Yeah, Nintendo Wii is BIG FUN! I've been playing on my PS2 lately - a game called "Night Shade." It's the sequel (I am told) to Shinobi and you have to use ninja moves to recover pieces of the cursed blade called Akuchiki.

That game was just about IMPOSSIBLE to play. I got to level 6 (out of 12) and then decided to start over on "BEGINNER' mode (I'd been playing Normal). I aced three levels in 1 night. Chowie! I don't even care anymore - after playing the same level (6) for two weeks straight, I decided I'm through and I am just ready to see the end of the game.

Amazingly, in Beginner Mode, the game actually MAKES you do cool stuff even if you didn't hit the right controls for it. It was sort of weird at first, but then again, I got to enjoy it when Hibana (main character) started swinging her sais around and ninja-jumping through the air from enemy to enemy.

I can live with that!
Sol

By Reality is but another illusion. (Houdini) on Wednesday, August 29, 2007 - 09:24 am:

Night shade sounds like fun. Any game with ninjas in it is automatically cool.

By Sol Hawk (Sol) on Wednesday, August 29, 2007 - 03:19 pm:

Darn straight! I think that more games should have ninjas in them, don't you? Playin' any good computer games lately, man? The Wii was Wii-rific - what news from the front?

By Sol Hawk (Sol) on Thursday, September 13, 2007 - 09:35 am:

Tried out Dawn of War: Dark Crusade the other night - it is pretty neat. In this game you can choose from 7 different 40K races including Orks, Tau, Necrons, Space Marines, Eldar, Chaos, and some other one I don't remember. But you can customize even more than that - for example, there are at least 10 different kinds of Orks to choose from!

So far I have tried Tau (who sound all robot-y) and Orks (who sound really Brittish). That cracks me up. Sadly, the game crashes sometimes on the laptop I'm running on, but it is still worth the fun!

By Who is the (Knight_Hawk) on Wednesday, October 03, 2007 - 04:17 pm:

Ok PC wise I am waiting on the Neverwinter Nights 2 expansion due out on Tuesday, and Hellgate London. HGL is from the guys who created Diablo and is set in the near future in London where the world has been devestated by the denizens of hell. It's gonna be singleplayer with a multiplayer aspect which will be free to play. If you subscribe to the game youget to download any updates and patches for the game.

Console wise I finished Halo 3 a week ago and am now waiting on Guitar Hero 3 for my Xbox 360.

This month is defenitly gonna hurt my bank account.

By The One Known Only as (Greyfox) on Thursday, October 04, 2007 - 10:41 am:

what's a bank account?

By Who is the (Knight_Hawk) on Tuesday, October 09, 2007 - 03:37 pm:

Got my Hellgate London Beat invite today, so I'll give you guys my impression later. With in NDA restrictions of course. Can't wait to play it. For those who have no idea what it is, it's made by the creative team that did Diablo and Diablo 2. They left Blizzard and started a new company called Flagship Studios and this is their flagship (HEH) game.

Set in 2038 in London Demons infest the world and you are part of the army trying to save the world. Like Diablo 2 you can play it offline or online with friends. The areas are random like in the diablo games. The classes you can choose from are Templar, knights in shiny armor swinging heavy swords. Hunters who are the marksman of the game, and Cabalists who are the magic users.

FOR THE LIVING!

By Sol Hawk (Sol) on Wednesday, October 10, 2007 - 09:56 am:

YEAH! Can't wait to hear more about this, Knight Hawk! Anything in this idiom is awesome since many of us grew up on D&D and the like.

Of course it is interesting that for many of us, our DM is a computer. But then again, aren't such tasks often best left to a machine (especially the math) when you are being attacked by 100 goblins?

I myself am working on my (re)installation of The Sims 2. In particular, I am adding Night Life which conflicts with most of the hacks I've added to the game. I spend more time hacking usually than playing. But it is cool in the end to have a Sim neighborhood like no other (imagine having your Sims watch anime vids on the TV instead of all the silly Sim-Stuff that's on there now).

Another game I need to reload (following my computer's OS rebuild) is Guild Wars. I have a character there named Sol Hawk - but I haven't played in a while. Still, looking forward to it!

By Who is the (Knight_Hawk) on Thursday, October 18, 2007 - 09:54 am:

For those who didn't get into the Beta for Hellgate or whatever they are releasing a single player demo today.

HELLGATE™: LONDON GOES GOLD, DEMO COMING THIS WEEK

The creators of Diablo are cracking open the Hellgate before Halloween


San Francisco, CA (October 16, 2007) – Demons of London beware! Your reign of terror is officially coming to an end! Electronic Arts, Namco Bandai Games, and Flagship Studios are excited to announce that Hellgate™: London has gone to gold master and will be available exclusively for the PC on October 31st in North America.


"This has been an amazing journey for us and we couldn't be more proud of what we've accomplished," said Flagship Studios CEO, Bill Roper. "We're anxious to get Hellgate: London into gamers' hands and we can't wait to play right along with them."


And for gamers who can't wait until Halloween to get their Demon-slaying on, Flagship Studios is releasing a singleplayer demo this Thursday, October 18th.


The singleplayer demo represents just a small taste of the Hellgate: London experience. Gamers can choose from two of the game's six character classes: the Blademaster, a master of swordplay and action-packed melee combat, or the Marksman, a cool, calculating, long-range specialist.


In the demo, these heroes are able to battle through a small handful of storyline and side quests as they adventure through the streets and tunnels around London's Holborn Station.


Hellgate: London combines the depth of role-playing games and the action of first-person shooter titles, while offering infinite playability with dynamically generated levels, items, enemies, and events. Whether online or off, a player creates a heroic character, completes quests, and battles through innumerable hordes of demons to advance through experience levels and branching skill paths. A robust, flexible skill and spell system, highly customizable appearances, and a massive variety of randomly generated equipment allow players to create their own unique hero.


Hellgate Halloween is fast approaching! Stay tuned for more news at: www.hellgatelondon.com.

By Who is the (Knight_Hawk) on Monday, October 22, 2007 - 09:08 am:

I was going to post this in Levfest thread but thought it was better suited here. I plan on bringing my 360 and Guitar Hero 3 with my 2 guitars so that'll defenitly be an option.

By Sol Hawk (Sol) on Monday, October 22, 2007 - 03:44 pm:

I've played Guitar Hero 1 and I was OK at it - had an absolute BLAST! Hopefully I will be able to play - after mashing my finger with a rubber hammer yesterday - YOWCH!

By Sol Hawk (Sol) on Monday, October 22, 2007 - 03:45 pm:

You know, Guitar Hero could BE the music for the party - especially Saturday. Think about it - with 15+ people there, if everyone took a turn and played 3 songs, that would be 4.5 hours of music right there! Dim the lights, let Guitar Hero set the mood. Awesome!

By Who is the (Knight_Hawk) on Monday, October 22, 2007 - 04:43 pm:

Also Sol you can either play against another person or the two can play along with each other.

By Sol Hawk (Sol) on Tuesday, October 23, 2007 - 10:01 am:

That's a new twist! Pretty awesome. I liked Guitar Hero 1 and I have a feeling 3 will be even better.

By The One Known Only as (Greyfox) on Wednesday, October 24, 2007 - 02:06 am:

I have guitar hero 1, 2, and rock the 80's. When Fred gets enough money he will undoubtedly get 3. AND rock-band.

By Sol Hawk (Sol) on Wednesday, October 24, 2007 - 11:33 am:

SWEET! It is going to be an awesome weekend for Guitar Hero! I hope my finger (which I hit with a rubber hammer) has healed in time to play! Rock on, Fred!

By Who is the (Knight_Hawk) on Monday, October 29, 2007 - 09:30 am:

For all those interested here is the song list for GH3. Picking it up tonight on my way home from work, can't wait.

Main setlist (single player career)
1. Starting Out Small

"Slow Ride" – Foghat
"Talk Dirty to Me" – Poison † (Vocals re-recorded by Bret Michaels)
"Hit Me with Your Best Shot" – Pat Benatar
"Story of My Life" – Social Distortion
"Rock and Roll All Nite" – Kiss (Encore)

2. Your First Real Gig

"Mississippi Queen" – Mountain
"School's Out" – Alice Cooper
"Sunshine of Your Love" – Cream
"Barracuda" – Heart
"Guitar Battle vs. Tom Morello" (Original composition)
"Bulls on Parade" – Rage Against the Machine (Encore)

3. Making the Video

"When You Were Young" – The Killers
"Miss Murder" – AFI
"The Seeker" – The Who
"Lay Down" – Priestess
"Paint It, Black" – The Rolling Stones (Encore)

4. European Invasion

"Paranoid" – Black Sabbath
"Anarchy in the U.K." – Sex Pistols †
"Kool Thing" – Sonic Youth
"My Name Is Jonas" – Weezer
"Even Flow" – Pearl Jam (Encore)

5. Bighouse Blues

"Holiday in Cambodia" – Dead Kennedys
"Rock You Like a Hurricane" – Scorpions
"Same Old Song and Dance" – Aerosmith
"La Grange" – ZZ Top
"Guitar Battle vs. Slash " (Original composition)
"Welcome to the Jungle" – Guns N' Roses (Encore)

6. The Hottest Band on Earth

"Black Magic Woman" – Santana
"Cherub Rock" – The Smashing Pumpkins
"Black Sunshine" – White Zombie
"The Metal" – Tenacious D
"Pride and Joy" – Stevie Ray Vaughan (Encore)

7. Live in Japan

"Before I Forget" – Slipknot
"Stricken" – Disturbed
"3's & 7's" – Queens of the Stone Age
"Knights of Cydonia" – Muse
"Cult of Personality" – Living Colour † (Encore)

8. Battle for Your Soul

"Raining Blood" - Slayer
"Cliffs of Dover" – Eric Johnson
"The Number of the Beast" – Iron Maiden
"One" – Metallica
"Guitar Battle vs. Lou" (The Devil Went Down to Georgia – Steve Ouimette, original song by The Charlie Daniels Band)

Bonus tracks
"Avalancha" – Héroes del Silencio
"Can't Be Saved" – Senses Fail
"Closer" – Lacuna Coil
"Don't Hold Back" – The Sleeping
"Down 'N Dirty" – LA Slum Lords
"F.C.P.R.E.M.I.X." – The Fall of Troy
"Generation Rock" – Revolverheld
"Go That Far" – Bret Michaels Band
"Hier Kommt Alex" – Die Toten Hosen
"I'm in the Band" – The Hellacopters
"Impulse" - An Endless Sporadic
"In the Belly of a Shark" – Gallows
"In Love" – Scouts of St. Sebastian
"Mauvais Garçon" – Naast
"Metal Heavy Lady" – Lions
"Minus Celsius" – Backyard Babies
"My Curse" – Killswitch Engage
"Nothing for Me Here" – Dope
"Prayer of the Refugee" – Rise Against
"Radio Song" – Superbus
"Ruby" – Kaiser Chiefs
"She Bangs the Drums" – The Stone Roses
"Take This Life" – In Flames
"The Way It Ends" – Prototype
"Through the Fire and Flames" – DragonForce

Main setlist (Cooperative career)
All tracks and bonus tracks in the original single player Career are playable as bonus tracks in the Cooperative Career, with the exception of Paint It, Black

1. Getting a Band Together

"Barracuda" – Heart
"When You Were Young" – The Killers
"Bulls on Parade" – Rage Against the Machine
"Slow Ride" – Foghat
"Sabotage" – Beastie Boys (Encore)

2. We Just Wanna Be Famous

"School's Out" – Alice Cooper
"Kool Thing" – Sonic Youth
"Miss Murder" – AFI
"The Seeker" – The Who
"Reptilia" – The Strokes (Encore)

3. Overnight Success

"Paranoid" – Black Sabbath
"Welcome to the Jungle" – Guns N' Roses
"Anarchy in the U.K." – Sex Pistols †
"Lay Down" – Priestess
"Suck My Kiss" – Red Hot Chili Peppers (Encore)

4. Getting the Band Back Together

"Holiday in Cambodia" – Dead Kennedys
"Black Magic Woman" – Santana
"Same Old Song and Dance" – Aerosmith
"Cherub Rock" – The Smashing Pumpkins
"Cities on Flame with Rock and Roll" – Blue Öyster Cult (Encore)

5. Jailhouse Rock

"My Name Is Jonas" – Weezer
"Black Sunshine" – White Zombie
"3's & 7's" – Queens of the Stone Age
"The Metal" – Tenacious D
"Helicopter" – Bloc Party (Encore)

6. Battle for Your Souls...

"Knights of Cydonia" – Muse
"One" – Metallica
"The Number of the Beast" – Iron Maiden
"Cult of Personality" – Living Colour †
"Monsters" – Matchbook Romance (Encore)

By The One Known Only as (Greyfox) on Tuesday, October 30, 2007 - 02:32 am:

*blink* *blink*

Maybe I ought to use my $55 worth of Best Buy gift card for that instead of trying to pawn them off for cash... So TEMPTED...

By Who is the (Knight_Hawk) on Tuesday, October 30, 2007 - 08:52 am:

Heh I finished the single player portion last night on Medium so I have all those songs unlocked. Now I'll be bringing my second guitar so someone can play with me on co-op and unlock the songs that are only there. By the way the boss battles are hard (well maybe not the first one but Slash took me three times to beat). The last one which ends the game is you playing against the devil and playing the devil went down to georgia. It's not the original song though it's a hard rock version that had me crying in parts when he'd nail me with double notes or the harder difficulty power ups.

By Sol Hawk (Sol) on Tuesday, October 30, 2007 - 10:43 am:

I am looking forward to trying out Guitar Hero III (and II and I). I was meandering the mall last night and saw a giant advert for it - with Slash jammin' on his guitar. Who wouldn't want to be Slash?

By The One Known Only as (Greyfox) on Wednesday, October 31, 2007 - 12:46 am:

ummm... me? LOL!

By Sol Hawk (Sol) on Wednesday, October 31, 2007 - 10:00 am:

Can we both be Slash?

By Sol Hawk (Sol) on Wednesday, October 31, 2007 - 10:02 am:

GF, I challenge you to a Slash-Off! Three Songs on the Guitar Hero of your choice! Winner takes the title of Slash-2007!

(cracks knuckles)

Get ready to rock!

By Who is the (Knight_Hawk) on Wednesday, October 31, 2007 - 10:14 am:

Ok so you want a challenge I say you both try and play Through Fire and Flames by DragonForce on Expert. THAT I would pay to see.

By Sol Hawk (Sol) on Wednesday, October 31, 2007 - 10:59 am:

I'll do it for I am not afraid. I shall walk in the valley of the Fire and Flames and so forth and so on.

Chyyyeeeaaaaaahhhhh!

PS - how much would you pay? I think you should buy pizza for the winner!

Sol

By Sol Hawk (Sol) on Wednesday, October 31, 2007 - 11:00 am:

And also refer to the winner as "Slash" for the rest of the hangout.

By Who is the (Knight_Hawk) on Wednesday, October 31, 2007 - 11:32 am:

Heh if either of you could get through the song on expert without failing I'd...well I'm not sure what I'd do but I'd recommend looking up DragonForce before you agree to it Sol. I've never heard a faster playing band and I'm into speed metal bands like them.

By Who is the (Knight_Hawk) on Wednesday, October 31, 2007 - 11:37 am:

I put a link to DragonForces site in the music section so you can get a sample of how fast the song is.

By Warsmith (Knight_Hawk) on Friday, November 16, 2007 - 04:53 pm:

Frome the new Ghostbusters game coming next year

By Warsmith (Knight_Hawk) on Monday, November 19, 2007 - 03:15 pm:

Well been playing a new Warhammer 40k game on my PSP called Squad Command. Plays alot like the old turn based PC games with a few major changes. One is you start with 6 scouts and work up from there. 2 you can custimize their weapons load outs. They always carry Bolters but you can choose as scouts a sniper rifle, combat shotgun. Marines can use a Plasma Gun, Lascannon or chainsowrd, and my Predator so far can have it's sponsons as either Heavy Bolters or Lascannons. The biggest change though is that the terain is destructible so cover means nothing when the heavier weapons are used, I've killed 3 cultists with one shotgun shot, and three Chaos marines with one Auto cannon shot from my predator that were hiding in a ruin.

It's a lot of fun so if you have a PSP I'd recommend it. It's also coming out for the DS on Dec 17.

My only problem is you have to play the Ultramarines in the singleplayer.

By Sol Hawk (Sol) on Monday, November 19, 2007 - 04:52 pm:

Lately I have been playing plenty of Pac-Man on my cell phone. I mean, that is SO COOL. It plays basically like the original, but they left out many of the sound effects (I have no idea why) and that is my biggest gripe. I am also trying to learn to play it since the controls are tiny and I often kill myself by just looking at the controls before moving...

Anyone play games on their cells?

By The One Known Only as (Greyfox) on Tuesday, November 20, 2007 - 12:57 am:

I have a tiny SimCity thriving on my cellphone. The tiny nano-sims praise me as their GOD and in return I make sure no natural disasters obliterate them. If they are insolent or blasphemous, then I send Godzilla.

By Warsmith (Knight_Hawk) on Tuesday, November 20, 2007 - 08:43 am:

I have strip poker and blackjack on mine. I know I know I'm naughty.

By Sol Hawk (Sol) on Tuesday, November 20, 2007 - 09:32 am:

I heard that there is a game you can get where you have a virtual girlfriend that you have to spend time with, share interests with, and so on. You even get to call her "for real" on your cell phone. I think it is an Otaku thing.

SimCity on the Cell sounds pretty cool! I'd get another game myself, but I think that if I do, I would have to erase something else. Amazingly, my cell just doesn't have enough space for more than one (maybe 2) games.

By Sol Hawk (Sol) on Tuesday, November 20, 2007 - 10:54 am:

Strip Poker is naughty. Especially when it is on a 2" screen.

By Sol Hawk (Sol) on Tuesday, November 20, 2007 - 04:27 pm:

Warsmith,

I prefer this version of Ghostbusters so far:

By Sol Hawk (Sol) on Tuesday, November 20, 2007 - 04:37 pm:

But if you want to see an example of the new one in action, try:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QluVqydNvsw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xtS5m8DOsTw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GmvuH2QpXvc

By Liz Reay (Liz) on Monday, November 26, 2007 - 05:34 pm:

Anyone on here play City of Heroes?

By Sol Hawk (Sol) on Tuesday, November 27, 2007 - 09:44 am:

Yeah! I tried it out! Neat game! A friend of mine let me try it. When he took his CD home, I just left my computer on with the game still loaded and continued to play it for the next three days. I heard there is also a sequel.

By Warsmith (Knight_Hawk) on Tuesday, November 27, 2007 - 01:21 pm:

Never tried CoH but did try City of Villians. Managed to create a Wolverine character and got alot of complements for it. The only MMO I'm activly playing atm is Hellgate London and I sometimes still log into Star Wars Galaxies. Been totally sucked into Mass Effect for my 360 though, I mean I played it for 14 hours straight on Sat.

By Reformed Kender (Liz) on Tuesday, November 27, 2007 - 03:13 pm:

Hellgate looks pretty nifty.

By Sol Hawk (Sol) on Wednesday, December 05, 2007 - 02:50 pm:

What's that new video game coming out? The one where you can have your own Rock Band?

By Warsmith (Knight_Hawk) on Wednesday, December 05, 2007 - 03:15 pm:

Is that a trick question Sol?

If not it's called Rock Band, If you don't have it reserved yet see if you can or you'll never be able to get it when it comes out.

By Warsmith (Knight_Hawk) on Friday, December 07, 2007 - 07:42 pm:

Jon and I found out about the new 40K pc game last night. It's the third expansion for Dawn of War called Soulstorm. It's introducing the Dark Eldar and the Sisters of Battle. Looks good people looks good.

"DEATH TO THE FALSE EMPORER!"

By Sol Hawk (Sol) on Monday, December 10, 2007 - 09:56 am:

Awesome!!!!! These games, I think, are very well done. I am enjoying Dark Crusade very much and may well look into this third one as well.

I don't have the 1st game - if I have both, do they "link" together somehow? Or are they just 2 totally separate games? Perhaps I get more races in Skirmish if I have both?

Sol

By Warsmith (Knight_Hawk) on Monday, December 10, 2007 - 10:47 am:

That last guess is correct they stand apart from each other as will this one. The only Expansion that needed the first game was Winter Assault.

This is how it works, if you have them all you can play all the races in Skirmish games.

Dawn Of War only- Marines, Chaos, Eldar, Orks and Imperial Gaurd with Winter Assault.
Dark Crusade only- Necrons and Tau.

You can get the Platnum edition of the game which has Dawn of War, Winter Assault, and Dark Crusade on one DVD.

By Warsmith (Knight_Hawk) on Friday, February 22, 2008 - 02:52 pm:

Read about this new MMO in the latest Game Informer. I think GF's gonna love it.



Heres a link to the site.

By Warsmith (Knight_Hawk) on Friday, February 22, 2008 - 02:57 pm:

oops forgot the link.

ChampionsOnline

By Houdini (Houdini) on Monday, March 03, 2008 - 02:21 pm:

Cool. I'll have to check it out sometime.

I just purchased the Wii Zapper control for my Nintendo Wii. For $21 bucks (plus applicable sales tax) you get the Wii Zapper add-on for you wii remote, and the game "Link's Crossbow training".

In it you shoot various stationary and moving targets and it gets more difficult with each level. You need a certain amount of points to qualify for each successive level, and its not that easy in the later levels.

This game is simple, yet very fun and addicting.

Supposedly you can use the wii zapper in other shooting games for the wii, but even if you couldn't for 20 bucks the game plus the extra hardware isn't a bad deal.

Sure if yer Greyfox or Knighthawk, you will likely beat this game after 4 hours of solid gameplay, but if you are a more casual gamer it may take you much longer. I suck so I will be playing it for a long time to come.


Wii Zapper




Video Game Promo Trailer:
http://www.gametrailers.com/player/26448.html

Review:
http://www.gametrailers.com/player/26448.html

By Houdini (Houdini) on Monday, March 03, 2008 - 02:35 pm:

Although I've shown this to my buddy Sol, I never shared with the rest of the class.

There is this guy who does these hilarious reviews of
old, bad video games, as a character he calls "The Angry Video Game Nerd".

His mission is to "take you back to the past, to play the sh*tty games that suck a**."

WARNING: VIDEOS CONTAIN VULGAR LANGUAGE. MATURE AUDIENCES ONLY.

I mean it he swears allot in his videos, you were warned.

haha, naughty!

http://cinemassacre.com/AVGN/Nes_Nerd_videos.html


WARNING: VIDEOS CONTAIN VULGAR LANGUAGE. MATURE AUDIENCES ONLY.

By Warsmith (Knight_Hawk) on Monday, March 03, 2008 - 02:41 pm:

And just what are you implying there Houdini? :P Me I picked up a game last weekend called Restricted Area for the PC at a $% store and it's acctually pretty cool. It mixes cyberpunk type envirnments and Diablo/Fallout style gameplay. I just love running around with a Flame thrower doing 1200 points of damage a second, thats with a heavily modified weapon though.

Thursday I picked up Rock Band so I've been alternating between Guitar, Drums, and Vocals with that. I like it alot better than the GH games because you can make your own avatars and because theres no designs under the notes you don't get the crawling after effects from playing it.

By Warsmith (Knight_Hawk) on Monday, March 03, 2008 - 02:48 pm:

Oh BTW Sol I found an official mod for Dark Crusade a few weeks back. The mod allows you to play as a Demonhunter army in skirmish and MP games. It also takes hte Grey Knights out of the list for SM and puts in a squad of Deathwatch Veterans. It can be found on Relics site.

By Sol Hawk (Sol) on Thursday, March 06, 2008 - 03:58 pm:

Knight Hawk,

That's totally awesome. Demonhunters were not likely to be touched on by the DoW team, but they still have a massive following and this mod will have its faithful. I would download it myself except that DoW crashes my computer anyway, which is sad. Maybe time for a new number cruncher.

By Warsmith (Knight_Hawk) on Thursday, March 06, 2008 - 05:15 pm:

Defenitly since SoulStorm came out yesterday and it's sweet. The Sisters are really scary in how much fire they can pour out.

By Warsmith (Knight_Hawk) on Wednesday, March 19, 2008 - 01:18 pm:

This is for Sol

Wii Ninja Game

By Sol Hawk (Sol) on Thursday, March 20, 2008 - 09:23 am:

Woah! This ninja game looks really fun! Houdini, you should so get this. Then we can be REAL ninjas!

Warsmith, nice find. I LOVE it! Do you have a Wii?

Sol

By Warsmith (Knight_Hawk) on Thursday, March 20, 2008 - 10:06 am:

My Mom does but I'm looking to pick one up at some point.

By Sol Hawk (Sol) on Thursday, March 20, 2008 - 10:30 am:

You have a cool mom.

Sol

By Warsmith (Knight_Hawk) on Thursday, March 20, 2008 - 01:27 pm:

Yes, yes I do just ask GF and Jon

By Warsmith (Knight_Hawk) on Wednesday, July 09, 2008 - 08:09 pm:

I just finished watching the Cinematic Trailer for Diablo 3 and all I can say is WOW. Between Star Craft 2 and now this I'm gonna be in heaven.

Diablo 3 site

By Warsmith (Knight_Hawk) on Wednesday, July 09, 2008 - 09:08 pm:

Ok just watched the 800MB gameplay trailer and it was SICK!

Now I'm really excited.

By Sol-El of the House of El (Sol) on Friday, July 11, 2008 - 02:13 pm:

Nice Cookie!

By Warsmith (Knight_Hawk) on Tuesday, August 12, 2008 - 08:43 pm:

So who's joining me in Warhammer online next month?

I got my reserve early enough to get the Collectors edition. You get the model for the greenskins leader, a 128 page hardcover graphic novel and a hardcover art book. The CE's were limited to just 60,000 in North America.

By Sol-El of the House of El (Sol) on Thursday, August 14, 2008 - 10:16 am:

Woah, this sounds pretty cool! Is there a link? I am actually buying a new computer soon - and it needs to rock with games. Can you give me some advice, Knight Hawk? I'm even thinking about a 64bit machine so that I can run with even more memory. But don't know if Vista64 has come of age, so to speak.

Ideas for Sol?

By Warsmith (Knight_Hawk) on Thursday, August 14, 2008 - 02:55 pm:

First off Vista is no good for games. Very few of us hardcore gamers will even touch Vista.

As for the game go to www.Warhammeronline.com to check it out.

By Sol-El of the House of El (Sol) on Friday, August 15, 2008 - 10:11 am:

Please keep this info coming! Let me know what OS is preferred and any other tidbits you can offer.

By Warsmith (Knight_Hawk) on Friday, August 15, 2008 - 01:27 pm:

I use XP pro on both my rigs. What other things do you want advice on? I'm a little rusty since getting my Laptop but I'll do my best.

By Sol-El of the House of El (Sol) on Tuesday, August 19, 2008 - 10:11 am:

I dunno, here's the thing. There are some nice Vista-64 machines out there with 6GB of memory. What I'm trying to get a handle on is whether games are going that way in the future - whether they will need all that memory and whether I should be prepared. For example, does 4GB crawl a little sometimes?

Also wondered about multiple processors. Are games routinely made to make use of these (yet?). I'd hate to get a quadcore and then find out I wasted my cash.

By Sol-El of the House of El (Sol) on Tuesday, August 19, 2008 - 10:11 am:

I dunno, here's the thing. There are some nice Vista-64 machines out there with 6GB of memory. What I'm trying to get a handle on is whether games are going that way in the future - whether they will need all that memory and whether I should be prepared. For example, does 4GB crawl a little sometimes?

Also wondered about multiple processors. Are games routinely made to make use of these (yet?). I'd hate to get a quadcore and then find out I wasted my cash.

By Houdini (Houdini) on Tuesday, August 19, 2008 - 01:13 pm:

I've pretty much boycotted the personal computer as a video gaming platform and here is why.

Overall lack of operating system and hardware neutrality.

Nowhere is the Microsoft bias more rampant then in PC games. Sorry Microsoft, but your not the boss of me.

Also, why do I need the latest/greatest graphics card to play cool new games when the old card would have worked almost as well?

Finally. I dislike games like WOW, Star Wars Online, and soon 40K online because they charge people twice for a game. First to buy it, then a continous fee to play it. Screw that.

Online play should ALWAYS be free unless you give the game away first.

Don't tell me I need to pay 50 dollars for a game then I'm going to need to cough up a monthly fee to play it. One or the other, but not both.

By Warsmith (Knight_Hawk) on Wednesday, August 20, 2008 - 09:50 am:

Ok here we go. Yes it's a good idea to plan for the future as far as components go. No developers are not making games around the higher end stuff because they in the long run would lose money when those gamers without the super rigs refuse to upgrade just to play a game. My main gameing rig is my laptop and I bought it 3 years ago and it's still keeping up just fine. Core 2 duo 2 gibs dual channeled ram 256 nVidia GO 7800 GTX card.

Vista is just so damned unstable. I know several people whose machines just randomly crash while just doing word processing.

Brian there are plenty of online games that do not charge a monthly fee. Hellgate London, Guild Wars, Second Life. The reason for the charge is to pay for the upkeep of the servers and pay the tech support people to keep them running.

Let me explain how it works. In WoW, SWG, Everquest, and the like they have a server for each sector of the map runni9ng at all times so everyone can interact anywhere in the game. With HL, GW and those that are free only the safe areas are on a server and adventure areas are instanced and run on the players machine, thereby eliminating alot of the cost.

However on most of the free to play games the support is just like anywhere else and takes awhile to get back to the player. In the case of HL you can choose to pay a $10 monthly fee and for that you get access to new content and 24 hour tech support.

It just comes down to the fact that that initial purchase doesn't last that long in the face of all the costs they have when the game is entering it's fifth year and the sales of the main game have slowed from those at launch.

By Warsmith (Knight_Hawk) on Wednesday, August 20, 2008 - 10:37 am:

Let me be a bit more specific Sol. Yes games are going that route in the future but not a for a while yet. No 4 gigs does not crawl. Quad core is a waste at this time as there really isn't anything that would make it neccesary.

Heres a point for you regarding memory if you do get a Vista machine make sure you have at least 2 gigs of ram as Vista will eat that up just idleing.

By Sol-El of the House of El (Sol) on Friday, August 22, 2008 - 10:56 am:

Warsmith,

Your hints are helping me out a LOT. I just loaded 40K Dark Crusade on my (old) computer last night and it is actually pretty fast - WinXP, 512MB of Ram, 1.5 GHz single-core processor. If it is this speedy with my meagre computer, maybe I should just buy more memory, an OS, a DVD drive and call it a day. And a new HDD since mine died and I am running with an 8GB drive right now (*just* enough to load that one game).

Of course, all that stuff could run $400 or more, so I wonder if that's even very smart.

By Warsmith (Knight_Hawk) on Friday, August 22, 2008 - 12:07 pm:

Ok my advice is as follows based on that last statement.

Upgrade your motherboard, processor and memory. do them all together to be sure of compatibility. I put together a decent list recently that'll run about $400-500.

Defenitly get a new HDD as quite a few of the games I've been playing lately take up anywhere from 5-15 gigs of space each.

Don't bother with the OS as XP is fine.

For the processor look at Core 2 duo's or extremes don't waste your money on quads as nothing really uses em yet and they can acctually run slower than quads since there are 4 processors taking up one spot. I was eyeing a Pentium 2.66 gig core 2 Duo for $140.

Motherboard wise I trust Asus without question and recomend you get a new one as most companies don't produce 512 MB cards for the AGP or PCI slots. It's now all about PCI express. I was looking at an ASUS that supports all the proccessor types from single to quad has 2 PCI Express 2.0 x16 slots, supports up to 8 gigs of dual channeled RAM and can run in SLI configuration for $140.

I'd say at this point 2 gigs of RAM (2 chips one Gig each) dual channeled should be good for a while.

I don't know what your video card is but at least have a 256 chip set. I'm looking at the nVidia Geforce 9600 512 MB card for $115.

These prices are all from NewEgg BTW.

Oh HDD stay away from Maxtor at all costs they have a horrible reliability factor. Go Western Digital at at least I'd say 300 Gigs. My Laptop has a 95 Gig internal and I store all my Games on a 320 Gig External.

Just some thoughts.

By Warsmith (Knight_Hawk) on Friday, August 22, 2008 - 12:08 pm:

Um looking back at my post the part about the quads running slower than quads should read that quads can run slower than Duo's.

By Sol-El of the House of El (Sol) on Wednesday, August 27, 2008 - 11:20 am:

I've heard both - that quads are faster and that duos are faster. Not sure which is true - I guess it depends on the app. Multi-cores have been around for a long time - I wish app makers would start to make use of them efficiently.

If they don't, multicores will eventually (perhaps) become a passing fad.

By Warsmith (Knight_Hawk) on Wednesday, August 27, 2008 - 01:36 pm:

Maybe, but as I said not much on the market will need a quad. So a Duo's gonna be all you need for a while.

Where you want to focus is the memory and Video card cause no matter how fast your processor if your rig doesn't have the brains or the muscle to run the programs it's still not gonna do it.

By Sol-El of the House of El (Sol) on Friday, August 29, 2008 - 10:21 am:

Cool. Thanks for all this great advice, Hawk. Is appreciated!