I actually knew that I’d become bored with Starcraft 2 in fairly short order, but I bought it anyway.
You see, I’m an eternal optimist. I’d read most of the previews who said it was a much more polished version of the original, with only a few new features. But it would still be a game about managing peons, attacking your opponent’s economy (rather than engaging in battles) and clicking your mouse button a vast number of times during a game, despite the hotkeys.
Of course, I have fond memories of the original Starcraft, mostly because – and I want to emphasize this – I loved the story in the single player game.
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Once a year or so, I get the crazy idea that I want to build a small form factor PC.
It’s not the actual small form factor system that’s crazy. It’s what I want it to do. What I typically want is to build a high performance gaming system using a micro ATX motherboard, building it into a micro ATX chassis. I’m typically lured in by some cool looking micro ATX case. That happened to me with a couple of Silverstone SUGO models (SG01 and SG03). Most recently, it was the NZXT Vulcan, which I reviewed for Maximum PC. The Vulcan is actually a good looking case with an attractive feature set that makes it sound like a badass, high end case.
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I’ve been heads down on a number of freelance writing projects, many of which are finally reaching fruition.
I had fun writing an article on new graphics technology as it affects games. That ran in the August issue of Maximum PC, and is online now at MaximumPC.com. The real bummer is that I had lots of cool screen shots, most of which the magazine ran. But the need to reduce size for both print and online makes them less effective. Still, I think DirectX 11 will have the biggest impact on PC gaming since DX8.
Also up on Maximum PC is a review of Bigfoot’s Killer 2100 network interface card for gamers. It’s an interesting product, in that it works as advertised, reducing lag and ping times… but most people won’t notice any benefit. I’d class it as a luxury product, maybe useful to the 0.5% of gamers who compete online, care about winning and have the insanely fast reflexes to notice the small differences.
More stuff after the jump.
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I had the distinct pleasure of being a guest on Troy Goodfellow’s Three Moves Ahead podcast. Three Moves Ahead covers strategy gaming, and Troy’s regulars (Rob Zacney, Julian Murdoch and sometimes Tom Chick and Bruce Geryk) are engaging and entertaining. This episode, the ostensible topic was how technology has affected strategy games, but as with most shows, we managed to cover a lot of ground, from PC to console to handheld and even to board games. If you have any interest in games and gaming, TMA is well worth your subscription.
My own personal gaming interests are wide ranging, but I realized as we talked that most of my strategy gaming recently has been board gaming, rather than PC or console games. Why is that, I began to wonder?
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Both Dragon Age and Mass Effect 2 are Bioware creations, albeit by different development teams with clearly different goals. Dragon Age: Origins is touted as the spiritual successor to Bioware’s first major success, Baldur’s Gate. Mass Effect 2 is an action/RPG hybrid, building on the first game, but enhancing the action bits while streamlining the role-playing.
Both games offer extensive storylines, lots of spoken dialog and some excellent voice acting. Both also allow you to take your character in different directions. Once you get beyond those Bioware tropes, the two games diverge pretty significantly.
I’ve played through both games once, and working through second run-throughs on both games. Given that both games have been reviewed and discussed substantially, I’m going to narrow in on one aspect of the two games: how characters are developed. (Note: there may be spoilers ahead.)
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I was cruising the forums at Quartertothree.com when I came across this gem. It’s a video that ostensibly comments on what games might win Spike TV’s VGA award for best game of the year. However, I’m not going to comment on the game choices, but rather this bit of ignorant commentary that begins around 57:45 in the show.
It’s in response to a question: “What are your thoughts on how PC gaming is dying?”
My first thought: way to pick a loaded question. But then oft-quoted analyst Michael Patcher goes on to demonstrate his ignorance, by saying: “Nobody has a PC that’s faster than a PS3.”
Say what?
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I’ve been somewhat… obsessed with Dragon Age: Origins lately. The voice acting is entertaining (Claudia Black as Morrigan and Steve Valentine as Alistair, in particular.) The story is engaging. The slightly dark take on yet another Tolkien-esqe fantasy world provides and interesting, if somewhat overwrought, spin on the old fantasy tropes.
I’m also having more fun with combat than I often do with computer-based RPGs. Maybe that’s because I’m treating the combat as if it were really a tactical mini-wargame. Because of that, I’ve been having a blast – and been successful – even in some very tough fights. Here’s what I’ve been doing to be successful.
What follows is my take on effective combat in Dragon Age for the PC version. Combat in the PC game becomes much more of a tactical strategy game than the console version, so bear that in mind. I’ve avoided any plot spoilers, focusing on tactics to take down enemies as effectively and quickly as possible.
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I’m not much of an online gamer. That’s not to say I don’t play online games. It’s just that, when I’m alone, I generally gravitate to single player games. On the other hand, I do like a good multiplayer game, and I get to indulge my desire for playing with others on a weekly basis.
The problem is, though, I’m spoiled.
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An interesting division is happening in game publishing and game development. No, it’s not the oft-mentioned indie game developers versus big game media. It’s not PCs versus consoles, either. In some ways, it’s a return to the past: passive versus interactive, but taken to a meta level.
Over the past several weeks, we’ve seen something of a furor surround the release of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 . First came the news that the latest entry in the franchise would have no dedicated servers – which also meant no user generated maps and no mod tools. On top of that, it was revealed the multiplayer maps would be limited to 9 vs. 9.
The other thing that happened to me last week was listening to latest Three Moves Ahead, the podcast produced and hosted by Troy Goodfellow of Flash of Steel, which was an interview with Chris Park, developer of the RTS AI Wars. It’s well worth a listen.
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And here’s a shot of the various Windows 7 upgrades. So far, I’ve installed several onto the five gaming systems I have set
up here. Some, of course, have already been running Windows 7, which I obtained from my Technet account, and have been using in articles on Windows 7.
There’s not really a lot I can add to the hoopla about Windows 7. Like any new OS release from Microsoft, there is good and bad. But for our weekly LAN party group, I’m looking forward to moving everyone to 64-bit Windows 7.
Four of five gaming rigs in the basement lab are now running Windows 7.
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