Monte Carlo

Calax, stick with plumbing or electrical stuff, there is always work in these fields and there is a world recession on. Undertaking and anything to do with tax avoidance are also safe bets. Esoteric, where-did-we-come-from studies ain't going to pay the rent.

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom has the Chinese nightclub scene and the Anglo-Indian Army saving the day. It has the scene with the strange dinner party. It has the mine chase scene. It has Kate Capshaw in silk pyjamas. It owns the newest movie so completely it's not even funny. This is more fun than talking about McBio's new Happy Meal.

And, in other news, apples taste different from oranges. Spain is very big, Portugal ain't.

^ Do a quick bit of economic analysis of 'The Siesta' economies versus the 'People who don't have a bottle of vino and a nap in the middle of the day' economies.

I like Spain. A lot. But I can't visit anymore because of the bloody siestas. This Northern European cannot sleep all afternoon, go back to work for a couple of hours then have dinner at midnight. Not anymore. And why do they have siestas in February when it's snowing?

:: shrugs :: It's a console game, that's how they roll.

Humaoid beat me to it, but I think the 1970's as a decade were definitely built out of the same twenty concrete wall tiles.

China is interesting. A decaying, corrupt Communist autocracy goes capitalist yet manages to retain the internal discipline and party machine to keep the whole ship running ruthlessly towards epic growth. But. With prosperity comes tension. Propserity brings with it the ghost in the machine of freedom and democracy. That is the very thing that will form the seed of China's economic destruction as it currently stands. The place is going to turn into a post-post-modern corporate bordello in the next fifty years, with interesting (to say the least) consequences for the region and indeed the world.

I like Glasgow more than Edinburgh, actually. Edinburgh is so pleased with itself, I'm not sure why. Glasgow, on the other hand, is fabulous. Go to Hillhead, enjoy the architecture then have a curry.

I've not played ME, but the guys who have ID'd the weapon as being from the ME universe. So, unless they're recycling art assets for a new IP (extremely unlikely) then I suspect it's ME-themed. Actually, despite my animus towards McBio, I think (seriously) they'd make a pretty good MP / MMO type game out of Mass Effect even if it did turn into a wierd emo space-opera-dating-site type affair.

Nah, we should just all bend over and let you and boo ream us. There's a Bioware faction here ? Sweet. I'm in the "if you don't care for company Xs games, stop posting in them." I was given this friendly piece of advice by mkreku once, and I've followed it ever since. Apparently some people consider themselves above this. The only company I feel like I owe any kind of loyalty is Obsidian, as I spend way too much time on forums sponsored by them. Bioware has failed me in the past (NWN, especially), but since we know **** all about this new product I find the broken record guys tuning up their bash-chestra to be more than a little tiresome. There are always new, interesting and perfectly valid ways to bash Bio.

No the look is wrong.

Bioware Thread. Mmmmmm. :: Rubs hands together :: I badly want to see Bioware do a FPS, just to see how they shoehorn romances into it.

It's not like the vanilla game isn't big enough.

It's a post-apoc game. With romances. Lots of romances. There is one critical path that adds to immersion. Your character, Wolfherd, is a super-pre-defined but completely customizable dude which adds to immersion, choice and (yes) romance. Your actions have repercussions that supercede anything that has happened in any game ever, even everer than the last one we did. This is told in a series of online achievement icons. It's called Nuke-Effect-Age 1: Origins of Shadows of Awesomeness. It will be available as an i-phone app, too.

This is the stuff of CRPG awesomeness, Bioware please take note.

I'm not even looking at the local map anymore, I am doing Dice Man style Zen navigation which is adding considerably to my playing time.

It's pretty simple for me: NV feels more like it was written by people who play games and are simpatico the way I like to play them. I'm pretty indifferent to Fallout as a franchise in general and as a gaming totem in particular but I'm loving NV. I liked FO3 too, just not as much. I'm not saying that this makes Obz geniuses, or that I'm a fanboy, just that their style is more in sync with what I like than any other developer out there at the moment.

The pip-boy map is a triumph of gritty low-fi aesthetics over any practical use for the player whatsoever. It is a bloody horrible bit of GUI, a clean map mod would be very handy.

It's a bit confusing, I've done that bit, Chris the scientist has gone to Novac and now I'm meant to launch the rockets for them but how? It isn't clear at all.

Many thanks to you all.

I'm doing the Ghoul Quest near Novac, I've killed the dudes in the basement and been asked to find some maguffins to blast the Ghouls into outer space. Obviously, I want to see them win a Darwin Award, so where are these items perchance?

It's interesting that after NV there's a sort of FO3 rennaissance going on, wonder what the sales figures look like?

Heed these words, for they speaketh much truth.

Obviously the issue for Krezack is that our seasons are reversed. Personally, because our climate is so wet, I'd plan on late May into early June or late August into early September. You might incur high shoulder fares late summer though because of the school holidays. London needs a week at least. Plan carefully and you might even get half decent accommodation. The majority of the important galleries and museums are free. As for useful int, well London is full of Antipodeans with their own extremely complex and extensive survival network. If you come to London I will buy you a beer. I am biased, but you would be a fool to miss out on Italy. Paris? Meh. Florence, Sienna, Rome? Yes. A September trip would of course allow you to travel to Italy via Munich for that feral Aussie rite of passage, the Oktoberfest. I am going next year, I might see you there.