Monte Carlo

I am up to 10 UK units of alcohol, which is obviously a mere bagatelle. Needless to say, this is a marathon, not a sprint. :: eyes the cotes du rhone happily ::

Those "girlie" nations are the smart ones, as they don't waste tax payers money on playing a bit ol' Imperialism. Soon the US and UK will be bancrupt, and nobody will shed a tear. Good riddance. What short memories you have.

^ A bit unfair on the Brits, dontchya think? We're always there. The girlie nations, like the low countries, Germany, Italy, Spain etc who spend nothing on defence and shelter under the Anglo-US umbrella... this one should be down to them.

Dumped BT internet about four years ago, never looked back.

I'm free next weekend, honestly I think I could turn this situation around if I were supplied with enough gold, alcohol and cigars. I've decided guns aren't necessary, there are already loads there to choose from.

Obviously, if I agreed any more with you on this important subject Wals I would probably explode. To that end I will post my alcohol unit consumption on this board for the weekend, which I shall endeavour to double in honour of that ridiculous article. I laugh in the face of death (and light up another Bolivar). I am 30 minutes away from my first ludicrously strong Belgian trappist beer of the weekend and am planning on giving my liver a proper kicking. Slainte!

I agree that the character / inventory screens look like something you might find in a sci-fi game or shooter, not in keeping with the setting. Am currently playing the first Witcher game, I like the feel of the GUI it sort of reminds me of Planescape for some reason. :: shrugs :: it's an early build, it might get changed.

Hey now, dont look at us. This is France and the UK jumping up and down for war. Funny, when the US is jumping up and down for war everybody else is expected to ask Uncle Sam nicely "how high?" Situation reverses....

Playing on a laptop? If you have an awesome Alienware lappie like moi it really is no problem

The SA80-A2, surely?

I like Texas. But were I a Texan I wouldn't choose a Belgian rifle, I'd probably be looking at a modular M4 weapons package with a shotgun, pistol, knife, compound bow and an aircraft carrier as back-up.

Nostalgia. I tend to think that this is correct. BG2 was new and different and, to the best of my knowledge, really signaled the focus on NPCs and party interaction. It was new and fresh in those early days. Today, I think the main thing that has changed is my exposure to it. I've played Bioware's games, I know their tendencies, and have seen what they like to do with characters. Because I know their games so well I constantly remember back to BG2 and wonder why everything isn't as awesome. Is Wynne any better realized than Jaheira? I really don't think so. Nostalgia is part of it, but also the alchemy of gameplay, characters, story, exploration and... stuff was better aligned. Now it's predominantly emo-NPC romance-sex-look how great our utterly linear story is overkill with some twitchy combat BS bolted on. So, no, really, BG1 & 2 were better games. It's the tyranny of plot, hack-wannabe novelists and cutscenes.

Give me a case of beer, some cigars and a 7.62 FN-FAL rifle and I could sort this out by next Tuesday.

Pah, I had a ZX81 mit text adventure game.

I loved the Deep Roads in DA:O, one of my favourite parts of the game. I like Fighting in Tunnels, it is a core part of being old-skool. Fighting in swamps? No. Fighting in tunnels? Yes. I accept that others found the Deep Roads grindy and repetitive, however for me they were spot on. This is one of the many reasons why I am looking forward to Diablo III. That will involve epic amounts of tunnel fighting. Anyhoo, don't get me wrong, some bits of The Witcher annoy me. And I will never really be comfortable with playing pre-defined characters. But the game gets far more right than it gets wrong, Geralt is Elric of Melnibone meets James Bond.

The Witcher wins the Monte seal of approval.

tunnels > swamps r00fles!

Also, a key difference is in days of yore you'd get multiple fix-packs / mods by fans (Kevin Dorner, anyone? Baldurdash?). There isn't a bug-fixing modding scene around DA2 AFAIK, nor is there likely to be. I posted a few weeks ago about the death of modding, the death of fan-based, superior, bug-fixing is also probably here too.

I think 300 is completely brilliant, BTW. But that's down as much to the source material as much as the style and art direction perhaps.

:: shrugs :: The only Bio game I bought since NWN1 was Dragon Age: Origins and Awakenings. Meh Effect passed me by.

Isn't it amazing the way that the gaming fansites / community treats a patch like it's the second coming? A patch is just common courtesy / good customer service, not a priviledge. It's not just a Bio / EA thing, I honestly think that across the industry the pressure on releasing patches with alacrity has diminished. I suppose it detracts from the time they could be spending making DLC.

Er, me?

Alternatively, hire a tax lawyer. He'll just go and negotiate with the revenue to avoid the thing getting to court and take a cut of whatever you save. See? Occasionally lawyers have their uses.

OK, in a sort of gaming purgatory at the moment so I made the probably epic mistake of listening to you lot and am installing the super-epic-special-extra-boobies-Witcher-Redux. Will let you know what I think.