Monte Carlo

Reasonable scientists and others are challenging the hysteria and slowly de-bunking the whole thing, I suppose.

What's the view on Watchmen? I might watch it later but would appreciate an opinion or two.

Wow, looks like Cap'n America just joined the Village People.

I don't want to rain on the parade with regards to Deus Ex 3, but looking at those screenies all I see is the Crysis body armour, pumped-up FPS supa-weapons and spider-bots. Just like every other quasi, near-future FPS game. I'm sure it'll be OK, but isn't it time for a bit of an aesthetic shift in games?

Hell Kitty wins, close the thread now.

Isn't it ironic, that in areas where UN peace keepers are deployed, the incidences of genocide, civil war and terrorism seem to go up? OTOH, a short war (although brutal and nasty) usually has a winner and a loser and a peace conference and reparations. The UN prolong the agony so that the bleeding hearts can sleep soundly at night.

I don't suppose you care what a nasty little person this post makes you sound like?

It would be more fun in an Aliens CRPG. Obviously, with you as the Alien. :: Cue face-sucker & stomach bursting mini-games ::

Presumably this is all out there on the Google cache. IIRC the landsknecht, inspired by the Germanic C 16th mercenaries of the same name, was a two-handed specialist who moved really slowly. I can't remember the others, but basically he started suggesting munchkin wet dream kits, and as Grom says some folks were smitten by them. It might not have been our finest hour but it was one of our most amusing.

Oh, and nostalgia corner... I like IWD2. A lot. I know many didn't but hey, remember I'm the guy who liked SoZ. But funnily, I enjoyed the banter on the BIS forum during the dev cycle a helluva lot more, q.v. Sawyer's crazy kit suggestions, some of which I'm sure were good natured borderline trolling. Landsknecht, anybody?

Agreed. Turkey is a fine nation with plenty to be proud about - the AK party are threatening that and seem to me to fly in the face of everything Ataturk stood for. Erdogan has tried to neuter the generals but I daresay a few of them might have 'gone fishing' and has a bit of a chat about how to preserve the secular tradition.

IWD is the quintessence of old skool D&D goodness and sits right up there in my top 5 CRPGs of all time. As Gromnir points out, it's so well done that you forget the linearity because you are having fun. Loot, monsters, a discernible plot, great dungeons, lots of different combat encounters, fine art direction and some of the best PC game music ever. Honestly, I played it with HoW and TotL added on last year with the widescreen mod and it was still a perfectly good PC gaming experience. Folks here who haven't played it might want to give it a go.

The widescreen mod works just fine for IWD.

Wow, just read that recently the Turkish premier gave a warm welcome to the benevolent and wise ruler of Sudan. That's right. Sudan. Every Hollywood liberal is up in arms about the borderline genocide there, but good old peace-flotilla sponsoring Turkey ain't that bothered for some strange reason. The double standards here are so outrageous it's hilarious.

The experience of posting on here and, before that, on the BIS forums has taught me what is realistic to expect from games developers. They live in a trash compactor of reality - as gamers we largely live in an open-spaced omni-dimensional cloud of optimism. So, with that in mind and considering that I love BG2 as much as the O.P... 1. D&D is dead for the time being. Video killed the radio star: PC games copied pen and paper rulesets now pen and paper rulesets copy PC games. D&D4 = WoW it is not even recognisably a RPG as many of us know it. Expect an original IP / ruleset and you won't be disappointed. Somebody will eventually make a D&D4 game, probably a quasi MMO. And it will suck. 2. If you switch on the TV you will see that the world economy is more screwed than a Plymouth hooker on Navy Day. Developers will be expected to toil in the games mines to make profitable, mass-appeal games... ... which leads me to 3. Consoles. A lot of the things you loved about BG2 aren't really console friendly. All successful games are cross-platform now. You seriously need to lower your expectations. 4. The future for the likes of us lies with smaller indie titles and modded games, other fans are more in tune with what have become niche and not very profitable tastes. Dragon Age was as good as it's going to get. Even though it wasn't, for me, good enough I was still grateful for the gesture. Cheers MC

I, on the other hand, was simply looking for a CRPG-lite, fun gaming experience with some old-skool features. I didn't expect much else so was quite happy with the result. My main criticism was that it needed more FiGhtINg In TuNNelS, there wasn't one big mega-dungeon centrepiece, a Durlag's Tower or whatever. I know DA / SoZ is apples and oranges. It's just that games nowadays take themselves so darn seriously. I don't want to feel like I'm in an epic fantasy novel, I want to feel like I'm having a laugh in a mate's garage with pizza and beer and D&D. SoZ got nearer to that than a lot of games I've played, including DA:O and Awakenings. SoZ has been villified for not being a michelin starred meal when all that was promised was a slice of straightforward D&D pie.

Because they're not Israel. This is what I've been banging on about for ten pages. Israel is important, it stands for something bigger. It's Fort Laramie, a dirty, battered outpost of Western democracy. Those who would see a shadow of Iranian-style dictatorship descend over the entire region want it destroyed. They are using multiple tactics, including this old favourite from the KGB playbook of using 'progressive elements.' Am I suggesting that this flotilla is on a hotline to Tehran? Hell, no. Am I suggesting that the European liberal left is being subtly manipulated, that it's acidic self-hate is being hi-jacked? Hell yes.

Maybe next time they can hire a fleet of lorries and take stuff to, say, Zimbabwe?

By the way, maybe these guys will take much-needed food supplies to the People's Socialist Nirvana of North Korea next. For some reason, this regime never seems to trouble them, even when starving their own people or torpedoing foreign naval vessels.

^ Where did I say it excused them? Straw-manning.

Hmph.

There are a number of points made above that illustrate what I'm talking about when I mention the Holocaust. To wit, that for younger people the event is losing it's significance. Conflating the Shoah with other current crises is a good example, so is the inability to conflate the mindset that led to this incident with the events of the past. Guys, please think about it. I genuinely don't mean to be patronizing but I'm prepared to be. The philosophical wellspring of your society, the paradigm of existence fed to you with your mother's milk is this: We are alone. We are beset by enemies. We allowed ourselves to be put into cattle trucks and taken to death factories. Never again. Seriously, forget the whole God / Chosen People schtick (and remember, some Hasidim are virulently opposed to Israel). So, Calax, yes we need to unambiguously tip-toe around the issue of the Holocaust. It's in living memory. No, none of the African dictatorships you reference are as bad as the Nazis, not even Rwanda. Yes, the idea that this tactic, this flotilla, is the thin end of an ingeniously constructed wedge to weaken the state and people of Israel is utterly relevant. Please note that I'm not defending Israel's action in this instance. I am, however, understanding it. Just as I understand Hamas. And having done that I've made my mind up who is the least worst, who I'd prefer to prevail in the Middle and Near East.

These people have already stated that they are going to do this again to force confrontation. They are actually quite clever, this tactic is working and will work. I don't think they see the big picture, but then again single-issue obsessives seldom do.

@ Nemo. Are you an economist? Because they too are more comfortable arguing about what might or should have happened as opposed to what actually happened.

So it'd be OK if the police in America opened live fire on, say, tea party protesters who hurled rocks or tried to take their guns right? An eye for an eye is neoconservative policy these days, right mate? if the tea party protesters were attacking the police with knives and metal bars, we would expect the police to respond with deadly force. Don't be a ****, you'd expect them to use tasers and tear gas. Krezzie, your Tactical appreciation and experience comes via a PS3 I suppose.