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First Person ShooterMMOStrategyAssassins CreedBioShockCall of Duty 4Command and Conquer 3Civilization 4Company of HeroesCrysisDirtEnemy TerritoryFar Cry 2FearGears of WarGuild WarsHalo 2Lord of the RingsOblivionThe Orange Box S.T.A.L.K.E.R.Starcraft IIUnreal Tournament 3Viva PinataThe WitcherWorld in ConflictGraphics Card (def)InstallationKeeping Clean
Haze for the PC
Stylish Way to Smash Pinata
After purchasing the long awaited Gears of War for the PC you may have noticed some bugs, although the Xbox 360 ran near perfect, the PC version doesn't fair so well in several places of the game. A frustrating problem which has only been accounted for a few parts of the game is getting stuck in some of the levels geometry, you will find yourself having to commit suicide before getting out of the bug. The game has also been known to crash occasionally and online doesn't always work smoothly, but either did the Xbox 360 version. Still an awesome game with enough new content to warrant a successful purchase, including a huge (never before beaten) boss that was left hanging from the Xbox version.
The PS3 has very few games that hold their exclusive nature, with most of their first person shooters/action games show a release on other consoles. Call of Duty 4, Unreal Tournament, and now will the same thing happen to Haze. This new game shows off two sides to a fight and injected powers to improve your battle skills, and seems to have a lot of promise. Interviews with the creators said that it would stay exclusive to the Playstation 3 and would not be released for the Xbox 360, but will it be released for the PC. Not enough is heard about this game that keeps pushing their release date further and further, what we have seen is a fairly straight forward shooter that probably won't do much for the genre, although using your "nectar" powers/using the "nectar" against your enemies seems intriguing it might not drive the PC gamers dollar away from Call of Duty 4 and Crysis.
The current stasis of development hardware used to run the game is unannounced, but we would venture to say that it will be using Radeon X1950PRO
Assassins Creed, was just released but nowhere to be seen on the PC, what is the reason for this, was the game cancelled? The answer is no, it wasn't cancelled, although Ubisoft Montreal has time to change their minds. But the game is playable and ran well from what we saw, and the game will inevitably come out. Assassins Creed production was really concentrated on the Xbox 360 and PS3 so the game is coming a little late for the PC port. Ubisoft won't pass up making more money from the port to PC, even if it wasn't as good as the console versions. Will it be out before the Holidays? Maybe but probably not (is that Vague enough for you?) it took them a while to make GRAW for the PC so it might be the same with Assassins Creed. The game really isn't as great as we were hoping (from what we played of the console versions), but beyond the hype it is still a good game.
Yes, Crysis' sweet ass is here and were loving it, the best looking game yet made is not a disappointment it's superb and the graphics definitely are amazing. But is this a game for everyone? Well we definitely don't recommend this to your 13 year old sister or your mom unless your mom is Chuck Norris, but more specifically how will this game run on different computers and if this is a game that can be played even if you don't have all the expensive hardware. Well amazingly they made this game pretty flexible, although nobody is going to be able to play this without a Nvidia 7800, (Click on the link to check out prices and purchase information). But you can lower the settings in DirectX 9 significantly enough to make the game run fairly well. DirectX 10 is where things get a bit trickier, this game (even with over 2gigs and an 8800GTX), can run like a flip book in the highest settings. Even with our most powerful computers we still had evident slow down, stutters and visible landslides. So even with the graphics card we recommend
(Nvidia 8800GTX) we also recommend using directX 9 settings, if you have Vista you really need to fool around with the settings because its quite a bit harder to run in comparison to DirectX 9. All will payoff soon once you see how this game handles.
For anybody on the fence about buying Crysis without a 8800GTX graphics card, I say there still might be some risk but it surprised us how flexible the settings are, and we still don't recommend Crysis on laptops (sorry portable user) but this game will punish your computer.
The Xbox 360 reject has come to the PC, and unlike Gears of War which had success on both platforms, we anticipate that Viva Pinata will do better on the PC. That's not to say that is will do well, but it move some copies. Which is truly a shame because this game is great, and totally original. The graphics aren't amazing but the style is truly something to see, they make the entire world of Viva Pinata look like paper macha. The gameplay is much more fitting for the computer and its presentation (although a bit kiddie) is why it failed on the Xbox 360. The game isn't about being difficult, but how to attract different Pinatas to your garden and there are hundreds of different ways. The game only requires a
6200
, so most people can afford the graphics card or just run it right now on your computer. We would really hate to see this game not do that well like it did on the Xbox, so you should check it out. Viva Pinata
priced around 35.00 dollars.
Oh Yeah, its on now, two of most recent FPS were here to judge which one we would rather look at. Remember folks if this wasn't purely a competition of visuals and graphics Call of Duty wins hands down, but its going to get a little interesting as we pin pure realism vs. science fiction effects. Call of Duty 4 is the newest addition made by the same people who made Call of Duty 2, it shoots forward about 60 years into modern warfare, giving you a setup that strikes a bit close to the conflicts we share in the world today. TimeShift is a completely different story, you get a fancy garb to wear that makes time stop, reverse, speed up and slow down, causing very interesting firefights and gives you the upper hand against 10 enemies that only want to destroy you. We will decide which has the better visuals and which one is left in the shrapnel.
TimeShift has excellent methods of producing such fantastic visuals, and although some of the time effects can be said to be borrowed from F.E.A.R. we still found that the visual were overall pleasing. The setting is the now classic post apocalyptic look that is shared in other games like Gears of War, Half Life 2, and pretty much half the other first person shooters on the market. These rubble filled worlds of broken buildings and burning cars are getting very popular, but the streets are still very detailed and are engaging none the less. And that isn't to say that this game doesn't have enough variance because you will be fighting in several different settings, like wide open plazas, tree filled areas, and close quartered hallways and rooms. They all look good, but you will probably say to yourself you have seen everything before, and its getting a little annoying that in futuristic games the world always looks like a shit-hole and is hard to believe that with all our technology you are still fighting in buildings that look like they are from 1945. Anybody would be quick to pass up these judgments and keep on shootin.
So the time setting and look are mediocre to good but the time changing effects are great. Slowing down time looks as if you were to dive in clear Jello, maybe a bad example but the whole process looks great, as you run up to enemies and steal their weapons. All the time effects are really neat and will make you want to watch them over and over again. Every action you will want to see slowed down or reversed, seeing somebody launched by an explosive and then reversed to watch him go right back into the same place again never gets old. They really handled everything in this game, even the rubble will fly backwards as you reverse. Weather effects look good as you slow down or stop the rain while its falling, but you might get the impressions that rain wouldn't look like the game shows it in real life. But who cares because were probably never going to see slowed down rain droplets. And the last thing to talk about is the gun models, they look good but the great part about the guns is to see slow motion blood spray on your visor.
Now on to simpler times where slowing down time isn't need as long as you have a sniper rifle and a couple grenades, you could pretty much take out the whole middle east. Yes Call of Duty 4 Modern Warfare, doesn't take place in WWII anymore (finally), making this game different and probably the best one out of the series. There are no fancy effects, no extra hidden powers, its just the same old war shooter but the best looking and playing one so far. Yes, this game may be categorized under "just another shooter," but that can't deny its power over your eyes because this game eats other war shooters for breakfast. Your settings should be familiar with mostly desert areas, and the addition of some helicopter missions and the such. The settings might be considered boring and done before, but they still look great. The textures are amazing, dust is kicked up in the air, and the middle eastern architecture is spot on. A few things still stick out like the mediocre car models and some pixelated grass here and there, but nothing that you couldn't get over with a throw of a grenade.
The character models look realistic, the guns are some of the best I've ever seen, and the shooting is amazing. New additions like being able to shoot through some walls made from certain materials, are small additions but make the game better in a lot of ways. You will be dragged in the action as the first person camera moves perfect and really engages you into the cut scenes. We could babble on and on about this game: The explosions, looking down the scope, night vision, the lighting effects all look awesome and need to be seen for yourself. So go out and buy this game.
This was a no contest winner for Call of Duty 4 Modern Warfare, the game looks great and the overall look beats TimeShift even with the original timeshifting effects. Both games are ran with the Nvidia GeForce 7800, but you can tell which game really utilizes the card better. With every little piece of accenting beauty Call of Duty 4 shines above all war shooters. This isn't to say that its a competitor against Gears of War and Crysis, but it holds its own in the realm of 256MB video cards.
It's the battle of RPG's, but this is not a competition of who can collect the most troll skulls or who can do more damage over time, but which game looks the best. These two RPG's are very different in most ways besides the common rules of what keeps a RPG a strong game. Both game publishers don't have a strong history of good looking games, Atari (Witcher) never made too many games that we ooo and ahh over but this game looks simply fantastic. The same goes with Namco Bandai who has a good reputation with most of their RPGs but never have given us a blockbuster production as good as Hellgate London. And although part of the publishing team of Hellgate was EA, were sure it was probably mostly distribution.
To kick things off I wan't to say that this was a hard choice because the atmosphere/feel of both games are extremely different we still felt it was a fair fight since their release dates are no more than a week of each other. Hellgate is a post apocalyptic setting where (what else is new) you will fight goblins and baddies seen from other genres but hell opened up so bare with me. We didn't expect much variance in the formula even though the setting is drastically different than those knight and castle RPGs, but there is the great difference in large amounts of action that seem to stay away from RPGs.
Overall Hellgate London has a very likable visual aspect and great atmosphere, plus points for a more original time frame and scenario. The repetitive battle actions tires our eyes and leaves little variance between animations (at least with melee weapons. But the gun play can look great, and makes this one of the more action filled action RPGs, the gun models don't look great but good, and the variance of what the guns spit out is destructive and fun. As for the games atmosphere its very good, the Gears of War rubble streets are very pretty and the buildings look realistic, and I think I have seen enough castles and dungeons in other RPGs to kill myself... so if you tire from visual redundancy than this might be your game. The very last thing to talk about is the creatures your going to be fighting, the badguys in this game can make reference to Mortal Kombat 2 (the Movie) and Clive Barker's Jericho, but if you keep those feelings dormant then you might have better luck getting through the monster list.
Witcher has a more formal take on this, and although, formal might sound like a bad thing, the Witcher is superior in gameplay mechanics. Of course that isn't what we are here to talk about though, so how does the Witcher look? The Witcher takes this stale RPG type and makes it shine, the cinematic scenes are gorgeous and lands stretch very far without fogging. Although the in game character models are nothing to talk about the monsters are very well done but sometimes unimaginative. This game will have quite a few fans of the genre listening to "Take My Breathe Away," but for a lot of gamers already indulging themselves in greater graphics they might sing a different tune. The Witcher takes no real creative leaps towards any specific area, the lands, buildings, textures, trees and so on are great but have been done before. Hellgate London maybe doesn't have as much polish but for anyone who loves action RPG's they will find that the visuals of Hellgate are more original and refreshing. Still, we can't stress enough how great some of the areas look, grassy lands and swamps look very real and engaging and give you that surreal feeling of exploration as such games like World of Warcraft gave.
Our conclusion is... we have to give it up to The Witcher, this was an extremely hard choice but it really game down to the power of your graphics card. This doesn't always win us over but the Witcher's visual presence is so strong that we have to take it over Hellgate's more original take on the genre. Both games require Pixel Shader 2.0 and Vertex Shader, but you can run Hellgate London with only a Nvidia 6200 to a 6800, while the Witcher uses a much superior card the SAPPHIRE Radeon X1950PRO Video Card. Power isn't everything but the polish that went into the Witcher can't be overlooked and wins this Visual Versus.
Yes another first person shooter heads down the path of the Nvidia GeForce 7800, this card has been ruling the FPS gaming world demanding that games must be played on card with 256MB. Call of duty will be the best looking military game yet made, with possible competition coming from EA's new Battlefield game. Other specs required on the graphics card for COD4 is a 3.0 shader.
This is very pleasing to hear, especially for graphics whores like us, we truly thought Gears of War would be the last game to include a map editor. But the dream has come true, you can now fully make a level all your own using textures, shapes, lighting, particles and programming to shape a level to your liking. This has to be the most robust map creator we have yet to see, fully utilizing the unreal engine is a wet dream for anybody wanting to get into game development.
What we have seen so far from the editor is extraordinary, they dropped in cars, added random burning fires, and even programmed spawning enemies. They have a easy to use (maybe for people already knowledgeable of the subject) programming system that will let a number of people learn the basics of coding. We don't know how accessibly Unreal Editor is to the public but Epic sounded very open.
The whole review and informative look on games under the influence of this powerhouse card. Unreal Tournament 3, Crysis, and more. VR Zone's 8800GT Review
Dive right into this soap opera of video game development, this three parter goes through the making and development of Time Shift a new and upcoming PC game that derives it's gameplay from influencing time. Rearrange the laws of time to shoot your way to victory in this FPS, and the game is developing a interesting way to play multiplayer. You could hear it from us or just watch the videos.
The new RPG game (built from a Bioware engine), is called the Witcher. This game has a MMO like game style which can justified by deeper gameplay and graphical style. Recently the System requirements were released showing high marks, or at least higher than we expected requiring the
SAPPHIRE Radeon X1950PRO Video Card and 2GB of Ram. This will make the Witcher one of the more graphically beautiful games in the RPG genre coming out this year. This game is made by Atari and we hope they didn't screw this game up and make the game elements as good as the visuals are for the most part.
Here they are Unreal fans, the official announced Unreal Tournament 3 System requirements. And let me just say that this is a game that wouldn't hurt to push the graphical limits, because its a great looking first person shooter.
Minimum Requirements:
Windows XP SP2 or Windows Vista
2.0+ GHZ Single Core Processor
512 Mbytes of System RAM
NVIDIA 6200+ or ATI Radeon 9600+ Video Card
8 GB of Free Hard Drive Space
Recommended Requirements:
2.4+ GHZ Dual Core Processor
1 GBytes of System RAM
NVIDIA 7800GTX+ or ATI x1300+ Video Card
8 GB of Free Hard Drive Space
If you still haven't upgraded for this game yet you are going to need the Nvidia 7800GTX which is a spectacular video card and wont treat you wrong. To go further into detail about the game developers "Epic," they created the much used Unreal Engine. This engine is used in a variety of games and has to be one of the most detailed and realistic engines out there. The newest addition is no different, the unreal engine 3 has made made Gears of War and Unreal Tournament 3 which so far are two of the best looking games ever created. We have two large devils on their way: Gears of War (hopeful), and Crysis. With all the talk directed towards the hardware needed to run these games, laptop gamers are wandering if they can play these upcoming beasts without getting a new laptop. Depending on what kind of laptop you are using, you might be able to upgrade the RAM and Graphics card, but it is a pretty slim chance that Crysis or Gears will look decent on your system if it is just a common laptop, and might have severe problems with online play. The true nature of a laptop is to give you ultimate mobility and screw you out of everything else, laptops are more expensive than desktops and they cost more.
The solution to your problem is cross your fingers and hope you have a upgradeable laptop to add on to, if you don't you can always just shoot for an Aurora m9700 or Area-51® m5550. Depending on what your price range is you can spend from 1,000 to 2,000 bones on a new one. But if you can, try to Upgrade your Video Card at Newegg.com.
Yes the permanent sale of 5 games for 12 dollars each, that is of course if you get the package the Orange Box. Check Out the Orange Box page to find out what system requirements and video card you need to play these five games. As far as our quick review goes, its one of the best deals I have lived to see. This is an easy choice made by PC owners to receive 5 games: Portal, Team Fortress 2, Half Life 2, Half Life 2 episode 1, Half Life 2 episode 2 for a cheap price of around 60 bones. Half Life Episode 2 maybe won't have the impact of the first two, but is considerably the best one so far. The story still soars above other games and the fire fights are still well implemented. Team Fortress is of course one of the best class based FPS to come out so far, and Portal is composed of a mix of very complicated yet very simple gameplay.
To state any prolonging troubles I had with the games, I felt that 6 maps in team fortress was too few, although downloadable content is on its way, it would have still been nice to get 10 on the release day. Portal was probably the biggest disappointment, congruently based on its length. Portal can be finished in a matter of hours and leaves very little replayability, the humor and gameplay are great, and whole concept is spectacular. You might not be able to put it down until you beat it, but you will still be yearning for a sequel with more of a story and a play time as long as Half Life.
Overall one of the best gaming packages of the year and the decade, and an easy decision to upgrade your graphics card to play.
Crysis System Requirements Announced
Posted 10/9/07
It's official, we got the new Crysis specs in and... No surprise. Crysis will require the superb graphics card and lead the way to PC upgrades.
Posted 10/9/07
Recommended System Requirements
OS - Windows XP / Vista
Processor - Intel Core 2 DUO @ 2.2GHz or AMD Athlon 64 X2 4400+
Memory - 2.0 GB RAM
GPU - NVIDIA GeForce 8800 GTS/640 or similar
Minimum System Requirements
OS - Windows XP or Windows Vista
Processor - 2.8 GHz or faster (XP) or 3.2 GHz or faster* (Vista)
Memory - 1.0 GB RAM (XP) or 1.5 GB RAM (Vista)
Video Card -256 MB**
Hard Drive - 12GB
Sound Card - DirectX 9.0c compatible
Possibly the best package deal the PC world has ever seen, the constant re-releases of Half Life 2 are finally made up for in this 5 part game package. We are here to give the top 5 reasons why the Orange Box is got us very excited, and why it is a true competitor for best PC game of the year along with Crysis. I am already getting goose bumps just talking about it so lets jump right into the count down.
- NUMBER 5: Lets start with the obvious this isn't just a game... its 5 freaking games! That of which is a totally new IP. There are times when we take our 50 dollar game home just for the multiplayer experience, or for the very short single player, and at the end of our 5 hours with the game we felt lost... and our pants are exactly 50 dollars lighter. The Orange box says "screw all that were putting it in one package," a FPS puzzler, a one-of-a-kind arena shooter, and a FPS with possibly the best FPS story line of all time. Your pants should be just as light until you crap yourself from this deal.
NUMBER 4:The design of every game is so well implemented that you will love every detail of these three game genres. Half Life 2 doesn't present the best graphics or technology but the presentation is great with some of the best voice acting ever heard in a game. Team Fortress 2 has picked up a new style giving the sorta cartoon like cell shading, which really only leaves room for gameplay and can be appealing to any age. This package probably won't make any one run out their seat to buy a new graphics card, which is a great thing since the game can be played on most computers.
- NUMBER 3:A brand new IP called Portal, that has really bent the way we thought about games. This game is so strangely innovative that for the longest time we didn't know what we were watching. A game that consist entirely of making portals with a "Gravity Gun" looking device you shoot portals into walls and design the designation in which you land. The puzzles are confusing, and make very good use of physics especially the use of momentum. Just remember "There is no spoon."
NUMBER 2:The beta. Yes the long play test we had with Team Fortress 2 was only a realization of how much we wanted to play it more. We found ourselves constantly saying I should have got better with the 'Spy' or I wish I played with the 'Soldier' more. You should get our point, were still excited to play it for another 100 hours.
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NUMBER 1:We are one step closer to ending the universe that is Half Life, we have already received several of the best FPS' ever made and we can't wait to see what is in store next. Our number one is the Half Life 2 story, if you have played any of the games you know that these games are quite exquisite when it comes to story-lines and for anybody who hasn't played the games yet you will receive the three part dose of Half Life which will blow your mind.
C'mon everybody is doing it, if you haven't already got enough Halo 3 media shoved in your face by now were here to do some more shoving. Recently the Xbox classic first person shooter Halo 2 came to the PC, not offering to much to gamers since the game was fairly old but still a worthy effort. The game is a port that offers barely any new content (but some), and still showed to be pretty fun online, the game doesn't compare to a lot of the new experiences you can have in FPS' lately, but still is pretty solid. So this new game comes out sweeping the nation, the must have game of 2007 and what do we think of it?
What do we think of Halo 3? Well we deliberated and we have the verdict: Halo 3 is Mediocre, we say this after playing the beta, hearing the hype, and having to deal with so many fanboys. The games campaign mode is nothing to write home about, it's nothing innovative and doesn't offer anything that other FPS' don't do. The story is quite badly told (not that we didn't expect this, since we played the other ones), and action is very boring. Vehicles are superb in the campaign which will be the most fun you will probably have in the single player mode. The graphics do look very nice and have a nice quality to them, but none of the environments are descructible which is a must have in any shooter, and the character models look very last gen. As for the multiplayer? Buy Halo 2 and add some new guns and vehicles.. you have yourself Halo 3, it kept our attention moderately well but it didn't have any longevity when you are not with your friends. If anybody played Halo 2 they will only laugh so many more times at someone being launched by a frag grenade.
We pretty much scaled the cons now for the pros. Bungie really out did themselves with the extras in this game, there are new features that are worth checking out. The replay function is incredible and adds a lot of depth to the game, the map editor called the Forge adds some variance to the way the levels are played and lets you mess around with a lot of the possibilities. Finally the gameplay is very solid, the control scheme is very fitting and is still the best first person shooter controls on the Xbox 360.
We like the Halo franchise very much, and this is a worthy sequel but it is not worthy enough to be called the best game of the year. And if you have never played a Halo game, the game might not do anything for you, but offer some pretty solid multiplayer. And finally, our predictions are that Crysis will be much more worth your money in the array of shooters.
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Other Gamer Sites: IGN.com | PCPodcast | Gametrailers | PCGamer | GameSpot | 1up | FilePlanet