All posts from category Xbox 360

Gears of War for PC

 Martin · 17 years
Gears of War

I'm going to buy it. Well, providing it runs on WinXP (since it's one of those "Games for Windows" things), I'm going to buy it. It'll actually be out quite soon - November 6, last time I checked. Why is this post-worthy, you ask? Because I already own it for my Xbox 360, I answer.

Not really an earth-shattering revelation, I know. But it's noteworthy to me because, aside from a few dozen copies of Tetris, Worms, and various retro games, I don't normally buy games for multiple platforms. Call me frugal, but when a game comes out for two or more systems I happen to own, it's decision time - how much does the game cost on each platform? How does the game play on each system? How does it look and sound? Which version might my friends get?

I'm going to go ahead and go multi-platform with Gears though, because there's going to be a bit of new content coming to the PC version, the editor (providing there is one) will be fun to play around with, and I'm confident that my PC will be able to do the game even better justice than my 360 did, as far as visuals and control go. Slight spoilers ahead as I explain myself here.

If you've played Gears of War, you probably remember the part where, as you and your squad run to get into the fixed "junker," a huge creature (a "Brumak") comes around the corner and chases your ride. Exciting the first time through, but disappointing that it's the only appearance of this creature, and in a non-playable portion of the game at that. Apparently, due to time constraints, Epic just wasn't able to include the chapter continuing this brute... but with the luxury of an extra year to work and of course, the huge pile of cash that Gears for 360 amassed, they've gotten this segment of the game up to snuff, and will be including it in the PC version. Finally - an extended portion of a game coming to the PC!

Another perk to PC gaming is the tinkering. I've spent hours and hours playing around with game editors, like Quake Army Knife, Valve Hammer, and UnrealEd; I'm hoping I can do the same with Gears. I've not read anything about an editor for the upcoming PC release, but considering Epic's past games, I practically expect it. If no Gears editor arrives, it won't necessarily be a deal-breaker for me, but it will be disappointing.

Finally, I've been much more excited about Gears for PC since I got a chance to try out the Unreal 3 demo on my PC (you can read about that here). Granted, my PC ain't no slouch - but when new games that you've seen lots of wild and crazy screenshots of start coming out, and your PC is a few months old, you start to get nervous. After seeing Unreal 3 run at a perfectly silky smooth framerate with all the goodies maxed out, I'm not worried about Gear at all - in fact, I'm quite looking forward to seeing it run on my rig (and on my 22" monitor!).

I'm also anxious to try the game with a mouse and keyboard. Don't get me wrong, I didn't much mind the double thumbstick control on the 360... it actually wasn't too bad, since the pace of the game is slower than your standard action game. Still, I'm a die-hard PC gamer, and as such I will never deny the absolute control a mouse and keyboard combo can provide. I think that this addition to Gears will revive the gameplay a bit for me as well.

And with that, I'm off. I've got a torrent of the Crysis demo downloading (hopefully it's the right one, since there seems to be two floating around...), and a night of gameage to play. Thanks for reading!

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Entertainment: 1, Productivity: 0

 Martin · 17 years
Halo 3

I've got a little piece of paper resting comfortably in my wallet right now. It conspires with recent purchases made by my credit card; it conspires to completely undo my productivity. You read about the damages to my productivity last week with my scribbling about Team Fortress 2... now brace yourself for the monster that this little piece of paper will unleash upon my free time. This small snipped of ribbon paper has printed upon it proof that I have paid the $5 pre-order fee at my local GameStop. Halo 3 will be in my hands this afternoon.

I could have picked it up last night. At about 10:30 PM, I called GameStop to see how many people were standing in line, and at only about 40, it seemed the wait would not be unreasonable if I headed over at around 11. When 11 came, however, I felt a sudden urge of sleepiness... and since my girlfriend was over for the night, and I did not want to leave her alone at my apartment so late in the night, I decided I'd skip the midnight release, and instead get plenty of rest, so that I may enjoy the game to it's fullest this afternoon. And so I plan on stopping at the very appropriately titled GameStop on my way home from work, picking up Halo 3, and playing through the campaign on co-op with my brother and a friend.

I'm actually somewhat excited at the prospect of playing Halo 3, which is surprising because a week ago, I was not. After being talked into a pre-order by my brother I knew I would enjoy the game, but since I thought the first game was only above par, and have never even played the second game, getting pumped up about the third seemed a bit ludicrous.

When the reviews started pouring in, I read them... and I think that amidst all the Halo soda promotions, commercials, and media hype, they were what most got me in the mood to play. As I have read, not only does the game have four-player cooperative play, something that will probably make the game worth it for me in itself, but it also has some really neat customization and replay features which will be great to play around with, if they are anything near what they are cracked up to be.

I am a PC gamer at heart, so the lack of customization in console games has always kept me from getting too close to many of my favorite games... and while Halo 3 will still be short of a full-blown level editor, it is taking a step in the right direction with the Forge, a kind of mini level editor, which allows you to change elements in levels, add and remove objects, etc. - all while people are playing the level! The replay system I mentioned sounds as equally cool, where everything you do in Halo 3 is recorded to a replay file, which you can view later on, using different camera angles, speeds, etc., and which you can then upload to the internet for others to watch. Sending my friends video clips of my shooting them in the face will never get old, let me tell you.

So all that, combined with my growing love for Team Fortress 2, and then the eventual rest of Orange Box coming in soon, makes for a very large chunk of my free time being eaten up by pure entertainment. Of course, I won't let every one of my priorities drop - I've really got to get to work on the update to Reflect, and continue one of my many game projects - but still... it's gonna be difficult to divvy up the time!

In any case, it's good to be a gamer right now... so if you play Halo 3, maybe I'll kill you online sometime! Thanks for reading!

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