Monte Carlo

Dragon Age: Origins as a Dwarf commoner rogue. Rat-Bastard 'Bad Warden' with the Dog as permanent wing-man and other NPCs as and when. Poison / traps / stealth and a bit of DW. Spamming dexterity so little armour needed. I only played through DA:O all the way once, with a human noble warrior who was a 50/50 good guy bad guy. DA:O is a pretty good game, my biggest disappointment is how poor the modding scene is, there are lots of tweaks and stuff I'm not interested in. But even in the vanilla game there is enough fighting in tunnels. With a dwarf. Sneaking.

I tried, I really did but the cartoony artwork really put me off.

Kudos to this artiste for showing proper rock & roll cojones.

Didn't realise, BTW, that these are all written by the ludicrously talented Jeremy Soule.

Wals, you know that the correct Actions On for this scenario are: 1. Bite pigeon's head off 2. Rinse mouth on stage with Jack Daniels 3. Ignite it, proving how hardcore rock & roll you are 4. Play the guitar like a wailing demon on LSD 5. Enjoy ten of the prettiest groupies afterwards, simultaneously. Honestly, Keith Moon must be rolling in his grave.

Just mucked about with the demo - the art direction is waaaaay too cartoony for me but I'll give it a go.

^ You should go. Take some grapes, Lucozade and an erotic magazine for him as gifts. You know if the shoe were on the other foot you'd want a friend there, don't you?

I'm very sceptical about D3, pretty hard to reach the same hights as D2 did. That's interesting, most people I know are very pumped about D3. Why the doubts? I've been following it fairly closely and see nothing to dissuade me that it's going to be an uber-polished hack'n'slash gem of a title. The only thing that doesn't do it for me are the new classes, I was happy with the old ones but given that I will play a savage barbarian type anyway I can live with it.

The metacritic reviews are all pretty good, is there a modding / DLC scene around this game?

Vol, the sketch is this. Internet fans / forum dwellers = no power. We are teeming mass of gaming plankton. Developer = power, holds all the cards in this particular context. If the dev doesn't like the plankton then ignore them. Don't post stuff like 'it's my ball and I'm taking it home now.' It comes across as precious and gauche. If Dave is as unbothered as he says he is he wouldn't post at all, which is why it is instructive. As you might have gathered, I'm not very taken with the Bio forum. Nonetheless, they are dedicated people and the people who pay Dave's salary. That doesn't mean he has to pander to them, but a dignified silence is better than the soap opera he's indulging in.

I'm D/L'ing the demo now. As for the lack of LAN for D3, why not battle.net? D3 is the next big thing for me, I'll use battle.net with friends only (hopefully lots of the guys from here will be playing).

You guys are complete ninjas when it comes to deploying the umlaut, no two ways about it.

No co-op? That's a shame, but you two recommending it is good enough for me. Thanks.

Check this story out. KoL aren't my generation's anthemic icons, that would be probably U2. Who, although annoying, would never bail out of a gig because of some pigeon sh1te. Honestly, what is it with these young rock stars. I bet they went to their hotel afterwards and tried to throw a Nintendo DS out of the window, but it bounced off the double glazing.

Since I've got Steam it's been meh-tastic. I've discovered that my awesome, CERN quality gaming rig isn't remotely bothered by it running in the background and I'd sort of forgotten it was there. However, Torchlight is on there for peanuts. I fancy a Diablo-esque dungeon stomper, any ideas on whether it's worth the effort? Cheers MC

Company of Heroes main theme Plus the ideologically disturbing but stirring Panzer Theme Not the sort of stuff you'll listen to chilling out with a glass of Chablis to, but utterly compelling in-game.

^ Meshugger rolls a natural 20 for wacky place names and wins.

I couldn't give a toss personally about the retro-design of character models (FWIW I think the new Qunari look cool but seem to jar completely with the ultra-disciplined race portrayed in DA:O), but Dave Gaider's thin-skinned and uppity response to the faithful on the Bioware forae is instructive.

To sum up Greg's interview: 1. They don't listen to comments on the internet 2. Because it's thuggish 3. But Bioware's strength is that they are really, really open to criticism 4. Although they don't think there's anything useful in the comments section of their forum 5. But if you are a specially chosen Bio player you can make comments in their private NDA-protected forums 6. Did Greg mention that he's not really interested in player comments? 7. He says, "hey wait until you've played the game" i.e. after I've given him forty pounds. 8. The marketing for DA, with Marilyn Manson was a genius piece of awareness-heightening, not puerile and embarrassing. 9.

Thanks, but i already made my order. Interestingly, the other comps I researched were all broadly in the same price range give or take

Company of Heroes! I am now seriously good against the CPU but remain rubbish at all the pros / smurfs / cheats (er, rangers on the field in two minutes followed by Shermans another minute later? Ultra-precise arty because of some anti-fog of war hack? puh-leez. Happily this is rare but you do come across it). Am toying with the idea of another game of Dragon Age and am thinking of Far Cry 2 for my brand new Alienware gaming laptop mwuahahahahahaha!

What? V.O. alone costs an arm and a leg, DA:O for example has three or four of the replete with muzak for the utterly unerotic sex scenes, lots of talking / flirting, art assets for gifts to buy NPC affections, and so on. All of that could have instead been deployed into a Really Big Sword or a 10 x 10 room with an orc in it. And a pie. Cheers MC

You see? They're taking over with their over-scrutiny of everything. Please make games for guys in big blue boxes with GAME FOR GUYS written on it. Gaming is one of the last bastions of geeky masculinity and they are taking over. It will be choose-your-own-fortress-wallpaper and soppy romances and less +6 Hackmasters. :: sobs ::

MAN THIS I LOVE YOU EVEN THOUGH I HAVE NEVER MET YOU IN MY WHOLE LIFE AWESOME Yet again the awesomeness of the internet shows itself as a force for global good. Plus, the guy in red is obviously Daniel Day Lewis, this is the movie he badly doesn't want you to see.

:: sigh :: they are optional, our argument is that the time and resources that go into them could be better used doing something less made of epic fail.