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Ah Trevor. Once you let him out of the trailer park he won't be contained

Yeah, good old quest meander . Seems to become more natural to open up bigger tranches of the map once you hit Trevor, if only because you're out in the expanses (altho there's still masses to do out there!). Can def recommend the simple art of the 'high octane taxi service' as a fun way to role the dice and get sent to new places. (Got a feeling you may need to actually buy the taxi service to unlock that tho. Tried clicking in an ambulance the other day and it didn't offer me missions. Maybe I need to buy a hospital? I could probably do with one the way I'm going! )

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Given GTA 5 a rest for a few days and have been playing Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm That Looks A Bit Like Guild Wars If You Squint.

I think that's the title, anyway.

I'm actually quite enjoying it, although the acid test will be if I subscribe after the 30 day trial finishes. Played a bit of the pre-salvage operation FFXIV and the new one is a lot better - Characters and gameplay are solid and there are a lot of nice little touches in quests.

It's fun to play now.

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"Critics are like eunuchs in a harem; they know how the Tatty 100 is done, they've seen it done every day, but they're unable to do it themselves." - Brendan Behan

I'm on the fence about FF14, got the next 8 days off and was thinking about getting it. Watched a couple of gameplay vids etc.

I was always a big fan of FF series since FF8, then played all of them since but really didn't like 13. Never played the online ones yet.

Is it worth having a go Tact? Where do you get the 30 day free trail?

Is it like FF games or is it more like standard MMO?

I actually got the PS3 version, £20 in Tescos with a 30 day trial. Yep it's gonna look a lot better on PC but I'm kinda used to playing Final Fantasies on console (got XIII, XIII-2 and all the PS1 games on PS3 and will buy the FFX remaster once it lands).

On console, I suppose the one game I'd compare it to in terms of gameplay is FFXII - similar combat and looks and it's open world as opposed to XIII's series of increasingly boring (but very pretty) corridors.

There is a police helicopter by the road shaped like a penis. That is all.

You've got a road near you shaped like a penis? Wow.

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Logged another several missions, finished the heist (wow!!), unlocked Trevor (Woah!), and spent a lot of time just marveling at the design of this game. Ridiculously well done, and by far the best GTA title I have played. I explored around and brought a property somewhere in the boonies, as well.

Addicted!

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Anyone dress Trevor up in non-Trevor clothes for the giggles? The look on his face when you put him in a suit is priceless.

Come to think of it, this might just be his normal clothes buying look, but it tickled me.

I'm loving the random encounters, even though they're usually just glorified taxi missions.

EDIT - SteamOS? Colour me slightly interested. If the game performance improvement is what they claim (and not just some sort of arbitrary improvement to how certain games normally perform on Linux) I'll give it a shot.

@Seds: Hah, glad those bits didn't disappoint

I've been dawdling, but now slowly putting together the 2nd heist. (In between getting Michel a midlife-crisis motorbike, and dieing a lot as T). On the slow-savour approach can also reco the no auto-aim approach btw. Means you have to be a touch more tactical, thinking about cover and ordinance etc. And when you snuff it somehow feels right (going up against 20 odd guys should be hard right?). Feels like you get more out of the missions etc somehow. (Had to turn it back on for one rampage mini mission tho).

Still hoping to get my gf to have a try eventually - she's in town planning, and should dig the cityscape really, if she gave it the time of day. (For now she just forgives me for diving into it when I tell her the music playing on the radio )

*EDIT* @Tatty: Have you seen Michael's expression at getting dressed in anything? (Actually to be fair, I haven't tried him in any Miami Vice style suits yet )

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Trevor Travesty of the Day

Messed up my first bounty mission. Found the place but couldn't find the target at all. Got so sidetracked playing with the giant vehicles around that when his voice suddenly appeared out of the night I shot him in the face from sheer startle reflex. Whoooops

Not done any of the bounty missions but I did my first Trevor's Celeb Stalking/Theft one yesterday.

Then there's Franklin's weird side quests, which I'll spoiler.

Now that you mention it, I do remember Michael being a bit arsey when you play dress-up. Maybe all three characters do this.

Not done any of the bounty missions but I did my first Trevor's Celeb Stalking/Theft one yesterday.

Then there's Franklin's weird side quests, which I'll spoiler.

Franklin seems pretty chilled when I've faffed about.

The Celeb guys are grand aren't they The penultimate chase is a treat too. (Reckon that's vague enough not to spoilerise!)

Have you played much with the car customisation? I've been slamming turbo tuning on everything, and then wondering whether that's a blunt tool -and whether it's worth tuning the transmission too? (It no longer effects the acceleration rating, but wondering whether it makes it all a bit smoother?)

Gonna do it regardless with Michael's show-bike, because I reckon he doesn't know what he's doing. Just like me

I've not done much with the tuning apart from uprating the brakes. If changing the gearbox doesn't change acceleration I've no idea what it'll do.

Anyone who wants a Steam key for Mafia II, PM me. I got it free because I bought something else on Gamefly but already have the game. Not played it in ages but remember it being decent but a bit of a resource hog on PC.

Trevor is such a psychopath and has like 0 redeeming qualities, but I can't help but love him though.

It's more that the acceleration bar normally gets maxed out by the turbo add-on, so it makes no visible difference to it to improve transmission etc. Wondering whether it might improve the timing of the gear changes in some other way tho. Will have a play.

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@NBAluke Not having any redeeming qualities is his redeeming quality. He's proper zen

Trevor is my favorite character in the game, he is just a psychopath and is hilarious!

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~In the event of a Zombie Uprising, remember to sever the head or destroy the brain!~

Sooooo, the Steam Box is real, although it's now a Steam Machine (when it should have been called Steam Engine ). It's even appeared on Valve's store - Link

What intrigues me is right at the end of the page: "Am I going to be using a mouse and a keyboard in the living-room? If you want. But Steam and SteamOS work well with gamepads, too. Stay tuned, though - we have some more to say very soon on the topic of input."

At the very least it's a gamepad but hopefully it's some way of making a keyboard and mouse type control system easy for the sofa.

Enjoying GTA V so far, just taking my time with it. Definitely worth the wait, I've nearly completed all the hobbies and activities and I've got the second and third heists lined up, looking forward to finally getting some cash in. I know there is still a lot to look forward to on this game, mainly the online next week

I'm really intrigued by the steam machine, I haven't had a good pc gaming system for a very long time but wouldn't mind one at a decent price. Seriously thinking about it next generation considering how little playstation and microsoft have sold me on their new system.

This is what I'm thinking as well - I might cave in and get a PS4 at some point but if I can build a PC who's form factor allows it to sit under the TV and who's power is comparable to my desktop's I mightn't bother.

The config I've been experimenting with is a standard tower case with a micro-ATX mobo and good ventilation. I could probably swap the innards to a media centre case but am going to wait until SteamOS is released before making that jump. If I replace the DVD writer with a Blu Ray one then the PS3 will probably go into storage.

No chance to game last night - hopefully tonight!