Monte Carlo

I was going to link to the thread on the Codex where the Bio writer (seriously) says that Bio CRPGs should have fast-forwards buttons for the combat and fighting "for folks who just wanna experience the story." Same writer doesn't like fighting, tactics, combat, inventory... or games generally. Then I realised that the sweary, vituperative and generally hilarious responses would create a mega-hate vortex between here and the aforementioned Codex, creating something so awesomely hateful that I couldn't be responsible for the consequences. So you can find it yourselves and find out what some Biowarians are really thinking...

Crushing my enemies. Plotting new ways to crush my enemies. Reviewing how the last spate of crushing went. Maintaining my Excel spreadsheet of enemies. This, along with industrial quantities of alcohol, makes me happy.

Wow. I mean... wow. That guy blades the game to pieces. I suspect he's off the Bioware Christmas card list, and read the comments (along the lines of "about time a games reviewer stuck it to The Man").

Prom has never, ever, been a part of English education. Until now. In my day, at the end of secondary school, we used to (1) write our names in black marker pen on each other's school shirts, (2) let off flour bombs and (3) cut off each others school ties with scissors. Then we went home early and thought about applying for jobs ('twas the early 80's). Nowadays the kids have hoodies with their classmates' nicknames neatly printed on, there are no flour bombs, they'd be arrested if they were found with scissors and they, for chrissakes, have a Prom which is a direct copy of the US version. Yeucchhh. Anyway this thread isn't about Elvis and the evolution of Rock and Roll I was simply but obviously misguidedly deploying my Wand of Hyperbole. This thread is about the intrinisically evil nature of Glee (I want a Cthulu version of Glee, btw) and how awesome the Paladin of Kool, Sir David of Grohl, rode his steed of credibility into the enemy camp to do battle.

Their excuse is mealy-mouthed and hubristic. I'm obviously with Wrath of Dagon on this one, just don't buy their crap in the first place. I haven't and the sky didn't fall in.

Do you get mudcrabs at the top of snowy mountains? I do hope so.

Soccer moms, romance fans, casual console gamers and folks who used to play Farmville love it to bits, though!

Joe, why in my mind's eye do I have the opening sequence of Die Hard Six: Die Hardest But on a Train coagulating in my imagination right now? Watch out for ex-Spetznatz mercenary commando drug-dealing nuke stealing bad-asses hiding in the bushes wearing NVGs. OK?

When KoL and Dave told this guy to get lost he accused them of not caring about music or musical education or kids. And stuff. Like Glee was the primary reason why kids might like music. Kids like music because music is great in of itself. You don't have to be musical to dig it, that's one of the reasons it's so amazing. He just had this sense of self-entitlement about other people's songs, like everybody would of course bow down and let their stuff be performed on his show. No problem with people who do let their stuff get used, I respect that completely but I also respect the opposite view too. Especially when the divine wisdom of Dave is invoked, stamping a premium seal of complete Common Sense on the deal.

I think that is a hot new look, as Zoolander might say. Unleash your inner lurve dinosaur and sieze the day!

Why be paranoid when the evidence suggests that you are a pan-gender lurve god. Enjoy it while you can.

I have majikal Volo on ignore, did he talk about how fab Bioware are or did he troll the thread about something else?

It's called 'deus ex machina' DMing in pen and paper and it's in DMing 101 that you try to avoid it. LOL. Dave Gaider and Co. are so in love with their creations that you are only the fee-paying carbon based lifeform attached to their digital novel.

Yes, we must. Which is a shame because I like you a great deal. ::sniffs ::

For many rock fans of a certain age Dave Grohl is a saintly, almost god-like uber-being of cool. I am one of those rock fans. I am a Dave Fan Boy. I harbour feelings for Dave akin to those Duck and Cover forumites have for Fallout. :: sigh :: So not only did Dave play the drums in Nirvana, spot that Courtney Love was a wrong 'un, found the rock band I listen to virtually every day and appear in a couple of Tenacious D videos... he's also poured a big icy pitcher of STFU for the person who inflicted Glee on the world. Before you read more about the awesomeness of Dave let me pontificate on Glee. I have nothing, per se, against cheery kids performing cheesy covers of famous songs on a primetime music slot. I am also ambivalent about relentlessly optimistic crap American TV (I lived through the Fame years, ladies). But what really boils my piss is the idea that 'Glee Clubs' are in some way heralding a cultural renaissance on a par with the invention of stringed instruments. Wagner, to my knowledge, never attended a Teutonic Glee club. Elvis Presley was never required to squeak someone elses tunes in harmony after maths class (NO HE WAS TOO BUSY INVENTING ROCK AND ROLL). Dave Grohl never needed to wear a silly sweatshirt and caper about in order to write The Best of You. So, this thread is all about agreeing with me and laying a small online token of respect to the avatar of utter Win that is Dave Grohl for taking the fight to Glee. A minor shout-out also goes to the Kings of Leon who also fought this cacophonic audio menace by forbidding the cast to mutilate "need somebody." Maybe one day, if they try really hard, they will be as cool as one of Dave's abandoned training shoes. Then again perhaps not. I thank you all and goodnight.

That's quite an interesting take on it, except I think their writing is occasionally good, often OK and sometimes meh.

The big difference is that Native Americans have recourse to generous civil remedies and enjoy universal suffrage. Furthermore, the past has been in part bought out via the Reservation system. Ideal? Probably not, but it's something. Take your proposition to the the UN and you'd get laughed out, even as the ATF burn down their compound by accident. Freedom fighting and rebellion is what happens when people genuinely have no reasonable political, democratic recourse left to a reasonable and lawful aspiration. Terrorism is the reverse.

The tragedy in all this is that Bio really, really rate their writing. They think it's become the primary motivation for people buying their games (which mebbe for a significant proportion of their girlie new Twilight-adoring fanbase might indeed be the case) as opposed to the gameplay. Yet they can't come up with a compelling or original villain. In the Ying and Yang of RPGs the gameplay mechanics and plot / storytelling have a complex relationship and one can carry the other... up to a point. If Bio think that they can cleverly play off the gameplay due to their superb storytelling skillz they need to go and brew up a big hot mug of reality and take a glug!

Don't know where to start, really. Pax Americana has been a fact of life since 1945. You have full spectrum dominance, African commands, European commands and Asian commands, you have the largest global military budget and enough nukes to destroy the universe. Twice. There isn't a single square foot of this planet you can't surveil, bomb or put boots on the ground. Every single international organisation concerning Western defence is predicated on American approval and strategic direction. You've spent ten years (not unreasonably) stirring up some of the most unpredictable hotspots on earth in order to avenge an attack on your sovereign territory, and you've resorted to extra-judicial measures to achieve it. It's been a helluva ride. As a result you've had the world more or less they way you wanted it for for almost seventy years, believe it or not. You've had your ups (Ike, Reagan, LBJ) and your downs (Carter, Nixon, Bubba) but all things being equal I don't think you've done a bad job so far. So that's a tick in the 'Least Worst World Superpower' box. And what's really, really clever about the Pax Americana (and I say this as an admirer) is how you've dressed it up as something not even remotely imperialistic - your cultural and economic hegemony trumps the military and diplomatic ones in most folk's minds. Let's say burgers and Levis 501s versus the USS Nimitz and the NSA. You know there's a but, right? But ,the quid pro quo, old bean, is that you have put yourselves in a position where it is your freaking business. The Colin Powell doctrine (You broke it, you fix it) can be applied to all sorts of cause and effect. Iraq stirred up the pot and the Gaddafi rapprochment with the West (hey, at least he's our bastard) made him bold. Now he needs putting back in his box. To an outsider, the American duality where one minute you want to play Team America with a glint in your eye, the next an isolationist good ol' boy who simply wants to sit on his porch and watch the sun goes down is truly baffling.

Multiplayer = awful was spot on.

It's a shame this part of the game wasn't DLC, then you'd have had a large illuminated exclamation mark lighting the way.

Kim Jong Il is bonkers but he hasn't got anything on Gaddafi style-wise. Granted, the strange Kommunist take on Foster Grant sunglasses is slightly funny, but the Blofeld-grey playsuit isn't as spectacular as the examples of sartorial elegance shown above. Look at that brown paper thing the good colonel is wearing! It's stunning. Kim Jong Il would have to goose-step along the 49th parallel in a medal-bestrewn mankini to get anywhere near.

^ Poster invokes Godwin's Law and wins. Close thread now plz.

Hat-tip to newsbiscuit...

Yeah but 50 is the new 30 or something.