Monte Carlo

Now I've seen Vol's review of Alpha Protocol I'll be buying it immediately.

Fallout: Tactics Loathed by the FO Taleban at the time, Tactics is a solid tactical squad-based wargame set in the FO universe. Build a squad and go on increasingly tough missions on ever-bigger maps using all the skills / perks / weapons you might expect to see. It has a slightly annoying not-quite-turn based system but happily you can tweak it in the game options menu. The graphics are attractive and isometric. The game is agreeably bloody and sweary. And, yes, there is a Sherman tank you can cut about in which is super awesome. I love this game. It is seriously underrated. If you are pining for a JA2-type game then this one is probably for you. That is all. MC

He was a good guy, RIP and my best wishes to his family.

I wonder if Obz will ever get offered a Bio gig again, mebbe Mass Effect XVI or Dragon Age XXV?

I have to wonder if Bioware has listened to it's core fanbase a bit too much on this one. Am hoping that the DLC strategy is as classy as DA1's :: snicker ::

I had Hexen on my original Playstation, circa 1996. It was doom with bows, axes, wands and synthisized medieval muzak, right?

I have spoken with a doctor today, who apparently tells me that I'm legitimately eligible for valium, which I thought was only proscribed to housewifes in the 1970s. This should be a new experience. The quack, obviously thinking about his professional ethics and Hippocratic Oath suggested that I washed them down with a couple of large cognacs for optimum in-flight nirvana. He assures me that my usual aversion to airborne boozing will be nullified by the tranqs. At this rate I'll be getting frequent flyer points.

This thread really is Diamonds now. LOL!

I am terrified of flying. I loathe it. It is a proper, drench-in-sweat phobia. It wasn't always this way, but around 2000 or so I became terrified of flying whilst on a Virgin 747 somewhere over the Atlantic. I last went on a passenger jet in 2007, whereupon the flying-phobics nightmare of heavy turbulence hit the aircraft over the Swiss Alps. I was too scared to be sick. I need to conquer this, or failing that at least find a way to get me back on a plane. I can't drink on aircraft, have never been able to. Does anybody else have this problem, and if they've beaten it, how?

I know I've raised it before, and Di tried to explain it away as post-9/11 information sharing... But allowing a disgruntled Private soldier have legitimate access to everything the US diplomatic corps has been saying in private, whilst kicking back in a tent in Iraq, is crazy. Lunacy. Wikileaks to my mind is irresponsible and is reaping the whirlwind. But bejaysus the US government has been extremely lax with it's basic IT security. I'm amazed this hasn't happened before, so they probably (deeply ironically) owe Wikileaks a debt. Now the more serious stuff is likely to be protected so self-aggrandizing techno-geeks can't get their sweaty paws on it. For me, this matter is of interest because it heralds, at last, the dawning of a new era in global journalism. If a respected dead tree press paper had done this, then there would be less of an uproar (The Guardian, in the UK, for example is deeply complicit yet comes up smelling of roses using a 'They were publishing it anyway' argument). Because it is a proactive online organisation (send us your secrets risk free!) Wikileaks is new and dangerous to a lot of people. So watch this space folks, it's going to be a fun ride whatever side of the argument you're on.

Shouldn't your cricket team have it's own website called Wicket-Leaks? Bada-bisch! I'm here all week!

I'm not familiar enough with US law to know whether Assange can be charged with a criminal offence of the gravity to trigger extradition. The Swedish case is what it is, an allegation of sexual offences. Once these are dealt with, i.e. Assange is either found guilty or not guilty, then the US might try to get their bite of the cherry. Assange has received and distributed illegally obtained material belonging to and caveated by the US Govt. From a legal POV I suppose there might be substantive criminal offences there. Maybe one of our American forumites, and especially Grom, might be able to comment. In any case, sorry, but I don't buy into the Assange-as-free-speech-martyr meme. The guy knows what he's doing, and yes he's the face of a new type of online activism. But he's a grown man, he's rolled the dice now he has to face the consequences.

As usual, Vol, you bring clarity where there was obfuscation. Bravo.

No, it really isn't.

The Arma 2 demo. There's a brilliant game in there somewhere, I just can't be getting on with the controls. It's a multi-tasking nightmare for me.

Bioboards: a very disturbing corner of the internet.

The best plans are usually simple ones.

If the USA manages to make a length of rope, or a bullet or a syringe more expensive than the admin then that's their business but not particularly efficient. Incidentally, my post wasn't aimed at all of you. Mainly Krezzie, bless him, whose adolescent liberalism always seems to grip my turd.

Darth, you are one of my favourite Obsidianites but this post needled Fisking so badly it hurt. Sorry. This is a hysterical SWP tagline, not political or economic analysis. As an ardent Thatcherite myself these cuts are chicken-feed. The people in the chair are Tory wets who clearly want perpertual coalition with the Liberals to continue their dinner-party politics. Having said that, the cuts are a start. I'm not asking for stats, I'm not that sort of pedant but this is wrong. Building confidence in the UK economy needs a demonstration of intent (oh, and an independent currency) which the cuts are part of. The Left always want to soak the rich but unless you are some sort of hairy 70's Marxist you need to acknowledge that wealth creation is important. Am I a fan of the perpetually greedy? No (as Jean Cretien famously said, "The biggest enemies of capitalism are capitalists, they're never rich enough). Do I accept them as a necessary evil? Hell yeah. We aren't going to get out of this mess unless we reduce the deificit which is predicated substantially on the reduction of public spending, especially on third generation, unemployed, benefit dependants. Let's storm the Winter Palace, comrade! The likes of Green et. al. are more productive and important to our economy than the legions of public sector non-jobbers, parasitical students studying golf course management and other assorted indulgences of 13 years of ZanuNuLabour. Green came from nothing. He earnt his money legitimately. He is entitled to use every legal tax loophole to retain it. When will the left and their fellow travellers get their allegedly fully developed brains around the fact that there is nothing wrong with being successful? Give me one Philip Green over a dozen Gordon Browns or Polly Toynbees or Will Huttons. The post-apocalyptic state of MIT, Harvard, Stanford etc must explain the exodus of British students and academics to the USA. 'Monetized' education is fair. Don't ask me to pay for Guy and Jocasta's art history degree FFS. The argument that their four hourly weekly attendance at 'Uni' (which is in fact a crumbling provincial Poly with Botox) is in some way essential for the preservation and extension of all human knowledge is risible. Otherwise, I hope we are still friends. Cheers MC

I like the bit in The Silence of the Lambs where Lecter, in return for information, is offered a new cell on a chemically-contaminated island facility, and an hour's outdoor exercise a day. "In a truly civilized country," says Lecter to Starling, staring around his underground dungeon, "you'd execute me." Krezack and other navel-gazing, priviledged liberals always fail to grasp the uncomfortable nettle that monsters roam amongst us and that the most appropriate way of dealing with some of them is to take them out of the gene pool. Krezack and his ilk also think that their bleeding hearts trump the wishes of the victim's of violent crimes and their families. My view is that the US has checks and balances and a death row appeal system. If they wish to have the death penalty that's there business and wailing from foreign countries is unlikely to change their minds. China, OTOH and Iran and all the usual suspects do not have checks and balances. Execution is part of the tool-box for maintaining the regime. You can't say that about the USA.

Ah, 'Son of Bhaal' syndrome. Obviously, I don't want to play for a hundred hours and end up as a goat-herd, alternatively it's no biggie for me if I don't end up as the scion of a god either. I'd settle for middle-ranking, castle owning type person.

Try liberal amounts of bourbon in your coffee/tea. It always works for me. No, bourbon is awful in tea you have to use vodka. I have field-tested this extensively, if you are going to drink bourbon at work become a lawyer or a doctor.

It looks great, I might well pick it up. But ain't that cover art awful?

Why pick locks in DA:O? They never contain anything of worth. And, of course, your STR-spammed uber-warrior is unable to bash open the smallest container either.

Stop arguing about who has the lamest hobby, FFS compared to LARPers you are all perfectly normal.