Agiel

Finished it a while ago. I can say that a game that's not Company of Heroes 2 would have to be something very special in order to beat Metro as my GOTY, and it would be the bar I would measure Half-Life 3 with when it eventually comes out.

Well if you want, you can post the images you're using and a quickie thumbnail sketch and/or detailed description of what you want and I can take a bash at it with Photoshop CS5. Unless of course this is a "teach a man to fish" kind of situation...

It's the funny thing about the Codex: For every one thing they say that's insightful (or, dare I say, something reasonable, well-adjusted people might agree with them on) there's about ten other things that are exceedingly bitter and/or narcissistic,

On my Intel i7 and GTX 560 it runs and looks well enough on 1280x720, medium textures, no SSAA, and very high tessellation. As for the gameplay, I'm glad for the stealth options and non-lethal takedowns (I hope the Metro has plenty of MRI machines to go around, because, you know, being knocked out for more than half and hour is super bad for you). After one of the mutant sections past the half-way mark, I was literally down to using my military grade ammo against the boss, which as you may well know is literally p***ing money away.

I remember reading an interview with the director of Das Boot that in its first screening in Hollywood, the audience clapped when the intro said "Of the 40,000 men who served on U-Boats, 30,000 would lose their lives," despite the film having a decidedly anti-Nazi tone throughout.

Hunting Party is a bit light on plot towards the end and more exposition than anything (Cold War, Eastern Bloc history), but that Button Man looks like something to take a gander at.

How many threads more like. This is at least the 4th such thread on the subject (the other three were simply extensions of the first since the mods don't like the actual threads going over 25 pages).

Re-read what is quite easily my favourite comic book of all time, Partie de Chasse by Bilal and Christin. Also available in an English translation as the Hunting Party.

Finished my annual reading of Voyage au bout de la nuit. Will be getting to Mort à crédit again next.

I suppose it comes from the British penchant for cynicism and borderline nihilism. Take for example Judge Dredd ostensibly being a fascist and Gestapo-ersatz despite being the hero of the series.

Tsk tsk people. Have we so soon forgotten Love Can Bloom? That said, I'm more of a fan of Love and Krieg. Could swear I had a hot Howling Banshee on Howling Banshee image to share in my mess of a My Pictures folder though.

They didn't "smack China," the US government makes these announcements yearly, at the very least. Espionage in all forms is a two-way street when it comes to real players on the international stage. Have you ever heard of Sun Tzu? "For to win one hundred victories in one hundred battles is not the acme of skill. To subdue the enemy without fighting is the acme of skill." I have heard the line "Soon the Four Asian Tigers shall bow to the Dragon!" before.

I'm quite fond of this image:

Without Relic at the helm, who have shown the license the love and attention it deserves, I'm unsure of any other developer being given the opportunity to take a bash at it... Unless Bioware makes my lifelong dream come true of a good Devil May Cry/Bayonetta-style action game featuring a Harlequin Solitaire: Space Marines? Pfffttt... How about space elf ninja clowns whose weapons include a hollow tube you shove into a man's chest, from which razor wires uncoil from and rotor-blade his insides into soup? Or soul-less goddesses of close combat that will slaughter even the toughest Space Marine army you can throw at her?

For all the 4chan b/tardedness out there... For all the anonymity that affords users to toss about homophobic/racist/misogynist/generally bigoted slurs out there... For all the social networking that emphasises a "don't want to say this to your face" approach to interpersonal relationships... I think we've turned out for the better because of the internet.

There are ways for some western armies to hit opponents that on paper are far above their weight class. Most foes NATO-alligned countries have engaged in modern times used the old Soviet-system of strategy i.e. highly-centralised, top-down command structure and unified sweeping movement of ground forces. Thus, towards the end of the Cold War NATO devised strategies that involved crippling the mechanisms and infrastructure necessary for higher level functions of a numerically superior opponent (i.e. a Warsaw Pact offensive). Ironically, it was a Soviet general who pointed this out (see Marshall Ogarkov and his "Revolution in Military Affairs"). Among these was the use of precision guided munitions which could be used to hit headquarters, communications and logistics centers, and bridges. Another component (deployed shortly after the end of the Cold War) was new advancements in information warfare. In manuever warfare, the biggest force multiplier is good intelligence. Use of observation satelites, RC-135 "Rivet Joint" reconnaissance planes (and later, high-altitude UAVs), and E-8 JSTARS allows NATO forces to observe large formations, identify the weakest points, and choose their fights.

In the memoirs of a UH-1 pilot who served in Vietnam, "Chickenhawks", the supply sergeants of his regiment often distributed surplus gear to the men. However, the Army being as tightfisted as it was, nonetheless demanded what was the fate of the gear that had gone missing. This conundrum was solved whenever a helicopter was shot down, as the supply sergeants would say that the missing inventory had gone down with the aircraft. One report had said five tons of equipment had been lost with one Huey; the Huey has a nominal load of one ton.

A friend of mine who was into Marvel had told me about The Sentry, saying that it would probably be the most wretched thing I would ever have the displeasure of reading. While as I have said before I didn't have a terribly high opinion of superhero comics, I was open-minded enough to at least read some of the issues he showed me to see if our opinions differed... Soon after, I learned that my friend was 100% accurate in his assessment; even with my fairly limited knowledge of the Marvel canon I felt as if the writers had gone out of their way to anger the readers, then continued to rub jagged pieces of rock salt into the wounds with every successive issue when a sane editor would have killed the series long ago with the crazy contrivances they have grown so fond of using over the years. I have heard defenders make fair points about the redeeming qualities of the character; the core of the character I don't find particularly objectionable (the Dr. Manhattan concept operated on similar principles). But the execution was bungled every step of the way.

A relevant video. Though I wished it included a bit of black humour that came before this in the film.

Well the fact that England was an island nation did work against it. Admiral Donitz had given Hitler his assurances that England could be starved into submission if he had 300 U-boats (100 going out, 100 coming back, and another 100 in the docks being re-fitted at any one time); Hitler started the war when Donitz only had a little under 50, some of which were not in fighting condition come September 1939.

Blame also goes to the higher ups who believed the abbey at Monte Cassino was being used as an artillery spotting position. despite Kesselrings communications to Allied forces to the contrary (as a great admirer of the arts, he did in fact issue specific orders to his troops that it not be garrisoned lest it be targeted). Nonetheless, it got bumped up on the USAAF's strike list and it got bombed to rubble, which had the effect of making it an even more fortifiable position for elite German Fallschirmjagers who were now free to use the rubble as cover.

Erwin Rommel did say if he had to invade hell, he'd have the Australians take it and the New Zealanders to hold it.

Some of you may have seen my semi-game diary of a mission I flew in DCS: A-10C. For a game as crazy as that, take comfort that you could probably do a lot better than this fellow:

http://youtu.be/dhUQ5ONxYFc The Russians would have just evacuated a couple of neighbourhoods, then proceeded to bomb them. T-72s and a nasty little thing called the RPO-A "Bumble-bee" on a gymnasium filled with women and children more like.

Along with this, the big one I was keeping my eyes on was Cradle, which was also Greenlighted this past week. Absolutely loved what the Eastern Europeans have been doing for PC gaming. One of Ice Pick Lodge's previous games, The Void, was one of my absolute favourites despite its design issues. In spite of them, speaking as an artist it helped me out of a creative rut and kick a bout of depression (which is weird for a game that's as seemingly soul-crushingly depressing as it is). That game goes criminally unrecognised by gamers at large.