Monte Carlo

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

It's not as awesome as Hawk the Slayer.

^ I agree about Legend, I had high hopes too then it just fizzled out. I like Will Smith, he was doing a good job then the zombies appeared... fzzzt. Up to that point though, abandoned NYC was beautfiully realised. I can't help but think the movie was dumbed-down - the albino Medieval-cultist type victims in The Omega Man were much better. For me, 28 Days is better, although I'm biased because it's a British movie. The cast are solid, the zombies original and Chris Ecclestone's fascist army officer a bit of a left-wing cliche but works in the context of the plot. There's just more going on in 28 Days that ain't happenening in legend.

Makes sense to me. Look at Citizen Kane. An undeniably old film, with many hokey shenanigans. But at the same time, perfectly captivating (although it's bloody long). Citizen Kane is, for me, unwatchable along with a number of other movie buff standards (The Bicycle Thieves - huh?). Although I'll raise you a Lawrence of Arabia for that Citizen Kane, now there's a proper classic. Cheers MC

Kaftan, I know it's cruel, but we all planned it behind your back. I don't know about the others, but I feel kinda bad about it. I mean, you'd have probably won. Cheers MC

I didn't enter it because my opus, a glorious slice of space opera concerning intergalactic narcotics dealers, had nothing whatsoever to do with an Obsidian game. But well done to the winners

Sort of. What I'm saying is this: look at Reservoir Dogs - it's a post-modern, ironic piece of cinema; the first in a long series of imitators which in of themselves reference previous genres (i.e. Tarantino adores pulp 60's and 70's trash cinema, Guy Ritchie is clearly influenced by Tarantino). Personally, I see this as very 1992. Viewed in that context, Pulp Fiction is still great. But it isn't timeless. Blade Runner, on the other hand, looks and feels as fresh now as when it was made. That's the difference. Both good movies but for entirely different reasons. Cheers MC

2001 is one of those movies that has to be viewed in the context of it's time. People will disagree and say that it's a timeless piece of cinema - I say baloney*. However, when it was made the special effects and cinematography were special. The plot, OTOH, was portentous nonsense. Even by the late 1960's, the technology-taking-over meme was well established so HAL was hardly original. And, personally, a year or two later (can't be arsed to search imdb) Silent Running with Bruce Dern did it all a lot better, with more soul. Naturally, Dark Star is the best sci-fi movie of it's time. As for Bladerunner, yes, it is timeless the sci-fi standard by which the others are measured and usually found wanting. * If you disagree, watch Reservoir Dogs. In 1992, the cinematography and dialogue was original and hip. Now, it is dated. This isn't to say RD wasn't a brilliant movie (it's an old favourite of mine) but it is of it's time and place as much as The Maltese Falcon was. Cheers MC

TACTICAL GIMP SPREE A gamed bespoked just for me. This isn't a spam thread, it's a major contribution to the understanding of Gamer culture. You are a prince among men for finding this gem.

I just wrote about two hundred words of utter wisdom on this topic when my connection crashed and I lost it. Sorry. MC

Grognard, huh... what you play? Do a search on forum topics, and you'll see.

^ Despite Planescape being pretty 'meh' for me personally, kudos to those modders because Purgatorio looks awesome. Well done. Cheers MC

Tropic Thunder was released on pay-per-view today in the UK, am watching it tonight and will let you know what I thought. It can't be worse than Pineapple Express. Last week, BTW, I saw Taken. I viewed it as a low-rent Man On Fire (which is an awesome movie that I can watch on a loop), but it had the worst ending of almost any movie I've ever seen, EVAR (I mean the pop star bit with Holly Valance). Shame, because the close-combat action scenes were very well done, and Paris is always a groovy action movie location (q.v. Ronin, Nikita). Cheers MC

^ Agreed. Was watching NCFOM, was enjoying it as a superior, arthouse-esque thriller. Then, half an hour before the end it disappeared promptly up it's own arse, ruining what went before. Cheers MC