Chic, IL What Video Game are you playing?

i think for scares per second, you're going to be hard pressed to beat DOOM. the alpha version has some genuinely petrifying moments and that's just the alpha version!

HL or DOOM? which do you choose? its like picking a favorite child.

 

I am wearing a sponge around my neck to clean up the drool.

HL2, come to me, my pretty!!!!!

 

Doom never really did it for me. I liked it fine as an extension of Wolfenstein (which blew me and everyone else away when we first played it) but at the end of the day, it was the epitome of generic and/or ripped off monsters that showed up in every room and hallway in the game. Sure, it was fun (who doesn't love the chainsaw!?) but it wasn't really scary.

Quake upped the ante with some decent creepy music and the innovative concept of mood lighting, but it was still basically Doom-Plus.

Unreal was the first game I playe that actually gave me the heebie-jeebies. There's a point early on in the (lame story-wise) single player game in which the lights go out as some new horror attacks, the only time the player gets a halfway decent look at whatever he's fighting is from the muzzle-flashes of his weapon. Intense stuff, especially when played with the lights off.

Soon after Unreal came Half-Life, with its seemingly tedious opening sequence which suddenly gained relevance when all Hell broke loose (literally and figuratively) about fifteen minutes into the game. Absolutely brilliant, as was the first terrifying encounters with the aliens, the extended moments of blank screens accompanied by the sounds of (not always human) breathing, and the use of little sounds against silence (dripping faucents, far-away shrieks and growling, etc.) The final boss is admittedly kind of a letdown compared to the horrors that preceded it, but by then it didn't matter. All I wanted was for Gordon to go home, and if that meant dropping satchel charges into a giant baby's exposed brain while mutated versions of the Great Gazoo fired energy blasts at me, then so be it.

Ok, I definitely gotta get out of the apartment or I'm gonna end up reinstalling HL again.

-Le Penguin
"Wedding after wedding after wedding!"

 

"All I wanted was for Gordon to go home"

but Gordon can never go home because there is no home anymore.

damn resonance cascade....

edit:
pesky submit too early button....

i really enjoyed doom. i think it was the fact that you could kill punks with a chainsaw in first person that really did it for me. Quake 1 was big too because it marked the birth of real online gaming with the release of QuakeWorld. sure DOOM 2 had multiplay but it was LAN only if i recall. Quake 2 changed everything and this is where things really picked up. first you've got a semi-coherent single player story but the game really shines in multiplayer. the big one there was hardware accelleration. it was the first game to really make use of 3d accelleration. before that it was niche. this is way back in the 3DFX days.

Unreal followed shortly after which i also enjoyed immensely. it was much prettier than Quake. the engine in general is much better at rendering huge outdoor spaces. vibrant colors, and interesting environments made unreal a real winner. it wasnt until Unreal Tournament that the engine really blew up. major upgrades to graphics and netcode and immense mod support led to several key licenses of the engine. not the least of which was to LucasFilm to use for the animatics of Episode 2. yes they were rendered by the Unreal engine.

then there's Half-Life. i spent a ridiculous amount of time playing that game. the thing that struck me wasnt so much the graphics, which were pretty(powered by Quake 1.5), but the AI of the enemies. the commandos that would attack you were actually smart! they'd actually go try and find reinforcements or run for cover when their buddies were killed by my mp5. those skinny little ninjas? man forget about them. use the 357 and pwn them. the real big addiction for me was a small mod called Counter-Strike. when i first discovered it i would log 20-30 hrs per week on it. my roommates and i had a LAN and a DSL line. all night fragfests were not uncommon. i'm interested to hear what HL2's multiplayer component will be. i suspect it will be the long delayed Team Fortress 2. Team Fortress was an addiction of mine previously back in the Quake 1 days. Prodigy's Fat of the Land + TF = gaming bliss.

obviously i'm an FPS junkie. put an FPS on my box and as long as its not Deerhunter, i'll find something to like about it. i have not been able to find a more immersive, or visceral experience in gaming and i've played damn near everything.

 

i've always had a really erratic relationship with videogames. in my nerd youth, i was hardcore into the NES and all the classics, especially RPGs, which I would play not only myself but with my dad. (we still play every once in a while over xmas or thanksgiving...last one we beat together was Kingdom Hearts, which I thought was awesome.)

in college, it was limited to Mario Kart on my buddy's N64, and then not much. every once in a while, I'd haul out an emulator and play, or even hook up my NES, but no more than once a year.

then my friend Jeff handed me his GBA SP, and I fell in luuuuv.

that's why I'm more partial to the upcoming portable wars than anything on the consoles. i'll probably get a gamecube one of these days to play through Metroid Prime, Wind Waker, Mario Sunshine, etc.

my gaming tastes tend toward retro/classic/nostalgia titles, platformers, action, strategy, RPGs. never been into FPS, sports, racing. so for me, the DS is a lot more appealing.

plus there's that nintendo brand loyalty and those characters carrie mentioned...can't wait to try a Zelda DS someday. even a port of Ocarina of Time or Majora's Mask would pwn since I never played those either. (the N64/Playstation cycle completely passed me by.)

 

it is Counter-Strike running on the new engine!

YOU'RE GONNA GET PWNED HAWK-BAT

the net shall flow with the blood of the n00b.

so much for staying active this summer. i'm throwing the gauntlet down now. come get some beeatches.

 

I just got Onimusha three for the PS2 and I picked up the special Brady Games walk through Book pack. First off the Onimusha series is and will be the cornerstone of my PS2 game library. If you are at all acquainted with the series it rocks and is a blast to play and is worth buying! Anyhow I put the game in and I watched the CGI movie and I must say it rocks! So far it?s fun but I want to take my time and play it slow because it is the last game in the series. What I will do is save and go back after an hour of play and I will repeat that till I find everything or I feel satisfied!

 

that series makes money for capcom and they are the kings of sequels so rest assured that onimusha will return in some form. i'm definately picking it up very soon. the first two games were excellent and extremely fun.

 

very soon was yesterday and OMG is it good. the opening sequence is worth the price of admission alone.

i must now make samanosuke's samurai armor.

 

*coughs* Yea.. I just play Dance Dance Revolution.. *coughs again*

 

Just finished Onimusha, and I must say it was worth buying! Out of a possible ten I give this game a 9.0, the only this I did not like out of the whole game was the voice acting. They failed to use the original voice actors in the original. I love the game play and the subtlety of the game but if you scratch a littlie deeper the game controls are complex and intricate. I love the ?multiple critic cal hit? move and the fact that you can make an endless chain of hits as long as you have foes to kill. I do not like the story, but the game has endless multiple play combos and the faster you finish the more you can unlock hidden futures like hard & easy and mini games!

 

its really tough to get the timing on those criticals down. i'm doing the training now and man its frustrating.

 

Darth Goat Did you try to complete the Onimusha training? This helps teach you how to master the different combos and also you get Ako?s Black Vest that lets you perform the critical hit combo with a simple squeeze of the square button.

 

Goat, do you know where I can find performance specs on HL2? I want to get my computer in shape for September, but Sierra's site isn't terribly helpful.

I've got a 3-year-old 1.9 Intell, which should be ok, but my RAM is pitifull ("that's what she said!") I imagine a gig of RAM would be ideal (I should at least finally upgrade to 512.)

-Le Penguin,
Eagerly awaiting the crowbar

 

No one has said what they are, but to really get the most out of these games (HL2, Doom3, etc) you really need to pick up the new GeForce 6800 Ultra or the new one from ATI. That more than anything will bring you up to speed. $400-$500.

Check around for deals on a new CPU and stuff. I just got a motherboard and Athlon XP+ 2500 from Tiger Direct for around $140.

RAM is the kicker. Try to get at least 1GB, which if you go with Crucial or Kingston could run you close to $250 by itself. Oh, for now get 2x512MB, not a 1 GB stick. It's all about throughput.

Just my 2 eurocents.

 

sigh. Gone are the days when a GeForce3/64 would be all I ever needed.

Of course, I use to think 1.2 gig hard drive would be able to store all the information in the history of the world, so what do I know?

I'm not terribly interested in super-fast multiplayer rendering, so I don't think I'll be dropping too much on hardware, but I do want to play the single-player game at a decent level. Maybe some of my ridiculously geeky CS pals have some RAM lying around.

-Le Penguin
"Well to be honest, the ray only has evil applications..."

 

But...but...they've perfected Digital Eyelash Rendering! And the Pimple Shader 2.0 is the most advanced the world has ever seen!

Honestly, RAM is probably the best thing you could do to help things along. Galaxies was a dog with 512MB, and moving up to 768MB made a huge difference. If you went to 1GB, and medium/fast 128MB GeForce FX cards can be had for under $100. You'd be sittin' pretty.

 

Darth Goat did you get the timing on those critical down in Onimusha? I?m doing the training my self now and man it?s easy with Ako?s Orange vest!

 

i played further through the game. i've got all the training scrolls at this point so i think i'll try the training again.

pengo:

here's what i'm finding to be the requirements.

Minimum System Requirements:

Windows 98/2000/Me/XP
700 MHz CPU
128 MB RAM
DX6 compatible video card
3 GB free HD space

Recommended System Requirements:

Windows 98/2000/Me/XP
2 GHz CPU
256 MB RAM
DX9 compatible video card
4 GB free HD space

i think HL2 will be more scalable than doom. its just the impression i got from the Doom Beta which pushes my athlon xp 2700+ and Radeon 9700 Pro to the limit.

one thing about the new nVidia is that it requires a 480 Watt power supply AND the top PCI slot must be available. poor poor planning nVidia. ATI's cream of the crop is a single slot and runs on anything. the benchmarks are literally neck and neck with ATI 1-4 FPS ahead. which in the grand scheme of gaming means, they are equal performance wise. ATI wins based on the simplicity of their solution.

if you are going to upgrade and do it on a budget, i'd recommend the ATI radeon 9600XT. you get HL2, free, and the card is single slot whereas nVidia is dual.

reminds me of the 3DFX days with all this dual slot nonsense. get it together nVidia before Matrox comes out of the shadows and pwns you.

 

4 gigs of hard drive space!? These damn bug bombs better be worth it.

I keep hearing good stuff about ATI, but I tend to be notoriously loyal to brands of merchandise that I like (nVidia included) tho I could make an exception if the ATI specs hold up (and did someone say FREE HL2???)

Anyhoo, thanks for the info.

I'm currently holding my ground (barely) in a Hoyle poker tournament. Stupid computer players.

-Le Penguin
"I was hoping to get the king without the mustache."

 

Darth Goat a word of advice, in Onimusha try to do the training as soon as possible it helps tremendously! Use Ako?s Orange vest! Also some info play in hard mode and then in Devilish hard and you open up Ultimate mode. I also found out by playing that you should save and practice and then restart were you saved, the more time you add the lower your end score. Damn I?m digging this game. I?ve just started a game in hard mode and will try not to save to many times. I completed the game in 10 hrs that?s about two 5 hr sessions, how about you? I?m shooting for 5 hrs, which unlocks Training mode.

 

that training is pissing me off. i finally finished deflect critical. hurrah!

in other news...21 days till doom 3...alledgely :\

HL2 is still a few months off. folks are predicting an august release. in the meantime check out this killer case mod!

 

Freakin' AWESOME!

 

WOW? I can?t wait for HL2; I?m dieing to play it! That guy truly spent the time making that Case ala HL2! My god it looks so freaking cool! I read an article in a Mac magazine, can?t remember which one, but it said people are starting to cosmetically modified computers more and more. It?s supposedly the largest growing computer modification that people do when they get a PC. It makes me want to redo my Mac into some kind of SW inspired design!

Did anyone see the preview of the Prince of Persia 2? I saw the preview in PSM and it looks killer! Also did anyone play Viewtifull Joe on Game cube? I have never seen it or played it but it seems that there is some big hype about it coming to PS2 and its sequel!

 

case modding has been around for years. only recently have the masses started getting into it. now you can goto best buy and get case mod gear. you used to have to really hunt around online for the good stuff.