort of producing them compared to the popularity/stock levels/likely sales of the title wasn't worth it). In that case, in my store, we might get delivered under 10 copies of a game, sometimes less than 5, and no display stuff (compared to, say, a COD launch, where we'd have 200 copies and a stack of promo stuff including display sleeves). All we could do was 'gut' a couple of copies, place the manual and disc in the new stock drawer, and price up the 2 empty cases. It is that or not have a displayed copy of the title. Believe me when I say they'd rather not do it - it actually makes the job more time consuming as you hunt down wherever one of your colleagues decided it should go (alphabetising games is apparently more difficult than you might imagine - Zelda titles and Warhammer 40k: Space Marine never achieved a true consensus on their position for filing) and, frankly, it's another thing to do when you get a stock delivery.

I've found myself enjoying the site more than I have in a while in his absence (as sad as the reason for that absence may be). It's not gotten me back to watching QLs avidly like I had done pre-Patrick, but thats largely down to nothing coming out at the moment that particularly grabs me. But the podcast has been a breath of fresh air - it's back to being an enjoyable listen that is genuinely entertaining for 3 hours, that flies by, I don't have to skip anything, and it's entertaining from start to finish. The original guys have such a chemistry that it's just an enjoyable listen, Patrick just doesn't gel into it for me (his being er... blessed... with a grating voice doesn't help in that regard). The 'dry' weeks, like we've had the past couple of months, particularly show this up imo. It's that sort of thing that leaves unsure that the '5th voice' thing is quite the issue.

I'm not a great fan of Patrick's written work either, in all honesty (I don't find his 'original topics' particularly interesting, and his writing style/tone is curious, and the other more overtly news-y stuff anyone could do), but he's far better utilised in the written word than spoken imo.

I don't particularly get a kick out of not enjoying Patrick's contributions to the Bombcast and QLs, I'd sooner just enjoy a site I really liked and would eagerly hoover up all content from... but I can't help that he's a personality that I just don't get on with. Oh well.

I just don't like him. Nothing wrong with that. Since he's been in what feels like every other QL done on the site in the last 6 months or so it's stopped me using the site quite as much as I had done. And I enjoy the Bombcast less.

So be it.

Rorie joining would be good. Particularly as you could hope he would relinquish 90% of QuickLooks from Patrick's grasp.

Get Rorie on board!

@Steve_C said:

Yep. Best thing so far. New IP and looked great.

That, exactly.

Intriguing prospect, looked gorgeous, something new, finally. Really want to know about it. I was honestly slightly disappointed when it turned into a cover shooter but even that doesn't take too much shine off it.

It was hideously dull.

@spiderbat87: For independence then? Haha.

British English Social Libertarian myself so perhaps a little less clear where I would stand, so... sod the Royals, vile concept.

@Grimhild: I think your association of the Royals with only England would be challenged in different parts of the UK. They're held as symbols of Britishness, the country over. There are vast swathes of Scots, Welsh and particularly Northern Irishmen (despite it's history, an awful lot of the population of Northern Ireland is probably more staunchly proud of being British than many other parts of the UK, which in itself didn't help the Troubles, but thats another massive and complex debate) that will have the Union flags out today and will be enjoying the pageantry, probably outnumbering the nationalist elements in those regions. Despite increasingly vocal nationalist elements, most of the population seems to quite like being British and _______ . It's because of that that despite the Scots currently having a nationalist in Holyrood, one who will give them a referendum on the Union, he's spending 2 years to convince them to go their own way because right now, by and large, Scots don't want to.

It's interesting you seem to think that England has... an identity that stands out from the others, and you most associate the Royals with that. In England, many would argue that England doesn't really have an identity any longer. It's been theorised that, in creating Britain, England basically ascended it's identity to encompass the entire country, and lost whatever identity it itself had in the process. The Scots, Welsh and Northern Irish maintained their own identity and gained a British one. There's slowly increasing calls for England to become confident itself again and eek out an identity, pushing St. George's Day as a big thing and so on.