There's a notable difference between the enemies in FF8 compared to FF7, they're a lot less fantastical and seem more grounded in real creatures (you fight a lot of soldiers in random battles too). There are still some fantasy-based ones (the GFs, Cactuar, Fake President Deling, some of the monsters at the end of the game) but there's a noticeable shift into a more realistic art style. Also worth a read for anybody who likes FF8: Squall's Dead theory - http://squallsdead.com/ Rinoa/Ultimecia theory - http://www.heartilly.com/rinoa/article_ultimecia.html Spoilers in both links for anybody who hasn't played through the game and intends to! I don't believe either of them were intended as part of the actual plot by the writers, but I love how creative both theories are

In all honesty I'd take promotion this season and survival next. I can't bring myself to dream beyond that with Venky's in charge.

For me we had a couple of turning points in the Championship - firstly when Bowyer was hired after that torrid first season. He was able to hold the ship above water and brought in some very good players on a fairly small budget. The next turning point was when the taps were turned off and we sold all of our best players. That led to Bowyer's sacking, Lambert's brief stint and ultimately the hiring of Coyle and relegation. I think it remains to be seen whether our relegation is a turning point or just evidence of what we can expect going forward. If Venky's fail to invest adequately next season and/or sell the likes of Dack and Mulgrew then we will be back to square one and could end up yo-yoing between the Championship and L1 for a while, as a succession of managers come and go.

Maybe a little harsh there chief! Our first season in the Championship was pretty miserable and chaotic, granted, but the season we finished 7th under Bowyer wasn't too bad. The season we finished 9th was frustrating but I wouldn't call it miserable. The next two seasons were horrendous but we at least had a little hope before Venky's screwed us over again. Sunderland are in a very steep downward spiral which shows no sign of abating. I mean, we had problems, but we never had a Jack Rodwell on £73k pw, for example... We got to see some decent players during our time in the Championship as well. Admittedly some of them never came close to reaching their potential for whatever reasons, but others had arguably the best periods of their careers with us. The likes of Cairney, King, Gestede, Rhodes and Conway (when he was good) gave us some really good moments. No such luck for Sunderland. Even worse for them their owner is trying to give them away for free and nobody wants them (except possibly Niall Quinn, seems to have gone quiet though).

Sunderland almost certainly down now. 6 points adrift with only three games remaining. They need to win all three of their remaining matches (only won 6 all season) and hope pretty much every team above them fails to win.

Back then 1.1m wasn't a huge outlay for a youngster with potential... Nowadays we pay £750k for our tailsman. Venky's

Apparently these were posted around the Stadium of Light at the last home match gotta love a bit of gallows humour.

I pretty much agree with everything you say, my only point is that if you're an ambitious Ipswich fan you shouldn't be happy with Marcus Evans running the club, nor should you expect a change of manager to suddenly make the match day experience more exciting. Whoever comes in will still have no money, a weak squad and will be tasked with defending the owner and deflecting journalists questions about lack of funding. I suppose a relegation battle is in theory more exciting than plodding along in mid table, but I imagine the fans will be booing just as loudly nonetheless.

The fans should be looking to get rid of the owner then, not the manager, else it's just rearranging deckchairs on the titanic.

I get the feeling he'll end up somewhere with far better prospects than Ipswich.

He's been dealing with it for months now, so a little surprising if tonight was the night that broke him. On the other hand, not much point in sticking around if you're going to get abuse even when you win matches. Just a bunch of dead rubbers left at this point anyway.

Didn't expect that. Seems like he was waiting to get at least one more win before leaving.

Big Club lose tonight but Barnsley beaten 1-0 by Ipswich and Sunderland only manage a 1-1 draw at home to Norwich. Meanwhile a Cardiff defeat to Villa and a Fulham win at home to Reading means Fulham leapfrog Cardiff into 2nd, but Cardiff have a game in hand. Looks like that one might go down to the wire!

For me it's been worth every penny, but the overall experience seems to be a very subjective one. Some people love it, some people hate it, a lot of people are somewhere in the middle. One of my friends liked the idea, bought a PSVR but couldn't stop puking, so ended up regretfully selling it. That's a rare case but it can happen. My suggestion would be, if at all possible, try it out first. You'll know after 10-15 minutes whether VR gaming is for you. Affordability is something to consider, but if you've already got a PS4 you should be able to get a PSVR & Camera second hand for less than a couple of hundred Euros. I think they've been doing bundles recently pricing the headset & camera new between 200-250, so the price is coming down. Goes without saying that the Rift is a totally different proposition. I paid well over £1k for the headset/controllers along with a PC powerful enough to run it. I don't regret the investment as the Rift is awesome, but still, PSVR is a very affordable entry point. It has its limitations but two of my favourite VR games in RIGS and Wipeout are exclusive to PSVR so I wouldn't be without it.

To call something ahead of it's time suggests it had some redeeming values which were only appreciated once it was gone. You could call the 3DO and CDi ahead of their time as they tried to use CDs as a multimedia/gaming medium a few years before it really took off with the original PlayStation. Both consoles failed miserably for various reasons (3DO primarily its ridiculous price, CDi because they tried to market it as a multimedia centre rather than a console) but in using CD technology for games & movies they were a little ahead of their time. The CDi technically wasn't discontinued until 1998, granted, but it was dead in the water by 1994. Virtual Boy on the other hand had no redeeming features. It was basically a pair of 3D glasses on a pair of short legs which showed everything in red & black and gave the user eyestrain and headaches within 20 minutes of playing. Practically every VB game could have been on Game Boy and been no worse off for it. It's kind of amazing that a company as experienced as Nintendo made such a massive misstep. Even SEGA, who were known for their crazy marketing ideas, decided against going down the VR route after realising the technology just wasn't there yet. Have to admit I would have liked to have tried Sega VR though. AVGN's Virtual Boy review on YouTube covers it pretty well if you want an idea of what the games were like.

Having the leads all out at once would be horrible, but keeping them packed away makes it pretty easy. Most consoles only really have a power cable and an RF/Scart/AV/HDMI lead. A lot of them can swap around as well. PS1 & PS2 for example can use the same cables, and so can PS3/PS4. In all honesty I barely play mine either. They're more like decorations or ornaments I just like walking in and seeing them all sitting there. Most of what I actually play is VR these days. What is cool is that with the Oculus Rift somebody made a program which emulates the Virtual Boy. It does a great job too - even adjusts the movement so that it doesn't give the user the headaches that the actual Virtual Boy does.

One of the great things about Final Fantasy 8 is that one of your GFs can learn an ability that, if applied, will completely remove random encounters from the game. If you want to you can literally learn this at the very start of the game, too. Because monsters and bosses level up with you in FF8 failing to level up doesn't handicap you, either. If anything the lower level you are the easier the game is, due to the way the junctioning system works.

The NES/SNES minis aren't much more than Raspberry Pi machines in official clothing, to be fair. From what I understand those setups work fine, but still... it's not the real thing Nah, they're set up based on the best TV to use. The 8/16/32 bit consoles are pretty much all in the spare room with the 17" CRT. The Dreamcast/PS2/XBOX/Gamecube are in the bedroom with the 32" TV, and the latest consoles (plus the CDi, for some reason) are in the living room with the 50" TV! I keep all the leads and wires packed away, as it gets horrifically messy if they're all hooked up behind the TV. I just get the leads out as and when I need them. There's a lot of very... unique monster designs in FF7. FF8 was a little more conservative in that sense. I'm not sure exactly how faithful they will be in the remake. If random encounters are completely gone, which I assume they will be, then most of the monsters will probably be gone too. We'll basically just be left with ShinRa soldiers and bosses/mini-bosses.

Prices on retro gaming are up across the board at the moment, but especially with rare stuff like the Jaguar, CD32, 32X, etc. It's a great time to get a PS1, PS2, PS3, Mega Drive, XBOX 360 or Wii though. Prices on all of those consoles remain reasonable, and a lot of the games are dirt cheap at the moment too. Still a lot of awesome games from the last gen that are worth picking up and giving a go.

The A500 and A1200 were both really nice pieces of kit. So nice that Commodore struggled to move out of their shadow. Hell, my A500 works to this day. I had to replace the floppy disk drive a few years ago but other than that it's as good as the day my dad bought it, save for a little yellowing. Damn, I didn't know anybody who had a Jaguar. They were actually planning to do an Atari Jaguar VR headset - I think prototypes do exist. They released a CD add on too. Unfortunately Atari's money ran out and the Jaguar was buried pretty fast. Still a homebrew community going to this day which is pretty cool. What irks me is that ten years ago Electronics Boutique (I think) had a sale on leftover Jaguar stock - selling boxed Jaguars for £9.99! I wasn't really into retro gaming at the time so it totally passed me by you're lucky to see a second hand one selling for less than £150 these days.

A draw for Brum at home to Burton and a 3-0 defeat for Bolton away to Derby means that if Barnsley win their game in hand they now go above both of them.

Barnsley win puts the pressure back on big club.

If I was Warnock I'd be far more enraged over not one but two of my players bottling last minute penalties. Shaking hands won't change the fact that Cardiff threw away at the very least a point, and with the form Fulham are on at the moment that result could really come back to haunt them down the stretch.

That did contribute pretty hugely, as Commodore ended up with a ton of stock they could do nothing with, but I think CD32 was doomed anyway. The company was already in poor financial health and most of the games were just ports of good Amiga 500/1200 games. I think even over here the PlayStation would still have crushed it.

Unfortunately the Jaguar, Neo Geo and Amiga CD32 tend to be quite expensive. At the moment Jags sell for about £100-£180 depending on accessories, CD32 around £200+ and Neo Geo the same (prices for Neo Geo games are also outrageous). I haven't spent more than £100 on a single system, the 3DO was the most expensive at £90 (which is still nothing compared to its RRP in the 90s!). From what I've read Asia was a bit of a wild west situation when it came to 90s consoles. Clones and pirated games everywhere. Sounds like fun. I forgot to mention I actually have an Amiga 500 as well. Would like a CDTV but again, rare and expensive. Other stuff I'm missing but would like to get is an original Japanese Famicom (not that hard to get but getting a step down converter would be the expensive part), Sega 32X (goes for well over £100, can't bring myself to spend that much on such a poor add on) and a Virtual Boy (expensive). Basically I've hit the price ceiling in terms of collecting. I don't have THAT much spare cash so unless I find a bargain the above will probably all remain absent.