Humanoid

So while most of the new Enemy Within content is relatively fresh and interesting, there's also the matter of Operation Progeny, a planned DLC that was scrapped and included as part of the expansion. Short version is that it was rightly scrapped, it manages to be worse than the first DLC, which was awful, but at least had some cool hats included.

So it's more a case of in 1997, you had a canvas painting of the Mona Lisa with a bit of the bottom part chopped off. Today, you get a postage stamp depicting the Mona Lisa, with a bit of the bottom part chopped off.

I still get that Cheyenne's eyes floating out the side bug in New Vegas....

I got the quest that supposedly initiates the Dark Brotherhood questline, but never got any further until literally dozens of (real life) hours later, at which point I had more or less had my fill of the game. See the thing is, other than for hardcore RPing reasons, the game doesn't really ever give you a reason to sleep.... The Thieves' Guild quest ....well, I found writing in the denouement so offensively stupid that I just tabbed to quit the conversation (a word of praise for Bethesda, all games need this function) and left. Well, I was going to murder everyone and leave, but *surprise*, plot armour.

More specifically, don't investigate the dragon attack.

At that price for the normal version, I may have bitten. But instead they were asking closer to $30, and obviously the "low violence" Aussie version. Yeah, no.

The much anticipated XCOM base defense. To be honest, I was getting pretty bored of the game just then, as the phase of the game where you're endlessly breaching large UFO after large UFO, including, most frequently, my most hated map in the game, the supply barge. So something different was cool. Throwing the rest in spoilers, but obviously pretty mild stuff anyway. Right now though, number one on my wishlist is just a stripped down, almost skirmish mode where you just do mission after mission on the standard abduction maps. Never mind UFOs, never mind plot, screw Exalt and DLC missions, and screw economy and panic micromanagement. Just give me the core of the game without any of the window dressing.

Learned something new - Amazon are perfectly okay with shipping PSUs overseas. With it being Cyber Monday and all, there are some good deals to be had. Voltage isn't an issue because every halfway decent one has switching input, so the only difference is the shape of the power plug.

Strongly in favour of. I've been wanting to play Darklands, but can't bring myself to endure even one second of its combat system. Just make it a single menu option labelled 'fight' and be done with it.

Whale is great but unfortunately a bit of a one-time deal in terms of tension. Once you know how it works, it's fairly easy to game. Not even talking the extreme level of taking one flying unit and doing it solo (the aliens won't be able to do anything but stare longingly at you), but just in getting at close as you can to the trigger point without actually setting it off. A Jetboot mech or a jumping genemodded trooper won't trigger it until you're at the upper deck. And I assume mimetic skin will break it just like it breaks the game in general. The operation Progeny missions fail where that succeeded. The first mission just encourages people to learn every single spawn point and camp it, turning it from an unfairly balanced bloodbath to a methodical farming expedition.

Morrowind was interesting to me, but wore me out with the constant running about in Vivec, so I didn't get overly far. Oblivion I despised, I'd go as far as to say it's the worst game I've ever purchased (with CivCTP and ME3 rounding out the podium). With that in mind, I can genuinely say I enjoyed Skyrim. Didn't finish it, didn't even come close, and have no interest in the DLC whatsoever. Winced at some of the writing, refused to even go through with some of the most ridiculous aspects of its railroading, and cursed Bethesda a lot, but in the end, fully worth the money. A game on contradictions I guess. On topic, first and only planned purchase of the sale thus far, Euro Truck Simulator 2: Going East DLC.

Those are fantastic value and handily beat the blinged up competitors that cost twice as much. For what it's worth, if in doubt my preferred reference is SPCR's recommended list. As for Corsair, it pays to check out who their OEM is for each individual model. They have some market-leading products, but also some stinkers. Aside, while most PSU internal fans are soldered on, some use plugs and would be easily replaced. *Normally* it's a standard size case fan. Then again, for those handy with a soldering iron or even just happy with braiding and electrical tape, even the former isn't a big obstacle. Just make sure to discharge the PSU fully before opening it up - unplug the PC at the wall and try hitting the power button a few times. Might also leave it to sit for a while to be extra sure.

Heh, only just remembered we have a Union Jack as well and therefore would be impacted by the decision. I for one hopes it happens then just to see the reaction to having to change.

I'm not American, but my plans involve trawling bargain websites looking for cheap tat to import. Also expensive tat on discount.

I reckon these days for any remotely mobile device, I'd not just prefer SSDs, but I'd actively refuse to use spindle drives at all. Indeed I'd leave the 2.5" bay blank and just run off the mSATA/M.2 drive in such a scenario. For various reasons of noise, weight, reliability/ruggedness. Heck, the machine I'm using now only has an eMMC system drive plus a microSD card for extra storage. Those massive Alienware-style desktop replacement notebooks might be exempt I guess, but then such devices would have enough upgradability to not require the combo drive.

It's something I've both never really thought about, nor am particularly curious about. Probably partly due to the fact that I barely even knew my grandparents - by the time I was eight I had lost three of them already (and never really had much contact with the last one, being overseas and all). I don't know the slightest thing about my great-grandparents, not what they looked like, what they did, or even their names. And my parents aren't much help in this regard as they didn't really know their grandparents either. So uh, my knowledge of family history barely goes back fifty years. But I find I don't mind not knowing.

I don't mind it either. Actually at the moment I'm debating whether to do an upgrade to 8.1 on this machine (convertible netbook thingie), or instead nuke everything and do a clean install sans-OEM-bloatware. But rationally, this machine is used for nothing but web browsing, so the logical thing would be to not do it at all. It'll be relevant when I receive my serious new machine (the Thinkpad) though. Apparently Lenovo aren't doing 8.1 default on their business-oriented machines until next year. Blah. Sort of relevant - one thing I'm liking about my recent reinstall onto a new SSD is that 2.5" drive power requirements mean it's trivial to transfer the old data over without messing around in the case. Simple SATA-to-USB cable and basically my old SSD is just a gigantic USB stick.

Only been back a couple years myself, but like an old glove, fit back in just fine. Weird to think about it, but this place has been around for longer than all its predecessors combined, even adding together the communities that ran concurrently. And yet shortly it'll be the tenth anniversary of starting here. Sure doesn't feel like it to me.

Now that they don't need my money, I guess I'll give them money. Okay, it's more that the campaign has gone on so long it's had the reverse effect of making it easy to forget about. Was going to go minimum, but eh, for once the rungs just above are actually attractive (as opposed to just being an extra PDF or MP3 or whatnot).

XCOM has Scotland as separate from the UK, and it's set in 2015. I have no reason to believe that's not completely true. But in all seriousness, if not for the fact that the vote is actually happening, I'd have assumed it was something as likely to succeed as the fringe section of Western Australians who wish to secede. Obviously Scotland has centuries of history that make it incomparable, but talking in terms of contemporary interests, they probably have less rational reasons to do so. P.S. Wotcha!

My solution to online shopping anxiety, waiting for that one delivery to arrive, is to instead buy new things every day such that new loot arrives every day.

Especially if it's a decent laptop which should have an mSATA or M.2 port for additional storage. I'm a bit annoyed at the schism between those two standards though, like the mini-USB versus micro-USB standards, it just makes it harder for the end user.

Missing the link there, I assume this thing is what you're talking about? It's a standard 1TB laptop drive with some NAND stuffed in the crevices? Have to say it seems pointless to me. For the price you can just about get 500GB of pure SSD which I'd think would work more nicely. Or for the same or possibly lesser price, pick up an SSD of the same capacity *and* a 2TB 2.5" spindle - I've think even the smallest ITX cases have room for a couple 2.5" disks at minimum. (Or if it didn't, just some room in general to double-sided-tape an SSD onto)

Hard to say, might be worth trying a repair install of Windows (you don't lose everything, but a fair bit of re-updating). Perhaps run some diagnostics on your system drive - assuming it's the Samsung, their SSD Magician utility is very good.

Doing anything in particular when the BSODs happened? My first instinct would probably be Memtest, and also system file checker to check your OS install is okay (open a command prompt with admin rights, type sfc /scannow).