Monte Carlo

Yes, with a strange dash of Lord of Flies methinks.

Obviously, I'm looking forward to Col. Gaddafi being vaporised by a J-DAM as much as the next guy. But, let's face it, this will be a massive loss to the world of dictators-in-ridiculous-uniforms. Check this funky dress uniform out.. I particularly like the sunglasses, comedy epaulettes and un-military bouffant Bee-Gees style haircut. He looks like a 1920's cinema commissionaire trying out for the mafia. Please share. I'm sure out on the interweb there is a rich fund of ridiculous dictators wearing amusing uniforms or outfits.

I also, being middle-aged, had to look up 'Squee' on Urban Dictionary. It strikes me as an activity that fits the average Bio fan nowadays like a glove.

Lulz, DA2 has it's own Hitler / Downfall spoof too.

^ It's a lot of fun, very high finish on the mod. It's more convenient if you use Vordan's Hero Creator to get your initial party going else they'll have no GP at the start, though He's even got some original module art from Erol Otis in the mod!

I post here to share my awesomeness with the rest of the world. It's an altruism thing.

To be fair, if there's an epic iconic evil overlord type ending folks shrug and say it's old. So they go for something different then it's lame. I dunno what the way to split the difference is but I can see Laidlaw's dilemma. As for the rest of the design decisions, well they can carry on kicking over sandcastles until EA kicks their sandcastle.

A NWN2 mod called Legacy of White Plume Mountain by Wyrin (who wrote the Dark Avenger mods). It's an overland adventure like SoZ based on the classic PnP modules, it's done really well. You make your own party like SoZ too. Recommended.

Any reason why you left out poor George Clooney? Keaton is the better Batman, Bale was in the better movie. +1

The next phase of this mildly amusing piece of gaming soap opera will be the DLC. I expect some hardcore nickel and diming that will make fluff like 'Witch Hunt' look like Tales of the Sword Coast.

Just put him on ignore, the threads fly by.

UK prisons aren't the Playstation-and-satellite-TV nirvanas the tabloids portray* but neither are they Escape from New York. They are grim, undoubtedly. I know this mainly because I had to visit a friend who found himself in a Category 'C' prison. * We leave that to the Scandies.

BTW, it just occurred to me that DA2s meta-metacritic score is 6. LOL. That sucks.

I agree, that's why Bio shouldn't ignore it and why their 'blame the community' stance for some of the negativity is a PR kamikaze dive into a wall of flak. Successful companies use complaints as a type of performance metric - for every vocal complainer you've got a hundred who didn't like your service or product but didn't tell you. But they will tell their friends, it's reverse viral marketing. The people who do engage with you are therefore valuable, even if they didn't like your product. Naturally, you have to factor in the bat-merde crazy tendency of online gaming fans and haters but there is still some real data-mining to be done there as opposed to the in-game spyware they seem to be basing development decisions on. But, hey, it's about Q1 - Q4 and the bottom line. I give Bio two, three years?

^ :: shrugs :: I'd use the argument folks use here a lot - people who take the time to comment online are usually passionate and unrepresentative. I'm sure the haters have had their say fairly or unfairly and the results are skewed. Many people will have enjoyed the game and not bothered commenting - so the sales are the thing. However, it would be foolish to completely ignore the disparity. If EA continues to try to get more for less out of Bio - more dumbing-down, more asset recycling, shorter dev cycles then the whole point of owning Bioware in the first place seems to be degraded anyhow. Bio needs, like a fashion house or supermarket chain or car manufacturer, to create diffusion ranges to appeal to a broad(er) spectrum of gamers, maybe one complex title for every two mainstream products. Mercedes make an AMG. Not everybody drives one, but every taxi driver punting about in a ten-year old 'C' class knows its from the same marque. Edit: As for the gaming journo reviews : LOL. They are by and large shills.

When New York finally collapses into a lawless wilderness we can turn it into a giant penitentiary. Recidivist criminals can be imprisoned there in a dystopian society based on their values of avarice and brutality. Just don't crash your survival capsule in Manhattan, FFS.

The thing I'd like to know about Alistair is where he gets the hair products to keep that silly quiff going, despite spending most of his time wearing a steel, full-face helm. His haircut was enough for me to get him executed, honestly all you need is Dog and the golem-thingie to have fun in DA:O.

Is that really a scary, evil butterfly?

Just coughed a perfectly decent glass of claret on my keyboard.

OK, I'm going to start NWN2 tonight, my character concept build is a sort of skald / savage bard / heavy metal type adventurer with the obligatory Red Dragon Disciple levels for added cheese. Anybody got any ideas for a build and what about a few fighter levels? The plan is to complete the OC and go for level 30 into MotB.

When I was a student I had a summer job cleaning the maintenance tunnels of a large power facility. I think this might be where my thing about tunnels came from, as one day we had a strange LARPing type moment in the tunnels, but anyway I imagine it's still probably better than working in the games industry.

Station and generation rhyme. Keep up, I'm a gaming protest poet.

Sorry to sound shallow, but are there any attractive women working in the games industry or is it all hairy, overweight slobs wearing anime t-shirts and playing obscure 80's side-scrolling fighting games because it's so ironic it's cool?

Yes, I'd just sell everything, luckily it's a loot-tastic game.

I am mad, but at least I can spell.