Monte Carlo

I am a leviathan of good taste and gaming integrity, and I have an Xbox. In much the same way that, although I am a sartorial giant, I also own a Hawaiian shirt. MC

I've never read a developer diary or interview where the inherent wackiness of the gaming workplace environment isn't mentioned. It's like an institutionalised version of the guy in the office who thinks he's a daring iconoclast for wearing the pair of Homer Simpson socks his son bought him for Christmas. My message to games developers is simple: Get your bloody haircut, wear sensible shoes, stop burning your draft cards, tidy up the office, take less coffee breaks and make better games. Hippies. Tsk. Cheers MC

Thanks for sending me the file, Volourn. I will get started at some point today and will send you my comments via email. Would a Ftr4/Rog4 be suitable because that's what I had in mind? Cheers MC

Send it to me, young Volourn. If you dare. The testing will be..... rigorous. You've been around long enough to have my private email address from the days of yore. If you do not then I'll PM you. I have re-installed NwN, Sou, HotU and updated it today especially. Mwuahahahahaaa!!! Cheers Evil QA MC

Er, not really apparently. I don't think the beta was open, either.

You will find the most comprehensive listing of mods for all IE games here. Courtesy of the extremely useful bastion of IE goodness, The Pocket Plane Group. Cheers MC

I've completed it once before with a level 16 or so party and it was still tough, namely because of my distaste for having arcane spell users in my party. Luckily, I had a backstab-proof barbarian on the team! Anyway, its a great mod that I recommend heartily to anybody looking to put some new lead in the old BG2 pencil. Cheers MC

I still have an uber-modded BG2/ToB lurking on my hard drive with several games I boot up occasionally. Some of the BG2 mods out there are excellent: I can't imagine now playing BG2 without, say, Tactics or Unfinished Business or Ascension. Admittedly, I now play primarily with small parties of characters I've created myself. I currently have a very silly evil party who are working for Bodhi, attempting to take out the insanely powerful "improved Shadow Thieves" which are courtesy of aVENGER'S excellent thief-themed mod. In fact, the only games I've got on the go at the moment are Rome:TW, Medieval: TW, BG2 and I'm thinking of playing HotU one more time. Cheers MC

Yeah, it's an integral part of my homebrew campaign called The World of RARRGGHHH!!! Lots of deep role-playing and, er, axes.

I'm really looking forwards to Dragon Age, although I suspect my current super-rig will need replacing to play it by then. My curious relationship with Bioware's games will, I think, be defined by this title. Let's just say that kooky NPCs, evil betrayer chicks, Fedex quests and schools for adventurers are things that would put me off.

Kaftan, you sound like the sort of person who would benefit from the recommended auto level-up button that you can check. It simply makes an optimal, if slightly vanilla, character build. As for PrCs, an evil barbarian with a few rogue levels would make a pretty nifty assassin. Rage/ Stealth/ Sneak Attack/ Uncloak/ RARRGGHHHH!!!!

Hmmm. NWN OC and SoU had very similar beginnings, didn't they?

...and if we all abided by that sage dictum, grasshopper, this forum would immediately collapse.

Let me get this straight: are you saying that the player starts off JE as a student too? School for Martial Arts Adventurers? ROFL! The Bio "game intros ideas" book must be quite slim. Cheers MC

I soloed it with no henchmen with a human Ftr 4/ Rogue X who took the Assassin PrC. Not too much trouble, which is the inherent structural problem with NWN in my opinion; everything has to be tailored so any class can do it. Saying that, despite my general downer on NWN, HotU is a good, sound XP which does what the OC should have done in the first place. It also looks much nicer than vanilla NWN. Cheers MC

This is why I ask before I buy. Thanks for the feedback, and no I won't be splashing out on Xbox Doom3. Cheers MC

I can't get into FPS games on a PC. I'm the antithesis of the twitch gamer: I really need a joypad controller. I know you can get them for the PC but consoles seem ideal for the job. Besides, for some odd reason my wife loves watching us all play Doom on the widescreen TV. Cheers MC

Hello. The Doom 3 Collector's Edition is out for Xbox. It features the original Doom and Doom 2 amongst other goodies. It weighs in at a hefty

You made it to Chapter Three without uninstalling it out of sheer boredom? You are a stubborn one. Nope, it doesn't get any better. It's a screensaver, not a game. Cheers MC

If Bioware did a black-and-white 2D version of Pacman you'd give it an amazing review. This is like asking Don Rumsfeld for a non-partisan take on US foreign policy! Cheers MC

From rare fillet steak and a bottle of claret to Big Macs and milkshakes in, what, three titles? Go Bio, go!! Cheers MC

That's a shame, really. OK, with the olf-fashioned wheel mouse I can see it, but new optical mice can be used on anything. Like a nice flat pizza box, for example. Cheers MC

You know what? I've played so many beautiful-looking fantasy CRPGs and thought to myself, "wow, the engine's incredible, it looks great, it plays seamlessly but FOR THE LOVE OF GOD WHY DON'T THEY MAKE A DECENT GAME WITH IT?" I'm thinking, yes, Morrowind. I'm thinking Sacred. I'm thinking, yes, Dungeon Siege (fantastic looking screensaver, er, game) and even tac sims that were good games like Silent Storm. So I'm actually tempted to try this out, my neighbour has uber-quick broadband but doesn't really use it so why not? :: goes hunting in cellar for Morrowind :: Cheers MC

^ Thanks for the info chaps. However, (this is slightly regurgitated from another thread) I remember playing Warcraft 2, Sim City, C&C2: Red Alert, X-Com: Enemy Unknown and Warhammer: Shadow of the Horned Rat on PS1 with a PS mouse. All of them were perfectly enjoyable (especially X-Com) and the mouse functionality was as good as on the PC. So although I agree joypads are cumbersome I'm still not completely convinced; after all a bundled Age of Empires Xbox title bundled with a Xbox mouse would sell like hot cakes I'd imagine (geez, look how much you could spend on games with specific guns or Steel Battalions control gizmos). So, why not RTS/Strategy and no Xbox mouse? BTW, thanks for the heads up about those other games, I'll be sure to look them up. Cheers MC