Bobfoc

As I'm in a slightly generous mood, I'll offer a free copy of Freedom Force to the first four people who provide me with their Steam IDs via personal message. I will gift the copies to the first claimants as soon as possible.

I know this isn't the newset of games, but it is, in my opinion, an overlooked classic and, besides, it's a free game, after all.

EDIT: All of them have now been claimed.

I wasn't really interested in this game, but I bought it as it would have felt foolish not to for 10 Microsoft Points. I'm a big fan of the Civilization series and I remember playing the demo of the Original Age of Empires, so perhaps I will end up getting into this. Even if I only get five minutes of enjoyment out of it, I'll probably have got my money's worth.

It should work, but remember that the demo only allows you to load one nation with a small database. If that's all you want with the full game, it's no issue, but just don't use it as an accurate guide as to how the game will run if you want to load multiple leagues simultaneously and in full detail.

Where are the best deals this time? I've seen Play.com is doing a mini mouse with orders, last time wasn't somebody doing a custom cover?

HMV is offering a free mini football and Steam, Gamers Gate and Direct2Drive are offering collections of SEGA Megadrive/Genesis games for those who pre-order the game. If you're talking about prices only and you're not bothered about such extras, Coolshop and Zavvi seem to be the cheapest options at the moment, with ShopTo closely behind.

If this is Hodgson's last game, at least he'll have travelled in style.

Maiden's Bruce Dickinson flies Liverpool FC to Naples

Heavy metal legend Bruce Dickinson is flying the Liverpool squad to Naples ahead of the club's Europa League clash with Italian side Napoli.

The Iron Maiden frontman, 52, who holds a commercial pilot's licence, will captain the Astraeus Airlines plane from Liverpool John Lennon Airport.

Dickinson, despite admitting he had no allegiance to any football team, said he hoped he would bring the Reds luck.

Liverpool are due to play Napoli at 1800 BST on Thursday.

"I was originally supposed to be going to Iceland and flying down to Las Palmas and Tenerife, but this looked a lot more interesting so I'm flying the team down to Naples."

Dickinson, who joined Iron Maiden in 1981, said he was lucky his day job left him time to perform.

"People ask me, which do you enjoy more and I honestly can't say, but what I can say is that I am never, ever going to give up singing.

"That's been my life and fortunately I'm in a job where I can get the time off to do it.

"In fact, the airline that I work for, Astraeus, we designed an aeroplane for an Iron Maiden tour and flew it round the world, we've done it twice now.

"It's never been done before, bands have had private jets before, but no band until Maiden has even come up with the idea of taking all the equipment, and the road crew and the band on one aircraft.

"It's like the biggest tour bus in the world."

The flight was due to leave Liverpool at 1100 BST.

From BBC News

The ending of Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II or, more specifically, the lack of one.

Which game do you think most exemplifies a title that, despite having several notable flaws, is greater than the sum of its parts?

1. Marge vs The Monorail

2. Cape Feare

3. Sunday, Cruddy Sunday

4. You Only Move Twice

5. The Springfield Files

6. Trash of the Titans

7. The Cartridge Family

8. Homer at the Bat

9. The Joy of Sect

10. Homer the Great

I would imagine that you will get a fairly similar quality of service from both retailers as Game now owns Gamestation. I've heard mixed reports about delivery times, but there have been plenty of people who have received pre-ordered games either on or before their scheduled release dates. If, as you say, you have a Game reward card, you might as well go with them, but the difference will probably be negligible.

It's only expensive cos of the exchange rate. 25,000 yen is really the equivalent of about £125 or $250.

That's a fair point, and I agree that $250 is the most likely US launch price. I can see the UK paying over the odds, though, as is usually the case.

I dare say there will be plenty of new iterations of the 3DS over the years, so I won't be rushing to buy it at launch. To put things into perspective, 25,000 yen is the same price at which the Wii was sold at launch. Having said that, though, I'm more excited for the 3DS than I ever was for the Wii, and I'm not even into handheld gaming.

The 3DS has been given a Japanese release date of 26th February 2011, and it will be sold at a price of 25,000 yen (approximately $300 or £190). A release date for North America and Europe has not been fully specified, but is expected to be around March 2011.

Link

The next piece of downloadable content for this game, entitled "The Sacrifice", has been given an official release date of 5th October. As some of you may know, it will be a prequel to "The Passing" and will also be compatible with the original Left 4 Dead.

Source

Try this one.

I agree that it looks great, but I can see it being like last year's Create-a-Storyline mode in that it will be limited for no good reason other than to allow the developers to modfy said restrictions in the following instalment and tout them as groundbreaking improvements.

EDIT: Beaten to it.

http://uk.ps3.ign.com/articles/112/1122960p1.html

A few more details and some new footage of the WWE Universe Mode.

1. Metal Gear Solid

2. Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic

3. Super Street Fighter II

4. Comix Zone

5. Grand Theft Auto: Vice City

6. Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater

7. Halo: Combat Evolved

8. Streets of Rage 2

9. Sonic The Hedgehog

10. Max Payne

Why do people keep calling Gears of War an FPS?

If you're referring to my post, I actually called it a 'gritty' shooter, not an FPS, but I can see that I probably didn't make myself totally clear.

Steam normally won't allow you to launch the game before midnight on the day before release day, iirc.

Thanks. That's a shame, but at least it will mean that I don't have to be as picky when it comes to choosing where to pre-order the game.

For those who aren't already aware. SI announced the release date of FM11 as 5th November

I'll be looking forward to it. As far as I'm aware, there should also be a demo released a couple of weeks beforehand.

Does anyone know whether or not the retail version of the game can be activated on Steam if one happens to be fortunate enough to purchase it before the official release date? I have recently had a few of my pre-ordered games arrive a day before release, but never anything that requires activation through Steam.

I'll add myself to the Zelda bridgade on this one. While the games in the series have never really struck me as being particularly bad, I never got into them myself. Under normal circumstances, I could probably let my feelings of indifference for a video game slide, but it just irks me that Zelda seems to be the franchise that most posters on other message boards deem immune from criticism. The mere suggestion that Ocarina of Time, for example, isn't a divinely perfect creation sent from the heavens is akin to blasphemy in the eyes of some people, or so it would seem.

The general distaste for the FPS genre doesn't surprise me, particularly as far as Halo and Call of Duty are concerned. I quite like shooters myself, and I do enjoy the Halo and Left 4 Dead series, but the main problem nowadays is that there are so many "gritty" shooters out there that everything seems so stale and saturated at the moment. We all know that Activision will continue to churn out new COD games every year until people eventually lose interest, and I certainly can't see Microsoft abandoning Halo and Gears of War for many years to come. As a result, quite a few of the other genres tend to get lost in the mix, which is a real shame.

As for Guitar Hero/Rock Band, I can't see a great problem with them, other than the fact that they seem to be released far too frequently. To me, as other people have said, rhythm games simply serve as a source of harmless fun, and those who genuinely believe that they will turn them into rock stars make up an extremely small minority. Those who try to take the high ground and slam them for not taking up a real instrument instead are far more irritating to me.

1. Ronnie James Dio

2. Bruce Dickinson

3. Corey Taylor

4. Steve Perry

5. Rob Halford

6. Tim "Ripper" Owens

7. Ozzy Osbourne

8. Sammy Hagar

9. Ian Gillan

10. Vera Lynn

Some of the achievements for the Xbox 360 version have now been revealed:

List

Several predictable ones there, such as those relating to the Road to Wrestlemania mode, but the first few achievements on the list seem quite interesting.

A pre-load is now available to those who pre-ordered the game through Steam.

I am looking forward to the prospect of playing the likes of Mass Effect 3 and Uncharted 3, and I fully expect both to be formally announced within the next year or so. You could throw Half-Life 2: Episode 2 in there as well, but that should have already been released if Valve had stuck to their original timeframe.

As for sequels that appear to be unlikely to ever materialise, I will echo the support for Jade Empire 2 and KOTOR 3, but particularly the latter. The KOTOR series is one of my all-time favourites and, even with all the cut content from KOTOR 2, it still had more than enough legs to carry a third instalment.

Other than those two titles, I would really like to see a sequel to XIII, the cel-shaded game from around 2003. Its reviews were mixed and it ended up in the bargain bins very quickly, but I loved the story, artistic style and simple FPS gameplay. The cliffhanger ending left it wide open for a sequel, but poor sales have all but killed off such a possibility.

Out of curiosity, what exactly did you dislike about Condemned? I can see that it has some flaws, but I would call it one of my favourite games of this generation.

After asking a question about Spurs and CL seedings etc and stok linking to the UEFA coefficient table it got me into thinking. It would seem plausible to me that the dynamic leagues function in this years FM would mean that it would be possible for coefficients (which are in the game aren't they?) to go up with clubs performing better in Europe which might mean that leagues could gain and lose European places?

I thought that was already in the game. Correct me if I'm wrong, though, as I haven't played a game in the series since FM08.