Monte Carlo

I don't think it's Bioware hate, actually it's Bioware exasperation. look at many of the comments here (including mine)... people respect them as a developer and enjoy their products (personally I haven't for some time - I find their linear, cut-scene heavy style, not to mention the smothering hype around their products not to my taste). I really respect the Bioware back-story and think they deserve their success. So, as probably the most influential CRPG development house out there, I think it's natural that Fans Like Us (i.e. gamers who care enough to spend our time talking about this stuff on forums) will look to Bio to push the bloody envelope. Not make something that, on the available (and burgeoning) body of evidence is derivative and vanilla and... meh. Yet the hype bombards us like Soviet artillery with how original and ground-breaking it all is. Do something daring, why don't you? You create your own IP and... it's vanilla high fantasy? I reserve the right to be wearily disappointed by that. I like these sorts of games. I'll buy it. I might even enjoy it. But I'd be even happier if the setting was fresher, newer.... different. That's why the realist in me posted the lowest common denominator comments, which I stand by. This setting is. Bio could have used their popularity and muscle to take us in a direction new enough to excite jaded fans but familiar enough to be commercially viable, but they've clearly chosen not to. Cheers MC

Huh? Try reading the post for a change before hitting the add reply button. I described the setting as lowest common denominator. No single person. Alternatively, you could apologize for getting the wrong end of the stick, but I suspect that's too much to ask for.

Im just going to put it out there blatantly and honestly: my taste is better than yours.

^ FWIW, the gameplay videos shown above rather prove my point.... the muscle-bound warrior in comedy plate (straight outta Diablo) and the cleavage-tastic mage (something Bio suggested they were moving away from, part of my snobby elitist tastes include a growing disdain for casual sexism in games). Which is a shame because apart from that as a tactical combat engine in a CRPG it looks very much like my cup of tea. The charge of vanilla, cookie-cutter high fantasy however remains on the record, and that video is exhibit 'A.' Cheers MC

I'm not going to defend my taste in anything, because it's subjective. But. Lowest common denominator isn't necessarily pejorative, is it? A Big Mac is arguably lowest common denominator food. Now and then I like one. Conversely, budget notwithstanding, I also like the occasional trip to a place with a Michelin star. I wouldn't like to eat Big Macs all the time, nor Michelin star food either. Capiche? Bio is unasahmedly going down the "Would-you-like-fries-with-your-CRPG" route. They're trying to dress it up, as others suggested, with some tweaks to approximate originality. This is like our Big Mac being served with a slice of fois gras: it's still a Big Mac but with a posh bit that isn't really simpatico. There's nothing wrong with this (hey, Greg & Ray have my respect for creating such a successful business, they really do). So, call me an elitist snob in petty ad hominem insults if you wish, but nowadays I'm hankering after a game a bit more Michelin star than BK drive-thru. That's all I was saying. Cheers MC

I really appreciate where you're coming from there, and I sort of agree. But if they were going to do that, why not set it in the early 1950's? I think the problem is that the producers are trying to have their cake and eat it with the new Bond. Cheers MC

Yawn.

^ Yes, unashamedly so. So what?

It's rubbish because it's meant to be (I mean, LARPing is inherently rubbish). It's referencing the infamous "LIGHTNING BOLT! LIGHTNING BOLT!" 'ogre battle' LARP video, which is one of the funniest things on the internet if you can find it. I think I posted it here for your delectation a few years ago. Cheers MC

Cool, let's talk about James Bond. I liked Casino Royale a lot, Dan Craig is coolio and I was looking forward to them refreshing the whole Bond thing. Then QoS, which was basically Bourne in a dinner jacket. Zzzz. They need to do better next time. Cheers MC

^ Crash, as a massive fan of Moorc0ck and the Eternal Champion, I've noticed for some reason that his work is commonly described as Science Fantasy. ::shrugs:: like it matters. Like people said, the distinction is moot but DA:O looks to me to be pretty vanilla high fantasy. And like others have said also, as long as it's a good game then that's not a big deal. Ulitmately, Bioware went with a lowest common denominator setting for understandable commercial reasons. The minor tweaks to the traditional setting (OMG peasant Elves! No clerics!) are just that: tweaks. OTOH people here absolutely love Planescape, they are the extremely creative and polite distant cousin of the Fallout fan. Planescape didn't realise the commercial success they think it deserved - which is why Bio is so good at making Joe Gamer think he is playing something special and different when it palpably isn't. As for romances - sure, I'll ignore them but that's resources that could have gone into something else. I reserve the right to fight the corner of Stuff I Like. After all, there are hordes of romance fanz on the Bio boards who want nothing else, aren't there? Cheers MC

Wow, after playing all the IE games to death over the years I never came across that one. What was the armour? Cheers MC

By the way, here is the imdb entry for Red Dawn. Wolverines!

Yeah, meanwhile in the Mid-West some high school kids see parachutes high in the sky... whoah it's Cuban and Libyan paratroopers, part of the One-World Commie government Obama has created! Wolverines! is the kids' battle-cry as they take to the hills and form a resistance movement to fight the socialist oppressors. Who would have thought that Red Dawn was actually a Democrat election video?

The trailer even has a lurrve-tastic romance!

Dave Gaider's spellchecker headed south; it was meant to be called Dragon Age: Origami, it's a trading game with folding cards. Unfortunately, it's now called Origins and it's a multi-gazillion dollar computer game with soppy romances and fakespeare dialogue. Greg and Ray are miffed, trading card games are the way forward in a harsh economic climate and now they're lumbered.

I'm not being facetious when I say that most hardcore Bio fans simply want romances and cutscenes. Especially romances. They want a sort of Sims-Tamagotchi hybrid with elves and stuff. And I strongly suspect they'll get it, but I agree it would be even more awesomely strange set to the wordsmithery of the mighty Manowar. Cheers MC

Saw Igor with the kids, quite good but the humour was aimed more at the adults IMO. Steve Buscemi's character (a sort of immortal/ undead rat-thing) was particularly funny. Just finished season 5 of The Wire, sad to think there'll be no more. Cheers MC

^ I'm also wondering where the line is drawn between cheese and design flaw? for example, the Infinity Engine games all allowed you to Cloudkill groups of enemies just out of view. Cheesy? Design flaw? Both? Min-maxing stats without tangible penalties was another one in IE games (a 2E design flaw more than anything). Another one is in MTW (again) where you can build a fort over a valuable commodity (i.e. silk or sugar) and fill the place up with merchants, all of whom will turnover the 600 florins+ value per turn. How about rush tactics in RTS games like C&C? They always work if you're prepared to waste the resources. Cheers MC

I owned POR:2 but, luckily, was spared the hard-drive apocalypse feature. I was thinking about my post - of course that bug is hilarious when AI factions fall foul of it, which they do. What a hypocrite I am

I was the States in the early 90's (1992 IIRC) when the first series was shown on MTV. It was a big deal then because it was fresh... now it ain't. Cheers MC

Please list the most annoying, flawed, shoulda-seen-em-coming and game-stopping bugs and design decisions here. This is inspired by my experience of a classic example of the genre last night. I'm playing MTW:2 using the Grand Campaign Mod, and I'm playing England in Turn 132 or something. One of the fun things about MTW:2 is using spies to spot much bigger enemy armies, then setting your smaller army in a tactically advantageous position to ambush them. You then decimate hundreds of hard-arse enemy knights with your hidden longbowmen as they scurry out of column and into a battle line. However, generals with the "Good Ambusher" trait seem to auto-ambush armies that aren't allied who wander into their path... and when you're both on a Crusade that means one thing and one thing only... Excommunication. So it was that my three full-stack armies led by my faction leader and heir, all galloping off to conquer Cordoba under the flag of the Holy Cross, cack-handedly ambushed the Teutonic order crusader army somewhere near Valencia. BONG! The (English!) Pope excommunicates us, all my crusader troops desert, my heavily religious home regions start revolting and it's too late to use the auto-save function. That's a really, really avoidable, frustrating and annoying bug / design flaw. After 132 turns of carefully managed gameplay I'm screwed. Can you name yours? Cheers MC

28 Weeks Later is a poor sequel. The first half hour is decent enough then it also goes fzzzt.... Hey, how about Shaun of the Dead.... that's another great Zombie Movie from the UK! Cheers MC

Mate, were we actually watching the same film? The CGI zombies in Legend were awful. And, considering that Will Smith's cigar-and-grooming budget on Legend was probably bigger than the entire production costs of 28 Days puts your other points into context! Cheers MC

All I can say is that the 'silly string' spell effect used by the sorcerer was a special movie history moment. And the 'giant' was only about 5'9" tall. Cheers MC