Scott McFly

I've only ever played the first Sims and never touched any of the expansion packs, but wasn't The Sims Unleashed expansion for the first game pretty much the same idea?

Sony's controller has a tilt sensor, which is all in-built into the controller. Nintendo's controller uses an external infra-red sensor to detect the exact position of the controller in space and can also detect what direction you move it, how fast you move it etc. If you watch the press conferences, you'll see the difference. Sony's was being used to steer a craft by leaning the pad left and right, wheras Nintendo's was being used as a replica of a tennis racket. No plans to get any next-gen consoles for me at the moment, I'm quite happy to stick with my Xbox, especially with the prices of games seemingly in freefall. My bro's got a 360 though, and although it looks good, it's not my type of thing at the moment. Although some of the Wii stuff did look very fun to play, I'd rather put money towards a laptop at this moment in time, as that would be of more use to me.

Just to clear this up, every country has to have at least 3 goalkeepers. Being Scottish, the selection doesn't affect me that much, but let's not say things we can't take back - Phil Neville over Owen Hargreaves? Hargreaves isn't fantastic, but I don't think Phil Neville is the man to take instead.

In answer to the original question, I can't imagine them not including at least some of the well known ECW wrestlers, particularly people who already work for WWE like RVD. Just because it's called SmackDown vs Raw doesn't mean they can't include any other wrestlers. It used to be called just SmackDown, but they had Raw wrestlers on there too.

Marty's not in right now, can I come?

Wow, what a great game! Been a long time since I've seen a game that exciting at that level - well done to Steve McLaren and the whole Boro team, hope they win the whole thing, they really deserve it.

I wouldn't say Revolution sounded generic at all. It sounded powerful, it made the console sound like something to stand up and take notice of. Now it just sounds like a small, crappy PDA or something. And I'm sure some people can already say this, but would you like to say you've had a Wii under your TV?

I think they're connecting 360 as a full circle to revolution, as in a revolution of going from the start back round to the start again. ...I think. Which is the most tenuous link I've ever heard.

"Do you wanna come round to my place and play some Xbox?" "Yeah, sure" "Do you wanna come round to my place and play some Playstation?" "Yeah, sounds great" "Do you wanna come round to my place and play some Wii?" "...what?" I know the proof is in the games and it should be judged on the experience of playing the console, but that really is a dumb name. I don't care if "ii" means "good" in Japan, over here "ii" is pronounced "ee" and placed with the "w" it sounds like slang for piss. Don't get me wrong, everything about the console sounds great, but Revolution was a decent name - it got across the idea of the new controller and the virtual console being things never seen in a console before, but Wii just sounds crap. Bad move IMO.

When it's Football Manager, it's hard just to play just a little bit. Well, it is for me anyway.

There's no way that's true. An "80's Reclamation Department"? How can that not be a joke? And also:

I ususally give up games during revision/exam time (right now in fact... ) or any other busy time at uni, and it's usually for a month or so. So good luck, I at least had uni work that stopped me from playing, whereas you're just doing it to prove you can. One thing - when you go back to playing them it won't feel right the first few times you play, you won't get back into the swing of it for about a week or so. Or at least I didn't.

I think you can watch it online if you missed it: http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbctwo And yeah, Clarkson was pretty good and the Aussie guy on Bill's team. Phil was good too. In fact, probably just say that if you're name isn't Anthony Costa then you were good. I'm so glad Clarkson got right on his case, I really fucking hate him. Trisha wasn't too bad, but didn't really do anything except unintentionally set up the Aussie guy with some good one liners.

No Xbox ones though, just 360 and PS2 by the looks of things. I think I'll probably just get an official Controller S as a treat for myself since I can't really find any decent reviews of any of the 3rd party ones and I don't really want to buy one only for it to fall apart and have to buy an official one in the end. Thanks for all the help though.

Hmm... can't seem to find any Mad Catz controllers for sale on any of the UK sites. I presume they're just sold in North America.

OK, at the moment I'm using one of the giant Xbox pads, but am looking to get one of the smaller "S style" ones. I've used the Joytech Neo S in the past and IMO it's very good, but then I've never used the official Controller S to compare. I'm also looking at the Logic 3 S-Type pad. I could get a Neo S from Play for a tenner and the Logic 3 one is going at Gamestation for the same, whereas a Controller S would set me back £18. Not really interested in a wireless pad, as I don't really wanna pay craploads for batteries, I don't really mind the wire and I had a Joytech one in the past and the springs in the battery compartment fused to themselves, making it no use at all. Basically, a good old-fashioned wired pad will do me. Does anyone use any of the above pads? I presume plenty of people use the official one, but is it worth £8 more than one of the 3rd party ones? I'm a little wary of 3rd party syndrome, where the pad turns out to be bollocks, but don't really want to spend almost double for the same thing. The main reason I'm getting a new one, is I'll be finishing uni soon and might actually have time to play the damn thing, so I'm looking to get a lot of use out of it. Almost thinking I should just treat myself to an official one if I'm gonna be using it a lot, but I thought I'd see what all you good people have to say first, as that's always the best thing to do. Any feedback on the above pads would be appreciated, or if there's any other suggestions, fire away. EDIT: Forgot to say, I dug out all my old Official Xbox Magazines, and they gave the Joytech one 5/5 and the Logic 3 one 4/5. Can't find anything on the official one, but I presume it's a 5/5.

Another small thing - shouldn't the champion's name come first in all the match listings? Like the idea you're going for on the back, but as mentioned, it's a bit all-over-the-place. Also don't like how the text at the bottom on the back overlaps the pictures and how Angle goes over the outline of the logo. And also as mentioned, the front is a bit plain, it doesn't really say "WrestleMania" to me. :ohwell: Some good ideas there, a bit of spit & polish should help though.

You'd have to include The Sims I'd say, it's the biggest selling PC game of all time and was certainly the big game of recent years, in my opinion, that attracted non-gamers and women to gaming like no other seems to have. I guess you could include some of the big MMO's such as World Of Warcraft and Everquest that seem to get people addicted to ridiculous levels, including people dying because they play for so long. Also the fact that people pay real money (and lots of it) for items in-game. Not controvertial in the obvious sense, but there's definitely some issues there. I think all the obvious controvertial games have been mentioned: Manhunt, GTA (including the ridiculous hot coffee malarky), Mortal Kombat, Doom, Postal, Carmageddon. EDIT: I remember doing an essay on censorship many years ago for an English project and came across the game Harvester. Another game to throw in with the controversial ones, it apparantly features everything under the sun: violence, sex, S&M, cannabalism, racism. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harvester_%28computer_game%29

Apologies for the sidetrack, but I notice a lot of people are putting Civ IV down - my mate has it and keeps going on about it, but I'm not too sure if my computer will be able to run it and I need to curb my spending a bit. So is Civ III just as good to get, as my comp is able to handle that and I should be able to get it dirt cheap, or is it not worth it? I bought Alpha Centauri a few years ago in a bargain bin, but I've never gotten round to playing it, should I just stick to that?

Agreed about the ref, some strange yellow cards given out. And Forlan should have sunk that chance he had after Rangers fucked up the free kick at the other end. Not a Rangers fan as such, but good to see them doing well, I hope they get through so McLeish can leave on a relatively high note.