I feel like "arcadey" was probably the worst way I could have put "the gameplay was considerably better than FIFA's", and I'm glad somebody's come along to correct that. I'm not much of a fan of football as a real sport, but have, until the more recent attempts to copy... whatever it is FIFA's trying to do (which started around about the Xbox 360 and PS3 era, I believe) always considered PES the more enjoyable of the two to play.

Of course, the power of licenses outdoes quality for the majority of people, and that definitely didn't help PES in the long run.

The Lords of Shadow sub-series for PS3 and XBox 360. It's kind of disingenuous of me to refer to them as a "clone" of a more popular game - but they're third-person action games in the same vein as God of War, with a very similar emphasis on being "cinematic" - whatever that means. The combat's the usual "mash light attack until a symbol pops over their head and use a QTE to execute them" fare you'd expect from God of War and its ilk; and the games have absolutely nothing in common with the exploration-based platformers ("metroidvanias", if you must) the series has been known for ever since Symphony of the Night.

I admit, my dislike for Lords of Shadow is at least partially influenced by the fact it's nothing to do with "proper" Castlevania, but the fact there are much better examples of the kind of game it is definitely helps.

Kojima's been trying to break away from the Metal Gear series for a while now, to be fair. His other notable works; Snatcher/Policenauts, Boktai and Zone of the Enders are all fantastic games; and his ego or arrogance never really imprints them -that- much... or it fits in better with the more fantastical settings of those games.

As for the Metal Gear series getting any better, I don't think I trust Konami circa 2015 to do the franchise justice. Castlevania's name is forever tarnished by subpar God of War clones; Pro Evo Soccer has been floundering about in some attempt to copy FIFA, forgetting all about the more arcade-styled gameplay that set the series apart to begin with; Gradius, Contra, BomberMan (yep, they own that now!) and more franchises than I can remember are essentially dead to them; and the franchises they do still make games for just aren't making them any money due to a complete lack of advertising or just being shoddy products in general.

I presume Free is "Free as in Freedom" Free and free is "free as in beer" free, which is how the FSF differentiates between the two.

Bogus reports; either in the form of some hack trying to grub money or somebody reporting a bug that wasn't a bug at all, perchance? Considering the amount of money on offer, I can see both being pretty goddamn prevalent.

Funny that you mention that game. The GAME nearest to me is selling it second-hand for £39.99. A quick search on Zavvi tells me that they're selling the Xbox360 version, brand new, for £36.95

The other big game that they're not selling new, Mass Effect 3, is also £39.99 second-hand in my local GAME branch. I'd check prices for that, but I'm lazy, and can confirm seeing new copies being sold for somewhere in the £30 range.

As for price reductions for copies of games without boxes or manuals... you're a funny man. Another example from my local GAME branch - Lego Star Wars 2 on Nintendo DS. £15 with the original box and manual. The same game, minus manual and in a generic "we do not have the cover for this game" box... £15. Hell, that price tag is no guarantee of me getting a working cartridge/disc, either - they do reduce trade-in values if your disc is scratched, but it's a total crapshoot whether they'll, you know, clean the discs before putting them on the shelves. If they don't, it sets the eventual buyer back another £3. Or in the case of cartridge games, leaves the buyer with a paperweight. To be fair, they probably don't clean the discs deliberately - it's £3 of pure profit on top of the already ridiculous mark-up; and at one point, they actively rewarded sales assistants who managed to upsell disc cleaning for pre-owned games.

Now, be fair. It's available for the low, low price of one thousand pounds or thereabouts, last time I checked. Bargain.

I've given Cinnamon 1.2 a go over the course of a few hours. Sadly, the Mint Menu is mandatory, much to my own disappointment (it's usable, but I prefer the "proper" GNOME menu). That said, it's GNOME 3 done right - outside of a few incredibly minor gripes (the Super Key opens the menu rather than the activities pane; you have to move your mouse to the top left hand corner of the screen to open the activities pane though I'm sure it'll be easy enough to change that behaviour in a future version), I'm loving it so far, and can't wait to see what future releases will bring from both Clem and the wider mint community.

The Circle Pad Pro, as Nintendo have taken to calling it, is by no means required. Certain games (Ace Combat, Resident Evil Revelations, Metal Gear, Monster Hunter and many others I'm too lazy to name) use it as a second analogue stick (optional camera controls, basically), but none of them -require- it. In fact, I play Monster Hunter on my Japanese 3DS without the Circle Pad Pro; and it works just fine.
On top of this, none of the games announced to have support for the peripheral actually -require- it, yet. That might change over the next year or so, but until then, the Circle Pad Pro is far from a required add-on.

Hell, why use computers at all? Let's go back to smoke signals!