Monte Carlo

^ From the concept art I think one of the classes might be Assassin, as per the Expansion Pack class.

I take back everything I said - it looks terrific, the concept art is excellent and the graphics seem to capture the spirit of the original completely. I look forward to it tremendously. Cheers MC

^ I generally agree with these comments - Diablo 2 is so good at what it was designed for how do you improve it? Graphics? Hmmm. Not really, there are loads of imitations like Dungeon Siege etc. More role-playing? No, that's not what D2 was about. MMORPG seems logical, but again not what the original was about either. D2 is a great hack and slash looting game, it's still on the shelves shifting copies. It's the Bat Out of Hell of PC gaming. Remember when they remade the VW Beetle, y'know just slapped a new bodykit on a VW Golf? That's right, the convertible version was so that you could actually hear the people laughing at you. D3 could go the same way. Cheers MC

He shoots.... he scores! That's what I'm talking about. There is hope.

[Anchorman]"We bears are a proud race!"[/Anchorman] Ron Burgundy's yappy little dog was clearly at least 3rd level.

I've just started flying the training missions, the graphics are pleasant but not flashy but the amount of controls takes a bit getting used to. If I like the whole feel I'll definitely try out the 'X' games, but I'm new to the genre. As for Sacred, well I love Diablo and Sacred reminds me of that but with better graphics. It's just point and click nonsense, but it's well executed point and click nonsense. With horses. I liked Divine Divinity for much the same reason.

All the other stuff sounds so encouraging that I'm cool about the level 3 thing. But you're right, the D&D rules are the issue, nothing else. All the 3E stuff like maximum hit points at level one and relaxing weapons restrictions for spellcasters still made playing a 4hp mage armed with a crossbow lame.

Thanks for all the suggestions. I was at the games store when I saw Dark Star One bundled with Sacred Gold (I liked the original Sacred a lot) and Port Royale 2 (which is a pirate game I've never heard of) all for the princely sum of UK

I think that the older guys played tabletop RPGs and enjoyed the imperfect but fun transition to the 'puter. I think that the younger guys have been brought up with the computer and especially console games - they enjoy more story driven games. They don't like rules and micro-management. Put simply, some of us want involving, squad-based tactical wargames with a fantasy theme. You say fireball, I say Flammenwerfer. This is what the original tabletop 'RPGs' were in the early 80's, not Fakespeare story-telling competitions with miniatures (I was there). Funnily enough, the PC is an excellent platform for squad-based tactical 'RPGs'. BG1 was exactly that - a squad-based tactics game with a fantasy overlay and a faithful (nay, stubborn) adherence to a ruleset not designed for the computer. The characters were pretty thin, but still interesting enough to give a veneer of involvement that didn't detract from the important business of exploring, fighting and loot. BG2 moved this on a bit, with romances and more interaction and an epic scale. The romance thing has been discussed to death, but personally I think they've diverted the game from the core mission of exploring, fighting and loot. I digress. Now, as has been superbly put, you endure point-and-click combat, deploy brain-dead power-ups and slay everything and a rewarded with a cut-scene that drives somebody else's story forwards. NWN was just like that for me, NWN2 redeems the brand slightly. Personally, choosing to wander into the Ankheg fields before the Firewine Ruins was a good enough 'plot' for me, but I'm a simple soul. I realise that I'm a grognard. I know, in gaming terms, that I'm like one of those Japanese soldiers hiding out on a Pacific island in 1980, refusing to accept that I've lost. But if a developer has the nuts to make at least one product that nods in my direction and not pander to the baser instincts of spoon-fed gaming then I'll be happy (ish). Time to boot up IWD2 and JA2 again, methinks! Cheers MC

Good point, I also suspect that the influence of Japanese RPGs might be part of this too.

On one level, this game would rock. However, the freedom of action required in a RPG versus "suspension of disbelief" (i.e. all the cool things you'd like to do versus the strictures of working in a hierarchical law enforcement agency) limit where it could go. Why is GTA so popular? Because criminals don't have rules or probable cause or are obliged to issue Miranda rights (or reasonable suspicion and PACE if you're in the UK). Ditto secret agents and other rules-free heroes of popular fiction. Where your idea definitely has legs is as a strategy game. Anybody gamer has seen and enjoyed The Wire should be able to spot the potential to make an intelligent, fun game about politiking and backstabbing your way to the top of an urban American police department. Do I put officers into drugs stops on the West Side or address the endemic burglary out East? I can't do both and I've got the COMPSTAT meeting with the boss tomorrow.... Do I fund zero tolerance or community policing. SWAT needs a new armoured car and five officers, but the schools drugs programme needs ten guys that might divert the kids from crime in the first place. And then there's the mayor, who's third party funded by a drugs cartel doing property deals. My serious crimes unit is all over that, but there's an election in five turns time.... It would make the Medicis blush. Cheers MC

I made a rare trip over to the queue at McDonalds the Bioware Forums to lurk on the forums for SoZ. Now, my take on this XP is that the developers thought: "We gave the fans a homage to Planescape with MotB. Fair enough, the engine let us do that, and the feedback was positive. Now, lets give the guys who loved BG1 and Icewind Dale a break too. Let's have a refreshingly honest, adventure packed romp. More Indiana Jones than The Matrix." And as we have seen with IWD2, the Black Isle Obsidian guys know how to twist a game engine to their own agenda, kicking and screaming if necessary (this is why I'm quietly confident that SoZ will be very good). I wear my heart on my sleeve as to which one I'd prefer, and it's good to see them showing off how diverse the game can be. I'm not very clever, and I see this. Why don't the howling fanbois demanding novella-length NPC dialogue and romances (huh?) get it? Cheers MC

Hi, I'm in the mood for a space trader / exploration game, the last one I played being Elite. On a very old computer. What examples of the genre are worth a look? They don't have to be very new, any age / tech specs welcome. Cheers in advance, MC

It's quite good fun in a "beer and pizza multi-play with your mates" kinda way. Hey, it's Gauntlet. But snazzier.

Yes, it ports all those features across. You also need the Retrofit mod. Kingdoms is already bargain bin and worth it for the new material, especially The Crusdades campaign and the Americas (which is awesome). This mod greatly expands the New World section of the vanilla game too. Am looking forward to storming the Americas with the Royal Navy in the late 1400's! I'm not very technical but I followed the instructions and it took me five minutes and worked first time out of the box. One of the things I'm most impressed about is mod stability and lack of bugs - I've found one minor one that mucks up a character name on floating text - very small beer given the scope of this piece of work.

OK, here is the Portuguese order of battle / situation at Turn One (1180 AD). Note that this is for a game on Medium / Medium difficulty settings, it might well be different if you play at harder levels. REGIONS: Lisbon (Capital) King Afonso* (complete with The Crown of Galicia and Portugal - +1 Command / +2 Defence / +3 Authority / +2 Law) Garrison: Some spears and crossbow units and a squadron of feudal knights Oporto Johao Enriques Garrison: Some spears and crossbow units, another captain is lurking nearby with some Jinettes Other Units Prince Sancho (faction heir) with three milita spear untis and two corssbow units Princess Maria Henriques (three hearts) One spy, one Cardinal but I couldn't see a diplomat! Of note is that resource-wise, Portugal only has three tin mines and some marble. It's also flanked by Spain and the Moors, both in a more favourable strategic position! Hope that is of some help. * Bearing in mind that we are dealing with ruthless Medieval tyrants, all of the monarchs in the mod seem to start with pretty impressive stats and are accomplished warriors. Cheers MC

I don't know about Portugal TBH, the readme is pretty sketchy. There's almost certainly more regions than before (I just bumped into Utrecht, for Chrissakes, en route to Lithuania on a Crusade). As England, on H/H it's going to take easily 70+ turns to take out the Scots & Irish. There's a "rush to the walls" feature whereby civilians form ersatz milita to defend their city. For example, I put a full stack army on Edinburgh, garrisoned by a few units of highlanders and archers. Suddenly, there's a full stack of one and two chevron pikemen etc. Hmmm. It's realistic, i.e. to win a siege you need 2:1 manpower advantage. I've decided to give myself a break and try out some Medium Campaign / Hard Battles options instead! It's very addictive, like playing a new game in fact. It does for MTW2 what Total Realism did for Rome in my humble, and then some. Cheers MC

No. Bioware doesn't really do it for me anymore, and they can stick their intrusive copy protection too.

Despite loving the Total War series, the only mods I've ever really used are Rome: Total Realism and the Retrofit Mod for MTW2. I'm now using the MTW2: Kingdoms Grand Campaign Mod (hereafter referred to as "The Mod" for brevity). This is by a chap called BossDave, and kudos to him because is really is rather good. In fact, it's better than that... it's the game I really wanted MTW2 to be after Kingdoms came out. Although Kingdoms is good, it's really four large mods bundled together. Not allowing the improvements to convert into the vanilla game seemed a bit, well, crap. As a Creative Assembly fanboy I was upset. In a nutshell, the creator has decided to apply the best bits of Kingdoms to the vanilla MTW2 Grand Campaign without unbalancing or spoiling the spirit of the original. In this he has done extremely well. All the units from Kingdoms are there, plus new banners / titles for your generals (a la MTW1) as well as new regions and factions with the "big map" modification. The mod starts in 1180, is about 600 turns long and allows you to play as the Teutonic Knights, Jerusalem, Antioch as well as Ireland and Lithuania. The Papacy doesn't like making allies with you, the diplomacy is much tougher. I've started a game as England (Hard/Hard) and I'm immediately plunged into a battle of survival with the Irish and Scots invading and trying to make an alliance with France. It's very tough, but in a fun way. Ireland has four or five regions, Wales is now two (Cardiff / Canearvon) and Scotland is bigger. The pace of the game is slower and more considered. In all, it rocks and is very stable. No crashes or obvious bugs yet - just follow the instructions carefully. You can find it HERE. Cheers MC

Who needs romances when you've got dinosaurs? Unless you want dinosaur romances. Which would be wrong on so many levels.

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Krezack, I think your point is well made. BG2's plot is what I'd call "loop-the-loop linear" (i.e. we're all ending up at the same destination just via slightly different aerobatic moves). Imagine if the Throne of Bhaal had two completely separate end battles depending on your decisions? I'd have happily given up a lot of the other content for that. Having said that, I still see it as a paragon of CRPGs. Why? Simple - it's generosity of spirit. Bioware tried, heroically, to be give almost everything you'd want from a D&D computer game. It was vast, it had loads going on, it was completely over-the-top and we all loved it. The fact that people are still modding it and playing it eight years on (I still have a game on the go, although I only play for about an hour a month, so I got pretty good value for money out of it!) says it all. Nobody would describe it as perfect. But it was a fantastic attempt at getting there, and no single CRPG since has given me the same stay-up-all-night buzz. IWD 1 & 2, were they bigger with joinable NPCs would have been close, but no cigar. Cheers MC

Unfinished Business is a bit disappointing, TBH. It does, however, introduce the Barratt Light Fifty to the game so it's not all bad.

...and you're rude too. Bravo.

You quote Wikipedia as a source? Please tell me you're not a history major.