Agiel

It's relatively inaccurate to refer to North Korea as a communist state; the Juche philosophy coined by Kim Il Sung that has supplanted Communism as the country's leading ideology is as far from orthodox Marxism as can possibly be imagined, and the reality is that the current political state of country more closely resembles Korean-branded Nationalist Socialism (one of the lines fed to its populace to instill fear of "American aggression" is that black American troops stationed in South Korea are "liasoning" with their South Korean brethren and breeding "half-breed mongrels", even pregnant Korean women with their children sired by Chinese fathers are given abortions, if this isn't propagating the idea of a "master race", I don't know what does). Their current constitution at best has token references to Marx and Lenin and many won't hesitate to attribute their writings to the "Dear Leader" himself (who mind you, is still the President of North Korea despite being dead for almost two decades; as Christopher Hitchens said, a "thanotocracy, or a "necrocracy"). As for their economic state they also have themselves to blame. Juche, no matter what school of economic thought you abide by, is equivalent to economic suicide (remember the saying: "No man is an island"?). Rather hypocritically, they relied highly upon Soviet and Chinese investments during the Cold War, and with the collapse, those funds dried up and having built a dependency on their former allies their indigenously-built infrastructure was ill-prepared for the long agony of the nineties. As for their military, well, 25% of their GDP spent on defense doesn't count for much when the ROK's military budget alone is equivalent to the North's entire GDP.

Would like to see this. Here's what think of when I think of a melee capable mage: Eldar Farseer. Screenshot courtesy of Warhammer 40000 - Dawn of War II: Retribution.

The problem is that North Korea's conventional power is still enough for them to ostensibly hold the world economy hostage. While the KPA hasn't a hope or a prayer of pushing the combined forces of the US and the ROK back down to the Pusan perimeter like they did in '53 without Chinese help (the Chinese are more liable to oust Kim Jong-un themselves before letting that happen), the North Koreans have enough tube and rocket artillery pieces lined up on their side of the DMZ to devastate Seoul, one of the main economic hubs of the world. It's an attitude of "If we can't have it, no one can" which is downright reckless and monomaniacal, not to mention childish, that makes their antics worthy of more attention from the world.

My most memorable playthrough of of Arcanum was my third (the first was blind, the second trying to get the most optimal of outcomes with all the knowledge I had from beforehand) where I roleplayed as a haughty walking techbane elf pure mage who was quite racist, though not one from any genuine malice or spite but because of her upbringing (you know the type, the one that constantly defends him or herself saying: "Don't get me wrong. I've got plenty of orc friends and they're all very pleasant!"). Basically, Princess Clara from Drawn Together. Needless to say, she got herself in her fair share of scuffles due to that mouth of hers.

I have a family friend who used to be a trainer for Merkava tank crews before she moved to the US. Some days when my parents were too busy, they could sometimes count on her to pick me up from school. One day she was driving her son and I home when some news came on the radio about the Gaza pullout (it was 2005) and she asked me how I felt about it. Now I grew up in a family that was quite critical of Israel's policies (my grandmother lived during the Japanese occupation of China, so she sympathised with the Palestinians), but my parents also raised me with enough sense to be sensitive. So in response, I gave the usual hamfisted answer: "Well, I think it's kind of sad they the settlers have to leave their homes." Her answer to that surprised me: "Well they have to leave. That land doesn't belong to Israel." These days, I take comfort that lot of Israelis are as likely to criticise the policies of their government as the rest of the western world, and that there are people doing good work for "Breaking the Silence" and B'tselem.

Is it possible the maybe-Fallout: Lost Angels would be a prequel to New Vegas, maybe taking place in the interim between Fallout 1 and 2? From what I remember, the Boneyard should be pretty deep in NCR territory, so one would imagine that it wouldn't make as interesting of a setting as the Wild West of the Mojave (unless it involves mutated South Central gang-banger ghouls rising from the depths).

I find it absolutely fascinating that there is a Russian version of an American icon, "Married... with Children" which against all expectations for a sitcom adapted for a foreign market has been received fairly well. For those that do not know, I give you "Счастливы вместе," or, "Happy Together." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBSeHEndees

Betrayal at Krondor, which my uncle had managed to beat and gave to me during one of the times I visited him. I also have him to thank for introducing me to TIE Fighter, Jane's F-15, and Fallout 2 (the first one I played).

Tried out Dragon Age 2 and got super pissed off by the obviously rushed development and equally blatant console pandering that I looked to Steam and joy of joys, found NWN2 available. Even with the super clunky UI it was enough to keep me warm through a dearth of mechanically involving CRPGs.

Ah yes, I remember the days when I kept dropping hints to my parents about having Rogue Spear for Christmas, with my cousin doing the same with his. And I shall forever hold fond memories of Raven Shield. This past year the tech club at my university hosted a "LAN Party" and I was fortunate enough to find someone else there who happened to have SWAT 4 as well, though while I was content with the pepper-spray paintball gun, he was relatively trigger happy with the M4A1 loaded with FMJ rounds to the point that Darryl F. Gates would be proud.

Jane's USAF was a good midpoint between the low-medium fidelity survey sims (the estimable Fighter's Anthology) and the license's more intensive ones (the excellent F-15, F/A-18, and the Longbow series). I suppose its closest modern analogue would be the Strike Fighters 2 series and Flaming Cliffs 3 that plugs into DCS: World. Nowhere near as intensive as A-10C (no 50-step cold start procedure), but the flight model, radar fidelity, and missile behaviours are pretty top notch nonetheless.

So finally caved and shelved out $136 dollars for a Steel Beasts Pro: Personal Edition license and upgrade, since after playing DCS: A-10C, Black Shark 2, Dangerous Waters, and ArmA 2, there was still a Leopard 2-sized hole in my simming experience Some of you may remember about 10-15 years ago that PC gaming was as much , Enemy Engaged: Comanche vs. Hokum, and Operation Flashpoint as it was Quake, Baldur's Gate, and Total Annihilation. Hopefully with the release of 3rd party modules for DCS: World and those people buying ArmA 3 (if only for DayZ) will revive interest in the genre.

You don't bat a thousand with torture either, far from it, in fact. The fact that officials are tight-lipped as to what useful information was gleaned from waterboarding compared to high-profile successes that did not involve torture like this case (http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2007/05/the-ploy/305773/) is telling as well.

Anyone who believes that torture is necessary to extract actionable intelligence has not read of Hanns Scharff: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanns_Scharff And the hilarious thing is, he did a lecture for the CIA on interrogation.

Now this is a lesson in doublespeak: http://www.aljazeera.com/news/middleeast/2013/01/2013131101929493601.html When a UN inquiry says that Israeli settlement of occupied land must cease immidiately, Israel boycotts the decision by not showing up, becoming the first country ever to do so in the UN. The practice of land grabbing/ ethnic cleansing/ transfer of civilian population is clearly and without a shadow of a doubt forbidden by international law, and the settlements are also illegal in Israel. Now how could the Israelis possibly be so upset, and how could their GOVERNMENT announce the construction of additional settlements? Sometimes I'm baffled the UN hasn't thought of sending peacekeeping troops to the West Bank to protect the rights of the people living there. Mostly due to the fact that the US does not hesitate to use its veto power to block something that sounds that "belligerent." No doubt due to the machinations of AIPAC and other Israeli lobbyists, and the American news media suppressing a lot of "anti-Israeli" news and bending American public opinion such that any opinion that criticises Israel for illegal settlements or disproportionate use of force is tantamount to "anti-semitism."

These days, composite armour being what it is, firing a LAW or an RPG at a main battle tank is only going to result in making the crew spill their coffee. There was a report that a Challenger 2 in Iraq had took more than 70 RPG rounds, with only the commander's optics suffering any significant damage.

I suppose it's no coincidence that I've been reading Operation Shylock by the venerable Philip Roth lately. Highly recommend it. Hardest I've laughed reading a book since Confederacy of Dunces.

That's right: You shouldn't. Even if Obama doesn't have to worry about re-election, he does still have to worry about trying to get his party to have the upper hand against the Republicans. And with a Republican majority in the House and the Democrats having a very tenuous hold on the Senate, we could be looking at a Washington as red as I like my steaks ("rare, but not cold") if Obama doesn't play his cards right. If we were to extrapolate the current political climate to four years from now, which party ends up in the White House is anyone's guess, so unfortunately it's not in Obama's best interests to rock the boat on the issue of Palestine.

Take into account whatever limitations of the engine Obsidian manages to create, whether they be AI or graphical in nature. A big part of why some of the crazier mods manage to work in a game like Skyrim is because it's a world where with sufficient points into pickpocket you can rob every single NPC in the world of their *clothes* with everyone none the wiser, or a giant can send a bear going, in the words of Alan Shepard, "For miles and miles and miles" in defiance of the laws of physics."

Tell you what. If you can get francophones to stop using "Euh..." when they begin a thought then maybe we can get to work on getting "So..." out of the English vernacular.

Warhammer has always been about juxtaposing the stuff that's "sensible" to the stuff that's totally out there. For 40K, compare Kasrkins: to Vostoryan Firstborns: And the Catachan Jungle Fighters: And don't get me started on Harlequins, who are by far and away the most lethal mortal warriors in the Warhammer fiction:

Don't know if you've noticed, but Obsidian doesn't have a whole lot of reasons to abide by a design philosophy that matches the real world. In fact, their art department has had a history of giving that sort of thing the finger. I mean, for god's sake, the baddest-ass of the badasses of the NCR in Fallout: New Vegas wore rodeo jeans with a longcoat, and for the Legionnaires old football shoulder pads somehow equates to kevlar body armour. And it doesn't take an engineering major to figure this out (hell, I majored in art and I figured this out), but a big robot that relies on a single wheel for locomotion is not the soundest chassis design for a weapons platform.

Can any of you take that "realism" thing a step further and pick up a game like Digital Combat Simulator: A-10C or Falcon 4.0 BMS? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSIGzDMJ-ik I get enough "as-real-as-it-gets" action ramp-starting an F-16C Block 52 for every sortie over Pyongyang in Falcon 4.0 and slicing guys up in War of the Roses, and honestly I find it difficult to get educational value out of a game with elves and dwarves in it, however mentally stimulating the combat and character editor is.

This argument sort of reflects my views on Warhammer 40K: Cadian Guardsmen and Space Marines wearing "sensible" flak jackets and power armour? Boooring. Catachan Jungle Fighters with abs and pecs that give them the same armour saves as the above? Space elf ninja clowns who make no distinction between dance and combat and wear form-fitting and highly visible garbs? Sign. Me. Up.

This topic and replaying Arcanum made me wonder: What if technology in this Tolkien world of elves and dwarves progressed to our age where precision guided munitions and C4ISR replaced maces and enchanted swords as the tools of war?