I tried to make this title sound like something Neo would have said in the Matrix. I feel excited by entering the game world and only have to wonder which world I want to enter.

Sometimes I find it difficult to try a new game, as I find myself wanting to return to familiar worlds, even if the game is pretty old. I found myself replaying GTA3 last night after briefly dabbling in Bad Company 2.

The nature of having a large collection of titles to choose from is to find the most enjoyable variety of experiences, whilst not becoming too stressed by the different stories being juggled by my brain.

Game story-lines seem to becoming more and more important to my enjoyment of the games I play. no longer are the cool graphics and physics a big selling point any more. So when you have a title like "Mirror's Edge" failing at the box office (so to speak) it is a big shock to me, as the game was fantastic in terms of story telling!

I like STEAM - do you?

I have bought over a hundred titles on there and love the service. I don't have to worry about patching and the downloads are always quick.

I do, however, feel a sense of sadness at the loss of the physical packaging.

Do you think that we will see the death of physical software packages altogether?

So, I built a new machine. Not the best, and not the worst, but exciting for me.:D

Specs are as follows... I'll talk about the case and contents as the rest of it is not new...

Case - Coolermaster ATCS 840 - Black

This thing is huge and very good for cable management.

The Motherboard Tray is removable which makes the build very easy.

Manufacturer's website -http://www.coolermaster-usa.com/product.php?product_id=2870

Power Supply - Antec 850

Nice modular PSU with long cables, which made this easy to keep tidy.

Motherboard - Asus Crosshair iii ROG

Special overclocking motherboard from Asus, which is the best quality build I've ever seen on a Motherboard.

The board is feature rich and of amazing quality, but i would liked to have seen more thought put into the the placement of the PCI slots, because if you have a double slot PCI-express video card you can not use the PCI slots, as they are completely covered!

With my current setup I do no mind this limitation, but it's the one failing of the design. I get that the ATX size was the limiting factor here, but perhaps offering an extended length version to give more PCI slots, or at least position the existing ones better, might have been a nice offering?

CPU - Phenom ii 955 BE - OC to 3.8Ghz

RAM - Patriot Gamer - 2GB x 2 - @1600Mhz DDR3

CPU Cooler - Noctua NH-D14

Video Card - Galaxy GTX 280 - 1GB DDR3 - with aftermarket Arctic Cooler

This will do me until I get myself one of those ATI 5970 cards, which will be when the price drops.

Staying on the "Bleeding Edge" of technology is always a mugs game, unless you are swimming in money.

5x HDD all Western Digital Black - Main drive is a WD Raptor Drive - 150GB

It plays like a dream, so that is all good...

So I thought I would write my thoughts on this subject...

What is a professional gamer? Well by definition it is someone who earns a living playing computer games. I think that the nature of a game is clear, but what will these cyber-athletes do to/for the industry? Will they ever be accepted into the mainstream of sporting activities? Will they ever become part of the Olympics? Will they remain a fairly small but elite group of people like professional chess players? What is it about their game play that makes them that good, aside from having a killer PC system which allows them the fastest frame rates and possibly a split second advantage due to hardware specs!?

I think that the benefits of these Pro gamers will be seen in sponsorship and investment into the gaming world. But is there a point to attempting this career path, say for your average kid playing at home? How would a young person move in this direction with a real hope of gaining the required skills? Will there be schools, which are aimed at coaching the young to attain the coordination and strategies required to win? This could be similar to the "Tennis Schools" which churn out the most astonishing young talents, which could out-smart the skills of Borg or McEnroe!!

For me at least it is all about having fun in an escapist world, where I can perform feats of amazing size without breaking a sweat :)

Long live the gaming world :)

So here's my rant of the day...

I want to play quality computer games. Under this title I include PC and Console platforms. The wonderful world of gaming is lucky to have enough independent watchdogs like Gamespot to ward off the evil spirits of buggy programming and incomplete works, dressed up in wealthy packaging and extreme advertizing campaigns!!

Most of the best FPS games gain well earned followings and their immersive qualities are improving all the time. Some very good graphics and sounds in games, like DOOM3 and F.E.A.R. and HALF LIFE 2, have made for gripping "lights out" gaming experiences.

But just perhaps I don't always want to go the route of a shellshocked marine with enough energy (and ammo) to take the lives of thousands upon thousands of demons or corrupt militia... and let's not forget the zombies, which are like angry grandparents in a late night sleep-walking visit to the fridge... lol

I really enjoyed the twist in The Chronicles of Riddick EFBB... and the Fantastic "Tim Burton-esque" imagination of Tim Schafer's PSYCHONAUTS.... I loved the homage to ye olde cinema, which was paid in Viewtiful Jo... a masterpiece for the Game Cube... Resident Evil 4, which gave me serious creeps... and many more rare but exciting titles...

Why do people keep ignoring the artistry and go for the gleaming packaging... Too many boring formulated "play it safe" companies out there, who go for quality of image rather than inventive and exciting game play.

Why is this important? Well, consider this...

As a culture we are shaped more by stories than the food that we eat. Religion is based on an ancient tradition of story telling. "Made up" stories are called Fiction or Fantasy. The "maybe it happened or maybe it didn't" is called Legend. and what "we" believe DID happen is called History. Films were the successor to Books and Plays, and Interactive Electronic Story Telling, is the successor to Films... Or so it seems...

We should care about the quality of these stories as a society in the same way we care about great literature or any important works of art.

Keep buying good games, and show your support for the most inventive titles through statistics, and just burn the bad ones for your buddies... lol No, but seriously, use your money to show the industry what you want. Don't steal GOOD software and there will be more of it...

My moral rant is over... I feel at peace.... lol

Well I've finally had some time on an XBOX360...  I played Call of Duty 2 and was very impressed by the smoothness of the game.  I do however think that playing an FPS on a console is no fun after years of the keyboard and mouse configuration, which is far superior in my opinion.  I have the COD2 title on my PC and have a pretty decent machine, although not exactly cutting edge... 
I have to admit that my PC was running the game at 1600 x 1200 and had most of the effects on, but I didn't get the same level of smoothness as I saw on the XBOX360.

My computer is as follows....

MSI motherboard (socket 939)
AMD 64bit 4000+ CPU with 1MB cache
2000 MB RAM
ATI X800 XT PE by HIS....   AGP x8

now as systems go it's not bad, but my question is...  how close to the XBOX360's smoothness could one get if all my PC parts were at the bleeding-edge of today's hardware specs?

if I had the same basic setup, but the fastest AMD FX60 chip, and a Dual Graphics card setup with PCI express?

Will the PS3's new CPU, called the CELL chip, make even the best PC game system weep with sadness?  How will the PC market react to the new benchmarks?

I have a few consoles and enjoy playing them, but I am a die-heard PC gamer and I want to see all these wonderful games I play running without lag or hiccups, due to some kind of bottle neck slow down on the CPU or RAM or GPU....

Opinions please?

As this blog is here to use I thought I would begin to put out some of my thoughts in the virtual realm.

The world of gaming certainly has come a long way since the days of "pong".  I remember my first computer system, which was a Dragon32 from the UK.  The system had a number of cool titles, but most of them were emulations or copies of existing arcade games.  I later bought a Commodore 64 and the one unique title that stuck out for me was URIDIUM.  This game was a kind of bird's eye view of a "Millenium Falcon" ship, which flew up and down the length of a space station or two...  it was great for it's day.

Today I have a pretty good computer system and I buy all the leading titles I can get my hands on.  and I am particularly into FPS games, although I do have a number of other titles in my collection, which are not from the FPS stables.

My biggest thrill is when a game offers high emersion and also novelty.  I like to be shocked by the enemy or the objectives at hand.  I recently enjoyed the game "Psychonauts", although the game was not the most stable, the game play was refreshingly different to anything else I had played before.

Gabe Newell is currently raving about the new title "Darwinia", and the main reason seems to be it's novel concept and addictive game play.

For me, AI is an area where the most exciting player experiences are to be found.  I enjoy playing online, but many games are soured by "brats" who feel the need to shoot people on their own team, spray porn everywhere, or just shout verbal abuse down their headset microphone...  and AI offers high quality opponents, whilst avoiding childishness and killing your own team...  lol

FEAR did a great job on the AI field, but like most FPS games, it was scripted and therefore very samey on a second time through the single player.

I think it will be wonderful when you can enter a virtual world, play for a while and then leave, but the creatures in the game world continue to eat, sleep, hide, kill etc...  in your time away.  Really it would be a game which would play itself with you or without you.

Having said this, I am not a programmer, and I couldn't begin to imagine the amount of skill involved in coding a game from scratch.  I guess we will all have to await the future of gaming and judge it as it arrives....

c'est la vie...