Mostly about my amusement
I’m playing more FEAR2. It’s a creepy, but really fun game. After playing it for a while, walking around the house in the dark is freaking me out.
My character just escaped from the not-hospital and the streets are filled with bad guys and remenants of dead people. It’s a good game but the original had a better horror story feel to it.
Look Ma, no DVD! I just activated FEAR2 on Valve’s STEAM and I’m downloading and installing off of the Internet right now. That’s very cool.
The moniker “Games for Windows” always makes me laugh. When I first started playing FPS like Castle Wolfenstien and the original DOOM series it was on a 386SX PC my brother had. Windows was not even on that PC and Windows was just a shell for running DOS apps. Games for Windows? What was that, Solitaire?
The idea of making games for Windows is still funny. Windows is just too unstable to reliably play a hardware intensive application on. Some games run really well; I can play Unreal III and usually not have any problems. Other games such as Far Cry 2 randomly exit back to the desktop anywhere between 5 and 45 minutes of play. I’ve just gotten used to pressing F5 for quick save and I don’t even think “wow, this sucks” anymore.
I’ve been conditioned by the lousy experience of these newer games. I like Far Cry 2’s game play but seriously don’t buy this game. $50 for this badly written software is not worth it; mine came bundled with my video card.
I’ve been going back and playing Far Cry 2 even though I beat it already. The second time around, I am trying to max out my buddie missions. That was a bust, when I got to Act 2, all my upgraded safe houses were all reset. Might have had something to do with the fact that all my buddies from Act 1 were no longer around.
Now I’ve just purchased FEAR2: Project Origin. The original game was spooky as all else. When played late at night and in the dark it was like being in a horror movie. Looking at the original games graphics, I see that visually it was not as good as current games. At the time it looked great but now compared to Unreal III and Far Cry 2, the first FEAR game looks clumsy.
I’ll install it tonight. I’m hoping that the FEAR2 game continues the horror feel but has updated graphics. Not too updated; I do want this to feel like a continuation of the original game. Also I hope that it does not crash too often.
I just got a 152,152 point high score on Bejeweled 2 classic mode on my iPhone.
There’s something disturbing about my playing a game on my phone that long…
I am really getting the full value from my new EVGA GTX-260 card. The card works flawlessly. It came with Far Cry 2 and as FPSs goes, this game is top notch. The graphics are excellent, the game play is fast and responsive, the missions and action is just right.
This game is just how I like an FPS: almost everyone is out to kill me. No team play, you just accept missions and collect points, weapons, etc. Oh, and you have malaria which adds a cool element to the game.
But Far Cry 2 does have one problem. The game keeps exiting back to the desktop without reporting a single error.
I took the above capture from the load screen; I see it a lot. I am using the 1.02 patch from Ubisoft and have looked on the Internet forums (official and unofficial ones) for a fix. Many users are reporting this, but Ubisoft’s online presence does not mention this problem at all.
This game could easily be the best FPS I have played and enjoyed, but this bug makes me want to walk away from the game. During my play I often have to hit F5 to quick save so I don’t lose my progress.
I obtained this game because it was bundled with my video card. If I plunked down $50 for it, I would seriously consider getting a refund. In the meanwhile I’ll load up Crysis and F.E.A.R. and enjoy those two games for now.
One of the items I got for Christmas was an EVGA GTX-260 with 896 MB of DDR3 RAM. This is an upgrade from a pair for GeForce 7900 in SLI mode.
The game comes with Far Cry 2 which works really well since I was going to buy it anyway. The game runs really well at 1920×1200 with all the bells and whistles turned on. VERY COOL.
The game exiting to the Vista desktop without throwing a single error? Not so cool.
I have the latest 1.02 patch, DVD in the drive, etc. I’ve looked online for a solution and found none. It’s very disappointing so I press F5 often to quick save. If I don’t quick save, I know that after 45 minutes of trekking across the map I’ll lose all my progress.
For months my Xbox 360 has been complaining about the MTU being too small on my Internet gateway. This meant no updates and Xbox Live stopped working. I’ve been busy so I did not give it much thought.
My brother Alek bought a new one for his apartment and hooked it up at my house. I figured that the MTU problem was an issue with my old Xbox 360. Naturally it wasn’t. His had the same problem so I looked at my Linux gateway. Running ifconfig on my server showed me that the MTU on the external interface was set to 576.
How did that happen? I thought it defaulted to 1500. I ran the command “ifconfig eth1 mtu 1500” and that fixed the problem right away. On my openSUSE server I edited the file /etc/sysconfig/network/ifcfg-eth1 and made the MTU line read MTU=’1500′. This way when my box reboots the MTU setting should go to 1500.
After that was done, Alek was able to download the “new Xbox Experience”. The irony is that Friday night my Xbox 360 finally gave up the ghost and died. It’s out of warranty so I’ll be heading to Best Buy to get the holiday bundle.
Sometimes I don’t get just spam in my e-mail. Monolith purchased the rights to the F.E.A.R. name from Activision. Check out the sequel web site.
The first F.E.A.R. was meant to be played late at night and in the dark. When I played it, it scared the crap out of me. This real sequel is out in February 2009 and I’ll probably buy it the day it comes out for the PC.
I’m a sucker for the old games. For me the id super pack was too much to pass. It comes with virtually every id game up to and including DOOM 3: Resurrection of Evil.
When Steam came out, the idea of downloading games from the Internet was just plain silly. Now I can get games via Steam and never worry about having the CD in the drive or re-installing and not finding the original disks. Patching becomes easy too.
Looks like Valve software was ahead of their time. Since I can log in from all my PCs, I can pick which games to install and play them when I want.
Soon I’ll be heading out but when I come back I hope to be playing Commander Keen.
The other day I was in Best Buy getting some Nintendo DS Lite games for the kids. The Windows version of Gears of War was on sale for $30 so I got it. I always get last year’s games.
After the nightmare known as Halo 2 for Windows I was worried that the game would crash. So far it’s stable but there is one problem. The game stutters a lot. The whole screen pauses then jumps and it’s really annoying.
To minimize the problem, I’ve shut down all the added background programs such as the iTunes helper, Java updater, and other odds and end junk. The stuttering is acceptable now but the game definitely runs better on the Xbox 360.
It plays well, and I already know how the story will end. I was afraid that without an XBox controller that the experience would be not so good but the keyboard/mouse combination works well. And I aim much better with the mouse than I ever did on the Xbox 360.
Now if I can only work out dodging the berzerker using the keyboard then I’d be all set.
