Holodeck Database

Gears Of War

2007-02-13T06:38:00.000-08:00

When I first saw the add for Gears on gametrailers.com it took me a while to recover and realize how much my jaw had actually dropped. I showed it to everyone I knew at Uni and everyone was impressed. Then began the advertisement campaigns. We came across it first when all the friends I had show the trailer to went to watch Casino Royal and viola !! the big screen was showing the trailer in proper Hi-Def and boy was it sweet.

Was this game one of the reasons I bought the Xbox 360, probably not ( I was in it for Halo and Star Trek Legacy) but had i played this game earlier I would have definitely bought it for this game. Although short the game has some of the most intense military styled combat I have ever seen in a shooter.

"Duck n Shoot"
The concept is a tried and tested one but no one has ever got it right, until now. The 'A' key is beautifully mapped to do take cover, do cartwheels to get out of sticky situations and to do a crouch-run which looks amazing !! But the entire thing of Take cover first, shoot second really makes the game more challenging and involving.

"Chainsaw Bayonet"
The main assault rifle takes bayoneting enemies to the next level, by cutting them into 2 with a chainsaw attached as the bayonet !!!

The story line is pretty amazing as the above clip demonstrates. Overall the game is amazing, the Unreal 3 engine is truly the best engine in the current market and this game truly shows the potential for the Xbox360.

F.E.A.R

2006-07-11T19:00:00.000-07:00

Just finished FEAR. my first impression of the game was on my friends computer and it was a bad impression indeed. after that from my research i concluded that the game had to be lousy mainly due to its high system reqs and not-too great visuals.

i must say i was plesently surprised when i tried it out myself almost half a year after 1st seeing it. my first impression was "addictive" !!

Graphics : the Monolith developed engine powering this monster is a beauty. not only are the lighting/shadow effects spectacular and crisp, the physics engine is also one of the most advanced i have seen in a FPS game. sure its got all the things that Half Life 2 can do ( ever since the Havok 2 physics engine became standard with games ) but there is the added pleasure of being able to leave ones artwork in the walls. its interesting though as i havnt seen this in too many FPS games before yest its comon in other geners like flight sime, for example Bridge Commander ( released 2001 ). in that game one can knock out different sections of a starship and basically punch holes through the hull wherever one feels like ( and yes one can miss the target by firing through the hole :P ). still its is refreshing compared to the standard marks left on the walls.

The game engine is based on the Lithtech engine called Lithtech Jupiter, a revamped version of the Lithtech 3.x engine. off the record, this engine was designed by Monolith initially for Microsoft for DirectX related software and when that dint go through was later used for the memorable game No One Lives For Ever.

AI : this is where the game truly shines ! the AI scripts for each enemy are unique and make the combat more intense and hyper-realistic. enemy squads engage in proper formations when they spot ypu ( by seeing you or even your flash light ) and will take you out by lobbing in grenades and then sending men in the smoke to rekon while a small group tries to out-flank you. then there are the watchers that remain cloaked and stuck to walls, ever waiting for a passerby to ignore them so they can uncloak and withing a milisecond attack you and find a new hiding second. overall, the game never gets old with new enemies being introduced regularly to spice tings up.

Level design : the biggest weak point in the game, the level designing is reminiscent of the good old quake2 days. you simply cannot make it more boring ! not just that but in scenes the high geometry meshes used are questionable and indicate the mappers were lazy or just dint have enough time. either way even though the engine is way beter than say Half Life 2, the maps are no where as interesting looking and hardly make good use of the powerfull 3d engine powering this bugger.

Story : being a fan of the good old FMV ( full motion video ) era games such as Wing Commander, Crusader - No Regret and others, the story is in my opinion one of the most important aspects that make me wanna play the game more and more till its over. FEAR's story is , thin at the most. very little happens in the begining to explain why all the blood shed and fighting is happening but towards the end the game becomes like a thriller novel as the pieces begin to fall together. end the end i was extremely with how the story was played out and it is a prety decent one too i must add. below are snaps from the last 2 minutes in the game.

Overall a good game. i look forward to its next installment ( believe me, the story is not over, the game's ending is incomplete )

Graphics Cards Overview

2006-07-10T21:52:00.000-07:00

Well, in the 4 semesters ive spent in Windsor, i look back and realize ive had the chance to taste 3 different graphics cards over tha period of time. Each card with its wown strengths and weaknesses were deffinately major upgrades from the previous ones.

Geforce FX 5700LE (MSI) : Starting from the begining, there was the Nvidia Nvidia GeForce Fx5700 by MSI. it was a good card until i saw what the ATI brands had to offer in the same price range. reason being, the Nvidia FX chipset at the heart of the card was brilliant, just implemented poorely by MSI and at CAD $210 it was not worth the money. The reason i went in for MSI specifically at the time of purchase was because the previous card i had bought in Australia was also MSI and was one of the best in the market at that given time.

ATI 9600 Pro (Saphire) : The next card was an ATI 9600 Pro that i got as a free upgrade as my previous card was having troubles with the fan. Overall i was pleased with this card, not only was it cheap but the performance boost it gave was almost 3x compared to the previous one.the card was made by Saphire which being a good company had properly implemented the 9600 Radeon chipset. The only down side i saw at that time was the Ram. Unlike the Geforce i had earlier with Samsung ram, this saphire had some cheap ram on it which i believe led to an underuse of the card.

Nvidia Geforce 6600 GT (EVGA): Things were good, until i made the switch from Windows XP to Linux Fedora Core 4. then everything went down-hill, the biggest reason being ATI's poor driver support for non-Windows based operating systems. infact, when i upgraded from Fedora Core 3 to 4, the ATI drivers refused to install due to their not being capable of supporting the new kernel in Fedora 4. The end result was games would not run, video would lag and overall i just couldnt enjoy the eye candy that Linux provides over Windows. Also, i realized, ATI's poor support for Linux was part because of the fact that their cards are built for Direct-X processing. As linux is based on the Open Source Graphics Library ( OpenGL ) i felt the card was under-performing. Being a Linux enthusiast and an OpenGL programmer i felt it necessary to go back to Nvidia, reason for this was not only the extensive support Nvidia offers for Linux but also because they can support OpenGL as well as DirectX without any partiality. All this and almost 4x the speed of the previous ATI card all wrapped in a Doom3 ready package costing under CAD $200 was more than i could ask for. Ive been able to take all my games to a higher resulation ( without comprimising gameplay ofcourse ) and the results are astounding. infact in this budget range, the Geforce 6600GT is said to outstrip the ATI X700 Pro in just about all the games ( excapt Half Life 2, which is totally DirectX and both cards display the same performance ).

All in all its been a round trip from Nvidia to ATI and back and im glad i went full circle. For now thou, i think i'm going to stick to Nvidia, but, you never know.........