Javito1986

Empire got a lot of flak, deservedly because it was rather bug ridden. I enjoy it though because it's so HUGE. You can fight in North America, Europe, Africa, Middle East, India... can't do that in Napoleon. There's mods that fix ETW's bugs, the nicest one being Darthmod which also boosts unit sizes up to historically accurate levels making for -seriously- massive and impressive battles between tens of thousands. Napoleon is the most recent and is a fair bit more polished than Empire. It's very enjoyable and the battles are as fun as ever.

Oh sweet link. I'll watch it when I get home later. Thanks!

Agreed, I always think about such thing. Like that fellow who was killed at literally the last minute of the war. But really, it's not any better than everyone else who died in 1914/15/16/17/18 you know? People focus on the ones who, dammit, if they'd just kept their heads down a few more minutes they would have made it, but really it just serves to emphasize the -massive- waste of the entire conflict since everyone's death was equally tragic. Saying for example, "20,000 British killed on the First Day of the Somme" is rather easy, since 20,000 is just a statistic, but you'll literally drive yourself mad with grief if you go into the records and start reading about each and every individual killed on that day in that army alone. Unbelievable the things we've done to each other.

Someone ought to be contacted about that music theme though. It's a shame for such things to be lost to the internet mist.

Last month I read the book "Tolkien and the Great War". It followed him and his three close friends exactingly through approximately 1912 to 1918. Startling insight into the early development of his philosophy and literary interests & style, and he did indeed begin the very earliest writings of the Middle-earth mythology right there in France while serving with the Lancashire Fusiliers on the Somme. Two things in the book left quite an emotional impact. One was the description of how he was pressured to go to war. It hit him as a complete surprise, he felt as if his whole world was collapsing, and he tried to put off enlistment. But at that time in 1914/15 before conscription was introduced people would jeer any able bodied man walking around the streets as a civilian, they wouldn't serve you at say a pub, you'd be called a coward for not going, etc. His friends had family members pressuring them to go "do their duties". There was no choice for them really, and saying they "volunteered" is rather naive as it was rather a form of societal impressment. He later felt his generation of youth were betrayed by the older generation who should have known better but clearly didn't. The second is the Somme itself. His closest friend Gilson was an officer who went over the top on the First Day. Beforehand he was writing letters to Tolkien with a very distinct, pronounced sense of fatalism, extolling him to survive the war and publish as he would have wanted to if given the chance, as if he knew for certain he was about to be killed. Which indeed he was, since the last anyone saw of him he was pushing forward toward the German entrenchments on July 1 through a hell of machine gun and artillery fire. His other friend, Smith, died a few months later while he was walking around at the rear, and a completely random shell landed nearby and put some shrapnel in his leg. He was certain it was no big deal, but within days the wound infected and he passed away. His only friend who lived was Christopher Wiseman, who joined the Navy and apart from Jutland didn't see much fighting. It got so bad for the Professor in '16 that some of his writings during that time even start almost denouncing anything German, even Germanic myths, which if you know Tolkien was nearly inconceivable considering his love before and after the war of everything Germanic. But I imagine it has to be hard to keep yourself free of resentment under such circumstances, and it's a testament to his character that that was a very brief phase (undoubtedly brought on by Gilson's death). It's absolutely impossible that it didn't affect his writing. How could it not? He was writing the very earliest drafts of the Fall of Gondolin while watching the first tanks roll across the Somme, and specifically wrote that it marked the end of war as "man vs man" and the beginning of war as "man vs machine".

I appreciate what you're saying! By the time I'm out of school I'll have degrees in Political Science, Business Administration, and Media Art & Game Design. Will have options, so I guess we'll just wait and see :)

You don't say? I sure would love to hear that. I missed out completely on FCJ due to a crappy computer. By the time I acquired a real gaming computer google searches for FCJ led me to Over Flanders Fields!

Total War is fun. My friend and I had quite an epic multiplayer campaign in Napoleon last summer, with me as France and him as Britain. He won it though, the bastard. Royal Navy held Gibraltar, locked my fleet and the Spanish fleet in the Mediterranean. So even though I was RIDICULOUSLY rich from my monopoly on trade there, I had to fight constant wars against the Prussians And Austrians constantly attacking my frontier, until finally British troops landed in France and GAME OVER. Lame. The battles are very fun though, particularly human vs human.

Man do I want to get a job in the industry. I want to be you when I get out of school.

Dragon Age, Mass Effect, and Witcher are all quite lovely games. DA & ME have such amazingly extensive background information. I've spent hours browsing their respective codex entries, reading about the history of the Chantry's religion or the tactics of space warfare. Mass Effect 2 in particular, in addition to being extremely fun and fluid on PC, has such excellent writing. Favorite scene:

Big question! Gears of War 3 and Mass Effect 3 on my XBox, Uncharted 3 on the PS3. I quite literally -just- acquired a Nintendo Wii (early V-Day gift from my knockout of a wife), fulfilling a lifelong ambition to own all competing consoles in a generation at once (I used to get so annoyed when I saw how much better Mortal Kombat was on my friends' Sega Genesis than on my Super Nintendo). Ergo, I am looking forward to the new Zelda as I haven't played a Zelda game since 1998. As far as the PC goes, OFF P4 would be amazing but I doubt we'll see that this year. I am definitely looking forward to Witcher 2 and Dragon Age 2, loved the originals. I am a huge fan of Bioware RPGs as is known, loved Knights of the Old Republic, and so am somewhat excited about their new Old Republic MMO. I do NOT typically play MMOs (with the rare exception of EVE Online) but if Old Republic features a single player story with well written characters in the same vein as the original KotoR I will definitely want to play it. Trouble is I've got this damned gaming backlog I'm trying to get rid of. I've committed to finishing Baldur's Gate 2, Planescape Torment, and Fallout New Vegas before moving on to a new game, but the spring release season is almost upon me! I've got to do more gaming but I'm also working on short stories for the Clarion Workshop in San Diego, developing content for a website I'd like to start up in a few months, and not to mention I'm enrolled at the university. But not to worry. Once I convince the Missus that quality time and "watching hubby play a video game" are one and the same I'll have it made

You're kidding! I bought CMBB back in 2002 when I was a young lad of 15. To this day my favorite strategy game. It's very sad they'd censor it to that extent.

Good show Carrick. Ursula Andress was stunning in that movie.

It is indeed "impressive" how badly our fragile little civilization collapsed in New Orleans in Katrina's immediate aftermath. Reminded me of the time I've spent in Central America, both in times of war and "peace" when banditry and the resultant vigilantism are rampant. Less said of that the better. One would think the U.S. is immune to such disorders but Katrina was a sobering lesson for me.

It seems to be quite difficult to contact their administrators. I've been looking for anyone in charge there besides webmaster@aerodrome or whatever that chap's address is, because it seems he doesn't check his e-mail very often. However the staff seems quite unavailable and they don't even have a forum dedicated to support issues or anywhere you can raise a concern

"-Exciting Single-Player Campaign – The campaign thrusts the player into the middle of the battle. The player will join the British Air Force to fight the German forces and renegade pilots on his own side. " What the hell do they mean 'renegade pilots on his own side'???? Also, it does look very pretty, but I think I'll stick with Wings of Victory!

Sometimes I just turn OFF on in the background and listen to the music as I go about my business. Great theme.

Gorgeous indeed, but what the 'ell happened at the end there?!

*sniff* Poor little Nieuport

Awesome you've got the sim up and running. See you up there! Don't die

Archie is terrible. If you fail to perform some evasive maneuvers when under archie fire you may get away with it a hundred times but sooner or later it WILL get you. I always turn ground accuracy up on hard for balloon busting missions, and on those I fear the flak 1000x more than any enemy aircraft.

RIP. This news must be hitting the other survivors of Easy Co really hard. Winters was like their beating heart. What a damn good life he had though. I only wish mine can be half as fulfilling as his.

Dear GOD that's amazing. Not only the balls and determination of that 109 pilot, also that the Americans actually managed to wrestle that beast to Belgium so they could bail out. Dogfights was such a great show, I never saw an ep that was anything less than riveting.

I flew with labels until I got TrackIR and a better monitor. That was when I decided that I had superseded the computer screen limitations enough to take them off. HOWEVER I still do occasionally turn them on in flight because I like to know A) who my wingmen are, B) what their status is. If that's Lieutenant Tommy blazing away at a burning Dr.I I want to know about it so I can record it accurately in my AAR for my campaign write-up on this forum.

When I was flying the Camel I was very acrobatic in flight. I'd throw that little plane every which way, and was perfectly capable of clinging to just about any German plane's tail, or breaking away if I came under fire. These days I fly the SE5, a rock steady, stable gun platform. I don't do anything fancy with it. Maintain altitude, pick a target, dive, aim for the pilot, plane falls, and I climb back up to my original altitude and rinse and repeat. Nothing to it! SE's less flashy than the Camel but you're more likely to survive the war in it.