Monte Carlo

I haven't played mass effect 1 or 2 so I don't know what you are talking about, but having an alternative dialogue system isn't the end of the world. And I'm very conservative (small 'c') when it comes to CRPG stuff.

It sounds to cool for skool, sod the lack of functionality. It says "not only can I touch type, but amidst the economic turmoil around me I can afford a frippery such as this." Srsly, light a Monte Cristo, fill a goldfish bowl with cognac and congratulate yourself on an awesome purchase.

Actually, I'd like to see a ten-year romance cycle for the player character: Years 1-2: Oh, baby, my nubile elf romance NPC-stress, love that jiggle-tech! (makes mad passionate love) Years 2-3: We're married, I hate your 8000 year old mother, we still make mad passionate love but only at the weekends in the most expensive tavern in Lothering :: sigh :: Years 4-8: Kids. Bloody kids. I'm spending more time at the dungeon, the food fairy won't feed those brats and keep you in new wizard robes, and yes I've cleaned the horse this morning. Years 9-10: That new rogue chick I've been adventuring with, I'm sorry, it just happened after we found the secret door and she was wearing that leather armour, the stuff with the thigh boots? I know she's ten years younger than you darling, but I've been wondering about where our marriage was going for a while and, y'know, she really understands me... whaddya mean you get the keep, both my war dogs and 75% of the gold? WTF!

How would you know that if you've never used it? Actually the most recent version is smooth as silk for me, I never notice when it is running. No slow-downs, even with my weak internet connection. Via the power of my mind.

Er, the language filter on this board is bizarre. D1ck isn't a really naughty word, after all what if my first name was Richard?

^ Yes, i'm planning on seeing it, the review I read was by someone who clearly (a) doesn't like sci-fi, (b) hadn't seen the other movies and © was a ****. Why do movie reviewers review genres they clearly hate? FFS, if you sent me to review something like Twilight then their is only one feasible outcome.

Dragon Age was more emo than wearing black eye-shadow and sulking in your bedroom.

I'm glad this person has left. There's only room for one malignant narcissist on this forum and that's me.

The Expendables was made when sly Stallone found a massive chunk of Win Ore in his garden. He coated it in cheese and then carved a movie from it. And, verily, the action movie fans were happy and grateful.

Welcome to the internet, sparky.

They get my grudging respect for trying something new with the ten-year story-arc... but it feels, again, too much like Bio deus ex machina design style. The writers love what they're doing so much they just want to wrap you up in it so you can love it as much. For me, there's a sort of infuriating vanity in there. And Grom is right, a soppy emo vampire CRPG is only a matter of time for Bio. They would be the perfect dev for such a game, seriously.

^ Even more ways for them to dump NPCs on you when all you really want to do is kill them.

And, none of us would mind the Biowarian obsession with story-telling if they were outstandingly good at it. But they're not.

"Framed Narrative Structure" translates into "You are now an NPC in our virtual novel, occasionally we'll let you fight a battle."

Seriously, though, for the same reason I don't like iTunes. It's clunky, invasive and the principle of it irks me.

Because the government uses Steam to send out brain-control rays. Before that it was the black helicopters.

Although I fully agree with the concept of Caveat Emptor, there is one exception. WHEN A GAME ONLY MENTIONS MANDATORY STEAM INSTALLATION IN TINY LETTERS AT THE BOTTOM OF THE BOX UNDER THE SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS. I have a whole weekend free. To myself. To a married man with kids this is a rare treat. So I buy Sniper: Shadow Warrior and a significant quantity of beer and peruse the Dominoes Pizza menu. Then I realise that this game needs Steam to work. I will not have Steam on my computer. Empires:TW had mandatory Steam. Fine, it said so on the box. So I didn't buy it. This game, which admittedly bought in a hurry, does. My bad. Luckily I know the store will exchange it. So, can somebody tell me, why are some games Steam Only?

The only movie I'm really excited about at the moment is The Expendables.

Maybe the hero should be called Tony Hawke, he could have adventures on a Dragonbone skateboard.

I've never really bought into the whole social networking thing apart from perhaps posting here. The revelation that the folks behind Facebook and Google were, after all, rapacious capitalists isn't surprising. They might work in futuristic bubble-offices serving free macrobiotic mung-bean smoothies whilst having brilliant ideas during unicycle sessions... but they still want to sell your personal data to whoever is prepared to pay for it. One day we'll all laugh at the notion that Google was a benevolent entity.

^ Maybe that's the issue - it didn't nail the genre and missed the point of the source material. Edge of Darkness was a cult 1980's political thriller on the TV here, it's very good. Definitely not noir, political conspiracy stuff.

My pet hate is pre-determined characters, so that's another tick in the Not Impressed column. This sounds to me like a cross between an ARPG and Fable. It will have a veneer of emo BS in the shape of rambling fakespeare cutscenes and RoManCEs FoR DArk HERoic FanTASy! I liked DA1 because it was old-skool enough to still feel like a CRPG, this is obviously a design decision away from that. I can't get excited about it, the childish concept art is unimpressive and the general premise (refugee from the Blight becomes supreme overlord) is just one cliche away from Farmboy Saves The World. Of course, like last time, the hype and puerile marketing will obfuscare anything genuinely cool about the game but this gamer can't get excited about it and I won't be following it.

Really? I thought it was awful. Revenge thrillers should be visceral and sharp - for all their faults Taken and Man on Fire are examples of the genre worth watching. Edge of Darkness, like State of Play, are both British BBC TV political thrillers. State of Play ran with the ball and was excellent, I'm afraid I can't day the same of Edge. And, much as I like Ray Winstone I struggled to picture him as an East London boy-turned-CIA covert operative. Mel Gibson was one-dimensional and... meh. By the time the movie warmed up it was almost over, and the neo-con, greedy corporate villain was mono-dimensional. Or maybe I'm just thinking about it too much. It's a genre I really like, so I was disappointed. Gibson, after all, is the man who brought us Apocalypto and therefore deserves to be taken seriously. He can do better than this.

The taxation on weed will be so punitive that criminals will still smuggle it, the same way they do with tobacco. Not that I'm saying that it's a reason to keep it illegal, it just adds another POV to the prohibition argument.

This thread is freaking hilarious, a petri dish of stupidity.