Luseth

I had a think after last night's session, we had a few good games, especially when we all switched to 3 tanks / 3 healers to turn around what was looking like a loss. Putting a bit of thought into my characters I generally begin games with one of my preferred but there are often times I feel the need to switch depending on how things are playing out - - If the team is quite aggressive and pushing as a group then Squirrel Girl is great. Her attack can hit a few at the same time and you can launch it a fair way, great for dealing with some awkward healers (being protected by effective tanks). - Against flyers she does not do so well so I tend to switch to Scarlet Witch here, I don't have to worry so much about spiderman, iron man or storm flying around then as the attack hits anyway so they can't really escape. - On maps where there are plenty of flanking options, Penni is fantastic. Being able to select places to put mines or the mine dispenser can kill off flanks before they even happen! - I used star lord a bit last night too, he is quite effective against your Scarlet Witches & Moon Knights. If you can get right up against them, unload a clip into them and follow up with his L1 and they can't hit you back and tend to go down pretty quick. - My healer tends to be Cloak and dagger though I would like to get used to using Rocket a bit more with his little damage booster thing. I am yet to find a melee DPS I like but they seem to have gained a bit of popularity recently.

So I have picked this up, having only done the tutorial so far I can tell you it seem's great but glitchy as hell 😄 A few of the guys I used to play battlefield with have picked this up so once I squad up with them and give it a real go I will put some thoughts in here 🙂

Sorry for the delay in updating the stats this week, I was umming and arring whether or not to bother as I think I missed a few matches (1 at the beginning and having to leave early). If anyone took any stats from those matches feel free to send across and I will incorporate them but otherwise yeah things are looking good! We had a great week with the play off's last week winning 6 in 7 (at least whilst I was there) which is probably some of our best play yet so well done lads!

You still see some of the arcade machines about, having the foot pedal for cover and the guns often had haptic feedback in them. I played the house of the dead game that was on the Wii, that was good fun but lightguns generally do not work so well today obviously. There is a company that I believe has just released one that works with modern tv's but I can't remember the name of them. The closest experience now is a VR headset, I have a few games on there that do get the same sort of feel as playing some of these games though it's also different at the same time.

I was more concerned about you and the other James 😄 And you laugh about communism but it's probably the only form of government that could escape climate disaster as no other would be ever in a position to enforce the strict measures required! (Not that I'd want communism mind)

Is it the same technology as the PSP UMD discs? It seems so?

Delta force just looks like the original Far Cry / Wildlands game? I fully agree with you James, the innovation that came through then led to such big jumps between games it was probably gaming's golden era really. The current market is stagnated and I find myself struggling to pick up some games as they are generally rehashes or reskins of games from yesteryear. One of my favourite strategy games back then was a game called Skull Caps, a sequel to Baldies. Both were great fun games albeit I can not get the latter one to run anymore-

I think most people can agree that people do not get into politics for anyone but themselves, it is the same with this administration, it is the same with our UK government and almost every political party to come before. If anyone thinks differently then they probably are getting their news & information from a somewhat skewed source. Now I hope you don't mind me suggesting it but as this has now gone onto politics it might be worth closing the thread and ending the chat? Otherwise I can see people falling out...

Errrm simple and straight to the point I guess.... I thought it was all still rumours? Has it had actual confirmation from the devs then?

Minidiscs? I remember our music teacher saying the above back in secondary school? Then I never saw them again 😄

So despite never having a vastly powerful computer when I was younger, our house saw a few windows computers pass through it. I remember there being a windows 98 machine and it being my first forray into pc gaming. When I say my first forray my parents never really bought us any games and I made do with some dodgy copies mostly that a friend used to give me at school. This thread is just to discuss some of those experiences and moments and seeing if anyone else here was gaming in the 90s / early 2000s. So to start this off I am going to look at one of the games that came with the computer and led to one of my first experiences of football manager games - Ultimate Soccer Manager 98/99 - Now I have opted for this one because I have been going through the abandonware website looking at old games with the hope of getting a few running. This one worked straight away with no faff and the screenshot above is from my machine this evening 😄 The things I always remember about this game was that it wasn't just the coaching side of things but you used to be able to upgrade the ground, look at sponsorship deals and such. We won't forget some of the incredible players back then as well -

I very briefly played the original, regrettably never really got very far but it seemed my sort of thing. What probably has not helped is the stupid Swansong game and such being released and not doing well. I will watch this trailer in a bit and let you know what I think 🙂

Two words for you, scalpers paradise. I would love one at launch but if the availability is similar to recent console releases I won't even bother to pick it up right away. I have enough to play on the current one that I could wait a little while.

Noooo not correct. The Switch 2 is going to have a direct on 2nd April which presumably will announce release date, pricing and show the launch titles 🙂 Controllers were always an issue, I would be interested to know if they have gone down the route of hall effect sticks like a lot of the more premium controllers are pursuing now. I love the Switch and excited for a new version, my only concern is finding the time to play the games! If it could really incorporate crossplay and bring discord to it then it could have a shot at being the mainstay console in the lounge ^_^

So my other hobby which has slackened off in recent years has always been reading. The past few weeks I have been nosing back through some of my books and realise I have a few now all related to video games. So I just thought I would start a conversation about them and see if anyone else has any recommendations? So the first one I am going to talk about is 'A guide to Japanese Role-Playing Games', this is probably my go to book at the moment for a few reasons, the artwork is brilliant in there as well as the game screenshots but it really goes into depth with a lot of mainstream series but also some unknown or more obscure titles. It is also where I am getting my influence from currently for my video game collection 🙂 When I say it goes in depth it literally goes back to discussing how a video game was first conceived in some instances, the writing can be a little mixed as it is a combination of lots of writers putting together their thoughts, history and experience on each series and such. This leads to some cool little memories and such being talked about. So yeah, if you enjoy JRPG's and enjoy reading this is probably the definitive guide for it.

Ah thanks, I will use the above, I don't want to really change how the stats are done as it make's it easier for more than 1 person to jump in and help say if I am on holiday for example. There will be a few stats missing then i.e. I think I had 1 or 2 yellow cards with the randoms and such but I didn't make a note of them. @James Tom now has more AFK's (there was an issue with the spreadsheet, it wasn't adding up the right cells btu all sorted now). Like I mentioned last week I may have missed some 😄 But I don't want to make it to harsh else he would have won the medal by the end of week 3! The number of clean sheets is now 2, which 1 of those was the game where the other team were dicking about 😄 But yeah we don't tend to get many clean sheet's on this game!

The past few games on this have been a little frustrating, partially because I can't work out where we are going wrong. Even when we have good games as a group we still seem to lose so I have opted to have a break from it the past few evenings. As for my go to characters, they differ from the suggestions above and that's because they much more suit how I play - Tank - My go to tank is Peni everytime, she is such an aggressive tank and if you have a good healer behind you, you can really wreck teams. I also have a few clips where I have used the Ult and held off or even killed the whole opposition team after the rest of my side has been taken out. You just sometimes have to be clever about where you position your auto mine device. DPS - I seem to be struggling a little bit with DPS at the moment. I had a good game with Scarlett Witch the other night, the first time she has really clicked for me but as good as her attack is the range is quite limited which means you have to keep darting in and out and timing it so you don't suddenly get pulverized as she is a little squishy. I enjoy playing squirrel girl as her explosive shots can cause some damage even from some distance away though I don't think I am getting the best out of her yet. Then playing as Mr Fantastic is like having an extra tank which is absurd. It's great for holding a point a little while longer after your team has been killed off but he is so frustrating to play against. Healer - I think Cloak and dagger is great, being able to switch to attack when required too otherwise Luna Snow is probably my other choice. Her speed can help you get into the fray as and when required but healing is quite easy to play with as well.

I am going to check my spreadsheet is adding the correct columns together. I don't think I have 6 clean sheets, thought I had 2 and I'm fairly sure Tom had 4 AFK's the Monday just gone.... I was doing it after we had finished playing the other night so was fairly tired and could easily have cocked something up. As for stats for any, I have been recording them based on the any's pro rather than player's the any is controlling. So back to clean sheet's I think I have 2 as I only had my pro as centre back for 3 games I think. Always open to suggestions though to incorporate going forwards but my thinking with any's is that if I put a goal down for every player I controlled as 'any' there could be some weeks I could be playing 2 or 3 more attacking players when you factor in CM's giving me greater chance to score or assist so if I'm having a good evening Macca or I could easily run away with the stats. The other thought I just had, I have not put any clean sheet's down for anyone playing CM (CDM?) Should I be? @GazzaGarratt how have you done the above historically?

Stats have been updated above for week 2 of 2025 ^_^

I have started doing this with blu rays for the same reason, I dont have to worry about them disappearing on me. I have a little collection should the internet ever go down n such and generally the quality is better along with extra features n such

The last few times playing it I must admit are getting a little frustrating. The game, when it's great is really great. However we are finding more and more we come up against teams where it seems really easy for opponents to either get out of an almost certain death or for there to seemingly be 3 tanks on a team (if you include Mr Fantastic) all of whom can buff up their defense to the point they are almost invincible. I think there was a moment last night Lee, you asked how I was still alive fighting their whole team and it was purely because with Mr Fantastic you can buff yourself and then if you are close to death literally make yourself invincible for a short spell. That seem's absurd to me that I could even get away with that as a DPS character. Susan Storm is another frustrating character to play against, I came close to killing her a number of times the other day only for her to just turn invisible and run away. It's not like say Scarlett Witch n such where there is an indicator so you can still pursue, she just disappeared.