What are you playing now?

[astr0creep]

It's worth playing through with the clans that affect the gameplay significantly, that is, the Nossies and the Malks. The rest are more or less indistinguishable. I play it mainly these days because it's the only CRPG I have that lets me substitute my own, better music into the game.

 

There is also Grand Theft Auto Vice City and San Andreas that allow you to do that.

[Tale]

It's worth playing through with the clans that affect the gameplay significantly, that is, the Nossies and the Malks. The rest are more or less indistinguishable. I play it mainly these days because it's the only CRPG I have that lets me substitute my own, better music into the game.

 

There is also Grand Theft Auto Vice City and San Andreas that allow you to do that.

Those two being CRPGs.

[astr0creep]

It's worth playing through with the clans that affect the gameplay significantly, that is, the Nossies and the Malks. The rest are more or less indistinguishable. I play it mainly these days because it's the only CRPG I have that lets me substitute my own, better music into the game.

 

There is also Grand Theft Auto Vice City and San Andreas that allow you to do that.

Those two being CRPGs.

 

SA has some RPG elements and both games are available on PC.

[Dark_Raven]

Doesn't that game get old after a while, or is it that good?

 

Bloodlines is just "that good," and is one of the only games that has been perpetually installed since I bought it...

It is that great. The best thing since the BG games.

[Hurlshort]

I just beat Portal and it was awesome. Despite it's very short length, I'd say that alone was worth the price of the Orange Box. The ending song was simply priceless. I also thought the gameplay time was perfect, much longer would have made me tired of the puzzles.

[Bokishi]

Crysis SP Demo

[Deraldin]

I just beat Portal and it was awesome. Despite it's very short length, I'd say that alone was worth the price of the Orange Box. The ending song was simply priceless. I also thought the gameplay time was perfect, much longer would have made me tired of the puzzles.

 

It's was a good length. Short enough that I can run through the entire thing just about whenever I want, however I still want more challenge rooms.

[Istima Loke]

I just beat Portal and it was awesome. Despite it's very short length, I'd say that alone was worth the price of the Orange Box. The ending song was simply priceless. I also thought the gameplay time was perfect, much longer would have made me tired of the puzzles.

 

It's was a good length. Short enough that I can run through the entire thing just about whenever I want, however I still want more challenge rooms.

 

I was also expecting more challenging puzzles, not from a perspective of being more hard or complicated but requiring to think more "original" in order to solve them. So, despite the awesome ending, I was left with the need of more...

Edited October 27, 2007 by Istima Loke

[Morgoth]

Crysis SP Demo

Me too.

 

Damn, it looks gorgeous, it plays gorgeous. Yerli was right when he said console shooters (I look at you Bioshock) are 5 years behind. It's just a shame that I have to play it with low Shadows, med textures, and 1024 res to get somewhat decent framerates. This game deserves to be played on a QuadCore/DX10 rig. Getting it on release and playing it with compromised settings vs. waiting a half year for my new rig and playing it with everything up, that's just a tough thing to decide!

Edited October 27, 2007 by Morgoth

[Hurlshort]

Crysis SP Demo

Me too.

 

Damn, it looks gorgeous, it plays gorgeous. Yerli was right when he said console shooters (I look at you Bioshock) are 5 years behind. It's just a shame that I have to play it with low Shadows, med textures, and 1024 res to get somewhat decent framerates. This game deserves to be played on a QuadCore/DX10 rig. Getting it on release and playing it with compromised settings vs. waiting a half year for my new rig and playing it with everything up, that's just a tough thing to decide!

 

Consoles fall behind in the tech race about ten minutes after the console company begins thinking about releasing one. But the Wii has shown that a console doesn't need to be high tech to serve its purpose.

[Pidesco]

Crysis demo as well. Pretty.

 

With everything on high things are a bit too slow, although without any actors in sight, it manages to be quite playable. I'll have to tinker with the settings to see if can improve performance without losing too much in the looks department.

 

 

Edit: I just ran the GPU benchmark, and I get 10 FPS with everything on high. Considering my system and the way the game looks, I have to say the game is pretty well optimized. I wonder how much the performance would improve if I just got one of the cheaper core duos.

Edited October 27, 2007 by Pidesco

[chris the jedi killer]

well later tonight gonna go to gamestop and pick up guitar hero 3 for 360. I just hope there won't be so many damn people

[Calax]

well later tonight gonna go to gamestop and pick up guitar hero 3 for 360. I just hope there won't be so many damn people

you still have three days on that sucker, it's been street dated for the 28th or 29th and can't be sold lest the seller gets fined.

[Morgoth]

Crysis demo as well. Pretty.

 

With everything on high things are a bit too slow, although without any actors in sight, it manages to be quite playable. I'll have to tinker with the settings to see if can improve performance without losing too much in the looks department.

 

 

Edit: I just ran the GPU benchmark, and I get 10 FPS with everything on high. Considering my system and the way the game looks, I have to say the game is pretty well optimized. I wonder how much the performance would improve if I just got one of the cheaper core duos.

Shadow quality and Resolution seem to make the biggest performance difference. Switching Shadows to Medium, Res down to 1024 (ugly I know, but you won't notice it after a few minutes anymore) and Post Processing Effects to Med make the game playable, even on a non-Bok-Rig .

I also hope ATI is gonna release some sort of magical driver soon, something like 150% performance increase would be nice.

[Morgoth]

Crysis SP Demo

Me too.

 

Damn, it looks gorgeous, it plays gorgeous. Yerli was right when he said console shooters (I look at you Bioshock) are 5 years behind. It's just a shame that I have to play it with low Shadows, med textures, and 1024 res to get somewhat decent framerates. This game deserves to be played on a QuadCore/DX10 rig. Getting it on release and playing it with compromised settings vs. waiting a half year for my new rig and playing it with everything up, that's just a tough thing to decide!

 

Consoles fall behind in the tech race about ten minutes after the console company begins thinking about releasing one. But the Wii has shown that a console doesn't need to be high tech to serve its purpose.

Certainly not. But who wants to play with a Wii? Was there anything released on it yet but Sport and Puzzle games?

 

Anyway, no doubt Crysis doesn't brag around with a deep story-line and stuff, but the high level of Physics, AI and environment interaction just leverages the gameplay quality into new fields. And while the basic gameplay doesn't offer anything groundbreaking new (it's a shooter, it has a cool nanosuit, it also has nice graphics), the quality what you can do with it really is breathtaking. Infiltrating invisibly a base, jumping on roofs, crushing whole buildings onto enemies, or just grab a chicken and throw it at them while they run around dead-**** scared....sigh, then just something cheerfully-evil comes out of me.

[Pidesco]

Shadow quality and Resolution seem to make the biggest performance difference. Switching Shadows to Medium, Res down to 1024 (ugly I know, but you won't notice it after a few minutes anymore) and Post Processing Effects to Med make the game playable, even on a non-Bok-Rig ™.

I also hope ATI is gonna release some sort of magical driver soon, something like 150% performance increase would be nice.

 

Actually, that was the resolution I was using to begin with.

 

Anyway, as for the settings, reducing everything to medium except for object detail, made the game almost perfectly smooth on my rig.

[Bokishi]

Plays fine here, everything high except medium shadows, never drops below 30 fps, except in large battles. I don't even think the demo is using SLI either.

 

Shooting down trees and completely destroying houses is awesome. This is the first game that surpasses HL2's physics.

[Tale]

WTH? My Persona 3 savefile says I'm at 96 hours. No wonder I feel like it's been dragging lately.

[Calax]

well later tonight gonna go to gamestop and pick up guitar hero 3 for 360. I just hope there won't be so many damn people

you still have three days on that sucker, it's been street dated for the 28th or 29th and can't be sold lest the seller gets fined.

Meh. I was wrong. it was street dated for tonight. Bad me.

[Noceur]

I just played through Portal and HL2: Episode 2 again, with developer commentaries on. It's very interesting if you're into techno-babble and human computer interaction (especially the portal commentaries), or if you're a modder or game developer, I suppose.

I also enjoyed hearing Merle Dandridge talk about her experience as voice actress for Alyx. (It's rather jarring to hear her talking out of context while still within the game, so to speak).

For people like me who like to pick things apart, developer commentaries are actually very entertaining, and something I'd like to see in more games.

 

Still need to finish MotB, but Sam and Max season 1 and Orange Box sorta got in the way.

 

EDIT: Whoa, whoa, wth? Crysis SP demo?!

Edited October 28, 2007 by Noceur

[WITHTEETH]

Plays fine here, everything high except medium shadows, never drops below 30 fps, except in large battles. I don't even think the demo is using SLI either.

 

Shooting down trees and completely destroying houses is awesome. This is the first game that surpasses HL2's physics.

Have you tried UT3 yet Bok? How does it run on your jet strapped to a cpu of yours? I can only play it smoothly with settings on low! I'm debating whether to get a new just released 8800GT with the new die shrink or just wait till the Geforce 9 series comes out. THen again the 8800GT is only $250 and its faster then the 8800GTS! How much of a performance boost do you think Ill get from a 7800GT 256MB overcloced to a 8800GT 512MB.

[WinterSun]

Crysis SP demo for me too. I'm surprised how well it runs on my 7300GS (at minimum settings). It's nowhere near as eyeball-buggering as say, STALKER or Oblivion.

[Noceur]

I didn't think I'd like Crysis after seeing the videos and stuff (for gameplay reasons), but after playing the SP demo I can only assume that presumption came from playing half-arsed console ports like MoH:A and others. I had forgotten what it felt like to play a real FPS on PC made for PC. (Cross-platform really has a long way to go still)

 

I really enjoyed being able to play stealth like, or go all out war on those poor Koreans... whatever I felt like. Most of the Korean encounters in the game can probably be solved non-violently. Everything was more intuitive than I had imagined, which links back to my statement above.

Heck, I almost felt some Deus Ex nostalgia when I was gimping away on the weapon mods and stealth-suit stuff.

 

It's also nice to see how scalable the engine is. Granted, the enviroments don't look much better than far cry on low/medium, but there's slightly more vegetation and it's all interactive, which is actually one of the few feats that impressed me the most in the first place. Toss a potatomasher in the jungle, and trees are falling all over the place, and it doesn't lag one bit on my machine: 3.1ghz intel, 7800GS, 2GB ram (low on everything except; Models, textures and shadows on medium, water on high and post-effecs on medium. 1280x800 resolution).

 

Still, it feels like a shame to play it on my machine, and for the first time in a long while, I feel like I should upgrade.

 

Few things that bugged me were:

- The mate's flashlight which made things impossible to see.

- Enemies relying on high health/armor instead of AI or whatever. My biggest beef with games.

- I crawled a lot on my second play-through, and there were a lot of rock formations one could fall into and get stuck. Sometimes I could jump out with super-strength, other times I was completely stuck.

 

I can only hope that the second half of Crysis won't end up like far cry, with enemies that can take a full mag of rockets and all that crap.

[Bokishi]

Plays fine here, everything high except medium shadows, never drops below 30 fps, except in large battles. I don't even think the demo is using SLI either.

 

Shooting down trees and completely destroying houses is awesome. This is the first game that surpasses HL2's physics.

Have you tried UT3 yet Bok? How does it run on your jet strapped to a cpu of yours? I can only play it smoothly with settings on low! I'm debating whether to get a new just released 8800GT with the new die shrink or just wait till the Geforce 9 series comes out. THen again the 8800GT is only $250 and its faster then the 8800GTS! How much of a performance boost do you think Ill get from a 7800GT 256MB overcloced to a 8800GT 512MB.

 

UT3 I'm like averaging 40 FPS on everything high and 2xAA. UT3 is prolly the most demanding (not "crysis demanding" tho) of all the U3 engine games I've played so far. However I think driver updates are going to make it run faster, like Medal of Honor Airborne ran faster after updates.

 

But yeah it's upgrade time I say. A 7800 GTX to 8800 GTX was night and day, and I'm sure a 7800 GT to 8800 GT would be the same, in every game. You can also wait for 9 series, but that means you can't enjoy UT3 until next year then.

[Tale]

Persona 3, save file right before the final boss.

PLAY TIME 103 hr 8m

 

I'm honestly surprised the game has been this long.