Monte Carlo

A WoW move, like the game itself, would blow chunks.

My compete or even feel inadequate in anyway to some half-wit taking steroids? Your physical achievements are more valid 'cuz you ain't taking them.

Lit fire. Played some Lego with Monte Jr. Played some Company of Heroes, got beat by the CPU on a map I didn't know. Then I watched the snow pile up outside. Am currently lighting a fire and contemplating an arctic-style dog walk. Happily I am stocked up with Fuller's London Pride and a case of Pomerol for later. I am also of work until next year!

Fair enough, each to his own, but Gaider's comments suggest that those of us who prefer not to pay thirty-five quid for a screen-saver are out in the cold.

Wow, how did Julian Assange get hold of this - is nothing sacred? D3 is going to be the biggest thing in PC gaming ever and despite being too grown-up to get this giddily excited about it I am. The fact that there are two XPs planned is great. Then there will be D4. Life is good. Hint to EmoWare: Diablo has no romance options.

The emo and fey NPCs are meh, the action-RPG combat option looks like Gauntlet-meets-Dungeon Siege but... ...the RTwP option looks quite crisp and well done. I think the conflict between the new styles, as games dumb down, is the new TB versus RTwP! RTwP is the new turn-based! Who'd a thunk it? Attention Deficit all round!

Another army of strawmen, wrapped in uniforms made of hyperbole, marches into the breach as yet again LoF besmirches others as Nazis. Edit: he's on the ignore list now. Troll.

Trust me, my world is a billion shades of grey. My position on Wikileaks is pretty straightforward: 1. The US Government left their information in the cyber version of an unlocked car in an inner-city neighbourhood and they got burnt. Tough. 2. That doesn't make Assange some sort of hero like his fawning left-wing fan club seems to think - he's a grand-standing contrarian with an agenda. 3. He's also got serious double-standards. 4. The leaks aren't really a big deal and don't tell us anything that real journalists aren't already telling us. 5. OTOH elected representatives need confidentiality, it gives them the space they need to do their jobs. Shades of grey. 6. I want the internal message logs of everything Wikileaks does posted on their site. Just saying.

Well done, are you going to be cooking eggs in the cafeteria or re-stocking the soda machine?

Mr. Assange (or Mister 'It's All About Me') seems to have been strangely quiet about poor old PFC Bradley Manning, who after all is his 22 carat Deep Throat. Poor old Bradley. Thirty years in a super-max prison. Julian's too busy trying to be a 21st Century Dreyfus to hat-tip the guy who provided all the information in the first place. Maybe eventually they will get adjacent cells.

I'm going on a diet. In March.

Julian, you just don't get it, do you? From a UK tabloid:

Monte, I don't believe there are people here who haven't yet played FOT not sure about America and Europe, but in Russia FOT received quite a bit of praise from critics. but of course no sales figures, since there was no such thing as video games retailers in 2003 Possibly, but it is still underrated by any gamers and put into a similar bracket as that BOS console game.

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.