2CPU.com » News » November 2001 » The Inane Ramblings of a Travelling Man...

So I just returned to Canada this morning after spending Thanksgiving across the border. Let me tell you, you Americans really celebrate Thanksgiving in the grand ole US of A. It's a much larger event it seems than it is up here in snow-covered Canada. It seems I've discussed this before... maybe that was with my pet Penguin...

DIGRESSING

Games. When did it happen? When did games become more about the graphics then the game itself? I want exact dates, and the offenders names and addresses please. I haven't truly been captivated by a game since Quake2 FFA, and I'm still waiting on ID to release the patch that makes Quake3 fun. I've had more fun over the last two - three weeks playing emulated NES and SNES (Yes, Nintendo folks) games than I have playing the "latest shooter" or "RTS that's exactly like C&C only different".

I know what you're thinking, but my present infatuation with games born many moons ago on a console far far away is not simply a nostalgia trip gone terribly, terribly wrong. These games are more fun. More succinctly, these are better games. Problems: You'll drop 50 bones on a game, install it, ooh and ahh over the graphics for an hour or two and then get bored of the game, stop, and put it on the shelf. 50 dollars down the drain. That could have been pepsi money, or several trips to McDonalds (just don't try and break up a combo), or whatever else floats your boat. Or how about you drop 50 dollars on a game and it only takes 2 hours to complete it because so much cd space (and development time) went into eye candy and not substance/gameplay? I'd better digress yet again before I induce a coronary.

BACK TO BUSINESS

What does Jim have coming down the pipe for all you crazy, little SMPers out there? Well we have a couple of AOpen cases on the test bench at present (including a mammoth 5U rackmountable case, the H800A), I finally bought a laptop which I'll probably write up even though it only has one processor under the hood (SMPers need mobile-love too, right?). No I'm not telling you what kind it is. No. You'll just have to read about it. Finally, I was talking to Sherman today (Iwill) and he's actually going to send us a finalized DVD266u-RN to play with. Apparently all the bugs have finally been worked out. Sooo one of our staffers will give it the once over for you.

I'm spent.

foobar67 Done SMP since 1998 Posts: 113 Joined: 2000-08-11

#12507 Posted on: 11/27/2001 05:45 AM The board has been for sale for a month ! Do you mean that I've bougth an engineering sample ? I've got rev 1 of the board ........ Interesting concept, make the customers paying beta testers. Regards foobar67 Dual P3-550MHz, Slot-1 Supermicro P6DGE, 2x128Mb PC100 :cool: Finally dual again.....

Jim_ Administrator Posts: 3464 Joined: 2000-03-15

#12508 Posted on: 11/27/2001 06:12 AM Originally posted by foobar67 The board has been for sale for a month ! Do you mean that I've bougth an engineering sample ? I've got rev 1 of the board ........ I honestly have no idea "what" board you received. The DVD266u-RN has been shipping for awhile now, so I assume you have the full-meal-real-deal. Sherman was at Comdex and busy busy before that so I assume they just held off on sending out full-blown review units. I'll give you all the heads up on revision #'s when the board arrives. Jim [url="http://www.2cpu.com"][size=1]2CPU.com[/url] - Because two are always better than one! [url="http://www.jimkirk.org"]jimkirk.org[/url] - Not a Myth any Longer. Just a Dad.[/size]

widefault Registered User Posts: 1202 Joined: 2001-02-06

#12509 Posted on: 11/27/2001 06:19 AM My DVD266u was a rev 1.0 as well, and a complete waste of my time. An overclocking Tualatin board that can't overclock Tualatins. Not to mention my dual 1.13ghz setup was SLOWER than a single 1.2Ghz 256k cache Tualatin converting the same mpeg-1 file to divx. And that was using SMP aware software, too. Hope you have better results than I did. &E

voltron Master Dualie Posts: 1254 Joined: 2000-12-22

#12510 Posted on: 11/27/2001 07:31 AM I would equal Iwill to crap. MSI K8N Neo2-F, bios 1B | 3800 64 X2 | 2x512MB Kingston 2700 cas 2.5 unbuff | 3950U2D | 10K 70GB | ATI Radeon 800XL 256MB AGP | Viewsonic VX800 | Audigy2 | 3Com 10/100 | Mad Dog Surepower 550Watts | Windows XP Prof SP2.

BBA Resident Modding Freak Posts: 1390 Joined: 2000-02-12

#12511 Posted on: 11/27/2001 07:46 AM Games...well, Gaming story ended with Duke Nukem, and GL Quake started the graphics thing, I think. As for gameplay, you should play the new game Return To Castle Wolfenstien. This game truly has the gameplay and story you want...it totally keeps you glued until you finish the game...which took me almost 3 days on and off. I think that was worth $50. BBA

Hooz Administrator Posts: 2337 Joined: 2000-03-29

#12512 Posted on: 11/27/2001 08:27 AM I played a "real life (tm)" version of Deer Hunter today I was so tired/bored with current games that I spent all day today in the woods playing the real thing. Unfortunately I kept passing on the deer I saw... Just waiting for the big one that never showed Oh well, it's been a long time since I dodged rattle-snakes, so it was fun nonetheless [size=1][url="http://www.2cpu.com"]2CPU.com[/url] - Because two are always better than one! Are you folding? [url="http://folding.extremeoverclocking.com/team_summary.php?s=&t=3074"]2CPU.com Folding@Home Team[/url] [url="http://www.heatware.com/eval.php?id=19979"]My Heatware[/url][/size]

timekills Satellite rider Posts: 527 Joined: 2000-08-17

#12513 Posted on: 11/27/2001 08:34 AM I definitely second BBA's opinion on Return to Castle Wolfenstein. I haven't enjoyed a FPS game this much since Quake and Duke Nukem 3D came out. Max Payne was I thought going to be the game, but it got old once I tired of playing "Bullet Time". I actually have withdrawal symptoms from RtCW. I may not agree with your opinion, but I will defend to the death your right to express it.

Tairc Will work for bandwidth! Posts: 117 Joined: 2000-03-01

#12514 Posted on: 11/27/2001 11:21 AM As for me, I've got to TOTALLY second the digression. I used to adore starcraft, more than any human really should (14 hour marathons were the norm, especially during my 2 week "intense phase" where I crammed in 14-14hour days...) But ever since then, Things like AOE, EmpireEarth, etc, nothing can captivate me. Tribes2 had me for a while (and I still think its a great game) but quite frankly, I've got tendonitis, and it doesn't like them twitchy games. Other than Starcraft and Tribes 2 though, I haven't actually LIKED a game in a good long while. Frankly, I had a great experience the other day at the Best Buy. I was walking through with my girlfriend, and she picked up the Gamecube demo machine to play Luigi's, and I picked up the XBox demo machine to play some sort of crazy racing game (no vehicles, you just run around crazy courses picking up green things, and no, it wasn' Munch's) and for the first time in a LONG time, I had a rollicking good time. No steep learning curve, no huge install time, I just picked up the game, and it was FUN. Because of that (and I'm only mildly sad to announce) I ended up picking up only a single proc machine, to save a few bucks. I have a feeling I'll be picking up a PS2/GameCube/XBox as soon as prices start dropping, because games like SSX Tricky,MarioKart, and that Xbox racing game are calling me. To a land of fun, where things like FPS really don't matter.

CasbahBoy A bit of a lurker Posts: 62 Joined: 2001-04-09

#12515 Posted on: 11/27/2001 12:22 PM Thats a third on Return to Castle Wolfenstein. I found myself reloading the game whenever I didn't kill a certain group of Nazis just right, or when something especially suprising occurs and I want to see it again...and again...and again . Still have not beaten the game yet, because of my habit of reloading a levelsave before progressing further because of how much fun I had in playing through an area... I have also realized the severe lack of buyable games out on the market today...months ago, I began my summer vacation with the thought "Is there any game I'm looking forward to this summer? This year?" RtCW is one of those games worth buying - the only other two I can think of at the moment is the PC version of Halo (first quarter 2002), and Doom3 (give it another 20 years...). I've been eyeing the PS2 for a while now - Armored Core2, GT3, Wipeout Fusion...but it may take a bit more than that to get me to reroute that much money into something other than computer upgrades. Sigh. Back to Wolfenstein, old but good vanilla Quake3, and my precious emulation collection... I have Heatware and Beerology references.

Gopher SMP Newbie Posts: 26 Joined: 2001-07-23

#12516 Posted on: 11/27/2001 03:06 PM Still under impression, that good old Minesweeper is th ebest game ever. No action, just pure brainoverclocking. Only 146 seconds in Expert moide, eh? Who'll best it? Need action? Take Descent 3 - real hell (at least not in Trainee mode). Wait for Descent 4/5... Need strategy - SimCity 3000 etc. Only three games are GEMES for me: Minesweeper, SimCity 3K & Descent 3. - TigerMP / 2* AthlonXP 1500+ / 2* Crucial 256Mb PC2100 ECC Reg - ATI Rage 128 Pro VIVO - Adaptec 2940U2 LVD - SBLive 5.1 Platinum - Intel Ethernet 100+/Pro - USR External v.92 FAX Modem - Proprietary medical device (PCI card) - Iomega ZIP 100Mb - 3 LVD HDD (80 Gb total) - Toshiba SCSI-DVD T1401

grindles SMP Duck Posts: 370 Joined: 2000-06-03

#12517 Posted on: 11/27/2001 05:40 PM The most recent game that has had me hooked was Homeworld, and Cataclysm. I played counter strike a bit, but that isn't a new game anyway... I was never impressed with the quake series of games, like someone said, Duke Nuken 3D was far more fun, people only went with quake because of the fancy graphics. Starcraft was very good, but going back to it now does nothing for me, I think I just cant cope with the low res graphics. Total annihlation on the other hand was programed well, allowing people to up the res in the future, when monitors bigger than 15" appeared. Oh yeah, and if anyone can tell me where I can get the expansion pack for TA (core contingency), I would really appreciate it, I cant find it anywhere. But we all know that the best game ever was Dr Robotnik's Mean Bean Machine, on the Sega Mega Drive (Genesis for the US lot I think).

travisgrafx Step 1 = Underpants Posts: 166 Joined: 2001-09-14

#12518 Posted on: 11/27/2001 07:44 PM Nintendo, SNES them are new fangled gadgets. I rock on an Atari pong ROM 24/7. One thing that has always been multiplatform is crappy games. Pound for pound PCs womp on ps2s, cubes, pubes, and boxes in almost everyway. Heck if you don "Man who live in glass house should change clothes in basement."

Fr0st Registered User Posts: 493 Joined: 2001-01-05

#12519 Posted on: 11/27/2001 09:24 PM Half-Life. How could you guys forget Half-Life? Original, single-player, up-till-4am-even-though-I-have-to-get-up-at-6:30 Half-Life. Absolutely the pinnacle, for me anyway. I *still* go back and play some of the better chapters. Oh yeah, Millipede and Tempest on MAME32 can keep me absorbed for a while, too... Iwill: If the bugs really are worked out, I'll seriously consider one. I just hope that it's not too little, too late. Not because of Iwill, but because of the P3 nearing it's last days. Nothing is true, everything is permitted.

Eradicator Arch Graybeard Heckler Posts: 417 Joined: 2000-07-11

#12520 Posted on: 11/27/2001 09:34 PM Graphics are a big driver for games these days--no argument there. But I'm glad graphics are important. Why else would we want to upgrade our machines? I think you should consider the types of games you're reviewing now. The games 5-10 years ago were solely single-player. Nowadays, most games have at least a minimal multiplayer mode. For FPS and RTS games, there's hardly any single-player storyline left. Because of the continually expanding availability of broadband, online gaming is taking over as the primary motivation for new games. Because many of these games are now conditioned towards multiplayability (it's a word, isn't it?), you just won't find the same value when comparing it to a long single-player storyline. One thing that really gets to me, though, is how games are released prematurely. Who knows how and when it started, but they should have been shot on the spot. So many of these MP games come out before they're really finished, with promises upon promises from the developers (or really it's the company that distributed it) that they'll _patch_ it up. That crap just makes me sick. I hate spending money on a game only to find out it's not going to be worth my money until I d/l several patches. [size=1][url="http://trance-port.com/sig/sig.html"]My Systems[/url] ~ [url="http://www.dvdprofiler.com/mc.asp?alias=Eradicator"]My DVDs[/url] ~ [url="http://www.beatportfolio.com"]Beat Portfolio[/url] [/size]

Spiral SMP Newbie Posts: 49 Joined: 2001-05-15

#12521 Posted on: 11/27/2001 09:41 PM Hmmm... Well, I like Starsiege far more than Mechwarrior although the former is 3yrs old and both are giant robot games. I think MW has nicer graphics, yes, but the gameplay, the engine, the plot, and the interface of the older game appeal to me far more. I've noticed that lotsa computer games are rushed through the final production stages and we are given betas which then require large multi-megabyte patches to be installed and downloaded, which is esp. problematic for those on dial-up. That may be one reason why console games are shipped complete, when internet connections allow console machines to d/l patches, betcha we'll see incomplete games with patches galore from there too. Tribes 2 also appeals to me but that's another patch-needy game, and as I heard it, was also rushed through in the final stages of production. I think my next game might be a MMORPG, cause I like the feel of community. Gaming seems so much more fun when you play with a community, that's mostly why I stick with PC and won't bother going to a console. My .02$

freezone Registered User Posts: 264 Joined: 2000-12-31

#12522 Posted on: 11/28/2001 01:20 AM Does no one like the single player of AVP2? I have not had this much fun since Half-life. You have to play marines in the dark with a good sound system . Multip[layers is not there yet, but the single player was well wortyh the $39 I paid. The really capture the mood and feel of the movies. 24 inch dell e6600 3gigs pc6400 abit IN9 32X-MAX 150gig raptor bfg 8800gtx

puppet Got Little Feat Posts: 1100 Joined: 2001-08-15

#12523 Posted on: 11/28/2001 10:39 AM Games......I know what ya'll mean. One game I play ....Blade of Darkness....is pretty challenging. Looks good and will definately get your heart pumpin'. Tyan i840|2x1000|1GB PC800 RDRAM|4xQuantum 10kII|VisionTek X-6964|TBSC|Plextor 40max|S&F Mach 12|iiyama VM pro 501 & VM pro 502|mod'ed Toshiba Magnia 3010 chassis|600W PSU

DracoDan Witty text Posts: 331 Joined: 2001-09-11

#12524 Posted on: 11/28/2001 06:52 PM Personally im a console freak. zsnes and nesticle are the two most played games on my computer. esp. after I modded my snes controller to work on my computer. I also still have a working atari 2600 that IS hooked up, however my nes and snes bit the dust years ago. I do have to admit that U've spent an insane amount of time playing RTCW lately Also, Starcraft was the shit for a long time until I upgraded to windowsXP (Battle.net seems dead on it) Heatware Ebay feedback

grindles SMP Duck Posts: 370 Joined: 2000-06-03

#12525 Posted on: 11/29/2001 04:40 AM DracoDan, I am most interested in your snes controller mod.

DracoDan Witty text Posts: 331 Joined: 2001-09-11

#12526 Posted on: 11/29/2001 10:10 AM Originally posted by grindles DracoDan, I am most interested in your snes controller mod. Look on the internet for a file called dpadpr50 (win9x) or ntpad.zip (winnt,2000,XP) these are the driver files and also include a diagram to make the adapter If you don't have any luck there then drop me an E-mail at DracoDan@hotmail.com . Specify the OS you use and I will send you the file you need If anyone else wants it, just E-mail me with your os Heatware Ebay feedback

2CPU.com » News » November 2001 » The Inane Ramblings of a Travelling Man...