Monte Carlo

Caveat Emptor. Obama was upfront about what he sought to achieve when he ran for office. He won. I write as somebody who doesn't share Obama's politics and has yet to be particularly impressed by the man. But you can't say that he hasn't delivered what he promised, unusual for a 21st Century politician. As somebody wrote recently, the rugged individualism and excitement of the American Dream is all very well, until you get diagnosed with cancer and have no health insurance. But there is a problem - in the UK the Left (who invented socialised healthcare) are destroying it with managerialism and social engineering. Which is their own manifest destiny - every function of the state must not only deliver a core service but also prosletize Frankfurt-school Marxism. As Alanis would no doubt erroneously warble, isn't it ironic? So, rugged individualists of the US, a word from an English conservative with Libertarian leanings (the small 'c' is deliberate), socialised healthcare as safety net = good. Socialised healthcare as comprehensive vehicle for social engineering = bad. I fear you will get the latter from the Obama iteration of the Democratic party. Republicans, if they want to get with the programme, should triangulate the issue by forging 'safety net' light-touch healthcare whilst fighting tooth and nail the leftist version. Cheers MC

Oh, and last night I had the misfortune to watch Righteous Kill. Let's get this straight: You are a director. They give you Robert De Niro and Al Pacino and ask you to make a NY cop movie. And you screw it up. Wow, that's like missing a barn door with a pump gun. I mean, you've got to be trying to screw it up.

Took the sprog to see How to Train Your Dragon, which was the best movie I've seen this year. Honestly. Hurt Locker? Meh. Dragons? Yay! It's a bit strange that all the Vikings had Scottish accents (except for the younger Vikings, who were all American, WTF?) but it sort of worked. Cheers MC

"How much can you possibly know about yourself if you've never been in a fight?" - Tyler Durden, Fight Club. "A liberal is a person so open-minded his brain fell out" - anon, although I use it quite a lot. "A Conservative is a Liberal who's been mugged - a Liberal is a Conservative who's been arrested" - also anon, and pretty much on the money. "Stand by the river long enough and you will see the bodies of your enemies floating by" - anon, Chinese (of course). "I feel sorry for people who don't drink - when they wake up in the morning that's the best they're gonna feel all day" - attributable to Peter Lawton or one of the other Rat-Packers. "Remember, your personal weapon was manufactured by the lowest bidder" - Murphy's Law of combat. "Never attribute to malice that which can be explained by stupidity" - O' Hanlon's Razor "The enemy advances, we retreat; the enemy camps, we harass; the enemy tires, we attack; the enemy retreats, we pursue

Medieval Total War 2...England, naturally, bejaysus the Irish are a tough nut crack on VH/VH (Kingdoms GC mod). DA: Awakenings... why can't I gut Anders the moment I lay eyes on him? Men of War... can't get into the groove and the first mission on normal difficulty involves driving a very slow tank through a very long gauntlet of well protected AT guns. Meh. S.T.A.L.K.E.R... now it might have dated graphics but it is very atmospheric. The scenery is so... normal. Which is what makes it spooky. It's ten times spookier than FO3, not that FO3 is meant to be spooky I suppose. I am having a break from Company of Heroes, it was too much of a time-devouring habit.

^ I'm hoping that there are tunnels later on.

I bought it. Installed it, ported in an old character from the DA epilogue (luckily wearing the Legion armour, so no underwear-clad melee), booted up the game. I expected a bit more of an intro, but instead I was pitched into combat with my new NPC friend. We make mince-meat of a Darkspawn ambush that a level 10 party would have aced. Then I speak to my new NPC who is a 21st level fighter with a 1st-level attitude. The dialogue was meh. The combat was meh. I turned it off and played Medieval Total War 2 instead. I think I'll go back to it and enjoy it, but at the moment I'm not in the mood for some reason. The first bit of the game fails to grab you at all, it's just so.... familiar.

In the shops this game (DELUXE EDITION!) is on offer for UK

The countdown is for the new five-dollar DLC that enables you to use the other DLC items you already paid for in Origins port over to the XP.

The Two Worlds thread is all about one of us picking up a game that was released a while back, universally loathed, yet enjoying it anyway. I am just about to install STALKER, which I'm sure you all realise was released shortly after the end of the Nixon administration. I'll let you know if I like it. What reasonably old games (I mean older than 12 months... this is the future, right?) should we be playing, if we missed them first time around?

Basics, Bioware.... basics.

Have been lurking on the thread at the Bio boards about why you can't port DLC weapons and armour into Awakenings. Chris Priestley's 'explanation' was, to say the least, disingenuous.

It's like they've got a twisted corporate death wish, who can alienate the most customers by Q4 or something.

I played Return to Ostagar yesterday. It was nothing special*, except for the phat l00t, which was pretty cool, my level 10 party came out of it pretty tooled-up. Frankly, the Soldier's Peak DLC was better. I have mixed feelings about bite-sized DLC, now having seen how the experiment works, I still say full-length XPs are the way to go. A piece of DLC the combined size of the two abovementioned adventures and costing 65-70% of them both combined strikes me as the 'least worst' option. In any case, I'm getting back into it by trying different NPCs and am getting more enthusiastic about Awakenings. * There are tunnels, but they are woefully small and not up to the usual miles 'O tunnels industry standard for DA.

Wow, those Norwegians think of everything don't they? The Scene: The Norwegian High Court "Hey, Thorvald, are you done writing up those legal statues yet?" "No, Knut, I'm still considering the jurisprudence concerning the viability of single-player computer games vis-a-vis persistent internet connections." "Coolio, it's all about detail." ---

Dragon Age is pretty stable, I've got no complaints about the out-of-the-box product nor the 3 patches in, what, 5 months?

It might be lame and unconvincing, but if it makes Alistair less freaking annoying then it gets my vote.

I am, I've got it installed but haven't played MP yet.

What dialogue choices are these that make puppy Al a badass? The stuff where you point out that his sister is a parasite or is it something else?

That is a cool monster, I'll grant you that. Is it romance-able?

^ I don't buy that, Bio can cook up a reason for any character to return via the WoNDeRs of MaGIc... Oghren isn't even so-annoying-he's-funny (qv. Minsc), he's just annoying. In fact, apart from dead paladin guy, all the Awakenings NPCs are knocking of the doors of the Castle of Meh.

Oghren... he's easily one of the least favoured NPCs in the games. This isn't me, this is the Bio shill fanbots I'm talking about. You could drop any other NPC from the original in and get a better response. :: shakes head :: honestly, I don't understand developers. They're gamers too, right? I'm playing a new game of DA to try to get back into the groove. I think the problem is the four-character party... to play the play I want to I need five. And the lockpicking thing is driving me freaking nuts. I have to take Imoen-chick everywhere to satisfy my worrying must-open-every-container disorder. Even if it only contains a returning frost dart.

It's strange... the compulsive gamer in me who, normally, would be heading for the games shop ASAP is... not interested. It's not that I'm not going to get this, I will get round to it for sure, it's just that I can't get really excited about it. I'll wait for a month or two. As good as it is, and DA is a solid CRPG with flashes of greatness, it isn't quite scratching the CRPG itch I have. Cheers MC

Let's talk about balance, it's easier for me to understand than philosophy. The potion of re-spec shows how hopelessly unbalanced DA is --- because it is a game crafted around the skills and abilities of the NPCs (i.e. the sucky spell selections of the mages, Sten's suboptimal stats for his fighter specialisation). Re-spec them and BOOM! the game becomes a virtual cakewalk. So I suppose not adding powers that make your character even more powerful aren't allowed in the vanilla game. Even now I don't really understand the DA mechanics, I'm playing with a DW Warrior with two daggers. Is he better off with one bigger weapon? I dunno. I'm just guessing. Cheers MC