Scrobbs

"This game will drown your raped baby." - IGN.com

Empire: Total war has just been given a preview on EGTV http://www.eurogamer.net/tv_video.php?playlist_id=18644 It looks pretty bloody good - and hopefully will not be the hodge podge that Medieval II was. I gather there will be a substantial online component this time around (using Steam). Anyone else looking forward to it?

No you're not!

Don't be sorry! What you've just said has led to me finally being able to do a fairly convincing Scottish accent. It's been fucking awful up until now, so I guess it was needed to be pointed out.

The dawning realisation of horror that you are going to get mutilated. I think I did this the other night - it was my second battle, and I sat around for ages, waiting for the enemy. I don't have an excuse though, as I was attacking a French fort. I quickly rallied, and pounded the French into submission in the 20 minutes remaining of the battle time. Lesson learned - not played a TW game properly since Rome (MW II sucked I though and I got bored within a week) - so it took me a while to get back into it.

Frank Sobotka J Allard Sir, I've heard rumours that J Allard has been moonlighting as the treasurer of the International Brotherhood of Stevedores in Baltimore. Can this be true? I think we should be told! Yours etc.

Heh. Then, once they'd learned that lesson, it took them a while longer to realise that sending men in waves against a bunch of machine guns wasn't the way either. Captured brilliantly, like so much else of that war, in the scene in "Blackadder Goes Forth", when Bladder is speaking to Melchett, and they're looking at what initially seems to be a scale model of the amount of ground captured but turns out to be 1:1.

Would you US guys use a phrase like, "well-rounded curriculum"?

I guess so.

Tabula Rasa server populations http://eu.playtr.com/en/news/server_status

Cunt sounds better as you go north - 'Kant' to around the midlands 'Coont' from midlands upwards Can't even begin to phoneticise the Scottish version, but it sounds better still

...to have a holiday/look see. Can anyone recommend anything to do/see? The plan was originally to take a month off, go to Toronto for a week or so, fly to Calgary, then drive through the Rockies to Vancouver. Unfortunately, work won't let me take a month off, so 2 weeks it is. There's a vague plan to get a car and drive to Calgary and back anyway, but I'm not so sure if we have to drive both ways...seems like a waste of a holiday to spend 4 days driving.

Had a meeting about emigration visas etc. yesterday - went quite well, but the company charge quite a lot of money for it. Excited

If you do the road to independance, it eases you in gently to the game and the new features. Even as a TW veteran, I'd've still had a few problems jumping straight in without that. As you say - many subtle, but welcome improvements, such as the way the diplomacy screens contain so much more useful information (their standing with other factions etc.), how the mini map in battle mode shows the unit type with an outline on mid zoom level, all the reloading animations, the way the AI is clearly better at dealing with immediate threats. The g/f is away, that's my weekend sorted

Restart the install dude - I had that.

I get the impression that that word is a lot more offensive in the US (and maybe Canada) that it is over here in the UK. It's very common here (and is a great swear word), so has lost it's impact a little I guess.

Jake, something that I've always suffered with (particularly with regards to writing electronic music), with perfectionism - I'm nearly never happy with what I've done, perfection is never attainable. However, I often get to the point where I've refined it so much I've lost what made it good in the first place - ruined it by perfectionism if you like. How do you know when to stop? Is that based on experience?

Thanks sweetie.

What about the multiplayer? It is supposed to be super flexible.

Steam: £39.99 Game.co.uk - £29.99 Gamestation.co.uk - £29.99 Amazon.co.uk - £23.96 play.com - £29.99 Those sites aren't hard to find really are they.

Ah, no.

Wrestle, I might be upgrading my card in the next few days - if you're interested in my old one - it's a Radeon X1900XTX with 512Mb Ram, and an after-market cooler (Artic Cooler Accelero X1) that I fitted after owning it a week - for quietness rather than O/C, and has never been O/C'd.

That's a name I've only since I've had PSN.

Yeh man, I'm glad I held off on the impulse the other day. I got home to find out the intertubez up in arms about it. Will get it at a shop.