I bought Star Trek Online willing to give Cryptic a chance. After all this is Star Trek right? With that franchise being as big as it is, how could Cryptic fail to deliver?

Needless to say, they failed. I won't give Cryptic any more of my MMO money and I learned a lesson. The community pretty much had this game company pigeon holed from the moment they announced they would take over the development from Perpetual. Enough said.

So I want to hear about good games I might like to play. Here's my background. I played Jumpgate, long ago, very good until it became a griefers playground. Went on to EVE Online. Played. Quit. Last year played again. I think I'm done with that dead horse. Played GW, even got the gold three box set, got to the level cap. Haven't played that in months now and pretty much inclined to remove it from my hard drive to make more space.

I never played WOW. I'm more inclined to play star ship commander then a battle orc.

I recall playing the demo for SWG. Didn't think the gameplay was worth 15 grains of danttoine sand, let alone the 15 dollars. By the way what is this NGE that keeled the game off? Everyone keeps mentioning it.

Basically if you can recommend a current game out right now and mature enough to be worthy of its 15 a month price tag, I would much appreciate your opinion.

Maybe its worth mentioning, I'm not a hardcore gamer. Then again, I don't like ridiculously easy games without penalty for dieing. I would say I play 2 to 3 nights a week and mornings on weekends, probably about 10 hours a week.

I'm putting together a replacement for my Pent 4 3.0GHz AGP computer. I started like always with a 500 dollar budget. I was not satisfied with what 500 dollars gets so here I am a few weeks later with a shopping list at just under $1200 dollars. Thats okay if I can use Newegg's interest free line of credit.

So here we go. I want to keep the machine for about 4-5 years, possibly getting the newer AM3 X4 processor when they come out next year. A year after I can fill up the rest of my Memory slots. But for now I want to overclock the AMD 720 BE on stock air cooling just a tad, until my friend shows me how to put in a water pump / radiator hoo hah contraption.

PC Case - Thermaltake Armor Series VA80038WS Full Tower - $135 Link

Power Supply - Corsair 650W - $95 Link

MB - GIGABYTE GA-MA790FXT-UD5P - $180 Link

CPU- Phenom II X3 720 BE

w/ OEM Vista Ultimate 64 bit - $240 Link

Memory - G.Skill 4GB(2x2) DDR3 1600(PC3 12800) 4GBNQ - $65 Link

Vid cards - Two GIGABYTE GV-R487D5-1GD HD 4870 1GB in SLI - $380 Link

WD Hard Drive 640GB and SATA DVD Reader/Wrter - $100

Edit - Forgot to mention my monitor - Dell 24" Ultrasharp Wide 2006 ver.

My question to you guys and thanks in advance, I've never overclocked any of my systems before, but the Phenom II Black Edition begs to be overclocked. Have I picked out the right balance / price / performance for getting the most out of this Computer? Also is my RAM correct if I intend to bump the speed up. Should I get more expensive RAM to possibly get to 3.4Ghz? How will I know if a more expensive RAM is better(faster)?

I want more Gaming Power!!!

The Les Paul has a different feel. Some say its tighter. I have had little problems with star power as you get used to it right after the first time you accidentally use it. Then its no problem at all.

Get the Les Paul because the neck is removable, the wireless, and the responsiveness of the fret keys. Nuf said.

So GH3 is not for you. But I got it and love it. I play until my fingers bleed. I don't play it to beat the game, I just want to play the song. I bought a real guitar a long time ago and the experience was meh. I sucked, the music coming from the instrument sucked. I wasn't motivated. I put it down.

GH3 is a lot easier to learn in the beginning. Is fun. It teaches rythm better then following a video or recording. I might even dust off that old guitar. Playing the real guitar just takes dexterity and rythm. So yeah if you can play on expert, you got what it takes to play. But do you want to? You have to practice a lot and you will mess up a lot. IMO the real guitar played by a mediocre player like me is far better then the expert at the GH game.

I bought the pro with the 20gb hard drive. I like to download the demos and game videos. With the 20gb hardrive, I spend lots of time deleting content so I can download and watch the new game previews, trailers, and demos. Thats the best part about XBox Live.

So I finally got the 180 dollar 120gb hard drive, transfered everything. I'm very happy now that I can download demos and trailers, even if I know I don't like the game. My hard drive is about 50% filled, but thats the largest size right now.

So its up to you what you will be putting on the hard drive

Moneywise, its most economical to get the 120 gb drive in the Elite package. Its much more expensive to buy the cheaper package and later upgrade. My two and half cents.

That appears to be an older or used Xbox 360. I strongly urge you not buy a used system. Some Xboxes were opened and voided the warranty, then sold as used. No warranty. Ask anyone, Xbox 360 is not regarded as a reliable piece of equipment.

Here is the link to the newest system, as you can see it has the HDMI. I would bet that it has less of the problems of the first model. But the price is the same so you can't lose really.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000UQAUWW/ref=amb_link_5350082_1/103-8858722-1875018?pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=special-offers-1&pf_rd_r=0X9XCWG15C5QM7M6P31A&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_p=304088501&pf_rd_i=B000B43OY4

The Xbox 359 has a network adapter built in. All you need is to plug in the xbox to a router. Its a standard network cable. You get one month free of XBOX Live. Just sign in and decline to upgrade. It then says, Well, try it for one month anyways!!

Lastly I strongly advise people to get the 2 year easy exchange warranty from your store. Its undoubted you will be dissappointed if your Xbox doesn't last you until Xmas 2008, through no fault of your own, and you have to wait the whole month for Microsoft to get a refurb unit back in your hands.

With that being said, the games on the Xbox 359 are awesome to the nth. Unless you are now waiting for Microshaft to attend to the repair of your Xbox ATM.

I got mine back exactly 1 month to the day!!

I called it in on a Friday, and exactly four weeks later, the big brown truck delivered!!

I live in Maryland, and the repair center is in TX. Good luck to you if you get it turned around any sooner.

I'm still hoping for a class action.