Nepenthe

There isn't ANYTHING which Monica Bellucci can't save in my opinion. Largely because wwhenever I see her my cognitive architectures start to melt like wax in a lava lamp. Well, I agree with that as well. Other women with a similar effect: Salma Hayek (especially in Desperado, I wince every time she's on screen), Aaliyah Haughton in Romeo Must Die and Yvonne Strahovski (mostly in Chuck so far.) Vincent Cassel is a lucky SOB.

It's not Steam that does it. It's individual publishers. ... If Steam doesn't have control over how the products are priced, then they are already at a serious disadvantage when compared to other retailers. Looks like Steam is locked to MSRP in most, if not all cases.

Agreed, but try it again after a drink and it staggers into so-bad-it's-good territory. Indeed. It's also one of the legendary home theatre demo movies from the DVD era... Probably no longer a valid reason to watch it, these days... My mom stopped by, so it was Pizza and Ocean's 11 blu-ray yesterday evening. I have peacemaker and Iron Man 2 on the way (skipped IM2 in the theatre, and peacemaker is a personal favourite, so have high movie expectations for this week)...

More like typical forum posting, half the people who claim to have played the game are haters/fanboys who haven't.

Actually, a lot of universities, observatories, heck even churches were built as prestige projects by monarchs, trying to outdo each other. Not saying that none were ever built by a church, but the "all" is a wast exaggeration. Yeah, yet theology was quite often (I'm tempted to say generally) the first subject taught. (If it hadn't been, I wouldn't be a tenth generation university graduate)

That's a problem with ANYTHING. Like NMA, or what's that place you guys keep alluding to. Everybody's probably picking up the pattern I see here...

As is any belief system, including lack of religion.

Yeah, my definition of 'fantastic game' means I don't have to cheat to make it bearable.

no way GTA IV is fantastic, I don't understand. it's right up there with GTA II and Vice City, there's no way I'm believing, you, having enjoyed previous titles, didn't like the last game. it's the same as usual but 10 times better! I've played gta III, vice city and IV, and the only one I can describe myself as enjoying was vice city. I just don't enjoy free roaming games. If I want to move around in a realistic city, I'll grab the cell phone & wallet and leave my place. If I want to go grab a beer with a friend, I'll go do it at a real bar, and not drunk drive home.

Yeah, and in ~10 years you'll wince at something you've written now or in the next few years. Might not take that long, I'm 4 years from my master's thesis (which I received quite good marks for, too) and it's really quite painful to look at in places. Congrats on completing that ordeal, though! No matter what you choose to do later on, nobody's going to take that away from you. (I'm not sure why I keep telling that to people, but I found the thought really comforting back in the day. Still do when struggling for the next degree)

Depends what you like in a game. If you are looking for story and characters, then probably you won't have much interest in FO3. If you like exploration of an open world, then you'll probably enjoy the game for at least a while. I'd say this is on the money. I'm a story and characters guy (even though I believe the wine-sippers in this forum consider my tastes in this front unrefined ) and I was bored to tears with FO3. I had to lay it aside twice during the ~year it took me to beat it once. It didn't draw the kind of 'I'll never touch the ****ing thing again' reaction, say, GTA IV brought about, I just can't bring myself into caring about the game... :/

What's taxation like in Australia? Most of Europe gets a 15-25% price hike just from VAT, though. Not saying we aren't shafted, but that's a part of the equation, too...

So, what are you playing/collecting/painting? I've been on a 10-year break myself. I bought a bunch of minis after playing Dawn of War to make a stab at a 'fun' list using marine and grey knight rules about four years ago, but those are all in storage and unpainted after I had to move into this tiny studio due to going back to grad school. The new Grey Knight 'dex is apparently coming out early next year (and I'm hoping to both finish grad school and get a bigger apartment), so I'll have to see if I can toss something together from there... Haven't been playing anything here, either. Probably not going pick up anything stop-gap before New Vegas comes out...

Why bother? It's not like it's going to matter. Shh. I've paid for them.

I think so many heads would collectively explode it would amount to an ethinc cleansing.

But it's good to let people act like a jerk, sure beats enforced politeness. Depends. Are the jerks obnoxious gits who destroy every thread they enter, including the countless threads they start demanding attention? Or are they the kind of jerk that stops after 10 minutes to say "oh ****, man I'm annoying" and stops. I'd rather have the former banned and gone. I've always thought I'm in the latter camp, though. I'm really hard trying to care enough to finish Awakening + Golems + Witch Hunt (the latter two I've not played yet) to have something to import into DA2, but it's not easy.

Honestly, if there was anybody who thought that the full set wouldn't eventually be available at a significant discount, they were born yesterday. If I hadn't known I'd be bed-ridden for December (and for a chunk of January, which was unscheduled), I have serious doubts whether I would have bought it when it first came out.

Civilization IV? Sid Meier's Pirates? I was just about to mention that I remember Civ Revolution looking quite good, too.

Picked it up yesterday, just barely managed to crack it open, so don't have an opinion yet. I skipped rogue trader, but do have all the dark heresy books. Glad to see there's some (minimal) advice on combining the two...

... How young are these ladies, exactly?

Of course, if you moderated like you post here, it could mean that the same questionnaire approach did not apply to everybody.

The blood splatters are also confirmed "exaggerated" in that particular sequence.

Well, Dave Gaider used to have bad days in the past, but he seems to have mellowed out a bit. I don't think I've essentially any ME dev post on the boards, though. AFAICT The only Bioware staff who regularly post in those forums are Chris Priestly (community manager) and Stanley Woo (QA guy who is either a masochist or whose duties include policing the boards). The dev team only posts in individual trouble shooting threads (audio bugs, pinnacle station x360 compatibility issue etc.) and rarely, if ever contribute in discussion beyond the issue at hand. Generally speaking it's impossible for everybody to come across as a 'nice guy' and manage a forum of any significance. Generally this is avoided by outsourcing forum moderation (like here, or on a certain official band forum I used to admin for) so that the 'idols' can stick to being the nice guys and the 'bastard moderator/oppressor of free speech' hat is given to somebody not directly connected with the company... I'm not exactly 100 % sure why Bio has adopted the format they have. Most of their moderating staff is from the user base, yet Priestly/Woo seem to be the ones who have to do all the 'hard' moderating.

dev comments on the video @ the bio forums (not sure if the 'view dev posts' alone works for non-registered users). Highlights: the sequence is indeed from 'Varric's pipe dream', ie. show the protagonist as larger than life, and will be toned down for rest of the game. Armor supposedly going to be less bulky in final game (at least for rogues). Alpha Protocol influence more or less admitted ('stance' in addition to dialogue snippet on the wheel). Quite a bit of interesting stuff - the DA team is a lot better in their PR than the ME team (wish I could say the same about the DLC teams)