Monte Carlo

Hmmm. I'm actually winning games. So time for a non-NDA breaking AAR. Played a US (Para support coy) guy earlier. He was doing the right thing initially (rifle spam) then I noticed he was making machinegun teams. Lots of them. For Wehrmacht players MG teams are a really important early build unit (mine are enhanced with SPESHUL POWAHZ I'm not allowed to tell you about) but not so much Amis. So I wondered if he was a complete noob but noticed he was pathfinding engies to capture strat points so that was worrying. Then he went early Greyhound, again exactly what I expected him to do so I went straight to T3 for an up-gunned puma which would really ruin his day. My Pumas also have ToP SecREt SPESHUL POWAHZ I'm not allowed to discuss on pain of death). He captures the centre victory point (1 V 1 map - Langres) and... waits. A sneaky attempt up my right flank with the Greyhound is frustrated by two up-gunned Pumas and now I'm going T4 which I can't believe. By this point he has enough MP for a Sherman but he's wasting it on inf units. CoH can get pretty paper / scissors / stone and it's all about capturing resources and second-guessing your opponent's build order / tactics. Being a para I'm also expecting a pesky airborne inf team with RRs to mess up my light armour. Basically the guy just went firm and defended his middle strat point, by which time I'm holding fuel points with flame pios and MGs and deploying a flakpanzer onto the field. I trundle down his (unprotected) flank and into his base and it's goodnight Vienna. I think the guy was a semi-noob who was almost there. We had a chat and I told him that he needed to keep advancing - Americans can spam units but need to keep going. If you let Wehr build up petrol then we unleash horrible armoured forces on you (I always play Blitzkrieg and go for fast armour with tough inf support and don't rely on arty spam). Anyhow, it was just like a regular online CoH game just with knobs on and me winning!

Another dividend is, ironically, the small screen size (15"). I installed Baldurs Gate 2 / ToB tonight. On my desktop rig I use the widescreen mod which can cause issues with BG2 / ToB and especially other mods. On my laptop BG2 looks fabulous on the unlocked, maxed out resolution that comes with the vanilla config programme! Am busily building v. modded BG2, Windows 7 has none of the crappy Vista issues with compatability, it loves IE games. Company of Heroes looks great and runs smoother than a smooth thing in a velvet bag. For some reason I can't autopatch, suspect it's an anti-virus firewall issue as opposed to the rig itself. Still, I can play offline skirmish and campaign games. Crysis, which I installed purely as a performance test then uninstalled, was fine. Apparently the Alienware notebook will run this fine too, I've seen one and it's freaking tiny. Medieval Total War 2 / Kingdoms, with a load of mods, installed with no problems. Have yet to play but if it runs CoH and Crysis.... and I've still used only a fraction of the available memory. I have to take my hat off to the designers, the dynamic power use and stealth modes mean that the thing doesn't heat up and is very quiet. I'm amazed theyve packed this much performance into a lappie and made it so elegant and quiet. If I have small criticisms it's that (1) there are only three USB ports and (2) the speakers aren't as Gucci as I'd hoped. These are minor issues, I'm going to buy some small but sublimely expensive travel speakers and / or headphones. The MX17 I would suggest is a viable desktop replacement, the MX15 for me is almost there and a fantastic addition to my home tech / gaming set-up. All in all I am delighted with the product, bravo Alienware. I know it's expensive, but if you were thinking of going down this route then I'd say do it. I'm too old to wear baseball caps but there was one in the box ! Cheers MC

It was a maxed-out resolution but I wouldn't have a clue about gauging FPS.

It means it ran smoothly with no problems.

Yes, the webcam recognises your face in lieu of a password, it's part of this alienware control centre thingie that lives at the centre of my machine like HAL in 2001.

Follow the link on the official site, sign up for a raptr account and you get a key. I've been playing for two days, I'm sure I'm not breaching the NDA by saying it's like CoH but with added win bolted onto it. And, yes, you get the original SP campaign for free.

I've been playing around with the machine for a couple of days now. It's awesome. Fast, responsive, quiet and loads of memory and eats Crysis for breakfast. I even love the leather-bound manual (really). It's a totally self-indulgent purchase, from the control centre to the facial recognition but I am completely smitten with it.

^ That's one of the few things I liked about GTA --- you decide when to steal cars and there are consequences.

It would appear that meaningful enforcement in those jurisdictions is impossible, which is odd seeing as China can get Google to bend to it's will on political content. But not warez. Hmmm.

I'm like that with movies: I prefer them to have car chases and gunfights. If they don't I generally don't dig them. Same with games. They need tanks, explosions, tunnels, fighting in tunnels, treasure, more tanks and blowing stuff up. A game where you blew up tunnels in a treasure-harvesting fighting vehicle would be the best.

^ And the bad news is that they can only run PC games as a loss-leader into consoles for existing gamers for so long.

Wendy's was the best, the used to serve square hamburgers in the UK which is wacky but in a good way. Especially if you like geometry and processed meat snacks. Talking of which, the UK took the doner kebab to it's dangerously cholestorol-choked heart. Forget burgers, the traditional apres-beer repast of the proud Englishman is a large doner, extra-strength chilli sauce and chips.

Am trying to read D-Day by Stephen Ambrose but his hagiographic treatment of Eisenhower is making it a bit difficult, dragging us firmly and uncomfortably into fanboi territory.

There is access to the CoH closed beta on the CoHO website. I'm currently downloading it, but in the meantime if anybody else feels like participating then I'll give you my raptr details and we can play. CoHO is free, is scheduled to be released next month and is, naturally, beyond completely awesome. Cheers MC Edit: Read the NDA!

Elves now have lineage style horizontal pointy ears, I see.

Given these changes, can somebody point out to me or rebut the DA2 = ME2 with swords? For the record I haven't played ME2 so an explanation of the argument would be helpful. In any case, this looks like a slam-dunk© console action RPG with a ponderous storyline bolted to it. It will sell well, I'm sure, but it belies the myth that Bio now make CRPGs as we know them.

Like I say, I wasn't buying it anyway but the removal of the tactical view is A Bridge Too Far and signals that the barbarians are indeed at the gates. Fix bayonets!

Again, I think you are spot on. I spend a small fortune on books. Recently I read a militart history title that had interactive web-links, i.e. a URL on a page here and there that unlocked new content on the publisher's website about the book, the author and the material - i.e. videos / interviews etc. Basically making the special features of a DVD free into a book via the web. It's very neat, I like it and eventually people will see stuff like that as industry standard.

Am inclined to agree. Company of Heroes online (free) will have micro-transactional content (paid for) which you could win if you had time to grind and earn it. It's an ingenious way of increasing the longevity of a four-five year old game, and MMORPGs will go the same way. Core game = free. Modules / premium content = paid. It's entirely fair you can't complain as the consumer. My personal beef is the trend / effort to segue gaming with social networking (I can see the suits in meetings cracking whips to get the devs to squeeze a cent from the false synergy between WoW and Facebook). As a social networking hater, who sees it as nothing but cynical data harvesting industry, I don't want gaming to become a wing of it. Cheers MC

The Book of Eli OK, it's Fallout with a mysterious book rather than a water chip. I liked the look and feel of PA California, the crazy warrior-monk Denzil Washington plays (it's Man on Fire with a geiger counter), Gary Oldman's dependable bad guy and the cameo with Michael Gambon as a well tooled-up pensioner. I didn't see the twist coming at the end and overall I thought it was an interesting movie that adds something solid to the painfully small end of the world genre.

And should result in the death penalty, well in any truly civilized society anyhow.

OK. I also suppose it depends on what you want to do with your degree. If you want to work in media then go to London. End of. Period. My wife worked in the industry for fifteen years, London is to Uk media what the West Midlands used to be to UK manufacturing industry. If you are serious I will provide advice as to where to live etc, within a modest scholarly stipend.

It worked for Alpha Protocol. But hey, if "I know a part of the ending" is equivalent to "there's no choice in the game at all" then that's your perogative. Maybe you've had your blinders on for a while now, but you do realize that in every BioWare game (and arguably any game), any choices you get to make are just the ones that the designers let you make. Stop being so smug, look at what I said in context as opposed to scoring points.

I agree that the industry killed itself with intrusive, hostile DRM schemes and failed to tackle piracy in any meaningful way. Having said that, by the time gaming 'dies' (although there will always be a niche and one that I suspect I will happily dwell in) a console will appear that will run all the games I like to play. Again, it might be a niche product within the console canon but it will be there. The market is king, and the market for the games I like is there.

Westminster - slap bang in the middle of London, it's probably a funky place to be an under-graduate student but as a deadly serious scholar actually seeking to work? Uh-oh. Plus, hideously expensive. on the plus side, it's where I live and I will happily buy you a beer. Warwick - a pretty town in a pleasant part of the country but for me a tad provincial and I can't comment too much on the Uni, but it is seen as a credible academic institution. LSE - Seen as a hot-bed of shouty, radical student politics, our friend Lord of Flies would be very happy here. Extremely credible academically, it's still slap-bang in the middle of London thus humungously expensive in terms of living costs. Then again, if you are going to live in the Uk for a couple of years why not reach for the stars and live in one of the world's genuinely bat**** crazy 21st century metropolis? What subject are you studying? British university cities are generally provincial but having said that I don't know anybody who went to Manchester who didn't absolutely love it. Personally, if I had to study again tomorrow I'd be heading West (Bath, Exeter, Bristol) for the scenery and chiled out vibe or to York (fabulous walled city, historic, scenic, lots of friendly and attractive local chicks). Cheers MC