J4MES OX4D

An incident like this was inevitable. This has been going on for years so much so; it's become normal for streamers to get targeted on a weekly basis. They should have done something a lot sooner. Even in the UK, you make a phony phone call to the police, you get charged with wasting police time and put up in front of a magistrate. It's amazing that in the US they seem to tolerate SWAT teams being continually deployed to non-existent incidents and nobody gets brought to account.

I can't go back to 1920 especially on my monitor as I'll have giant black bars either side and a narrow view sadly. I had Vshite turned on so i'll whack that off. Shoreline was the place that gave me grief but I'll give customs a try instead. Offline still requires a constant online connection as you're still playing on their servers it would seem - bloody annoying when devs do this plus it's more expensive for them so it's a bit illogical but easier with the loot aspect I suppose.

Cheers! Yeah probably. I had problems on both sadly and I don't think the game is a fan of 2560x1080 either. I'll have another crack tomorrow!

Cheers for the code Phil! Had some horrific server and memory leak issues on my first attempt but will have another go later. Seems a decent game....when it was working!

Adverts appearing in users dashboards who don't own Destiny 2...

The Division has improved massively since launch with some crucial tweaks and new ideas. The original gameplay director left soon after release to join Square Enix and he really didn't have a clue on what the game should be and how it should move forward. Thankfully Ubisoft have supported the game closely ever since, worked with the community and improved the whole experience. A sequel is now a no-brainer as the brand has been somewhat salvaged. The problem with the original was down to how they mislead people on how the game worked and how exaggerated the marketing was. The dark zone was good on paper but poorly executed and the fact you didn't see any other players in New York aside from you and your party just made the game feel bare apart from repetitive enemies dotted around. It wasn't really the MMO, multi-dark zone open world survival game that people were expecting and that Ubisoft had promoted. The game didn't really have to be online only either. I'd also want more of a story this time around rather than a load of missions and activities simply slapped over a huge sandbox environment. The game world did look astonishing at times though with incredible attention to detail. If the first game didn't lose so many players I think they would have just continued expanding it but a sequel is probably best for a refresh, to bring players back and hopefully a totally new location.

I've just starting playing Bad Company 2 again and I forgot how incredible this game was and still is. It had a tough time back in the day coming out when MW2 was thriving but BC2 was amazing for its time with stunning environments and sounds . Visually, it still holds up today easily and although the story was pretty woeful and cutscenes hijacked the gameplay a bit too much; it's still the best BF game for me and one of the best shooters of all time. Still looks incredible for a game from 2010! We don't get FPS games like this no more really.

Some funny stuff

Steam Winter Sale starts tomorrow (21st) Voting info on the Steam awards here http://store.steampowered.com/news/35437/ and I imagine there will be a trading card available each day for voting plus 3 more on the discovery queues like last year. Not sure what games I'll get if any but hopefully there will be some decent deals like there was in the autumn sale. The sale ends Jan 4th.

Those were, and still are a big issue for some users particuarly on Xbox who have to wait a matter of minutes just to be able to select a playlist as demonstrated in the video. The video highlights perfectly how poorly the interface and back-end menu structure have been implemented. You could get into the MW2 multiplayer menu in under 15 seconds and in BO1 you could set the game to insta-boot into the MP menu also. If you are fortunately unfamiliar with these issues, then I understand but let's not forget, SHG had to take down both the HQ and their entire server structure to fix the problems which ironically fixed the issues when they were offline because it removed all the extra unnecessary asset and feature loading from the listen servers. That alone shows that the video is correct in that respect and how the menu interface impacts the game when it's not being solely loaded from the profile instead. The scorestreak/points structure per mode is flawed which I agree with. You need 10 kills to earn a UAV in DOM and 34 to earn the highest possible killstreak which is a Nuke + 9 kills on top! SHG changed this in the beta but then refused to revert back in the final game and then openly lied on social media about a fake private poll on how 'everyone wants it to remain at 50pts a kill'. It's a perfectly valid complaint and the developers are too ignorant to listen to feedback despite being happy to and make changes before they took people's money in the beta. I certainly don't agree with everything said in the video but I posted it because it does cover a variety of points that could have and should have been done better especially regarding the menu and connectivity implementations. If you have been unaffected by this aspect then I understand that your view and/or interpretation may be completely different but from experience; things like this plus many other bugs just ruined what was potentially a good game and a lot of problems were and still are not fixed.

It was always going to be Battlefield 5 or Bad Company 3. I stopped playing BF1 after a few weeks and never felt motivated to return especially as the new content would cost me an extra £40. It wasn't a bad game by all means but coming in from a completed Battlefield 4; it felt pretty bare and a step back. It was WW1 but it felt like they still wanted to cling on modern elements which made the game feel too similar to other Battlefield games and even Battlefront thanks to the rather one-dimensional feel of the Frostbite engine. With EA being the dicks that they are and DICE being stretched across many games; I'm not sure how their next iteration will fare. Bad Company 3 could be too late in the day for that part of the series and it still may end up feeling like a spin-off. Could be a good opportunity for them to do something new(ish) though without having to resort to Battlefield 5 yet but with nearly 8 years from BC2 and many personnel who made that game long gone; it could be just an addition to the franchise in name only.

I enjoyed the game but plenty of fundamental flaws which were discussed in the video and technical issues diminished my experience. A lot of the problems mentioned in the video are absolutely unarguable and do give food for thought on how this game is comparable to the old ones and the standards expected today. Might be worth actually watching the video itself rather than just assuming that my views are that of the video title. I even stated I don't agree with all his views. In terms of negative flaws and bugs; this game is a catastrophe at times and even the most die-hard COD fans can acknowledge the games woes. Watch the video and not just the title.

It was in many bargain bins on Black Friday too. Seems like retailers can't even give it away and that they may have over-ordered their stock.

A minor hiccup and hopefully nothing more http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-42352606

I think the fault lies with both Microsoft and the developers here. Microsoft wanted to source exclusivity on a game that isn't powerful enough to run on its system as a direct port. The developers probably knew this but decided to make the game anyway for easy money and will hide under the blanket of the early access tag as an excuse. In terms of the timescale; I think both are to blame as it's clear that the game isn't in an acceptable state even for an early access game and this move was executed in a bid to push sales of both the console and game and possible XB1X upgrades before Christmas. Going forward; the only solutions I can see is either dramatically reducing the Xbox One/S version to its barebones in the hope of getting a stable performance, or by using the dev kit of the Xbox One X to produce the game on instead, forcing people to upgrade consoles in the hope of playing the game to an acceptable standard whilst making the game 'X Enchanced'. Issues like these have also affected the the PC version since launch and the only way users can get a satisfactory performance is either by toning down graphical settings which you can't do on console or by upgrading RAM which you also can't do on console so I fear that unless the developers actually do some brutal optimisation and sacrifices which may ruin the game; it'll be like this through development up until the game is 'finished'. Very disappointing circumstances all round really.

Not sure how they are going to be able to solve this with the hardware being locked-down. Rendering speeds on PC can be improved by lowering graphics settings, increasing RAM or even running the game off a SSD. 8gb DDR3 that the Xbox One uses is not enough at the graphical preset the games uses. Not sure how they are going to be able to move forward with this.

Glad to hear it Phil and thanks very much!

Nothing weird about it sadly - the Xbox One RAM speeds cannot handle the rendering, the processor cannot support the netcode and the GPU cannot get a stable framerate. This is how the PC version would run on a very low spec PC and I would have expected better optimisation from the devs on what is locked-down hardware. The controls are also poorly implemented which has impacted inventory management, movement and pacing - controller support on PC is also poor and hasn't been improved for the Xbox release. I would stick to Fortnite for the time being as this game looks like a half-arsed pre-alpha in its current state which has surprised me and kinda rings alarm bells as the PC version is supposed to be completed later this month. It is a very demanding game and isn't well-optimised but the Xbox release is just unacceptable and the words 'cash and 'grab' come to mind.

100% real and probably not even the worst I've seen after watching a few streams of it last night. http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2017-pubg-xbox-one-and-xbox-one-x-performance

I may pick this up in the coming weeks. Game seems to be improving massively and has some amazing potential to be something unique. Loving the COD 4, S.T.A.L.K.E.R plus DayZ and PUBG vibe. The mechanics also seem pretty solid and the concept is pretty thrilling indeed. After playing Destiny 2 and COD WW2 recently; I really need a proper shooter that's challenging and not simplified shite. Is there an offline portion Phil or is it all server-based?

A long video but some very good points incuding some that I've overlooked and puts a lot of the game into perspective. I don't agree with all he said but there is a lot in this video that really hit home and its covered in great detail. Well worth a watch when you have time:-

I don't even need to watch the video or read their new statement to know this is another PR sham to get out of jail once again. Let me guess; they are blaming it on an 'error of judgement' or a simple 'mistake' of some kind rather than a(nother) deliberate implementation to knowingly screw over their paying customers in the hope that they pay up for something they don't want, to access something they've already been playing since launch in what is already a painfully threadbare product. Shit game design or embarrasing incompetence from a major developer. It's one or the other. Until the next calamity..

Performance, controls and inventory management seem a real issue. Sub 30fps on the Xbox One X too!

New Diego Maradona statue - looks like one of the old ladies from Coronation Street