Manchester United: Submission Impossible?

For years, Liverpool fans have had to fight the cliché that they rely on past glories. The Gerrard inspired Champions League win in 2005 did help to stem the tide of insults that came from their bitter Manchurian rivals, but there's no question that over the last decade Manchester United have been in the ascendency. 

As the largest club in England, many expected the dynasty to outlast its founder Sir Alex Ferguson, but United's recent results may have left them questioning just how much David Moyes was to blame for the debacle of last season.

With three competitive games played manager Louis Van Gaal is yet to notch up a win, following the humiliating 4-0 loss to MK Dons in the Capital One Cup on Tuesday night.

The club have moved to bring in new talent, breaking the British transfer record with the £59.7m purchase of Angel Di Maria from Real Madrid, (1) but questions are being asked at the other end of the pitch, with United's defensive frailties obvious to all.

All four of MK Dons goals could be attributed to mistakes by the United backline and the team are missing a leader at the heart of defence. The failure to acquire a centre-back with the quality of Mats Hummels will sorely affect the team if it isn't rectified before the transfer window closes, but United still have time. Despite questions about Rio Ferdinand's fitness, his experience would have helped on the pitch and the dressing room this season, but instead he'll be plying his trade under Harry Redknapp at QPR.

Of course, United still have time to turn it around, and they may look back at this as a minor blip in the season as the team got used to their new manager, and their manager got used to a new league. Then again, they might not. 

With no Champions League action to look forward to, they have to push for the League this year, despite any shortcomings within the squad. If they don't, it may end up with United fans being the 'delusional' ones, as they look back to the glory years with regret.

Bound By Flame: The PS4's first RPG?

Summer can often be a lean period for games releases, with both of the new consoles suffering from a drought of new titles since their release. To make things worse, RPG's just don't seem to get published as often as they used to, especially when compared to the heady days of the PS2 era when they seemed to come out every other week.

So, Bound By Flame enters the fray as one of the first 3D, voice-acted RPG's for the PS4 - and there's no doubt that it fills a hole for me as an RPG fan. 

In fact, the game is an amalgamation of many great western RPG's I've played over the years. The combat is a watered down mix of Dark Souls with a smattering of the multi-weapon combat used in the Witcher series. 

The crafting reminds me of Two Worlds II, and the game borrows heavily from one of my favourites; Dragon Age: Origins in a number of ways, including the style, characters, enemies, the pause button, trap-making and more.

The trouble is, it never seems to amount to more than the sum of its parts. The developers should be commended for aiming for a game with a large scope, but for the most part, it's highly unpolished. 

Take the load times for example. It can take an absolute age to get through parts of the game and the areas aren't exactly large when compared to the minutes spent waiting to play, which breaks immersion and impacted on my overall enjoyment. 

The dialogue is woeful - with the added bonus of plenty of spelling mistakes in the subtitles, including getting the name of the main character wrong, ("Okay then, Volcon") which is pretty inexcusable. Who translated this game? It feels like the localisation was rushed, but it soon becomes a common theme throughout the game, especially towards the ending which is pretty much shoehorned in.

It's pretty short by RPG standards, with the last areas devoid of any of the (scant) details found earlier in the game. The companions are hardly fleshed out, and while I liked the 'choose your skill' levelling system, it would have been nice to have a few more choices to mix it up later in the game. 

The weird thing is, despite everything I came to enjoy Bound by Flame. The combat is passable, the story and dialogue is ignorable, and underneath it all lies the foundations of what could have been a truly great RPG, despite the fact that it looks nothing like what you would expect of a PS4 game. 

Instead it's just an okay one. A game I would recommend to fellow RPG fans, but only if they adjust their expectations accordingly before they buy it, whilst preparing for some extremely ropey experiences in-between the actual fun.  

A saving grace is the demonic aspect of the game, where you have the choice between gaining more power at the expense of your humanity, or preserving yourself against the entity at the expense of power. Unfortunately, near enough every decision is obviously good or evil, with no ambiguity to be found, but you pick enough evil choices you actually spout horns, which is admittedly a nice touch.   

Overall I have mixed feelings about the game, but it was enjoyable in some parts, so for fans of the genre it might be worth a cut-price buy. Might.

Watch Dogs: Great Gameplay - Poor Story

However, it does have a number of issues that hold it back from greatness, (including an incredibly unsatisfying ending) that ends up marring the experience as a whole. 

Nonetheless. its definitely worth a cut-price purchase, as long as expectations are adjusted accordingly.

Watch Dogs proved to be a divisive title for many critics and gamers, failing to live up to its much-hyped early promise. Despite issues surrounding graphical downgrades, (and more worryingly, free Nexus 7 tablets for game journalists which led to claims of 'bribery') I still found the game to be reasonably enjoyable, despite some problems with the story and its pacing, as well as the main character. 

The gameplay itself is strong, (if you ignore the lack of a melee button to punch freely) but when you take it online it starts to show off off the versatility of the games stealth aspects, which work very well.

With titles like Tomb Raider and Watch Dogs I've never really cared for the now mandatory tacked-on online portion, but after trying it in the quest for PS4 trophies, (sad I know) I discovered that it's one of the best implemented systems I've ever played.   

Cover works incredibly well, to the point that online hacking becomes a heart pounding game of cat and mouse, with opponents entirely capable of running straight past you if the cover is good enough. 

You can also hack cameras in an attempt to catch players hiding, but they can also hack them right back to stop your search. Admittedly, online tailing is terrible when compared to online hacking, but both are head and shoulders above any AI that a developer could conjure up, considering the limits of modern technology.

The game may have failed to live up to its early hype, leaving many left feeling burned after pre-ordering, but it has the fundamental strength to become a strong IP after great sales worldwide, especially in the UK where it broke sales records.  

Five things I learnt from the opening weekend of the season 

The opening day of the season finally arrived on Saturday, and true to form, it served up enough controversy to get the fans talking. Here are five of the things I learnt from the opening weekend:

1. LVG is not as infallible as the fans seem to think 

I'll admit it, I've been lured in by the prestige of Van Gaal, especially considering United's form in pre-season. He looks the part, and impressive wins against Real Madrid, Liverpool and Valencia seemed to indicate that they would start the league firing on all cylinders, but they lost their opener against Swansea 2-1, leaving them in the unfamiliar position of 15th. 

Despite the loss, Swansea are a solid team, and Van Gaal was quick to switch from his preferred 3-5-2 to 4-2-3-1 when he realised it wasn't working. Failure to change tactics on the fly was a criticism levelled at former United manager Moyes during his time with the club, (1) though many have noted that the much-maligned Scot managed to win his opening game of the season last year. This is the first time since 1972 that the club have lost their opening home fixture.

2. Man City should be (at least) joint favourites for the title 

As of today, Chelsea are the favourites to win the league, with most bookmakers pricing them at 7/4, despite the Blues yet to kick a ball this season. There's no doubt that Mourinho's little horses have grown into title contenders, but to make them favourites does a disservice to the power, strength and guile of a Man City team that won the League last year in a deserved display over 38 games.

City have also started this season as they finished the last, with their hard-fought 2-0 win against Newcastle enough to see them rise above Arsenal on goal difference at the top of the summit. The worrying thing for their rivals is that Newcastle played well, but couldn't break down the Champions, with every player hungry to make their time count in the star-studded squad.

3. Pitch invasions can still be funny

When a member of the public steps out onto the pitch it's usually a waste of time for everyone, but a fan took a decent free-kick, (forcing a save from Adrian!) after running the length of the field as West Ham faced off against Tottenham in their season opener.

Here's the video:

4. A lot of Twitter users still hate Jack Wilshere 

The social media site is awash with users that simply don't rate the Arsenal and England midfielder, with many blasting his display against Crystal Palace. Some have criticised him after he was pictured smoking, although he refuted the claims that he smoked regularly, with a representative arguing that he was dared to do so by a friend when the picture was taken.

Whatever the case, things took a turn for the worse after Jamie Redknapp addressed the smoking rumours, saying: 

'Jack Wilshere's problem is Jack Wilshere. He's not performing. He's got to take games by the scruff of the neck like two years ago - there's no excuses anymore.'

'It's nothing to do with smoking. I played with better players who smoked. I think he's competing with Ozil for a place because Ramsey will always score more goals.' (2)

Considering the season is barely two days old, Wilshere has had a pretty tough time of it so far, but he has the whole season to prove his detractors wrong, if he can.

5. Ashley Young bit off more than he could chew 

A video is doing the rounds which appears to show bird poo flying into the mouth of Ashley Young in an unprovoked assault which occurred during their loss to Swansea. The video keeps being deleted from YouTube, but it seems that the Daily Star have a dedicated video on their website, available here.

Seriously. You have to watch it more than once.