Be Excellent To Each Other

See, I'd have felt bad and cheap by paying just a penny for World of Goo. Although 5 dorrah that I did pay seems to be too much as I don't really like the game.

i paid 5€ sometime ago on steam and i don't regret. It's brilliant, and i usually don't like puzzle games.

Homer: "Well good luck, Lady! You'll need it! HA HA HA!"

*Dustin Hoffman frowns*

Mirrors edge finally fucking downloaded (COH still has 50 hours left: woohoo.) So I played that. Pretty good, but I didn't really want to shoot anyone and disarming every single guy is a right pain.

I played a demo before and didn't really like it, and unsuprisingly I don't really like the full game either.

See, you can run past most guys, but not all of them. I think the sequel could be excellent if the gunplay and melee combat is A) Better, and B) Even less mandatory.

Installing Neo Tokyo now. I shall report my findings

http://www.neotokyohq.com/gameinfo.html

Install it peeps, it's multiplayer.

I got Deadspace, Mercenaries 2 and Mirrors Edge for free from the EA download store.

After my "theft" my conscience troubled me so I went back and bought another 5 games for £9.95.

I have lots to keep me busy now.

Wilco.

Got Empire Total War in the end, played a fair bit last night. I think I'm half way through the 'Road to Independance' campaign so far. Impressions:

Hurrahs!

Graphics are utterly lush with everything maxed out, sometimes looks as if I'm watching Last of the Mohicans.
I love the sound cannon fire makes when wooshing overhead - highly accurate, the sound of tearing canvas.
Lining up units to volley fire is fun.
I do indeed love the period.
Naval battles are tricky, which is a relief. Lost the only one I've attempted by a fair bit - this pleases me.
Everything seems stable and works as it should.
Got charged on the flank by sneak cavalry, pleasant surprise.
Road to Independance campaign nicely scripted and atmospheric.

Bahs!

When the enemy are hemmed in inside a small fort system and you've taken the walls and outer courtyard, AI really should surrender to stop all that tedious mopping up.
Ctrl-W = withdraw unit. W = move camera forward. Ctrl = lots of other comand shortcuts. I accidently retreated my entire army when it was winning owing to this stupid combo, and couldn't halt their flight. Argh! Thanks, C.A.
Land battles still a little too easy.
Combat animation is awesome, just wish those not directly involved made more use of the 'ready for action' stance rather than the absurd 'parade' stance.
Gregorian chant for the campaign map? WTF? A hangover from Medieval? Lazy, C.A, very lazy. Where's our Correlli, Mozart*, Bach and Boccherini?
Ugh, fort assaults. Fun at first, then the mini-campaign makes you do the same thing several times.

Overall verdict:

Fun, despite griping. Will take me longer to get a better handle on it. Still got a nagging feeling that the very first one, Shogun, was the best though.

[* Edit: Of course, Mozart didn't come along until the 1780's and didn't acquire popularity until well into the 19th, so scratch that one. /Music Librarian Hat.]

Any problems with loading time, as that was my major gripe with t'demo?

Nope, with 3 gigs of ram battlemaps load in about forty seconds on mine. Campaign maps sometimes think for up to a minute between the odd turn, but that's quite rare - every half hour.

Im fairly sure you dont need a paypal account, you can just pay using your debit card, thats what I did.

I first donated 1 cent to see if it worked and it did, so I then donated a couple of extra dollars cos I quite like the game.

Yes, but how do you know where to run to?
I ran past most people, but there are some bits that are quite difficult and require many play throughs, whereas I could just have done it in one by shooting. I don't even get achievements on the PC

Also: it seemed to end rather abrustly. Did they run out of money/time or something? "Quick! Just put in a bit with a helicopter and end it"

I found myself just auto-battling those. CBA doing them. Infact, after a while I was auto-battling everything but the Navy.

Additionally, I found the mini-campaign terrible compared to a main, unrestricted one.

If you struggle to now where to run, make sure you have runners vision turned on. It's not perfect, but it helps.

There is only like 2/3 places where you are forced to fight guys. I would have liked it if I could complete the game without firing a single bullet (not possible) and without touching anyone else (also not possible).

Yeah, the ending (and story in general) were kind of naff, but I wasn't really playing it for those.

I loved the ending. No fucking drawn out boss fight, no drawn out outro sequence. Just what I wanted.

Basically, the game has a few flaws, but none of them matter when you are running fast, but any moment where the game makes you slow down, the flaws become more apparent.

I can't remember that, but the game's about due another playthrough anyway.

Also, I need to get round to beating the smile off Grim...'s face on the time trials

Shooting the van doesn't count as shooting an enemy for the achievement, IIRC.

No, it doesn't. It does mean it is impossible to complete the game without firing a gun.

Just bought World of Goo for a pal. The URL it redirects you to once you buy it amused me.

Still playing Empire: Total War, the Road to Independance campaign. Having fun, had an apocalyptic battle which was pure honey on the eyes.*

However...

AI is incredibly stupid. Continuous dithering by the enemy units on land with no clue what to do. It seems to enjoy dribbling its forces into the gaping maw of my massed musketry, and then jogging up and down as if practicing particularily tricky new boy-band beat-combo dance moves. I hope this is just the 'intro for retards' Independance campaign, because if it isn't I expect to find it getting old fast. Plus it doesn't know how to deploy cannon for toffee.

On the other hand, watching the enemy come down the hill towards the bay of Quebec where my ships were anchored and my redcoats waiting, and then seeing my cannon batteries open fire sending a dozen balls at a time wooshing over and skipping through their massed ranks, whilst the sun set and heroic but doomed charges of enemy cavalry ran into the rippling flash of my musket lines - well, it looked bloody brilliant.

Shame the enemy general was a complete idiot who didn't line 'em up and send 'em down at me en masse, or force me to ascend the hill towards him.

Expect a review in a week.

*Ahh! My eyes mamma! Bees are attacking my eyes!

Why didn't anyone tell me about World of Goo sooner?!? It's great!!!!

Dunno. Happy Birthday!

Thank you! I don't think anyone else has noticed...

It stays terrible through the whole game.

Risen so far seem like the best RPG since Bloodlines. Still, it's to early and Gothic 2 lost a lot of its steam later on. But the game also looks absolutely gorgeous. By far the best looking RPG ever

Wasn't quite sure where to put this. Was going to dig up the Alienware deals thread but figured it would be better suited here.

Now I know there are lots of people here that don't like Alienware, and that's fairy muff. However, this deal is pretty darn good even if you don't tbh.

Recently you would have seen me going on about Alienware's new TACTX keyboard and mouse. The keyboard has the full active lighting and all of the functions of a top gaming keyboard. It's also fully (properly) backlit. Problem was the price. In the USA they were $99. Here they were £110 on release and then shipping on top (£20 or so for DHL). It came down to £80 odd plus shipping when it all went on Dell's site (when the new pcs released) but the shipping brought it up to £100 still.

Any way, yesterday my cousin Ade came over and we were talking PCs (he works in IT, IT? what the fuck's IT?) and I went to Dell to show him the new Alienwares..

Then I saw this -



Further investigation showed it was definitely for real. Now that's what I paid for my Saitek but the Saitek has small keys and I'm used to bigger ones having always used Microsoft boards. I'm also fed up I can only make 4 colours with the lights and that one I can make TEN MILLION COLOURS ! (puts pinky finger to side of mouth).

Any way, I said no about two thousand times because of the Saitek costing me almost that and Ade went off home..

Just got a phone call and he's brought me one for Christmas.. Awww

Any way, as gay as the lighting may or may not be that's one hell of a gaming board for the cash. It's actually cheaper than the low end Razer efforts and infinitely nicer. So I thought I would give the heads up to those that have Alienwares, and those that may want a good solid gaming board.

More info here -

http://accessories.euro.dell.com/sna/pr ... =580-15794

And, just incase you think old JC gets too excited over crap like this (and hey, I admit I do) then you may be interested in a second opinion. It fared very well in reviews and that was at the full price of $99. Also consider the mouse, because it's Logitech's finest apparently, and that is supposedly a very good thing indeed

http://www.driverheaven.net/reviews.php?reviewid=838

What's the difference between a "gaming keyboard" and a "keyboard"?

£50 LOLZ

You can't play games on a normal keyboard. Oh wait…

The W, A S & D keys are made out of diamond to prevent wear.

Yup, really cheap for a good gaming board.

http://www.google.co.uk/products/catalo ... sa=title#p

http://www.google.co.uk/products/catalo ... sa=title#p

http://www.play.com/PC/PCs/4-/5348337/R ... eripherals

http://www.eclipsecomputers.com/product ... S-7G&af=50

http://www.cclonline.com/product-info.a ... tid=frooct

Mal. They're programmable, macros, harder wearing keys, backlit etc etc.

I hate WASD. ESDF is much better: more keys to the left if you need them, and most keyboards have a little raised bit on the F key to find it without looking.

Woo, nerds.

Does anyone know anything about making psysx run on an Ati card?

Doc posted some very interesting facts on this recently.. Maybe he can remember where?

I'm concered, JC. If I buy this gaming keyboard, will I still be able to write my novels on it? Or will my main characters for example start spewing gaming smack talk? 'It is a truth universally acknowledged that a single l33t sn1puz is in want of a EPIXl00t wtf raiddrop lulz haxor fag ssdssdddssssadsadsaddassdwawedsdasd !!!!!'

My Saitek has done just fine Pete. I just don't like the fact that the keys are as small as they are, or that the entire key symbol & all doesn't light. You usually find that gaming keyboards are larger and designed with comfort in mind.

"harder wearing keys"?

I'm fairly sure a secretary hitting a keyboard 149,000 times a day doesn't need a "gaming keyboard".

And I'm fairly sure the 360 doesn't need supertastic wireless controllers. But it has them because people wanted them.

Nothing first hand. Google suggests it's possible with some driver monkery.

Cursor keys for me. Plenty of keys all around them and easy to find.

If you're really bored:


When I used to play Counter Strike a lot I had every key on my keyboard mapped. I still go for them if I play CS now, and normally get shot to bits when they do nothing.

I can see the logic, but unless you mouse left-handed I'd suggest something on the left hand side of the keyboard would be more comfortable. Unless you've room to move the whole keyboard I suppose.

There's a massive gap around the cursor keys on my keyboard, and two of the most prominent keys are modifiers (shift and Ctrl) so are useless.

In WoW, I had every spell mapped to a key or mouse click, while always being able to retain movement control, and never having to look downward. That was a fuck-tonne of skills to map.

I could use my cursors if I wanted to. I have my keyboard and mouse set up with an upstairs downstairs arrangement with the mouse sitting directly above the keyboard tray in the center of my desk. If I had my old configuration with the mouse off to the side of the keyboard though then it would be really tricky. I remember playing the original Half Life like that and I had to be a good contortionist to get comfy

Modifiers work fine as normal keys. And yes, I do move the keyboard to the left.

I just positioned myself to see how I could do that actually

I had to move left because my keyboard fills up the entire tray its on.

I think I am going to build a desk in the spring. Proper big wall mounted affair with cupboards and all. This glass is a git to keep clean, and when it's not sparkling it looks awful.