Monte Carlo

'Regime Change?' don't make me laugh. The pejorative there is that the replacement is pro-Western right? Er, like the Muslim brotherhood in Egypt, right? Or the new not-very-pro-Western Libyan government? The bottom line is that every whiff of anti-authoritarianism in hitherto one-party dictatorships is stymied by the usual suspects, sort-of-Communist China and corrupt one-party kleptocracy Russia. The nuances are there if you zoom in, but it's arguably simpler once you zoom the lens out.

It's scary that a whole generation of geeks are going to grow up thinking that this is what naked women look like.

Cnotract phones. Meh. I'm stuck with my Blackberry for another year, don't get me wrong it's OK but I woke up one morning and wanted a phone with a really fast browser that wasn't Crapple. This led me to the Android / Samsung S3 series... but it's still a year off as I'm tied into contract. In the meanwhile I'm going to buy a Kindle Fire when it comes out as a portable stop-gap / e-reader.

Where are the loony-tune pro-Russian posters when you need them? Your government is supporting Assad, let's hear why.

^ I don't even need to read the EULA to know that this guy is simply talking bollocks. It's watertight.

Tough.

I've been underwhelmed by everything they've released since KOTOR II. The Force Unleashed games, expecially, disappointed me. Hopefully it's not just a rehash of The Force Unleashed, but staring one of the Clone Wars era characters. I'm not a SW fan, but not a hater either. I just think that the franchise is cursed. Last SW game I enjoyed was either TIE Fighter or that AoE SW RTS rip-off which was actually quite good fun.

Have just had a GoG frenzy ---- Temple of Elemental Evil, FO Tactics and Heroes of WW2. All for pennies. Awesome website. More power to them.

Not only is this wrong, it's criminal. Facism pure. Yes, it's wrong but I'd say we were moving more towards a Corporatist position, not Fascism. Sorry to be a pedant, but the 'F' word does tend to get bandied around a tad too casually. I hope you agree.

LadyC, I'm worried about my barbarian in NM and Hell. Level 30 now, I still need to be mindful of those toxic Act III critters. I've got a yellow 228 armour shield that is socketed, it helps but if I try to go 2H weapon or DW I'm taking too much damage. OTOH I feel that the Demon Hunter is a much more viable hi-level choice, all that tumbling, traps, AK47 fully auto skillz madness and invisibility is ideal for kiting / planning on mob control. Whaddya think?

Taking a short break from Diablo 3, I played a game of Company of Heroes today, a 4 v 4 on The Hochwald Gap. I played Wehr, which on my main account I'm a paltry level 8 (I'm level 12 Panzer Elite, which is my favoured faction in CoH). It was a mid-level game, the other side were level 8 - 14 (3 x Ami, one higher level Brit). The Hoch is a bit of a cheesy almost-mirror-map with two main entry / exits onto the battlefield from the main base areas. There is an island on the east of the map which is resource-heavy and I was on slot 5, i.e. the dude who has to (a) support mid map expansion (b) block the foot route onto the battlefield for the other side and © help take the resource island. The pre-game lobby banter was priceless. One guy was mouthing off about how badly we were going to be whipped. Anyhoo, the game starts. Now I'm OK at CoH... nothing special but I'm definitely not a noob. It was one of those high starting resource games so I made 4 pio squads, 2 MGs and a sniper and made my way to the island and foot-crossing. The guy in the base next to me was also wehr and pio-spammed a bit more than me, but it was no big deal. The Amis facing us, OTOH, engie-spammed like mewling infants and rushed the island. OK, they took it but then they stated dropping paras which is a complete waste of manpower and they soon fell to flamers, snipers and MG42 teams. Meanwhile, I flammenwerfed the footbridge and decided to go Blitzkrieg doctrine FTW. On the other side of the map the two PE players were doing well against the fairly skilful Brit player who was clearly trying to establish a sim city, as well as try to early-game dominate with Bren Catrrier spam. We secured the island, the enemy drained by MGs, mortars and snipers. I realised that we were up against even bigger noobs than I suspected when they started pissing MP and fuel away on MG bunkers in strange places. The really mouthy guy was the worst offender and badly let down the decent players on the other side of the map. Halfway in and the Axis have about 70% map control. I'm building good Vet 2 infantry and StuHs, Tier 2 spamming my way to victory. Then the dropping starts. Some people think that the AI that replaces droppers is better than bad players ---- I beg to differ. I routinely comp stomp Expert CPU and would rather deal with it any day than a reasonably good human. The PE guy drops and all of a sudden his well considered tank destroyer strategy heads south as the CPU spams pointless units and hurtles them into the maw of Brit seventeen-pounders. Me and my other Wehr teammate consolidate the island and head east, curving up and around the woods southeast of the main bridge that marks their entrance onto the battlefield. We hold the line and I get the Blitz war machine boost that allows me to trade munis for MP... this allows me to make flakpanzers and panthers and then it's GG. Mouthy Ami player says nothing as he drops like the big wet girl he most surely is. Just another day on CoH but after six years it's still brilliant MP fun. It's $3.99 on Steam this weekend. FFS buy it. Cheers MC

I am prepared to do some stuff for Blizzard on this lawsuit pro bono.

Thanks for all this, although some of it is going over my head. My current Cooler Master case reminds me a bit of the Corsair, but I'm loving this one... http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?q=corsair+graphite&hl=en&client=firefox-a&hs=EeE&sa=X&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&biw=1680&bih=858&tbm=isch&prmd=imvns&tbnid=O5DBETKV4oMrlM:&imgrefurl=http://www.overclock.net/t/1173997/why-do-computer-cases-look-so-stupid/260&docid=1QuLX01ui8CZ-M&imgurl=http://cdn.overclock.net/c/c9/c9fddb5f_Corsair-Graphite-600T-Starwars-casemod.jpeg&w=480&h=600&ei=yKTAT6vtIYGt0QW7vd2eCg&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=870&vpy=68&dur=5326&hovh=251&hovw=201&tx=124&ty=147&sig=106413501240894981284&page=2&tbnh=157&tbnw=126&start=28&ndsp=39&ved=1t:429,r:20,s:28,i:175

Hurlie, I'm on the Yank server, you'll see my invite from AirfixPanzer

Morgie is better looking than I thought.

The German campaign I suspect will be the stuff of XPs, a bit like OF and ToV. Of course, German multiplayer will be playable out of the box.

Members of my family fought in that campaign. They were the good guys.

CoH2 will rock our worlds, if you like that sort of thing. Although I'm a bit leery of the "we're trying to deal with the politics sensitively" BS. Both sides were monstrous tyrannies. Both sides set up and operated merciless death camps. Both sides murdered and raped (the mass rapes of 1945-46 in Germany are still conveniently forgotten by Soviet apologists). The game should start with Nazi and Red officers carving up Poland, just to get a sense of perspective.

Found a funny perf issue --- yesterday my laptop ran D3 smoothly and today it's realllyyyy sllooooowwww. On the forums this seems to be an issue too. Tried everything --- all drivers up to date. Am now back to the desktop hoping Blizz will patch the game already....

LOL. I actually like my stupidly styled Alienware laptop but I can put that sucker away anytime I choose.

Thanks for all the comments, I really am leery of DIY. Humanoid makes an especially good point about video cards and power supply (been there, been screwed like that) what I'll prolly do is post the specs of any rig that takes my fancy and post it here. Mebbe one of you guys could look at all the options drop-downs on the Dell page for me if I go Alienware. I genuinely appreciate it.

The Russians have DPM jungle boots FTW.

Agreed. Metacritic is broken, it's become a customer complaints / grudge mechanism for the hive-mind.

Anyone else feel he has more point than he should? Maybe. But when does escapism become a stick-up-your-arse exercise in drudgery in the name of 'intellectual stimulation?' Pass me another bran muffin, some self-knitted yoghurt and a sick bag. What I see is a tendency to shoe-horn depth into something that doesn't need it (the po-faced worship of Marvel superheroes, for example, being a case in point). Go and play any top-end strategy game and ask yourself (even if it isn't your thing) if it doesn't offer a level of meaningful content entirely absent from other examples of game (one turn in Medieval Total War might teach you about the Crusades or the Plague, make you consider the importance of a maritime trade route or recoil at the elegance of assassinating an entirely innocent princess for political advantage... it ain't Diablo baby). OTOH I see Grand Theft Auto, which is an excuse for middle-class kids to glamorise a lifestyle otherwise alien to them, is seen as pixellated Hemingway. Lulz.

Alpha Protocol had a sillicone-enhanced Russian chick in hotpants chasing you around. Puh-leez.