As a Canadian I can assure you we do not have a formidable army... and who would base a game around the Canadian military when their role is always that of the peace keeping force? It also doesn't help that the biggest concentration of Canadian military isn't within an appealing large city like Toronto to use as a focus.

A lot less appealing to players then playing as the US, a massively and overwhelmingly larger military that far more importantly from the perspective of developers can be easily put in the role of the agressor and attacking force.
It's difficult to plausibly do that with most other nations, and using Russia is similarly obviously as an easy way to play up the old USA vs. Russia angle. Germany is another easy target for obvious reasons.
Same reasons movies often cast Russians/Germans as evil.
It's an easy, safe formula that people have shown they like.

With the US being one of the biggest markets for games, and it's a country with citizens with a great dea of expendible income, and a market that's traditionally been more eager to accept shooters in general then the UK/Japan (Which are rally the only viable competing markets, others are simply too small, too driven to piracy, or the citizens lack the money for games) it's obvious for developers to make games focusing on the US.
It doesn't help that Americans tend to be relatively openly patriotic as well, and using the US miliatary is a nice way to play on that.

http://www.bestbuy.com/site/Asus+-+Laptop+with+Intel%26%23174%3B+Core%26%23153%3B2+Duo+Processor+-+Blue/Black/9556072.p?id=1218124204092&skuId=9556072

This wil do the job. However, I recommend that you look for other laptops in the future considering prices will lower and newer products will be introduced.

Luminouslight

Not bad, pity the battery life stinks. Hard to get halfway decent battery life on a laptop suitable for gaming though. At least not without paying a fortune.

With respect to the first selection I'd pass on the GT210, it's only marginally faster then the 9400GT. A step up from Intel integrated graphics but you're going to be very hard pressed to run recent games even with the graphics turned down to the minimum.

I always used pause upon enemy sighted, pause upon target death, and pause every round in old Infinity Engine games. It's far from a game breaking flaw for me, and I'm definitely still enjoying it but I can understand why someone would prefer numerous auto pause options. Really helps if you care to really closely manage your parties tactics and actions.

I can't say I really understand those that find it shocking and abhorrent that one might find an auto pause an improvement though. Having to constantly hit the space bar is a bit unfortunate if you are one who cares to play the came in a more turn based fashion rather then a free form action type.

Deeming it a fiasco is a massive overstatement though, more of an annoyance then a serious detriment. If you haven't alkready, give it a try before condemning it. On the whole it's still a terrific game imo. Unlike Fallout 3 which didn't have much more then the basic setting in common with it's predecessors, I can genuinely see how this is a distant descendant of Baldurs Gate.

Not sure how highly I rate it yet, but for me it's looking like a fringe top 3-4 RPG of the decade. A somewhat disappointing decade as far as RPG's go for my tastes. But over 9 years theirs been some stellar games.

None thankfully

For the most part I prefer the NDSL. I did like the microphone placement on the original NDS better though.
I'm also not much of a fan of the L/R buttons on either one.
Beyond that, the NDSL is a pretty clear improvement in most regards IMO.

my favorite game from a while back is too old and gamespot didnt score it

Guardian Legend (NES)

konvikt_17

If you don't have access to a PS/XBox then BG: DA on the GC is still an acceptable alternative despite the issues it had, it's not unplayable by any means.
Keep in mind BG: DA is largely a straight forwardcombat oriented dungeon crawl, it has nothing in common with the PC Baldurs Gate games besides the name.
It's definitely a game you have to judge on it's own merits, if you go into it expecting something similar to it's predecessors in name, you'll be incredibly disappointed.

Threads like this never cease to make me feel old...

First console was the Vextrex, purchased sometime early in 1983. Was primarily a console gamer until about 1994 when the vast majority of my gaming slowly switched over to the PC.

Rough timeline of consoles purchased:
Vectrex>NES>Gameboy>SNES>Genesis>N64>Dreamcast>Gameboy Advance>PS2>Gamecube>Nintendo DS>XBox360>Wii