Agiel

I believe the developers have gone on record and said that from their research of colonial Boston, New York, and New Jersey, their renditions of those cities are 3 times bigger than they actually were in those times. Though if they had gone with a much more true-to-life design they would have been far less interesting places to traverse than Middle-age Jerusalem or Renaissance Venice.

Wrong. This isn't an action game, I can pause any time I want, therefore there is absolutely no drawback to the controllable camera. No one in their right mind who had the budget and time to make a game fully 3D would not do so. A forced isometric view with a forced camera angle only impairs what you can design and how you can display it on screen, designers in general don't like to have limitations on what they can design. What do they say about common sense at the Friendly Arm again? Oh that's right, they say most of the posters on this forum don't have any. The funny part being 'A well made and properly done 3D camera' has yet to be made... IN 15 YEARS. Play some games from the last decade please. Or are you insinuating the Witcher 2, Dark Souls, Dragon Age (especially the newest one), hell even X-Com from a couple years ago which all have rotatable cameras at the least didn't do it at least "well". Hell X-Com of those I just listed had the worst camera of the lot and it was the only one that forced isometric view on you. Go play a Drakensang game or something for christ sake. I would say Dark Souls and Demon's Souls' cameras had a nasty tendency to obstruct your view on the odd boss fight at the worst of times (coming from someone who really liked both games). Otherwise I completely agree with you, though I'd go a bit further to say that the lack of an "on the ground" camera would sometimes lead you to sending an operative to somewhere where they didn't quite have the LOS you wanted. When I first played Dragon Age: Origins, I originally thought that I would play it from the top-down perspective almost exclusively, which was an idea I discarded after an hour or so since it was actually easier to keep track of things as (to borrow American football terms) a Quarterback rather than a coach. Which is not to say I never used the top-down camera ever again; far from it, it's handy for plotting where you're going to plant your AOEs.

Well the irony is that in this day and age, revolutions tend to happen when things are getting better, not when they are at their worst. When people don't have to worry about scraping by anymore, they have the time and energy to organise and take stock of the situation, both past and present. I guess that's the perverse genius of Kim-il Sung and his progeny; keep the people starved of protein so that their bodies feed on their minds for sustenance, then they'll believe anything you say.

While EYE looked fantastic, in a narrative and gameplay sense it was a schizophrenic mess. That said, if I were the head of a big-name game company and those devs applied for a job for me, I'd hire them in a heartbeat, but not before I asked them in the interview: "So what did you learn from making 'EYE?'"

My dentist was surprised when I told him that the one who yanked my tooth as a kid didn't knock me out. Back when I was still in junior high ~2000-2001ish, my mom took me to this one relatively upscale dentist to have some teeth extracted. Of course, me being a big wuss I was shaking in my britches through the whole ordeal when one of the assistants came in and told me "Don't worry, our best *hand* extraction specialist will be taking care of you." I remember thinking to myself: "'Don't worry?' I have every reason to worry!" Indeed, some Brawn Hilda-type woman comes in the room, immediately holds me down, and simply pushes my teeth in until they give way. She does this for two more teeth. While this usually lasts for only 5 seconds per tooth, on the fourth she takes 3 minutes all the while I'm thrashing in the chair. Eventually she takes a look at the x-ray and says non-nonchalantly: "Oh, that was a permanent tooth."

I'd pretty much bet my life on the idea that if they had a big publisher behind them and a $150 million+ budget Obsidian would have gone on to make Eternity a game that matched the likes of Skyrim and Dragon Age 3 in scale and production values.

Largely because today's graphics can "fill in the blanks" of RPGs of yore. I think it would be fair to say that when cRPGs of the 90's came out they kind of supplanted the old pen and paper RPGs since the players no longer had to rely upon figurines or their own imaginations to complete the visual and aural experience of their fantastic adventures (especially with NWN when friends could play their campaigns in a totally 3D world with the great toolbox it had).

Had a wisdom tooth pulled out today. My dentist believes mine to be exceptionally difficult to remove, and has opted to "monitor" the remaining one in the hopes it doesn't become a problem in the immediate future. Unlike the last round, I haven't had a debilitating bout of pain necessitating taking some oxycodone yet, and the swelling is imperceptible at the moment. Fingers crossed that stays that way.

It apparently will be on our beloved PCs. Whether or not Ubisoft pulls a Grand Theft Auto V and put it off for another 6 months is another matter (that said, Ubisoft has been pretty good about simultaneous platform releases for their last few AAA titles like Far Cry 3, Assassin's Creed 3, and Ghost Recon: Future Soldier). That it is being made by the folks behind World in Conflict is one of the biggest reasons I'm chomping at the bit for this.

Seconded. The S.T.A.L.K.E.R. games are amazing. II figured no self-respecting PC gamer couldn't *not* have at least one of the two *really* good entries in the series in their games library.

No doubt STALKER should be on the top of the "to-play" list if you haven't played it already. Far Cry 3 is a great game. Some people have their reservations about the story, but I think it works well enough. If anything, I'm miffed that Ubisoft has decided to run with the mechanics of Assassin's Creed in the open-world part of the game. ArmA 3 multiplayer in Conquest mode can work as an open world shooter. Don't let it intimidate you, there are servers that don't demand that you were an operator with the 1st SFOD-D to join the game (though finding a group of friends to help ease you in can't hurt either). That said, with lingering net-code and performance issues, I myself can't play it in long sittings over a weekend. As is the case with most of Bohemia's catalogue, give it a couple more months to stew before jumping in.

My roommate from Sophomore year who is now undergoing OCS for the Navy also showed me this gem from the Armed Forces Television and Radio (known as "A-Farts" by those in the military). If you ever wanted to know the virtues of Special Power of Attorney over General Power of Attorney:

Not funny, but something pretty cool nonetheless: Though I fail to see how the lyrics of Creep are relevant to the content of this animation.

Absolut Citron as part of a delicious Sea Breeze in the precious time before the dead of winter sets upon us. That and the occasional Limona Corona.

...and eSim Games, the developers of Steel Beasts has been contracted by the Australian, Danish, Swedish, and Czech militaries as well as West Point faculty to produce realistic simulation software to train tank gunners, commanders, and platoon leaders. And while tanks like the M1A2 and the Leopard 2 are very impressive machines, it isn't difficult to come across information to help one make an educated guess about their true capabilities and this information isn't as terribly sensitive as say, what the avionics are like in a Eurofighter Typhoon. It's why there are extremely realistic simulators of the F-16, the A-10C, and the Ka-50 are out there for civilians to toy around with. The capabilities of the T-80U are also quite well-known by western militaries; the British were able to purchase examples for their own testing purposes (passing it on to the US and Germany as well) and the Russians gave some to South Korea to pay off debts from Soviet times. Is there some variance in the data they have? To be sure. As I've said, the only way they can get solid numbers is if they managed to gather all those vehicles in one sterile testing environment. Is it as big as say plus or minus 250mm RHAe for a given value? Doubtful.

Re: Challenger 2 RPG penetration: ...which upon closer inspection did not in fact hit the frontal armour, which as quite possibly the most well-protected tank yet designed is simply impossible to penetrate with anything short of much heavier ATGMs fired from aircraft, but had shrapnel go through the lower glacis and underbelly of the tank, where pretty much *all* tanks have less armour. Said problem has since been rectified by the British by simply retrofitting even more armour in these areas and no other Challenger has been reported lost ever since. And while the T-72Ms the Iraq army used are most definitely a different beast from even the T-72B, the reputation of the Abrams in a gunfight is certainly well-deserved: M1A2 SEP Abrams Armour LOS: T-80U Armour LOS: 120mm M256 firing M-829A3 sabot - Penetration: 850mm RHAe Maximum effective range: 4000m 125mm 2A46 firing 3BM42 sabot - Penetration: 580mm RHAe Maximum effective range: 3300m 125mm 2A46 firing 3BM42M sabot (cannot be used by the T-72 series as a result of its specific autoloader)- Penetration: 650mm RHAe Maximum effective range: 3500m.

Some great footage of the game:

And ammo and accompanying propellant was *everywhere* inside the tank. The commander and gunner may as well have used them as chairs: And unlike the Abrams* or the Challenger 2 inside which there are considerable safety measure to ensure against catastrophic explosions, this was another area where the Soviets skimped on as many Iraqis, Syrians, and even Russians fighting in Chechnya discovered the hard way. In addition Soviet tanks had utterly atrocious reverse gears(4 kph top speed in reverse), such that the first item on the Czech armoured corps' agenda after the Iron Curtain fell was to contract the British and the Americans to install a new engine and transmission into their T-72s (though I suppose that had the effect of letting Soviet crews know that in case the general's orders weren't quite clear, *forward* was the direction they were supposed to go in). *The Leopard 2 has an identical turret arrangement as the Abrams in regards to ready ammo, however the semi-ready rack is in the hull and is exposed to the crew. However, as the Leo was designed virtually from the ground up to fight from prepared defenses and in hull-down, this isn't nearly as much of an issue as one might think.

Not only that. While the Soviet philosophy that emphasised low profile designs does mean vehicles that present a harder target for anti-tank gunners, it also means their armament is a hazard for its own dismounts. There were cases in exercises using live ammo where an unfortunate Motor Rifleman caught a round when he charged in front of the vehicle giving him covering fire (the turret for the BMP series of IFVs is about chest-level for a full-sized man). The applique ERA bricks a la Kontakt-1 also precludes infantry support working in close concert with tanks as well, though this was somewhat remedied with integrated ERA such as Kontakt-5.

Also with muzzle velocity and maximum effective range as well. The chart in the link provides that data. However it's my belief it's more the fault of the ammunition rather than the gun design being inherently bad; in Soviet times when you have to make enough ammo to make sure a bajillion of those iron coffins are equipped for war you have to skimp on quality somewhere. And don't know if it's really relevant, but while reports that the autoloaders for Soviet tanks starting with the T-64 had a habit of literally costing an arm and a leg of a hapless crewman were overblown, the autoloader for the BMP-1 is said to have lived up to that reputation with fingers.

My knowledge of their complaints came second-hand from someone on another forum who is a bit more knowledgeable of former Soviet and Russian equipment than I am. That said, according to the folks at eSim Games who made Steel Beasts (which is the most authoritative source on modern armoured warfare in the simulation space), their estimates of its capabilities corroborates this complaint; the 30mm 2A42/2A72 firing the latest armour piercing round is capable of penetrating 60mm RHAe at a combat range of 0-1800m, where the RARDEN 30mm and the Bushmaster 25mm firing its contemporary rounds is capable of penetrating 100mm RHAe, and the Swedish Bofors 40mm L70 mounted on their CV-90 is capable of penetrating 140mm RHAe. Source: http://www.steelbeasts.com/sbwiki/index.php/Ammunition_Data Should be noted that this is data that is plugged into the simulation based off of estimates triangulated from a variety of other sources and real-life testing data wherever it can be found. But for argument's sake many accept this as the most authoritative (if not necessarily scientific) collection of armament and ammunition performance data on the web short of somehow collecting all these vehicles in one place and testing them in a sterile environment.

I guess it needs two guns because the anti aircraft cannons had multiple barrels. Heat. With two guns you can cut the firing rate in half for each gun and you get less barrel heat that totally screws up your accuracy while pumping as much lead downrange as a single cannon that overheats in no time at all. There is also less barrel wear. I imagine you can also use different ammunition in each gun, like API in one gun and HE in the other one. I thought the launcher thingy is actually the rocket launcher thingy. Its a mortar? It's a low-pressure 100m gun firing HE-frag and HESH rounds, whose trajectories are more akin to an artillery round than a tank shell, and was primarily intended to be used against enemy fortifications and ATGM teams. A 100mm ATGM can be fired out of it as well. However, the Soviets and the armies of its successor states have expressed a great deal of dissatisfaction with the performance of the 2A7 autocannon used by the BMP-2 and BMP-3 (the 25mm Bushmaster, 30mm RARDEN, and the 40mm Bofors L70 leave it in the dust).

Playing around with Armored Core: Verdict Day. And people thought Dark Souls was tough (and yes, this is also a From Software joint). Being a long-time fan of the franchise since starting with Armored Core 2 on the PS2, I have this mentality where I cannot progress to the next stage until I get an S-rank for the one prior to that as well as accomplishing the optional subquests (some of those verge on totally ludicrous, and like Dark Souls, sort of depends on how well you can game the system). To give you an idea of how idiosyncratic the From games are, in Armored Core 4 the developers gave you an option to revert to an older version of the game, wherein you can utilise some of the more broken weapons and parts before they were nerfed. And the thing is, the Armored Core community won't think any less of you if you do this to S-rank the missions.

Great video. On a similar note, reminds me of my tour of the Joint Security Area of the Korean DMZ. Unfortunately this guy wasn't my guide for my tour, but it was still fascinating nonetheless:

Or how about getting good at modeling inanimate objects like cars and guns instead of organic creatures of the flesh? There's a reason why traditional artists start off with drawing and painting apples and pears long before they graduate into life-drawing; the easy stuff gives us a good foundation and the mental tools we need to move on into the hard stuff.