J4MES OX4D

£90 for England shirts? They can fuck right off. It probably cost 30p to make and it's no more than a acutely decorated t-shirt. http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/26826554

Well I got one game in at least on Nansha Strike and ^ above sums it up. Haven't seen such bad rubber-banding in this game since the release. I was on a small conquest lobby and still it was a struggle. The map is reasonable; not too small but not very big either. Decent for conquest but could be carnage on high ticket servers particularly with snipers. I'll give the others a try at Christmas when the game might be running slightly better.

I think a lot of stores don't bring in PC games in the quantities due to the DRM restrictions and the risk of not selling the copies. Many publishers don't opt for producing them any more either. My local store 15 years ago used to have a library of cardboard boxes and many games used to sell like hotcakes the physical way but now with Steam; many gamers are just buying digitally because of the sales and the ease. Origin offers fuck all in special deals most of the time and their prices are extortionate. By cutting out the physical aspect; shops will ultimately not stock any PC titles in the near future even if they are still floating around I reckon. Origin should just be disbanded and everything should be transferred to Steam. It would save EA a lot of money in the long run and general sever stress. I know EA are paranoid about losing more money through piracy but their restrictions and general arrogance with Origin has done them no favours even with their abysmal reputation. They even had to pre-load Titanfall 4 days early so people could download it for fear that everything would collapse on release day. uPlay are shite also.

Naval Strike is finally available on PC. I'm gonna give it a go in a bit and then post some thoughts if it bloody works.

That's the original trilogy but the new one went down to £20 and that's still a rip off in my book

Origin/EA will be scrapping all physical copies of games on April 4th meaning the store will be digital only for all titles next week. This is a fucking joke. I bought Titanfall for £29.99 yet it's £44.99 on Origin and the online store doesn't have any physical costs such as packaging, production or distribution. Work that one out. It's also funny that they've done this before the UK tax rate is applied to digital downloads which will pretty much see full priced titles from EA hit the store at £50. Thank god EA don't have many good games worth buying on their books. It was bound to happen though but they really need to reduce their prices.

I've had a play through a few of the side ops and they're pretty decent and challenging. My completion status is still quite low so it looks like there is still much to do which is good news. Some of the missions consist of a hostage rescue, escorting a VIP and even destroying ground base missiles. Also on a few of these operations; you get to see the base in daylight which gives the game a fresh perspective and really showcases the Fox engine. The dynamic weather and effects are really good. Sadly I have another gripe and this is quite an annoying one which I hope doesn't affect The Phantom Pain. The checkpoints seemingly occur on random areas of the map and after certain incidences such as a completed objective or going through a door for example. Sometimes you may have to opt to restart from last checkpoint if you've been spotted or have died. This can be frustrating as the enemy positioning can be completely different to how it was once the game was saved. Enemies seem to respawn occasionally and sometimes if you have a dead body hidden and an enemy post-restared checkpoint gets placed in the vicinity; not refelctive of his original position; he can immediately be alerted. Other times it may save in stupid places in which results you having to restart the whole mission. This could be problematic on hard difficulty. The balance of the map and all the work you have done can suddenly be lopsided from reverting back to the last checkpoint. Sure it does make the challenge harder to get right in the first place but missions can go tits-up real bad if you have to go back. The AI is just appalling most of the time and the tranquilizer gun bullet detection is fucking terrible.

Well said Dave! I remember the early funny COD videos from the likes of General Minus, Killer Karrit and Spartan Jay. Kevin came along and did a fine job by introuducing the trolling aspect but then you had fucking unoriginal twats like Minnesotaburns come along just bullying kids pretending he was an Xbox admin for about a hundred videos whilst getting bankrolled. Minus and co slowed up and seemingly ran out of material so they don't upload as often or not at all but people like burnsy just keep plastering the site with the same old shitty videos and tedious reactions. It seems like everything has been exhausted but the cash cows of YouTube just don't know when to quit; but they don't have to as long as they are uploading any old crap which gives them a tasty weekly wage. The most original and ingenious video I've seen in the gaming sector of late was the 'Xbox Sign Out' and 'Xbox Bing' trolling. They made a couple of vids and got some ace reactions but they played it safe and didn't upload 150+ vids of it. Now there is people trying to copy the idea by registering gamertags such as X_B0x Sine Out just to try and milk it. There just ain't nothing much original coming through and the site homepage is dominated by the likes of PewDiePie playing some shit game every bloody day. Either that or some shitty music video by Pharrell Williams or a Vlog about shaving your best friends vagoo.

Thief Collection £3.24

..absolutely fucking intolerable. I hate it now. A few years ago it was unique particularly in the early Modern Warfare era. Now there seems to be so much potential in making easy money; people with large sub bases are just whoring out lots of shit for easy likes from dedicated followers to make a quick buck. I'm not just talking about the gaming arena either. Equipment and uploading is too easy now and any old shit is being promoted. It's also full of ignorant, arrogant twats with stupid haircuts making useless Vlogs of trips to buy a new designer cardigan from their online earnings and have lunch at Burger King. Why does 1.8m people give a fuck by watching and how can 500,000 people 'like' this kind of rubbish? Many of the old-skool uploaders have either taken their foot off the gas or have quit the whole thing after being swarmed by carbon-copy channels who have succumbed to a single video hit or have been lavishly marketed. I used to love the likes of KYR Sp33dy but now he's uploading about 18 videos a week; all of them unfunny and not hilarious in the slightest. Still, that'll earn him over a million likes and a tasty wage packet for shoddy, lazy content. There is so much unbearable and unoriginal commercial garbage on there too along with shitty music videos and crappy products. It's just a mess now. Also how the fuck does the likes of PewDiePie get 25m subscribers? His videos are fucking boring. Oh yeah; he got his girlfriend to play Slender once which pretty much gave him a further 14m subs overnight. I'd rather have a zillion COD montages than half the crap I see on there today.

Launch trailer Probably the worst trailer I have ever seen in the series. Doesn't really give much away in showcasing the maps. Hope the maps are good though. Collision looks the best of the bunch for me so far but Unearthed aka Dome stinks of Prison Break.

Agreed. I used to love the competitive scene but there just seems to be many gobshites dragging it down now. There's plenty of mature veterans on show but also too many immature little pricks mouthing it in a disrespectful way to their opponents and fellow team mates. It's just embarrassing too often and hard to watch for me. I like a bit of gaming banter but some of the chit-chat is cringeworthy.

OMFG how is this even possible!? I take it Aitchy is a bloody good translator then!

People are saying this is an early contender for GOATY

Another slick performance from Liverpool today. What an incredible finish to the season it's going to be. If they can beat City and Chelsea at Anfield; it's theirs to lose. I'd love to see them do it because Rodgers has done a remarkable job and the way the team are performing is the ultimate definition to quality football. Spurs had a bit of a stinker today as they have in too many games this season. Sherwood started well and literally gave himself the job but they really need to replace him with a quality manger end of season and bring in some better players. Most of their signings from the Bale money have been a massive letdown with only Chadli and Eriksen impressing. Kaboul, Rose, Ciriches, Lamela, Sigurdsson and Soldado have all had pretty horrific seasons. I can even see Everton pipping Arsenal to 4th place.

Thief £20 It's only been out about a month!

Great start for Hamilton and Mercedes.

I quite enjoyed the DLC for BO2. The first pack; 'Revolution' had Hyrdo, Grind, Mirage and Downhill which were all pretty good and varied maps and had the Peacekeeper weapon which was fun to use. 'Uprising' was also really good with Studio, Magma, Vertigo and Encore. It was really good to see Firing Range back and it looked and felt different but still had the qualities of the original. I didn't get a chance to download the remaining packs for the game due to me having commitments but I expect they were pretty good also. If you're planning on going back to BO2; the core maps and the first couple of packs should suffice for a pretty good experience.

This is similar to my gaming set up

I didn't get this as I was on Xbox but now as I have a PS4; if this happens, i'll be a happy chappy!

Right, I've finished the main story on Ground Zeroes in around a couple of hours. First off; I would carefully consider dropping money on getting this unless you have money saved for a rainy day. £20-30 depending on what system and how you buy it is quite a lot of money for what's on offer but fans with a dedicated interest in the series and The Phantom Pain should definitely experience it. Graphically, this game looks absolutely fantastic. The cinematics and general in-game effects are brilliant for what is an early game in the current generation. The atmosphere unfortunately lacks tension thanks to the typically shoddy AI that has become a part of MGS over the years. You begin overlooking a military base and have two hostages to rescue; it's really that simple. The base is fairly large; not quite Groznyj Grad from Snake Eater but there's lots to do and explore. It's not linear and there are many ways you can approach situations. Once again the AI doesn't do itself many favours and some scenarios can be worked around with ease but if you want to score high; taking care and planning your moves by tagging enemies takes some skill to execute perfectly. The controls and the combat are pretty much as expected from past games and the touchpad is also introduced for a couple of functions. The main problem with this game is largely the length of the story but another couple of issues that seem to strike me based on past games is the fucking lame scripting, weak characters and awful voice acting. These were the pinnacle positives of past games. Getting used of Keifer Sutherland as opposed to David Hayter wont take long to adjust but there didn't seem to be any really dramatic or intriguing characters. A couple of them sound like the actors were reading their lines with a cactus pointed precariously close to their rectum. The dialogue isn't as gripping as I would have hoped for a MGSV introduction and the characters don't seem memorable or powerful at all. The ending is a major let down too and doesn't really set up The Phantom Pain in a blaze of glory. I will give the side ops a try tomorrow but on the whole; this game is pricey but worth an experience for fans. It looks stunning but the narrative and characters leave a lot to be desired. It has the typical MGS feel and style but I feel the story which is the series trump card, needs major work as does the writing.

Should have gone to Specsavers

Tomb Raider £3.74 The Bureau: XCOM Declassified £4.99

You should probably start saving towards a next gen console (PS4 obviously) or have a breather from Battlefield. Ghosts isn't any decent substitute for me and the vibe within the community has a whole isn't the buzz it once was. In a couple of months, the new COD game will be making its entrance and I don't think any remaining content on offer for Ghosts will have the desired effect in bringing people back. The BO2 community across the systems is still very strong so if you're after an escape away from Battlefield; it may be worth revisiting that game. Don't spend any unnecessary money on games which probably wont inspire. Just put the cash in a pot and get a PS4 in the near future and then you'll be all set.