A team based beta for Quake Wars?

According to Voodoo Extreme id opened up team based testing of Quake Wars for active clans who compete. I contacted people I know to see if I can get entrance for myself and a friend via some back alley door that smells of cat piss and used heroin vials but I really doubt anything will come of it.

What I don't quite understand right now is why is the testing limited to teams only? Shouldn't a game that will be sold to the general public include lesser mortals who don't quite grasp the concept of teamwork immediately? In other words, why no love for the noobs? The way I see it that will be the majority of people who will play this game and hopefully give it a long fruitful life. Heck, how many of us were really bad at RtCW before getting the grasp of things and the same for Enemy Territory?

Hopefully Splash will open the testing further as release date gets closer.

Fashionably Late to Company of Heroes

I had heard of Company of Heroes as one might hear about the theory of General Relativity. One is aware of such a thing but applying it to one's life everyday in some conscious way doesn't often occur.

But, I can't deny that after having played the demo I can see why this game earned all sorts of rewards and kudos. I've been told that the single player becomes a matter of completing a mission how the computer wants you to complete it but such things do not deter me since the last RTS I played through an entire campaign was the original Command & Conquer. RTSes are made to play with friends, preferably with beer and foodstuffs containing a high salt content.

Be that as it may, I'm very excited to try this game out as I have not given the Nazis a good thrashing in quite some time. Seeing a gaggle of Nazis get obliterated by an artillery strike during the demo with bodies tossed like acrobats, immediately made money fly out of my wallet and land in some person's coffers on E-Bay this weekend.

I was about to purchase this off of Best Buy's site since they had it for $30 but by the time I double-checked their site the price had gone back up to $50. I'm sure Best Buy won't miss the cash.

More sites think they're above the fray

It seems that gaming sites are lemmings. If one starts bagging on the methods of game reviewers others need to slap in their two cents. This means they assume they are possibly above the fray (hint: they're not) in some way, shape, or form.

The argument this time is the same old story: scoring with numbers are jacked up, reviewers might be getting kickbacks or more likely told to "gloss over" problems. Knowing these various issues, let us review then why my site should be viewed and adored by you masses of people. In fact I will call this Sphinx's-narricistic-list-of-love-my-site and we'll use this list as my measuring stick.

Game reviews, according to the article suck because
1. A lack of journalistic integrity
Response: Since I have no integrity I can't lose what I don't have. If EA came to me and offered some cash for a few nice words about PokemonSims 3000 I would do it since my opportunities to make cash running this pesthole are few and far between.

2. Video game reviewers are not impervious to hype.
Response: These are weak minded mortals with no long-term memory. Must I remind everyone about the hype surrounding Black & White which still maintains the second slot in my top two list of worst games ever? I've learned my lesson. Sure I'm excited about Quake Wars but if it blows up while running all bets are off for sure.

3. Interactivity alone makes a game better
Only a person who's never been touched by a woman in a pleasing way would think like this. In fact, you know what, no, even before I started getting some I didn't think like this. This point is stupid. Just because you get to touch it doesn't make it better. Again, look back at Black & White. It sucked watching or playing.

4. Loving video games is unlike loving film or literature.
What the hell kinda weepy, group therapy statement is this? Holy crap if I was a doctor I'd prescribe you two testicles.

5. Reviewers are pussies.
Yeah, if they have thoughts like number four they are.

6. Most video games are above average.
For every one Defcon there's fifty Sims games.

7. We're all morons.
I don't know why they only put this in one sentence because yes, game reviewers (including this one here), like sports columnists, are morons living on the coat tails of those who we only wish we could develop or design the games like the big names in our little part of the world. Some might do it out of respect and awe towards the Carmacks of the world while others might review games out of spite because they think they could do a better job if someone just gave them a shot or they were humiliated in a game tournament at the local LAN and decided that their voice would make "a difference against the tide" or some such bullshit. Get over yourselves morons, your reviews aren't that important and hopefully someday when nukes from China start obliterating our cities the servers housing sites like this will be the first to go.

8. Is the inflation of video game scores a bad thing?
Yes, why was so much time wasted on this point?

The author then suggests getting rid of scoring but says it will never happen because
"Most gamers don’t have time to wade through paragraphs of text to discover whether a game is worth their time or not (which will no doubt be shown when this article is not half as popular as the much shorter one that preceded it), and, as such, review scores will most likely stay around for quite some time."

Let me make that clear: he's saying kids (or even adults) with no jobs who sit around in the living room or looking at porn all day don't have time to read a 10 paragraph review that if printed in a magazine or book would comprise no more than two pages of true printed text. You, Mr. Game Reveiwer, are not probably writing the War & Peace of video game reviews nor will a dictionary be required to look up the grown up words. Again you ain't that important and you ain't above your own criticism.

Does gaming with Vista have staying power?

A recent article about Valve has some of their people saying that Microsoft is only doing this Games for Windows certification thing to push sales of Vista and will not stick to it over time (several years at least).

Personally I'm not planning on using the fact of whether or not a game is Microsoft certified to determine if I'll play a game but I suppose the more casual gamer might want to use this or accidentally be led to believe that a game won't work unless it has a GfW certification on it. I could already see less than scrupulous sales people trying that trick at a retail store to fool the wayward mother or grandparent who just wants to get their kids the newest game on the shelf.

C&C 3 for $50?

Dang EA why the hate on my wallet? $40, sure, but $50? Come on guys, cracka gotta eat.

A Quake Wars release date?

Now let us not get too excited here but if Gamespy's site here is correct then Quake Wars will be out at or around June 7th of this year. I hope this is right but after a few push backs and sometimes bizarre release dates being issued elsewhere (Christmas 2006, what the hell Amazon?) I certainly hope this date is something we can hang our hat on and run with for now. Given this early of a notification it would allow us all to take care of important tasks like kissing our loved ones goodbye for a week or so, make sure the bills are paid ahead of time, and write our distant relatives to say that no we have not died but are really, really, busy with ah.. "work." Yes that's it.

Ars attempts to justify its own existence

An opinion piece on Ars is an attempt at rebuttal from this piece on Sony's blog regarding whether or not reviews are still relevant anymore. To Ars credit they state one of the big problems with most reviews is that they add a scoring index onto their game review. I agree that this is flat out dumb since a review, by its nature, is a subjective issue and not something that can be charted on a line graph. If you recall the movie Dead Poet's Society they try to chart poetry on a 2-d graph and the teacher calls such an idea to be excrement. The same holds for game reviews.

Here's a choice little tidbit too from the Sony opinion piece:

"There [is] another reason why game reviews may have lost some of the regard and influence they once held - slant. Many people comment on how they feel certain journalists/publishers have a particular lean towards one platform over another."

So what if a review site does? I mean there are entire magazines geared just towards PC or just towards Xbox, right? Excuse my stupid thought here but a review is just that, one person or group's opinion about something. A synonym for such a thing would be 'slant,' wouldn't it? Revies are just editorial pieces approved by a publisher/editor. For the sake of open disclosure, I despise most console games except racers and football. Everything else can be done better on a PC.

But back to the Ars article. He went on to state:

"...there is a ton of available media on the net that can help you get a look at a game as it develops, but the problem with videos and pictures is that often the intangible elements are impossible to understand simply from seeing the game in motion—only the written or verbal communication of a person can adequately capture these details."

There's something even more important: demos of games. I'm not talking about trailers I mean a hands on touching of the goodies. Let me twiddle with the user interface and maps. Let me setup a standalone server and see how the game plays. THAT is the most important thing a developer can do to let me see if I want a game. Videos and pictures are nice but until you could actually use the gravity gun in Half-Life 2 there's no way of knowing if it would be fun or not (hint: it was).

The blogger on Sony states that reviews aren't relevant because,

"We also have access to much more opinion than ever before, through countless forums and blogs, and of course, we get views from our trusted friends in our online social networks...[and demos]."

I think the last part, demos is what matters. Sure we have a ton of opinions about games but remember that old saying, "Opinions are like assholes. Everyone's got one and they all stink."
Besides which game sites are on payrolls and I don't blame them. This Sony blogger speculates about whether or not game sites are on payrolls but come on, get real, of course they are. If EA comes to a site and offers to buy up ad space and all they have to do is 'gloss over' some of the flaws in their latest game you can bet they would. Oh sure the sites might say they are concerned abuot their readership but don't try to foll us. The bottom line is making money and in publishing that means selling ad space even if it means selling out your fans a little. In fact, I've seen this in action before.

In a review for Rome: Total War a few years ago, IGN, Gamespy, and Firing Squad all sang its high praises but only gave passing reference to some rather large bugs in the game dealing with the flaw in how the generals behaved in battle and the problem of squalor choking your cities. Those things were fixed in a patch eventually I believe but for someone who might be waiting on those reviews to determine their purchase decisions it really leaves something to be desired.

Also note that these sites get their games for free unlike you so their tolerance for flaws in a game might be a little higher than schmucks like you and me who shell out $40-$50 a game.

With game review sites I'd just suggest being careful. Your best resource in the end is your own eyes and ears so any time you can get a demo before playing do that and ignore the blogging and hype machines.

FiringSquad posted an article about the Athlon 64 X2 6000+ chip today and while the price savings against the Core 2 Duo E6700 is pretty impressive I think I'll easily sacrifice 15 frames per second in Doom 3 based games to save close to $200. I think this E6400 is still the best bang for the buck.

On a tangent since it is a slow gaming news day, what the hell could possibly be put on Conservapedia that can't already be seen on FoxNews? Perhaps they'll put Ann Coulter's comments on Edwards in a positive light? More and more the farce of the Colbert report is becoming a reality. That's not funny either, that is just sad.

Quake Wars goodness

Here is a fantastic interview with the developer of Quake Wars so give it a read.

C&C 3 Demo

Now while I would not call myself the hardest of the hardcore fans from the early Command and Conquer days, I do recall greatly enjoying the game when I finally did get the time to play it. The storyline and cut scenes, while silly, helped to make the game enjoyable and give it an almost pulp/camp feeling.

Command & Conquer 3 really needs to do something about this camera work in the game. Even at a higher resolution (1280x1024) you don't get to see enough of the ground and I'll be damned if I can find a way to zoom out further. I also don't see any INI files or other config files to edit so I can manipulate it in some way. I understand with Supreme Commander that you can zoom out to an almost planetary scale. Somewhere between these two extremes would be ideal for how I like to play these games.

Quakecon sign-ups

Quakecon is coming August second through the fifth to the Dallas area and with Quake Wars hopefully out by then I am definitely planning on being there if only to LAN it up for a few hours. It appears Quakecon will be at the Anatole again this year which wasn't my favorite venue to have this. The actual convention area was smaller, parking was kind of expensive unless you parked across the street at another hotel (which didn't charge $15/day) and the convention area where the speeches were given was like a meat locker.

But, with a new PC and a game I very much want to play, how can I resist not going again this year?

Vista and its relation to Doom 3

As mentioned in countless blurbs about Vista, there exists a new component called the UAC (User Account Control)* which attempts to provide some extra security in Windows by ensuring that no one, not even people with administrator rights, can access a lot of the core Window files without setting off some sort of alarm or trigger. A nuisance to be sure but one I am personally willing to put up with considering this is Windows we are talking about after all.

It just so happens that the UAC is also the acronym for Union Aerospace Corporation (UAC), the megacorporation from Doom 3 the unleashes the portal to Hell. While such a connection is tenuous at best and down right ludicrous at its face value, I don't think such threats can be ignored and can only lead to one conclusion: Microsoft will one day attempt to colonize Mars and subsequently open the gateway to Hell in an attempt to become even more sinister. Some might say this is a bunch of F.U.D., but when that imp is one day chewing on your arm and uses your fingers to clean his teeth, you'll be thinking to yourself right before you black out from blood loss, "Should've listened to Sphinx, man. Should've listened to him." But hey what are you going to do, use a Mac? I know that's crazy talk, too and it doesn't really help since a Mac can now run XP. No one is safe except for those hardcore VAX and AS/400 users I suppose and they're so weak and decrepit they pretty much are already dead and unable to put up a fight.

It is probably posts like this which make you blogaholics actually consider going back outdoors, or communicating with real people, or posting to alt.suidice USENET groups, doesn't it?

* I mistyped that the first time around. My bad.

So let's talk about my new PC

You want some specs for it? Of course you do! First question to ask is, "What do I want to do with this PC?" The answer is this. I need that game more than air.

Motherboard: Gigabyte GA-965p-S3. Some might point and laugh because I didn't get the DS3 but it just had things I didn't need so I'll keep the cash for myself.

Processor: Intel Core 2 Duo E600 chip. I'm told you can overclock the hell out of these things but I'm too much of a chicken to try.

Memory: DDR2-800 dual channel. This was my big splurge item. I could've stuck with the 667 or something lower but to hell with it, I wanted it some scorching memory this time. My last upgrade I splurged on the hard drives, this time the memory and I think that is probably the better investment anyway.

Video card: Leadtek 7950GT, 512Megs of RAM. I know the 8800s are just out and only cost $35-50 more but I figured when EQ2 (my uber secret game of shame) looks like this then I think it was a pretty good investment.

Hard Drives: Nothing fancy, just some SATA 7200RPM drives

OS: Windows Vista. Despite the UAC being a complete pain in the backside I truly don't mind having to click confirmations that yes indeed I do want to open up that program for the 100th time. I may have been an early adopter but I'm not completely stupid. This is Windows and it is NEW which separate are bad enough when it comes to computers but when put together it morphs into something much worse than the sum of its parts.

Gotta give props though about the user interface still being pretty simple, and the fact that during an install you can now use CDs or USB keychains to load 3rd party drives (thus removing the need for floppy disks forever) brings small little tinge of warmth to my bad empty heart.

Quick benchmarks:

Doom 3 on my old system (an Athlon64 3000+ with a Radeon 9800 Pro) gave me about 32 frames per second at 1024x768 and 2xAA.

The new system gives me 97 frames per second at those same settings. When I cranked the details to ultra high maximum the frames still maintained about 32 frames per second.

Well hello, Mr. Fancypants

Oh now aren't I just now completely and totally "with it" and "hip" now with my blog. Actually I'm still not cool but have accomplished what about a billion losers have done over at Myspace.com. I feel so meidocre and now realize that I might have indeed wasted four years of college learning things that now any 12 year old can accomplish provided they are tall enough to reach the keyboard

If you want to see the old shit from my site go here.

If you have never met me, I'm Sphinx and I play games. I write about games, I review games, and I sure as hell get angry at games. In other words I am another pothole on the information superhighway of some angsty thirty-something with more time than common sense. However, I think this is okay as I have until forty to wean myself off of the games lest I be given the title "man-boy" which is probably not the best thing to have affixed to your persona.

Let's get down to business folks. I lost my HTML editor when I upgraded to Vista and didn't want to mess with finding another HTML editor. The free ones I tried were often free for a reason (for those slow witted that means they sucked)

I like Vista actually and I'm sure that makes some of you cringe even though I bet a lot of you don't even know why except that it's new and it's from Microsoft. Fair enough, those are two pretty good reason. My response would normally be the same but dammit I'm actually enjoying this damn thing. Figuring out the gadgets was painless and now some real websites and companies are catching on and putting out gadgets. So far Weatherbug, some computer monitoring tools, and a clock adorn my little gadget toolbar.

The only problem with gaming so far is that when I tried to startup the Command Conquer 3 demo the demo balked about needing DirectX 9 files. I read online that installing the DirectX 9.0c install files would make it work without compromisig DX10 and sure enough it worked. Thank you Internet. Despite your bizarre ability to cater to the worst furry porn and goatsecs sick crap out there you can still every once in a while be useful. Hopefully the bloggers won't continuet to erode that ability. Wait a sec.. dammit, now I'm part of the problem! Let's all shake our angry old man fist at my buddy Maulf who suggested this to me.