The log of the gamer

After three years of service and five or six removals it’s high time to change the house for my computer. I have chosen Sunbeam Freezing Storm for Core Fan technology and a window.

The case is very stylish, of course it’s black. It comes with all the accessories needed to mount your equipment inside. There are five 5,25″ bays, two (or maybe three - can’t really tell right now) 3,5″ ones, and three slots for mounting hard drives. There are also three 120mm fans included - one for the back of the case and two for Core Fan stuff (it’s just a bar in the middle of the case which allows you to have good air flow directed at your mobo).

I have disassembled my water cooling set and rebuilt it using new case. It’s superb, however, I still need little fixing - the hose coming into the case through PCI slot is squeezed - the temps are a little high due to blocked flow. I should have some time now - I get up before six every day, which gives me two hours before going to work.
BTW the case is a great birthday gift

In the previous post I have mentioned installing Prince of Persia, so now it’s time to go deeper into the story.

The game installed OK but then I had trouble finetuning video details. In the end, I chose 1024×768 medium details. The game looks okay, but I’m not the fan of hand-drawn characters. Besides, the difference between medium and high details is enormous - I switched to high for a moment and even if it was unplayable (low framerate) it really looks much better. Time for new VGA, I guess (should have known it while trying out World in Coflict lol).

About gameplay itself - it’s real arcade, which hasn’t changed much since Sands of Time six years ago. You have to run, jump, do some fighting, climb the walls etc… You can’t die - your partner in journey, Elika, has got some magical protection over you, so every time you fall from a distance or are about to die in combat, she saves you from trouble - you’re back in the moment before death would occur. This can be annoying during fights, but who cares?

I’ve played about an hour - passed the tutorial, completed the introduction in the temple and saw how the map works. While I have some more time, I’ll probably proceed further. For now - it’s worth the try. 7 out of 10, I guess.

I guess it was early December when I got Red Alert 3 and promised to have some fun with it. Well, it had to wait for a long time, my fault, but finally I’ve done it.

I’ve got a terrible cold, so I’m at home now, have some time off (work is exhausting, believe it or not - I don’t have time for playing then) so I’m having a bit of fun. I started Prince of Persia (later about it) and Red Alert 3.

I was wondering why some sites keep calling RA3 “sexiest strategy ever” until I launched it. I started, of course, with Soviet campaign and was really amazed by debriefing chick… the game sucks, I thought, that’s why the EA decided to make it interesting this way. Then it gets better, when you start Allied campaign, the chick’s even hotter. Unfortunately, the Japanese isn’t showing off at all.

The gameplay is fairly standard, so if you’ve ever played any C&C-like RTS, you’ll be familiar with it very quick. I think the only new stuff is extra bonus weapon, which is unlockable based on your achievement during mission. Soviets have magnetic satellite and a kind of orbital drop, I don’t know about the others - haven’t played that far.

By the way, the game has rather big requirements - I could play only 1024×768 with medium detail. The visual experience is rather poor then, so I guess that 8800GT or HD3850 is reasonable minimum for the game. If you wanna play in HD-resolution you’ll probably need HD4870 or something similar. Hope that Starcraft 2 doesn’t follow this trend.

Final judgement - nothing new, big requirements, poor graphics. I would recommend it only to C&C series fan. The score would be about 6 out of 10.

Just a quick post - I’m not going further into Fallout 3 as I have started over with King’s Bounty. New character class will be Mage - I’m level 3 now with difficulty level Hard (Normal ’s OK for beginning). More to come, as always.

After more than three months of struggle, I’ve complete my journey through Capital Wasteland. The time spent with Fallout 3 was so fun, that I decided to start over just to check what other possibilities are. I will report my progress from second approach, of course.

Speaking of game itself, it’s quite of a gem. At first, I was wondering a bit whether Bethesda ruins Fallout experience (I am die-hard fan of first two Fallouts) - there were lots of response on blogs and forums that F3 is nothing but Oblivion with guns. Yes and no. Indeed, you can sense Oblivion’s spirit, but the engine is tuned to post-nuclear reality just fine. Oblivion was astonishing with it’s candy-ethereal graphics, grass, leaves etc, but in F3 almost everything is dusty, wasted or rotting. This gives amazing sense while walking through ruins of something, what once used to be a great city, but now there are only winds of death blowing slowly.The leveling is dealt with also OK, but could be better.
The developers, sadly, didn’t avoid few bugs.

First of all, the enemies are morons, so to speak. They run purposeless all around, trip on mines, set off their own traps or just run all over the place. The game in 2008 should incoroporate a bit more sophisticated AI than just “run and shoot”, IMHO. Moreover, the enemies sometimes get some weird “speed” - Mutants or Raiders run several times faster than usual.

Second, it occured to me a few times to get stuck between bushes or trees. No further comments required.

Third, I stumbled upon some creatures in places they were not supposed to be at. There is an example of floating Centaur I made some time ago (there were more of those):

At the end, it took me about 68 hours of playing, so it is a lot. I haven’t explored a lot and, to be fair, have cheated with level cap - at the end I was level 22. I join those who say that the players gains XP too quick - that’s the fact. At least set the cap higher - around level 30 or 40.

Overall score - 8,5 out of 10.