Not a fan of the wheels, but looks good lowered. Tints I can take or leave, but I don't think they really spoil the look of the car.

All of this conversation makes me wish I could go driving even more. Damn you all

As long as it has the same feel of the original and lets you save your custom movies and stuff, I'm interested. One of my favourite features of Driver was the way the hub caps would come off when you turned sharply I also loved the look of weight transfer the cars had, even if the physics didn't seem to be affected.

The original Driver is one of the games I've been desperately trying to find my CDs of. I want the music. Likewise all the Screamer games. Stupid house moves.

I get Apple's thinking where that's concerned, but their thinking is too much like a developer and not enough like an average user. When I want to look at websites and get that lovely big empty space where a piece of Flash might be, all it does it point out a limitation of the product.

As a user, my first thought is not "thank you Apple for protecting my device from that battery draining bloated piece of pointlessness", it's "well damn, I wonder what I'm missing out on this time". I can't use shortened URLs to YouTube videos because they'll try to open in a browser which doesn't support them. Which is very clumsy on a device which has so many Twitter apps you'd get tired shaking a stick at them.

It's all about user choice. Even if they disabled it by default and made me check an option in the system settings to gain access to it I'd be happy. It seems that this is Apple showing their heritage. They've always been about being good at making stuff rather than using it.

I love my iPhone (3G) to bits, but their reluctance to embrace one of the most prolific web media technologies makes me boggle. Lack of Flash support is one of the things that makes me want to go with a rival next time. Not everyone can or wants to create an entire app to stream stuff. I love the Weebls Stuff website, but I can't see them releasing an app. And yes, I know the animations are on YouTube as well, but that's not the point.

I'm not even that bothered about most of the new features. I only use one thing at a time on my phone (unless you count apps and music, which this one already does) so I don't need multitasking.

And the Quattro marketing thing is a massive turn-off from OS4 too. I don't want them tracking everything I'm doing. I don't buy PC games that do targeted adverts, why would I want to have no choice in the matter on my phone?

I hopped on a random free roam last night and once again it was just people killing each other. I did manage to clear out one of the gang hideouts solo while getting sniped by some mong outside, so I think I deserve kudos for that Then I got the Rockstar achievement, so if anyone needs that achievement, feel free to kill me dead

In town I stick to speed limits religiously (or moreso since I'm not religious at all). Because I don't want to have to live with the fact I couldn't stop in time when that kid runs out in front of me because I was driving too fast. If someone behind me starts flashing their lights I drop my speed even more. I'm nice like that.

Riding a moped isn't so dangerous, the person you're most likely to hurt is yourself. Even if you hit a pedestrian

I could be persuaded to do a bit of that too. I prefer getting my achievements organically, but if I can get into online trouble while I'm at it then fair play. That said, not sure when I'll have the chance to spend a decent amount of time playing.

Finished the story last night. Not bad at all. Not spoiling anything though. Could've lived without the last few missions but I get why they're there.

So now there's just the online modes ahead of me, and seeing if I can farm some single player achievements

Where is everyone? I logged in thinking you'd all be online, but it's deserted!

Oh that's right, it's Friday night and some people have lives. My mistake

The level of detail is absolutely incredible. They made up for the lack of buildings and big obvious contact like that by boosting the level of detail in the stuff you see. Realistic animals, loads of random missions, stunning graphics, etc. The Sarcastic Gamer Red Show podcast (#115 if you want to check it out) talked about a whole load of stuff that I hadn't even thought about.

I'll be available from 7pm tonight for a few hours. I might be on Batman AA, but don't let that stop you

Just wish there was a bank robbery mission. In fact, I'm sort of expecting that'll be a DLC addition at some point.

And I'm with you, jibber. I usually finish the single-player before heading online. I started doing that to avoid story spoilers, but these days it's just so that I actually get finished. If I didn't I'd end up never completing it

You know me. I'm up for anything. I think the co-op parts are going to be stronger than the PvP bits, so I'm happy to do hunting or gang hideouts with any of you guys. Just send me an invite.

Or some mindless runs, hiding out in banks and blasting away anyone who comes through the door

I'd definitely be up for some of those ideas (if I had a working wheel, yeah yeah yeah). I love driving the UF1. I'd even be happy to do the longer tracks in it. Maybe not the extreme ones like FE Black, but the middle Aston configs would be okay too.

I also love driving the FO8, but I suck with it. It's rewarding when you get it right, but harsh and unforgiving when you get it wrong.

And the old Wrecker Barricade worked in terms of having a nearly gamewide blacklist. Shame it didn't last.

The first rule of German Car Club is... you do not talk about German Car Club!

Hey, that'd make a good second rule too.

Maybe that just means Scawen is hard at work and we're due a big patch. Maybe people will stop asking then (because I'm sure he must be as desperate to shut them up as the rest of us)

Half past seventeen.

I tweeted to everyone in the world! If you're not following @dajmin it's not my fault

I keep getting screwed over by strangers. I've yet to manage a lynch mob rescue (the hanging person always dies before I can even find them), and yesterday I got my horse stolen by a random chick in her underwear! My version of Marston needs to man up

Those servers you're talking about though - what's running on them? Are they cycling combos or are they all running GTR/AS3, FOX/BL1, FBM/AS1 and BF1/KY1? If that's the only choices then it's not what I'd consider to be a healthy state.

Likewise, if the unusual combos are all on password protected servers then 99% of the world can't join them so they can't really count either.

I'm desperate to get back into LFS when I get my new wheel, but I can't help but forget that one of the things that turned me away (other than my old wheel breaking) was the endless, mindless repetition of the same old tracks and cars. Variety being the spice of life and all that. If there's plenty of servers running combos I couldn't do blindfolded (hey, there's a challenge idea) then I'll happily eat my words and admit that it's perfectly healthy.

Either way, odds are it's normal. It's a crazy loud beast. Mine thunders away in the corner when I'm playing it too.

I wouldn't want to risk it with the PS3 either. It takes a far smaller scratch to bugger a blu-ray than it does a DVD, because the data on the disc is in a much smaller physical space.

If in doubt, pull it out. That phrase will serve everyone well through life

That's the problem I had. I eventually found 3 copies in my local Argos (where I only checked because it was on the way home). I tweeted about it and everything

Depending on how deep the scratches are, a gentle application of nail polish remover can often lessen the scratches and get a disc readable again.
And since I'm in a "I ignored instructions and am now complaining I broke something" thread, I'm going to remind you to apply it with a very soft cloth and polish it off thoroughly when you're done

The stages of testing are not named according to who is involved. An "alpha" tag merely means that it's in a stage where extra features are still expected to be added and that you should also expect fairly serious bugs. A "beta" tag means that most of the major bugs have been mended and that the feature list (in the case of LFS this would be cars and tracks) is pretty much fixed.
Obviously this isn't the case with LFS because there are cars being added as we speak and possibly tracks as well. So a beta tag would be incorrect and misleading, implying that development of the workings is finished and that the only thing left to sort out are bugs.

As for whether it's dying or not, I'm on the side of "in the current state, probably". Not because the content isn't good (I still love the general driving feel of LFS above everything but real life) but because after 7 years it's stale. Let's be honest here, look at major franchises and you'll see why the release every couple of years - Gears of War was only released in 2006 and has already seen one sequel released and another peek out from development. Halo 3 was 2007 and has already spawned ODST and is about to get Reach as well. Both Uncharted games have come since 2007. All of these have DLC to keep things as fresh as possible.

The 3-man development team is admirable in terms of scope, because it's a lot for just one programmer to sort out. But it is definitely showing it's limitations these days.

Yup, the first massacre was brilliant, but the others were alright in a sort of less crazy way. Need to try it somewhere else next time

360 sir, and no lie. I shall see you at sun-up.