I Love My Alienware m11x… Almost As Much As My Sega Saturn
So a couple weeks ago I received my m11x, and it has been a FANTASTIC little machine. I just loaded up Battlefield Bad Company 2 on this sucker, and it ran fantastically great. I'm still surprised they jammed as much gaming goodness in this little thing, but a word to the wise: do NOT try and game with the same settings while hooking this thing up to an external monitor with a larger resolution. Everything works great at the 1366x720 the laptop runs at, which means you can do some console level gaming on an HDTV in 720p, except with all the details up. But running it up to 1680x1050 and 1920x1200 is a no go hah. It works fine, but settings will hafta be scaled for sure. Anyhoo, moving on.
The laptop is great for its size and incredibly powerful, and when on integrated graphics this little guy squeezes out the battery life left and right. I was doing a few things with wi-fi on and and some internet browsing with video, and at 100% battery it was reading me out 6 hrs and 45 mins. Not too shabby! Though the second I kicked in the Nvidia graphics and started a game, daddy was down to 2 hrs flat hah. Still, quite fantastic for gaming on the go.
Gotta play some Tomb Raider Anniversary, I played the original a LOT when it came out, on the sexy Sega Saturn, so I totally wanna get back into it. I still have a Sega Saturn, so I might just fire up the OG as it were. That, and I haven't taken Sonic R for a spin yet. Sega All Stars Racing? BAH! I got the real treat!
"Living in the city, you know you hafta surviiiive.."
Uncharted 2 Co-op Madness
So while this is old news to many of you, Uncharted 2's Co-op mode is really fun. It's pretty fun because people come in from all angles, so you're never totally safe, which is good, too many games are WAY too easy.
Of course, a day after getting to play the Uncharted 2 co-op it for the first time, the Playstation Network is experiencing ... problems. I'm not going online till it's fixed, I'm hearing a lot of things, and I don't wanna lose any data if I don't have to.
Speaking of hard games, I've yet to play Demon Souls. Too many games, too little monies. Someone not too long ago, I forgot who, wrote a great post about how game companies need to stop making games for a year, which I wholeheartedly agree with. I need to finish my backlog, I own 99 games on steam alone and I KNOW I haven't finished those babies off.
So sad... but yes, still I started playing a bit of Stalker (I'm not spelling it out with the capitals and the periods, that's stupid, it takes too long) but I have trouble getting into it because it's soooo sloww. I'm not the type to jump outta slow games, one of my favorite game series is the Myst series, and I challenge you to find a more lethargically paced collection of software. But I suppose I find the atmosphere more compelling in Myst, even though it is somewhat devoid of life. I'll try and give Stalker another try, but failing that I think I might jump into Tomb Raider Anniversary. The series has always held a little place in my heart ever since I played the first one on my friend's Saturn. Yes, Sega Saturn, king of video game systems! I was floored by what they had done with the game and I still feel that feeling when I play the new ones.
As it's going, I have less and less patience for newer series and newer games, and I suppose ONE good thing to come out of being slightly narrow minded about those games is that I can wrangle my long list of games down to just a few I really want to play. Still, I find myself torn to new games every so often, so whatever. I'll play what I play and LIKE IT.
PC Upgrading! Sort of!
So I've resolved to make my desktop more than half the size it is, and it has come with an onslaught of problems. First of all, the new, smaller case I got is a Cooler Master something something. It's a $40 dollar case that is probably the smallest one you can fit a full ATX board into. The power supply goes in the bottom front bay, and stupid me, I did not realize the problems I would encounter right off the bat. I managed to get the whole thing super clean inside, which was great! I really need to chuck the extra IDE drive I have in there, stupid thing is just clogging things up. I unfortunately made the bad decision to put my operating system on that drive (yes, the oldest and most lethargic one) so I'm temporarily stuck. I have two other 500 gig sata drives crammed in there as well, and all my games are installed onto one of those, so reformatting isn't terrible as I'll still have all my stuff. The problems start from this point forward.
My graphics card, initially, did not fit. This makes sense, as it is quite long, and the case is quite stupidly short, and I should have seen this coming before I bought the case. After having all of your computer components in a full tower metal Antec case, everything looks small. The cables were one thing, even with them managed perfectly fitting my old 8800 GT in the new case was going to be a feat. I would hafta craftily arrange everything in there, making sure to mind the wires and such.
After slipping a few cables in the little holes left by the divots on the sides of where the card pops into the PCI-Express slot, I was ready to cram that baby in there!
Clunk! Clunk!
Hrm.. seems that with the new power supply positioning, DIRECTLY TO THE RIGHT OF THE MOTHERBOARD, the card was a LITTLE TOO LONG TO FIT. I just paused here for a while and kinda looked at it, willing it to work with the power of my mind. Alas, I've slacked on my Jedi training lately (ever since I stopped playing Jedi Outcast) and the card would not magically fit. After staring at this thing for a while, I figured out there was a little plastic spacer right next to the power supply that could be removed to create some additional space!! With a renewed sense of wonder, I went to work getting the power supply reseated further towards the front of the case.
With the biggest sense of false achievement that anyone has ever mustered, I slid that card straight into the PCI-Express socket and jumped for joy. As I marveled at my small franken-PC, the falseness of my achievement started to dawn on me. As I started to meticulously plug in cables, finishing the job off, I went to plug in the 6-pin connector for my 8800GT. Located at the tail end of my card. Which was now about less than a centimeter away from the power supply.
I'm not sure how long I sat there looking at it; it wasn't too long, and 15 minutes and one bent graphics card later, I can say it fits perfectly.
Battlefield Bad Company 2, an Exercise in FUN
Battlefield has always been interesting from the start. Ever since 1942 (the game, not the year stupid) the actual engine it's used has always seemed interesting because I've always had the feeling it took place on the moon or some other low gravity planet. The physics were always a little bit... bouncy, and when playing the game it has always had this "floaty" quality; that doesn't necessarily tie into the physics of the game, but the actual model you played and played against always seemed a little low impact.
Now what do you mean by that, you say? I mean the collision detection is... interesting, the sounds always conveyed a small sense of feedback that you'd actually shot a guy, and when you shoot at people it seems like you're shooting at moving pieces of paper; the impact and feel of shooting at something has always somewhat been lost on this game. If i could liken it to any other gaming genre, shooting one other person in a Battlefield game is akin to shooting one other person in a RTS game. The impact of the individual is diminished. That, of course, is tied into the engine used and the point of the game; a ton of detail, weather it be sound feedback or area feedback, is lost in the grand scheme of the battle. That has always slightly turned me off to this game because the feeling of engaging in battle in Battlefield as opposed to Call of Duty, or heck Wolfenstein, Doom, Unreal, etc. is a difference of personal interaction, where killing a person in Battlefield is not as important visually and aurally.
And despite all this, Battlefield is still very fun. What you lose in close battles and interactions you make up for in teamwork and that overall sense of accomplishment that is usually reserved for a a large scale RTS battle. Either way, I hope you can understand what I mean when comparing this to other FPS games, the purely visceral for the purely.. tactical..? Anyhoo, try out Bad Company 2 if you can get a beta key, I picked mine offa Fileplanet, took all of 2 seconds with some promotion they were running. It's done now, but I'm sure another one will pop up for sure.
Also, another side note. There has been a lot of buzz over Torchlight, the "true heir" to Diablo and such. It is fantastic, that I am sure of. The music, the sound, the feel are all directly lifted from the original Diablo experience, and I laud them for that. But honestly, if you are one of the many that feel like Torchlight is doing a better job than Diablo 3 at continuing the franchise, this is where you need to drop any complaints about Diablo 3's graphics. Torchlight is cartoony as shit, and one can say Diablo 3, with it's myriad of rainbows and unicorns, still looks more rooted in realism than Torchlight. And I've heard "well it's a departure for the series, it's 'Torchlight', not Diablo! LOLZ"; you need to shut the hell up. Don't bitch about one's graphics without taking into consideration the other camp DID THE SAME THING.
I Shouldn’t Have Started Shadow Complex Tonight
It's sucked me in like a vacuum cleaner sucks... dirt.. yeahhh. I'm not as enamored with it as I was with Symphony of the Night, but hey, it's pretty awesome. Is it sad that all I can think of as I play it is how sad I am it isn't a PC game, and therefore NOT mod-able into a TC for Castlevania? Bah! So close too, it being Unreal engine.
Anyhoo, the main character's voice is very familiar, I feel like he's voiced some other main character from a not-popular at all game or two. I swear, his voice is instantly recognizable, and it is really weird to have such an iconic characters voice come out of so many other different and less charming faces!
Must sleep.. work in the morning... want to playyyyyyzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzZZZzzzZZZZzz
This Is All I Got
Old Stuffs
Poll
Did you like the Live Action Portions of the Super Mario Bros. Super Show?
- Yes (100%, 2 Votes)
- No (0%, 0 Votes)
- I never watched the show (I'm a douche-face!) (0%, 0 Votes)
Total Voters: 2
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