Ruined My Life

Spore Gameplay Video

Blogged in Computers, Games, Internet by Matt on Thursday March 2, 2006

I was browsing Google Videos and found this Spore Gameplay Video. Spore is a new game coming out that is created by Will Wright. You start out as a single celled organism and evolve on out from there. Simply amazing. Check out the video.

Popularity: 23% [?]

Doom Movie Trailer Released

Blogged in FPS, Games by Matt on Friday August 26, 2005

The Doom movie trailer has been released today. It’s avaliable at Yahoo Movies or by clicking here.

Now that I’ve seen the trailer, I can honestly say I’m not anymore estatic about seeing the movie as I was when I read about it before. The settings in the trailer remind me alot of Doom 3, as far as the architecture indoors and the look of Mars goes, however the “monsters” in this one are spawned from a genetics project gone wry, instead of being beastily demons from hell!What the hell is that? The people that Doom is marketed towards are the gamers, who have played Doom since it’s beginning, at least the older crowd in that case. Regardless the plot has been changed. To top all of that off, it looks like there’ll be First-Person footage in the movie, as long as the trailer uses actual footage. I don’t want to watch a god damn movie in the first person, if I wanted to see that, I’d play the god awful game. As for my recommendation of Doom the Movie, I’ll probably wait and download it. Yar!

Popularity: 20% [?]

Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory

Blogged in FPS, Games by Matt on Sunday July 17, 2005

Just the other day at work, Bill, one of the computer techs at my work, and myself were talking about what First Person Shooters we like. We both came to an agreement that we both prefer the faster paced, more deathmatch like FPS games, Quake 2, Quake 3, Team Fortress, Call of Duty and so forth. When talking about the games I was remembered a great game I played for a good summer in 2003, this game, Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory (ET).

If you don’t know what ET is, it was scheduled to be a Multiplayer Addon for Return to Castle Wolfenstein, instead they decided to release it as a free, open source game. The gameplay is VERY similar to Team Fortress. ET runs on the Quake 3 engine, so it’s nice looking but nothing cutting edge. The gameplay is top notch though, if you remember playing TF for QuakeWorld then you’ll feel at home here, however if you’re a Counter-Strike Kiddie, this will be a new experience for you. Out with the “faux-realistic” FPS gameplay of CS, and in with the Team Objective Based game with tons of DM flavor. Don’t get me wrong CS is a good game, however it doesn’t have the appeal for me. I much prefer the Fast, Deathmatch like gameplay of ET over CS anyday.

If you’ve never played Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory be sure to give it a try, and if you’re an OG QW:TF player you’ll be pleasently suprised, this I gurantee you!

Popularity: 18% [?]

Stop the Grand Theft Auto Sex Controversey Already

Blogged in Games by Matt on Friday July 15, 2005

Let me begin this by saying, WHO CARES? A couple of Grant Theft Auto Characters Fucking seems to make a huge impact on our “society”. It started out as gripes about the violence in the GTA games, and now it has escalated into gripes about characters making sex. Who gives a rats ass? Sex… boooooo….. hisssssss… sex is bad, but violence on TV is ok. Keep in mind this is a video game with a “M” rating for mature. Instead of pointing fingers, parents need to quit being lazy ass slack off’s and be a parent for once.

Popularity: 14% [?]

Madden 2006 Pricing Going Up!

Blogged in Games by Matt on Thursday July 14, 2005

I don’t know how many of you readers are console gamers, or follow the football video game industry very closely but if you recall earlier this year, EA Games signed an exclusive deal with the NFL, allowing EA Games to be the only distributor of NFL games for the next 5 years. So basically what this does, is allows EA Games to make a monopoly of the Pro-Football industry on Videogame Consoles as well as PCs.

Last year if you recall, as well as the year before Take-Two Interactive published a far superior football game titled, ESPN NFL 2K5. Not only was this game better then EA’s cash cow of Madden but it sold for $20 USD yes, TWENTY DOLLARS. On top of ESPN NFL 2K5 selling for $20, it pressured EA Games into selling it’s Madden 2005 for a lower then normal price of, $30.

However, now that EA Games has inked that exclusive agreement with the NFL, all competition is gone. Not only did EA Games gobble up that lucrative NFL deal, they also signed an exclusive deal with ESPN for rights to the network’s name. Now that EA Games has gobbled up both of those licenses, EA plans on charging $50 for their second rate NFL game.

You can also view and confirm the higher prices at EBGames.

Popularity: 9% [?]

Tweaking Battlefield 2 Graphics Options

Blogged in FPS, Games by Matt on Sunday June 12, 2005

So I decided to mess around with Battlefield 2 some more, to make it run worth a crap on my system. First of all, if you have a Nvidia graphics card, make sure you use the drivers on the CD! Before I got done downloading the Battlefield 2 demo, I took the liberty to make sure my Video Card drivers were the most recent. I took a stroll over to Nvidia to download my drivers, according to them, their latest official driver is 71.89 so I got and installed them. Anyways it turns out the Battlefield 2 demo has 77.?? Nvidia Drivers. Anyways, make sure you use the drivers on the CD if you do not already have the 77.?? Nvidia Drivers.

Once you fire up the game, you’ll now want to navigate to the Options -> Video section. Once there you’ll be able to tweak your game for performance. If you’re running a low-end machine, (1.8GHZ or less, 64mb Card, 512mb Ram or less) I would recommend setting your settings all to low, and make sure shadows are turned off, Draw Distance to 50%, and you’re video resolution is at 800×600.

If you’re running a mid-range machine (1.8GHZ to 2.4GHZ , 128mb Card, Gig of Ram) I’d recommend leaving everything on Medium, however turn your geometry and texture settings to high. Once again, make sure shadows are turned off, the shadows really seem to kill machines with 128MB cards. The good thing about turning every thing to medium, except Texture and Geometry, and Shadows off is you can have the game with MOST of the Eye Candy and still get decent performance, make sure you’re resolution is at 1024×768 and 50-60% Draw Distance.

High-end machines (2.4GHZ and UP, 256MB Latest Generation Video Card, Gig or More of Ram) get to take advantage of all the eyecandy Battlefield 2 has to offer. Turn everything to high, crank your AA up a bit, and set your resolution to 1280×960 and frag away. You’ll get to see Battlefield 2 the way it’s suppose to be played, HOWEVER, all computers will differ on performance so mess around and give it a try.

I tried all the above settings out on two different boxes I have and these are what seemed to work the best. I didn’t do any Scientific Benchmarking or anything, however these settings gave me the best performance based on hardware. If you have any recommendations feel free to leave a comment for everyone to see.

Popularity: 12% [?]

Battlefield 2 First Impressions

Blogged in FPS, Reviews, Games by Matt on Friday June 10, 2005

Well well well, where to start with this one. As many of you probably know, the demo for Battlefield 2 was released today. Battlefield 2 is the (over)hyped sequel to Battlefield 1942 and Battlefield Vietnam. This time around Battlefield 2 was worked on by the team of Trauma Studios the same group who released Desert Combat for Battlefield 1942.

By just reading this opening remark, you can probably already tell my opinions on Battlefield 2, however keep in mind this is my critique from my first impressions, which in this case happen to be from playing the demo.

The Battlefield 2 demo weighs in at a hefty 546MB, if you’re lucky enough to get connected to a download, you will recieve a single map which can be played in single player for ten minutes or played in multiplayer. Once installed and loaded you’ll be presented with a rather sleek user interface, where you can go ahead and select your play mode. Once you’re ready to dive in to the action, you may as well go grab some food or smoke a cigarette, because you’re going to be waiting for your “shaders to optimize” on the first load up. Keep in mind I am on a AMD 64 3500+, Gig of DDR in Dual Channel, Two 120GB Seagate SATA drives in Raid 0, and a pair of eVGA 6800GT’s in SLI, and this first load took well over three minutes. I thought this load would be acceptable, since it was claiming it was optimizing shaders for my graphics selection. However after loading another game without the shader optimization it still took well over two minutes, BAD!

Finally the load finishes, and I’m presented with a menu where I have to enter the game, then select my class kit and spawn point. I spawn in the game, and the first thing I’m presented with are HUGE FUCKING BLACK BLOCKS COMING FROM SHADOWS OF PLAYER AND VEHICLE MODELS. Now I could have sworn the game was optimizing shaders for my selection, but apparently it didn’t. I throw my anger aside with the shadow ordeal, and decide to give the game a spin. I start running to my objective, and I’m tapping my F8 key looking for my good old familiar radio menu only to find out it has CHANGED! You hit Q to bring up a HORRIDLY designed radio menu system. You navigate it with your mouse, wtf? I’d rather beck at my keys, then have to move my mouse to an exact spot for a selection. Horrid move EA, than again it is EA, so what should we expect?

I get up to where the action is happening, and start fighting and think to myself, wow this feels just like Desert Combat. That isn’t inheritly a bad thing, seeing how Desert Combat is a great mod for Battlefield 1942, but in this case it is bad. The fighting is like Desert Combat, however when you do start fighting you will notice the same bugs that regular old Battlefield 1942 was plagued with for oh so long. You can hit people with grenades, and they’re just magically lifted off the ground, or tank cannons just launch people. You’d figure after five years, EA would have figured out how to fix this, than again they don’t care, they have a cash cow, why invest more to fix when they can invest none and profit.

The weapon and vehicle sounds in Battlefield 2 are great, however the radio messages are just downright annoying. The graphics are also nice, even if they are laggy as shit. With some work, Battlefield 2 could be MUCH better, however deadlines and pre-determined release dates mess all of that up. Before I make a more formal review, I will wait untill the full game is released, until then I will not touch this demo again.

Get the demo here and judge for yourself!

UPDATE
Take a gander at this article I wrote after I messed around with the game tweaking my Graphics Options for best Gameplay.
http://www.ruinedmylife.com/2005/06/12/tweaking-battlefield-2-graphics-options/

Popularity: 22% [?]

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Guild Wars Review

Blogged in MMORPGs, Reviews, Games by Matt on Friday May 27, 2005

As of late, I’ve been looking for a video game to play that is not only fun, but original. I’ve grown tired of playing the same old game over and over in the form of Counter-Strike Source and Half-Life 2, I’ve played Counter-Strike since Beta 3, time to move on from that dated formula. So I’ve been debating either playing World of Warcraft or Guild Wars. Well guess what, I played the Closed Beta, Stress Test, Second Stress Test, and Open Beta for World of Warcraft and came to a realization, after all of that grinding, I had no desire to ever play it again. So lo and behold, I picked up Guild Wars and am loving every minute of it.

I first played Guild Wars in it’s First Beta Weekend and was anything but impressed. The game mechanics sucked and the lage was horrific, but what can you expect, it’s a beta. I gave up on Guild Wars and just kind of brushed it off as a crappy want to be MMORPG. Five months have passed since then and the release of Guild Wars and boy was I wrong.

The thing that I love the most about Guild Wars is that a semi-casual player can play it, and still keep up with the hardcore power gamers. I’ve played the game thirty hours or so and am almost to cap my level and complete all the story line missions, albeit there are still hundreds of quests left for me to do. The fact of the matter is, I haven’t had to expend 200 hours or more to compete in the game, I simply do not have the time to invest hundreds of hours into a game.

Guild Wars is an entirely new game, there has been no other like it. It mixes elements of Diablo with elements of MMORPGs as well as action games. To top all of that off, Guild Wars has no monthly fee what so ever, making it the first of its kind. While some may argue that Guild Wars is not a MMORPG in the traditional since, the fact of the matter is, Guild Wars is not only a MMORPG, but an exceptional one.

The graphics in Guild Wars are phenomenol, theyre not “ultra realistic” however they are beautiful and have their own little artistic flair to them. The environments are large and lush and full of eye candy. The characters and spell effects are great, each spell having its own casting graphic and attack graphic, while the characters have countless animations to show their current condition or action. Monster models are plentiful, and very few use the same model with a different name, giving you plenty of variety.

Sounds in Guild Wars are good, monsters sound unique and when hurt they sound like they’re actually hurt. The sounds aren’t over done either, so you won’t grow annoyed of hearing the same monster gasping in pain over and over. The musical score is good; however it is generic and won’t be remember as a great game soundtrack. As much as I dig the sounds in Guild Wars there is one thing I can not stand, and that would be the voice acting in the cut scenes. Absolutely horrid, it’s like watching a B movie with their voice acting, cheesey and pathetic, no other way to put it.

Perhaps my favorite part of Guild Wars is the character classes and character creation. As you may or may not know in Guild Wars you start out as a base character profession, in this case, Elementalist, Ranger, Warrior, Monk, Mesmer, or Necromancer, and as you progress through the early game, you take on a second profession to make a dual classed character. By using all the possible classes, there are 30 possible class combinations one can have. Every class in Guild Wars is useful and versatile, for me I have chosen to play a Mesmer/Monk. By choosing those classes I can lock down enemy casters and players, and also heal with the monk profession. A different class selection equate to different playing styles, and is ultimately up to the player to choose how he or she wants to play.

The real gold of Guild Wars not only lies in it’s terrific set up and character classes, but also with it’s Player Vs. Player combat. PvP in Guild Wars is terrific to say the least, players compete against one another to sway the favor of the gods to their side. However, players do not just compete against other groups, they compete against players in other regions. For example in game you may be competing against Korea or Europe to gain the favor of the gods. Players can fight in either random PvP fights, or they can enter Tournaments to claim their guild as the top position. All in all, Guild Wars is the best PvP model to be introduced into a MMORPG and will keep players occupied for hours.

Guild Wars is a terrific MMORPG, in fact it’s my favorite that I have played before, that includes UO, EQ, DAOC, SWG, AO, WoW and More. Buy it NOW!!!!

Popularity: 29% [?]

Graphics do not Make a Game!

Blogged in Games by Matt on Monday May 23, 2005

So I was thinking earlier, that it seems to me that most game developers and publishers have lost all concept of what a good game is. These days it seems people care about only one thing, and the thing is Eye Candy. Don’t get me wrong, good graphics are a great thing, however it’s not what makes the game.

For example, let’s take Doom 3. Doom 3 is an amazing looking game, perhaps the best they come, but Doom 3’s gameplay is where it crashes and burns. If anyone has ever played Doom or Doom 2 then they will feel right at home with Doom 3. While this might not inheritly be a bad thing, the fact is it’s 10 years later, and games need not follow that formula.

Doom 3 consists of walking down dark, eerily lit corridors to be jumped by three or four monsters in a pre determined spot at a dramatic part in the game. This continues on for the next 12 hours, until you beat the game. Oh let’s not fail to mention the whole Find Red Key to Open Red Door part of Doom 3. Hello, John Carmack, we were doing this
back in Doom.

Sure Doom 3 is an amazing looking game, it’s just the same old crap over and over. Then we have Half-Life 2, amazing graphics, amazing story, and amazing gameplay. Some may argue if Half-Life 2 looks better then Doom 3 or not, but this isn’t the point. Half-Life 2 is a solid single player experience, and the multiplayer in the form of Half Life 2 Death Match or Counter-Strike Source is great, albeit Counter-Strike is old and boring to me now. The multiplayer in Doom 3 consists of four to eight people, duking it out in a deathmatch in a DARK level. I’ll choose Half-Life 2 anyday.

Now to continue on with this rant. Let’s look at the two leading MMORPG’s out now. We have Everquest 2 with it’s “faux realistic” graphics, while World of Warcraft goes for a more stylized, cartoonish approach. Now EQ2 may look more realistic, but WoW is a much better game by 10 fold. Not to mention that I much rather prefer the stylized, cartoonish graphics that World of Warcraft has.

Popularity: 24% [?]