Monte Carlo

Is that Syndicate Wars on the PC? I only played the PS1 version, and the graphics were much better than that!

^ My favourite Clint Eastwood western is High Plains Drifter, but Josie Wales is very good too. My favourite 'Western' (which it technically isn't I suppose, does Virginia count?) is Ang Lee's Ride With The Devil closely followed by True Grit and The Wild Bunch.

^ Very strange...

I too lost interest in the C&C franchise when Generals was released, luckily I've got all the old ones in one big collection for the PC.

^ Er, and the Australians, Indians, Pakistanis and Sri Lankans, not to mention numerous Caribbean nations too. We just invented it. Sorry.

I'm sure the guy can speak for himself, but I took it as a comment on your insistence that racism appeared, magically, at a specific moment in history driven by Capitalism. And that humankind's long and painful history of nastiness to each other based on race, that almost certainly predates modern capitalism, is conveniently ignored in your rather specious analysis.

Funny thing, really, I was reading The UK Times 'Top 10 Historically Innacurate Movies of all time' and Mister Gibson directed three of them (Braveheart, Apocalypto and The Patriot). For the record, Apocalypto is about a Mayan (not being pedantic, it is utterly different from being an American Indian) who by some bizarre distortion of historical accuracy ends up being involved in an Aztec sacrifical ceremony and escapes. Having escaped by his own volition, he sees a Spanish galleon off shore (which I read as an Out-of-The-Frying-Pan moment, personally), harbinger of disease and slavery. There's no way that any cogent viewer can say that he's 'saved' by the Spanish. Anyway, as a suspense driven and violent chase movie it's actually quite good, but this is the wrong thread for that.

Cricket? WTF? Next they'll make a video game called "Watching Paint Dry Pro 2009." Or something.

^ It is well-known that I too loathe romances in computer games, even more than you. Oh, much more. CRPG romances want to make me lead a latter-day Inquisiton, and expunge them with sword and fire. The only thing that surprises me is that some of the hard-core fans haven't demanded proper turn-based romances.

Ha ha ha, he actually called me a fascist. Presumably for disagreeing with him. Then again, I've been called worse things by more substantial people. :: Shrugs ::

Hey, I actually beat Bubble Shooter for the first time ever this week. Gotta love Bubble Shooter.

^ Grom I think he meant SoZ, which is crafting for dummies

Saw Valkyrie last night, about the Von Stauffenberg plot in 1944. It was pretty good, blimey every decent British character actor in THE WORLD was in it. A few problems, though... 1. Most of us know the plot failed, ergo difficult to maintain any suspense, just curiosity about at what point everybody will get caught and executed by the Gestapo and (1A) they only touch on the fact that some of the plotters were pretty fair-weather characters who were quite happy to support Hitler until it was obvious that Russia was the fatal error. 2. The acting is very formal and strangely old-fashioned. I don't think one character ever made any sort of joke. Hey, I know that they're risking their lives in Op Certain Death, but when humans are under pressure sometimes they joke about it. 3. Tom Cruise might have his own strange personal beliefs but I think he is a consistently accomplished actor. However, in this, I find that he lacks the gravitas to play the character. Wait, gravitas is perhaps unfair, like I say, Cruise is a good actor. It's just that perhaps every other character has a pronounced English or German accent and Cruise still has his American accent. It jars. There's nothing wrong with American accents, it's just that it's incongruous that he's the only guy with one in the movie. 4. It's a Brian Singer joint. I like his stuff, but this didn't feel like one of his movies. 5. The foreign language trick, where a foreign tongue segues into English, has been done before (and better) in The Hunt for Red October and (especially) The 13th Warrior (hey, must see that one again, savaged by critics, loved by Monte). --- I did, however, love the visuals. Nazi Germany is antiseptic, clean, modernist with angular architecture and billowing swastikas everywhere. It feels brutal and crushing and triumphalist. There is also a scene where there is a clandestine meeting in a church, a staple of thrillers.... but the camera pans up at the end and the roof is missing as a consequence of allied bombing. It's striking and clever piece of directing. Anyway, it's worth a look, an original and interesting take on a little-told aspect of WW2 and German history (i.e. the German resistance to Hitler).

^ From what I've done so far the item recipe is 'the hammer' if that makes sense, you click on it and it becomes an activation icon.

@ Sannom - crafting is extremely easy and, no, you don't need moulds. It works like this: 1. Buy or otherwise acquire the relevant recipe (a scroll you keep in a crafting book) 2. Find the required items 3. Find a crafting station 4. Stand the character with the crafting skills / feats near it (that's all you have to do) 5. Click on the recipe and then the item you are enchanting 6. Done, apart from naming the item a little context box pops up that asks you what you wish to call the thing you've crafted (yes, I have a +2 Keen Spear called 'Dave')

Ditto Hitler, and to a certain extent, Mussolini. Does that make it right? Chavez is a clown, and he's incrementally subverting the democratic process to the point where the country will become yet another banana republic, will spawn a violent right-wing counter-revolution then ooops! Op. Condor all over again. This isn't rocket science, this is politics 101. Most democracies are an imperfect but discrete balancing act between state power and that of capital, else they tend to veer off into some sort of authoritarian / corporatist nightmare. Western Capitalist democracy is the least worst system yet developed by the human race, but let's be honest, LotF knows better. He also, secretly, doesn't like democracy. In his dreams he will always win 'debates' because they will be broadcast over a tannoy, in the camp, where the middle-classes and people who wear spectacles will be made to toil in the fields behind barbed wire fences patrolled by men who would happily wear the other side's uniform if they were in power. Cheers MC

@ Oner's point about nomads and stuff... In rural Spain there is a small village where even now, allegedly, a donkey is pushed off of a church spire to ward off demons / bad luck / evil spirits. Hey, let's have a gravity-fed anti-evil spirit donkey-murder ritual in Dragon Age! Cheers MC

Valencia = Always wanted to go to the crazy tomato festival, am genuinely jealous. Enjoy!

^ I'm splitting my sides laughing. Not.

Until SoZ came along I wasn't that bothered about it either. However, SoZ makes it (a) extremely easy to understand and (b) the first chapter of the game is pretty light on good kit, so I had to craft stuff for my party. For example, could I find a non-magical battleaxe in Samargol? Er, no. I'm now having fun making items and, even more importantly, giving them names worthy of the WoRst FAntASy SeTTinG EVaR! My Blade of the Fell Apple Crumble (+2) is especially good.

I stand corrected, I didn't express myself well there at all. I love the story behind IWD: sometimes less is more and, yeah, even the item descriptions give a great sense of place. What I meant is that the setting is... ambient, it's good but it doesn't get in your face. TBH, fighting through the Yuan-Ti temple was so much fun I completely forgot the setting, but that's a good thing in my book. As for the music - for me the best of any IE game, period. Cheers MC

I think I mentioned my Sorcerer / Pale Master build. This ain't any kind of power build, but it's quite interesting especially as a Sorcerer is kind of gimped when focussing on Necromancy. By level 12, though, it gets quite interesting. Given the touch attack emphasis of a lot of necromantic spells that a few melee levels might make an interesting build. The other one I like is a straightforward Wiz / Red Wizard build for that Edwin nostalgia buzz (naturally, mine is called Edwin). It's easy to understand, has lots of spells and you can turn him into your item creation monkey very easily, esp. in SoZ.

^ Funny, never had any problems with SoZ load screens. I have a year old gaming rig, but I'm hardly running HAL or anything... Intel Core Quad 2 CPU; 4.0GB RAM; GeFORCE 9800 GX2 x 2

Hmmm, SoZ bullet-point based mini review, with some very small spoilers, follows for your benefit: * I am biased, I prefer this type of set up. It reminds me of old-skool, fun D&D. Please bear this in mind. * Clearly, the design ethos was 'lets make Icewind Dale but with an even lighter story and concentrate on loot, making stuff, trading and exploring.' It fulfils this design brief. * The exploration is fun, based on (i) random encounters (ii) small adventure locations that are there for the sake of them (iii) quest areas (iv) special encounters * The random combat encounters can get really dull, but you can avoid them on the exploration map. Some of the areas you can explore are too small, Obz could have dumped a largish dungeon in the middle of the jungle quite easily * It's a low-loot game by D&D computer game standards - even with crafting, the most potent weapon on my team is a +2 flaming greatsword (10th level), pretty balanced. * The games adds some welcome polish to the engine, performance, camera and graphics. * The NPCs are pretty one-dimensional, reminding me of BG1 NPCs. Then again, none of them bother you with their problems or bore you rigid with meaningful soliloquies about the meaning of life etc. If they die, hire a new one. There is a very abstract employee book in every inn where you swap personnel in and out of your team. Undead infestation? Call in a cleric. Etc. * Trading is quite interesting, I like it some people don't, it's not mandatory. * The plot is there because you need a plot, but it doesn't get in the way of wandering around making your little band of adventurers even more powerful and strangely multi-classed. * You can give your party a silly name and motto, hit the 'retire' button and enjoy. Stuff like this is important to me. Monte Score: A solid 7/10 if you know what you're letting yourself in for, if you are expecting a meaningful, plot-fuelled romp full of richly detailed NPCs then you'll want to melt the thing down with a flamethrower. I have three games of this one saved and I dip in and out of them trying out new parties and characters... it's that sort of game and I'm glad Obz made it as a conuter-balance to MotB (which I liked, but was a bit heavy-going). Cheers MC

I think I've mentioned before that arcane spellcasters are my least favourite character class.