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| News Link » /news/newsarticle.asp?searchid=22276 |  Droniac (114) Nov 03, 2009 - 03:28 pm
| Shattered Horizon is a great game. I loved the beta - tearing through space near the ISS, over asteroids, etc. It really comes into it's own once you get all the little intricacies down like silent mode, tethering to surfaces, etc.
It's one of the best (new) multiplayer shooters I've played in quite a while. And it has a very refreshing take on the genre in a surprisingly realistic manner.
Love it. Can't wait for launch tomorrow. Poor launch timing though, because I'll be too busy with Dragon Age: Origins after launch (friday here).
OH and jacobvandy: the Warden's Keep is indeed just regular DLC available for purchase by anyone. In the digital CEs (Steam/Impulse) you get it for free, because they have the premium price tag but none of the physical goodies of the regular CE versions.
I'm hoping to get my hands on a regular CE version btw. Will be tricky with EA's ridiculously poor handling of the CE version in these parts, but at least it's not the shitty excuse for a CE that the British are getting. Flag this | Edit this post |
| News Link » /news/newsarticle.asp?searchid=21867 | Droniac (114) Jul 11, 2009 - 01:03 am
| And what PC games would those be? Crysis? That's a 2 year old game, with excellent gameplay. The same goes for World in Conflict. And there aren't any games that demand more of your hardware than those two beasts.
During these past couple of years, all I've seen are gameplay-dedicated PC games, with graphics taking a backseat. Hell, the platform where indie-games, innovative games and games with lower quality graphics are thriving is not a console: it is the PC.
This in contrary to many console games, which are throwing everything on graphics. The best example of a game that sacrifices proper gameplay for 'stellar' graphics, is a game designed primarily with consoles in mind: Far Cry 2. (oh, how repetitive your games are, Ubisoft) Flag this | Edit this post |
| News Link » /news/newsarticle.asp?searchid=21867 | Droniac (114) Jul 11, 2009 - 12:53 am » Edited on Jul 11, 2009 - 12:54 am
| You don't know anyone who has switched from console to PC, I don't know anyone who has switched from PC to console (permanently)... let's call it even.
Every gamer I know who has purchased a console for gaming as a replacement for / in addition to their PC, has since switched back to PC gaming. I even know a few console gamers who made the switch. Even the guy that bought an Xbox 360 no less than 2 months ago is spending more time playing Steam games (TF2/L4D) on PC than anything on his console.
If anything I'm seeing consoles (especially the PS3) dieing off here, and PCs rising in popularity. Basically: the cycle is repeating itself, as was predicted even before this generation of consoles was launched. This is easily explainable: long-term cost, performance, durability, game catalogue, compatibility, usability and reliability are all in favour of the PC nowadays. Even in terms of ease-of-use the PC is edging ever closer to the console level, whereas consoles have only become increasingly less easy to use with this generation. Flag this | Edit this post |
| News Link » /news/newsarticle.asp?searchid=21388 | Droniac (114) Mar 11, 2009 - 12:24 pm » Edited on Mar 11, 2009 - 12:25 pm
| You might like to think so, but you'd be wrong.
Tracking services like Xfire and GameSpy always were notoriously useless for the UT series (counting bots, leaning heavily to a specific title, etc.). So half a year ago I set about counting concurrent players during peak time (21:00 CET) by hand.
The result:
UT: 1400+ players, no bots, no mods.
UT2004: 500 players, no bots, mods counted.
UT3: 600+ players, no bots, no mods.
Nowadays the picture is quite different. I won't bother counting by hand again, but I've played UT3 again (doh). I also rejoined a UT2004 clan for the ClanBase TAM cup, so I had my share of recent UT2004 play as well.
Current picture:
UT: probably still the same.
UT2004: barely 300 players, no bots, mods counted.
UT3: 1500+ players (Steam only counts Steam users), no bots, no mods.
Note: counting bots would've resulted in +- 3500 "players" for UT2004.
UT2004 is so dead that even the most popular game modes, TAM and iCTF, struggle to get a mere 6 active (usually not even full!) servers at peak time. And a good riddance it is... for UT2004 always has been the shittiest game in the series, right after UT2003.
Of course the problem with UT3 right now is that there are so many new players. A decent player can't find any challenge at all any more...
Although that's still better than the unchallenging and yawn-inducing hitscan laming of UT2004. Try something other than shock/lg for once - ohwait, none of the other weapons do shit, so why bother?
Then again - all of this is pointless, because Quake Live is the only shooter you need to play right now anyway. Flag this | Edit this post |
| News Link » /news/newsarticle.asp?searchid=20836 | Droniac (114) Sep 10, 2008 - 11:07 pm
| Hmm, what you say is only partially correct Labotomizer. Chrome does send any URL's you type in the navigation bar to google, but nothing else really (aside from some chrome-related info at installation and optional search-related stuff that's disabled by default). You can check the google chrome privacy policy for that, it's all there.
The bit about google owning everything you write/access/publish was directly copied from their other services (such as blogger). This clause was removed the very next day, so it no longer applies (for Chrome at least, but it does apply for some of the other google services). Flag this | Edit this post |
| News Link » /news/newsarticle.asp?searchid=20769 | Droniac (114) Aug 20, 2008 - 03:19 pm » Edited on Aug 20, 2008 - 03:21 pm
| Indeed mr. wielder. I heard lots of crap about how CRT is supposedly still loads better than LCD when it comes to gaming, so I wasn't really certain whether to actually go out and get one.
In the end I bit the bullet, bought a 22" TFT, and never looked back at CRT again. Yes, the colours aren't as accurate, but otherwise most arguments raised against LCD screens (such as response times, ghosting, motion handling, shitty viewing angles, etc) are (almost) entirely false.
And no saywaaattt, I'm not some random CS-playing punk who doesn't even move enough in-game to notice any motion handling issues and shitty response times. That seems like the sort of 'elitist' response you might come up with - judging by how you're going off here.
I've been a competitive gamer for a long time and generally tend to play fast-paced games. Most recently I played UT3 competitively, on my new 22" TFT, rather than my old & trusted 19" CRT. There were no drawbacks (that would affect my gameplay) to be found, other than a poor lower viewing angle (which is an angle no gamer would ever use, but that's beside the point). Motion handling was perfect, response time was perfect, no ghosting to be found.
Being a long-time player of fast-paced shooters and someone who has plenty experience tweaking configs and testing settings over and over... I would've switched back over to my CRT immediately if my TFT proved to be a miserable failure, as you imply (or if it even played slightly less comfortably to be honest). Obviously, I didn't switch back to my CRT.
On the contrary, as a gamer I actually prefer my TFT for various reasons. One: it's easier to take with you to a LAN party, because the weight is obviously reduced. Two: it doesn't heat up the surrounding area, which is great during summer or at LAN parties. Three: I can comfortably look at my screen and play games at a LAN party nowadays, because it doesn't take up 2/3rds of a standard LAN party table. Four: you could add in lower energy requirements as well (about 1/3rd of my CRT). Flag this | Edit this post |
| News Link » /news/newsarticle.asp?searchid=20366 | Droniac (114) Apr 15, 2008 - 11:10 am
| That supposed 'mass ignorance' is most interesting raj. Coincidentally one of my coworkers recently reinstalled his PC, but with Vista as his OS this time around. Know that he works in the IT business and has worked as a computer service guy for nearly 2 years, so he's not some random newbie with zero comprehension of how computers operate.
Now his regular programs are much more stable than they were under XP. Things like photoshop and after effects all seem to work better than they did before (although this could potentially be attributed to a clogged install rather than Vista, seeing as he performed a full format).
However, when it came to gaming - Vista was just as horrible as your supposed ignorant masses claim, on a fresh install, with all the latest drivers. Company of Heroes and Lost Planet played significantly worse than they did under XP, even with identical settings (on an effectively high-end 8800GT/Q6600/4GB rig). And Unreal Tournament (the original) barely even works at all: it's choppy and as such becomes nearly unplayable.
Company of Heroes and Lost Planet played nowhere near as good as they did under XP, even with the same settings. Unreal Tournament (the original, not 3) hardly even works at all, being all choppy and nearly unplayable. And the list goes on and on and on...
The end result? He's switching back to Windows XP so that he can actually play games properly as we're headed off to a lanparty this weekend. Clearly Vista is not an OS you want as a gamer when ALL games function better on XP. And as we all know by now there really aren't any major visual improvements for any games (not even Crysis) in DX10 over DX9 variants.
So really now, why would a gamer want to switch on over to Vista? I like playing UT - and I'm certain many of my other older (and probably a few newer ones as well) games won't function under Vista either. That - and better performance - makes the case for XP pretty strong I would say. Flag this | Edit this post |
| News Link » /news/newsarticle.asp?searchid=20195 | Droniac (114) Mar 28, 2008 - 02:19 am
| | Should have this magazine either today or tomorrow (subscribed to it) - looking forward to that huge preview they've got coming. Interestingly the magazine's site clearly mentioned Dawn of War 2 a few days ago, but now it's all blurred out and hidden... ah well, should be good :p Flag this | Edit this post |
| News Link » /news/newsarticle.asp?searchid=19941 | Droniac (114) Mar 13, 2008 - 03:54 am
| | Unreal Tournament was another major release at the time and didn't feature any form of copy protection whatsoever. Certainly even back then most games did have copy protection, but it wasn't nearly as widespread amongst game publishers as it is nowadays. Flag this | Edit this post |
| News Link » /news/newsarticle.asp?searchid=19941 | Droniac (114) Mar 13, 2008 - 03:37 am
| Of course game sales are affected by piracy, but what Brad was saying is that it may not be as big of an issue as certain people in the industry currently make it out to be. It's of course hard to know exactly who to believe, because there hasn't been any (public) research done in the field of game piracy. That said, the points he raises do make sense. As of late game publishers seem to be doing everything they can to screw over their customers - although interestingly Stardock themselves do this as well...
As for some examples: BioShock was capped to 5 installs. I had to alter my registry to install FEAR Perseus Mandate in an alternate folder. Just about every modern PC game requires the CD/DVD to be in your drive, even when it's predecessor doesn't (Supreme Commander Forged Alliance) - interestingly Unreal Tournament 3 didn't, yay!
Lastly, Sins of a Solar Empire requires screenshots to be stored, settings to be saved and mods to be installed on the C drive. Now Unreal Tournament 3 does this too, but with that game it's possible to refer everything on C to your game folder - not so with Sins. So out the window goes their "make everything with the consumer in mind". How consumer minded are you when you don't even allow them to choose where to save their game files? (Note: I haven't actually played Sins, just read up on it following this article and found out that you have to store everything that's added after installation on your C drive. I'm probably still going to get it, but that's some seriously shitty game design). Flag this | Edit this post |
| News Link » /news/newsarticle.asp?searchid=19824 | Droniac (114) Mar 05, 2008 - 01:39 am
| | I have to agree with larsig here. If you start looking realistically at your PC gaming friends. How many of them did not buy a game just because they didn't have to? Looking at my friends - all of them did just that. In fact, most of them only own 3 or 4 games that they really need for the online keys or those that were their absolute all-time favorites. In spite of the fact that the lot of them have enjoyed dozens of games over the years, which they would most certainly have purchased if they couldn't just pirate it so easily. Flag this | Edit this post |
| News Link » /news/newsarticle.asp?searchid=19824 | Droniac (114) Mar 04, 2008 - 12:36 pm » Edited on Mar 05, 2008 - 01:47 am
| Nevermind - kinda misread the first bit. So I'm agreeing with the (first bit of the) following remark.
Great, innovative and relatively bug-free games like Battle Realms, Messiah, Omikron, Outcast and Sacrifice sold horribly. Yet total crap games with more bugs than you'd see in a Starship Troopers movie, like Enter the Matrix and Star Wars: Battlefront, sell millions of copies. Certainly looks like quality doesn't matter quite so much when it comes to actual game sales.
As for Sins of a Solar Empire selling 100.000 copies in it's first month: great. But until other developers start releasing titles without copy-protection and reporting similar sales figures, you simply can't attribute this to just the lack of copy-protection. It may be just a fluke, a great game or been there at exactly the right time for 4X fans.
Unreal Tournament never had any sort of copy protection either. It may have sold very well back then, but there is absolutely no doubt that it would have sold loads more copies than it did if just 10% more of the playerbase had actually purchased the game. You see, only about 30% of the online players (and 5% of the on-LAN players) had actually purchased UT. The rest didn't, because it wasn't needed. Sure that's a personal estimate, but given what I've seen at LAN parties and online competitions over the years, it does seem quite accurate. If I look at my gamer friends: only 3 of them have legit UT copies, yet all of them have played it for many dozens of hours or more. Player counts may have been high, but the relative revenues (compared to what they should have had) for Epic were without a doubt abysmal. Of course the fact that it was sold out mostly everywhere for the first 2 months didn't help things. Flag this | Edit this post |
| News Link » /news/newsarticle.asp?searchid=19824 | Droniac (114) Mar 04, 2008 - 02:31 am
| Ok, it sounds like you've never actually played Titan Quest, because it certainly wasn't buggy and it was an excellent hack & slash game. So to blame poor sales on piracy actually seems very accurate (and surprising) in this particular case. I bought the (excellent) expansion pack only a few months ago, if only a few more gamers had done so too...
Furthermore to spend 50-70 dollars on PC games nowadays is to waste your money stupidly. Try purchasing games in the proper online channels. BioShock cost me 28 euro right after release (note that the price in US dollars is generally equal to the price in euro for games and hardware, so an $50 game costs 50 euro too), I got The Witcher for 32 euro by pre-ordering it and 'saved' 15 euro on Crysis (35 euro) too. If you buy them in regular stores you're out 45-55 euro, but head online and you can get them at more than reasonable prices. Flag this | Edit this post |
| News Link » /news/newsarticle.asp?searchid=19822 | Droniac (114) Mar 04, 2008 - 01:47 am
| "Beneath the rotted, mildewed, overgrown fortifications of the WW1 Battlefield of Verdun lie the mangled, burned, gassed corpses of a million men. A German unit specializing in the occult plans to raise these dead to create an invincible army, and the only thing standing in its way are five young Americans."
Change five into one and you have Return to Castle Wolfenstein! Or that's what it sounds like anyway. Flag this | Edit this post |
| News Link » /news/newsarticle.asp?searchid=19698 | Droniac (114) Feb 22, 2008 - 02:36 pm » Edited on Feb 22, 2008 - 02:37 pm
| Yes, this just reeks of laziness. There is no way the system specs would be too high for an average modern day gaming PC with a halfway decent port of the X360 version. Unfortunately even halfway decent ports are few and far between and most companies that do ports seem entirely incapable of doing so properly.
I suppose no port is better than a shit port like Halo PC (look like Quake 2 but run like Far Cry? No thanks) or Assassin's Creed (judging by the system specs: look like Oblivion but run like Crysis x2? No thanks). Still, if the PC versions of BioShock, Oblivion, Gears of War, Fable and Unreal Tournament 3 all look and perform significantly better than their console counterparts then why can't The Force Unleashed?
Seems more like LucasArts just doesn't want to support it's once prime fanbase anymore. In between them canceling Sam & Max and not releasing The Force Unleashed on PC, they've effectively trashed any credibility they may have had as a PC game publisher. Flag this | Edit this post |
| News Link » /news/newsarticle.asp?searchid=19694 | Droniac (114) Feb 22, 2008 - 05:29 am » Edited on Feb 22, 2008 - 05:30 am
| | Wow... just when I had given up hope for Epic doing anything at all for UT3 they suddenly release a patch. Hope the next one doesn't take as long and finally fixes console copy/pasting (something so tiny that even a community modder had a tiny (20kb?) fix out in a matter of hours) & demo-playback from multiplayer games with custom content (aka: ALL multiplayer games). Flag this | Edit this post |
| News Link » /news/newsarticle.asp?searchid=19623 | Droniac (114) Feb 18, 2008 - 03:53 am
| Holodisc manufacturers (there are several) are still working on bringing the pricetag down, particularly for writing holodiscs. It's far from a consumer item right now, from a financial perspective.
Also I believe rewriting holodiscs was still an impossiblity, although they may have found a solution for that since I last read up on it... like a year ago :p Flag this | Edit this post |
| News Link » /news/newsarticle.asp?searchid=19584 | Droniac (114) Feb 14, 2008 - 12:22 pm
| UT3 might have sold had Midway bothered with marketing and Epic bothered with proper game development. The gameplay, graphics and performance might be amazing, but when everything else about the title sucks (interface, server browser, bugs, lack of support, lack of content) - then that's not something many people are going to buy, or stick with.
I like UT3, but with just a few months more development time and some better development/publishing decisions (no gamespy, no midway) it could have been HUGE and awesome and amazing. Not just a great game with a horrible interface. Flag this | Edit this post |
| News Link » /news/newsarticle.asp?searchid=18778 | Droniac (114) Dec 18, 2007 - 05:49 am
| Overshadowed perhaps, but not rightfully so. As raj stated: it's mainly due to marketing. Every title you mentioned has a major marketing machine that rakes in the sales, UT3 had none whatsoever.
In terms of quality gameplay it's right up there alongside BioShock, Crysis and The Orange Box as one of the most complete and enjoyable shooter experiences in 2007 you can get. Heck, I'd rate it up there with UT and RtCW, the best multiplayer shooters ever.
Then again, nowadays fast-paced futuristic multiplayer shooters are considered 'generic', even though they're far from it. For something to be 'generic' it aught to be 'common' - and fast-paced futuristic multiplayer shooters are anything but common. The last one was what... Quake 4 in 2005? And that one sucked! Yeah... 1 every 2 years... versus 30 Battlefield/CoD-like shooters in that time.
About damn time for a good fast-paced shooter if you ask me. Flag this | Edit this post |
| Matrix Blog Link » /matrix/blog.asp/54208/757 | Droniac (114) Dec 15, 2007 - 03:34 am
| I like to play a MMORPG every now and then - and I have to say I agree with this review wholeheartedly. The only thing good about WoW was that my friends played it - aside from that it was less than mediocre (for an MMORPG!).
Anyone who thinks 9 million people loving a game makes it good (for everyone), is plain wrong. A few hundred years ago people believed the Earth to be flat, yet in spite of all those millions of believers the Earth was still round in the end. This is hardly any different.
No, I much prefer EVE Online. None of the level-grinding, dull questing, ugly graphics, shitty 12-year olds, class imbalances, instance grinding for items, etc. And it actually has PvP too! Flag this | Edit this post |
| News Link » /news/newsarticle.asp?searchid=18778 | Droniac (114) Dec 15, 2007 - 03:14 am
| | Well the fact that UT3 is the best shooter released this year aught to have it sell well. As for these stats, they don't count online and non-American sales. Both of which are very likely to be the main source of revenue/sales for these two games. Heck, I'm European and I purchased both games online. Flag this | Edit this post |
| Matrix Blog Link » /matrix/blog.asp/54208/768 | Droniac (114) Dec 14, 2007 - 08:04 am
| Awesome!
Nice review.
UT3 is definitely GOTY for me. The best multiplayer shooter in 8 years time! (well.. not counting Return to Castle Wolfenstein which might be on par) Flag this | Edit this post |
| News Link » /news/newsarticle.asp?searchid=18552 | Droniac (114) Dec 03, 2007 - 10:02 am
| Very, very true. I was playing Crysis in High Detail, 1680x1050 (8800GTX owner) and thought I was getting 50-60 fps... it was a much smoother playing experience than Call of Duty 4 (which, strangely, does hit 70 or-so fps on average) or Neverwinter Nights 2 even though I was only barely hitting 33 fps.
That said: Half Life 2 played incredibly well on most systems at the time it was released. The video cards it shipped with (9800's I believe) could play all-maxed with 60+ fps easy.
I expected this game to suck, like Far Cry, but it was a very welcome surprise instead. CoD 4 on the other hand was a horrid disappointment, particularly the bland (much more-so than Crysis, mr. Anubadan) texturing. Flag this | Edit this post |
| Matrix Blog Link » /matrix/blog.asp/61804/725 | Droniac (114) Nov 09, 2007 - 04:47 am
| | I meant it as a pointer for normal reviews, but yeah for a 500 word review you definitely don't want to mention too much regarding the weapons and vehicles. It's more important to talk about the gameplay itself. :) Flag this | Edit this post |
| Matrix Blog Link » /matrix/blog.asp/38252/735 | Droniac (114) Nov 09, 2007 - 04:43 am
| So what would you rate the game?
Pretty good review, although I disagree on the voice acting and translation. The voice acting stands miles above any other game in the genre (e.g.: Neverwinter Nights 2) and the dialogue is suitable to the setting: short and to the point, no lengthy philosophical debates with tinkering gnomes.
As for Polish translations: that's nothing to deduct points over. Sure the English version isn't as all-inclusive, but it's not something you will notice at any point in the game. Oddly structured conversations are so rare that I've only seen 2 in 30+ hours of play, again: hardly abnormal, nor worth mentioning.
Personally I'd rate this at least 9.5/10 thus far, although I haven't (even come close to) finished the game yet. It's the best RPG in ages and deserves all the praise it can get. Flag this | Edit this post |
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