Due to some much-needed wiring assistance over the weekend, I got the new box all set up and downloading FURIOUSLY from Steam. Though I was able to spark up Bad Company 2 for a few moments yesterday morning, my lovely, darling daughter came in to ask if she could sit on my lap while I ‘rode in the car’ which was actually a boat headed towards some nameless pacific island. I said yes, but then I remembered the first kill in Bad Company 2 was up the back with a knife and so just shut it down before seeing any of the amazing particle or lighting effects denied to me with my socket 939. That said, the first game I actually played last night, guiltily, was Torchlight. I just wanted to check if my character data was actually there up inside the steamcloud and, being that it was, ended up being an hour of destroying goblin hounds and the like.
I did span some time with Bad Company 2, just the single player, and goodness me it is pretty. The initial area of the Bolivia mapset is nothing short of amazing with the lighting, particles and foliage. Breathtaking stuff. Combining that BFBC2 is just flat out fun as shit makes this probably my only pick for game of the year 2010 on the PC (like all the magazine’s and websites have already stated, and I wholly agree, Red Dead Redemption is the game of the year in the Xboxen region), because I haven’t gotten around to Starcraft 2 yet. One cannot judge 2010 from any level: technologically, socially, musically, culturally or emotionally without experiencing Starcraft 2 (well, I was in the multiplayer beta for some beatings but that’s not enough), so I have to officially hold back judgement of GOTY until I get that shit put to bed. Given that I still play Warcraft 3 from 2003, I have a feeling.
Very happy with my build out and thanks to sensless for coming by to help put it together and everyone for their advice. The Ars Technica article that came out the day before I was making my purchase choices helped enormously, especially in the choice of case (Power is on TOP so no tiny hands switching off the power randomly) and solidifying the motherboard choice. I could have gone more hardcore with the video card, but the GTX 560 is doing the trick. Here is the list of stuffs:
- LIAN LI Lancool PC-K7B Black Aluminum/ SECC ATX Mid Tower Computer Case
- ASUS P8P67 (REV 3.0) LGA 1155 Intel P67 SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 ATX Intel Motherboard
- Sony Optiarc CD/DVD Burner Black SATA Model AD-7260S-0B
- 2X G.SKILL Value Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1333
- EVGA 01G-P3-1561-AR GeForce GTX 560 Ti FPB (Fermi) 1GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 2.0 x16 HDCP Ready SLI Support
- Western Digital Caviar Black WD1002FAEX 1TB 7200 RPM SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5″ Internal Hard Drive
- Intel Core i7-2600 Sandy Bridge 3.4GHz (3.8GHz Turbo Boost) LGA 1155 95W Quad-Core Desktop Processor
- Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit
Tonight it’s Unreal Tournament 3 and whether or not I go Crysis 2 or Bulletstorm…(or Starcraft 2).
Don’t bother with Bulletstorm. It is smartdumb to be sure and it’s fun. But it’s short and the fucking GFWL DRM can cause baby jesus to rampage and murder jews in violently creative ways. Your money is far better spent on something with a high replayability factor, or long term multiplayer value. Like Starcrap 2 (yes I’m jaded… I suck at it).
The windows live was the last nail in the coffin for me. Had enough of that crap with Dawn of War. If I buy something off steam, I want to just use steam to play it and don’t want to deal with any other EA or M$ steam-like pretender crapola.
EA/Bioware DRM Say “Oh Noes! We Suck Again!”
As whoever will witness is my witness, I will never buy another DRM shitbox wrapped game again.
Dragonage – EA and EA DRM (owned and is now a coaster)
Gears of War – Epic GFWL DRM (removed from HD to become a dust block)
The Witcher – Atari GFWL DRM (may chip the cd a bit to make a ninja throwing star)
Bulletstorm – EA w/ GFWL DRM (the worst ever… I actually had to CALL up into India and yell at them to flip the “You can play now” switch)
For those that care – Fable III is being asswrapped in GFWL as well.
Why do they do this? Specificaly, why do they turdbomb single player aspects of ANY game?
I’ve never had a problem with steam stuff, but I’m becoming a proponent of “buy the game, but actually use a pirated version.” Those are all pretty good games– well except Dragon Age which is pretty much the opposite of anything I wanted in an RPG.