Category Archives: Games

New Computer

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So I need to upgrade the box.  It’s a 4 year old case with a few upgraded parts.  AMD Athlon 4000+, 2gigs of RAM, X700 card.  The card is the main issue but the chipset is itself over 2 years old.

Here’s what I’m looking at:

Diamond Viper Radeon HD 3850 512MB Dual Slot GDDR3 PCI-E Dual DVI-I HDCP HDMI HDTV Out Video Card

Antec Sonata Iii Black Atx 16IN Mid Tower Quiet Case 3X5.25 2X3.5 4X3.5IN 500W 120MM Fan

Corsair XMS2 Dominator TWIN2X4096-8500C5DF 4GB 2X2GB PC2-8500 DDR2-1066 CL5-5-5-15 240PIN Memory Kit

Arctic Cooling Alpine 64 AM2 S754 S939 S940 2000RPM 36CFM Heatsink Fan

ASUS M3A32-MVP Deluxe AMD 790FX AM2+ 4PCI-E16 CrossFireX 2PCI SATA2 RAID Sound GBLAN Motherboard

AMD Phenom X4 9750 Quad Core Processor Socket AM2 2.4GHZ 4MB Cache 125W Retail Box

Comes out to about 920$ (before tax).  It’s definitely a noticeable chunk of change but it would give me a new box for another 4 years, SLI support (well, Crossover as it’s called with ATI) and Phenom support (AM2+ chipset).  I alread have the HDD + peripherals.

Whatcha think?

Age of Conan

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Main Site

Wiki Site

I’ve been following this game for about 2 years now.  My father was a huge Conan comic book fan and hence, so was I.  The primal nature of the cimmerian is what draws people in.  The bad guys are the complicated ones (barely so), the rules are set from the beginning and the combat is both internal as it is external.  It’s the simplicity of it all that pulls me in each time.  That and the amazing artwork.

So, Age of Conan released the other day.  I tried to get into the beta with no luck (300,000 in from what I heard) and just kept abreast of the news.  Most people thought the game was pretty attrocious, graphics, load times, monotonous, etc… your usual gripes with a stress test.  I went through Closed, Open and stress betas with WoW, there was a significant difference between them all.

Regardless, the game came out and the folks who played the beta have turned ship and said they love it.  Obviously, it’s still VERY early in the cycle to give a yay or nay vote but I’ll be giving it a shot tonight.  Deathwhisper server if you’re interested.

Posted in AoC

GTA IV & Co.

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Last night was fun.  Locked the keys in the car.  Took a drive to Castle Heights (that’s the nice name for Overbrook).  Picked up a cable splitter and GTA IV.  Got home and the fun began.

An hour.  A frikin’ hour to find the cable that lead to the living room.  Why so hard?  One, the coax cable was black and I’ve never seen construction grade coax be black before.  Two, the end of it was snipped off by the cable guy when he put in my recent connection.  I guess that’s their way to make sure you have to call them back to get it up and running again.  Pshh, enough with that!  I just stripped the wire, plugged it in and presto, cable.  So now the GF can watch her show upstairs while I use the big screen downstairs. This is something I should have done a LONG time ago.

Now onto GTA IV.  I had maybe an hour to try it out.   It’s a bit like watching a CG movie really.  It isn’t the large details anymore, I think we’re well past that point in gaming.  It’s all about the small things.  When Niko runs down stairs, he takes them sideways, one step at a time while running.  You remember back in the day when stairs acted just like ramps.  That’s done with.  Also, facial expressions are amazing in this game.  Eyes open, pupils change, faces twitch.  The movement is just so smooth.  There’s a beautiful flow.  And I’m only an hour in!!  Going to be a blast.