[Carnage]

So, anyone got Gears of War 2 yet- Does it live up to the hype?

[Bubba]

Just finished the campaign on GOW2 - it's a lot of fun - full on cheesy shootfest but the graphics are truly stunning and it plays really well.

Will attempt some multiplayer tomorrow.

[fatdoc]

fallout 3.

if you want RPG it's useable, fun, gory and enticing.

be aware its glorified turn based combat, but damn well done... a lot of thinking and easy controls, even for the console.... I'm impressed

[Bubba]

Will attempt some multiplayer tomorrow.

There's a really sweet MP mode called "Horde" - 5 players are faced with increasingly difficult waves of enemies - it gets very intense and I've just had a game lasting nearly an hour!

[superfurrymonkey]

Fallout 3 is great fun Oblivion with guns anyone. Anyone thinking of getting farcry 2 should be aware that there are save game issues, well that's what I've experienced!!

[lagerstarfish]

Lagers Jr has a Nintendo DS and has recently mentioned that a few of her friends have a "chip with loads and loads of games on". A bit of research pointed me in the direction of a variety of flash cards, SD adaptors and such that can be used to store NDS games and also let you play pirated games on the NDS.

A bit of gentle questioning (in the style of Colombo) at the schoolgate has revealed that parents have bought "Fire Cards" which came with CDs with nds files that parents can transfer to their kids cards. The interesting thing about this is that these are some of the same parents who absolutely will not let their kids watch snide DVDs - as far as I can tell this is only due to the fact that kids get bombarded with the message (on TV and on DVDs) that it is a criminal offense to copy DVDs, but don't hear the same message about NDS games - nothing to do with ethics about intellectual property rights  Maybe these parents actually believe they have bought a legit copy of hundreds of games?

Lagers Jr has already asked me whether owning such a card would be "as bad as copying DVDs".
It's a very hard thing to decide - steal software so the poor little mite can play the same games as her friends, but lie to her about its legal status and thereby get myself into a right tangle; or tell her the truth, but tell her that she must lie to everyone about the source (nasty position to put a kid in - will cause her to have no respect for rule of law); or just buy the genuine games at full price and get her to appreciate the value of hard work and prudent saving.

Anyway, that's not what I was posting about. What I was wondering was (and I have tried a few Go Ogle searches) can viruses be transmitted via NDS files?

Any reccommendations on what cards are best?

I bought Mrs Starfish a DS for her birthday last week. She has been complaining about her brain rotting during pregnancy so I thought a bit of Brain Training might help. Also, she loves logic puzzles and there are a few of that type of thing for the DS (came bundled with Prof Layton's Mysterious Village - ace). I have fewer scruples about contemplating intellectual property theft in order to help Mrs S stay sharp.

Initially, Mrs S beat my brain age of 36 by scoring 32. However, a more focused approach has got me down to 26 (YYFY).

[Jaspersharpe]

Lagers Jr has already asked me whether owning such a card would be "as bad as copying DVDs".
It's a very hard thing to decide - steal software so the poor little mite can play the same games as her friends, but lie to her about its legal status and thereby get myself into a right tangle; or tell her the truth, but tell her that she must lie to everyone about the source (nasty position to put a kid in - will cause her to have no respect for rule of law); or just buy the genuine games at full price and get her to appreciate the value of hard work and prudent saving.

The latter. Paid for by the 1.5% rate cut so not actually costing you anything in real terms.

Win win! 

[lagerstarfish]

The money that has been handed to me by The Bank of England has been ring fenced to enable me to work part time when Mrs Starfish's maternity leave runs out so that we can afford to have a Largers Mk III after that. Besides, the more I gain the more greedy I become.

[SA Chris]

I would tell her the truth straight, and get her to spread the word to all her friends, so that their parents have to field the difficult moral questions. It would be worth it just to put them on the hotspot.

(Although it's easy for me to say).

[lagerstarfish]

I would tell her the truth straight, and get her to spread the word to all her friends, so that their parents have to field the difficult moral questions. It would be worth it just to put them on the hotspot.

(Although it's easy for me to say).

The combination of my cynicism and Little Lagers' directness has already caused plenty of embarrassment at the school gate. Usually this has to do with religion, politics or school rules. The rest of the time it causes problems with the witch that I fooishly chose to be Lagers Jr's mother   

[Fiend]

For nonX360-owners who don't read the For Sale section but might want Gears Of War PC for a good price yo.

[Bubba]

GOW is so old, GOW2 purleeze!

Any WoW addicts Liching it up then? I'm still glad I kicked the habit or now i'd be feverishly grinding my way to lvl 80...

[Fiend]

I'm not sure how many X360-less PC owners will be playing GOW2 anytime soon though...

I've had two friends accuse me of being a WOW player. I've never even downloaded a trial!

[Jaspersharpe]

Easy mistake to make though.

[Bubba]

So, anyone got Gears of War 2 yet- Does it live up to the hype?

GOW2 is worth buying for the Horde mode multiplayer alone. It's seriously good. Great maps, wonderful graphics, extremely intense gameplay and great enemy AI. ***** (that's five stars, not an expletive) from me.

[Carnage]

Sweet - I played the old GOW when I borrowed a friends 360 but I thin this one is finally going to convince me to go out and by my own machine. Besides, I wanna play Resident Evil 5 as that looks awesome.

[Paul B]

So what does everybody think of the new dashboard for xbox 360?

I'm quite miffed that a lot of it doesn't seem to work too well right now, I can't download any demo's or do anything with marketplace. I'm not too sure about the whole mini me thing either.

[Bubba]

I quite like the optional install to hard drive feature (which the ps3 has) - my dvd drive is pretty fucked and it helps my load times a lot.

[Fiend]

Any ppl with a PC playing Left4Dead - good new online Coop zombie shooter from Valve?? If so, I'll be on sometimes as "Shambler", look me up and invite me aboard yo.

[Paul B]

I quite like the optional install to hard drive feature (which the ps3 has) - my dvd drive is pretty fucked and it helps my load times a lot.

have you had the halo3 message that says it will slow things down?

[Bubba]

It slows down the campaign but I'm not sure about multiplayer. I never play campaign anyway.

It's improved my GOW2 times noticeably.

It also stops the noise from the dvd drive which isn't a bad thing.

[Carnage]

So I'm gonna get my 360 on around xmas and will be straight onto GOW2 multiplayer. Whats the deal with the online play - are you restricted to country/continent only players or can I jump in with some of you guys and blast away.

(and don't worry - I'm not completely shit as I played the first one to death on a borrowed 360  )

[Paul B]

So I'm gonna get my 360 on around xmas and will be straight onto GOW2 multiplayer. Whats the deal with the online play - are you restricted to country/continent only players or can I jump in with some of you guys and blast away.

(and don't worry - I'm not completely shit as I played the first one to death on a borrowed 360  )

You can play whoever you like generally, either by random selection (matchmaking), where you can specify to only play people who speak the same language or by having a custom game where you can invite mates.

[Carnage]

Sweet - Thanks.

We should have a UKB team if there isn't one already.

[lagerstarfish]

For those Nintendo DS owners who don't already have one, I can reccommend the R4 SDHC that stores games on a micro SD card. Less than £20 delivered from MemoryBits with their Christmas 15% off - that's including the R4, a 2GB micro SD card and a USB reader/writer.
Nice and easy to drag and drop ROMs from hard drive to micro SD. With most NDS games being less than 32MB you can fit loads on a 2GB card. That's, like, games, games, games times 60 or something.