Games – Page 3 – Mostly Harmless

June 18, 2008

Gears of War for Windows

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.

May 6, 2008

Finished Valve’s Portal and the Cake is a Lie

Remember when the platform was sliding into the fire pit and I said ‘Goodbye’ and you were like ‘NO WAY!’ and then I was all ‘We pretended we were going to murder you’? That was great!

I usually don’t play current games on my PC so I just got and completed Valve’s Portal.

It’s a first person shooter without the shooting. It’s all puzzle solving and your opponent is a computer that runs the “Enrichment Center”. The dialog from the computer is great and at the end the computer treats you to a song.

It’s a great game, lots of fun.

December 26, 2007

Crysis for Christmas

One of my Christmas gifts was the PC video game Crysis. Ah yes, holiday cheer, therapeutic beating the bad guys… life is good 🙂 .

Crysis launch window

The installation was weird. It was as if my DVD drive had problems reading the DVD. After the game installed I checked for updates and was directed to this URL: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/940105. Looks like Microsoft identified a problem with GPU’s and virtual address space usage. When I get the chance I’ll fire up Halo 2 and see if it works better. Or works at all: I kind of gave up on Halo 2 on the PC.

Crysis is the kind of FPS I like. It’s like Far Cry in that you can wander around and try different ways of getting to the target. You gather ammo and weapons and try to avoid the enemy. And just like Far Cry, Crysis is the current way of measuring up your PC. This game is graphically intense and eats system resources. I have two PCIe Geforce 7800s with 512 MB in SLI and I can’t run the game in high resolution or much anti-aliasing. The play is good so I don’t mind.

You are on an island that has been taken over by the KPA. You and your team of other specialists are wandering around on missions and on the way you encounter squads of enemies. You can fight or you can navigate around them. Your suit can switch from maximum armor, maximum strenghth, speed, etc. There is a cloak setting but it so far does not last long enough to really get the jump on the enemy.

The KPA took over the island after a team of archaeologists woke up some ancient alien technology. One of these things is killing the KPA as well as your teammates. It’s a nice touch and adds a sci-fi horror feel to it. It’s not F.E.A.R. but it’s good so far.

I’ll probably finish the game next week. I’ll see how I like it afterwards.

November 25, 2007

Back to Max Payne 2

I saw a commercial for Kane and Lynch: Dead Men and I had to get out my copy of “Max Payne 2: The Fall of Max Payne” and install it.

This game came out in 2003 and I still like playing it. It’s like Humphrey Bogart directed by John Woo. Very cool. I’ve only just started the game but so far I get to the cut scene right before I receive enough damage to kill me.

It’s the easiest level. How did I ever complete this game? The last scene I have to dodge a nut job tossing dynamite at me while trying to shoot out some wooden pegs. Oh and not fall through the floor in the just blown up holes.

I can’t wait till I get to the fun house scene…

What is very strange to me is installing a game that does not require an activation code. It does check the CD drive to make sure I have the game (that’s easy to defeat but why bother?). Also this game actually works unlike some games *cough* Halo 2 *cough*.

Nice to see how the game industry has improved in the last few years.

October 16, 2007

Half-Life 2: Episode Two

Half-Life 2: Episode 2 G-Man

I’ve bought Half-Life games since they first came out so naturally I had to buy Episode 2.

I’m about half way through in only a couple of hours. The play is okay and unlike Microsoft games (Halo 2 is still dead on Vista; what a waste) it works very well with my Vista 64 system.

When Half-Life 2 came out it in 2004 it was fantastic. Now 3 years later the graphics are getting a little dated. The problem is that other platforms kept up. Gears of War is visually stunning. Seeing the sharp polygons of the end of Gordon Freeman’s shot gun is distracting and not in a good way. I’ll play with the settings to see if I can get the images to look more realistic.

In the meanwhile the play is good. I’m glad that Valve still puts that ahead of the wiz bang effects.

September 1, 2007

Ad supported games?

I had purchased Far Cry a couple of years ago. It was a cool game (although later levels were just nuts). I wanted to install it but could not find the disk.

Now there is an advertisement supported version which I downloaded from FilePlanet and installed. Here is what the menu screen looks like with the ads:

Far Cry ad version

It’s weird. The in-game play is the same, just you get an ad when you run the game and ads on the menu screen.

It’s like playing the value-meal version from McDonalds. At least I get my gratuitous video game violence.

July 2, 2007

Completed Halo 2 on Vista

Halo 2 on Vista banner from microsoft.com

That was anticlimactic.

My saved games came back and I was farther along than I thought. After a couple of “boss” battles I completed the game. I actually had to check the Wikipedia page to see if there was something I missed.

It was definitely an “okay” game but nothing to get excited about. After playing Call of Duty 2 (and CoD 3 on the PS3) I have a feeling of “that’s it?”

When Halo 3 comes out I’ll probably get it for the Xbox 360, but Bungie and Microsoft better get some more excitement into the game.

July 1, 2007

So far the game is “okay”.

Tag: Games (page 3 of 4)

Gears of War for Windows

Finished Valve’s Portal and the Cake is a Lie

Crysis for Christmas

Back to Max Payne 2

Half-Life 2: Episode Two

Ad supported games?

Completed Halo 2 on Vista

Halo 2 on Vista fix?

Halo 2 on Vista problems (continued)

Halo 2 on Vista problems

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Jan Dembowski