Leferd

Always good for a laugh. The Bioshock review is classic.

You don't even to need to cancel your Xbox Live account. You start off with a complimentary Gold Account for thirty days, and if you choose not to re-up your Gold account, it'll automatically switch over to Silver.

I'll be shocked if it's not the Kotor MMORPG. Plus, I'd really like to see Obsidian develop K3.

I'm sure you have heard of the legend of the frog and the scorpion? Sometimes a company (or a person, or a scorpion) does things just because its what they do. Even if it is against their interests, it's just their nature. Assuming that EA is el Evil Empire, to get to that point, they have to be a rational actor. Afterall, irrationally going from one blunder to the next does not make a company worth multi-billions of dollars. They may not necessarily be interested in the art of video games, but they are interested in the $$ aspects of it. A scorpion -and correct me if I'm wrong- does not have the cognitive facilities to be interested in long-term survivability. They will not sacrifice something in the short term that will bear much fruit in the long term. They are only rational in the point that it cares for its own short term survival no matter the consequences. With Biodemic, they have two studios that are both critical and financial darlings. To EA, I'd imagine they'd see that as a commodity to value, rather than discard. The best thing for EA to do is for them to allow Bio and Pandemic do whatever the hell they have been doing and keep it up with as few memos as possible. From what I understand, that is John R.'s plan when EA bought them out. ...how long that lasts...well I suppose it depends on how long Bio keeps getting good reviews and millions in sales.

EA Canada Jr.

Not trying to be a devil's advocate here, but three quarters of a billion dollars does seem like a ton of money to just buy a couple studios so they can run them to the ground. If anything, EA generally does make good business decisions. So there may be some hope.

One 8800 GTS 640 and even 320 is better than 8600 SLI.

Your sister's build looks very similar to my own. Substitute OCZ for Corsair and the 8600 for an 8800gts. I would also recommend a seasonic power supply. Its cord is definitely long enough for the Antec p180 series. I have an unorthodox way of building a rig. I start with the peripherals first. Keyboard: IBM Model M Mousepad: Ratzpad Mouse: Logitech G5 Speakers: Cambridge Soundworks -Soundworks 2.1 Monitor: Samsung 215tw 21.5" 1680x1050 I got those components and put them in storage months before my machine was assembled.

Yeah, "kingmaking" is difficult in M2TW. Unfortunately, you can't designate the faction heir like you could in Rome. Best thing to do to get rid of your "bad seeds" is to have him go out in a blaze of glory against some rebels somewhere. Hopefully the next successor to the throne is more Richard and less John. ... Playing as Jerusalem, I was awarded a Templar chapterhouse. This gives valor bonuses to knights recruited in the city. The problem is, I can't recruit knights there because it's a city! Plus they took out the ability to recruit the order's nights away from the chapterhouse. WTF??

You realize you can take control of each of your settlements if you wish right? I personally can't imagine playing Total War without micro-managing every last detail from tax policy, to unit recruitment, to kingmaking.

I agree with Monte. It sounds like what you need is a nice long war. If you are friendly with Portugal get them to help you attack Spain. Or vice versa. The only thing I disliked about playing England was when you sent a crusade it had a hell of a long way to go to get to palestine and tropps would desert every turn. The army that leave England is not the same one that arrives in Jerusalem. Do you take an overland or sea route? Going around the Iberian Peninsula and past the pillars of Heracles or taking Barbarossa's route through Byzantium are considered to be the non-direct path to the Holy Land and will make your crusaders impatient. What you want to do (after you cross the Channel) is cut across mainland Europe and head straight for Italy towards Naples. Then you want to hop on a boat (preferably fleet of boats to protect against Pirates) and make your way across the sea to the soon-to-be Outremer.

Yes, just had a couple of hours playing Kingdom of Jerusalem. I'd say that as a campaign it has (a) the most intriguing unit roster (specifically the levies and warrior orders of crusader knights, including Constable of Jerusalem heavy cavalry) and (B) probably the largest campaign map. Factions are; KoJ, Kingdom of Antioch, Turkey, Byzantium and Egypt. King Baldwin the Leper is I suppose my hero unit but he's basically a very good general (starts with two stars short of maximum). I'm a few turns off of Richard the Lionheart rocking up, which should happen by 1212 or thereabouts I suppose. The AI seems better, but then again it might be the sharper distinction in unit types, i.e. Franks v. heavy units and Muslim factions light skirmishers / mounted archers. Seems even more noticable than in the vanilla game. There are more trade options, spying is significantly tougher, you get jihads thrown at you from Turn 2. I'm playing Hard / Hard. The music is great, same as the original but I love the Muslim faction battle music. The lighting seems different in this campaign, almost a golden light filtering through the battle scenes. Dunno if it's tweaked but it looks nice. Like I said, this game does what vanilla MTW2 can't do which is focus in on historically specfic scenarios that might not pan out in the campaign game. It's apples and oranges as to which is better, but I'm enjoying myself so far. I just wish I had more time to play! Cheers MC I've been playing this particular campaign in hotseat mode as the Kingdom of Jerusalem and Principality of Antioch. I'm especially liking how they've also included historical figures like Gerard de Ridefort, Count Raymond of Tripoli, Guy de Lusignan, Reynault of Chatillon, Balian of Ibelin etc., The unit balancing has been much improved. They've made greater stratification between the roles of heavy cavalry and light cavalry units. The heavy cavalry charge is more devastating, but they are still vulnerable when they don't have room to maneuver. Shields seem to be more useful. Overall, I think there's greater variance in stats of all unit types - melee infantry, spearmen, skirmishers, horse archers, etc., That's part of the reason why I think the Retrofit mod is a definite must grab if you want to play the Grand Campaign again.

I'm loving it! Be sure to download this mod if you want to play the grand campaign with all the new goodies provided by the XP: http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showthread.php?p=2119551 Though it's an unofficial mod, it's created by the guy who made the Custom Campaign Mod for vanilla MTW2 -who is incidentally a Creative Assembly developer.

I've been getting CTD's left and right with this mod. It's a shame because I really liked what they did with it. Those crashes seem to occur when I'm in the strategic map and am checking out inventory of the mercs.

Slowpokes. 4:59.4 over 1600m.

Jolee Bindo - KOTOR Edwin - BG/BG2 HK-47 - KOTOR Atton Rand -TSL Kreia - TSL D'akkon - PST Morte - PST Minsc and Boo - BG/BG2 Bastila Shan - KOTOR Steroid Gontarski - JA2

Maybe this could help?

The Super Smash Bros. series. It's got all the classics.

I don't have that game but I've played others made by 2K Sports. I'd imagine you'd have to save it. It'll probably be under VIP profile.

Thanks. That did the trick.

I was fine until I decided to download and install the nForce network controller update through Windows Update. I've also tried to rollback my drivers. Still didn't work.

Tried the plug/unplug method. Unfortunately, it didn't work. The BIOS is up to date.

Hey techies, having a problem connecting to this internet thingie. I have an eVGA 680i motherboard with a Windows Vista upgrade installed over XP. This computer is networked to another PC through a wired US Robotics router and is using a Cable broadband connection. So, last night I decided to click on the "Windows Update" icon and one of the optional updates available was an nForce networking controller update. So thinking, "why the hell not?" I downloaded it and installed it. The following occured: Upon completion of the installation, it stopped reading my network connection. The Windows Network Diagnostics says the following Error Message: "There might be a problem with one or more network adapters on this computer", followed by, "The network adapter 'NVIDIA nForce Networking Controller' is experiencing driver or hardware related issues". Upon further investigation, via the Device Manager, I checked on my nVidia nForce Networking Controller properties. The error message reads as follows: "The device is not working properly because Windows cannot load the drivers required for this device. (Code 31)" So, on my other PC, (which is having no connection problems) I downloaded the latest nVidia nForce drivers and transferred the file via flash drive to my ailing PC. I installed the drivers. Upon reboot, I am still reading the same error messages. Anyone have any ideas, thoughts, suggestions? Thanks.

Cool. That sounds very promising.

Thanks Seganerd! That was an informative post. I had the Sega Genesis years ago (and I actually still have it) and it is my favorite gaming platform behind the PC. I've always been impressed by their quality of products, ranging from Sonic and Golden Axe, to Football manager and their (now defunct) series of ESPN sports titles (of which they are now branded 2K with their transfer to Take 2). Some of my favorite video games came from the Genesis (NHL 93-95, Tony LaRussa Baseball, Madden 93-96, FIFA 94-95 all from EA). Definitely looking forward to Obsidian's projects as well as the continuation of the Total War series. Admittedly, my experience with Sega has been limited as of late, but as a publisher, they haven't been skimping on the packaging. I've been impressed with the way (atleast here in N. America) they included thick manuals, maps, soundtracks, and other goodies with their initial retail releases of the Total War series. Is that the normal on their part? What's their financial outlook? Are they in dire straits, such is the case with Atari? Are they supportive of their third party developers -in terms of being generous, or atleast reasonable, with giving them enough time to develop quality and polished products? Since you're running a fansite for them, perhaps you know a little more about that than the forum regulars here.