Downward Spiral

I have no idea why nobody likes XII, it's wonderful!

Seconded. It's got a massive, massive world to play around in (just picking off all the Elite Marks was a game in itself frankly) and I thought the story was nowhere near as bad as people make out.

I mean, yeah, Vaan becomes kinda pointless quite early on but meh.

Yeah, I was a big fan of XII just because there was so MUCH that you could do. Also, I actually quite liked the story although the decision to make Vaan the lead at the start was a bit perplexing.

"Goodbye raggedy man"

:'(

I can't decide whether to join the Stormcloaks or the Imperial Legion. On the one hand I feel like I should honour my heritage as a proud Nord. On the other hand, Ulfrik seems like a bit of a twat. Does your decision actually affect the game much, or am I just better off ignoring both of them as I'm currently doing?

Yeah, I'd absolutely agree with that. There are two or three scenes in particular which are utterly disturbing - those parts are an extremely uncomfortable viewing experience but which make the film very powerful. I am completely squeamish about violence, but I really enjoyed the film.

Has anyone else encountered the

headless horseman

while travelling in and around Whiterun?

Fucking amazing.

She was auditioning for a contract which, if she fulfilled it, would be worth one million pounds. Even if she only made it to 1 album, she'd get 20k. I'd bloody want her to remember the words for that kind of money. Age really isn't a good enough excuse.

Really? Marcus to me will have the exact same problem Joe McElderry had after the show: namely that he's undeniably popular (and more than a little bit fit...) but his voice is just extremely bland. Technically, he can sing brilliantly, but if I was in SyCos A&R department I would be really panicking about how on earth they could fill up a commercially viable album for him. Any of the other four, they would have no problem whatsoever, but Marcus is just far too bland.

If there was any justice, the final three would be Little Mix, Mischa and Amelia. It somewhat astounds me that given her extremely natural stage presence, her eye for style and the way since week fucking one she has just "got it", Mischa isn't the runaway favourite to win this series. I think nevertheless that girl is going to sell a fuckload of albums.

So for anyone else like me who's been pissed off that there hasn't been a decent PSOne classic released in fucking ages, rejoice! (if you're a BoF fan)

http://uk.ps3.ign.com/articles/118/1185352p1.html

Fucking yes! I've been looking to pick this up for ages, but couldn't be arsed to pay stupid amounts for it on Ebay. Brilliant.

1) The Book of Revelation (it is the topic of my PhD, so it's only fair it's fairly high up. If you're going to grapple with any biblical book, you'd do well to approach this with an open mind. But again, I'm biased.)

2) Midnight's Children by Salman Rushdie

3) To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee

4) Sharp Teeth by... I forgot... but it's an excellent book

5) The Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

6) The Magician's Nephew by C.S. Lewis

7) The Testament of Gideon Mack by John Robertson

8) The Epic of Gilgamesh (sorry for cluttering this with ancient texts, but it is a phenomenal story)

9) Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrell by Susannah Clark

10) Birdsong by Sebastian Faulks.

The frustrating thing about that episode, I thought, was Gwyneth Paltrow. I think the character is awesome, and I actually think she fits in with the show far better than I could have ever hoped (mainly cause I cannot *stand* her normally), but I just hope she becomes a regular or semi-regular character. Because they only have her for one-shot episodes, she almost has to be the focal point of the show. Which is a shame, because she has such a good chemistry with the characters that she would work brilliantly by just taking a back seat.

That aside, Santana and Britney were once again amazing last night, and Burt continues to be phenomenal.

I have to say that episode was absolutely amazing, and FINALLY got the show back on form after a fairly haphazard set of episodes to start the season off. The music was brilliant, classic Glee fodder with Teenage Dream obviously being the real highlight.

Surely Chris Colfer has an Emmy coming his way in the near future. He's always been incredible at getting this character across but with the stuff with his dad and now last night's episode, he's just knocking it out of the park.

Amazing.

Is anyone else getting a glitch whereby your wweapon will randomly keep firing every time you complete an action (e.g. jumping, entering a new room, using the pip boy, entering VATS)... seriously, it's fucking annoying and I can't get it to stop.

A quick google search indicates that the only way to get it to stop is to load an old save. I just don't think I can face re-doing the last 24 hours' gameplay

I've been playing it for a little while and the enemies walking into walls type-glitches have been relatively sparing and not that annoying. What has pissed me off is the badly coded dialogue sequences, which I have a feeling are making the game easy beyond belief. For instance:

When you rescue the deputy in Primm and he asks you to find a new Sheriff, I got the impression you're supposed to immediately head off to the prison. I stopped by the casino and fixed the robot there as part of a fairly run of the mill conversation sequence and suddenly the robot becomes the new sheriff. That was a bit of an anti-climax as there's frankly now no reason ever to go back to Primm (apart from the novelty of walking around and around the rollercoaster. Which, as you can imagine, wears off fairly quickly.

All of that said, I am enjoying it. I mean, it feels a little bit like a fleshed out expansion pack of Fallout 3, but frankly that's exactly what I wanted, truth be told.

Also, I know they're not the most deadly enemies in the game, but the Gecko's fucking terrify me.

Not at all

I genuinely can't remember a first live show which set such a high standard. Brilliant performances all around...

... unless your name was Belle Amie (which, if you lop off the feminine endings, is the name of a gay porn company, lolz), 1 Direction, Katie (which is a shame, because I actually really like her), or Nicolo (see Katie).

The real standouts for me were Treyc, Diva Fever (cycling shorts, people. Cycling shorts. Amazing), Matt Cardle and Paije. But, to be fair, all of the rest were either alright or brilliant too, so it's hard to pick. Except to say that if Wagner goes, I will actually riot.

iDOL, I'm genuinely honoured that that promo has been formative for the plans for GLAM! For my money it's one of the best promotions in the iDOM canon and I love that you've taken the "renegade" angle on the promotion which I certainly found great creative fodder.

Looking more widely, this is shaping up to be a great addition to the iDOM family with some very sensible and well-justified roster changes as well as a realistic demise of the indy feds which were in the former scenario. I can't wait to see how the super indy of the AWA/SMW pans out.

Thanks Liam, I'll give it a whirl. Right now the only thing that's being beaten is my ego when I get brutally slaughtered on the first level. Plus, having to do the same section over and over again just to try and get to the place where my blood got splattered earlier is demoralising to say the least! I will give it one thing though, it certainly gets under your skin. It's beautifully presented and whilst the piss-ant in me would love an easy mode where you can, like, save and stuff, it's still very enjoyable.

Jesus Christ, is Demon's Soul really meant to be that hard. I can't even make it past the first tower before I get slaughtered by the freaky blue-eyed knights. I know it's nice once in a while to make a game challenging but, seriously, this is just ridiculous.

Either that, or I just plain suck at it. One of the two...

You know how Brock Lesnar's the UFC champion and yet he could still lose his debut fight against Frank Mir when his opponent pulled out something that surprised him?

It surely isn't that hard to figure out. This just seems like needless nitpicking.

As for the Eric/Rusell stuff, perhaps that's what's going to happen? Who knows? Also I think they've established that the pain the vampire's get from silver is fairly debilitating. I've never even seen them be able to struggle particularly effectively when they're in contact with it.

...Anyway, another great episode. The Lafayette/Jesus stuff freaked me the fuck out. I actually made my boyfriend go and lock the door

I'm thrilled that Hoyt and Jessica are back together (seriously, when did Hoyt get hot?) and, frankly, I LOVE arse-hole Sam. I can't wait for the finale.

1. To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee

2. The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood

3. The Amber Spyglass by Philip Pullman

4. Wicked by Gregory Maguire

5. The Line Of Beauty by Alan Hollinghurst

6. Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell

7. Moonfleet by J. Meade Falkner

8. James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl (what? It's an amazing kids' story)

9. Does The Book of Revelation count? If not, I'll plump for The Epic Of Gilgamesh Translated by Stephen Mitchell as my classical/ancient epic.

10. On Beauty by Zadie Smith

A bit of an eclectic mix, but I'm fairly confident that these are the books I'd want on my desert island with me.

YES! THAT was the badass Tara I've been waiting to return. That was a brilliant episode, which runs things up nicely to head towards the conclusion.

Jason continues to be an idiot, but in the most charming way possible. I loved it when he slapped that guy on the ass before making him get out in the car. It was such a douche thing to do, but it totally fit the situation with Jason just being a dick to appease his earlier failings.

The dog fighting thing is a really great twist to Sam's family. I really like that angle and I can't wait to see if Joe-Lee's mindgames are going to pay off with Tommy.

Agh, far too much going on for me to enthuse about, but suffice to say that if they ever wanted to make an episode which entirely focussed on Arlene and Jessica's odd-couple pairing, I'd be more than happy.

I can see where you're coming from with that, but it's always struck me that in fact, Tara has never been the strong, independent woman. I've always seen her as giving off an impression that she's stronger than she is so I've really enjoyed them making her more and more powerless and having to confront the trauma behind her bravado.

I think TKz is bang on the money by saying that it should have ended at the end of the Marianne debacle, but equally, with Eggs then immediately getting shot, there was just no recourse for her to start rebuilding that ego so it was never going to happen . I hope Franklin doesn't kill her; I think there's an awful lot more mileage in that character which the past two series hasn't really exploited.

With all of that said, what I've loved about this series is the way they've taken the time to separate out the characters' sub-plots a little more. You've got Sam and his family stuff operating completely independently of Jason and his cop quest and Sookie's search for Bill and the Hoyt/Jessica relationship. It's brilliant to see all of these relationships being explored on their own terms and, for me, it's really working well.

What's wrong with Tara?

It kind of sucks that for the past two series she's been kidnapped and playing the "in need of rescue" schtick, but I really enjoy her as a character and quite surprised that EWB seems not to really like her all that much.

Jesus is TOTALLY going to be some kind of... I don't know, were-wasp or something. That storyline is far too good to be true. That said, I'm all for Lafayette actually geting some action rather than sitting by and saying "hooka" occasionally.

Quite intrigued as to what this white light thing is all about and why Bill had the family's genealogy. I'd love it if it turns out all this time that Bill is a bastard and really is just playing her so he can have control of a telepath and use it to make some sort of power play.

On the whole food drop thing, wasn't that pretty much explained by Daniel's experiments when he was on the island? He noted that anything which was sent to the island (the payload from a rocket in his experiment) was affected by the wierd timey wimey stuff which surrounded the island. Hence the food drops were a hangover from the Dharma Initative sending supplies to those in the hatch, which would in turn explain things like how the candy bars that the hatch-ies received all seemed to be from the 1970s. They weren't continually sending food drops, they were receiving ones that were sent decades earlier.

Oh good God, I've become one of *those* lost fanatics haven't I? :/