Nezza

I've just learnt that there are non-waterproof shower curtains.

When Steam launched for Mac it came with Portal for free. First game that I purchased for cash would have been the Orange Box which is why I have these - http://wiki.teamfortress.com/wiki/Earbuds

I can see a market for this. Until about 3 weeks ago I was the intended market.

I've primarily played games on a console for years. I like the convenience and I prefer to sit back in a comfy chair and play on a bigger screen. I've known just how far behind my 360 was graphically compared to the PC, but that was the price to pay.

I have a PS4, and I've seen the graphical and loading speed upgrades over my 360 already. Sleeping Dogs is one of my all time favourites. The chance to play it again at a higher res and all the DLC thrown in? Yeah, damn right sign me up.

However, just like with Tomb Raider the issue I have is with price. This is a full price game, but it isn't a new game. Lets face it, this is an easy PC port and we'll see plenty of them as I suspect the new consoles are going to be much friendlier for developers to port PC games to than their predecessors. I also suspect that these are nice little 'tide over' projects that need a minimal staff and will generate enough cash-flow to allow studios to retain staff that would over wise be let go in between projects.

I personally bought Tomb Raider Definitive Edition because it was going to be the best version of the game available for hardware that I owned at that time, but I was annoyed at a 'new release' price tag when I knew that game was always on offer on PC for much, much lower prices. Case in point, it was available as a GOTY edition on Humblebundle for £6 all last week.... So was Sleeping Dogs.... so yeah the price does extract the urine somewhat.

I wouldn't buy it now because I now have a Mac running Boot Camp which is capable of running it with every bell and whistle turned on at 1440p, and boy does it shine at those settings. But still, I wouldn't begrudge anyone with PS4/XB1 wanting to see it running so much better than it did on the previous gen consoles buying it, and if I was still in that position I'd be massively excited about this release. I'd also be screaming out for a Skyrim definitive edition, but luckily I'm not in that boat anymore either.

I am absolutely appalling at fighting games usually. But this is the first one since Tekken 2 where I feel like I, as an absolute beginner, am capable of stringing together more than just singular punches and kicks and for that reason I'm really enjoying it.

I've even ventured online at one point and didn't have my arse handed to me within 15 seconds.

In that case I have a bunch of 60-something characters sat on servers.

Last time I came back was a couple of patches into Mists and the time before that was at Cataclysm. Both times I felt that they had made major improvements to the core game and found that no matter what class/race I rolled those first 20 levels were genuinely fun and had been massively improved. The intro for the new races have generally been excellent, so I've always felt that I've had my moneys worth from buying the new expansions.

I may be incorrect about this, but TBC content now looks and feels like the oldest in the game and feels out of place. Going from the variety of quests posts Cata, slogging your way through Hellfire Peninsula and then seeing the all the fetch quests of Zangarmarsh just sucks the life out of it and that content could really use some of the love they gave 'vanilla' WoW.

Every couple of years I get the bug.
Every couple of years I get a mate to give me a Scroll of Resurrection.
Every couple of years I realise that the abilities have changed significantly or I have totally forgotten how to play my character and so end up rolling a new one.
Every couple of years I get really, really into it.
Every couple of years I find myself doing the Burning Crusade stuff, becoming bored out of my mind as that content has aged horribly (lots of kill x, bring x) and I stop playing, leaving yet another 50-something character never to be touched again.

Fire Emblem is fantastic and effectively had the system glued to my hands for a month.

If you told me I was only allowed to keep one game for that system, that would be the one I keep.

The newer games don't have anything that controls as badly as this bloody mission in them, so that automatically makes them better in my book.

Ah yes, I remember this well.

Most specifically I remember being on holiday in Malta and my having my blood run cold as my bank phoned me to say that they had cancelled my debit card as a precaution. I also remember the tremble in the womans voice as she realised that that she hadn't followed procedure and checked my advised travel plans before cancelling the card, and had therefore left me stranded without a way of getting funds other than the cash I had on me.

Fun times. Fun times.

During the third mission, when what at the time felt like a random event of the satellite falling down and required everyone to pitch in and defend it, was when I decided to continue with my pre-order.

Unfortunately subsequent playthroughs of that mission showed that it was much less of an unscripted sequence than I originally thought.

I'm casual when it comes to this sort of game, so I'm not going to pour over every detail. If anything I'm of pretty much the same train of thought as Jeff in the latest unfinished. It looks nice, it feels nice to play. But I'm concerned that there is going to be a bit too much map recycling based on what I've seen so far. I want huge galactic vistas not decayed corridors - at least not mission after mission... and this is Bungie we are talking about (I'm looking at you last third of Halo).

Actually my biggest concern is that I haven't actually finished a session where I have decided to end it. As I have been returned to orbit for network failures every single time which many sessions measured in seconds and the longest straight I've played without issue was 30 minutes. I know its a beta, but I'd hoped that at least one company would have cottoned onto the fact that these networks always go down under load and sorted it from the start for once.