Huzzar! Finally my new computer has been built, overclocked and tweaked so as it can finally be labelled as finished!

As this was my first build and I live in a heavilly carpetted and cat-inhabited house I was somewhat skeptical about spedning a boat-load of money on static-hating computer components. But once my room was filled with boxes of graphics cards and processors aprehension turned into glee as my computer took shape.

Of course, when you get a new computer you can't help but go back and play your old games to see how much it beats the living daylights out of old one.

Crysis actually runs, smoothly - success! Even at 1680x1050 the game runs smoothly, plus with the added help of this mod it looks fantastic.

Oblivion has at last been tamed. Once a game that killed my old 7900GS has itself been defeated, as I have installed Quarl's texture pack, put everything to high and forced 8xQSAA on it and it still runs smooth as silk. Randomly attacking Imperial Guards and getting mauled and killed to death has never looked so good.

World in Conflict was a tricky one. It was better than my old computer, as I could turn up everything to high and have the game still run, but it wasn't the blisteringly smooth thing that I had expected it to be. However, after I overcloked my processor to 3.4Ghz I was able to turn on DX10 rendering and it now plays above 30 FPS at all times. Ooooh pretty explosions...

So yes, after all yapping I guess I should post my specs:

ASUS P5N-D nForce 750i
Core 2 Duo E8400 @ 3.4GHz
Arctic Freezer 7 Pro
4GB Corsair 800MHz RAM
500GB 7200rpm Seagate Barracuda, 32MB Cache
2 x 8800GT in SLi
Corsair 620W HX Modular PSU
CoolerMaster Dominator Case

Yum yum :) I have to give a special thank you to SonicSurfer for a lot of help he gave me regarding basically the whole build, including giving me the right OCing frequencies, which without I probably wouldn't have known where to start to overclock and ended up setting my new comp on fire.

I'm also using Vista 64, and I don't care what people say - it runs great. I did have XP Pro installed but it was laggy and buggy so I switched to Vista which beats it hands-down.

The bottom line is I built this awesome comp myself and it makes every frag I get that much sweeter.

This isn't really a post about E3 2008 because I never really watched it all - I was too buy lounging in the sun drinking sangria to give a toss about the Internet (crazy I know, but four glasses of sangria can do that to you). But when I did come back from my holiday I was in for a rather nasty shock:

Oh dear. I think Nintendo just tried to murder E3 once and for all - and not in the death of King Hamlet sneaky way using posion in the wine, but more the Mr T bends you over and makes you pity yourself for going to the Nintendo E3 press conference way.

What person, who decided to spend three days in a computer games orgy surround by camera-wielding journalists fighting each other to play the latest version of Killzone to see if it really is better looking than real life (SPOLIER: it's not) is going to give a rat's ass about *inhale* "Family entertainment"??! The very notion that Nintendo decided to introduce thaeir soccer-mom-lets-all-get-together-and-bake-cakes marketing goon at a hardcore gaming event like E3 is tantamount to doing a moonie at everyone who survived the three day game demo cage fight, or worse - stayed up to watch it on Gamespot Live.

Perhaps this is what E3 has come to and we should just lay it to rest. Or perhaps this isn't the end of the soccer mom invasion. Perhaps we will soon be seeing "Soccer-Mom Sony" or "Miss Microsoft". Dear God...

I need more sangria.

Postmortem

Subject: Xbox 360 games console...

Time of Death: Just after lunch...

Cause: The dreaded Three Red Rings.

Ok, to be honest, my 360 died 6 months ago; just outside it's warranty. Between then and Microsoft extending the warranty, there was no way I was going to pay £85 to get a big white box of plastic fixed. However, a resignation letter signed by Peter Moore and 1 billion dollars later and my 360 is back in my living room. And just in time to finish the fight, too. What a nice day :) Unless you're the one handing out free repairs, of course ;)

There once was a time where E3 was a massive media event, with metre-high displays, big TV screens and of course, booth babes ;) So it came as a bit of a shock to see that not only was this years gaming showcase in two separate venues, but that both were pretty small compared to last years media blow-out. Don't get me wrong, just having an E3 is a great thing, but it's lost some of its wow-factor. However, now that the live orchestra and scantily-clad models are out of way, we were able to focus on what the event is really about - the games! And we needed that too, seeing as Gamespot barely managed to squeeze all that gaming goodness into their live show (which was awesome, thanks guys). So, two weeks after E3, the cards have been thrown down and in the aftermath of the event it is time to make a judgement about this year's E3 and its participants.

Microsoft - to be honest I was disappointed by Microsoft's show this year. We were treated to a nice musical ensemble at the beginning but by the end of the show it was clear that Microsoft weren't quite as on top of things as last year. The list of games was long but nothing special; mostly third-party titles which will appear on other platforms. Mass Effect and Bioshock seem to be the only good exclusives that Microsoft will have after Halo 3 comes out. Yes, they managed to nick a few exclusives from Sony, but they forgot to actually get them exclusive to the 360. Halo 3 is getting old and has been relied on for far too long, so I won't surprised if Microsoft keeps paying off publishers to forgoe their PS3-exclusivity and go multiplat. The good news was that Microsoft announced a warranty extensions (well, really a product recall in the guise of a warranty extension) which, unsurprisingly, was followed up by firing Peter Moore. So I think it's safe to say that it hasn't been a great year for Microsoft.

Sony - Sony were personal favourite of E3, because they have obviously been hard at work rectifying the mistakes and missed opportunities of last year. We were treated to some lovely-looking first party games, including Little Big Planet, Heavenly Sword and Drake's Fortune, which, to be honest, look damn great. The Home preview was interesting, and it's nice to see that Sony are developing their online community (the fact that Playstation Online is free is enough for me, but I wouldn't turn my nose up at a 3D online community). A UK price-drop would have been very welcome, but you can't have everything. Oh, and one little thing - Killzone 2 was very impressive, even in it's pre-pre-alpha state. Good things lie ahead.

Nintendo - To be honest, I can't really make up my mind about Nintendo's conference. We were shown some exclusives, which look pretty good, but nothing ground-breaking - unless of course, you call Wii-fit ground-breaking. To me it's an overpriced electronic weighing board. You have to give it to Nintendo though - they sure do know how to market to the mainstream audience. If this new direction is good news for hardcore gamers, though, is something yet to be seen.

In conclusion, E3 2007 wasn't quite the E3 of 2006. Everything was smaller and less extravagant. But to be honest, it still did the job. As a result, I now have 30+ hours of game videos and interviews on my computer, and let's face it - if you can take all that away from just one show, you ain't doing bad.