St Marco

5 years is a longtime and anything can happen in football. If after these 5 years we are in the PL and looking ok then sure they should think about it. But if we are struggling to stay in the league and building the stadium means no funds for players then it should be rejected. Ambition is great. But i don't think it would change much and for that could be a waste of cash. If it's cash we have not borrowed then who gives a ****?

Would rather spend that money on buying some big name players and get back into the PL to be honest. We are in division 3. Will most likely still be here this time next year. Then we will go up to CCC. Again the team will need another bosst of players to get it chasing promotion. Then if/when we get promoted let's see how we do. If we are going to be another club who goes up then comes back down the following season then there is no point having a new 50k stadium. We will sell out in the PL but then the following season will see it half empty. Right now the focus should be on the team and the players/manager/staff. Getting the team up the tables should have all energy put into it. We did this whole "concentrate on non-football" thing before. It did not turn out so well! Have to learn to walk before you can run.

Most developers are known for one franchise. Nintendo are known for Mario games. Are all the Mario games as good or are they churned out to make money? Square Enix have a lot of big franchises in Japan that is not just Final Fantasy.... Dragon Quest is one of the biggest franchises in the world with the last one selling over 5m copies. That is more then most first person shooter games! Then you got Kingdom Hearts which again is a monster of a franchise. The last selling 6m units, that is more then say the entire God of War series combined. Then you got Star Ocean which again is a massive franchise in Japan and has had some success outside there too with recent 360 games and a recent PS3 release. They make now all the old Eidos game like Hitman 5 and Just Cause 2, feck they even now make the Supreme Commander games! To say it has one succesful franchise is not true at all. It has many that range from different genres. I have played FFXIII now and i actually quite enjoy it. The first 3 hours were a bit of a drag but after that it gets much better.

By that i take it you don't agree? Sales wise FF sells the most (FFXIII sold 1.5m copies in its 1st week alone in Japan). Reviews wise you will struggle to find any developer let alone a Japanese one who has these type of meta review scores for their series. Final Fantasy 12 = 92% Final Fantasy 10 = 92% Final Fantasy 9 = 94% Final Fantasy 8 = 90% Final Fantasy 7 = 92% Nintendo,Sega,Capcom etc can't touch those numbers.

Read his book thought it was quite funny. I thought he left Mock the Week because BBC told him to tone it down? After saying something about one of our olympic swimmers. Said something like she looked like someone looking at the back of a spoon, and she and her mates complained about it? So he said fook that and quit.

In short i would say Square Enix are the best developers of games in Japan. "Normally" the games are very time consuming but fun. The visuals on screen are probably the most beautifuly done and the cut scenes are outstanding. They will be the height of this gens graphics for sure. They tend to have some crazy ass story that revolves around the typical good vs evil arc but bring their own unique style of twists to it. It really is like no other series. It is a shame you missed out on number 7 and 10, you would probably have been hooked from those like the rest of us! I'd say give it a try. If you don't like it then always got God of War 3 in a week or so, that will be awesome.

I always liked the idea of a good Vietnam game but as you mention it seems to be one era that nobody can get right. Battlefield Vietnam was garbage as was Conflict Vietnam. If anyone can get it right then you would think it would be the guys behind Call of Duty. Apparently there is a new Medal of Honor game that they are saying will revolutionise the series. That might be good as Pacific wasen't too bad i felt.

The fps genre has been stale for awhile though. Prior to Modern Warfare it was just the same **** over and over. The prior call of duties to that and medal of honors just got boring, a yearly game that did the same thing. Modern Warfare came and changed that, but it was only for awhile. We are back in there again now though i think. BC2 is very similar to it, just adds a few extras like the destructable maps. That is a big change from not being able to blow stuff up. It will be interesting to see how the new Call of Duty does that is rumoured to be set in Vietnam. That might be quite cool. BC2 has done very well, is currently sitting at number 1 in all the charts and is now number 1 in the online playtime charts, which shows maybe people have got bored of MW2 then.

That really was a bad decision by the ref. He didn't even try to move around Seaborne, he did like a flick and with the momentum went down. You would hardly ever get those outside the box let alone in it. Could you imagine if that happened to Man Utd vs Chelsea for the title or something, the ref would get a severe dressing down from the FA. But obviously nobody gives a **** what happens in the third division.

You were in Fnatic? Me and a few mates at uni tried the whole clan thing, think we tried enemy down and some other place. Did not do so well....It is funny because you think you are good until you play those sort of pro teams, then you realise your ****. Fair play to you guys if you made money from it that is great. Didn't they have like a million pound cash prize once or something? In america gaming like that is huge, is on tv all the time, think they have some channels on sky like that too.

I did not play the pre-betas of CS. In fact i don't think i even had the 56k by then! I think the first version of cs i played was 1.0 because it came on a magazine disc which was probably pc gamer. But i then played it from then all the way to today. So if it was hugely popular before then, then i believe you, just i had not played it. Of course i had played Quake and all the other blue vs red team games.

I said the whole "squad" thing Baj. As far as i can tell Quake was not like that. Counter strike started that, the whole goodies vs baddies online thing. Counter strike was made by Minh Lee and Jesse Cliffe. They released the 1st beta in June 1999. In the following April they were both Valve employees. CS 1.0 was then released that xmas, under the Valve name. So what i was trying to say Baj was two guys had the idea for the game and tried to make that game. But it did not become hugely succesful until they were under the Valve banner. That happens to a lot of games and ideas for creativity in general. The Valve then was not the Valve now. By hiring people like Jesse the company started to look at other things beside single player games. They make beautiful single player games like Half Life 2. But the longevity is in their multi-player games. So i don't see this as an argument mate, we are neither right or wrong, were just saying the same thing in a different way. Valve didn't have the idea for CS. They just helped devlop it. By 1.6 which is/was the most popular version it was well and truely a valve game seeing as the creator was and still is one of Valves heads of the company. Also isn't that what Valve is, a company that takes on lots of "bright" people from elsewhere? Even Gabe was from microsoft.

All those games were published by Valve, all those people who created those games joined Valve. Way back then Valve was not the big company you see today. They did HL and as you mention modders did the rest. The point is if you said to someone "cs source is coming out" those people would not be *****ing a single player was not included, that was the point. As Rob says all games copy from each other, that is just the way it is. MW copied Gears of War with the blood thing. Each of them add their own unique thing to each game. My opinion is MW added a very good story and campaign. WHile BC2 has now added destructable landscapes. In BC2 that tree that got in TS's way can easily be remedied, drive over it, or blow the fecker up!

When i say it ripped off the BF series what i mean is the format of the game i.e the grind of it. You kill people and do objectives you get xp which goes towards new ranks which in turn mean more customization options for both your gun and class. The whole "i must keep playing to reach xyz" thing. They also took things such as the UAV, the actual different class types etc.. But this is nothing un-normal, everyone does it, BC2 has borrowed from MW big time and you can see it in the campaign, they look very similar. But as you say they are different genres really and that is what i tried to explain. A lot of people who buy MW never even play the multi-player, where as for BF series it is the other way around. It is horses for courses, whatever takes your fancy. Playing MW1 i was blown away by it, thought it was the greatest shooter i had played, in a way i still think that. But MW2 just blew, it is a typical game of this gen where it has been rushed out to cash in on the franchises popularity. Sadly it will be the last seeing as the heads of Infinity Ward were sacked by activision and the game moved to a new studio.

The thing with Dice mate is they are very similar to Valve and how they are set up. They are pioneers of internet gaming so don't really have any interest in single player games. To use Valve as an example they basically started the whole net squad thing with counterstrike. That didn't have a single player story with it, neither did Day of Defeat, Team Fortress, Deathmatch etc etc. After the sucess of those games the online gaming world boomed. Dice took it to a different level by making the Battlefield series. The first one was hugely succesful because it was different to everything else that was out there by concentrating on realism and tactical team play based around vehicles. They then made BF2 which is one of the best rated and best selling games of all time. These games however were on the PC, they had no real desire to go on to consoles. The same can be said of Valve and Half-Life 2. But they did it anyway. Modern Warfare is a rip off of the battlefield series but missing a few key things such as vehicles and making the game a lot faster and a lot easier to do. It is what is known as a "run and gun" game. Which basically means what it says. Battlefield series is about realism but more importantly about realisng your life is worth something. In MW you run in and die, respawn, run in dies etc.. The guys who shoot the most people = win. Not the point of the BF series. If you die your ticker decays, if you lose strategic points you lose abilities i.e vehicles or respawn points. If you lose your re-spawn points and then die you lose. Anyone can play MW2 and be semi good at it. My gf even played it and didn't do so bad. Where as BF requires a lot of thinking and far better decision making. So in terms of the single player that is not really why people have bought it, it is not why it has good reviews and why it has now sold millions in its 1st week. It is because the Battlefield series has a huge fan base who enjoy the multi-player side of the games. The first Bad Company didn't feel right, it seemed like a miss mash of other games, not really a BF game. So those buying BC2 are not buying it to play a single player game they are buying it because they know the multiplayer is fun, most played the beta etc.. Majority of the reviewers say the multiplayer is better then MW2 and i tend to agree with them. The lack of single player does not make me dislike the game any less because none of the other Dice games have had one, neither have most of the valve games. So the fact there is one, and a decent one is a nice bonus in my opinion. Personally i felt MW2 story was no excistent, it was just garbage. They ran out of ideas so just used the same scenes over and over i.e the falling down and having to be helped up etc..

How can you blame Pardew for that?! Seriously i actually cannot comprehend how someone could think that? Did he change a winning team that got 7 points from the previous 9? Nope. Did he put out a defensive formation like we saw a few months ago? Nope. Did he put on another midfield player to try and hold onto the draw? Nope. Did he put on some defenders to try and keep it at 1-1? Nope Did he put on 2 strikers when it was 1-1 to try and win the game? Yes. Did the players miss some sitters that should of had us up 1-3 in the 1st half? Yes. Did the referee give Tranmere the majority of the decisions? Yes. Did the referee refuse to give 2 penalties to Saints even though they were apparently clear cut? Yes. Did the referee give a penalty to Tranmere for apparently nothing? Yes When Waigo came on did he fail to give us anything extra? yes etc etc Anyone blaming Pardew for this result is just grinding an axe. At least have the balls to say you simply don't like him rather then trying to make something out of nothing.

While yes the ref cost us here, it is not the first time and wont be the last time. The refs in this division are poor, that is to be expected. But we can't say it is just down to the ref. We had so many chances and did not take them. Lallana sounded like he had a couple of tap ins and blew them. I rarely listen on the radio because i don't agree with Merrington, i think he is negative and makes things sound far worse then they actually are. This was just another example. It was not because the team played bad but because they didn't take their chances and the ref wouldn't give them the fair chances to do that. That is football. Sometimes teams take the chances, sometimes they don't, prior to this game we scored 10 in the last 2 because we took the chances. He makes it sound like they were **** poor when really that is not the case. As Chris said the only way Tranmere were going to get anything from the game was by bad refereeing, that happened and it cost us. To blame the team is wrong and i would not be surprised one bit if Pardew being ****ed off the other week was because of the way Dave commented on the Wycombe game. We always had a hard task to get to the playoffs, this makes it even harder. After Leeds we have a lot easier run in of games compared to the other playoff chasers. But those games are pointless if we don't take our chances.

Its not a WW1/2 game mate. That is just a story prologue. As i said before the single player is just a sort of bonus, Dice don't normally bother with them. In comparison to their other single player campaigns it is a huge improvement. The multi-player is where it is at, that is what the game is/was designed for, Dice are the best in the business for that. Personally i think the Multi-player kills MW2's.

I am really looking forward to this game but i think after reading the reviews i will probably end up not liking it. A lot of the reviews on metacritic have given biased scores. Like Official Playstation Mag etc.. Those few 100 scores are obviously politically given, if you removed those reviews the score would probably be sitting in the 70's. Which as you mention for a Final Fantasy game really is shocking seeing as the far majority of the series has been a 90's game. Even the last one which wasen't that great got 92%. Reading the reviews i think the reason it has been getting bad reviews (it got 50% from edge) is mainly due to the variety of the game. In previous games you have a world to go and explore in, look about for secret things. Sort of go at your own pace. Lots of additional content to fill your time with such as looking for each characters ultimate weapons or playing some mini games etc.. With this one all that has been take out, you don't even control or have any say on the other characters, no world to run around in, which makes the game very linear, you will all have the exact same experience. Like they say that for the 60hrs or so of the game there was no variation from what you do from the first 1hr of the game, it was basically doing the same thing over and over, no exploration. You just fight a boss then have the cut scene, fight a boss and have the next cut scene etc etc. So because of that it doesn't seem like a Final Fantasy game. It seems like they rushed it out without really having a story to tell. They tried to westernise the series which is a real shame because it is not a fps game, it should not follow the same format as those games. So i am very surprised the game has not done better reviews wise but from the content of those reviews it is understandable.

That Orford guy really ****es me off. "The fans deserve this, they have been through the mill, they have suffered a lot, it is a day for them" What a load of ******** How have they suffered? They are still in the premier league, they have been allowed to sign players, they have been given new chances time after time. They have not suffered for one second. When they start going down the league and have points deductions on at the start of the campaign when they have a bare thin squad of youth players then they will know what suffering is. It is a slap in the face at the fans of teams like Bournemouth, Leeds, Swindon, Luton and us of course for the last season. Im sure all those clubs (except us) would take that suffering above what they had to go through.

So how have you guys been getting on in it? I think the game has more of those laugh your ass off momments then i have seen in other games. Like seeing bad guys on the roofs then shooting the walls out from under him and watch him fall through the roof, funny as feck. Or the little convos the squads have when your idle. Like when they are in bolivia and the dumb one says "so sarge are your people from here then?" thought that convo was classic.

So how have you guys been getting on in it? I think the game has more of those laugh your ass off momments then i have seen in other games. Like seeing bad guys on the roofs then shooting the walls out from under him and watch him fall through the roof, funny as feck. Or the little convos the squads have when your idle. Like when they are in bolivia and the dumb one says "so sarge are your people from here then?" thought that convo was classic.

Another thing which you have to get used to. In normal fps games when your under fire you think "right here is a wall i will hide behind that and then pop out and shoot back". or "look there is a tank, i will hide in this house and look out the window" Those days are gone! If you hide like that your just as vunerable as being out in the open. I was hiding in a house and saw a tank, i started firing out the window like you do and then crouched to reload etc.. Stood back up and looked out the window and saw the tank had changed its turret to look at me. Next thing i know my window and the entire side of the house had been blown to smithereens and im blown back. Stand up with about 10 bad guys having clear as day shots at me! This is something that is going to take a lot of getting used to because we are so used to crouching behind stuff and thinking that means were safe. Not so anymore. As in reality if a nade hits a wall and that wall is not very thick then it is going to put a hole in it, the same as a tank shell is going to flatten a house with all those inside it. But it also goes the other way and this is the bit im loving. If you have to get from say A to B there are so many different ways to do that. If your behind a house and some guy with a 50 cal or something is ripping your team up and your pinned down you can destroy one of the walls to a house making a new route available to you to flank the enemy. The whole linear stuff like Modern Warfare is not the same here. If you pause and just look at the surroundings you can spend hours doing nothing but destroying everything. It is so much fun.

Well i have manged to play the campaign for a bit now and have to say im very impressed. I wont spoil it for people by giving away the stories and things but the first level if you can call them levels is quality. You start off in World War 2 in Japan with a sort of prologue which is pure awesomeness. The graphics of the scenary as well as the physics are probably the best i have seen in a console game. There is a bit where your learning the controls and it asks you to run across a field. In old style fps games when they say field they mean the colour of the floor your walking on is green and thus is a field. That is not so here. When they say field they mean a huge giant field that is full to the brim with grass for you to duck in so not to be spotted. The trees and rocks etc.. all look very good and that makes the atmosphere really good. Another thing which i really am impressed on is the sounds. If you have surround sound it really is jaw dropping to see something in front of you get blown the fook up and hear it in a realistic way. The campaign is obviously going to be short as it is around 8hrs or so long, but the single player is really a little extra, was not meant to be the main part of the game as the multi-player is where it is at. But i have to say it is equally as good or if not better then the Modern Warfare 2 single player thus far.

Think that is the PC price. PS3 is £36.99 on amazon