Zoraptor

I have this amazing, newfangled contraption for centralising my games library- it's called a computer. All the PC games I own are available on this 'computer', wherever I purchased them from. It's great, it has awesome social functions (I'm posting this from it RIGHT NOW!!! for example), a built in word processor and plenty of other software you can add, I can edit images and post them to the internet, browse the internet and buy real cheap games on it too. And best of all I'm not obligated to give an obese ex MS Seattleite 30% of any purchase I make I can buy from whoever I want, cut out the middleman and give the game makers 100% of the cost, most of the time. People should really try gaming on the 'computer' some times, it's awesome! (oblig never had a problem with Origin and so long as there's no monopolistic 'originworks' attempt to metastasise the market I'll remain utterly indifferent to it)

Abandonware is definitely illegal and is a term that has no actual basis. It's just shorthand for "a game that is no longer sold and the copyright holder doesn't issue takedown notices for". It's still piracy, just piracy nobody (well, except the odd brave crusading volunteer corporate warrior, whiteknighting shonky laws and parroting shonky advertising to get meaning in their life) cares about because it isn't costing money. Oh, and because no one else will say it; thanks EA for being so reasonable.

Meh. Apart from the Battle of Britain and (marginally timewise) El Alamein- which involved 3 understrength jerry divisions instead of an Army Group for Moscow and a full army + bits of a panzerarmy for Stalingrad- Britain lost every major battle against the germans over the same time period too. German losses in the first 6 weeks of Barby were more than their losses over the entire war up to that point even with the poor russian performance.

I am enthusiastic about races and non auto regen health. Might be a bit odd with the voice overs presuming they still have a voiced protagonist (and I cannot see that changing) if they all use the same voice sets but sounds good overall.

I haven't played it myself, but it seems CoH2 is roughly equal to a game about WW2 from a British perspective which only features planning an invasion of Narvik, bombing civilians in Germany to smithereens and sending underequipped colonial troops to their death. Focus on a brave group of Indian soldiers. Have Narvik, but don't have the Warspite. Next France, as Britain bravely abandons the french to fight jerry alone "when danger reared its ugly head the british turned their heel and fled" followed by going to Egypt. On the way, work in Mers-El-Kebir and the Brits sinking the french fleet. End, part I Arrive in Egypt after O'Connor's dash, but in time to stand still several months in terrible conditions before being sent off to Greece in a pointless political gesture ending in disaster. Then Crete, where you can have no air support and lots of ships being sunk plus lots more command snarl ups. Return to North Africa in time for some toffee nosed incompetent to allow a german party apparatchnik picked because Hitler liked him to stroll merrily back to the gates of Egypt. Have several utterly pointless offensives in which you get trounced. Quick break in old blighty to work in Churchill allowing Coventry to be bombed, maybe some emotional "child's toy in rubble" pics with stirring classical strings in the background. Get back to Egypt in early 1942, just in time for Rommel to trounce you again. End, part II Then a break, to Cassino, and an assault on a big hill with lots of germans on it, all the while getting information on the Bengal Famine (oops, sorry, that was the British mediated famine that killed more than Holodomor, I meant the british mediated 1943 one which only may have killed more). Make sure to show that it's the french who actually win the battle, plus that American putz strolling through Rome sorry, that's for the US campaign 10$ dlc.Then get sent to Palestine and blown up in the King David. End with Ben-Gurion being welcomed to London and pictures of all the violence in post independence India.

EA got voted worst company two years in a row because gamers- by and large- lack any sort of perspective, self awareness, sense of proportion or relativity; which is more than made up for by the hugely inflated senses of self importance, entitlement and ability to take truly trivial stuff serious. I find it deeply embarrassing even being tangentially associated with a group who think Day 1 DLC for their luxury pursuit is more of an affront than some of the stuff BoA and other entrants pulled. (Yeah yeah, sending a message, BoA always wins etc etc) Gamers. Like a three year old throwing a tanty telling mum and dad that they hate them at the top of their lungs...

Yeah, Alpha Protocol had that as one of its main publicly stated philosophies, for example. It's probably better than BG2's "evil= chaotic stupid, get less quests and XP for free" approach at least if handled well. Do have to agree on Steve though, he's basically a one trait character which always annoys me. I really disliked that accident prone elf (? Lini ?) in NWN for much the same reason though I was less likely to like anyone in NWN anyway. On the other hand, Shep getting shot down by his assistant for being a bloke was something I liked a lot in how it was handled.

TARDIS Initial Public Offering? Offer Richard Branson the chance to go back and witness the miracle of his own birth, for a small and reasonable fee? Hire G4S and notBlackwater to fight the Time War? Possibilities are endless.

The situation is a bit different when you have a genuine terra nullius being settled, the point of contention being the lack of continuous inhabitance (~reversion to terra nullius) by the Spanio-Argic-Platinates vs the current British inhabitance. Plus, most ethnic english people are still far more genetically celt than latin/ north german/ scando/ scando-norman. But yeah, the claim is silly, flawed, has been fought over already, and is largely posturing for domestic benefit. Spain's a particularly interesting case, as they complain about Gibraltar while keeping an enclave opposite in North Africa (Ceuta) which really ought to be Moroccan by their own logic.

They reuse actors pretty frequently- 2/3 of the Torchwood emplyees, even excluding Jack, were previously on Who playing different (or later retconned) people, Martha was, Amy was too (non speaking though, iirc). It's certainly not my favourite aspect of their casting though. I preferred Smith to either of the two modern doctors (albeit Eccleston got little chance with the short time and frequently dreadful scripts), and Moffatt as a show runner to Davies. I got heartily sick of 'love conquers all' endings and schmaltz, and lots of set up for no delivery. Plus many of the best Davies era episodes were written by Moffatt. Moffatt only really failed with the second part of the latest season and that largely because he clearly did not have much defined character for Clara (whose actor is perfectly fine) so relied on "she's mysterious!" as a hook, which wasn't enough. Should have made it Victorian Clara or Ep1 Clara or any other Clara other than Modern Clara, having the companions nearly all be women from contemporary UK is getting noticeably stale. My immediate thought on Capaldi was that he was fairly close to John Hurt in general appearance- both older, and quite thin and gaunt in appearance.

Personally, I've always found the 'human fighter' archetype most games are saddled with utterly boring as they're usually the RPG equivalent of playing Doom marine. If there's an option to avoid it I almost always take it. The race and starting vignettes from DAO were one of the things I liked most about it. But even though the levels were mostly recycled into the main plot at some point they were still pretty obviously prone to be cut if cutting were to be done as it's still a lot of work for something many will not see.

No need to apologise, it's just a problem I have. I've been giving myself pedantry aversion therapy by watching U571 and any film featuring the English and Mel Gibson on continual loop. (Amphipolis and Potidaea says wiki, so Xena and Gabs are Greek enough for government work. Though given Xena's historical sense was, uh, not always the best there'd have to be some question)

For whoever it was that was waiting for La Mulana on the steam sale it's 60% off at GOG at the moment.

Why do I feel compelled to point out that Venus is Italian, not Greek, and that having just fought down the urge to point out that Odessa and Yalta are Ukrainian not Russian? It's the pedant version of elbows too pointy (well, except Venus) syndrome.

DAO was 10-20% too long in just about every respect and rather too generic, but it was a good framework and basis for an improved sequel. Hopefully with the increased time DA3 (do I have to call it DAI now?) will be a bit more well balanced towards keeping the good bits and improving the poorer bits than DA2 though.

Dear sir, May I suggest investing in a good quality irony sarcasm detector? (last point is distinctly questionable since the Red Army always had problems with supplying long term mobile offensives and Bagration had already taken them forward hundreds of km over six weeks. It was convenient, sure, but the reasons were militarily legitimate too; nobody blames the western allies for their supplies choking their offence 6 weeks after the Normandy break out).

Not really sure that wanting to be sent to the front front was particularly a sign of maturity though- he sounded more like he wanted the opportunity to shoot people in the interview I heard. But he seems a decent enough chap overall, and I don't think a citizen of a country that was an actual part of Nazi Germany in, like, actual actuality has much room to criticise someone for merely dressing up as a teenager.

Those concepts look very Witcheresque. Witcher castle from 1, and the elven ruins/ monastery from 2. Not complaining mind, TW2 is a pretty good thing to get inspiration from (and the settings described are hardly unique to TW anyway).

It isn't. It means you have to go ask permission to access the stuff. It's not an unlocked door, it's a locked door where you have to go ask the custodian for a keycard. And if anyone doesn't think they'll keep a list of who swiped which keycard when and to access what then they've been asleep for the past two months. That it can be bypassed or that you an beg permission to have it lifted is irrelevant, as you shouldn't have to. Unfortunately, it won't be a waste of money either. Some people will ask it to be lifted, some people will get around it (well, "circumvention tools" are a target of the filter too...) but many won't even know about it, or buy into the "for the children!" rhetoric without knowing that it's actually a thoughtcrime filter straight out of 1984 aimed at anything Uncle Dave thinks unpalatable.

So no, it isn't just porn, and it isn't just enforcing existing laws. It's basically, well, anything and everything they want. To protect the innocence of children though, so anyone against it is advocating children losing their innocence! And as such their views would be blackballed under this regimen, no doubt.

Downvote is stupid certainly, almost exclusively used by feebs who cannot cope with contrary opinions; or bullies. Upvote is fine, generally. People should not need a virtual pat on the back to prove that their views have merit, but it isn't destructive unless it's used for "upvote this if you hate [forum member/ game/ whatever]". Which can be done without an upvote system anyway. An awful lot of people bought WarZ, and that was pretty much exactly what they were (allegedly) doing. In that case there was a certain amount of deliberately caused confusion with an actually legitimate product to counter any negativity, but it was bad enough to be one of the reasons it got pulled from steam temporarily.

Gamasutra and Forbes (whose specialist games journos are actually bloggers, iirc) are pretty well respected, but they also unashamedly do not target the general gamer but are orientated towards industry insiders. A fair few others still offer quality as well. The problem arises from shock horror page view baiting tabloid equivalents, often using free labour from interns looking to break in and inextricably interwoven in an alternating parasitic/ symbiotic relationship with the people they're supposed to be reviewing. They're lazy, frequently ill informed and often looking solely for what will get the most attention- or is easiest. There's a huge amount of recursive writing too, either by regurgitating press statements or slightly rewriting someone else's article. It's rather difficult to imagine a situation where people have access to IGN/ Kotaku/ Gamespot etc but not to forums. I know we are all here after a thorough vetting process having received a coded invite via a trusted intermediary and personally signed by your sponsor, but that is not generally how forums work. Unless you live in the UK six months in the future you can access them without special permission.

Yep, true enough- though in the UK's case it's more like me describing someone else as having terminal cancer rather than myself, since I don't live there any more. I guess since I am participating in the debate rather more actively here I'm not in the accepting it as inevitable/ resistance is futile camp quite yet.

Not really. There's just a limited amount of point doing something that you know absolutely will have no effect because it's already been decided. It might make you feel better about things and give you the ability to honestly say that "you never asked for this" but doesn't fundamentally change anything. It's like referring to 'terminal' cancer- the terminal part does not mean that it isn't serious, quite the reverse. It's so serious nothing practical can be done about it.

Who exactly are you going to vote for in the UK to get any message across? The Tories and Lib Dems, in the current government pushing the legislation? Labour who started the whole thing off? Move to Birmingham (?) and vote Gorgeous George Galloway? Establishing a new party yourself is... not a trivial undertaking. No point complaining direct or marching or whatever*, it didn't work with millions marching against the Iraq War (justified by outright lying too, so some others would no doubt have been upset were the truth about the forty minute claims etc known) or austerity, they'll just use parliamentary dictatorship to ram it through anyway. Same here, just with special deals like no contest elections for certain independent MPs who vote the 'right' way, and threats to expel anyone voting against the government on a conscience vote. Because you're asking your MP to vote for Principles, and principles on politicians are like teeth on hens. Principles end careers. *I'd actually have gone to the demonstration held in Auckland on Sat, but only found out about it too late. One of the drawbacks of (ironically) avoiding facebook...