Tigranes

Still ~8 hours to go until the game, so I'm going to revise my Group C predictions: Holland [3] v Romania [1] France [1] v Italy [1] Hardly going to do me any good while I'm last, but eh. I am less and less convinced by France as time goes by.

Updating for yesterday *and* today, the table gets a lot more even (except for me), and Diogo retakes the top spot with a correct 1-0 prediction for Germany.

Well no, I trust Hildegaard wouldn't go and completely embarrass Croatia by being serious about that. So who's watching Austria-Germany? Austria's really warmed to me this tournament, definitely more entertaining than drabs like Greece or Italy. Gomez screws up again by looping the ball into the air 20cm away from an open goal, Frings is literally passing like a blind man on crutches and Austria's had a couple of decent efforts. Really hope Austria wins, but they don't have anyone capable of getting a good shot on goal.

Well, Nihat is now officially God. That was wonderful.

Huh. 1) Yes, there ARE voters who actually believe Obama is Muslim, or let that suspicion influence them. They are, without doubt, idiots. 2) But Obama has always been prepared to attack Iran if Iran was deemed a threat. In that he was never really different from Hillary or McCain, just a little more cautious I guess. His wording was different, but his position wasn't. 3) To be fair, Jewish interests do have powerful lobbying power in the US and for all his talk of change and cleaning out Washington, Obama knows that the closer he gets to the White House, the less he can afford to ignore special interests groups. I have always said that the people can vote you into power, but its the politicians who let you do anything while in power. 4) Did we really think that *any* US president in the near future would do a sudden U-turn on Israel policy? That would cause a disaster in all senses of the word for US.

Downloadin'.

In another prediction league I'm in, this dutch guy has 20 (from doing both rounds). He's insane. (I only have 9 in that one, too). On the other hand, the Pole keeps predicting victories for the Polish and it's costing him. In fact, I am losing to "Automike", which is an 'automated' bot that guesses the country with the larger population always wins 1-0. Yeah.

Thanks Architect, although you know I always have to double check. But I trust you, yes, I do. Yes. Really. My predictions: Switzerland [0] v Portugal [2] Turkey [1] v Czech Republic [1] Poland [0] v Croatia [2] Austria [0] v Germany [2] Holland [3] v Romania [1] France [2] v Italy [1] Greece [0] v Spain [3] Russia [1] v Sweden [1] Updating scores and stuff now. Edit: Okay, so, uh, I always seem to miss the right score by one goal. Maybe I should stop thinking before I predict.

Yeah, I wasn't implying 3d=nonresponsive, sorry. Its just the way I've always felt it, personally. Good to hear that about Onyx though.

Well, I'm pretty sure I sucked again. Will update scores within the next 12 hours as I'm going out. Please use this template to make your ROUND THREE predictions: Switzerland [] v Portugal [] Turkey [] v Czech Republic [] Poland [] v Croatia [] Austria [] v Germany [] Holland [] v Romania [] France [] v Italy [] Greece [] v Spain [] Russia [] v Sweden []

yep, the Dutch will lose to Russia 1-0 in the Semis, and Italy will hobble through to the final. Anybody else think it ironic that Greece were eliminated by a cagey 1-0 affair?

Definitely. Even now, when everyone can play both engines at full settings with high frame rates, it is just less responsive. It's always been one of the reasons I didn't ilke 3D - that extra bit always made the game seem more like a labour. I don't know how it is with newest games, though, because I can't play them at normal settings.

I had 3-1 to spain

Pretty disappointing for me, Spain was pretty but with no penetration and everything Villa did failed (until he scored). Aragones failed to start Fabregas again, and benching your best passer in a passing team doesn't make sense. Xavi and Iniesta couldn't create enough to get past a very determined Swedish defence, which was pretty unlucky to lose.

Sorry, but there's a hidden -5 Aussie modifier Roll to save.

'ma table beats yours hanky panky 4 shure. I am saddened by how much I suck.

It wasn't that entertaining for me, Italy continue to be dour and they're going to have tow ork hard to qualify. That said, they don't have the greatest of opopnents in France, who are really out of sorts and their morale has surely been shattered by not only the results, but the fact that qualification is out of their hands. Incredible game from the Dutch again, Van Persie's goal was fantastic team play and Robben's was crazy (if flukey). If they continue to play like this all tournament this team is going straight into legend. I'll update scores later today.

Agreed, and that's why that's not the point, as I said, and as you say. Anyway, I can see your side as well. I've got to go out, but perhaps I can pick up on this again in a few hours.

Volo, my answer to your point is already in my previous post. I'd reiterate myself, but no time, sorry. Basically, for me, Viconia was your typical drow who was quite forthright about her 'alternative' set of morals and standards: but her romance was obviously designed to show 'another side' of her who was struggling with this, and felt pain herself, etc, etc. Whether this was tastefully done or simply was another Drizzt depends on the person, but that's not the point. The point is, Viconia as a character is inevitably changed and how we perceive her as a 'person' is very much altered by this: and, unless you go in with the mindset saying "I HATE ALL ROMANCES AND I WILL BLINDLY CLICK THE 'NO' OPTION WITHOUT EVEN READING WHAT SHE HAS TO SAY", you are going to be exposed to some of that. For my part, I like well-written romances so I looked at what Viconia had to say, but eventually cut it off because I didn't like that one. Of course, now my view of Viconia is changed irrevocably, and in my point of view, for the worse. Again, you can disagree and say Viconia was awesome because of her romance, but that's not the point. The point is that simply saying 'ignore romances' is like saying you've got an uncle who's a lawyer by day but a flamboyant Spanish dancer with the pseudonym of Pedro by night, and if you don't like it you can just pretend he's just a lawyer. I don't oppose romances as a whole, I just think that just like a badly implemented feature that is right there, a badly written romance can hurt the character as a whole. I think that makes perfect sense.

It's not questionable unless you're Italian and you think shirt-pulling is okay. It's true that refs don't always give this kind of foul a penalty, but that's because the refs are wrong, not because it's not a penalty. It's a foul anywhere else in the field, so why shouldn't it be a penalty there? It's only not given because the refs have allowed it to become so prevalent, youd' be giving 20 penalties a game by now. Austria did deserve it, but it was really sad watching them - they really lifted their game for the Euros and were giving it their best, but they just didn't have it in their repertoire to finish cannily or coolly. The Germany-Austria game is going to be very interesting. Diogo Ribeiro and Pidesco now lead with 5 points, thanks to their 1-1 prediction. Table updated: Finally, it seems everybody forgot about the Top Scorer prediction: Offer expires by the end of Round 2. I know half of you will pick Villa, but that is not always the wisest course of action (queue cruciate injury)...

Nice triple, Hilde. I definitely like Croatia, if not for Eduardo, then for their entertaining style of play. They are a good team. I predicted a narrow German win because I believed that after the first game, Low would see reason and drop Gomez, and supply Podolski with more (and you saw what he can do), and also start Schweinsteiger. I was wrong, and Low showed a total lack of creativity or ambition when he fielded that exact same side. The same culprits that were useless in the Poland game (Gomez, Ballack, Jansen) let down the whole team again, and this time Croatia was a lot better than Poland. I still believe that without Eduardo as the mercurial finisher, there will come a game in the knockout stages where Croatia will just not be able to find that goal - but I do hope they go far, and think they can. Truly a monumental match ahead in Austria v. Poland.

Yes, I hear that the overland map is very friendly to modders. It's very easy to adapt it to a SP mod, or even to a PW, apparently. And definitely, romances are generally a waste of development time: furthermore, you can't say "don't do it if you don't like it", because that's like saying, "if you don't like romance in your movie, fast-forward it" or "if you don't like this battle in the book, just skip over it". It is more power to the consumer to have these options, sure, but that doesn't mean that the cultural product as a whole is permitted to become a bloated all-in-one package: we consume holistically and knowledge that Aerie wants to bone me and that she keeps trying to talk about her poor wings all with sappy music does affect how I see that character and my role-playing. I rather suspect Bastila could not be skewered because the devs were so in love with her, but that's another story.Romance should really only be an option when a great deal of effort goes into it and it is the focus of the game. Despite my Aerie example, BG2 remains the only really 'legitimate' game to have a romance, because they invested so much into it including quests, and they were committed enough so that there was a lot of dialogue from that character even if you killed off the romance. NWN2 sorta, as well. Just like rideable mounts or anything else where the same reason is given, if you want to do it, (try) to do it properly.

Surely they will beat Austria? Croatia completely outplayed them. Lahm kept crossing to the spectators, Gomez and Jansen are as useless as they've always been, and I was surprised at how the rest of the defence was so disorganised. It didn't help that Ballack was absolute crap at everything he did. With Schweinsteiger sent off, only Podolski remains as their real attacking threat. I believe Accept picks up a cool 3 points and leaves the rest of us with 0. How about that.

That's fine Architect. Well, well, Croatia ahead in the break. Who'd have thought. I still maintain that Jansen is the worst player in the German lineup, and Ballack is just useless this tournament (as he has been for Chelsea most of the last 2 years, though...)

Gorth - I think in execution it will end up looking like VATS at the mo. In both cases you pause, you can looka round and select various attacks, then when you unpause you execute them. I'm not suggesting they're the same or anything, just that they will look similar. Which isn't necessarily bad in itself, but I'm not sure how this kind of stuff fits into AP. Oh wait, Max Payne. Well, I didn't enjoy Max Payne, but I suppose that's a way. Yeah, I just sound like a grumpy old man here.