Seasonal stuff?

Barely. Nevertheless, I grabbed myself up from the chair and cleansed, purified and organized my game collection. I gathered a pile of games from GC, PC, PS2 and XBOX, because I didn't even like these particular games in the first place. So, now I'm gonna sell all these away to gain some shelf space.

One could say that my gaming nature has changed from "Collector" to "Efficient player". That's it, I need my money also elsewhere so I can't spare all my coins in this everlasting hobby. I need to acquire some new guitar gear during the summer as well so that will cost like a hefty damage.

I also ordered some RPG -stuff for my brand new Xbox 360. Those games would be,

Eternal Sonata

Lost Odyssey

They should arrive by the latest of next week so I guess I will have something to do for a few days then.

Catchies.

Graceful greetings,

It seems to be pretty much what we have used to call "summer". For me it's one of the greatest deja vu's ever, since I'm working in the same factory for the third summer in a row, so it's not a big deal for me.

But why I enforced myself to write up this small bloggie? Well, maybe it is because I've started to play games again a bit more than I used to play during the last year. I bought myself a Xbox 360 Premium -package, since the price dropped so dramatically. It's truly not a bad gaming system, and I understand why it's fairly popular in US.

I've been playing the system for a month now, and maybe I should write up some points of my opinions about this console.

The Good

Extremely powerful CPU & Graphics chip (Gears of War, a good example of the capabilities. Simply Wow.)

The control panel (looks great and simple to use)

Xbox Live Marketplace (I would appreciate more free content though. I see little reason to use any Live points for some gamer pictures or themes)

The controller (fits the hand fairly wel)l

HD performance

Functions like a PC in a network (easy to connect to the Internet)

The Bad

The NOISE of the fans (Come on, at times it's fairly challenging to tell whether there is a console or a jumbojet in the same room)

The finish of the controllers (I have two official controllers. One of them has a squeaky thumb stick and the other has a few buttons that make strange crunches. With those prices, there should be no units like this on the mark)

Game selection (there are not that many games that count towards my taste, but there seem to be some positive surprises, like Gears of War which totally blowed my mind in co-op)

The cost of the Live points (just a bit too much for my liking)

Cost-effectiveness of the hard drive (90 euros for 20 GB? It's like paying 30 bucks for a candy bag)

Bottom line

Xbox 360 is a capable gaming system to hook you up in certain games, although some minor things hinder the atmosphere, like the controller conditions and the outlandish noise of the cooling system. Games are extremely good at their best, but also moderate fairly often. Do I recommend the system? Well, the price has dramatically dropped, and the gaming system is cheaper than Nintendo Wii, so I sure recommend this system for those who enjoy the more traditional gaming.

That's my rant for now. I gotta go jog for a while, so catch ya later!

A gamer at heart.

Greets after a break people,

So, maybe a few from my friends list have been slightly wondering where I disappeared? (insert a sarcastic smiley here)

Yeah, well...let's just put the thing this way that plenty of things just changed at the same time, and I kinda lost interest. Don't worry, I still play games every now and then, but I lost the fanatism. I also started to play guitar again and formed a band with my friend, so that takes a nice slice out of my time and interest at this point. Also I've shifted my hobby side more towards the music from gaming lately.

Will I now be more active in Gamespot? I'd say no. I'll keep this account alive of course but most likely I won't post anything or stuff like that. I'm more active in Last.fm if anywhere, so you might want to check out my profile there (username's the same).

Nevertheless, I wish you a good starting summer now. Drop me a message if you wish to chat with me or something, I'm usually in front of computer rather often.

Righto

What a nifty-looking box...

Oh yes, I basically equipped myself with a new piece of software. That is, I bought Photo Impact 12 from a Finnish webstore, since I didn't actually have one as a full version (mainly used trials in the past). I used to use two separate programs, Photo Impact 7 and Paint Shop Pro 7. I'm glad I can finally throw those both away without loosing a single feature.

I was pretty relieved when I tried Photo Impact 12 for the first time. It seems they haven't actually dropped out a single feature from Photo Impact 7, but added lots of new features and enhanced the old ones. The interface is more or less familiar with the older ones. How delightful.

Plus, it works perfectly in Vista. Version 7 was a bit prone to crash at times (in XP) and I truly hope this new one is far more reliable.

But then, the price. I paid 56 euros from an completely official and full version of Photo Impact 12. It's not much when compared to Photoshop and other vendors, which usually start from 200 euros and end in thousands. Even the cheapest photo -editing tool Photo shop Elements costs twice as much.

If you're looking for a sufficient program, I really suggest you to give Photo Impact 12 a try. Here's the link:

http://www.ulead.com/pi/trial.htm

No need to thank me.

Right on, chap...

Okay, so I've been a user of Windows Vista for a few weeks now. So I think some people would like to know my own opinions of this OS, now that I have some experience. Let's see.

The Good:

Visual appearance (gee, what a surprise)

Oh yeah, it looks good, I can't deny it. Also, if you enable Aero, you can browse all your open windows through a 3D pile of windows, which is pretty usable if you need it. The downside i, that using Aero naturally requires some attention from the GFX -card and the processor, but with a new powerful PC that is not a problem. Of course, all the "candy-effects" can be easily turned off if one desires so, which grants it vain to whine about the "heavy graphics" of Vista if one doesn't turn them off.

DirectX 10

It has worked so far. Although there are very few pieces of software that actually use DX10 -exclusive features, it still seems to be able to obtain slight advantages on the latests benchmarks. For example, on 3DMark06, I got a better score with Vista than the results on the web indicate on XP. Interesting indeed.

Of course, on slightly older DX9 games, Vista usually performs a bit more slower (that is 1-3% maximum), but that can easily be explained. Those older games were made and optimized for XP, without even knowing the existence of Vista. I can still remember people complaining about XP when it was released, when some of the Windows 98/ME games refused completely to work with the new and "heavy" XP.

Anyway, the main difference of DX10 to previous versions is, that for the first time the Direct X -graphics library has been attached on top of the OS, while the older ones were external libraries. This of course created some latencies, but in the future this should show in nice performance boost when new game applications learn to use it for their advantage.

Usability with a powerful PC.

Since having a dual-core CPU and a nice bunch of memory (2GB+), Vista is very smooth and fast to use. This happens also while maintaining the best outfit Vista can offer, so I really can't complain about it. This has been resulted with the effective use of HDD and RAM. Windows XP used memory and HDD pretty carefully, just not to hog up the system. This is understandable, while considering the year 2001, when XP was released. This is the main reason why most people complain about Vista being very slow on their computer. Maybe it would be nice to upgrade the PC once in every 5-6 years, at least?

I know it's about the money. I understand if one doesn't have enough such money for a new PC, but at least in that case it's not justified complain about an OS which you clearly no enough hardware to run. If you can lift a toy car in the air, but not a full-sized city-roamer, it's not the fault of the car.

Security

So far, the security mechanism has been pretty good for my usage. It hasn't let any malicious stuff through and it's pretty easy to customize. This is a clear advantage over XP's weak native firewall.

The Bad:

Requires some heavy components.

As I stated before, if one desires to enjoy Vista with full speed, you need some serious hardware under the hood. The older systems usually tend to hog up with the usage of Vista.

The price. Gee.

This is the main downside of the OS. The price. The cheapest one is something like 129e and Windows Vista Ultimate is like 300e. That's simply to say it: ridiculous. For my own fortune I got a free copy of Windows Vista Business via my school, but that's not the case for everyone.

Some minor problems.

While being a fresh OS, there are naturally some issues. Once again people seem to have forgotten the launch of XP, which wasn't the smoothest one either. I can still remember the numerous game issues while trying to use my Windows 98 -games on XP. Runtime error, anyone?

Some changes require some knee-deep digging.

There are some distracting features enabled in the fresh installation. For me, the only one was this prompt "Cancel or allow" or double-confirming if I'm copying a file or deleting one. Maybe those are appropriate for beginners, but I hardly consider myself one. There's a way to disable this User Access Control, but it's quite well hidden.

I've received a lot of complaints (mostly whinings) about Vista being slow and irritating, All I can say that with a efficient PC and some know-how you can make the system pretty much the same as XP, while being efficient to use it as well. Also, most of the current games work 1-3% slower than on XP, but that's just because those games were optimized for XP. With a powerful machine, it really doesn't matter whether I have 130 or 136 FPS on a certain game. It's fast enough for my senses.

Before starting to give your (probably negative) comments on Vista: PLEASE try to remember the launch of XP. It wasn't a dance with roses. I would claim it was worse.

Such a summer...

Oh yes, I got a load of overtime work for next week so I won't be having much spare time because of that. On the other hand I will get paid well but it's still a tedious job to do.

I got my memory sticks for this new PC, but for some extremely odd reason, they didn't function with my motherboard. Since the beginning of DDR -memories, these mysterious incompatibility issues have risen. Such a lame occasion. So now I gotta wait for a new set of memory to boost up this rig.

Other than that, I have little to report. I guess I'll try to relax a bit.

Yawnage.

Yyyes!

So, my new PC and TV arrived. Fabulous devices, truly fabulous. I actually plugged this 40" TV into my new PC and the picture is as sharp as in any TFT -screen. Splendid!

Now I've tried gaming a bit as well. Half-Life 2 was terrific to play with a screen this large and FPS so plenty. Whoa. It's almost like being in heaven.

Although, I'm still missing those 4GB of fast memory, I have only borrowed 2GB of basic memory for my needs, so that I can get this system up. Seems to work fine, but I still want the extra memory to boost this system to the top.

I've been also using this new Windows Vista for a few days. After the hassle, I'm starting to like this. Aero -desktop looks very nice, and after you learn the tricks, it's also very useful. The downside is that it may eat up some gaming resources, but that's not a matter that big for me.

Okay, I guess I'll play now.

Rrroam!

Truly such,

To get to the point, I should get the new PC this week. There was an issue with the imports with my motherboard, since it was sold-out about everywhere in the country, so I decided to wait for it and now I'm getting the job done rather soon. I can't wait to attach my fingers into that equipment, try out Vista and play Oblivion in full detail. Also, making some music with the new sound card awaits, yummy.

That's not all, that truly is not all. There was an amazing offer in a Finnish webstore, where they sold a small amount of Sony 40" LCD -TVs in a ridiculous price such as 999 euros. The very same TV was the test-winner and five-star model of last summer. The same TV is still sold elsewhere in my country, but the normal price varies from 1700 to 2200 euros, so this was more than a bargain. It was almost half-free for a Sony. The TV should arrive this week as well, and it looks like this:

Sony Bravia KDL-40S2000E - 40" LCD

So I have lots and lots to do with my new precious stuff soon. It wasn't about the money, it was my last year savings which I used for the PC and TV, so all this summer earnings will establish my new savings.

But I guess I gotta fetch some ice cream and then study for my exam retake. It's as hot as the underworld here, I wish it was autumn pretty soon.

Precedeth most urgentlike.

Finally, eh?

Okay, I decided to let the dear Moogle to have its deserved summer vacation and changed my graphics scheme.

Please, tell me what do you think of this?

Okay, I have lots to do still, so I keep this short. 

Byeas.

EDIT:

I forgot to mention that I got this "Serious collector" -emblem as well, which means I have more than 200 games listed here in GameSpot. What a milestone. 

Yes sire.

Err...well, I ordered the new PC yes, but I will have to wait it for some time because not a single store in Finland has those particular motherboards in stock. So bleh that. But no can do, I'm not going to take some "replacement" motherboard which is clearly much worse.

On the other hand, my 4 days of freedom started as well. So that's pretty nice, although I will have to spend a day or two for a few formal activities, but I can still just relax a bit. Although I just would like to get the new friggin' PC so I can do some jolly benchmarking and such... ^^

But no can do. So that's why I'm going to just moan and get a shower.

Cees ya.