Monte Carlo

That's horrific news. I hope the other driver gets locked up and they throw away the key.

CoH is an exercise in perpetual motion, folks don't understand that your battered force of 3 Volks, one pio and a puma with it's arse on fire can turn the tide if they freaking well advance.

Old gamers never die, they just go to hell and re-group.

I am, ahem ::cough:: somewhere in my forties ::cough::

After Jerry Cornelius I've been on an epic military history odyssey. A Bridge too Far by Cornelius Ryan, D-Day by Stephen E. Ambrose, plus assorted tracts on Arnhem, the Rhine Crossings in 1945, the Ardennes and Monte Cassino. After all that crunchy military stuff am in the mood for frivolity, so I might switch to something a bit lighter. May I recommend Phillip Kerr's Bernie Gunther series, Berlin Noir ( Amazon link ) is particularly good and the second tryptych in the saga also rocks if you dig the whole shady-nazis-meet-gangsters-in-latin-america vibe, circa. 1956. Cheers MC

Tonight I'm planning on catching Solomon Kane on pay-per view unless somebody can advise me otherwise.

I was middle-aged when I registered here in 2004. That's hardcore.

If a game looks like a FPS then folks are going to compare it to a FPS. That's just the way it is, personally I couldn't care less, it looks fine to me. As for the iron sights, sure that looked horrible but then again it was a horrible rifle. I'd rather fight with a broken nuka-cola bottle than a rifle that freaking ugly. OTOH some of the OTT hi-tech weapons look like more fun than a sack of mutated kittens.

^ I'm not young. I'm getting older every minute, but it's strangely enjoyable. And DA2 will suck.

If you know what you're doing then this early stage is frustrating as newbie players learn the ropes. Stick to 1 V 1 unless you are playing with friends. I got pwned by an airborne player who just wouldn't quit today, his base was in ruins but he ground me down. My fault for going straight to T3 and missing out on mortars and decent inf. At least I learnt a lesson.

My Alienware laptop is awesome. If I had more money I'd go for the 17 but the 15 is still groovy.

Thanks for all the Guild Wars feedback - reading the back of the gamebox, it was the solo aspect of the game that appealed to me.

The sad thing is that crime games appear to all follow the same drive-and-shoot model. When, as anybody who has seen any of the Godfather series or even any Martin Scorcese movies will realise the RPG opportunitues. Back-stabbing, politiking, a mini-game predicated on the rising and falling markets in different commodities (or, a la Goodfellas one based on finding the perfect pasta sauce recipe just like Momma used to make), the placing of key men in the local council and police, chosing a mob accountant and a decent lawyer, a scene with a trial, escaping from prison, whacking the other side, attempts to legitimize your business and wash your dirty money, managing your trophy wife and five girlfriends... Jeez, The Sopranos needs to be made into a game. A decent one.

^ What Tale said.

Interestingly, we discussed the creeping insect trick earlier in the thread. In a switcharoo, the evil statues use it on the party. We will cheeze them back, oh yes we will! As Oner gets into his stride as the awesome arcane howitzer the high-level sorcerer truly is, hitting the suckaz with timestop / dragon's breath, Horrid Wilting. When we get improved alacrity this will become even twinkier, mwuahahahahaaa!!! We pick up some sweet magic items and proceed to level two... And this screen tells it's own story about Hurlie! All in all, level one of WK is pretty easy for a party, even one on the verge of HLAs (most parties will hit HLAs in the Underdark if they are playing a reasonably modded game of BG2/ ToB). Anyhow, this changes on level two...

After defeating the lich, golems and finding the last clue we go back to a room in the NW part of the level and Sorophx finds a room full of mustard jellies, which probably go well with beef sandwiches... ... but Oner decides it's time to drop a Horrid Wilting, which makes short work of the jellies. This results in a nice warm fireside chat with a ghost and everybody levels up! Although we've done it arse about face... the slippers the lich wanted were here but... OOOPS WE KILLED HIM. We return to the altar and complete the bell, book and candle riddle to enter the second level and guess what? Who'da thunk it but the statues come to life and a battle royale ensues.

My favourite way to play is co-op V computer, you can do this on CoHO. You can have as many commanders as you like, so make an American one too but FFS don't go armour.

I'm AirfixPanzer, usually, but I have several nom de guerre.

PM me and I'll send you my username(s) and you can add me to your friends list. I have a raptr acc and Steam, I might link Steam to CoHO if that's possible.

Guys, what's the deal with Guild Wars? I don't dig MMOs but for some reason I find myself interested in this one.

Guys, CoHO has now progressed to the open beta stage if anybody is interested.

I boycotted Empires et. al because of the Steam issue, I now have Steam but never use it. I wonder if they need to make the Total War series... smaller. At campaign level rather than strategic. It would certainly make it easier to create credible AI.

The reason I keep dying is because you front-loaded the rogue levels. Rog 1 / Ftr 1 every other level increases survival.

^ You're probably right of course, but as an aside I've often ascribed the harsh look of parts of IWD2 to the snowy white backgrounds, it looks perfectly okay in tunnels.

I'm loving the attempt to divert the guy over to the Codex And NWN isn't a classic. It's crap.