And with that, the Six Nations is done for another year, capped off last night by an enthralling and very close match between France and Ireland. It went right down to the wire, but the Irish certainly gave Brian O’Driscoll the send off he would have dreamed of (barring a Grand Slam), as they beat the French and took the championship.
We also saw the start of the F1 calendar this weekend, with some huge changes to the technology behind the cars. Though the cars sound different, it’s lovely to be able to hear the crowds over the engines, and the roars of support for Daniel Riccardo in particular.
I’ll not spoil that result here, because the highlights won’t be on the BBC until later this afternoon. Also, I’m writing this on Saturday evening!
Some of the main discussion points this week centred around future gaming technology. Persistent rumours keep cropping up surrounding a potential Sony Virtual Reality headset, potentially to be announced at GDC next week.
In many eyes, VR is too much of a niche and technology in the area still unrefined. Kjkg said that “The theory behind the VR headset is amazing, the practice is so much harder to meet expectations.”
“Funnily enough I’ve been let down by so many pieces of tech that are the ‘future’, but never seem to learn my lesson. This will no doubt be the same all over again.”
Others are more optimistic, like RudeAwakening, who said, “I actually feel VR could not come quick enough, I’m dying to try VR out.”
A more tangible piece of upcoming technology is Valve’s curious Steam Controller, which has had its latest iteration revealed.
The loss of the touch screen and the addition of more traditional buttons, alongside the intriguing dual touchpads, divided opinions. Blarty chipped in with his thoughts:
For me, I don’t like the redesign. Getting rid of the touchscreen is getting rid of one of the things that set it apart from other controllers, and one of the reasons why Valve thought their controller, and not the Xbox 360 controller, would work better with strategy and MMO-esque titles.
Then again, others simply don’t understand the appeal the touchpads at all, so I guess you can’t win them all!
Similarly divisive were some of the awards handed out at the Video Game BAFTAs. The Last of Us, Tearaway and Grand Theft Auto V all made big wins, much to the confusion of some.
As Kennykazey said, “Tearaway and GTA are fantastic, but I don’t think they deserve all that. Opinions, I know, but I still don’t have to like it.”
But a different perspective looked at not just the winners but the nominees too, as bunimomike pointed out that “Indies have done incredibly well (in my eyes) as they featured in so many categories. Something, I feel, just wouldn’t have happened a few years ago.”
I think that congratulations are in order to all those hard-working teams that won, whether you agree with them or not!
It’s been a while since we’ve had a Gaming Places submission, but Crazy_Del gave me a good reason to break out the old sticker and resurrect the feature. Without much further ado, I’ll hand over to Del to explain the craziness you see in the gallery below:
Apologies for the posters, but this is my gaming room. As you can see, I have a 42” 3D telly with three shelves above it, filled with Assassin’s Creed collectibles. Below the telly are PS3 games that I need to play or to return to for the last remaining trophies for the Platinum. I have also have 3 PlayStations – 2 PS3’s (Phat and Slim) and a PS4. The phat PS3 is linked to the arcade machine.
On the far right side of the TV is a Fridge which I have boarded up with a nostalgic gaming feel to it, like an Arcade Machine. I used cardboard around the fridge, covered it with posters all around and have hidden a small Telly on top of the box on the fridge with an arcade stick too. It’s a pound to play, with 3 continues.
Finally, on the far left is a huge cabinet with more collectibles such as Aliens and Predators, Spawn, Batman etc. and there is also another cupboard which are for games aswell as gaming collectibles such as The Last of Us, inFamous, Max Payne, Fallout Vault-Tec etc.
I think you’ll agree this is still a very impressive collection, which has only got better since we last saw it. That Arcade Fridge is certainly pretty inventive, too!
Did I mention yet that I took the Battlefield 4 platinum and record on PlayStation 3? I’m sure that’s something I would have done, but enough about me.
McProley‘s finished a run through of Ys: Memories of Celceta on PS Vita, switching over to Nightmare difficulty for his New Game + to aim for the platinum. He’s also a glutton for punishment, which is why he keeps going back to Call of Duty: Ghosts’ new Extinction map with Youles, Wick and myself.
Speaking of Youles, he’s finished plays of Lego Marvel Super Heroes on PS4 and Lego Lord of the Rings on Vita. A inferior race has also been enjoying a little bit of Lego, earning the platinum for Lego Marvel.
Assassin’s Creed as been getting some play, this past week, but it doesn’t sound like it was Black Flag. Instead, element666 earned the platinum for Assassin’s Creed: Liberation, (although that’s not quite what he wrote!) while Boomshanks is looking for a little help with the Assassin’s Creed Revelations multiplayer trophies.
TSBonyman earned himself some nice and easy trophies when he logged into Home, though he’s probably not going to go for the 100%, while Lyts1985 took to another easy game for another platinum, grinding his way through Family Game Night 4.
Our two regular trophy hunters are back in action, as R1MJAW raced through to the South Park fastest platinum. Crazy_Del, in contrast, went for something a little bit older, with the Fallout 3 platinum, as well as restoring 100% completion of The Last of Us and the Left behind DLC.
We’ll finish things off with Hornet1990‘s timely completion and platinum of inFamous. Second Son’s out next week, so he might not quite have time to get through inFamous 2, but we’ll see!
This page is done and dusted, barring the usual submissions form below, but head over to page two for the latest refresh of the Trophy Leaderboard.
If people want to send photos in of their gaming rigs, I’ll be happy to post them. Just use the submission form below, get in touch with me on Twitter at @teflon, or just send me an email out of the blue to [email protected].
Omac_brother
Holy shugar cubes. How did I get into 5th???
Stefan L
Oops!
It looks like a copy and paste of the form went a teensy bit wrong, so that you then wouldn’t be able to comment from the 1st page.
Fixed now!
TSBonyman
Aha, so that’s why i couldn’t comment yesterday – you broke it! ;)
Crazy_Del
Cheers for the pics and mention Tef ^^
I am loving my gaming arcade fridge haha.
Pixel_nme
Everybody needs a gaming/arcade fridge,it’s the future ;)
freezebug2
Great gaming room Del, a shrine to the temple of platinum. Although I think that in my case the gaming arcade fridge would more likely be a mini coffee bar rather than a pop & alcohol chiller lol. ;)