Alan Dale Daniel writes that this game is unplayable. He's dead wrong. Sure, this game is hard to learn and difficult to master. The best wargames are difficult to master because they are so realistic in terms of the detail that goes into them. I have played this game as well as Korsun Pocket, and while Alan says that Korsun pocket is similarly impossible to play, I found Korsun Pocket quite easy to learn and play. Perhaps Alan is not used to playing serious wargames.

AA:HttR is possibly the best, most accurate wargame ever designed. It requires more from the player because it gives more in return. Players of serious wargames will find that this game will stay on their hard drives long after the 'beer and pretzels' games have gone into the trash.

I just finished reading this great book. I can only say that in my opinion reading this book is essential. It is by far the most intelligent, thoughtful, human and universal, kind-hearted and far-reaching novel I've read in a long time. Perhaps the best book I've ever read. I could go on, examining the story and trying to explain why the book makes such a strong impact on me, but that would be futile - in my opinion Way Station cannot be condensed or translated in any way other than word-for-word. Anyway there are other reviews that give a superficial sense of the story. But to learn the book's message in full you must simply read it and be open to it. All I can say about the less positive reviews - the ones that claim that Way Station is dated, preachy, rambling, etc. - is that in those cases the fault lies more with the reviewer than with the book. Some people, at certain times in their lives, simply aren't open to certain messages of truth.

I cannot recommend Way Station too highly.

In my opinion it is an embarrassment that this book - this stunning achievement of Science Fiction - is currently out of print.

Sadly, this docudrama is built around the infamous 'incubator' story, which was later found to be US and Kuwaiti propaganda. The movie never admits this. I suppose if it had, a lot of the motivation for the movie characters would be lost. It's a pity that the filmmakers decided not to plumb the real depths that surrounded the events that the movie covers, for if they had, there would be a really gripping story of media manipulation (i.e. not only manipulation by Iraq). Sadly, the filmmakers either ignore the more subtle manipulations that went on, or are blithely unaware of them. In the end, this movie becomes a pro-CNN fluff piece, and is as superficial as the network coverage it intends to portray.

Despite David Stubbs' assumption, I suspect Thatcher successfully carried out a reactionary (hardly radical) program largely thanks to the complicity of senior civil servants.

I don't know what's happened to the Oscars. Maybe the Academy always voted for shallow movies? All I know is that Lord of the Rings must be about the least deserving Oscar winner of all time, and Lost in Translation must be the unluckiest Oscar nominee of all time. To my mind, Lost In Translation should have swept the Oscars this year. All I can think is that the judges just didn't get it. Shame!

This movie deserved better in terms of accolades. Not many directors can make such a subtle yet deeply moving piece of art, and the fact that this director emerged from a Hollywood environment makes her achievement even greater. Bravo Sofia Coppola and the cast and crew of Lost In Translation! This is an awesome movie, and the shameful lack of laurels it received from the industry only reflects poorly on those who couldn't see its greatness.

One more thing - about the racism that some seem to see in the film. I just don't see it. Sure, there are some tongue-in-cheek remarks made (in jest) about cultural differences, but that's the reality of people trying to connect in a foreign environment. It may be culture-ist, but I just don't see the racism. The same kind of jokes would have arisen if the movie had been set in Rome, Athens, London or Berlin, where the population tends to be racially similar to America. As I saw it, the Americans were as much the butt of the jokes as were the Japanese. Anyway, do films that strive to be authentic really have to be politically correct? I don't think so.

I take issue with many of the reviewers of this movie who claim that John Cusack's character was heroic in this movie. What he did was foolish, not heroic (and Cusack's character even admits this). Instead of pursuing legal recourse to its full extent, he gets tired of pursuing it, gives it up, and instead seeks his own recourse, which amounts to revenge for his wife's death. As a result many people are killed (I counted at least 10), and it seems all this happens simply to feed his ego. Sure, he stuck to his principles stubbornly, but a better result would have come from a stubborn reliance on the law.

However, that's not to say that I disliked this movie. People do indeed do stupid things, and that's where most movie plots arise from. It is a great movie, well acted, and with a good quality script that's lacking in most movies these days. But the moral of the tale is surely not that principles matter more than anything (as some here seem to believe). The moral is that pride goeth before a fall, and that corrupt justice (and vigilante justice) is far worse than no justice.

What the main character should have done was take back the horses, recondition them, and take the lawsuit as far as it would go, and keep lobbying for justice until justice was done. To give up on the law so quickly was idiocy. To then take the law into his own hands was the actions of a nutcase.

I'm the first to admit that I'm a bit of a stickler for accuracy in historical movies, and I admit that sometimes my sensibilities can be a bit touchy when filmmakers get details wrong. Now this version of The Four Feathers really annoyed me. It annoyed me because clearly the filmmakers went to a great deal of trouble getting details right in many areas, but then they messed up one detail that should have been spotted very early in production. As a result, the whole film suffers.

My issue with this movie is that the soldiers are literally swimming in their tunics. Whoever fitted the main actors had no concept of the correct fit for uniforms in the 19th century. Today we expect a fit that's very loose, but back then, uniforms were expected to be very close-fitting. The whole movie is ruined for me because the tailors fitted the uniforms based on a late 20th century idea of correct fit rather than to that of the late 1800s. Collars are ridiculously loose - you could get a hand inbetween the collar and the neck of the movie uniform tunics, when in a real-life 19th century high-collar uniform you probably couldn't fit your little finger in. Similarly, the shoulder of the tunics have no relationship to the actors' shoulders - they are way too loose and consequently, after a few days campaigning, the tunic would have looked more like a cloth sack than a tunic. If these actors had turned out dressed like this on a 19th century parade ground, the hoots of laughter would have been heard for miles, and they would soon find themselves at their tailors requesting that the clothes be severely altered.

One more thing about uniform accuracy. I noticed that a few reviewers mentioned that the British Army wouldn't have worn red tunics in the Sudan campaign. While it's true that the British did phase out the red tunic and adopted a khaki foreign service uniform after the Zulu War, the Sudan campaign was an exception - there were some British units in the Sudan still wearing red tunics. I can't remember the exact details of how this came about, but the movie is not necessarily inaccurate in its portrayal of British 'redcoats' in the Sudan.

All in all, this movie seems to be a faithful adaptation of the book on which it's based, but (for me) the whole thing falls down because of horrible tailoring. What a shame! Fortunately most casual viewers won't pick up on this issue, but for those who have a greater interest in the period, the flaw is fatal.

Someone wrote that this is a rip-off of Richard Matheson's "I am Legend". But I couldn't help thinking of the novel "The Day of the Triffids". "28 Days Later" follows virtually the exact same story, with the plants and the blind folks of "Triffids" being merged together to create the crazed denizens of "28 Days Later".

Having said that, "Day of the Triffids" is basically a commercial for fascism, so any 'remake' that removes the fawning over militarism that's in "Triffids" has to be a good thing.

All-in-all, it's a good movie, but not good enough to merit the hype it received. For me, it has little to recommend it over the classics of the "Zombie Plague" genre. In the final tally, the classic "Dawn of the Dead" is by far the better movie, having altogether more intelligent things to say.

A Gamer from Miami wrote:

"Graphics look good, players look real but its all useless because you can't play soccer as it is meant to be played, headers suck, the goalkeepers are robots stuck in the goal line."

Erm... have you ever seen a real soccer game? From your description of the 'bad' things in FIFA 2004 I'd get the impression that this is a great simulation of soccer. However, as usual with computer sports simulations, this one suffers from the same 'arcade' feel as all the others. 10 minute maximum for halves that really take 45 minutes?? I dunno, maybe real 90 minute soccer would just be too boring, but I'd like to have the option to try it anyway.

FIFA 2004 has an adequate set of stadiums, but no more than that. This prevents the player from getting any real sense of depth. The game claims to have a large repertoire of individualized crowd chants, but so far I haven't really noticed them.

The control interface is somewhat annoying: getting shots on target seems more a question of luck than skill, and free kicks don't work as the manual says they should. The management user interface is clunky and un-intuitive, but I'm beginning to get used to it, so it's not too bad after a bit of practice.

All in all, I don't think this is any great advance over older titles. It has nice graphics, but the depth that was in older FIFA titles is just not there. It's fun, but it's still lacking in realism and ease of control. With older titles selling at a significant discount, I'd advise gamers to settle for FIFA 2003 for a couple of months until this one drops a few dollars in price.

Although I'm not really a Star Wars fan, I must say that this is probably the best roleplaying adventure game I've ever played. It is more immersive than any game I've ever played, and even though the game has a 3rd person perspective I really felt involved with the characters and the storyline to an extent I'd never felt with any other game. The cinematic cut scenes really make one feel as if one is in a Star Wars movie - really excellent work, and these scenes really mesh well with the game itself, giving an almost perfect continuity. The storyline is exciting and intelligent, and the characters are interesting and well-acted by the voice actors (quality voice acting is often lacking in even the most professional games). The game is surprisingly long (a relief after having played some VERY short adventure games in the past). I spent 66 hours on my first run through (and I missed a few side quests), so once you get through it the sense of accomplishment is great.

The story itself is quite linear. I'm by no means a fan of linear storylines, but the game overcomes this drawback by means of a branching character development feature which allows your main character to either embrace the light side or the dark side of the force to varying degrees - a feature that really makes for interesting and varied gameplay. This aspect is enhanced by the cleverly written dialogue which changes to fit the decisions you make regarding your character's development.

My only citicism is that in the mini-games within the game the control options are somewhat limited, which is probably because the game was originally produced for the console market. The Swoop racing in particular suffers due to this - I found it hard to control the swoop bikes using keyboard input. Not a major problem though, since the swoop races are merely a side quest and can be ignored if you find them too annoying.

I see some reviews here that claim that the game has hardware compatibility issues. On my system (P4 2.66GB NVIDIA GeForce4 Ti 4200) it runs very smoothly at the maximum 1280x960 resolution (as long as I don't add too much anti-aliasing), and it had only one minor video glitch - a black screen at one point that I overcame quite easily by simply clicking around the screen. I must say that I haven't seen many complaints regarding compatibility on the game's official site.

All in all, this is an excellent game that I'm sure will be greatly enjoyed by anyone who plays it. I think Knights of the Old Republic will be an excellent choice even for the casual gamer who doesn't usually like this type of game - the difficulty options are well implemented, giving a nice challenge for every level of player.

Don't miss this one! It's well worth the price.