DanJW

Ooooh ooh I know! Give each gang a "nuclear deterrent". Hey, if it works for nations...

Hmm, the problem is they are not actually patches, they are fan-mods essentially. So I imagine, no. It's true that some design decisions in the game really were stupid, so I just HAD to install the inventory mods etc. Also some nice graphics tweaks, like bigger/better trees. But what I really want, even though it's superficial, is snow that doesn't move with you. If you walk forward, snow should move towards you. Proof that the Oblivion graphics engine isn't the fucking messiah everyone thinks it is.

Hah, it's true that death's by shooting are down - but if you look up injuries from shootings they have actually soared. The police and government have only made reference to the deaths stats. But yes I agree that ths thing hasn't popped up out of nowhere, it's just that the media have only decided to make a thing of it now. I was hoping you'd have a more creative solutioon, similar to your Iran one. I dunno, something like "give them more guns, also rifles and RPGs"

OK, so based on the earlier posts in this thread I finally decided toplay Metal Gear Solid 3, which I borrowed from someone some time ago and has been sitting on my shelf since then. So I played it. Then I played it some more. SO basically I've been playing it non-stop for over a week, with very little sleep, and finished it tonight. HOT DAMN you were right, an amazing game. It wasn't subsistance unfortunately, but I got used to the classic-PS2 retardo-cam after a short while. It's the first MGS game I've played, and it was actually the jungle setting which made me want to play this one. The previous games have looked pretty drab to me. I think I'd miss the survival and camoflage elements as well, they are such an integral part of the game. Oh and the boss battles were indeed geneerally awsome, especially the sniper battle with The End - that was so tense and naturalistic I played it three times before moving on. Although I've been put off the series by the tales long cutscenes, I ended up loving those too. The radio conversations made me laugh out loud, and the references to the (future) events in MGS 1 and 2 made me grin even though I haven't played them (except the Big Boss thing, which made me a bit sad). Basically I loved every little bit of the game (whith the possible exception of Volgin, who was a hammy and clichéd bad guy who macho-d about the place in a fairly uninteresting way). I even managed to get some of the unlockables, like the moss and snake camo. Must. Get. More. Holy crap I could talk about this game all fucking night. I'm going to start the hard playthrough now instead of ranting any more. Snake? Snake! Snaaaaaake!!!

I'm interested Ginger, in how you personally would tackle the current firearms gangs problem that's been in the UK news?

OK, you're probably right. I like cats, and they like me, but that might be because we are both evil hey what happened to the :evil: smiley?

I thought you were a Michaelangelo fan, you crazy party guy. I always imagined that were Mikey human, he'd be fat.

ALF is totally evil. For one, he eats cats. Hmm. Can we get an ALF smiley?

Word.

I say the US and UK should give up their own nuclear WMDs as a goodwill gesture to encourage Iran to cease production. But I get the feeling that leaders would rather just nuke a random target than step down the weapons. Edit: Also Ginger, you do realise that by now the CIA and MI5 programs have found this thread and you have been added to the "suspected terrorists" register?

Talking of GTA clones, I've been having fun recently playing, of all things, Driver: Parallel Lines. It's actually really good. I love the 1978 vibe and soundtrack during the first half, and the second half - set in 2004 - has a nice contrast with that. Excellent voice acting too.

The new one. Yeah, the gameplay was unispired but the dialogue, narration, storyline and all the little RPG in-jokes were hilarious (for most people - it doesn't appeal to everyone obviously).

Hah, I thought he said "TTFN", Tigger-fashion, which made me laugh.

Heh, The Bard's Tale played on this phenemena. The first wolf you kill drops a load of gold, leading to an argument between the Bard and an NPC about why the wolf would have a bunch of treasure. After that animals only drop animal parts (with the occasional red riding-hood). The game also automatically converted all non-equipment items into "potential gold", negating the need to sell a load random stuff to some merchant before using the proceeds to buy things from same merchant. It was a good game, besides the grindcore fighting mechanic.

Diablo wasn't balanced. I remember filling up the town square with piles of gold because I didn't have enough inventory space. And the riverbank was turned into The Potion Field. NWN2 I thought had too much gold (and it does) but there are plenty of very expensive weapons and armour to spend it on in the lead up to the end-game. Weird how all RPGs carry on giving you gold and jewels in the final dungeon even though you'll never have a way to spend it.

40 years? really? 2 life sentences? People have killed and eaten children and gotten away with less. I hate the word gotten, I suspect it's not real.

It's etymological root is the same as fée.

I actually like the full Microsoft Office Outlook. It has a tonne of tools besides email that I found every useful at work. Outlook Express is shit though. Haven't tried Thunderbird.

Oh good grief. So those stores offering part exchanges of PS2s for PS3s are fucking over their customers and their own future PS2 games sales.

Elf is the anglo saxon word (from the Germanic "alf"). Fairie is the french/gallic word for the same thing.

then you've never read anything about old-school faeries...

Well, that's OK, since girls don't play video games anyway...

Yeah I know those things. I gathered that the current UFO series were "spiritual sequals". This one looks like a significant improvement on its predecessors, but yes I'm still going to want a demo before I get the full game.

Not quite on topic, but X-com (UFO Enemy Unknown) was one of the finest games ever made. None of the recent sequals have even approached it (Terror From the Deep came close, but was ridiculously hard). The new one, UFO: Afterlight, looks pretty good though. I might give it a go. On topic: Can't really help you, the only email games I played were the paper-scissors-stone fighting games (battlemail?), they were fun but purely a distraction.

EA has always had some great devs amongst those it has assimilated (who found resistance futile). The question is always how long they can keep producing good games from within the belly of beast before being fully digested. ahghgh metaphor overload! abort abort