Tigranes

Of course, but look at D2 battle.net. Just make an account, get on, play. Everything needed to enjoy the game is there, and that's it. None of this 'additional functionality' and 'rich experience' and 'be buddy-buddy with us' crap that we're starting to get now. Why did I need to use a Bio Social Network to get my free DLC, for instance? If the core functionalities of chat, friends, matchmaking and connectivity are sound, and the rest is optional, it's all good. If it insists on celebrating your birthday and popping up with promotions every ten seconds, poo.

As long as I can play Diablo 3 without getting all sorts of stupid crap forced on me... Wish the bloody social intarwebs fad would die down, this is not where online communities should be going.

We've been hearing about 'Mystary Fantasy Title' for quite a while now, at least 2 years is my guess. Also, now that you think about it, we really should have guessed this one... Space Siege was offered with AP preorders, wasn't it?

Are you using Steam? Steam uses its own game installation folders, which might muck it up somewhat (though it shouldn't.) In My documents/Alpha Protocol/Checkpoints do you see some .sav files? And do they have corresponding .dat files in the /MetaData subfolder? If the .dat files are missing, you have your saves, they just aren't showing up. Create some blank .dat files (or, if that doesn't work, I can just give you a random .dat file), rename it to match the save, and it will show up. If the .sav files are missing, that's a bigger headache - perhaps a Windows user profile thing?

Well there you go, SK go through. I thought they did quite well, but again some very poor defending gave it all back to the Nigerians for a 2-2. I don't think there's enough quality amongst the centre-backs in particular, and in the round of 16 Forlan will likely punish them for it. Greeks did a pretty good job at stopping Messi, although he's amazingly good, just like Ronaldo, he's based around trickery and dribbling, and can be stopped.

Ain't the devs fault if you cheat and then the game breaks.

I like how a few people insist on saying this year after year - go back and actually watch those games and I wonder if you'll say the same. I've been actually watching them as part of my research and well... the Italians weren't really robbed, Totti did dive and Vieri got away with elbows, etc. The ref was harsh on them for some decisions, sure, but nothing more than what Manchester United get from the refs every week in the Premier League. The Spanish should definitely have won the quarter-finals, I agree, but one game robbed by the ref? Man, doesn't that happen every World Cup (i.e. 2006, Australia). I think in a lot of cases (not you necessarily, but in general) there's also a bit of implicit racism going on where it's a lot easier to think Asians bribed the ref. Take away the crap and look at just the games, and there's not a huge jump between the 'home advantage' SK received in those two games and the biased refereeing that we see almost every week somewhere in Europe. The telling bit was how the foreign press at the time was actually evenly split between those who thought there was dodgy stuff going on, and those who thought the Italians were a bunch of crybabies for whining so much. I think it was more universally agreed the Spanish had a case. Aaaaanyway. I'm sure some people will never see eye to eye with me on that. Let's see if SK can make it to the knockout round away from home.

Damn you mkreku, now I want to play Risen. Again. But yes, the document is very interesting - you don't have to know code to get a gist of what's being said. Thanks Jean-Eric.

There was always going to be a patch, good to see that it's 'confirmed' now. DLC news might mean that sales weren't stellar...

Exactly, that was the difference in 2002 - Hiddink knew this and got the South Koreans to harass all over the pitch for 90 minutes. Spain looked fine to me- of course they should have scored a few more but I didn't see a big worry here, as long as they get better. I think Del Bosque needs to work out the balance in the attack, though, fastish - even with two anchormen behind him Xavi was way too conservative and fluffed the ball around with weak square passes rather than taking a risk in a through ball or a shot, and he was one of the main reasons Spain didn' t create anything till Villa took it into his own hands. Fabregas did much better when he came on, though then the entire team went on holiday for obvious reasons and that was that. Mata also did well - don't know what Torres was doing all night, though.

Nobody encouraged you to use any particular angle in DA:O, there was no automatic shifting or whatever going on. People just used whatever camera they wanted, which is fine, and which is waht I expect will happen with DS3. Don't see a problem.

fuzz, you hate the save system, we get it. No need to talk about it in every single thread Currently the checkpoint bug of disappearing enemies has no reliable, sure-fire solution; but for many people, using Load checkpoint (not Reload Checkpoint) helps, as does restarting the game and then loading. I get this sometimes but after doing that, has always worked - though for others, maybe not. The Mike standing bug seems to happen more consistently. Fortunately, most of the places where it affects you badly (i.e. alarm is sounded and people shoot you immediately) is at the very start of the mission (e.g. very start of airfield, jizan weapon stockpile), so you can reload from last safehouse, and you simply lose 30 seconds or so.

That's odd. So you equip the pistol but don't get Chain Shot on Z? First time I hear of something like that...

Penalty to Italy. There's a light shirtgrab but he lets go before De Rossi dives - it's both a penalty (if a soft one) and a dive. But then what do you expect from modern football.

The thing is, in any given mission, there is always a variety in difficulty - so you should only encounter a few that are so difficult as to need EMPs. I don't know. I think, on Hard, unless you have really clunky controls or really don't work well with the minigames, you shouldn't need too much investment - not so much to make it ridiculous. If you have Spy's Luck and more in Sabotage, you don't really need armour mods OR EMPs most of the time. If you have the latter two, you can probably get away with only 2 points or even none in Sabotage. Or, if you're not doing a stealth playthrough, and an alarm is sounding, you can freely bash doors... then turn off the alarm.

They really need to let Cannavaro retire in glory... wasn't an easy ball but his reaction time is surely down with age.

I don't know what 'delete all your flood' means, but here, paragraphs.

*shrug* since Paradox actually fulfills their promises to their customers, I don't see what's so bad about this. And about making it anyway - I'd have second thoughts about making a game that couldn't even get 25k hits on facebook. The Arcania vids seem to show the same opening area they showed a while ago, continues to look pretty good to me, they better not renege on the promise about turning off quest-markers and the like. It just looks a lot like Gothic 3 but without the stunlock... we'll have to see about the C&C.

Well if you're an Assistant Producer you're not just a low-end QA drone filling out bug sheets, you're pretty involved in game development already. I don't know much about Nathaniel's career but it doesn't seem that parachute.

I have no affiliations with Obsidian, mate. I find it quite interesting that you think it's justified for you to rant and rave and insult and generally act obnoxiously, but then think that other people should take you politely / seriously. If you want to debate your points in another way, we can do that. Or you might leave now, having been satisfied.

This! is total WIN~! From now! every sentence should be wrirtten THIS WAY~! Back on topic, did anyone notice the 'director's cut' stuff in their Recruit/Veteran playthroughs? I mean there's the gelato man in the first PDA shot, but otherwise I didn't notice a lot - maybe I just don't remember.

I don't dispute that the likes of C Taylor are probably working very hard and with the right mind set to make a proper fun Fallout game. I just don't like MMOs, and we've already seen how Herve Caen can turn gold into crap (or put gold in a crapper). Anyway, name's on that beta sub list, just in case miracles really do happen.

Ah, Defonten's on this project? I enjoyed his artworks as a Fallout fan, before. Herve Caen is scum and these slow 'interactive' websites don't impress me, but we'll see how this goes...

Madison is a lot better if you piss her off than if you are nice to her. She acts quite realistically in both cases - but as the scared little girl out of her depth she is pretty annoying. When she's certain that Mike is an arsehole it works quite well.

Deus Ex. Beyond Good and Evil. In the last five years? Not much. Possibly Assassin's Creed, though I don't rate the game. Depends on what part of AP you liked the most.