watcha playin'

[MortifiedocAlot]

Real hardware. Also, it's an original copy of the game, before they took out the Muslim chanting in the fire temple.

[Eggman]

I'd probably give Mirror's Edge an 8.5. Aside from the last room and two other times, you never HAVE to fight, which is cool. All of the speed runs and time trials are super cool too and they strike me as being almost as addictive as Bionic Commando: Rearmed.

It'd get a high score simply because A. it's a totally new idea that B. controls near flawlessly and C. is just so damn fun. The price is annoying but eh, games have been getting shorter and shorter lately. You can definitely blame that on EA's idea of "planned trilogies" ugh. But this is why GameFly exists.

Also, Dead Space is 10-11 hours of action-packed fantastic. I'd probably have a lot of fun going for all of the achievements there.

[Spectere]

The price is annoying but eh, games have been getting shorter and shorter lately.

Yes, but when a game that sells for full retail price gives you about as much gameplay as Portal (which took me about 3 hours on my first run through, listening to all of the dialogue and figuring out all of the puzzles for my first time) -- a bargain bin title -- there's something wrong.  Remember, the only reason it took me as long as it did to beat the game was because I went for one of the harder achievements on my first run through.  My 5-6 hour estimation includes the occasional breaks that I took to either grab a drink or calm myself down after having to retry numerous times as well deaths.  Had I actually used weapons against the guards I could have beaten the game much faster.  I wouldn't have taken off for that harshly if the game sold for $40.  I don't think it's unreasonable to expect 8-10 hours of gameplay out of a $60 game.

[Eggman]

Like I said, this is why we have GameFly. Also though, it really depends on the person. My friend Matt bought the game, went through the story in one sitting and is now just playing time trials over and over, going for the best times. When asked if the game was worth it, he just said "god yes" and went away from AIM and kept playing more time trials. So definitely it's a by person type of thing.

Speaking of GameFly though, they lowered the price on a TON of stuff recently and now Alone in the Dark for 360 is $5.99. I had a $5 off coupon. So now, after tax, I have the game on its way to me for $1.06. I'm pretty sure I could get enjoyment equal to that out of any game in existence.

[annon]

Painkiller. I remember trying to play it a while back, but it was running so fast it was near unplayable. I didn't think there was anything I could do aside from downgrading my hardware or Vboxing XP32, then I realized that I just needed to go into Process Explorer and set the game to only utilize one of my CPU's cores. Now it's running normally, and I'm having fun with it, but I wish it supported dual-core.

[Spectere]

then I realized that I just needed to go into Process Explorer and set the game to only utilize one of my CPU's cores.

If a game doesn't support multiple cores it won't use multiple cores.

The problem was most likely that the game sets up its timing based on the CPU clock.  Modern processors, even ones in desktop machines, are capable of having their clock speed set dynamically, usually based on load.  What winds up happening is that the game, when it starts up, might see a 2000MHz processor.  When the game finishes loading, the OS detects that the CPU is being used heavily, so it'll bumps the clock rate up to, say, 2500MHz.  This causes the game to run quite a bit faster.  Some systems, especially laptops, can have an even greater range.  My laptop can go from 800MHz all the way up to 1.73GHz, effectively doubling the speed of an affected game.

UT99 is another game that has this issue.

[Bobbias]

Thanks for the warning, lol. I'm running a dual core laptop..

Also, is there any way to control the whole dynamic clock speed thing and force it to certain speeds or anything?

[Spectere]

Also, is there any way to control the whole dynamic clock speed thing and force it to certain speeds or anything?

Just set the "Always On" setting (or "High Performance" in Vista) in the Windows power management settings.

[Bobbias]

I was hoping for more control in that, I've actually got a custom power setting as it is, and I believe my setting is 80-100% when plugged in.

Oh well, Guess it's going up to 100%-100%.

[MortifiedocAlot]

Finally started playing Brawl online and I still enjoy it despite half the matches being lagtastic. I was playing as Sonic and a Kirby had my neutral B move (which is a homing attack) so me and this kirby keep hitting each other mid air for about 20 or so straight hits without touching the ground. Then on the last one we go off the top of the screen and hit each other and both of us die.

Also I was bored and watching some gameplay from Gears 2, and I noticed its bosses where nothing but the same attack pattern repeated 3 times over until they died. Really, does ANYONE like bosses like this? Even if you have to figure out which item will damage them where to use it it still seems like the most unimaginative way a boss fight can go down (lol Zelda). Every game known for its boss fights are basically nothing like this and it annoys me to no end how they still manage to put it into games. I swear they only do it because they can make the boss fight more cinematic and average gamer would remember that more then an actual boss fight that's challenging and fun, that and it seems overall easier to do then to actually program another AI to do several "complex" things.

[Bobbias]

Well, I recently played Gears 2, and really enjoyed it. The bosses don't matter that much really.

[MortifiedocAlot]

I just wish they did more bosses like General RAAM, who is basically one of the few good bosses in a shooter.

Also damn near the end on Zelda oot, which only took me several years. Really, It's been a long time since I've played a game all the way to the end.

Also, I've started playing Left 4 Dead. It's a ton of fun, but I need to find more people who like versus mode.

[annon]

I played Rock Band 2 with some friends all week. I made a character that looks and dresses pretty much exactly like me, then I made his guitar a red and black Stratocaster just like the one I keep in my room. I mostly played drums, though, unless we failed and I had to take over a hard guitar or bass part on the retry.

[MortifiedocAlot]

Beat Oot yesterday. Overall the game was good, but it's far from the best zelda game. Now I need to devote a few hours for the end of MM9. Also Left 4 dead is amazing, can't wait to see some crazy custom maps.

[annon]

I'm replaying FF7... again. This time, I've been making use of the character namer more:

Cloud = Cloud
Barret = Mr. T
Tifa = Tits
Aeris = Aerith
Red XIII = Nanaki
Yuffie = Annoying
Cait Sith = Reeve
Cid = diC

I haven't encountered Vincent yet, so I haven't come up with his name. I probably won't do it till later because I hate the sidequest I have to go through to get him. I'm also going though the game with my party including Yuffie and Cait Sith simply because I've never really used them.