DanJW

HL1 is much slower paced than 2. There are several maps of nothing but headcrabs and zombies. The real fun is the puzzles in that game. Especially the puzzles that you have to solve while under attack. Remember that up until that point FPS puzzles had always been "find the blue key card for the blue door".

Nooooo! There was some good stuff too. Like Yufster's welcome post. Except she deleted that after becoming a mod Besides it's all in the archives which no-one looks at much.

Christopher Lee records operatic symphonic metal album about the life of Charlemagne. Errrrrr...

Man this game is addictive. I bought it in the holiday steam sale and beat Ordrak last night, after about 30 hours in 10 days on hard mode. And I still want to get my vanquisher character to level 100. Like Chris, I love using the guns. They are just so satisfying. I wish using dual pistols conferred more benefit. However I found a couple of awesome bows that I just couldn't turn down. Hmm the transmuter ought to be able to transform a weapon's type I think. The first bow may look insane in terms of DPS, but I bring your attention to the critical strikes bonuses of the Peacekeeper. Using that gives me huge crits on one third of my shots. At a 13% chance of disenchantment, I'm wondering whether I dare risk trying for more speed upgrade on it.

Maybe you should check out the whole bunch of Koontz, to be sure. ... Sorry

I think my favourite so far is the Botswana one. Hiding meat in the air intakes in lion country, and scaring each other with tales of the honey-badger. But they are all good. They are surprisingly educational, as they actually manage to show you a foreign country as a real place, in a way you can relate to - as a traveller. This while instilling a sense of adventure and love of great scenery and human ingenuity, with a dash or juvenile jokes and arsing around.

Indeed, their road trips are the best stuff they do.

Best wishes Tanukitsune! Excellent range of gifts there.

I never watched a whole lot of Angel - I think I probably had similar problems with that you do now. However the final season (5?) is excellent, if only for the comedy "Angel gets turned into a muppet" episode.

Haha Karimi's guide still makes me chuckle. It was a long time ago though; I like to think we are much more gentle on newcomers now. Not that we were ever cruel, just lots of strong personalities with strong opinions and strong intellects that would often clash in, er, creative ways..

I too am spending the evening alone, probably with Torchlight and a bottle of rum. A couple of weeks ago my New Year was looking awesome. New house, new job and for the first time in years a date with a girl who I really really dig. Tonight finds my rent cheque lost by the bank, me leaving my month-old job after a conflict on grounds of extreme dodginess and my date being cancelled because in the week or so since she postponed it, she has met someone else. Strangely, all this landing at once has me now feeling extremely elated and more clear-headed than I have been in ages. Perhaps I should get a job in crisis management. Although next week I may well end up on a trip to the doctors, first time in over a year, for a new antidepressant prescription. We shall see. Anyay, stay awesome folks, and Happy New Year to All Thumbs!

Merry Christmas Thumbateers! I love all of you and this most awesome corner of the interwoobs that we call home.

Ugh. I'm starting a new job on Monday, one with ridiculous hours for little reward. Hence I will have almost no free time during the week. So only weekend gaming for me from now on

Hmm yes as far as I can tell it is an evolution of Google Documents (which I do use from time to time). Still not convinced it will replace email though. I too find it irritating that gmail is not integrated. my address is

What a shitty wizard.

Paragon/Renegade is less about the big moral decisions and more about methods. Your ends remain the same but the means are up to you. I think Shepherd is meant to be more of a predefined character. We are used to RPGs, especially Bioware RPGs, allowing you to mould your own personality, your own identity. This has a cost, in that such characters often inhabit a kind of void in the story, a tabula rasa blank spot. Shepherd has voice acting for his/her dialogue, and that alone will shape his/her personality more concretely than, for instance, the Dragon Age protagonist. Shepherd already has an identity before you take control, you just decide how she goes about the job before her. (yes, I still favour a female renegade Shepherd).

A ninja with a claw fist... thing. A comanche ninja.

Aww now I have, what's the phrase? 'pwned my own self'. I'm being lighting technician in an amateur theatre production all week. doh. On the off chance that I get the Thursday off, I will be there.

I bet you anything that the triple scar was made by an eagle. Or maybe a bear.

Oooooh look at Mr Popular! Yeah it probably does mean you can't receive any more. But anyone sending you a PM will get a message back telling them why you didn't receive it.

Want to set a date on this achievement grabbing?

Alan Moore launches his self-published punk indie underground magazine. http://www.dodgemlogic.com/ Looking forward to getting this!

you have no idea.

It didn't get a whole lot of love, mainly because of the old-school level design I think. I enjoyed it though - it had a nice bullet-time gun duel mechanic (fun in multiplayer) and had pretty above-par writing and voice acting. Definitely looking forward to this.