Yeah I beat it twice actually, once on hard using the drill specialist tonic that sparky mentioned.

I guess it's just a matter of opinions. Would you kindly agree to disagree? ;)

Of course, mate :beer:

On a different note, my computer died in me a few days ago. 9 out of 10 times, I could get it working again by poking at the various components (:p:), but this time it was more serious. I believe the power box or whatchacallit is what finally broke it. It had been having problems for a while .. For example, if I turned off the computer, I could not turn it on again until I had entirely disconnected power and reconnected. I could either do that by pulling out the power chord and reattach it after some seconds or (more easily) flipping on and off the main power switch on the back of the comp .. The power button in front was not enough.

I should of course have switched the power thing when the problems started, but I didn't and now I believe it's just fried the motherboard. I tried waking it from sleep mode and the power sort of came on and then all the lights dimmed and nothing happened. Ever since, it couldn't boot anything. Not HDs, not CDs, nothing. At least it didn't set the apartment on fire.

It was five years old, but still awesome enough to play all new games and stuff. RIP Berta :(

Hopefully, I'll have the new one here by the end of the week.

What are Berta 2's specs?

She looks like this :

• Intel Core i5-2400 3.1GHz Quad Core, 6MB Smart Cache (Might upgrade in the future, but better CPUs were strangely pricey)
• 8GB DDR3 1600MHz
• nVidia GeForce GTX 560 1GB

If you know anything about motherboards, it's the Intel Z68 chipset. I'm also getting an intel SSD 120GB harddrive for the OS and programs which I'm pretty excited about. I'm looking forward to seeing what kind of startup speeds I can get from that. :)

In the end, it's a pretty moderately priced gaming rig as far as I'm concerned (my old cost a lot more when it was new).

Nice. I just built a rig a few months ago.

i5 2500K @ 4.5 ghz (you can OC to 4.2 on stock voltage)
8gb DDR3 1600
Radeon 5770 (waiting for next gen nvidia cards for upgrade)
64gb SSD Samsung 830
ASRock Extreme3 Gen3 (USB3, PCIE3) Z68 mobo

It runs sorta OK :D

Which SSD are you getting? Intel just released the best SSD ever made in the 520 (sandforce speed + intel reliability).

Nice rig! :)

I'm getting an Intel SSD 320 120GB. The price leap up to 160 GB was pretty significant :p:

120 is more than enough for the OS and all programs and perhaps even a game or two just to see what that's like. I've never used a computer with one of these HDs in them, so I'm really curious to see what it'll be like.

You should have a ton of room to spare. My 64gb has my OS, programs, 25gb of games and 11gb left over. Be sure to turn down your pagefile (I think it will default to 8gb because of your memory), turn off indexing and also turn off windows defrag.

Yeah, I'm pretty stoked about it :) I could be wrong, but I think Windows 7 does not defrag SSD drives so it should be safe to leave settings alone, although I guess making the pagefile smaller is a good way to save some space.

Perhaps, but it's better to be safe. SSDs can only write so many times. It doesn't need to be indexed because access times are so quick anyways.

You're probably right. I'm too paranoid not to make sure it doesn't defrag. It comes with a five years warranty, though, which was more than I expected.

Felt the need to play some old school '90's FPS' so I bought this and this.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi..._Box_Front.jpg

http://profile.ak.fbcdn.net/hprofile...341_3190_n.jpg

starting off with sIn, but I suspect I'll be done with it in a day or two and move onto Blood II: The Chosen. I just found Thief: The Dark Project and Thief 2: The Metal Age on GOG so I think I'll pick those up this weekend.

I'd skip those first two and go straight to the Thief games. sIn wasn't horrible, but it didn't work smoothly the last time I tried it on a modern system (the original was packaged with the 'episode 1' relaunch a few years ago). Basically you reached a point where you needed to be able to unlock a safe or some security door through an in game computer terminal but the dots never connect, so either plan to end it early or brush up on your console commands (noclip will be your friend).

http://cf.shacknews.com/images/20110...17334.nphd.jpg
Good news is I get to play the Beta
Bad news is my computer can't run it :(


also waiting for the Beta to this to start on the 28th

Been playing the SSX Demo all day. It's terrific.
Great Reboot to a Great Series.

Maaan .. It's not out here yet!

I'm really looking forward to it :)

I'm on it. Tricky and SSX3 were sick.

I think SSX 3 is the game I've spent the most time with in one sitting, playing it for 15 hours or so with breaks only to go to the bathroom. :p:

I did everything in that game.

Yea, that game was so cool. With the RPG elements and a whole mountain to explore (I think it took about 30m for a full run).

Somehow I had forgotten about it.

This game is supposed to have something like 153 different drops.

I can't wait for Tuesday.

yeah it's great

i've only went down the entire mountain, though

I started playing Realm of the Mad God yesterday on Steam.

It's retarded, and by retarded I mean freaking amazing in a Rogue / Nethack / bullet hell kind of way. It's still rather laggy when it gets busy but I think that's mainly an issue with user levels, most servers are packed. The game itself is dirt simple, and about as complex as any classic 8-bit adventure game.

Bought Warhammer: 40.000: Space Marine yesterday, it's a fun action game where you turn space orks into space paste using a Thunder Hammer. I heard good things about multiplayer, will have to try it out. Single player has a .. "casual" feel to it, at least on normal.

I've been getting around to other games in the last couple weeks now that Skyrim is finally in the books. Been playing some Red Dead Redemption so far, what a great game it is. You can always count on Rockstar to deliver top of the line games.

Anyone played the zombies DLC for it? I got the GOTY edition which comes with all the DLC and can't wait to play the zombies part, but I'm holding off until I beat the original game.

I mostly play FIFA12 at the moment :)

Definitely play the Zombie DLC after the original game.
Also, the ending of RDR is absolutely fantastic.

just purchased two games online for my original Xbox and Gamecube off of Amazon, cause I never had the chance to play them

http://images.wikia.com/halo/images/..._2_box_art.jpg
http://image.com.com/gamespot/images...2454_front.jpg

was also gonna buy this
http://www.artifolio.com/uploads/a/a...rima/33116.jpg

but it would overall be too much, so i'm just going to hold off on it for a while.

I used to have that splinter cell game on gamecube, its super ****ing hard man watch out.

All of the original Splinter Cells were frustratingly brutal. I think I broke a control over Pandora Tomorrow's last mission.

I love the Splinter Cell games, though. The only one I didnt like much was Double Agent.

The best one was Chaos Theory. I ****ing love that game!

So I've been watching some Mass Effect 3 gameplay videos and correct me if I'm wrong, but it looks like an FPS primarily? :confused:

I was expecting an RPG in the vein of KOTOR and it just doesn't look like one at all. Now I have Mass Effect 1 and will get around to playing it as soon as I can I swear, but does any Mass Effect fan want to describe to me whether it's more RPG or FPS? I loved KOTOR it's probably my favorite original xbox game so I really hope it leans more toward RPG.

It really depends on how you define RPG.

There's way more action in the ME series than in KOTOR though I'd say ME is the ultimate blend of styles. The original game is great but the 2nd is superior. The flow of the story in the first one becomes muddied due to the openness of the presentation. The 2nd one is a lot more streamlined and features a clearer distinction between social / conversational elements and action elements. Generally speaking the flow for each mission in the 2nd game is social / explore / social / action / social, I'm assuming the 3rd will follow suit.

One thing to keep in mind is that ME is not a turn based game. You can pause and issue commands and stuff but it's not like the game stops between every shot so you can re-assess the situation. You don't need to play it like a twitch shooter, you can customize your companion behaviours and personal skills to the point where you should be able to handle most combat without feeling like you're playing Halo or some shooter.

Really though, try the original, just the first 10 minutes / introductory area. It drops you right in the middle of some action with a bit of dialog and just enough of everything to give you a good sample of the different ways you can enjoy the game.

I'd also just like to specify that I won't accept responsibility for the fact that trying ME for 10 minutes will likely stretch into 17 hours. Straight. :thumb:

QFT. Wouldn't have said it better myself.
Just to add, your companion AI is good enough to handle all but the most extreme situations - last playthrough I don't think I issued them more than a handful of orders. I finished both me1 and me2 a couple of months ago so I'd have a good save game to import when ME3 came out, and then my hd died ... Having completed both games at least 2 times, once after they were released and after a longer while, I can safely say they really are a great mix of action and rpg, and all those complaining that this is partially a shooter, not a baldurs gate clone or something, should get a life and ltp.

Everytime I come in here I discover a new game I played as a kid.

I've been dabbling in MW3 right now, I've been visiting my xbox playing mate (I'm a playstation person myself) and I couldn't grasp the controls, after a few lessons I was mediocre. Now I just need my own PS3 so I can play my own games and get better, instead of having someone breathe down my neck during a game.

Hmm well you two have me intrigued, I was a big fan of KOTOR so I'm excited for Mass Effect even if it contains elements of FPS.

You'll be hearing from my lawyer. ;)


Seriously though, sounds awesome. I love the kind of games where you can play 17 hours straight. Will start immediately after Red Dead.

ok with me

http://media.giantbomb.com/uploads/0...over_super.jpg

So I decided that I'm going to try and rebuild my library of Gamecube games I use to actually play a lot when the system was still current. I've already got Metroid Prime, Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem, and now Resident Evil 4. I like how the graphics don't feel outdated and the controls are still as tight as ever, in fact more so than with Resident Evil 5 on the Xbox 360. I am finding myself more spoiled by the far more frequent autosave feature on most current generation gaming so dying in the middle of a large attack only to get warped back to before it even began is incredibly annoying, but given my decision to forgo current generation gaming it's something I'll just have to get use to again I suppose.


Also here's something that's not really related, but aren't the covers of the PAL region games far better than the ones we get in North America? I mean here's probably the best example

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...x-Box-l-jp.jpg

That's the cover for Ico for Europe and Japan, and here's what the one for America looked like...

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...ican_cover.jpg

Yeah that's something I sure would want to play.

The only reason I bring it up is the European cover for Resident Evil 4 looks so much better then the American one, which is often the case with a lot of games and I'm a little curious as to why that is.

It wasn't hard for you?

I'm not sure why it took me so long to beat but it probably had to do with the combination of being shot at from every direction, it being impossible to play the last part stealthily and the final sequence being timed that made it very hard for me. Didn't help that whenever I died it'd teleport me way way back and I'd have to go through 2 more sneaking situations again just to get to the final area.

Yep, both of those covers look way better.

http://i.imgur.com/8DnAD.jpg

Resident Evil, what a game. I think I used to have that on a playstation but my memory is vague, I must've been right young when it was out.