The Official Graphics Card and PC gaming Thread

Yeah.

I have to start, Brothers in Arms and Army of Two. I need to finish Ninja Gaiden 2, Battle Field Bad Company, Bioshock, Viva Pinata, Elder Scroll's Oblibion, Burnout Revenge, Resistance: Call of Man, and Table Tennis. I also want to give Mass Effect another play through.

 

I don't think you can every really "finish" Oblivion. Even after the story ends, you can keep playing almost indefinitely as there are tons of quests

 

Well you can. There are only so many quests. Every town only has like 3 or 4 right? I mean it's a lot of quests but there is a finite supply.

 

hmm, what is BiA like? Never played it before, but recently i read a preview of Hells Highway and it sounded fun, even though its another WWII game.

Warhead is quite good, if you liked the first game you'll like this one too. I manage to run the game on "Mainstream" setting, cool!

 

Well I just played it for the first time, and it's FUN. I'm playing on the 360 and there are some framerate problems but the game is really good. It's squad based and you can flank the enemy, suppress them, etc.

 

ok, but hows the graphics? Is it kinda like COD4? This game sounds really fun, i wonder if you can LAN

 

The graphics in Vegas 2 are varied. Vegas 1 on the whole looks better, but has a worse interface. Vegas 2 from a playability perspective is much improved, and features a few nice looking bits, such as the climbing wall section, but there are a lot of VERY poor textures in there, which Vegas 1 didn't have. Performance is greatly improved in Vegas 2 from the original, which is just as well, but it's still not that great. I enjoy the games just because they are such a cool idea, but honestly, they could hardly be programmed any worse for the PC versions.
I've not had the breaking glass bug thankfully, but I played it over Hamachi with my cousin, with crippling lag, so that sort of makes up for it...
Abuzar, stick with Vegas 2, the snow level is the worst looking one of the lot, it does improve from there - the oil facility level near the end is good fun, good looking, and kind of creepy, almost FEAR style, which I like.
I've never looked at Brothers in Arms, so I will have to try the latest incarnation I suppose. WW2 games never did much for me, but then they were too basic with the exception of COD2, maybe a newer adaptation wil get me more involved. The graphics in the trailer looked awful, but who knows, maybe some high settings will improve things.
I want to play Mass Effect on the PC too, it looked pretty dull on the 360, but then a CRT TV makes a lot of things look dull...

 

The performance in Vegas2 is better than Vegas1, it's because of the graphics engine, it is weaker than the first one, not as demanding. When i first played Vegas1 i can hardly run it, so i was scared i couldn't run Vegas2 but i can and it's pretty smooth in some areas.

Dont' fully believe in the trailers. You must play the game itself to knwo if you like it or not.

Mass Effect on pc is great! the graphics looks much better than on the XBox360.

and yes Abuzar play Vegas 2 you will love it, it's challenging as well

 

Not as challenging as the original though. That game got HARD in places.

 

yeah thats what i mean, especially near the end, like you said it's creepy

 

This picture sums it up pretty well...
http://images.anandtech.com/reviews/games/2008/rainbow-six-vegas-2-xbox360/image-02B.jpg

 

i got in that kind of situation before, it's qute scary. if you pop out of cover a sec later than the AI you're dead or heavily wound.

 

You just have to learn the virtues of blind fire then

Some of those guys are easy shots.

I agree that the first one was harder though. But not as hard as the original Far Cry

 

oh yeah! Far Cry, i've never played the first on but i can't wait for Far Cry 2! That game looks sweet!

 

The original Far Cry was brick. Crysis isn't so bad, but turn it up on highest and you'll get very angry... lol

 

I couldn't even beat Far Cry on easy. The soldiers could make accurate shots on full auto at 100 yards plus. I couldn't get past the half way mark. Good graphics, good gameplay, terrible game.

 

As it happens, I stopped playing the game quite early on because I found it too hard, but I really ought to try again and ignore that fact.

 

You can't ignore that fact. The difficulty makes the game extremely broken. I have only one friend that can beat it above easy and that's only because he's been playing it religiously for 4 years.

As far as graphics, Far Cry was excellent for the time and can still be impressive and immersive with all the settings absolutely maxed. It outpaces a lot of 360 games in graphics. It still has some of the best water seen in a game yet. Only Crysis and Half Life 2's water beat it, IMO.

Gameplay wise, have you ever jumped into a food processor head first? That's Far Cry. It's HARD! I get killed quickly unless I swim out to a far island and clear the level with a sniper rifle before I advance. When you get to the Trigens... forget about going any further. They'll kill you before you get a few shots off.

I had to cheat to even see the end... ugh... I hate cheating...

Edit: Oh yeah! Beat Warhead! The story is WAY worth it, IMO and is quite a bit more explosive than Crysis. I'd say it's at least as good overall as the first game. Some of the last parts got a bit choppy, but you should have no problem with your 4870X2 sam

 

Estuansis, that's some really nice review work again on the new cheaper crysis with Psycho Sykes doing his thing, twice as much action you say as being Nomad in the first game - it sounds great! When you say you lose the sandbox - that's the feature that lets you customize your own maps - is that right? If so, no loss to me because I don't take advantage of that anyway.

Also, you mentioned the post-processing haze is removed. Do you mean that Warhead comes that way - or do you have to enable a hack or a patch?

More Estuansis:

Yeah, Sam, I think you're going to have to join in and see what estuansis is raving about with Warhead.

Hey boozer, you just picked up Hells Highway? I'm like estuansis - I'm all into WWII. I've been waiting for Hells Highway for over a year.

Sam, it's a different experience because of your ability to control the two squads under your command, which I take it is how the action really was. The principal is FFFF - Find them, Fix 'em, Flank 'em, and Finish 'em. The BIA games are based on the HBO TV series, Band of Brothers. Did you guys get that in the UK? I heard so much about it from a family member - Like estuansis, being a WWII "nut" I bought the 10 DVD pack on ebay for about $30.

.........

If so, do you remember the first day after they jumped into France, the evening before D-Day. Remember when their first real combat was to take out the three big guns that were firing on the troops coming ashore on the beaches. The main guy in the picture above - a Lieutenant at the time - he ends up a Major by the end of the TV series, commanded two separate groups of guys - one group fired from trees on the machine gunners and on the gun crews, while the assault squad threw grenades and jumped in the trenches.

So that's what the squad-based gameplay of Bia is all about. I think the two squads are called the fire squad and the assault squad. In the first two Bias, using those two squads to keep the Jerries occupied, I myself, of course, usually had the pleasure of doing the final "finishing."

Anyway, back to BIA, I see that they returned to the sergeant of the first Bia and put the red-head sergeant of the second in charge of the other squad that you run into occasionally. Just as well, although I did like him, red's voice got kind of scratchy from time to time as he screamed "Get that f**king tank over there RIGHT NOW!"
..............
So I'm glad we're back to the first voice. I'll be waiting for some enlightening reviews from Booze and estuansis.

Regarding Far Cry 2, yeah, I'm waiting for that with anticipation also. Dinc did a good job reviewing the new trailers in the other, nearly dead, thread.

Far Cry had some very very challenging places - but if you didn't use a bunch of stealth, you're right estuansis, you ate it. With stealth - the game became easier - MUCH easier.

I am pretty much a Far Cry expert. You guys, Sam and Estuansis, if you ever go back to the game, I am your resource for beating it on highest "realistic" level of difficulty. I will get you through any tough spot - as long as you have some patience and use some stealth when it is required.

You mentioned, Estuansis, about a guy who played it for four years - I played the demo-only for almost 4 months, and I was so addicted to it I was afraid to buy the full game - I waited a year. I got so good at the demo in realistic mode - at one time I had all 3 helicopters shot and burning up on top of the fort - I went around and took screenshots to prove it - and also to try to get myself to stop playing that sequence, which I had played literally hundreds of times. I only did it successfully once - shooting down the helicopters was not the problem, but getting them to crash on top of the fort required split second timing - taking out the machine gunner who is in the 'copter, then still having enough time to shoot the thing before it heads over the mountain out of range. That says a lot about AI, that you can play a very challenging sequence hundreds of times to totally "beat" it. Kind of like you, estuansis, when you head out for several hours in the bush on crysis and watch the korean patrols.

........

The only place you couldn't use stealth was on the deck of the old Japanese aircraft carrier, where you alternated between the colt and the p90, on the Q key, adding a good measure of grenades - this is one of the very best, Counter-strike like action sequences. On the realistic setting, you will be tested.

(But, again, if you didn't first already eliminate the helicopter - that's the trick that makes that part passable - then no way could you play that part on the hardest setting. I always jumped off the second level, got down to the front machine gun, took the blasted helicopter out, then climbed into the cabin, and the save game spot was as I climbed up the ladder to the top deck - I played it over and over again - great fun!)



I ended up going to a Far Cry forum, and the forum leader kept emphasizing "Throw rocks." I tried it. The idea of the rocks is to distract the soldiers so they think you're somewhere else. I had already beaten the game all the way through on realistic except for the very end. At the forum I learned two tricks that allowed me to finish on realistic: don't read this red text in the quote box below if you don't want the answers:

Throwing rocks made it much easier, but the thing that made Far Cry eventually easy to beat, even on realistic, was hiding in bushes. I learned to kill the damn monkeys without knowing this - but from the forum I learned that you can also hide in the bushes from the monkeys - I automatically had thought they would sniff you out, but the forum said "no." Also there are parts where you can wipe out almost everybody from one of the little boats - for example, the part before you climb onto the radar ship. Trying to beat that level on foot is much harder - I've played it for hours before only to get killed near the end.



Estuansis and Sam, as I said above, if you guys ever go back to it, I'll get you through the almost impossible parts, and you'll find it enjoyable even on realistic.

The one thing also that made it a little easier, was watching the indicator that helped you know if an enemy was around and if the enemy was aroused. Far Cry had a nasty habit of keeping one or two merc soldier AIs around, who also employed stealth, and all of a sudden, if you got at all careless, you were instantly dead an hour into the game play, just before you would have made it to the save-game point. But throwing rocks flushes out those bastards, and paying attention to the indicator lets you know a little more easily if anybody is actually around.

At the very end - there is an almost impossible section - the one that made me discover the Forum - where you just have to use a little trick - it's the second trick in the red text above that I said "don't read if you don't want to know the secrets." If you don't use that trick - there is absolutely no way to get past that part - I don't care how good of a counter-strike shooter you are - I don't think it can be done. I said to myself in great frustration - "Are they f**king CRAZY - no way can this be done - I have come this far on realistic but this is such an unbalanced impossibly hard level!"


Then I went to the forum and learned that trick, and about re-supplying myself from an armory I hadn't even noticed. Then it was trivial and I laughed at my earlier frustration and anger. Sometimes there is just nothing like "knowing the tricks." Right?

-Rich

 

Even with my sweet system, I am sad to say I'm not a very good gamer. I usually play on normal or hard because very hard kills me

No, you lose the sandbox gameplay. It's less free roaming than Crysis so it can focus more on the action. I thought it was a good trade.

Nice reviews also ;P

I really like WWII games. So much so that CoD2 is my #1 game of all time. I love that game

Far Cry is sadly beyond my means though. I tried stealth. In fact, I use stealth in every game that can facilitate it. I just suck at Far Cry. Congrats to you for your accomplishments though. Very impressive, beating it on realistic.