Monte Carlo

Maybe the trailer is aimed as a shot across the bows of nay-sayers like us, the previously faithful hardcore who have fallen by the wayside. "Look at us!" it says, "we get it! We're with the cognoscenti* We're ironic and like Marilyn Manson! We can rip our own game a new one BECAUSE IT'S THAT COOL." Alternatively, they could just be really, really sad. Hey, LET'S MAKE THIS A NIGHT TO REMEMBER DHF fans! * I was one of the cognoscenti, circa 1987.

^ Nope, it's just bloody rude. I don't ignore them and do my Times crossword just because I'm twenty years older.

DA:O will be a commercial success, no doubt about it. Then again, The Sims is a commercial success. A commercial success is a laudable achievement, no matter how crass and brain-dead the product. OTOH, a critical commercial success is better. Hey-ho. I'm expecting DA:O to be campy, pretentious fun with a half-decent combat engine. Nothing more and nothing less. I fear, however, for the delicate souls of the Bioware fan forums though. They were hoping for a Jane Austen of CRPGs but are getting a penny dreadful. As somebody else might say, Ha! Good fun! Cheers MC

I'm itching to watch it again. It's so bad it's good. "Let's make this last night one to remember!" Go Dave, Go!

[grumble mode] These same (early - mid) twentysomethings can't drive more than half a mile without a Sat Nav swtiched on. They saw me the other day with a map book. From their stunned expressions I presume they thought I was going to get on a horse too. Alternatively, it could have been the facial piercings, but what do I know? [/grumble mode]

Where I work there are some twentysomethings. They have strange haircuts and turn up late for work, but apart from that are perfectly nice. However, they have one habit that I simply cannot abide and that is wearing MP3 players whilst sitting at their desks. They don't talk, they don't engage, they just sit at their screens listening to music and it's not even as if their jobs are boring. Why do they do it? when do they talk to their friends and colleagues? Cheers MC

Hey, there's nothing wrong with optimism, it's almost refreshing. I'm sure all Bio are trying to do is introduce new people to DaRK HeROic FAntAsY!!!

^ It looked like real footage to me, but I'd be quite happy if that lurve scene was a wind-up. It was excruciating.

Monty is clearly a shortened version of Montgomery and Carlo is latino / Italian for Charles. As for John / Jack.... think of President John F Kennedy, known to his friends, family and ten million girlfriends as Jack.

Who fancies a small wager that the console and PC titles will be released simultaneously?

Wow, that Geek-fuelled lurve scene just made me go blind. As someone else used to say, WHY, BIO, WHY?

I'm a bit of a Danny Finklestein fan, he runs a comment blog for the UK Times newspaper. Here he hat-tips Freakonomics on the subject of names... LINK Personally, although I find the new crop of kids' names amusing, what really REALLY annoys me is the adoption of shortened names on birth certificates. For example: Harry. Harry is enormously popular (due to, I suspect, JK Rowling as opposed to Shakespeare) but everyone under 40 forgets that it is a derivative of Henry. Do people christen or register their kid as Henry? No. Result? A real name with enormous cultural significance dies out. And I think that's sad. Ditto John (people christen their kids 'Jack' never realising that it's a derivative of John). And loads of other names. Anyway, what names are fashionable at the moment where you live? Cheers MC

Here's an eclectic mix... Humpty Dumpty: Stigmatised overweight person falls from elevated position without any issued safety equipment. Inept military unable to assist. People compose amusing rhyme to celebrate tragedy. The Guns of Navarone: Trigger-happy special forces ruin Greek wedding and destroy prominent local landmark whilst contravening Geneva conventions by wearing enemy uniforms. Magnum P.I. : Traumatised war veteran attempts to blot out PTSD symptoms by growing large moustache and adopting elderly English fascist as room-mate. Star Trek: Humourless, politically-correct uber-race travel universe to educate aliens about the joys of tight-fitting unisex clothing. Those who disagree are vaporised by hi-tech energy weapons. Watership Down: Selfish rabbits frustrate scientific breakthrough on communicable disease prevention. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe: Small imperialists thwart feminist attempt to reduce global warming in Narnia. Reservoir Dogs: Men forced into crime by societal marginalisation are set-up for brutal massacre. Speed: Senior citizen with seeking enhanced pension contributions takes direct action against under-funded public transport network. Cop forces drink driver drive bus full of civilians in order to help him blow up aforementioned senior citizen. Casablanca: Mercenary alcoholic only helps resistance fighter because he once had sex with his girlfriend. Toodle pip! MC

With regards to never making a D&D game ever again, sadly I agree. D&D is dead, 4E has killed it. Ergo, I'm actually now quite happy to see new rulesets develop. Of course, one day people might make retro-rules games using new engines (I really can imagine that one day people might find the inconsistent but oddly charming strictures of 1E AD&D appealing again). Until then, let's see what games like Dragon Age throw up (not literally of course) and see what happens. I'd like to see a fantasy game based on a GURPS derived SPECIAL-esque system, for example. Cheers MC

Gftd1, I certainly don't think you're some kind of monster. Neither do I find personal responsibility some kind of cross to bear. If we were to discuss other areas of personal responisbility, I'm sure we'd find broad agreement. On welfare, for example, I'm pretty much all about personal responsibility: I resent every tax penny the state gives to the idle and indolent. Ditto education. What I am saying, though, is that if we adapt the old utilitarian, libertarian saw about the role of the state I'm quite up for including healthcare in there. That's all. It makes perfect sense that a healthy country is going to be a more economically viable country. I'd also reiterate that because I'm not from a country with such a robust anti-statist tradition as the USA that I don't quite understand the strident notion that helping out someone with a bit less than you is somehow an aggressive affront to my personal liberty. I accept that for you it is. What would be interesting, and put this matter to bed, is this. Let us compare the post-taxation disposable income of two comparable middle-class professionals in the USA and the UK. Then let's throw some notional healthcare crises at our little control group: maybe an accident, the arrival of a child, a critical illness. Let's look at the bottom line - who's richer? Unless, of course, there is a genuine hostility on ideological principle of paying to support another. Nothing we can do about that! Government: We're gonna tax you for healthcare, but it will be 15% less than your private scheme and of equal quality. Voter: Will my tax help out someone paying less in? Government: Yep. Voter: Hell, I'd rather pay 15% more. Commie. Nothing you can do about that. Nothing. Cheers MC

You are walking home, alone, from a friend's house on a quiet suburban street. It's late. Suddenly, a car mounts the pavement and hits you. Both your legs suffer multiple compound fractures, your femur is broken as well as one of your hip-bones. The other internal injuries and crushed ribs are small beer by comparison, ditto the superficial maxillo-facial damage. The driver is uninsured and drunk. There are no witnesses and no obvious CCTV infrastructure to incriminate him so he reverses the car and drives off. The emergency services arrive and an ambulance crew save your life, stabilizing your condition before a doctor in an air ambulance arrives. Your are choppered to the accident and emergency ward of a large city hospital where further surgery takes place. In the totally fictitious country in which this completely notional scenario occurs, there is no socialised healthcare system. However, there is a humane system whereby emergency treatment is free. So you do not have to pay for the life-saving treatment that occurs in the weeks immediately after the accident. You are a poor student from a working-class family. You have no health insurance. So, you are alive. However, you require long-term pallative care to deal with the aftermath of the accident - physio, more operations, facial reconstructive surgery, speech therapy, equipment, drugs and all the other stuff that costs an astonishing amount of money. So, here is my question sport fans, so quit with the ideological navel-gazing and point scoring: What happens? You are manifestly not to blame for your position. How do you take responsiblity for the actions of a drunk driver? Who's going to pay? If you want to go all Ayn Rand on this and say (a) he shouldn't be poor in the first place so tough (b) I'm not remotely interest in someone else's bad lack © etc just come out and say it. It's not a problem, it's a position you can take and defend etc. I find it morally difficult, but then again I live in a society where we've squared that imperfect and difficult circle via socialised healthcare. Again, it's not perfect. It really isn't. But it's civilised. One day we all get sick and need some serious medical top-cover. The sort of top-cover where the private insurer goes "whoah! That's not on the schedule" as if health is like renting a car and cancer treatment is like wanting to rent a big SUV with no collision damage waiver. How do you get around that? Cheers MC

What I'd say about the bigger mods is lag in strategy mod (cf. Stainless Steel or Dus Lo Volt! for example). I run a fairly powerful gaming rig and had problems with that one. I can't comment on EB, haven't played it but it does look good in a sort of obsessively detailed way. The beauty of Retrofit / Grand Campaign mods is that they happily co-exist - i.e. you can choose to play either vanilla or modded. I'm sure this is true of some of the other big mods. Generally, the standard of TW modding is fairly high, but as ever do your research before installing. Cheers MC

^ Shogun was great at the time, but rendered pretty redundant by the newer games. Rome, out of the box is OK but happily there are tons of great mods for it. My personal favourite is the Total Realism mod, but beware it changes the vanilla game substantially (for example, more realistic Roman military progression) and makes it a tad more difficult. Give the vanilla game a go but I recommend giving Total Realism a try. Cheers MC

^ The link regarding the pre-release item is linked on the official DA site, Maria. I think I can be forgiven for thinking it's legitimate. As for a DA pen & paper game, hey let's see if PC > pen & paper is as sub-optimal as pen & paper > PC! Cheers MC

^ Dude, DON'T USE THE RING. Just step away from the ring. Slowly. If you do put it on you risk finishing the game quicker, thus diminishing the amount of time you have to experience the DARK HEROIC FANTASY. I'm not using it, even when it gets put up on the net about ten minutes after release. Cheers MC

Blitzkrieg Anthology, a solid bargain-bin purchase if you like thousands of quite realistically rendered little tanks blowing stuff up (I do). My only mild criticism is that like a lot of CDV tactics titles, there tends to be only one solution to each scenario and these games are one of the few I tend to reach for a walk-through at certain points, am currently on the Hamburger-Hill style Italian campaign, where my US forces are taking a hammering in the pouring rain. Cheers MC

Hey, if you pre-order you get a nifty +5 Ring of Levelling Up Fast, just in case you need to grind the orcs even faster to get to the next cut-scene! No, I'm not making this up. Cheers MC

Girls in bars are interested in how much money you have. End of. Period. Talk about how much money you have, or if not how much you are willing to borrow to impress one of these women. The only other model I've seen work convincingly is to play wingman to your best-looking friend. OK, you always end up with the sub-optimal chick but that's life. Cheers MC

The idea that US pharmaceutical companies are somehow a font of generosity and benevolence is risible. I repeatedly make the link, in a non-Mike Moore type way, about the relationship between these companies, the health insurance industry and lobbyists but you keep ignoring it. It's a closed market, a stitch-up, a con. In a genuinely free market, cartels wouldn't be able to dominate in the way they do. Jeez, this forum is full of geeks who rail about Micro$oft yet ignore the US pharmaceutical and healthcare industries. Trust me, they make MS look like Medicine Sans Frontieres.

The BBC is reporting that two people have got it here, but (and I quote) "they don't feel terribly ill." Am not putting a surgical mask on yet.