DE.

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.

I'm not one for throwing out systems either. I'm currently in possession of an Atari 2600, Sega Master System, NES, Game Boy Advance, Game Gear, Panasonic 3DO, Philips CDi, Sega Mega Drive I & II, Sega Mega CD, Sega Pico, Super Famicom, Super Nintendo, PS1 (multiple), N64, Sega Saturn, Sega Dreamcast, Nintendo Gamecube, PS2 (multiple), Xbox, Nintendo Wii, PS3, Xbox 360, PS4, PSVR, NES Mini, SNES Mini & Oculus Rift, plus multiple games for all of the above systems... so yeah, I either have a collection or a problem depending on whether you're a gaming enthusiast or my missus. FF8's junctioning system isn't actually particularly difficult once you get your head around it. I read through a guide which explained it and once I started messing around with it I got what I was doing pretty quickly. The main issue with the junctioning system is that you can effectively break the game within the first hour by leveling up all of your GFs (summons) which give you extra abilities, extra HP, extra strength, etc. Once you've got junctioning sorted and have enough magic the game becomes reallllly easy. The story is worth playing through though at least once imo, but I know some people don't like it. Much like FF7 it's a bit... out there. But I like that.

Yeah, I figured as much. In all honesty I'm not sure how well that entire sequence would translate to modern gaming anyway. I got the PS4 enhanced version FF12 for Christmas, so I have that to play at some point. No shame in only having a PS2 btw, it's a great console. I installed a hard drive into mine to avoid using the disc drive, works pretty well!

Haha, yeah... FF7 was really out there. Also, Hellatic Hojo... In graphically enhanced HD? No thanks... For some reason Bizarro Septhiroth creeped me out as well WTF. This game is actually a lot creepier than I've ever given it credit for.

Yeah, indeed. A lot of the stuff in FF7 that was creepy (normal in Japan tbf, but creepy to us), weird or downright bizarre tended to come across as amusing in 1997 due to the blocky graphics and weird translations. There's so much stuff that just wouldn't retain that same amusement factor in a remake - when you think about it Cid's abusive relationship with Shera is pretty awful, but because of the graphics and translations it's more 'ha, ha, what a dick Cid is' rather than 'holy shit, this guy is a wife beating asshole'. I assume a lot of that stuff will be toned down in the remake or removed completely, but then, how faithful is it to the original game? Not especially. I also assume some enemies will be missing from the remake. Remember Hell House? And frankly, I do not want to see this definition of nightmare fuel in a remake: In fact the whole ShinRa mansion in Nibelheim would just be horrifically creepy with improved graphics quality. It was unsettling enough in the original game.

You know it's strange, for the longest time I thought I wanted a FF7 remake, but now it's here... I'm not sure I do. Sure, it's got blocky graphics, amusing mid-90s 3D cutscenes, some odd translations, text boxes to read, somewhat annoying random battles, and a lot of stuff that wouldn't get past censors these days... but I don't care. That's all a part of what gives the game its charm. I don't think a remake will capture any of that. I only really would ever have wanted a remaster which touched up the blockiness (maybe brought it up to FF8 quality models?), improved the translation a bit and turned down the random battle encounter rate a little. That would have done me just fine. I'm not sure I want a full remake with @#/?ing episodes, DLC and shitty voice acting. The more I think about it the less it appeals to me. You should definitely try Chrono Trigger. It's not to everybody's tastes but I enjoyed it, anyway. Will add Pyre to the list, no idea when I'll get to it though

I'm not optimistic about anything Square-Enix do with the franchise these days, but I am curious as to what they'll end up producing. It's taking so long that it feels like a lot of the momentum has already disappeared and people are just getting nervous now about the ways they can screw it up. I was one of the few who seemed to enjoy Advent Children, though, so I'm not that difficult to please. Re: Pyre, no, I haven't played that. But I've barely played any flat screen games over the past couple of years, it's pretty much been exclusively VR stuff. The only flat games I've played are retro stuff from the 80's & 90's. I take your point on playing games long past their time of release, but on the other hand I enjoyed playing Chrono Trigger and FF8 in recent times, so I'm not sure it's the graphics quality or game mechanics that are the problem when it comes to FF6 & FF9. I think I just prefer the type of worlds 7 & 8 explored - future cyber-punk/dystopian settings. That's more my style than quasi-medieval or industrial age environments.

You are correct. I actually really like FF8 as well, although as a kid I never got through it. I didn't get the junction system. A couple of years ago I replayed it and beat it pretty easily, junction system actually makes the game incredibly easy once you get the hang of it. I thought the ending was great, much better than 7's 'wtf' ending which kind of spoiled what was otherwise a god-tier game. FF9 was another I never got into as a kid. Tried it as an adult and was even less interested. I guess it just isn't to my taste. 10 was OK, but I never completed it. Got stuck somewhere and gave up. Not been back to it yet. Played a bit of 13 when I got my 360 and it didn't interest me. I also played through 6 recently (never played it as a kid, didn't have a SNES) and whilst it was good, for me it didn't live up to the online hype. Too many characters for me, and the story was a bit goofy. Plus there were some unforgivable difficulty spikes which were hard to accept, especially as the majority of the game is easy. I wasn't as enamored with Kefka as everyone else seems to be, either. Just felt like a cartoon villain to me. Still got to play through 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 & 12.Not especially interested in going beyond that and doubt I'll ever get through all of those any time soon. These games take more time than I generally have available!

Good post, I was thinking the same thing. Bowyer's first season was a little frustrating in that we kept coming close and then falling away, but compared to the previous few seasons under Venky's it was a huge improvement. Second season things started to decline slightly (and Bowyer did still have most of our better players during this period), and by the third season the squad had been stripped down to the bare bones in terms of quality. That's when tension began bubbling under the surface, and once that snake Coyle was appointed we were almost back to the Steve Kean era in terms of the supporters and the board/management/team being totally disconnected. Except this time there were a lot less people to put any pressure on. Mowbray has done well to put us back into an upward trajectory, but like you part of me is waiting for Venky's to screw us all over again. It makes it difficult to fully enjoy what's happening, although I appreciate that a lot of fans do seem able to completely ignore the past and live in the moment. I envy them.

Judging by comments I read on Derby's forums a couple of weeks ago, Lawrence isn't particularly popular among the support. Although that might have just been frustrations from the horrendous run they were on at the time. I remember him blowing hot and cold for us. And obviously, that miss against Burnley.

I hope you're right!

Lowe will assumedly be released from Birmingham in the summer. I pray to any and all existing deities that we don't end up bringing him back.

Barnsley could still catch Brum if they win their game in hand. Bolton and Reading not out of it yet either. Hull should be OK now on 41 points. I think we would have survived this season's Championship, even with our terrible squad of 2016/17. Coyle would have had us down there but Mowbray probably would have been able to save us. Assuming we get promoted this season relegation might actually have done us some good, though. We still won't be at squad levels of 13/14 and under Venky's I'm not sure we ever will be again, but if we'd stayed in the Championship I doubt the likes of Dack sign for us and we'd still probably have wasters like Steele, Akpan, Lowe, etc clinging on. As far as Sunderland are concerned, at least Rovers got a few half-decent years in the Championship out of Venky's... Sunderland have just dropped like a stone. Just 6 wins all season. I read that Jack Rodwell's contract still has a year to run and he'll still be on £40k pw next year in League 1 (he's on £72k pw at the moment). We've been there with the likes of Etuhu, Murphy, etc, but at least Venky's had the "sense" (using that word very loosely) to cut a deal and get rid of them, rather than let them linger around the club like a bad smell, "earning" a full wage until the bitter end.