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SplaTtzZ

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Everything posted by SplaTtzZ

  1. SplaTtzZ

    Owned

    Generally I turn post-processing effects off as a rule; they're not realistic enough for simulating reality. The same goes for HDR lighting. We've already got pupil dilation, and I can't wait till they actually implement the character blinking in-game; so your screen goes black for a split second every now and then. Whilst you're right about it not looking as good as in screenshots Oddity, I have to say its the best graphics I've seen in a game to date. It'd be a toss-up between Crysis and Bioshock, and they're both pretty close, but I think Crysis wins out. Besides which, rendering the graphics on the sheer scale of the islands is pretty impressive in my book; and i don't recall going through a single loading screen after the initial one (having said that though, you are limited to where you can travel throughout the islands, at least in the demo). They obviously tried to make the game more serious this time round; using Delta squad soldiers instead of the sweaty male Porn-star lead in Far Cry, and exhanging the fluro-red Hawaiian floral shirt for a nanosuit. I don't mind the nanosuit overly much, it is a gimick but I think it adds some variety to the core gameplay elements.
  2. SplaTtzZ

    Owned

    Yeah Crysis is awesome, best graphics I've seen yet: motion-blur, full soft shadows, dynamic lighting etc. plus the game is fairly open-ended just like Far Cry was. I thought the AI wasn't too bad either, it's surprised me a few times; and it sure is fun to stalk them in Cloak mode. I quite liked Far Cry, and it looks like Crysis is shaping up to be a worthy successor. I hope its Multiplayer is good. As a side note I kind of thought it was a little weird to have volumetric clouds, I rarely focus on clouds in game; but hey, i gotta say they looked cool on the way down in the parachute sequence.
  3. I would probably agree and have to say the worst jobs would have to do with drugs and the like or rehabilitation stuff. I have a mate who recenly joined the police services here in sydney, but during his cadetship at the academy he decided to do community services for credit. And I'm not talking cleaning highways; he was part of a group who used to go into the seedy red light districts and gangland areas and known addict hangouts to clean up after them, mainly doing needle and sharps collection. Admittedly, Sydney's 'gangland' pales in comparison to the States or other countries but the stuff he told me about that he'd seen and what he has to deal with as a cop is pretty damn rough.
  4. Hey you know what i never thought about it that way! I still think about 20% of the customers who come into my store are just about the lowest forms of life on the planet though. Amoebas probably have more intelligence; and the ones that argue really piss me off. Though then again i imagine working in a public hospital as you suggest would be pretty rough at times. I wonder what the absolute worst job of our times is?
  5. Yeah I'm using an nvidia 8800gtx, so Ati doesnt apply and so far even though the temp is fairly hot compared to older cards it's still runnning fine. My mobo temp is around 30-35 degrees celsius, and cpu temp is between 35-40 degrees c. So i think i have pretty good cooling. I've always wondered though whether the back fan on my case, of which there is 1x120mm fan, should be an exhaust one,which it is at the moment (ie. blowing air out of the case). My case has a duct which actually channels air from the cpu fan directly to the back fan; so i thought it would be better if that fan pushed the hot air out. My front fans are configured as intake fans, sucking air inside, so i figure that i've got a draught going where air is refreshed inside the case constantly, rather than recycled. Anyone have any thoughts on this? Maybe both front and back should be blowing air inside, I'm not sure; and the stupid maual is in Chinese and Engrish and doesnt even mention fans.
  6. Man, you think Bagels are bad? Try working retail in a liquor store for the country's largest chain of supermarkets. The filthiest, most reprehensible dregs of human society shuffle daily into our store like zombies; pawing orgiastically at the Jim Beam displays or $4 sparkling wines that I painstakingly shelve every Sunday night. As They gibber, drool and stumble their way to the counter; I console myself with the fact that someday they'll drink themselves into oblivion and won't ever come back. They also smell; they have this stench of sweat, urine and a 5 pack-a-day habit that physically hits you like a wall. I have to stand 2 feet away from some of my customers and hold my breath because of that smell. Then there's the ones with diseases, like the guy who's a Leper; and if he isn't a Leper he has some disease equally serious because his skin flakes of his face like dandruff. I serve hundreds of people a day, and there must be about 20% who i wouldn't cross the street to piss on if they were on fire. Alot of them are just a series of mismanaged bodily functions, like the ones who, swaying on their feet, eyes blurring in and out of focus, mumble through the spittle in the fetid, cavernous orifice they call a mouth about 'seeing a manager' after they've been refused. And I daren't even mention the other orifices they have. I have to routinely write up incident reports about refusing people for 'being fucking stupid' as they lack the hand/eye coordination to pull money out of their wallet or swipe their credit card. They might be drunk or not; but I figure I'm doing society a favour by not allwoing such mental deficits the right to buy alcohol. A typical conversation in one of my shifts goes thusly: Me: Hi, can I see some ID please? Customer who looks 12 yrs old: What? Me: Can i see your identification Young Customer: Why? Me: you need to be over 18 to buy alcohol, and you need to prove it Young Customer: Are you serious? Me: Do I look like I'm joking? Young Customer: Fuck man... (Hands over ID) Me: Oh wow, gee, you're 19 yrs old! Hah, how could I even possibly think you were under 18. You're fucking ancient! Young Customer:Fuck you (Leaves) Customer who is about 100yrs old: Hur hur hur; do you need to see my ID? hur hur Me: My god thats hilarious, side-splitting, I'll bet you could inspire Oscar Wilde. Seriously, I've had that very same conversation about 1000 times now. It's getting to the point now where I feel like buying a gun. And this is just the customers; wait till you hear about my superiors. About the only perks my job has is the fact that under current legislation i can refuse customers for any reason whatsoever and after 3 pm (the time when every manager in the store decides to have an early mark) I can do what i like, including swearing at customers and dressing shabbily in my uniform. It might actually sound like an ideal job to some till you realise that I get at least one death threat every fortnight (and you never know when they might actually follow through) and i have to deal with disgusting people who either drunk, high, stupid, crazy or a combination of them all. All this on a minimum wage. I can't even stand to drink anymore! If I weren't a student who needed part-time work on weekends I'd be gone in a flash.
  7. Yeah I've heard that getting artifacts like snow is a sympton of overheating cards, you should try maybe getting one of those monitor programs. Nvidia has NVMonitor which has a temperature and event logger for its cards; I'm not sure how effective or accurate such programs are though. ATi would have a similar app I'm sure. My 8800 Gtx runs at around 70 degrees; which is kind of worrying but after googling it thats apparently normal. Heh, fingers crossed I guess. Also, take a look at http://www.tweakguides.com/DMOMM_1.html this guide might help fix the game crashing or optimise performance.
  8. Yes i've played it and i thought it was quite enjoyable. I didn't have very many bugs when i used XP but i installed it again on Vista at some point and found it had quite alot more bugs; though i think thats because it doesn't support Vista. I take it you've tried patching it, and updated your device drivers like Video cards etc? The only problem i had with the game play was the whole 'being on ice-skates feel' it had, as though the player character was constantly sliding everywhere instead of walking. If i recall this problem was already mentioned in other posts. The body awareness was good though, i wish they put that in more games.
  9. Especially genetically modified virus-carrier ones Max get them to make a miniature pigmy giraffe, about a foot high; I've always wanted one of those.
  10. So hey, i did a search in the forums for a freeware game i downloaded recently and didn't find anything; so if this has been talked to death already forgive me. The game in question is Facade, which is basically designed around a kind of soap/drama in which a couple who are old friends invite you over to their apartment for a party and end up having a large dramatic fight about their marriage. The graphics are hardly anything special but the sound and audio for it are very extensive; and of course the AI too. Essentially you interact by typing short sentences which the game then reads and acts to accordingly. I was quite surprised by the level of depth that went into this game considering its only made by like 2 people. When I replayed the act over again I was surprised to find that alot of different combinations of speech can occur, and entirely new dialogue can be unlocked by doing or saying various things. Obviously there are some limitations to this game, the AI has trouble with slang for instance and I find it difficult to type fast enough and have the game read my text in time. This can lead to various errors in the conversation, often with unexpected results. The goal of the game is for you to try and help the couple, Trip and Grace, work out their differences. However I found it much more enjoyable creating a character named Gonzalo and being a complete and utter prick to them At the end of each act a screenplay is generated; which contains all the dialogue, as an example: Heh the screenplays are massively long, too long to put in a post, but i really found this last one quite funny. Hah the shocked expression on his face was classic, and i was surprised that the AI would react in such a way. Apparently racial epithets are banned in the game . To anyone who's interested the game is freeware at http://www.interactivestory.net/ ,its interesting to see how the AI has been designed to react to the player. So far i've been thrown out of their apartment every time I've played. Also, if anyone happens to know of any similar games with sophisticated AI I would like to check them out so i can be an asshole to the characters in them too
  11. I lean towards the other way in this debate; I preffered Thief 2 over Thief 1, and didn't really like TDS for many of the problems it had, already mentioned above. I think Thief 1 opted for a much more spooky kind of experience; there was a large proliferation of undead for example. That in and of itself does not make it a poor game; but I personally preffred the more conventional and iconic heists of Thief 2. Life of the Party for instance was one of my all time favourites; it was so open-ended and you could get easily sidetracked, not too mention it looked great and I found it enjoyable to scramble around the rooftops of the city. I dunno for some reason i felt like more of a Thief in T2 than i did T1;in T1 i felt like more like Lara Croft. I think TDS deserves some credit though; i mean who didn't like the Shaleford Cradle map? The idea of having the zombies run was pretty freaky the first time it happened to me; and those thrice-damned giant statues. I will always remember one of those puppet guys getting back up after being knocked down and charging down the hallway towards me. Yeah TDS definitely had its flaws; i was disappointed that the City was no-where near open ended enough; but its still not that bad a game considering some of the other stuff being developed. My only fervent hope is that another Equilibrium FM will be made using Dark Mod's engine.
  12. Damnit, the whole expansion is practically made in Australia and I still have to wait a week longer to get it than the US and UK!
  13. With Tabula Rasa, do you need skills to use the weapons? As in, does it play like a multiplayer fps game such as HL2 Deathmatch or UT, where each character has pretty much the same skill with each weapon? Or is it something like Vampire: Masquerade where your skill with firearms determines the hp damage and your aiming reticle/accuracy? I'd be interested to know, because there is some hype about this one. The idea of having fast fps style gameplay with character development and crafting as in an MMORPG sounds like a pretty good idea. I can imagine though that there might be balancing issues? Say one character could craft a weapon that the other characters he fighting dont have; and could gank them all really easy. Does the game have this problem at all? And having played Gears of War on 360 I can safely say that it is quite a well made game; it has a pretty decent storyline and voice acting, as well as some pretty schmick fight scenes. Graphics and art direction were awesome too; think post-apocalyptic Classical Rome with guns, helicopters and bad ass marines in huge body suits
  14. I went ahead and bought myself an LCD monitor about 6 months ago. I got a Dell 21' ultrasharp LCD monitor; and i haven't had any qualms about it so far. it seems to play games fine. Normally I wouldn't touch any of Dell's stuff but I figured it was unlikely that they would manufacture the screen themselves; rather use OEM and rebrand it. I managed to get my screen for 500AUD through those promotional plans they have, and there was an even larger one for cheaper but it wasn't Ultrasharp, and most review sites I checked said that it was better to get Ultrasharp LCD's. It was probabaly a scam anyway but the screen does the job.
  15. I'd agree with you about it not being the greatest game ever; it is just an fps really and too linear for my tastes. I think that title could more aptly be applied to the first Deus Ex, which really gave the player a variety of ways to accomplish the game and where your actions do affect the gameplay and outcomes. I did however like the way that Bioshock has AI factions; and that certain Plasmids like Enrage and Security Target could allow you to get your enemies to fight each other. Nothing is more hilarious than seeing a Big Daddy get up close to a bad guy and absolutely pulverise him with the drill he has on his arm. I've seen him actually throw guys off balconies and stuff, and the ridiculous attack he has where he flies at his target like he has a jetpack or something can be really funny when its aimed at them and not at you. And getting 2 Big Daddies to fight each other is a pretty awesome sight. My only qualm is not being able to kill the little sisters with your wrench, the developers said the game would present you with a hard moral choice but its just bullshit. When you want to kill them to get Adam the screen just blacks out, no body or anything; I didn't feel any remorse or regret at all and went through the game systematically murdering every one that I could find. That might seem really callous but ever since I played FEAR and saw The Ring creepy little girls in smocks scare the bejesus out of me. They would have been better off making you murder puppies or something like that, i think it would have a greater effect on the player.
  16. Activation is only a one off-process after an install; so once it's activated you won't need an internet conection anymore. You will need the disk to run it, but I would advise against using any cracks or other stuff to by-pass the activation. When I had trouble activating it I tried about 6 cracks from a torrent site, 4 of them had trojans and not one worked. As to the hardware requirements I'm running everything on full and its fine, I actually think it runs faster than Stalker when I had it installed though that might be my imagination. Maybe it's just more stable Certainly an Nvidia 8 series or equivalent Ati card will be able to handle it easy, though if you want Directx 10 features you need Vista; though if you hate Vista alot I wouldn't bother, i didn't really notice any change in the graphics when I selected the DX 10 option.
  17. I had difficulty installing this game myself. The first time I installed it and registered it went ok; but in the graphics options of the game i realised that you can't get full Directx10 support unless you have Vista installed. Figuring it was time to dust off the old box which has been sitting on my shelf for ages; I formatted XP then reinstalled Vista. After putting Bioshshock back on; surprise surprise; I couldn't register. I kept getting message that my activation attempt had failed. After trying every few minutes for a couple of hours I finally decided to mail Securom, here's a transcript: The minute I posted the damn email I tried to register again and it worked straight away. Howevere I sure feel sorry for someone who couldn't do that as the support that Securom offered me was on the lines of: I guess they don't even bother to read emails and just get bots to send crap back, I dunno I figure my email was clear enough, they must have a policy of treating everyone like some kind of moron. I even read on some forums of people having to scan their game manual with the code on it before Securom will allow them to unlock manually. I think my error had something to do with their server being to busy but if thats the case it was busy for over 2 hours. Anyway i've finished the game now; and there were some pretty interesting things in there. I particularly liked the way they handled the AI, later on in the game you can get like 50 enemies to fight one another using plasmids; its very amusing. I think thats why they made it game of the year, its just an average fps really but when you screw around with the factions its awesome; getting a Big Daddy to fight enemy splicers is a ball.
  18. True, you'll have to forgive my post somewhat as I focus alot on the negatives. Demagogue is right, in terms of an FPS experience like any other FPS Bioshock doesn't have any great disadvantage. It has fresh scenery and enemies and it puts me in mind somewhat of Doom 3; but with a little more depth in terms of gameplay and options. I must also mention that I didn't follow any of the news about this game; consequently I was quite shocked to see that there was no inventory system, something that means a big deal in FPS/RPG hybrids as it limits exactly what weapons and items etc. that you can carry. However the many numerous sites covering the development of this game hark on it being a "Spiritual Succesor" to SS2; which I do have problem with. I have not played SS2 in years, I would like to play it now if I could get it to work on my computer, but from the get-go SS2 offered you choice as to which character class you wanted; this in turn offered many different modes of playing. As far as i can see this level of choice is nowhere near evident in Bioshock. Correct me if I'm wrong also; but I can't recall there being sort of Arena pit fights with infinite spawning AI in SS2. Respawning AI i'm ok with, up to a point. But the biggest problem I have with Bioshock being a successor is it simply fails to achieve the level of atmosphere and tension that SS2 had. I recall watching and waiting for hours in a flooded corridor with rooms on either side; trying to figure out from which room the moaning noise i could hear was coming from. Or inching my way carefully through the labratories armed only with a wrench to ward of numerous science-experiments-gone-wrong. Or the sheer horror when I realise that my handgun has broke for the 50th time and should have chosen to join the goddamn airforce instead of becoming a shithead marine. Perhaps it was because I was younger when I played SS2; but when I hit up Bioshock there was no tension at all except for the old lightbulb suddenly exploding when you walk by it trick. I blitzed through each level throwing lightning everywhere and bashing guys with my wrench; which is hardly what i recall doing in SS2. It's fine that the dev's wanted to make an Art Deco period FPS, but in my opinion that is not a spiritual "successor" to SS2, in much the same way that i don't believe Deus Ex 2 was a successor to Deus Ex. The devolution from an FPS/RPG hybrid aside; the game simply lacks the punch that I remember SS2 having. Bioshock is a good FPS, and I will buy it because i don't have any problem with the genre, but from what I've seen I don't think it is worthy of a Game of the Year title and all the fanboy-ism that the review sites gush over it. Alot of FPS's have customisable weapons, Undying had the whole 'left hand=magic; right hand=gun' thing, Deus Ex had hacking and whatnot and if you want to Art Deco environments play Thief 2. Bioshock doesn't really differentiate itself from any other FPS in the market in the way that SS2, Thief and Deus Ex did. Again, this is quite premature of me to review a game based on a demo; which as Demagogue rightly points out is on a console. It may also be true that having played SS2 so long ago and not remembering half of it that i may be exagerating its qualities, and thus am not qualified to say anything on this. I will definitely grab the PC demo to check out how well it performs versus the console version, it may be that many of the problems i had with it will be ironed out in that demo or even the full game. Maybe you guys will have a different perspective on the demo; it's certainly worth at least downloading it and checking it out.
  19. Ok I played the demo on 360 and, im sorry to say, I wasn't really impressed. Graphics are fantastic; the textures and art direction for this game I thought were outstanding. The posters and wall hangings and fixtures they all have a distinct 1930-50's feel about them. They quite captured the essence of the Art Deco movement in the environments for this game. They pushed the Unreal tech pretty far; everything looks crisp and clear. The models are also quite realistic; everything from radios to Enemy NPCs. However, one of the major gripes I had was with the UI. Puritans who had alot to say about Thief 3 will also have alot to say about Bioshock. The first lever I touched had the old flashing Atomic Brown/Gold colour to highlight it; it's not as bad as blue, but when you're in an elevator with only one lever inside it I don't see the point. And when you fight an Enemy a giant semicircle appears over your crosshair (and it is huge) to tell you how much life he has left. There is also no inventory. To me this is cardinal sin; I don't see how you can make a spiritual successor to System Shock 2 and then have no inventory system. it might not seem like a big deal, but the fact that you were limited to what you could carry in SS2 was a big player in creating tension for that game. In Bioshock you only carry around Instant-Use Health Packs and hypos that regenerate Mana or Eve or whatever they call it. As for guns I saw about 6 or so, no doubt you can carry them all at once. And then to top it all off: Enemies have respawn points. There are actual areas where a (presumably) infinite number of enemies come at you. I say presumably because I didn't hang around, I was stuck in a little area and enemies would drop down from a set of broken stairs I couldn't go up; and i had to kill them Arena style until a door opened. These are just first impressions of a demo, however I don't believe this game should get a GOTY award (no doubt it will though), from what i saw it is nothing more than a generic FPS; as unalike to System Shock 2 as Deus Ex is unalike to Serious Sam.
  20. Yeah I would have thought that there would be little point in having Linux if it wasn't accessible; I'm really just going by what my mates have told me about it. I'm pretty sure i heard about Linux OS's that basically ran a Windows UI, complete with start menu and everything which i think would be ok. But what I'm really unsure about is whether or not games will run on them. I've seen programs on the internet with a PC, Linux, Mac version; but all the games I've bought are designed to run on Windows. you don't get linux version as far as I know. Can you just insert the game CD in Linux and have it start installing straight away? I had heard that you need to configure the OS to allow it to run certain programs. I don't know anything about coding or anything of that nature; having to do that to play a game, for me, is a big nuisance. And as for Macs, well that jump up in price is what makes them seem useless to me. It's even more expensive to buy a Mac version of a game than it is for a windows one. And I really find the one-button mouse awkward. I'll admit that they are perfectly acceptable for everyday use, but i can't see them being a gamer's platform of choice.
  21. Yeah I have also had that happen to me before, but not when i was doing anything important like that; just when i was waiting for stuff to finish downloading. The little window pops up and aks you if you want to restart now or later, but then has a bar counting down from one minute before it restarts anyway. It's got me completely stumped; why bother to ask you the question if Windows is gonna decide what it wants to do anyway? It wouldn't be problem if the dialog box just stayed there all night and waited for you to make your own decision. Its amazing to think that Microsoft has to employ people who know how to code for windows, people who need to know all manner of technical stuff; yet they still have features like this. These people must spend most of their entire career sitting behind a computer; its weird to think that they would choose to put in so many features in Windows that even ordinary people have no use for or find annoying. Case in point is the User Account Control in Vista, a more obstructive and useless gimick than that one I have yet to see. I would consider looking for an alternative but Macs are next to useless for anything beyond 'Multimedia' stuff and i hear that Linux requires you to use and memorise alot of commands just to do anything. Is there an OS out there that has a good UI, can run games and other programs easily but comes without the baggage that Windows has I wonder?
  22. Hah! What a freak... 50DKP MINUS!! I assume everyone has seen the Leroy Jenkins clip? If not do a search for that; its old news but its still good.
  23. Ah, ye olde ginger beer trick. Step 1. Pop! Step 2. Fizz! Step 3. (horrific screaming) Step 4. Results!
  24. I've always loved the Total War series ever since the days of Shogun. Medieval II is the best offering yet though; the raw power of 120 fully-plated knights charging down a bunch of saracens is awesome! Its the best RTS on the market today IMO. Screw the Welsh though I'm going back to my roots in Prussia and am gonna knock the crap out of a bunch of pagans. Nothing compares to the germanic might of the Teutons! I reckon after I'm done with them I'll play the Welsh; the value of longbow archers cannot be underestimated.
  25. There's a flaw right there. I would up the ante, it needs to be more spectacular! Instead, stroll down to your nearest red, white and blue gun store and pick up one of the rocket launchers they sell for 'self defense and/or hunting big game'. In all seriousness though yeah, you should speak to your instructor or the division/department administrator. And what exactly was the 'offensive' content of the email?
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