Monte Carlo

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

This is a pet hate of mine. Have Bio explained, perchance, why not?

We really need to move the conversation on to fighting. In tunnels. I don't understand all this other stuff.

Your kill ratio is ass-backwards and it's one of the annoying things about MTW:2, the manpower ratio for attacking a fixed position should favour the defender against odds of at least 3:1. Mongol hordes in MTW:2 are also broken, legions of elite infantry / archer hybrids, super-powerful heavy cav and freaking nebelwerfer style rocket batteries. That's why I play as England and deal with them in the high medieval period when I get some decent arty on the field and firearms. I have defeated them, the easiest way to degrade the horde is repeated assassinations to weaken their bloodline. Five-stack armies led by a one-star general are much easier to pulverize. Mind you, as a reminder of the all-round scariness of the rampaging mongol horde that makes you gulp when you see them appear on the map, CA did a pretty good job. Cheers MC

^ Yeah, but scandalously the TW:Empires add-on features don't port into the vanilla game. Happily, there is a mod that rectifies this (Retrofit and Kingdoms Grand Campaign mods). Ramza, get empires and the mod that segues all the features into MTW:2 vanilla campaign. It makes a brilliant game awesome. For example, you kick off the campaigns on the British Isles with the Scots, Welsh, Irish and English. You get all the different units. It's extremely good.

Thinking about my last answer, you get outrageously powerful cavalry as Byzantium. If you are prepared to sacrifice a unit of Cataphracts (or whatever they're called in MTW:2) then this ain't a problem. Charge them full pelt into the infantry using the ram, preferably from a flank, and they should panic and run off. You will lose the heavy cav unit, but it might well be a sacrifice worth making.

Fire arrows are slightly nerfed in MTW:2. You need the next tier of city defences to burn them properly (flame ballistae, burning oil etc). Byzantines are a tricky faction, even on normal difficulty in the vanilla game (the others being the Holy Roman Empire). My personal tactic for taking out enemy siege engines is to create a small force of light cavalry (3-4 squadrons) and let them sally into the battering ram, kill 3/4 of the unit operating it, then retreating them back into the castle. Your archers should do the rest. Do this until you tech up and are able to deal with siege engines, or alternatively play as England. Being an island you won't get invaded, you get longbows which used properly are a big shiny WIN button. Cheers MC

Dark... but not too dark. Ha, sounds like my favourite chocolate from Green & Black's. I'll have my own tilt as to what constitutes 'dark.' Nope, it ain't relentless violence (although violence might indeed be significant) and it ain't everyone being a complete basterd (note new Tarantino spelling to baffle language filter LOL) either. Dark is the mood music. Ferelden ain't very dark. There's dark stuff going on... but like Dave Gaider says, it ain't too dark. The rest of it is fairytale castles and dudes wearing comedy gold pantaloons. What is? Well, Elric of Melnibone is dark --- the whole Eternal Champion saga is. Why? The settings are, by and large, fantastic dystopias (beautifully realised). Doomed anti-heroes who take occasional comfort from crumbs of humanity and the satisfaction of doing good things (in usually bad ways). Flashes of humour lighten the tone like the brush-strokes in a good painting. It's an exercise in how to do 'dark.' Bio has confused a bit of cleavage, murder, poorly pixellated blood-splashes and Macbeth-level perma-betrayal for 'dark.' Cheers MC

Yes, things pass me by. Company of Heroes was out for two years before I even noticed it.

Still playing Company of Heroes, am looking forward to the new Warhammer 40K game and God of War III. The comments various forumites have made here is making me curious about The Witcher, I might take a look. Usually games where you play a pre-defined character are a big turn-off for me, but enough people here who have views I respect have clearly enjoyed it. Cheers MC

The art isn't to my taste and Dave G, I suspect, is on the verge of becoming a romantic novelist.

^ I'm not sure that's entirely fair, Boo. It actually looks interesting, I'll be picking it up later on in the year.

Why on earth would I do that?