Hutch2004

I cannot believe the controversy around this at the moment. Bale's known as being an actor who takes acting very seriously, and while he's doing a scene with Bryce Dallas Howard, his D.O.P is walking around, on set, directly behind the person he's talking to? I'd fucking snap too. On a less serious side, the rant is hilarious, it's brilliant to the point of me wondering if it was scripted. If nothing else, he's a funny guy.

I'm guessing stamina needs to be turned on for that? Is it still as hard to get as it used to be?

I thought the only non-SS move that gives a tap out is Undertaker's choke? Well, I've played as Regal and absolutely destroyed my opponent, and they still don't tap. So unless I have to actually kill them first, I'm pretty sure it does. I thought being a Submission specialist just means you can get submissions off non-finisher or signature SS submission moves? They still have to be SS though, I'm pretty sure.

I had a HUGE WCW title tournament, where I played every single match, randomly deciding who I would play as as each match came up. Some BRILLIANT matches. Kane eventually won, despite me not playing as him ONCE throughout the entire tournament. He demolished Matt Hardy in the first round, after I (as Matt) kicked out of a chokeslam, but when I attempted a top rope clothesline, countered, caught me in the chokeslam UCG, hit that, earned a finisher, picked me up and chokeslammed me for the third time to win. He then annihilated Punk in the second round, and Regal (who I really wanted to win) in the finals, before having a decent match against Flair (me playing as him) before eventually hitting the chokeslam for the win, and the title. Some really surprisingly good matches, Punk vs Finlay in the first round was good, and Mark Henry vs Regal (also in the first round) was far more epic than it had any right to be. It was awesome. In the first round with me playing as Cody Rhodes vs Batista, Batista hit a few clotheslines, countered a charge into the turnbuckle, hit a backbreaker, then followed it up with a full nelson slam, then hit the Batista bomb for the win. Quickest I've ever lost a match, but I thought it was brilliant, lost in under a minute, and here was me thinking Rhodes could have been a potential underdog champion. Through luck of the draw, I ended up playing as Regal in all of his matches, which was great, he's REALLY fun to play as, if you remove the knee trembler as a finish, and just give him a regular running knee. Replace that with the Regal Stretch as a finisher, and change his signatures to Tiger Bomb 2 and Half Nelson suplex. Makes him feel a lot more rounded, but I HATE that the Regal Stretch isn't a submission move. It feels utterly pointless pinning someone after putting them in a submission hold.

If anyone wants a pretty good way to play Smackdown, try the Tournament Mode. I've just played through an entire 8 man tournament in one go. I was attempting to get William Regal to win, and of course he got DESTROYED in the second round by Kennedy. Vary the styles, and you end up with some really interesting matches. I had Punk vs MVP, me playing as Punk, and MVP beat the crap out of me until eventually he hit the Player's Boot for the win. I had Rey vs Kendrick, with me playing as Rey, and Kendrick came DAMN close to winning in a really fast paced match, until I caught him with a roll up. There was just some really good matches, and I tried not to pre-plan anything, eg: Hoping it would be a Kennedy/MVP final, and just went with the flow. A great way to kill half an hour. Still pissed MVP won. Bastard. Unbeatable bastard.

This is a bad idea. If it's not an official thing, I'd rather not see it. I don't know why a bunch of fans would register a domain name and start circling a petition thinking that they'll get a budget, a blessing and the go-ahead to make a continuation to an official series. If a multi-million dollar grossing movie didn't persuade people to continue the series, why do they think a one page website and a nice sentiment would do otherwise?

That's what I mean. It seems daft. I could replace it with the Superkick, but it doesn't look like how he does it at all. You can create the SCM in create a finisher, but it's got to have a strike BEFORE you hit the kick, which again takes away the whole point of the move. On a side note, I LOVE the new animation for HBK's flying elbow drop. There's some really nice animated moves this game, Kane's chokeslam is another good one. Has anyone here BEATEN Cena in a 1 vs 1 on Legend difficulty? I swear to God, he's invincible, and I love it. Beating Cena is now something I try every time I put the game on. No luck with Rey, Edge or Orton so far. I can suffer being smashed into the ground by an F-U and beaten within 5 minutes every time, because I know when I beat the bastard it's going to feel very good.

Only CAW I've created so far is myself. I don't feel like having to take all my CAWs through career mode just to make them any sort of threat to the regular roster. I likely won't create any until the planned patch comes out that just lets you assign attribute points as you see fit provided you've completed the career mode once. Hopefully it'll allow you to assign abilities as well, as I can't stand having to spend ages battering people with weapons just to get the Object ability, or leaping off the turnbuckle to get Outside Dives, while making sure I don't fight anyone with Possum Pin, in case I accidentaly unlock that for my CAW. Hopefully this patch will be released around Christmas with the DLC. Plus, I don't want to create any WWE guys like I usually do, as they'll likely just be available as DLC at some point in the future. It seriously irritates me that they took out the standing Sweet Chin Music. I've rejigged HBK's moveset, but he still can't hit his finisher out of nowhere, which is sort of the point of the SCM anyway. I mean, at least you can alter Orton's moveset to get the regular RKO if you want it, but no such luck for HBK.

I think the difficulty is brilliant. I can play as Orton, and rather conclusively beat Punk, but he'll come DAMN close to hitting me with the GTS once or twice. Of course, I once had a last man standing match, Triple H vs Orton for the WWE championship that just went on and on and on. Had to hit him with a spinebuster, then a sledgehammer shot, THEN about the third pedigree of the match just to keep him down. Felt good though, especially after he punted me in the head on the entrance ramp, I thought it was over then. Most balanced gameplay in a Smackdown game, I think.

David Anders, yes, good choice. I'll be happy with that.

Anyone heard about the interconnectivity between SDvsRaw and the Legends of Wrestlemania game? Apparently you can transfer superstars from Smackdown over to LOW to play dream matches. Freaking awesome. I wasn't going to bother with LOW, but I will now, just for that.

I don't get why the "younger actor" argument comes up so often when talking about Doctor Who casting. It's family orientated sci-fi programming produced by the BBC. Sex appeal isn't really the most important factor, in my opinion. I'd rather see someone not particularly well known, or maybe a soap actor or something, rather than someone who has already been the main character in a very high profile tv series before.

I'm really struggling to think what it may be. Scramble match? Stretcher match? Punjabi Prison? Those are the only WWE match types that aren't in the game. Unless it's an I Quit match. Extreme Elimination Chamber (Chamber but with weapons) is likely too. Oh, and also announced in the video, you can create tag team entrances the same as you can in singles matches. Nice.

Hopefully it's something a bit more interesting than that. They haven't said if tournament mode from last year is still in, which is something I really liked. Beat the clock challenges were utterly pointless though playing against the com.

Gamingring Interview A long, but interesting interview. Highlights include: Create-a-Belt is NOT in the game. The demo will include a tag team match. More than 60% of all moves are reanimated, including strikes. There are more reanimated and new moves in this game than in any other Smackdown game so far. Downloadable content has been confirmed. The THQ guy said that the content would be available not long after the launch, but wouldn't tell "Who... or what" will be available. There is one all-new hidden match type that has yet to be revealed, that you unlock by going through Career mode. There are still some "surprise" additions to the roster yet to be revealed, as well as a "few little surprises". When copying a CAS, the attributes will reset to default. There are a LOT of new CAS items, hair was specifically mentioned. The ONLY way to raise stats on a CAW is playing through Career mode, and the speed the stats will go up depend on what you do in the match. Eg: Lots of taunts means a big boost in charisma. Only the 360 version will have "trophies" that you can unlock for doing certain things in season mode. There are quite a few unlockable belts available. Maximum online play is four people. So no online 6-man matches. There are small improvements to ladder, TLC, cage and table matches. Hell in a Cell has had the old "falling off the cell" animations removed, and new ones added, including new animations for interacting with the cell and falling through the roof. Royal Rumble, however, has not been touched. There are 64 layers in CAS on both PS3 and Xbox. There are 30 CAW slots on all systems. Highlight Reel can also take still pictures. There are 20 slots for your Highlight Reel videos, and 20 slots for still images. These can only be accessed in-game though, so no saving directly to your harddrive. That's about all I can remember off the top of my head. If I remember anything else, I'll edit it in.

I think the best thing about the editor is being able to change superstars alignment, so where as Jericho in the game would default come out to cheers, you can switch it to boos. It's a little thing, but it'll add to the game play. Not every feature needs to be massively game changing.

I went to the cinema to watch it live. I thought it was really good, though Russell Howard was by far the highlight. Only one I didn't like was the woman from Flight of the Conchords, it just fell sort of flat.

Really not sure on this. But, I hated the idea of Smallville when I first heard about it, so I'll see.

Boogeyman? Burke? Odd choices. This looks like one of the best rosters they've had in quite a long time. I'm looking forward to playing as Hornswoggle. No, seriously, I am.

That looks fantastic. I really, really hope the gameplay matches the graphics, they're phenomenal. Looks like Bioshock. But with Batman. What part of that isn't brilliant?

I don't have a problem with it. I like Will Smith, and I don't see Captain America as having to be white. Plus, when they do an Avengers movie, I really want to see Will Smith and Robert Downey Jr on the screen at the same time, and having Edward Norton there doesn't hurt either. Awesome charisma is why Smith's being cast, in addition to the money he's sure to bring it. I think the biggest stumbling block this will take is if Will Smith will WANT to do Captain America after Hancock. Two unrelated superhero movies might be a bit much.

I don't care who the commentary is coming from, it's a set of pre-written, pre-recorded lines. Actual commentating ability has pretty much no effect on the commentary in game, so it can be Cole and Coach, or JR and King, it doesn't really matter. Although Benjamin was using the Paydirt since before Wrestlemania, it was quite awhile before anyone gave it a name. I think it was randomly called in an ECW match. Like John Morrison's Moonlight Drive, it's a move that HAS a name, but doesn't often get called. I don't think it was until he moved to Smackdown that it actually started being called on a regular basis, wasn't it? Besides, the only part about it that's irritating is them calling it that in the commentary, and even then, it's a minor gripe. What's the deal with finishing moves? It looks like you can only hit them when you're at full momentum, and if you store it, it becomes a signature move. So does that mean you get two finishers, and select three signature moves for trademarks? That's a lot of customisation, especially when you can then choose six abilities that give you different character specific things you can do. It's really going to be like what they said last year, that every character is going to be very different, and you're going to end up picking the character who has the combination of abilities that you like the best.

In IGN's Match of the Week (or whatever they're calling it), there is a LOT of that. So it actually looks like the commentary is a little bit worse than last year. I never actually listen to what it's saying though, it's just there so I can hear J.R while I play a wrestling game. On another note, Coach is in it, which actually suits a game more than it ever did TV. Benjamin looks the best model they've had so far. I was hoping for him in his all gold attire, but this one is quite good too. The Paydirt is in too, which is nice. Anyone know what each of the special abilities do? We've seen Illegal Pin, where they place their feet on the ropes, and Possum Pin has been in the last few years, but I'm curious to know what "Hammer Throw" does. Benjamin seems to have the best set of abilities so far, with: Benjamin's Abilities Dirty Pin / Hammer Throw Ladder Match / Outside Dives Springboard / Possum Pin The Ladder Match ability look interesting as well, no idea what it could do. My favourite one they've mentioned so far is the Nip-Up, where if you have a stored finisher, you can use it at any point, and bounce onto your feet HBK style, with full momentum. Could lead to some really interesting match-ups, which look a lot more natural in the moves this year. It looks like a LOT of the basic animations have been re-done, which they say they've done every year, but this year actually looks like they've done it. All in all, I'm much more excited this year than last year, as it looks like a better game, and a lot more polished, where as last year just felt like they had one idea and stuck with it, even to the detriment of the game play.

That's Hollywood though. Having spent the day reading "The Greatest Sci-Fi Films Never Made" and watching Entourage, I think it's incredible any decent films get made at all. If it's good, even JUST good, then I'll be happy. If it's brilliant, I'll weep with happiness.

Unsure about the movie, it'll likely be an Indy 4 style nostalgia trip. Bit unsure if Bill Murray will do it, him having become a bit of a serious(ish) actor recently. But that "Is it Ghostbusters 2?" thing is bloody marvellous.