Fan favourites that no one will remember when something better comes alo…ooohh look! Something shiny.

We have all started to use the word memorable to mean fun or enjoyable. I’ve been slapped by a woman before and it was neither fun nor enjoyable but it was pretty memorable.

This is the distinction I’m making. Memorable does not mean good or fun, it doesn’t even mean intense or shocking. It’s far more personal than that. What is memorable to one person might be completely forgettable to another.

What we find memorable is what touches us. Something about the world, story or gameplay somehow becomes linked with powerful emotion. Certain songs remind me of ex-girlfriends, some books are so vivid in my memory I still can’t believe they aren’t real, and some games I will remember forever.

Bioshock, Call of Duty 4, Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood. The first is a masterpiece, the second is arguable the first game to ever seriously grab you by the scrotum and pull you on a wild globe-trotting adventure so spectacular you’re left almost feeling sexually satisfied, but what about the third? Releasing to positive but not spectacular reviews, why do I lump that piece of coal in with those other gems? It’s personal. The game lets you choose which of the two brothers to play as and their interactions and dynamic were so similar to my own relationship with my brother that I genuinely loved the characters. I will remember them forever and I cannot defend the game as anything more than good. Memorable is personal.

Last week I wrote an article on 5 Games We’ll Remember In 20 Years. Those were the select few games from the last year or so that gave experiences that lead to a profound feeling of inner growth. They all had those “OMG!!” moments but what made them special was what you got left with afterwards.

The games on this list are the one night stands. Fun, special, one hell of a good time, and they make you smile when you think about them but I won’t remember them when their sequels release or bigger things come along.

I’m not speaking about recollection. Any normal person who has their morning coffee without whisky and leaves cocaine on toast only for special occasions will hopefully be able to recollect most of the good games they’ve played. They should even have some fond memories and when the ice caps melt, our grandchildren are plentiful and Half Life 3 is a folk legend, we should still be able to do a healthy bit of reminiscing while sitting in a nuclear-powered rocking chair, but they won’t make us fall silent. In our private moments we won’t suddenly remember them and get a warm sensation in our bellies.

5 games from the last 24 months that took the world by storm but that I won’t remember come the sunshine. These games burn bright and fiercely but when I put the down the controller, once the initial awe and excitement has died down, I’m left satisfied but I’m not in love.
 
 

5. Call of Duty. Anything After 4.

This may seem obvious but it’s being said anyway. This is the epitome of what I’m talking about here. Fun, well made and maybe even awe-inspiring, until the sequel comes along. These games are fast food, cheap wine and the easy, drunk chick at the party.

There’s fun to be had and lots of it too, but these game won’t stick with me. I barely understand their stories and the action starts to meld together into one big ‘splosion of Scottish, bearded, magnificent mustached, action.

I’ll probably continue to play them every year. The same way I’ll watch the new Transformers movies.

Pretty things and things that go boom.

Not everything has to be profound and that’s completely fine.

I love Blue Mountain State – who doesn’t?
 
 

4. Batman: Arkham City

Yes, I know – this was an outstanding game. Certainly the best Batman experience you can have short of actually eating gravel and becoming Batman.

Fluid, well designed combat, fun gadgets and even a memorable story.

Nothing new enough.

After Arkham Asylum swept me off my feet Arkham City was going to have to work really hard to impress me. It did to an extent but the problems start right at the conceptual level.

Arkham Asylum but bigger and more open world. If the game wasn’t so big and fleshed out this could have passed for an expansion.

As it stands, I remember the feeling I got when I first ran around feeling like Batman – in Arkham Asylum. Now I have a lot of fun but this just feels like an expanded game without any serious innovation or hooks to make me remember Arkham City over Asylum.

Rocksteady are talented developers and I’m excited for whatever they do next.

I’ll remember the first time I silently took out a room of thugs using my bad-assery. It was in Arkham Asylum.
 
 

3. Assassin’s Creed: Revelations

I know I’m not alone here. In fact my distinguished colleague wrote an entire article on why the Assassin’s Creed franchise has become that weird slightly over 40 woman at the teenage party.

In fact I’m going to quote him directly and link to his article because there is nothing left to say that he hasn’t already said.

Firstly, and amongst the biggest issues with the game, is that it showed me how exhausted the gameplay was. With barely anything worth writing home about added to the game, and an identical formula to its predecessors, Revelations couldn’t bring back the excitement of past games. Variety was a lot less, and things like the renovating system and slow pace often made playing it a serious chore. The game relied heavily on its previous successes, and failed to really build from its predecessors in any significant way.

Azhar’s Full Article. Go read it and then send a letter to Ubisoft.
 
 
Find the next two entries on the following page.

Grotesque Tactics 2: Dungeons & Donuts is a satirical turn-based RPG from developer Headup Games. The game parodies the RPG genre with all its frills and steel plated armour. Any game is fair play from the popular Pokemon series to the Baldur’s Gate series, to the Diablo series, to nearly every conceivable dungeon crawler that has sufficient tropes on display.

The story follows that the game’s fantasy world is in grave danger and it is up to the main protagonist Drake, who suffers from hero’s amnesia, to form a guild and take on enemy forces. He meets a range of characters along his journey beginning with the introduction of the Holy Avatar guild led by the charismatic Holy Avatar, and followed by his dedicated maidens. From then on, you begin to explore the vast network of dungeons and meet new party members along the way.

Gameplay in Grotesque Tactics 2 is very basic and derivative of the genre. The battle system can be likened to games in the Might & Magic series, King’s Bounty series interspersed with dungeon crawling elements. Essentially, you move your characters along a grid-like system of spaces, like a chessboard, and can choose to attack enemies with magic or physical attacks. As such, characters in your party can travel along a select number of spaces. From there, you can initiate either an attack with a character, or even assume a defensive postion if your reach is limited.

Depending on where you position party members within the grid the amount of damage you inflict is relative. So if you attack an enemy from behind, such as a Blob or goblin, damage inflicted will be relatively higher than if you attacked from the front. Characters have both a normal attack available and a special attack which costs mana, and upgrading your talent trees becomes useful in powering up attacks. The same can be said of spells and magic in general. Critically, you have to be careful with the choices and decisions you make because if your strategy is at all faulty you’ll suffer against higher level monsters and enemies. Picking roles for your characters such as a designated attacker, healer and defender are all an essential part of how you define a good party in Grotesque Tactics 2. Yet, this type of battle system has been done to death and Grotesque Tactics 2 does nothing new with combat. It ends up feeling like a rehash of a rehash and after a while the game becomes boring, and repetitive.

Aesthetically, the game’s visuals are somewhat dated and feel lack lustre when compared to other Indie RPGs on the market. The game does indeed have a definitive visual style which is appropriate for the humorous undertone present in the game. But a limited number of stock animations in character models tarnish the overall package.

In terms of sound design, the game has a forgettable soundtrack. However, excellent voice acting especially within the main cast of characters brings to life the somewhat likable characters and doesn’t dull the total experience.

Subsequently, this doesn’t save Grotesque Tactics 2 from being an average RPG title which whilst funny in parts isn’t fully realised. The game at times feels directionless and doesn’t have enough depth. I understand it’s not a serious title. Nevertheless, for the price I was expecting a funnier game. Sadly it doesn’t fit the bill.

It’s recently been Kinect’s birthday, and because it usually goes that we benefit from other big companies’ parties, Microsoft is celebrating this with some announcements for PC gamers.

Starting with Kinect for Windows, the official and commercial development tool kit is scheduled to be released in early 2012.

Microsoft has also announced the release of the SDK 2, for all those who have already been playing around with Kinect on PC. According to MS, it’s been more than a few.

“Currently, we have more than 200 companies taking part in our pilot program,” said Craig Eisler, general manager of Kinect for Windows.

“They are telling us how Kinect for Windows will help them transform their products, their processes, their brands, and their businesses. Putting the power of Kinect + Windows into the hands of business leaders and technical visionaries will give them the tools they need to develop novel solutions for everything from training employees to visualizing data, from configuring a car to managing an assembly line.”

Eisler claims that the newest software upgrade will do its duty in improving Kinect’s motion-tracking abilities, “including faster skeletal tracking, better accuracy rate when it comes to skeletal tracking and joint recognition, and the ability to plug and unplug your Kinect without losing work/productivity”.

If you’re interested to know more, you can go all clicky on the link below, or you can download the new SDK here.

Valve Boss Gabe Newell spoke up for PC gaming and its patrons in the latest issue of PC Gamer UK saying that gaming PC’s are “great value for money” and allow gamers to “have the one they like”.

But wait, there’s more:

“People like their PCs. There are huge numbers of them and each person gets to have the one that they like rather than the one that someone else has defined for them.

“There were 350 million PCs sold last year so the economies of scale are tremendous so you get great value for money.”

In the same interview Newell claimed that Steam isn’t in the gaming industry for money, telling the mag he simply enjoys working with ‘good people’.

“For me, it’s always been about opportunities to work with people I really like and respect. And to build stuff. In that sense, as Valve has been more successful, it’s brought in an even more talented and stronger group of people for all of us.”

I think it’s pretty clear that PC gamers still matter to Valve and in an industry where the cultivated benchmark is to ostracise PC gamers and throw them half-assed ports, it’s good to know that people like those at Valve and Volition Inc, who value PC gaming and put effort into it, still exist.

Proun is a Dutch made indie game unlike anything you’ve seen or played before. It is free. It is fun. There is no good reason why you should not give it a try.

eGamer Rating

Addictive: Not really, unless you’re the obsessive type.

Worth The Time: Of course. Go and download it now.

Things Loved: The art style. The music. The fun.

Things Hated: There are only four tracks available, and an extra one if you decide to pay something for the game.

Reasons To Buy/Not Buy: There is no reason you should not download this game as soon as possible. Do you not like fun?

Conclusion: Proun is an excursion into the abstract world of geometry and reaction times. Play it if you like pretty visuals, play it if you like indie developers, play it you like fun. Just go play it already.

Title: Proun
Genre: Racer/Acid trip at a Picasso exhibition to the smooth sounds of Saint Germain.
Developer: Joost Van Dongen
Publisher: Independant
Players: 1-4 (split screen)
Platforms: PC (Windows XP, Vista and 7)
Reviewed On: PC (Windows 7)

3... 2... 1... go!

A game recently came to my attention called Proun. It is made by a Dutch indie developer called Joost Van Dongen. Being the hip guy that he is, Joost decided to make his game completely free. That’s right folks, completely free. Joost has however provided the option to give him any money you feel he deserves for making this cool game. I say it’s a cool game because that’s exactly what it is. This game couldn’t be any cooler if it had those thick, black framed glasses all the snazzy teens are wearing these days.

Proun is made of one part Picasso, one part velvety-smooth jazz and one part Star Wars Pod-Racer. I can’t remember a time when I enjoyed not blinking at my computer screen for an hour so much. Proun is a racing game that pits you, the illustrious white-ball, against the devilish red-ball and the green, blue and yellow ones (damn you red-ball). You see the white-ball speeding along a tube that runs along various geometric and abstractly shaped obstacles. The goal of course: to avoid those obstacles and achieve and awesome time. But to simply call Proun a racer would be, I think, an injustice. Proun is not only genre defying it is genre defining. Proun is a pixel administered acid trip.

Picasso's "Nude and Still Life". Yeah, I don't see it either.

You need to press only a few keys in Proun. Press enter on the executable to run the game. Press enter again to start a new game. Press the up arrow key to get the ball rolling and press the left and right arrow key to dodge stuff. Proun even recognized my USB corded PS3 controller without a hitch. Although it did need re-mapping as the default gamepad setup just doesn’t make any sense. It’s still very simple and easy to get into. That being said it doesn’t offer much in the long run. It’s great to challenge your friends and see how they match up with your times. So in this respect it is good for a bit of light hearted competition. You can also go head to head with up to three other people on one computer as Proun support up to 4-player split screen. When you play solo your score is uploaded onto the Proun leader-boards so you can see just how crazy and obsessive some people are, I’m not jealous and bitter I promise. Okay maybe just a little.

There are also two (at the time of writing) user-made tracks available from the website to download for free. So you can expect Proun to only get better the more people get interested in it. Van Dongen has made a very user friendly product and the user-made tracks are a breeze to install. Proun also has very modest system requirements. Whilst there are no official specs listed on the site, Proun only requires a DirectX 9 capable card. So none of that fancy hardware tesselation and newfangled Ubersampling. On my mid-to-high end machine Proun ran at a constant 60 frames per second (at which it is limited) at full HD resolution with 8 x antialiasing.

Zoom!

If you’re still reading this conclusion that means I have either yet to sway you about this how spectacularly cool this game, you are at school/work and will have to wait until you get home (my deepest sympathies) or you just like reading game reviews. Proun is a classy game made a classy developer and there is no reason you should not be playing this game very soon. Who knows maybe your name will up on those leader boards in the neat future. If you are still in the mood for some reading have a look at eGamer’s very own Adam’s recent column on indie games and why they matter.

Trippy

In case you missed the link to Proun’s website click me!

In a world where most developer’s are saying that PC gaming is dead and doing everything they possibly can to combat piracy, the developers of saints Row 3 are welcoming it and making the PC versions of their games awesome.

Volition, the studio behind Saints Row: The Third and Red Faction: Armageddon is still intent on making great games for PC without worrying about the piracy that plagues the platform.

“I don’t think [piracy] is something at the forefront for us,” Volition studio manager Eric Barker tells Eurogamer. “First and foremost, we want to make sure we’re making a game people would want to pirate.”

What of the general claims that PC gaming is dying? “We definitely believe PC games are great and if they’re done right and done well by a studio, they’re phenomenal.”

Barker also hailed the upcoming Red Faction game as ”beautiful” on PC.

My new role model; this man is a genius, a beacon of common sense in an industry filled with Bush-mentality.

The Crytek boss is back praising the PC. Cevat Yerli said this time round that Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 developers are holding back on game quality for the PC. Yerli firmly believes that PC is a generation ahead of consoles.

Yerli admits that his own studio, Crytek, is being limited by Sony and Microsoft and that’s why they are developing games with mediocrity for the PC.

“As long as the current console generation exists and as long as we keep pushing the PC as well, the more difficult it will be to really get the benefit of both,” said Yerli.

“PC is easily a generation ahead right now. With 360 and PS3, we believe the quality of the games beyond Crysis 2 and other CryEngine developments will be pretty much limited to what their creative expressions is, what the content is. You won’t be able to squeeze more juice from these rocks.”

According to Yerli, games which do not reach full potential on PC can be blamed on consoles.

“I generally think it’s still developers’ mentality [that is to blame],” he said. “A lot nowadays don’t consider PC a big issue any more; their [sales] expectations are nowhere near what they are for the console versions. Until the PC market creates comparable revenues, companies are not going to spend enough on the PC SKU of a game.”

Earlier this year Yerli said that PC games will soon be king as they will be available for free with players having to buy in-game features and extras. Essentially, monetizing of PC games will change completely and the market will once again be popular.

Obviously PC vs Console is a hot topic, and there are loads of reads as to why PC is being neglected. For one, people wouldn’t like to upgrade all the time to play new games – a problem which many have whenever something impressive is released. This problem doesn’t concern consoles.

To be honest, PC technology surpasses that of console however it’s pointless to upgrade because nothing needs so much power.

Is it fair for PC to suffer?

According to a deleted blog by Microsoft employees, the next operating system could launch in 2012. The Windows 8 release was leaked by the Netherlands team who posted something about the system on an unofficial windows site.

The site read: “It will take about two years before Windows 8 [is] on the market.”

Microsoft has taken action against the site and it no longer exists, probably for legitimate reasons.

But despite the lack of blog-post, Windows recently announced that Windows Marketplace will launch once again with support for Games. The system is expected on the 15th of November where it will be offer new titles, as well as Xbox and Windows Live support. There will even be a place for Microsoft Points and credit card transactions.

According to Kevin Unangst, Microsoft’s senior global director of PC and mobile gaming, “With Games for Windows Marketplace, we set out to create a digital store built for PC gamers end-to-end,”

“And by integrating with our existing Xbox Live and Windows Live services, we’ve made it easier than ever for millions of gamers to see for themselves how easy buying PC games can be.”

Basically, Windows Marketplace will be the software giant’s take on Steam, and Apple’s Application store. And we’ll probably find this integrated into the upcoming Operating System.

Peter Orullian, Group product manager at Microsoft, said that Games for Windows Marketplace might feature more games. Reason being, Apple is planning to launch their own Mac-based Application Store which could possibly compete with Windows.

Alongside the games, Microsoft will offer a rating system, other pre-order incentives and a Deal of the Week idea similar to the one found on the Xbox 360 marketplace.

“Today you go on, and we have a website that talks about games, then we have a client,” said Orullian.

“Feedback we heard is that’s not always the easiest experience, so we’re bringing the transaction component right to the web. The client will still exist, but it’ll exist to manage really really large files that aren’t maybe so easily managed through the web, and it’ll be your transaction history; so if you need to re-download a game, you can go and do that.”

“But it’s not going to be necessary to go and look at and buy games.”

There’s more over at Joystiq.

Dell has used rAge 2010 to announce the Alienware product launch in South Africa. The range which will go on sale nationwide includes the Alienware M11x, the Alienware M15x and the Alienware M17x.

According to Gavin Slevin, Dell South Africa and developing countries retail manager, “The South African gaming community is ready for newer and greater things, and we at Dell have heeded this call. The product range promises to enthrall its users as it sets a new benchmark for combining out-of-this-world performance with award-winning industrial design. With Alienware, customers will be able to experience the most innovative and immersive gaming experience ever.”

Basically, Alienware PC’s are hardcore gaming machines kitted out for maximum Frames Per Second and best possible graphics.

Pricing starts at R15,999 for the Alienware M11x laptop, R21,999 for the Alienware M15x laptop and R32,499 for the Alienware M17x laptop.

Alienware M11x Key Specifications:

• Intel Core i5-520UM Processor(1.06GHz, 800 MHz, 3 MB)
• Genuine Windows 7 Ultimate (64-bit)
• 11.6” Widescreen HD (1366 x 768) WLED with TrueLife
• 4096MB (2 x 2048) 800MHz DDR3 Dual Channel Memory
• 500GB Serial ATA (7200RPM) Hard Drive
• 1GB GDDR3 NVIDIA GeForce GT 335M Graphics Card
• South Africa Dell Bluetooth 370 Card
• Intel Wireless 802.11a/g/n 3×3 LAN Card
• Alienhead 3D Avatar
• 3 Year, Next Business Day On-site Warranty

Alienware M15x Key Specifications:

• Intel Core i7-720QM Processor (1.6GHZ, 6MB) Mobile CPU
• Genuine Windows 7 Professional (64 Bit)
• 15.6” Wide Full HD (1920 x 1080) WLED Display
• 8192MB (2 x 4096) 1333MHz DDR3 Dual Channel Memory
• 500GB Serial ATA (7200RPM) Hard Drive
• Slot Load DVD+/-RW
• 1GB ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5850 Graphics Card
• South Africa Dell Bluetooth 370 Card
• Intel Wireless 802.11a/b/g/n 3×3 LAN Card
• Alienhead 3D Avatar
• 3 Year, Next Business Day On-site Warranty

Alienware M17x key specifications

• Intel Core i7-740QM Processor (1.73 GHz)
• Genuine Windows 7 Professional (64 Bit)
• 17” Wide UXGA (1920 x 1200) Beyond HD Display
• 8192MB (2 x 4096) 1333MHz DDR3 Dual Channel Memory
• 1TB (2 x 500GB) Free Fall Sensor Raid 0 Stripe (7200RPM) Dual HDD
• Slot Load Blu-Ray ROM Combo Drive
• Dual CrossFire 1GB ATI GDDR5 Mobility Radeon Graphics Card
• South Africa Dell Bluetooth 370 Card
• Intel Wireless 802.11a/b/g/n 3×3 LAN Card
• Alienhead 3D Avatar
• 3 Year, Next Business Day On-site Warranty

Alienware systems are, and always have been, the benchmark for PC gaming performance,” added Slevin. “Through the Alienware brand, Dell is committed to offering gamers the richest possible PC gaming experience with the latest technology and coolest designs.”

If you have a hatred for ownership of large amounts of money, love spending or simply enjoy being able to brag more than you can breathe, Origin has the perfect beast for you.

Their Big O Gaming PC goes so overboard that it even contains a water cooled Xbox360 console inside the chassis – and that’s just the beginning. You know that when an entry level build sets you back $7669 (R55,983), it’s definitely time to start screaming.

The entry level Big O Gaming PC features:

• An overclocked 4GHz Intel Core i7 930 CPU
• Dual GTX 480 graphics cards
• 6GBs of RAM
• Dual 50GB SSD drives
• A 2TB storage drive
• A Blu-ray burner
• A Creative Fatal1ty sound card

Now let’s blow your mind. If the entry level isn’t enough for you, The Big O Gaming PC from Origin has a “high-end” alternative, which features:

• Dual Intel Xeon X5680 CPUs overclocked to 4.3GHz
• An EVGA SR2 motherboard
• Liquid cooling throughout
• Quad SLI EVGA GTX 480 graphics cards
• 12GBs of RAM
• Four 50GB SSD drives
• Two 2TB storage drives
• A built in Blue-ray burner
• A built in 8 channel HD audio sound card.

Guess what that costs you? If you guessed $16,999 (R124,092), then you’d have been correct. If you didn’t, then clearly you aren’t psychic or didn’t read the header properly.

Origin is only available in the USA unfortunately, but if you have enough money to even consider buying this, then I’m sure you have enough to not care where in the world you’ll have to go or import it from to get it.

For those who do not know Starcraft 2 has been going around like wild fire. Being a new game and with everyone’s interest in it companies are stepping forward to sponsor it. With the local Starcraft 2 scene having a shot at competing internationally due to the new network’s framework we are producing skilled players who can probably face off against European players and who knows maybe come out on top.

All this aside, to honour the launch of Starcraft 2 Megarom in association with ASUS and Do Gaming are hosting an exhibition tournament this Saturday (tomorrow) in Johannesburg at the Sound Room in Kyalami. To just show the scope of things first prize gets a G60 laptop (yes, the same one we reviewed) and R3000 not mentioning the Razer goodie bag and SC2 CE. The total prizes are as follows:

1st Prize
G60Jx Gaming Laptop
Starcraft 2 Limited Edition Game
Razer Gaming Bundle
R3000 Cash Prize

2nd Prize
ASUS Geforce ENGTX 470 Graphics Card
Starcraft 2 Game
Razer Gaming Bundle
R2000 Cash Prize

3rd Prize
ASUS ATI EAH 5850 Graphics Card
Starcraft 2 Game
Razer Gaming Bundle
R1000 Cash Prize

Being an exhibition it is by invitation that players were selected. The original line-up featured Dreamer, Shase, Angry African, McNoob, Alcardu, Kreefler,Rubilac and Jaxx but due to unforeseen circumstances Jaxx could not make it and as such Azul another local player will take his place. The original 8 were picked according to their seeding in South African rankings and as such are the 8 best in South Africa, for more info on the players and the seeding you can head over to 4pooled where you can find bio’s on the players and info on tournaments not forgetting replays of local players.

At the exhibition we have been promised to have a Starcraft 1 section for old players to go and get nostalgic and screens setup around the venue through which players can view the games and listen to shout casting which will be provided by Shadowthief and ZeeOne 2 locals who are actively involved in the Starcraft 2 scene.

If you can’t make it to the event have no fear as we will have all the information and hopefully a ton of pictures loaded onto the site for you to enjoy. Just a caution for those that did not get an invite please sign up at Do Gaming for your invite or as I am led to believe you might be stuck outside the venue.

That’s according to Voodoo PC founder, Rahul Sood, who claims that Microsoft has in fact explored the possibility of constructing a cross-platform network that would allow PC and Xbox gamers to go up against each other but preliminary tests found that “console players got destroyed every time”.

Sood stated in an interview that  the accuracy and speed offered by a mouse and keyboard, especially the kind of lightning fast response times and pin-point accuracy you get from gaming mouses is just too much for console controller to compete with.
The playing field was so unfair that “it would be embarrassing to the Xbox team in general had Microsoft launched this initiative,” he said.

Of course, this makes perfect sense but it was a good idea. Maybe handicaps could be introduced and console gamers get +10 added to their handicap by default just to level the playing field.

[Source: CVG]

Yes, gamers will now be able to play without even lifting a finger. Jedi Mind, the company that gave us the Jedi Mouse, now has a new application for wireless headsets. Jedi Mouse allowed users to move the cursor by simply projecting their thoughts through a wireless headset that reads brainwaves and transmits them as electrical signals to a USB receiver, not unlike an EEG machine. Now they’ve come out with Master Mind which makes even greater use of wireless headsets by allowing us to play games with little more than the power of the mind.

It can interpret commands such as move forward, move backward, punch, kick, shoot etc.
“Existing PC games such as World of Warcraft and Call of Duty can now be played with the power of your mind, rather than using the traditional computer keyboard and mouse,” the company stated. “Master Mind allows the user to control the characters in these games to move forward, back, punch, kick, shoot and any other movement available in the game, simply by thinking the command associated with the desired action.”

The company has even been so bold as to claim that its software can match the capabilities of any traditional peripheral. It’s all very bold but oh so promising and fantastic. Imagine – gaming at the speed of thought.

Don’t expect mind-control gaming to be cheap though. While no price has yet been given for Master Mind, Jedi Mouse cost around R800 so you can expect the bigger and better Master Mind to cost well over R1000. That’s besides the required wireless headset. The recommended Epoc Headset from Emotiv will set you back around R2500. Certainly not cheap but just think about what you’d be getting for that money…

Just in case you were wondering, this is what the all-important headset looks like.

[Source: GameSpy]

A few weeks back we received Rapier Gaming accessories for review. This included the Rapier V2, a headset with vibration and a precision pad. In other words, a mouse, a mouse pad and a headset.

In our first-look I detailed the accessories and what they do. In this piece we’ll talk about how they work in various games.

Over the past three to four weeks I’ve been playing with the gear. I’ve tried, tested and compared the products against my very own.

The Games:

• QuakeLive
• StarCraft II Beta
• Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
• DotA

The setup I used was:

Mouse – Full weight set-up. On Rapier Gaming pad with DPI set to the lowest.
Headset – Vibration off sound hovering between off and half-way
Gaming Pad

Quake Live

I found that the movement of the mouse on the special pad helped tremendously in the fast paced games, like Quake Live. Even with in-game sensitivity very low and the mouse DPI very low, you’d be able to swing around without much effort. Helpful in Quake Live when playing against many players in Death Match.

One on One Instagib – one shot one kill – it was smooth. I usually take a while to get used to equipment other than my own, however with this setup I barely missed my target. A few more hours of play would rectify my aim.

Overall it’s safe to say that the fast paced mouse really helped with quick play, but then again – not every game is fast paced.

The headset in Quake Live was helpful. Remember I said that it was deafeningly loud? Well — it was useful. A few characters in the game have funny footstep sounds and this wasn’t a problem as my volume was set to infinity plus one.

StarCraft II Beta

How does Rapier work in a real-time-strategy game? If I had to sum this up in one word it would be: fair. While it might not be top of the range gear, it was once again smooth. I found a few problems where I kept miss clicking or moving too fast. I had to remove almost all in-game sensitivity as the mouse and pad consortium was just too quick.

The headset was helpful, but I found that it was better in First Person Shooter games.

For strategy, I wouldn’t recommend the setup I had. It was too quick and I did not feel in control.

Another problem I found was that without the microphone working I could not use the voice-functionality in-game.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2

CoD: MW2 is big — in the console world. A few PC gamers are addicted to CoD Modern Warfare 2, however CoD 4 is bigger. It’s a good game to test with, because it’s relatively new.

Once again, I found Rapier Gaming Gear worked really well — in FPS. At first I had to get used to the pace of the game, but thereafter I was doing better than previous efforts with my original setup.

The headset without a working microphone was, once again, a shame. Also, the loud sound soon became intrusive once explosions destroyed faces and helicopters flew overhead. I’m not sure why but I used less sound for some reason. Perhaps more concentration went to aiming?

DotA

Another strategy game, DotA. Unlike StarCraft II there isn’t too much macro. In StarCraft I negated fast moving mouse with macro. I used the keyboard for building, which helped – a lot. Keyboard macro is a big part of StarCraft and I found that the fast-paced mouse did not bother me too much.

DotA on the other hand, completely different. You have one guy to move, and there isn’t much macro. I found that I constantly miss-clicked units and creep. It was a losing battle. To avoid sharing horrible words with my team — because I was playing so badly — I quickly changed back to my old mouse and pad. It helped.

Now, I have nothing against the mouse and pad at all. In fact, I really liked it – but it wasn’t for DotA. While you might think that it should be the same as FPS games, it’s not. There are subtle differences which made this annoying. Not taking anything away from the mouse – I found it too quick.

Once again the headset became intrusive in battle. However, I found it useful to hear units in the bush killing creep. The loud sound was a beneficial, to a point.

Final Verdict

This is the first time I’ve heard of Rapier. I found it to be good. It’s not the top of the range, but it’s not the worst either. I’m quite a fan-boy, however being open minded with tests I found that beginners would definitely benefit from the gear.

While professional, or more regular top-level players, would prefer something more branded — a novice player would learn a lot from mouse-key customization and DPI settings.

I used the pad with and without the prescribed mouse. Others found that the pad was really good and smooth for all mice. I found that it worked best with the Rapier mouse. I used my mouse on the pad and it was slightly too quick.

Only thing I worried about was the material of the pad. It seemed to be plastic-ish. At first I curious whether my mouse-feet would be damaged on the pad. And, they weren’t damaged — which is obvious as Verbatim wouldn’t release a product that deteriorates your gear. Would they?

Underneath the pad it was not sticky, but somehow it stuck to the desk like magic.

Verbatim’s Rapier headset – it’s too loud and the microphone didn’t work on any of my computers. I’m not sure why – and it’s a shame. Despite the lack of support, it really helped in games where I needed to pay attention. For music they weren’t the best, but in-game they were really helpful.

Back in the day when I went through headsets almost weekly I would have bought the Rapier headset. If it was out.. But it wasn’t.

I’d rate Rapier Gaming Gear for beginners — it is better than most gear which hold a similar price tag. All-in-all, it shouldn’t break your budget.

The Rapier V2 mouse costs about R331
Rapier Precision Gaming Pad about R83
Rapier USB Gaming Headset with Vibration about R600

Unfortunately I would have liked to see the headset in action but without a working microphone it seemed difficult to score it correctly. I tried the headset on both XP and Windows 7 and I found error. It might have been me, I’m not sure.

While reading other reviews I found that many rated the headset really well, but I struggle to do this because it did not work correctly.

Finally: If you’re interested in competitive gaming and you’ve never done this before — Rapier would be a good start.

Full image gallery here.

Just Cause 2 developer, Avalanche Studios, claims that DRM systems such as the one currently implemented by Ubisoft are actually punishing those few people who pay money for their PC games.

Many gamers already despise Ubisoft’s DRM system because of the simple fact that they couldn’t play their game due to Ubisoft’s server being down. They paid money for the game, they did not pirate the game and yet they are still punished.

Avalanche boss, Cristofer Sundberg, claims that DRM-type systems are signs of a ‘scared market’ and represent the kind of paranoia that could break the industry. You don’t want the select few customers that you still have to be pissed off enough with PC to leave it for a console.

“Games have become a luxurious form of entertainment and piracy has scared the market to start implementing ridiculous DRM solutions that only limits the consumers that actually PAY for their games, not stopping the pirates,” he told CVG.

As PC sales constantly dropping, they are a small group of very dedicated PC players who deserves a game designed for them and I strongly believe that PC games and console games are two completely different games.

If we constantly keep on delivering console ports and not games design for the PC player, the PC market will suffer from bad sales, piracy and bad DRM solutions. I strongly believe that most PC players are online players and online games are so much easier to design that we both protect the developer against piracy – and the consumer against a limited game experience.

I wish that future PC projects are treated just the same way as we would treat Wii, PSP or DS – they are treated as separate projects in order to deliver a different but equally entertaining experience to all players.”

So, I suppose this means that publishers are actually driving their valued customers towards the sweet simplicity of piracy? Who would have though it?

[Source: CVG]

Calling all Mac fanboys: Steam is now ready and available for download.

Alongside the release is a truly mammoth list of games with valve planning to add to the list every Wednesday for the next few weeks. Every game available this week also comes with SteamPlay which means that once you buy it, it will run on any Steam-supported platform.

There are currently 63 games available on the Mac version of Steam, including Portal which is free to everybody. Here’s the full list:

TriJinx: A Kristine Kross Mystery
World of Goo
Zuma Deluxe
Sid Meier’s Civilization IV
And Yet It Moves
Braid
Escape Rosecliff Island
Civilization IV: Warlords
Civilization IV: Beyond the Sword
Sid Meier’s Civilization: Colonization
Sid Meier’s Civilization: The Complete Edition
BRAINPIPE: A Plunge to Unhumanity
Diaper Dash®
Machinarium
Football Manager 2010
Bob Came in Pieces
KrissX
Sam & Max: The Devil’s Playhouse
Galcon Fusion
Quantz
Torchlight
Toki Tori
Valerie Porter and the Scarlet Scandal
Parking Dash
The Nightshift Code
Nightshift Legacy: The Jaguar’s Eye
Mahjong Roadshow
Hotel Dash Suite Success
DinerTown Detective Agency
Fitness Dash
Gemini Lost
Atlantis Sky Patrol
Fairway Solitaire
Professor Fizzwizzle and the Molten Mystery
Unwell Mel
My Tribe
Tales of Monkey Island Complete Pack
Osmos
Wandering Willows
Wedding Dash 2: Rings Around the World
Zenerchi
Dream Chronicles: The Chosen Child
Diner Dash: Hometown Hero
Cooking Dash
Chocolatier: Decadence by Design
LUXOR: Mah Jong
The Dig
LOOM
Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade
Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis
City of Heroes: Architect Edition
Peggle Nights
Luxor
Luxor 3
Portal
Peggle Deluxe
Bejeweled 2 Deluxe
Bookworm Deluxe
Chuzzle Deluxe

Can’t wait to see what they release in the coming weeks but it should certainly be interesting.

Ettienne believes that if it’s stock, it ain’t good enough. His desire and passion has made him one of the best modders in South Africa. His full name is Ettienne “Daejavoo” Venter and he is 23 years old. Hailing from Pretoria in Gauteng.

Behind every great person is a story, and here we’ll delve into his life. A persons passion is like dry wood, just waiting for the right spark. This was the case with Ettienne, reading one article in a UK magazine called custom PC. The article revolved around a mod called the Orac. The Orac mod, at the time, was one of the best. After seeing the Orac article, a quick spark lit Etienne’s passion and so began the desire.

His 1st mod is simply stunning and one of the best in the local scene. Termed Project Epiphany, a design which used a simple clear case. Etienne modified every aspect of it, resulting in one simply stunning case. But being his first case it was the hardest. Going in with no tool, no experience, no knowledge and no materials did not make it any easier for him.

Ettienne’s path of modification was extended after an accident which grounded him to his bed.

Once into the scene he was completed immersed. He began working on modding everything from notebooks to keyboards. Of his many mods, one included a notebook with a touch screen.

One of the greatest perks for this job would be sponsors. Sponsors send you all the tools and materials you need. If you have to ever cough up a little money, it’s just lunch.

Modding is not the be all and end all for Ettienne, he is interested in skateboarding, and  solving Rubik’s cubes. A simple deduction: Ettienne likes a challenge.

He has had his work featured in PC Format, and more, but more interesting he is currently working on a mod for NAG magazine. The requirements will see him build a specially modded case to be given away, alongside the dream machine, at this year’s rAge.

DaeJaVoo hopes to see the local scene grow due to the easy access to materials of plexi and aluminium, where services like CNC work and laser cutting are not too hard to find. The local scene was very active a few years ago but sadly it dropped, he hopes to see it re-grow as he was also one of the people who went silent for a period.

Ubisoft’s DRM System whereby you have to have a constant connection to the internet when playing their games has come under a lot of scrutiny as of late. Thus far it has only been used on Assassins Creed 2 but with Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands coming up and Splinter Cell: Conviction imminent, it has become a cause for concern once more.

A couple of months ago, the DRM servers crashed and as a result, nobody could play Assassins Creed 2 on their PC’s. Soon after it was all fixed and everybody could go back to their hidden-blade fueled fun. Ubisoft even gave everybody a proverbial lollipop in the form of free DLC stuff.

The whole point of the DRM system is to combat piracy but what’s the point if people don’t want to buy your games because they’re worried that defective servers may prevent them from being able to play. So now Ubisoft have pledged that will work to make the system better. They are trying to improve the way in which it works as well as the big issue of server reliability.

We’ll just have to wait and see whether they can actually make this system work. It would be much better than some developer’s ethos of just not having their games on PC to prevent piracy.

In South Korea Starcraft is a way of life and one of the most followed sports. Players are paid to play the game for example Jang “Moon” Jae Ho. Since the sport is played professionally and broadcast on national television and it is so widely followed there was bound to be something bad happening sometime. And it has come out that there has been a betting scandal going on. The competition has drawn a crowd of people who are illegally gambling on the sport. This may not be bad but it seems top level players are involved in this scam.

The police are investigating the accusations wherein top ranking players and famous players are accused of throwing matches and leaking team replays. Teams that are involved are trying to oust the players involved and more serious offenders to retire.

Follow it on Liquid

The BanMan, a South African, has setup a local South African website for Starcraft 2 players to use. The website is rumored to be possibly setting up a league for local Starcraft 2 players. More importantly this website allows players to upload replays giving other local players a chance to learn and see other talent. It also provides a platform to organize tournaments for local players who want to play against each other even though there will be leagues and similar things run by Blizzard.

So once you get an invite head on over to Starcraft2ZA and register – or you can just go there now, register and see what is going down there.

If you do not remember back in December we did a review on Zombie Driver and we loved it. Now take a second to ponder over this, a game that costs 10$ (about R74) gets DLC. How much would this DLC be sold at? Well EXOR studios have announced that they are releasing a DLC pack and to add to the joy they are having the game on the sale on Steam, Gamersgate and a few other gaming portals at half price including the DLC into the deal. So for a total of $5 (R37) you are going to get the game + DLC. This is a discount if I ever saw one and you cannot complain about bandwidth problems seeing as the Bandwidth wars are ongoing and Bandwidth is pretty cheap.

The world was pretty much made for right handed people. It’s obvious. Many things were created to make like easier for left-handed people, and this is because of the constant challenge to work-or-live in a right-handed world.

Following this, Razer has decided to enter into a niche market — gaming mice for left handed people.

I didn’t really know that people played games with their left hand, and I can vouch for this. I’m left handed however I use my right hand on the mouse. Editors Note: For the record, I still aim better than Slobber who is a true right-handed person. I’ve proved this in QuakeLive.

So — for those of you that do use your left hand on the mouse, Razer has created an ergonomic mouse just for you. It’s called the DeathAdder Left Hand Edition.

I’ve only come across one person who ever used the mouse with their left hand, by the way.

Any other lefties use funky styles?

With the New Year being ushered in slowly, but surely, we are seeing the slow-release of Direct X 11. It is time to revise the budget PC we built last time. The PC will still last, so do not fear if you bought those parts. This time round, I thought that we could build a DX11 PC.

CPU and Motherboard

The brains and brawn of any PC — if you get really bad parts, then you are doomed forever (or at least till the next upgrade). Nowadays DDR2 is still cheaper but since we are going for something a bit better, that can last you a bit longer.

For this PC we will be going with DDR3. So, now comes the part where we pick our brain (in real life you can’t do this), and so begins the battle of ages. Do we go AMD or Intel?

Thing is we are looking for something which has a high enough processing power, yet does not break the budget. I have come across the AMD AM3 Phenom II x2 545 3 GHz which, although dual core, is highly suited for this work. Dual core vs. Quad core is another battle.

The motherboard is the skeleton which will hold everything together. Always remember that spending a bit here for reliance is always better since you can always slot a new CPU in later on. I always find a reliable brand and something that supports what you envision your PC to hold inside it. In our case we want something that holds an AM3 CPU slot and support for DDR3 memory. Also you can keep in mind that you may want to get some nice trinkets in but nothing that will raise the price astronomically. I have been directed to the ASUS M4A785TD-M Evo.

What would draw me to this motherboard? Well obviously it supports all our products and more importantly, it has room for upgrading. Furthermore it has a built in HD 4200 which is pretty neat even, though we are getting an external card. The eSata ports do not hurt and it just looks so pretty.

RAM and Storage

First we deal with the easy bit, the hard drive. I would recommend if you have the cash to get a 1TB but if you are cash strapped then you can go with a 500GB.

The real focus in this section is actually the RAM. DDR2 is cheaper obviously which would make things more budget but less a beast. Well going with DDR2 we can get more memory which is nice but not really helping seeing as around 2 or 4 gigs is more than enough for gaming.

GPU

Since this is our beast for gaming we only want one thing, and that is — kick-ass power. In this area I honestly feel ATI’s new 5000 series is the ultimate in the gaming genre. With our budget in mind I have opted to use a 5ATI 5770 which is a monster in its own right. If done right you can OverClock this baby to beat a 4890. Since we are on a budget do not expect to game on extremely high resolutions as this is where the 5770 lacks the bandwidth. It has 128 bit which really sucks but it holds its own till around 600 pixels which is pretty intense.

Last bits and pieces

For the final pieces of this PC, the PSU is a Coolermaster 650W which has enough power to power up our little beast. Obviously for the case we are not going anything to fancy so we will go with the same on as we went last time. The last elements I hope you kept the following elements from your old pc: your keyboard, your mouse, your screen and most importantly your OS.

It would be really nice if you got your hands on a copy of Windows 7 as it is highly optimized for Direct X 11. If you go with XP, you will not benefit as much. Vista sucks, by the way.

Finally, I put our little beast into this neat looking Huntkey. It is cheap, but looks nice. Also, it is not like we need a case with a PSU, seeing as we are getting a separate PSU which really powers this thing.

Parts

COOLERMASTER REAL POWER PRO 650W PSU – R1, 164.00

Club 3D ATI HD 5770 – R1, 550.00

Kingston HyperX DDR3 (2 x 1GB) – R819.00

Huntkey H402 – R221.96

AMD Phenom II x2 545 – R955.00

ASUS M4A785TD-M Evo – R1219.00

Samsung DVD Writer – R211.20

Western Digital Caviar Green 500GB – R580.92

Total amount spent (Exc shipping) – R6721.08

I’ve been waiting to hear when this would happen and it looks like, as of today, there will be no more waiting on my part. It seems that Microsoft’s newest operating system, Windows 7, has already overtaken Windows Vista as hardcore PC users’ preferred operating system. A very large 28.53% of Steam users report that Windows 7 is their current operating system, while former Vista users make up 27.91% of Windows 7′s userbase. The remainder are still using Windows XP, our old favourite. Taking into account that Windows Vista was released in January 2007, and Windows 7 was released in October 2009, it’s pretty evident that Windows 7 has overtaken its predecessor in record time – among hardcore PC users of course.

Steam Hardware Survey: January 2010 [Valve, via Ars Technica]
[Source: Kotaku]

Microsoft has announced that they will release their new SideWinder X4 gaming keyboard to the South African market. The keyboard is said to be one of the first to boast anti-ghosting technology.

According to the company “the Applied Sciences Group, an interdisciplinary research and development team that works across the Microsoft Entertainment & Devices Division doing applied research for Microsoft Hardware, Microsoft Surface and Xbox 360, developed the anti-ghosting technology with gamers in mind.”

What is anti-ghosting technology?

Well, the new hardware will allow you to press up to twenty six keys at once.

“We’re always looking for new and novel ways to enhance people’s interactions with their PCs,” said Steven Bathiche, research manager of the Applied Sciences Group at Microsoft. “We know that ghosting can be a problem for gamers, so we wanted to develop a way to eliminate this issue and improve the overall gaming experience, and we’ve succeeded with the new anti-ghosting technology in the SideWinder X4 Keyboard.”

The keyboard will be available during March for a price of R800.

Now this is a gaming keyboard, we’ll leave the Arc for the typists.

*Note: Image above is the SideWinder X6

Microsoft South Africa has announced that the new Arc will find its way to our local market. The keyboard will be curved, and it will offer smooth, crisp typing.

“The design tenets that we looked to for the Arc Keyboard were simplicity and crisp softness, creating an aesthetic for this product that is casual and sophisticated at the same time,” said Monique Chatterjee, industrial designer for Microsoft Hardware. “We drew our design inspiration directly from the places where we envision this product will be used so it perfectly blends with existing home accessories.”

The price is set at R800, but do you think this would be a good investment for gaming?

The Sims 3.

Yeah, apparently the world is filled with little girls and emo boys who seem to be oversensitive as EA Games has announced that The Sims 3 is now the biggest-selling PC game in the world.

That’s right, the game where you build houses and control people is the biggest PC game. In the world.

The company has calculated that this is the sixth time in 10 years that a Sims title is the world’s top selling PC game.

These are EA’s claims that are backed up by sales figures, which they have paid quite a lot of money to get their hands on.

Rebellion has revealed the computer specifications needed for their up and coming Aliens Vs Predator game. The game will release on the 19th of February on Xbox, PS3 and PC. The PC specs are pretty reasonable, even if you aren’t a gamer.

If you’ve upgraded your PC like once every two years or so, you should be able to play with the recommended requirements.

Have a look-see.

Minimum Requirements

• Windows 7/ XP/Vista
• 1 GB System RAM (XP)/ 2 GB System RAM (Vista)
• 3.2 GHz Intel Pentium 4/Athlon 64 3000+ or equivalent processor
• DirectX 9.0c compliant video card with 128 MB RAM (NVIDIA 6600 or better, ATI X1600 or better)

Recommended Requirements

• Windows 7/ XP/Vista
• Intel Core 2 Duo E6400 or equivalent processor
• 2 GB System RAM
• DirectX 9.0c compliant video card with 512 MB RAM (NVIDIA 8800 series, ATI HD2900 PRO or better)

Loads of Professional gamers ask me to give them a few options for gaming key sets, or gaming pads. Some gamers only play one game professionally, so they would like to have a controller that will help them play their game better. Namely, a custom board.

The Zboard allows for custom key sets and this will benefit the following games:

• CounterStrike
• Battle Field 2142
• GuildWars Faction or GuildWars
• The lord of the rings ; Battle for Middle Earth
• Age Of Empire 3
• Call Of Duty 2
• Battle Field 2
• Ever Quest 2
• Doom 3
• Medal Of Honor: Pacific Assault

How it works: You get the Zboard keyboard base and then just place the key set wherever you want on the base. This is not as expensive as you think. A key set will go for between R150 and R200 per set. These boards make the game a lot easier to control and they enable you to use all the functions which you don’t normally use in game. Extra functions might improve your performance. I have searched every where for a DOTA controller and so far, I have found nothing.

Lastly you get the Belkin gaming key pad. This would be the controller with the weird layout. It is suitable for FPS games. The one example I would like to discuss is the Belkin N52TE gaming keypad which is designed by razor. This piece of hardware is really not cheap but is surely worth the bucks, last price I checked you can get one of these for round about R1200.

It has an adjustable soft-touch wrist pad and you can easily toggle between 3 keymap states. You get a programmable 8-way thumb pad with removable joystick and 15 fully programmable keys. In my opinion I think this would be a good weapon in your FPS controller arsenal.

I asked the nice people at Asus if they will send me some hardware to test, and bench, for the eGamer website. A month later Mr. Gabriel Malan from Asus gave me a whole PC use at my disposal. The games that I played included Left for Dead 2, Call Of Duty 4, Batman Arkham Asylum, Call of Juarez bound in blood and Demigod. I used 3D Mark Vantage set on performance to bench the machine.

The Hardware and OS Used:

Motherboard: Asus P7P55 deluxe

Information from Asus

This motherboard supports the latest Intel® Lynnfield processors in LGA1156 package which has memory and PCI Express controller integrated to support 2-channel (4 DIMMs) DDR3 memory and 16 PCI Express 2.0 lanes providing great graphics performance. Intel® Lynnfield processor is one of the most powerful and energy efficient CPU in the world.

It also has Quad-GPU SLI and Quad-GPU CrossFireX Support.

The P7P55D Deluxe brings you the multi-GPU choice of either SLI™ or CrossFireX. The motherboard features the most powerful Intel P55 platform to optimize PCIe allocation in multiple GPU configurations.

Expect a brand-new gaming style you’ve never experienced before.

The Intel® P55 Express Chipset is the latest one-chipset design to support latest 1156 socket Intel® Core™ i7/Core™ i5 Processors. Intel® P55 providing improved performance by utilizing serial point-to-point links, allowing increased bandwidth and stability.

This motherboard has too many functions to mention. Feel free to go read more about it on http://za.asus.com

Processor: Intel Core i5 750 2.67 GHz

Information from Intel

Maximize speed for demanding applications with Intel® Turbo Boost Technology, which accelerates processor clock speed up to 20% to match your workload. So you’ll move faster when multitasking and get more accomplished in less time.

With the Intel® Core™ i5 processor, you can multitask up to 28% faster, so you can do more things at once and be more productive than ever.

Unleash an amazing digital media experience with up to 37% faster conversion of video for web upload, up to 15% faster photo editing and up to 17 % faster conversion of CD music tracks to MP3.

Get a 32% improvement in artificial intelligence for game characters and realistic physics for game worlds.

This isn’t the best CPU on the market, but it’s really worth the cash for a mid-range gaming machine.

Power supply: Corsair 750 watt

Information from Corsair

The Corsair TX power supplies are engineered using advanced technology and components typically found with high performance power supplies. With design features such as a dedicated, single +12V rail offer the maximum compatibility with the latest system components.

Your browser may not support display of this image. Energy efficient circuitry capable of delivering greater than 80% efficiency ratings across 20%, 50%, and 100% load conditions make the TX family of PSUs ideal for the value/quality conscious enthusiast.

With a large 140mm (120mm on TX650W) diameter temperature-controlled fan that is ultra quiet, yet still more than sufficient to cool the internals of the system, reliability and stability are no longer worries for the gamer, overclocker or enthusiast and high-end system builder.

This PSU has enough plugs to run two machines. It’s really quiet and it stays cool.

Graphics Card: Asus Nvidia Geforce ENGTX 275

Information from Asus

Graphics Engine NVIDIA GeForce GTX 275
Bus Standard PCI Express 2.0 Video MemoryDDR3 896MB

Engine Clock 633 MHz

Shader Clock 1404 MHz

Memory Clock 2.268 GHz ( 1.134 GHz DDR3 )
Memory Interface 448-bit CRT Max

Resolution 2048 x 1536

DVI Max Resolution 2560 x 1600

D-Sub Output Yes x 1 (via DVI to D-Sub adaptor x 1 )
DVI Output Yes x 2 (DVI-I)
HDMI Output Yes x 1 (via DVI to HDMI adaptor x 1 )
HDTV Output (YPbPr)Yes HDCP Support Yes TV Output Yes (YPbPr to S-Video and Composite) Adapter/Cable Bundled 1 x DVI to D-Sub adaptor
1 x DVI to HDMI adaptor
1 x HDTV-out cable
1 x Power cable
1 x S/PDIF cable
Software Bundled ASUS Utilities & Driver
The card size is 4.376 inches x 10.5 inches

This is a good card, but I’m not too sure about the South African availability. This card is not on the Asus SA website anymore. It’s an awesome card that never ever gives up.

Memory: Standard Corsair 2 gig DDR 3 1333

This was one of the big set backs in this computer. It was just normal standard desktop ram. For a bit more cash you can get some low latency gaming ram with heat sinks. This will be the only thing that I will change on this setup.

Operating system: Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit

In my opinion this is the most stable, reliable and user friendly OS to date. Loads of people are still stuck on XP. But there is no way that you would get the performance out of this machine with any other OS. Well done to MS for this brilliant System they made for us.

Hard Disk Drive: Seagate Barracuda 250 gig S-ATA

One thing that we do not realize is how your hard drive affects your computers performance. Not so much with games, but it plays a huge role in overall performance. If you are looking to build up a PC with better performance, set up a raid system and just feel the difference. If you have the money for a SCSI setup just go for it.

3D Mark Vantage Score

I used this bench mark on performance settings just to give you an idea of what this machine can do.

3D Mark score: P13618

GPU Score: 11085

CPU Score: 43272

I did not use manual over clocking at all, only auto settings. The CPU I did not touch, this was just on standard clock speed. And I must say it did fine, but it should do allot better when over clocked.

Remember, these parts are available at PCProShop! Contact me by email (below) for more information on obtaining hardware.

It’s January competition time! This month our prize is one again sponsored by BuyComputers.co.za

BuyComputers have sponsored a Seagate 500GB SATA2 7200.12 HDD with 16mb cache. The competition is free for everyone to enter, and we only require that you answer a nybble of a question to qualify.

For those unsure about the prize, it will work with your computer — duh!

Anyway, to enter the competition we require that you read and understand our Competition Terms & Conditions before entering. By entering you have agreed to our terms & conditions.

The competition closes on the 26th of January, 2010.

So, BuyComputers.co.za wants to know:

How much is half a Byte / or what is half a byte called? Either answer will be good! (Google is your friend )

* Leave my photoshop skills alone, I know the image is bad!

The competition closes on the 26th of January, 2010.

For those who like to customise everything from their consoles to their watch straps, you will be pleased to know that EA games have signed multi-year licence agreements with three electronic accessory manufacturers. The accessories are EA SPORTS-branded and available for consoles, mobile platforms and even PC. This will also include EA SPORTS Active’s line of “interactive fitness products” which more than likely means the Wii but could also include Xbox since Project Natal is out soon.

Sakar International will produce Wii and Nintendo DS accessories such as a “Nintendo DSi(TM) Football Kit” consisting of a game case, earphones, skin and stylus with football-like textures and materials. As well as other football products such as sports-themed MP3 players, digital cameras and computer keyboards and mouse pads with graphics resembling a football field.

Accessories 4 Technology's Wii Fit gear -Expect football themes-

Sunflex Europe has started production on more than 20 products and Accessories 4 Technology will produce for all platforms including iPod. Vice President of Brand Marketing at EA SPORTS, Glenn Chin said the partnerships will “improve our consumers’ experience and deepen their connection to the fabric of sport”. So if replacing your controllers with sports themed branded ones will connect you to your sport game of choice then you can expect the first batch of products to be released around autumn this year.

[s:EA Games]

So for all those that use Steam now is the time to go wild and for those that do not have it now is the time to get it. They are holding their annual Steam Holidays special. We had couple of steamy specials awhile back but this takes the cake. With specials of upto 80% off on selected titles you would be literally mad not to get some games from Steam. Here are some specials:

• S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl – $1.99[R15.00] (Regularly priced $19.99[R150.00])
• GTA IV – $7.49 [R56.25](Regularly priced $29.99[R220.00])
• Mirror’s Edge – $4.99 [R38.00](Regularly priced $19.99[R150.00])
• Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising – $19.99[R150.00] (Regularly priced $39.99[R300.00])
• Torchlight – $9.99 [R75.00](Regularly priced $19.99[R150.00])
• Far Cry 2: Fortune’s Edition – $9.99[R75.00] (Regularly priced $19.99[R150.00])

These are just some of the crazy specials going down. If you don’t want to download it you can still get the game files off a friend. Head on over to the Steam Store and get yourself some of these titles. NOW, as all these specials end 3rd January 2010. N.B The sqaure brackets are local estimate costing at roughly $1=R7.50.

As SMM comes to a close and the Alienware 30-day Tourney taking over, another tournament fell over the month of November –

THE OC DOTA TOURNEY OF COURSE!

Garena was unfortunately down during this time period, but the following replay has been released!

THE GAME

dedA vs JJ – Replay

Game Length: 57:08

The Sentinel – dedA (1st Pick)

The bans:

The picks & lanes:

• DedA.( •)<*(Top) [POTM]
• DedA.BurNing~(Top) [SVEN]
• DedA~CryT_T.(Top) [VS]
• DedA.YMT(Mid) [WL]
• DedA.longdd(Bot) [QOP]

The Scourge – JJ

The bans:

The picks & lanes:

• <JJ>6iS</JJ>(Top) [BM]
• <JJ>Freez</JJ>(Mid) [LICH]
• <JJ>Aion</JJ>(Bot) [CM]
• <JJ>PLEASE</JJ>(Bot) [SF]
• <JJ>nrg</JJ>(Jungle) [ENIGMA]

THE SQUEEZE:

The reasons to watch this replay are simple, this is an exciting game which is a lot of fun to watch but for those of you who want a more detailed explanation keep reading otherwise just download and DISCUSS?

1. Banning pipe (The captains of both teams before the match came to the decision to ban pipe) to make the game more exciting.
2. Scourge going for a level 1 roshan strategy with overpowering AOE, whilst dedA looking to dominate in lanes from the get go with trilane top and strong solo’s mid and bot.
3. AOE watch the ulti’s and spells go BOOM!
4. Roshan level 1, wanna see kills before the creeps are out? THEN THIS REPLAY IS FOR YOU!
5. Tri-lane top, watch 6is soak up the pressure of 3 heroes on 1.
6. 8min mark, watch how Saidin literally raze his way out of a tight gank.
7. 32min, wanna see a double triple kill? 2 heroes left? wtf?
8. Did I mention ULTI’S GO OFF = BOOM!
9. DISCUSS ALREADY

DOWNLOAD, WATCH & NOW DISCUSS

The Saboteur is working towards a nifty little way to extinguish piracy. The creators are encouraging players to actually buy the game as the box contains a code which enables console-users to download some more content.

Of course this shifty little trick only works for console users, as the PC world is far superior with their knowledge about sharing expensive games. *Glances at BitTorrent*

While this piracy-fighting-attempt might be a good idea, it also works as a “get it now, save $3 later” trick. The DLC will cost a wallet busting R24 if you aren’t sharp on the release scene with your credit card.

The content contains “The Midnight Show” and it will unlock a secret V.I.P room underneath the games’ cabaret.

Expect nudity, err — boobs, and some other things that we aren’t too interested in, like a shiny car.

Oh, the review will be up soon, stay tuned.

We now go into week 3 of the Intel iGame Call of Duty 4 League and things seem to be heating up in the pro bracket. With only one week left of games, teams will be fighting to make the final placings into the next round of the league.

Group 1

¬ Brazen (4points)
¬ UbS.En (2points)
¬ EVO (2points)
¬ dS.eQ (0points)

It seems Brazen have had quite an easy time, taking two easy wins against dS.eQ and EVO. If UbS.EN wants to make it through to the next round they are going to have an uphill battle and will either have to pull off a win against Brazen or hope that EVO doesn’t win against dS.eQ – if there is a three way between EVO, dS.eQ and UbS.EN one team will go through on points difference.

Group 2

¬ UbS.GT (2points)
¬ sG.Evoke (4points)
¬ Element T1 (0points)
¬ Bestiality (2points)

With Bestiality taking on Element T1 who have shown promise but not put up much of a fight, we will most likely see sG.Evoke and Beastiality move through to the next round. UbS.GT have an outside chance of making it though but they will have to play out of their skins against the group leaders or hope that Element T1 can somehow pull off a win against the strong Bestiality team.

Group 3

¬ miNt Gaming (4points)
¬ Pantheon (2points)
¬ UbS.ZK (2points)
¬ ATF.T (0points)

Our boys in Green have almost guaranteed their spot in the next round. If Pantheon manages to beat miNt, and UbS.ZK beat ATF.T by a long enough margin we could just see the miNt Gaming team be knocked out. But judging by their strong performance against both UbS.ZK and ATF.T the teams that are most likely to progress are miNt Gaming and Pantheon Gaming.

Group 4

¬ A*P (2points)
¬ ATF.A (2points)
¬ Prodigy (4points)
¬ Pandemonium (0points)

In a tight match against Prodigy, only marginally losing out to them 11-13 on mp_backlot – A*P are in a good postition to move through to the next round with Prodigy.

In all four groups, we could see some upsets occurring in this last week. It will all come down to who wants it more, some teams still with a fighting spirit wanting to take home a podium place, whilst others still fatigued from the past season. Teams who are most likely to move through to the next round are:

• Brazen
• EVO
• sG.Evoke
• Bestiality
• miNt Gaming
• Pantheon Gaming
• A*P
• Prodigy

*Please note these views reflect the personal opinion of the writer and in no way express the views of the eGamer. All games, Points and match-ups are taken directly from the iGame Forums.

We’re once again faced with financial issues in this time of year. With so many new games coming out, we sometimes forget about awesome old games that we could add to our collections plus enjoy with hours of game play.

While the gaming clouds are about to break, you should get prepared for the latest and greatest available.

First up, with the release of the new Splinter Cell: Convictions coming soon, we have the Splinter Cell 3 in 1. You can take the time to play and catch up on the story (not really a requirement for the new game) but nevertheless feels nice to know that you are clued up.
Take2, Leno and Crown

This was inevitable: With Bioshock 2 coming in Q1 2010, you need to go do yourself a favour and get this game. It will keep you engaged throughout time, and then leave you with a thoroughly satisfying feeling.
Take2, ZAPS and Leno

Pickup Assassin’s Creed 1 in an attempt to get some background information before AC2. Remember, Assassin Creed 2 is being released this month, and you’ll want to be informed with everything happening.
Take2, Leno and Zaps

Last but, not least:  Prince of Persia. With the movie coming to your screen soon (either Q4 2009/Q1 2010) you would need this for two reasons, (1) to have it in your collection — duh, and (2) to see what the movie is all about!
Take2

RTS fans: Here are 2 very awesome specials for you. The first is the Command and Conquer series –  a deluxe edition is always well worth it.
Take2

The second one is Warcraft 3 and The Frozen Throne. This special is specifically here for all those Twilight players who don’t know where to get the original game.
Warcraft 3 — Take2
The Frozen Throne — Take2

Some side specials you might want to get your hands on.  Kalahari is offering 24hr delivery on these products plus they are on special, saving you between R70-R100+. The first one is Saints row 2 and the second is Legendary.
Saints Row 2 — Kalahari.net
Legendary — Kalahari.net

With the recession going on, and a general economic downfall atmosphere; I have decided that everyone deserves to game. Because, well, at least gaming keeps your spirits up. We are now going to look at what goes into a budget gaming PC, and why.

Do take note that we will only be building the box — we hope that you have a screen, keyboard and mouse, etc.

The PC is built with the mindset of enjoying big explosions, some stunning graphics and an all round good gaming experience. We will be going with a bang for buck parts (recession mentioned above) scheme. I will include 2 sets of parts one for AMD fanboys, and one for Intel.

CPU

The CPU is the brain of the PC, so you don’t want to have a slow brain messing things up. Remember, this is a budget PC so no i5’s or i7’s as they just end up making the cost rise too much. Forget the famous dual-core vs quad core battle as we will be going with a dual-core for 2 reasons: 1 it is cheaper, and 2 the difference is not that great enough to warrant us using a quad core.

When looking at the boards, I tried to find one that had a Gigabit Ethernet, on-board sound and maybe an on-board VGA. Unfortunately Intel’s prices are the not greatest on the lower end stuff.

Contenders:

From AMD: for R847 we have the AMD 6000+
From Intel: for R1064.65 we have a Core2Duo 2.8

Motherboard

The motherboard very important. It is the body, and if the body weak it will slow the whole setup from top to bottom. AMD seem to change their sockets a lot, so we need something that will be able to handle the extra power.
From AMD: R752 we have an ASUS board (Onboard VGA 256mb)
From Intel: R747.00 we have a MSI board (unfortunately not as great as the top board)

RAM

With the DDR3 introduction, the price drop for DDR2 800 has been significant. Remember that you can never have enough RAM (especially if you get it cheap). We got 4gigs here, and this is because most systems run that nowadays.

XP Machine: R234 for a single 2GB stick
Vista, or W7: R777 OCZ 2 x 2GB

Graphics Card

Now the part that makes this the gaming PC.

If we go to low you will be playing Call of Duty in perma slow-mo, and if we go to high we bust the budget. We need to find something that just right for this PC. Remember, this is the single part that can make the biggest difference in your gaming experience.

I have chosen the ATI card as the leader,  as NVIDIA has not yet released a low end card with the modern features in it. The lower end ATI cards are definitely worth the cash. As you may notice the NVIDIA card is cheaper, but for that extra R90 you are getting a card which is faster by almost 100 MHz. Oh, and it has DDR5 memory.

From ATI: ATI 4770 for a killer price off R984.00
From NVIDIA: NVIDIA 9600GT for R897.40

Hard Drive

This is the second easiest without a doubt. You will be taking a 1 terabyte. Why you may ask? Well in this age where game sizes are growing you will definitely need the space. A terabyte HDD also sells very cheap nowadays, and they can be picked up for around R700-R900. We spent a bit more here, but this is important as you can always re-use this. I included 2 prices here, the first is for the TB — if you got the cash –, while the second is for a 500GB.

Seagate Barracuda for R798.00
Seagate Barracuda for R498.00

DVD Drive

This is the easiest. You would not really need the DVD writing capabilities as flash drivers are taking over, so just a normal DVD drive would do fine. It will most be used to just install your games or run the odd DVD off it. Keep in mind if you shop around a bit more, you could pickup a DVD writer for about R50-R100 more.

SATA DVD Drive for R256.02

Case & PSU

This is our skin for our little beast. We want something that comes with a PSU, as the power unit does get a bit expensive. Moreover, we also want something that looks neat. I have gone with the iSonic as it is cheap and has a 400w PSU which should handle our setup.

iSonic for R219.63

Total Cost: R3704 — R4846

Please do note that if you shop around you may get bit better prices on some parts.

Remember the Line Rider game? That little easy-to-play game which allowed you to ramp a little man on a little sled miles into the air? Well, while most of us might have forgotten about it, the creators are still hard at work creating the next best thing. Line Rider allowed players to create absolutely crazy tracks for the rider, or if you were like me, you’d just fail miserably.

The Line Rider people have created the next best version. It’s still in beta, but it looks promising as it allows not one, but two line riders at once! The new updates allow you to move the riders around, erase track, and even set camera angles.

The second rider will allow for synchronized riding, as well as the legen…dary double fail.

Sparkworkz then said that they are creating a separate variant of this game for the iPhone, and it will be called Line Racer.

Holy fuuuuuu! An extended trailer for Left 4 Dead 2 has been leaked onto the interwebz. Woah, all we can say is: absolutely awesome. There are actually no other words to really describe the thrill of the game.

When the video first started playing it was almost so if it was a real movie, where the hill-billy-guy, Ellis, was just excited to ‘kill all sons a bitches’. Apparently Ellis is a mechanic, but we seem to think otherwise, unless of course he fixes cars underneath the bridge that he likes to call home.

Other characters include Coach, a chocolate eating musketeer a high school football coach, Rochelle, a news reporter and Nick the gambler -slash- conman.

Anyway, back to the video.

The video features short pieces of infected and outrageously outnumbered battles which occur throughout the game. There is apparently a better story line in this game when compared to the first one. The movie, er trailer, feels like an introduction video but it goes slightly further than the normal video would and this kind of hints towards what we said earlier, an extended trailer.

Just to end off, I’d like to quote BedLamp with something that pretty much sums up all motivation to get L4D 2: “you cant go wrong with killing piles of zombies.” ‘Nuff said. Get the game in late November.

NC Soft, the South Korean game company, has pretty much released Aion. This game has built up much anticipation after the South Korean company released Lineage I and II.

Aion will feature the latest technology, along with new graphics and gameplay which allows for one of the best roll playing games that one could feast their eyes upon. The new game will have four primary classes, and then eight specialized classes.

Players will start the game by choosing one of the four primary classes: Warrior, Mage, Scout, or Priest. After they reach level 10, players will then be able to choose from two specialized classes associated with that base class. This little feature allows players to get a feel for the play style of the class before making their final decision. Each faction will have a slight variation in class skills.

Aion is similar to WoW, but some would say that it is way better. However, only time will tell.

O! Yes, we forgot to mention, it IS indeed an online multiplayer game. Aion is based on a story line, but it still promises to be a great RPG game.

The game is priced at $69.99, which works out to around R530 with today’s exchange rate.

Check out the Aion site here.

Short Video below.

Microsoft has, finally, released a new operating system called, Windows 7. Bye bye Vista.

Windows 7 is not quite a “Vista service pack.”, however it does share a lot of the core tech, and was clearly designed to fix nearly every bad thing anyone ever said about Vista. This OS is much faster, more user friendly, easier to use, in fact it’s like a whole new world.

Of course all these upsides must have at least one downside, and this is for the XP users. Windows 7 cannot be installed directly over XP. Unfortunately, either you have to format your whole hard drive or get your hands on a copy of Vista from your mates.

Windows 7 is designed to run all of the XP programs, except for few drivers, where you can then case use Vista drivers.

For the gamers — Windows 7 allows for more realistic graphics which will top any other OS. Not to forget it is DirectX 11 compatible.

Windows 7 does have a few bad things, for instance the network sharing centre: it is much, much faster than Vista, but it isn’t really user friendly — if you don’t know what you are doing (I wouldn’t let my mom to fiddle with it…). Secondly, the new Internet Explorer is neither good nor fast. But we all know that you’ll be downloading Firefox, Opera, or Chrome as soon as you get Windows 7 up and running.

Windows 7 gives you an optional update for Live Essentials, with apps like Mail, Photo Gallery and MovieMaker. It’s a very safe release, in other words, take what was good about Vista, fix what people bitched about, and voila.

People want a safe operating system, not an experiment in behavioral science. But even as Windows 7 restores some of the joy in using Windows, you get the sense that it could have been more, if it hadn’t been saddled with the tainted legacy of Vista. We wonder what Windows 7 would have been like without Vista… Either way there are no bugs or glitches found in Windows 7, yet, but Microsoft is always waiting for your comments and useful ideas.

A quick persuasion: 10 reasons why you would want to use Windows 7

Get quicker access to your files and folders.

• Easily create and share files.
• Manage open windows easily.
• Connect to network easily.
• Quickly find what you are looking for.
• Do more in less time.
• Share files and printers among multiple PCs.
• Touch and tap, no point and clicking.
• Stay entertained effortlessly.
• Manage devices easily.
• And lastly enjoying using this new OS!

Words aren’t fully capable of telling you how incredible the new CryEngine 3 is looking right now. Believe me, I’m fully aware of the status quo of graphical and technical power in gaming, but it’s impossible not to be in awe of Crytek’s newest engine. It’s simply mind blasting. As many of you know, the Unreal 3 engine is currently the engine of choice for a lot of games, a large margin of them being first person and third person shooters alike, but it seems now that the new king might just have arrived. Cevat Yerli, from Crytek, says the following, with confidence, regarding the new engine:

“With its scalable graphics and computation it is next-gen-ready and, with new features like CryEngine 3 Live Create, the best choice for game developers and companies developing serious games applications alike. It is the only game engine solution that enables real-time development and can ensure teams are able to maximize their own creativity, save budget and create greater gaming experiences.”

Below are just some screenshots of the CryEngine 3 in action, but I would strongly suggest that you take a look at the short video at the end of this article to see more of this mighty impressive (and that’s an understatement) engine.

[Credit to gamersyde for the screenshots]

Megarom Menace

And now.. to elaborate on the last story about the security conscious Megarom. I was walking around the expo doing my thing taking pictures here, where I then came upon the Megarom stand. I think to myself: Jackpot! Here we have Avatar, Splinter Cell Conviction, Red Steel 2 and Assassins Creed 2. Thinking to myself, ‘wow, now I show reader what they can look forward to’.

As I position myself and snap a photo, this big burly guy pops up and is like, ‘sir, please delete the photo as you are not permitted to take pictures’.

All the guys with orange bands round their neck were part off the Megarom defense team.

Now as I delete the photo, I am wondering what will I have to show the readers? Well, I managed to get a detailed walk-through of new features for the game. How did I do this? My trusty little press pass from Logitech. Voila. We were now set to go.

Sadly, I did not get a chance to do all the games (time constraints).

Splinter Cell Conviction

This game marks a new era for Sam Fisher, who now up against the people he used to work for. It’s a whole new ball game (plot and gameplay related wise). So let’s dive straight into the gameplay where there has been the incorporation of 2 very new and highly important factors into the game.

1)      Mark and execute: This simply allows you to enable and execute a series of commands in one quick fluid motion. Using your snake cam to peak under the door you, you can mark your targets off in the order that you would like them to be shot.

2)      Last known position: This is a very interesting concept. This works after you discharge your weapon. The discharge will leave a silhouette of you in that location so that you can trick the enemy into thinking where you are. After this you can then flank round them, or move to a new window and launch an assault from there.

The graphics have been improved, where there is now the introduction of the blue light system which will show when you are hidden, and so forth. There are a lot more features which have not yet been spoken about, however this will come in the review.

For now, we’d like you to enjoy those two highlights.

Assassins Creed 2

This game builds on the first game, in almost every aspect. The storyline revolves around you being Ezio Auditore da Firenze, an Italian nobleman looking to avenge the death of your father. The game starts with you being embroiled into a large conspiracy, so be ready. Set in ancient Venice, expect a lot of jumping across roof tops, canals and historical sites. The historical sites carry a slight twist, where you are able to explore secret areas. Certain aspects of history are also visited, so expect to see Da Vinci’s famous flying machine that was never built.

The engine is very much improved from the first game, and you immediately notice this when you emerge out of hiding from a haystack. What we mean is that; when you exit the haystack, small pieces of straw follow you and this might raise suspicion.

The enemies AI has also improved, and you will see this when fight you them. For a bit more detailed article you can view Tody’s article here. There is so much to talk about regrading this game, so for now, we’re just going to wait to review it.

Who doesn't enjoy a good swim?

Want to join me in this haystack?

These mech like things are awesomely powerful.

Team eGamer ^_^

It's time to party.