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Should we just rename this 'The Dog Shit Thread'?

A new Link to the Past announced today. As thats my favourite Zelda ever , even compared to OOT which Im playing on 3DS right now, Im a happy chap.

You're a happy chap???
A little golden triangle has been glowing on my hand since that announcement.
Can. Not. Wait.

I'll go on record and state that 'A Link Between Worlds' is probably my favourite Zelda game since Majoras Mask.
It's almost a perfect game in every single way- big but not unwieldy, difficult in places but progression is very natural, sublime game mechanic and design.
I love it.
Have been gorging on it since Christmas morning, and am quite disappointed with myself I didn't take more time with it (7th Sage just rescued).
I literally could not recommend this highly enough- if you have a 3DS it's a must buy.

I got ALBW for Christmas too and am also loving it - some of my friends wonder why I have a 3DS when I already have an ipad for games - and games like this are the reason why. A really beautiful, high-quality product. Plays like a dream. I was worried the item-renting and portrait ability looked like annoying gimmicks but they work superbly.

Really makes me want to revisit A Link to the Past on the Snes, a game I adored but could never get very far on as a kid (I pretty much gave up after reaching Dark World).

I love Zelda games but find that routes to progression are often blocked by illogical puzzles. I don't mean the dungeon puzzles but when you have to give character in a village a certain object or something. I often end up going through my entire inventory to see who wants what.
These days I tend to play Zelda games with a guide. Some people may think it's cheating but I just think it makes the whole thing more enjoyable (I was turned on to playing with a reference guide when I bought Super Metroid for my Snes which came packaged with a guide).

Durham Red.

The race for Post of the Year just got very interesting.

I don't get it.


Another vote for Happy Shrapnel.

[E.T.: The Digi-buggered Version]

E.T.: The Digi-buggered Version.  This was an odd re-watch of a film I'm never too sure about.  It's atmospheric, well-observed and generally pretty great right up to the bit where E.T. and Elliot are wired up on matching gurneys.  After that it becomes mawkish and manipulative, and then sort of disintegrates into an illogical chase scene where the pursuers know exactly where their quarry is going but elect to chase some clearly adult stuntmen on BMXs through a dedicated stunt track instead.  Still, the kids' performances are great throughout, and while Mom isn't going to be winning any childcare prizes, their suburban world is very believable. 

My own eldest got a kick out of the numerous SW and D&D references, and the idea that Dad was exactly the same age as Elliot in 1982 (albeit not living largely unsupervised in a mansion filled with cool stuff, even leaving aside the pet alien).  The film also held both kids' attention all the way through, and elicited (extracted) the requisite tears-under-false-pretences at the appropriate moments.  So it's certainly a success on that rather important level.

As to the digiwankery, the matte fixes are decent, and I actually don't mind the infamous gun-swap, since you really wouldn't notice unless you already knew and it does soften the rather unnecessary threat and make Keys and the cops more sympathetic, as they largely are.  OTOH the awful, awful changes to E.T.s eyes and his terrible CGI double just make me angry.  I know Senor Spielbergo has held his hands up on this one, but even so...

I never realised there even was a digi-buggered version! Seems pointless to me.

The problem I have with ET is the same problem I have with Close Encounters and some of Spielbergs other films of this era and that's that everything thing looks dingy and dirty.
Whenever I watch ET I just want someone to open some curtains or put some lights on. The whole house looks like it needs a good spring clean too. I suppose this is to add realism but I find it distracting. Whenever I see that bit where ET hides in the mountain of cuddly toys I imagine that they're full of dust and need a good wash.

I think the Mario vs Donkey Kong games are criminally underrated.

They're simple puzzle platformers with a nicely judged learning curve. Most levels are fairly easy to complete and can be beaten through trial and error. If you want to collect all the items things get tough (think Angry a birds 3 star system).

So why didn't the Daleks go on a big murder spree over those 300 years?

Because then the Cybermen, Sontarans, Silents, or Tereleptils get to the planet.

Also, it seems to be one task force in one big spaceship.  So a battalion of Daleks spent, say, 600 years - from 2013 to 2613, say - waiting for the stalemate at this one planet to be broken.  Meanwhile, across the galaxy, every other battalion of Daleks was meanwhile doing other Daleky things.  In 2157, they invade Earth and the first Doctor stops them.  In 2540, they're pulling their space plague wheeze and the third Doctor stops them.   Leaving accomplishes nothing.

This is why the whole time war thing confuses me.

The Daleks that are at the planet rare presumably aware of the time war and that their plans were thwarted. Even if these are pre-time war Daleks they must learn of it from those church bods they took over. So why not just carry out whatever plan they had that kicked the time war off in the first place! Or at least communicate that plan to earlier Daleks to carry out.
This time they could achieve their goals at a point where the Doctor and the Time Lords aren't able to stop them.


And apart from that doesn't the time war change the lives of the past Doctors too? So now the earlier incarnations of the Doctor have the memory of turning up and sending Gallifrey into a parallel universe to end the Time War? So by the time the forth Doctor is sent to destroy the Daleks, again he may choose not to do so, but this time he's aware that it's going to result in the time war.

So why didn't the Daleks go on a big murder spree over those 300 years?

And a set of Grandville lead miniatures which I need to paint.

I think that's it now!

And a lego hero factory robot knight thing from my mate who knows I love building lego at Xmas!

I had an incredible haul this year - it's actually quite overwhelming!

A lovely Seiko Titanium watch.
Star Wars X Wing miniatures game + Millennium Falcon.
A lovely big Marvel Chronicle book by DK that's incredibly nostalgic and a gold mine of wonderful artwork.
American Horror Story Season 2
A T Shirt.
Some bathroomy shaving stuff.
Marvel Masterworks - Sgt Fury and his Howling Commandoes.
Sweets.

I also opened a Wii U and some games which I'd brought for myself on a Black Friday deal and asked my girlfriend to wrap up.

I thought the very idea of the time war was that the Timelords and Daleks were trying to wipe each other out.
If the Daleks win they're going to exterminate everyone else in the Universe right?

So in New Who the only force keeping the Daleks in check has been the Doctor.

So with the Doctor stuck on Trenzalore for 300 years what's stopping the Daleks going off and exterminating their way across the rest of the universe? Ok so some Daleks are orbiting Trenzalore and trying to kill off the Doctor or whatever, but surely not the entire Dalek race.

What do you drain your carrots with at Christmas?

An advent colander.

I like that kipper one 

 Anyone have Moffat's number? I want to ring him and remind him that sometimes less is more.

[Why did the toaster cross the road?To get to the Mother's Pride.]

One I thought up myself, which I can't believe nobody else in the UK has ever thought of, but doesn't seem to be anywhere else on the internet...

Why did the toaster cross the road?

To get to the Mother's Pride.

Good work!


Mine from dinner time:

What do you call a crate of ducks?


A box of quackers



What do you call a penguin in the Sahara?

Lost