The log of the gamer

That’s my first bench of Vantage - never had Vista before, so once Win7 got onboard, I decided to toy with it for a while. My hardware sucks, I know, but there are more important things to be done than buying new PSU and VGA

Anyhow, enjoy the pure power of GeForce 8500 GT run without any tweaks, so I will re-run after upgrade to 2 GB

I have some time off since I hurt my foot last weekend, so I spent a bit more gaming. This let me finish King’s Bounty at last after about two months of struggle. I liked it very much, though.

Final score was 786, which places me on the third spot. I doubt that it’s possible to achieve much more on Normal skill, because of final score calculation formula. I was level 29 Paladin at the end.

Now the only thing left is to wait for expansion - Armored Princess. The story revealed so far is somewhat simple, but what the heck, if it’s still as playable as the basic version. I hope for more army slots available - had more than a million of gold that couldn’t be spent.

Fallout 3 is a world of its own, as in two previous parts. Bethesda did a really good job and created fantastic mood for the revisited nuclear Wasteland. Although it was feared that porting Fallout to Oblivion-like engine will screw things up, I think they stood up the pressure.

The only thing I can complain is instability of program itself, which results in rather frequent crashing to desktop. The situation got better after my upgrade earlier this month, but still it’s not perfect - I did not play the game without being interrupted for longer than two hours. I wonder if upgrading to 2 gigs will finally solve the problem.

I am currently at level 14 in Rivet City just going after father - the optional quests are literally optional as you can easily reach maximum level going the path told by main storyline. However, it’s so much fun that I can’t give up on them so fast.

Well, made a little fun with King’ Bounty over last weeks. As I mentioned in previous post, I chose Paladin and pressed forward.

Right now, I’m level 19 half way to 20. The game is really addictive, so much that I sometimes want to go to bed, but there is still a quest to complete or enemy to beat. Let me write something about the game itself.

The area in game is simply enormous. First there is human kingdom, which consists of four locations (Greenwort, Arlania, Verlon Forest and Marshan Swamps) and two islands (Eastern and Western Island of Freedom). Then you have land of dwarves with also six locations (Creiston Mines, Upper Hadar, Lower Hadar, Taron Mines, Ardan’s Peaks and Mehgard). And then there is elven kingdom, which I haven’t explored fully, so far I know I’ve been to three locations (can’t remember the names right now).

The difficulty increases slowly but steadily, and there are also massive jumps while entering new continent. The troops you have, which own in human lands, like you Sea Dogs/Archmages/Guardsmen combo, suddenly become weak as you approach the dwarves. Similarly, when you meet the elves with Dwarves/Cyclops/Giants/Canoneers it gets really tough. But once you pass the initial step (first few fights with new enemies) it gets really smooth and easy.

There are two method of cast spells - regular magic and Chest of Rage. While magic works just the same way as in every other game, the Chest of Rage contains four creatures capable of inflicting damage upon enemies. Those creatures are heroes themselves - they have their unique abilities (each Spirit of Rage has four spells), which can be developed as the Spirits gain experience and advance levels. It makes the tactical phase really interesting.

The items are also performing rather originally - first of all, some of them are living - they have their own Morale, which, when drops to zero, makes them go out of control and in order to restore control, the player must fight the item. The upgrade of items is done the same way - if you want to upgrade the item, you have to fight its’ Keepers.

You can also have a family - have a wife, who carries your items, thus making possible to take advantage of more bonuses and finally you can have children, which also benefit to you (+4 to spell book capacity or +10% experience growth). Of course, family is not constant (as in real life hehehe) and you can divorce - your wife leaves, takes children, items, and one fifth of gold. Cruel.

There will be more to come, as I am inclined to complete the game. Maybe it will take another month

I found just a little bit of time to sit in front of computer. It’s been a damn long time since I’ve posted for the last time.

In fact, I really had a little time to do something - Christmas, New Year, new duties at work, graduation, but what the heck? That’s things happened and now I will have some more time for myself to what I really like.

As a proof let me just tell I'’m pushing forward in both Fallout 3 and King’s Bounty, so maybe I’ll try to write about it some other time. Now my eyes are set on Starcraft 2 - as you can see on starcraftwire.net the beta keys give-away has begun. I’d like to play SC2 as soon as possible - it’s settled deep in my mind since 19th May 2007 that I have to upgrade to have full pleasure of playing it. As always, time will tell.

My overclocking nightmare is just gone away. The set of memories, that I bought some time ago - G.Skill 4800LA, which I presumed to be failing, is installed and working.

My DFI NF4 for about half a year was unwilling to cooperate with those mems, which was driving me somewhat crazy - the sticks were bought from the second hand, the previous owner assured me about theit correct operation. Still I was not able to stabilize them.

Then I got a diabolous idea - mix them with 2×256 regular Twinmos sticks (I think they have Powerchips onboard). Mixing G.Skills with Patriot LLK kit was unlucky, so I thought “what the heck”. Imagine the smile on my face…

So now I have 1,5 GB of RAM, probably even a bit faster than Patriots before (233 6-3-3-2,5 2T as opposed to 215 6-3-3-2,5 1T) and it made me think - maybe 2 gigs are possible. I have even spotted a 512 A-Data TCCD stick which will make a pair with mine, so it’s now only waiting for payday

I will post some screens later, maybe some benches as well.

Well, I think that new layout would be good. The current, raw one doesn’t suit well the vivid content I’m trying to create. Maybe later this month there will be some update.

It’s been six days since last post. I had a little work to do around, but most of all King’s Bounty got me into it.

I made it to level 5 with my Paladin and it took me some long hours of fighting Thorns, Dragonflies and Bowmen. The game is simply amazing - someone took a long time to take what’s best from Heroes of Might and Magic and then extend the gameplay, so you can spend limitless hours playing. In addition to what I’ve written recently, let me mention one thing - the music is great. I have it on for some five days, and I like it even more than first time I’ve heard it. It’s not going to go away that easy, I guess

I was about to give Red Alert3 a try, it’s almost a week since I began attempting, but still there’s no sign of any activity in this field. Suddenly, I found another game worth my time instead.

King’s Bounty is beautiful, colorful fantasy game which closely resembles Heroes of Might & Magic to me. Since I was a huge fan of HoM&M3, but had a little disappointment with HoM&M5, no doubt it got attention as soon as I ran it. So much out there is Heroes-style - you’ve got a hero who commands his troops, a hero is loyal to a castle, there are random creatures all over the map, but there is also more to it.

First of all, you’ve got leadership which is based on your hero’s level, banners you currently yield, learn skills and attributes. The more leadership you have, the bigger army you can command. Note that on low levels, you just can’t have a big army.
Second, the advancenment of levels is solved in RPG-style - you have three kinds of runes, which are currency in your development. So there are two restrictions - one is level-based (you have to reach certain level to develop a skill) and second is money-based (you have to have required runes to “buy” a skill). All the abilities form a nice tree, so I guess you can spend a lot of time learning which of the abilities are fine.

Third, while creating your character you select a class you want to play. There are three available now - Warrior, Paladin and Mage, each of them with unique skills, which allows you to suit your game style best and have even more fun.

All of it is served with marvelous, handdrawn, colorful content, which fits fantasy games fine. I like it all a lot - I spent an hour yesterday evening just wandering around, but it makes me crave for more. Excellent change after Fallout’s wasteland.

My recent little match with a friend made me want to improve my railgun skills, so next time there will be total mayhem made by me. I’m so excited… this reminds me old times when we all strived to perform the best we could. I wonder if I still can beat Quake 3 on Nightmare without cheating.