Monte Carlo

Stupid question, but I'm assuming that "Nukes" is some kind of role in the army.. or a technician handling nukes? No, "Nukes" are the guys that work on and maintain the nuclear reactors that power most US aircraft carriers. This. Basically you're sent off to get trained on how to operate the nuke reactors and get nearly the amount of credits needed for a degree as a nuclear engineer. Also there's an automatic requirement for the security clearance so very few people are actually able to get into the corner of the ship you work in. [Clerks]So you're like the dudes who fill the soda machines on the Death Star?[/Clerks]

DLC is there to play on the percieved weaknesses of their customer base. For example, why does a burger chain have super size meals for +60p? Or those little fried donuts? Or those tangy little chicken wings? Or a burger with a strange piece of Latvian peppered cheddar melted onto it? Because they percieve fast-food lovers to be greedy, processed-food dependent lard junkies, that's why. You could just have the basic, cheaper and equally filling Basic Burger Meal. But no, you have to have the little fired donuts too, after all they were only three copper pieces. What is the percieved weakness of the gaming customer base? The tendency of gamers to be relentless completionists. A lot of gamers are. Hoarders. The DLC is like that little fried donut portion sprinkled with gaming crack. You don't need it, you know you don't need it but all the other romance junkies found out what happened to your favourite NPC and have that little magic item that gives you a +5% bonus to one of your powaz. SO YOU HAVE TO FREAKING WELL HAVE IT YES YOU MUST!!! IT'S ONLY FIVE DOLLARS! The developers know this. How? They're gamers too. You think they don't fall for it? Of course they do. The problem is choice. There are lots of games. For me now, games are like friendships, I've only got enough time and energy to manage a certain number meaningfully. So the DLC has to be good, which is where Bio has failed because although Watcher's Keep was OK and RtO was so-so but not awful none of it was compelling enough for me to develop a.... habit. So remember, next time you click on that 'Buy DLC' tab, it's just a little portion of fried donuts in Burger Shack: sweet, only temporarily filling and when you think about it not really necessary. The only difference is that DLC won't increase your waist size.

THQ Exec dreads release of next-gen consoles due to spiralling costs... I have to say I agree and another reason why PC gaming ain't dead.

Sorry

Why don't you, for the love of god, read the man's freaking post? He said it hasn't aged well. It hasn't. It looks horrible. The models are made of cubes. The clothes look like circus clown outfits. The tilesets are cookie cutter. The infinity engine games have aged better, but being from a completely different era of gaming that's not surprising because they were near the zenith of the graphical paradigm they were created in. NWN wasn't, it was at the start. This isn't Bio hate, it's just a fact. NWN is a joke game. A freaking joke.

Apologies, I was speaking for the British army where technical grades like signals, electrical and mechanical engineers and anybody who is allowed to touch the guts of a heli is paid more than an entry-level infantryman. I understand that deployment allowances and retention bonuses sweeten the pot for most infantrymen, as well as the traditional ops tour financial incentive of not spending any of your salary for six months (applies to singlies rather than your thirty-something senior NCO with kids). This of course leads to all sorts of extremely unwise, but psychologically completely understandable, impulse purchases on post-deployment day + 1.

I don't think anybody here is suggesting that women can't serve in war zones on active service. This is a role-related issue. With respect you are missing the point slightly. And in most western armed forces bayonet technicians (inf) are usually on the lowest payscales. The technical roles (like Guard Dog working in aviation tech) tend to get articifer NCO status and higher pay increments to recognise their training and skills. The role we're talking about is infantry and armour. The pointy bit. It's just different.

Tough. You don't risk lives and the success of the mission to help someone's career portfolio. Way to ignore the revelant points in my post. What, Di, like this bit where you appear to suggest that the deaths of women is a new and interesting metric for pursuing a WAR IS EVAL agenda? Usually you are a overflowing spring of common-sense, but alas on this one I think not. Edit: I realise my post might appear harsh, I'm not trolling Di but that really is how I read it.

It means getting your merde together on a two-way range, switching on, winning the firefight. Killing, stabbing, shooting at point blank range, blowing stuff up. Then doing it all again. For days. Could women do that? Possibly, even probably. Could they do that consistently and integrated into male combat units without degrading the ability to do all that better than the other side? I don't know. Do you want to be in the experimental unit?

This is why sometimes I struggle with alanschu's posts, in the nicest possible way his butt's in a sling because he's in the industry and works for Bio. alan, what we are saying is that the Bioware / EA DLC model appears to a lot of gamers to be sharp practice and price-gouging. It certainly looks that way from where I'm sitting, although I bought two DA:O DLC pieces and thought they were OK. I agree that paying to unlock content that's already there is smelly, buying DLC as a longevity thing after release is different.

Tough. You don't risk lives and the success of the mission to help someone's career portfolio.

Also, the game was marketed as having state-of-the-art graphics that required a decent gaming rig. And in the blink of an eye, WHHOOOOSH! they alientated 60% of their natural market.

Why is a rogue wearing steel-soled boots like he's a member of a Scandinavian heavy rock band? I suppose sneaking, like er, a rogue about is too old-skool.

The issue is not only about combat effectiveness (although it should be). Western, regular armies have increasingly been subjected to civilian employment laws, this along with the Human Rights agenda (Frankfurt School, anyone?) means that: Our fully-integrated infantry company needs to consider a diversity audit and childcare considerations (why did Corporal Smith get promoted, he's a guy? We've only got one female sergeant, but she can't deploy she's just had a child). Unit cohesion would soon suffer as the equal ops brigade dismantled almost every stress-breaking, non-PC area of the unit. What about other parts of the army? I hear you quite reasonably ask. Well, to a certain extent they've got atop these issues but the infantry is different. You want the tip of the spear to be sharp and lean and to hell with civilian social convention. I'm sure some of the moonbats out there would find all this quite enervating, but seriously it's no way to run an infantry battalion. The sort of personal restrictions that would be required on female soldiers to ameliorate these issues would be unacceptable and unlawful, i.e. the issue of child-bearing (in the 1970s you had to leave the army if you had one, which is clearly unfair). The Israelis have tried it. Israel is a far from perfect example, as theirs is a national defence force in a unique culture. Even there, the results have been mixed. I say work to the gender differences that are obvious: women make excellent service personnel in many areas and in some are superior to men. The infantry isn't, I would contend, one of those.

^ Is it because Bioware is guilty of at least fifty percent of those, not least 'making an announcement about an announcement?'

I'm not on Facebook, but Rosbjerg is spot on with his analysis. Personally, if you want to own all my personal data, preferences, images, opinions and suchlike then I'd ask you to pay for them but that's just me. The rest of the world gives it away for free.

"Let's Play Neverwinter Nights" Which to me is akin to, "Let's nail our testicles to a coffee table"

I sympathise with anybody who has suffered from mental illness and am aware that it is exactly that... an illness. I deplore the stereotypes about the subject. But an illness can preclude certain activities. A blind person is unlikely to be allowed to fly a plane and a person with a back injury is unlikely to be found carrying bricks up a ladder. It stands to reason that a person who has an illness that can interfere with their reasoning should be barred from possessing a firearm.

Hmmm it's one of those movies, OK I see where you're coming from. Thanks. OTOH the snow fortress, like a level from Medal of Honour, was pretty cool too.

Sure, but why the very old Japanese guy, how did he rescue him and why was he in the same dream level / world as his dead wife? Maybe I missed something.

I sort of guessed that it was open to interpretation but the bit with the old Japanese guy at the beginning and end confused me, I dig that he was the dude who got shot and that time lags the deeper you go into the levels of the dream (lol what a load of nonsense I'm typing, must have been a cool movie!) but why was he so old and does it impact on the ending. Also, is Leo's character the only guy in the history of guy-dom who has erotic dreams about his freaking wife? Most of mine involve Monica Bellucci in an air hostess uniform and an inflatable paddling pool full of jello.

Sorry if there was a thread about this before but I saw Inception last night. Loved the premise, enjoyed the moving, had a serious WTF moment about the ending. What is the consensus on what it means? Hey use spoiler tags if you wish. Thanks.

Since Company of Heroes online came out I've spent about UK

^ I see what you're saying, but it seems to me that the whole point of the piece was that he loses it. Jamie Foxx's (why the extra 'X' Jamie, WHY?) character was loathesome, yet we were meant to be rooting for this cynical, over-ambitious, do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do lawyer. But overall, it didn't work I agree. It just became silly.