HL2: Lost Coast Released

ALL OF THESE SCREEN SHOTS ARE FROM MY VIDEO CARD, the Geforce 6800GT OC AGP.

Lots of hub-ub going on about the new HDR capabilities of the HL2 engine. Valve has just released a Demo level entitled, Lost Coast, to help display these possibilities to the world. I was kind of hoping that Lost Coast would be a full on expansion, but apparently that's not what it was intended to be. I'll be interested to see exactly what else comes from IMO the best game engine in existance. Mod developers are free now to literally create ANY visual effect or style they wish, that's pretty exciting in this day and age. I'd love to get my hands on a programming team of 25 and go to town.

For some reason, Valve has set system requirements for Lost Coast very high, including requiring a 2.6GHz Pentium class computer, and at LEAST a GeForce 6800 Video card. Thankfully I just bought the BFG Geforce 6800GT OC and I was sure it was going to chew up Lost Coast easily. My AMD 64bit 3200+ has yet to run into a game it can't load faster than any P4, or run smoother. My roommate's 3.2GHz P4 just can't hang with this 2.0GHz AMD.

I fired up Lost Coast for the first time, and Steam popped up a little warning box stating that my CPU's clock speed (2.0GHz) is under the recommended 2.6GHz requirement. My 2.0 is just as fast as Intel's 3.2GHz machines, so I blazed ahead anyway, hoping the 2.6 was for P4s. Later I was to find that the recommended AMD speed is an AMD 2800+, which is clocked at around 1.8GHz. I ended up being right, the AMD 64bit CPU chewed it up no problem, and it looked GREAT! One thing that isn't getting old right now is this cutting edge look that all games have with the new video card.

As you can see, the HDR capabilities bring a whole new world of realism into our Half Life games. Reports indicate that the FAR CRY 1.3 patch added some HDR effects into the mix as well. Needless to say, this card is still spewing out more eye candy than I thought possible. The best $300 I have EVER SPENT, and the video card itself has gotten me interested in gaming all over again. The new games I'm playing are miles ahead of my last major time investment, Half Life: Team Foretress Classic. That game is completely archaic compared to the stuff they have now, and everyone should get started on the new games ASAP!

This pioneering HDR technology is probably most notably utilized in DoD:S on the Steam Platform. What a beautiful game to play. The look of Lost Coast is so ground breaking, it's no surprise it's coming from the HL2 engine. I was wondering what kind of things they were going to pull out of their hats. Here's a big ole fat rabbit. Nice one, Valve! Don't you dare let this be the last!

Blankz of Inside the Game: I Hate Flying

Originally posted on Inside the Game's website by Blankz:

I hate flying. I absolutely despise it. It's a control thing, you know. It's that whole putting your life into someone else's hands. I'm psychotic when it comes to getting on a plane. I'll get into that chair, strap myself in and white-knuckle it up until I feel that slight sink just when the landing gear goes up and flaps return to 0%. After that I am fine until... yup, you guessed it, landing. I blame this traumatizing experience on the a$$hat pilot on my flight to Dallas, Texas a few years back. He called it the "Texas Buck." I called it “the sound of my life fading into a loud bursting explosion of goo.”

The reason I have to endure this experience? I, along with Wacksteven and newly appointed daddy, djWHEAT, am set to bring you live coverage of Blizzcon. The two day event in Anaheim, California that brings the world’s best StarCraft and WarCraft III players together for a 48-hour marathon of MMORPG action.

We will begin broadcasting Friday morning around 10:00 AM PST or so, and you can watch live video via the GGL Media Player.

I have to pack for my flight now and have a gut wrenching, pacing back n forth, worrying myself sick and wondering if I should really attempt to take a lighter on the flight night and half day tomorrow!

djRoME Reviews the BFG Geforce 6800GT OC AGP

Well the time has finally arrived! I get around to gathering some info about this card. I've been sucked in by the beautiful visuals of this new video card, and my productivity has all but ceased. It was only after about 7 hours of WoW, 1 hour of UT2K4, 4 hours of Q4 and 2 hours of DoD:S that I actually got around to remembering I should have written this review.

While I was in game, I collected lots of screenies of the performance of this card.

Let me just say that the first impressions of this card are great, the box rocks, and on it there's a CPL logo. The caption reads, "Official Graphics Processor." That, coupled with the CPL's recent announcement that the 6800 is in their tournament machines is great news for me. I tend to trust brands with good backing.

I upgraded to this card from a Geforce FX5200. ATI was not an option for me because their drivers arent nearly as intuitive as NVidia's, so I stuck with the better drivers.

All of my games automatically knew that the card was different, and reset the settings accordingly. WHAT A HUGE UPGRADE. The FX5200 didn't support all of the new fangle "DirectX 9.0" shaders, and HDR lighting that the new card does, and it's a huge improvement. I started playing World of Warcraft again just for the visuals. I can run it in 1600x1200 with maxed out settings, and get easily twice the framerate as the old card at 1024x768 with the settings on low. The eye candy is SWEET!

Here's the performance of this card in REAL WORLD situations.

TEST SYSTEM:

AMD 64 3200+ (no overclocking) Venice Core
MSI Neo-2 Platinum Socket 939 Motherboard
1GB Corsair XMS Series Super Low Latency PC3200 (2-2-2-5 Timings)
BFG Geforce 6800GT OC 256MB GDDR3
RAID 0 2x 200GB Maxtor Diamond Max SATA-150 7200 RPM Drives
Sound Blaster Audigy 2 Value
Windows XP Professional (all the latest patches)

Photoshop CS2 9.0 was running in the background of all of the games to record my screen shots.

Counter-Strike Source Video Stress Test:

I hate Counter Strike, and the only reason I have loaded up this game is because it's the only Valve game with a video stress test built in. Results are:

142.35 FPS Average in 640x480 with all settings low.
130.97 FPS Average in 1024x768 with the auto detected settings.
90.59 FPS Average in 1600x1200 with all settings completely maxed.

Not sure how that compares with other Video cards/CPUs, but 90+ FPS with all settings completely maxed, including 6xAA is nothing to scoff at. The game itself looks great as well, though there's not much HDR programmed into the maps. Oh well, that's what DoD:S is for!

Day of Defeat: Source Host Server:

Since there's no built in Video Stress test in any other Valve game, I figured I'd see how the BFG Geforce 6800GT OC Handled the HDR lighting that's in DoD:S. I loaded up the best HDR and largest view I could find to try to tax the card a little to make framerates dip.

70 FPS in 1024x768 with all settings maxed.
60 FPS in 640x480 with all settings at lowest.
40 FPS in 1600X1200 with all settings maxed.

I run the lowest settings at the lowest resolution as a control, see how many frames the CPU can generate. For some reason, the lowest resolution with the lowest settings didn't produce a higher frame rate. None the less, handling the HDR lighting was no problem for the 6800GT OC. DoD:S is absolutely breathtaking visually with the settings maxed. I run the 1024X768 with all settings maxed and no AA when I play online, I get between 60-100 FPS depending on the map and location.

Quake 4 Single Player:

This game is nutorious for chewing up and spitting out video cards and CPUs, and it certainly didn't fail me when I tested the full range of it's demands.

10 FPS in 1024x768 with all settings maxed and 16x AA enabled.
58 FPS 1024x768 with all settings maxed and NO AA enabled.

6 FPS in 1600x1200 with all settings maxed and 16xAA enabled.
33 FPS in 1600x1200 with all settings maxed and NO AA enabled.

28 FPS in 640x480 with all settings maxed and 16xAA enabled.
66 FPS in 640x480 with all settings maxed and NO AA enabled.

27 FPS in 800x600 with all settings maxed and 16xAA enabled.
55 FPS in 800x600 with all settings maxed and 4xAA enabled.
65 FPS in 800x600 with all settings maxed and 2xAA enabled.

After I hit the server tick rate with 2xAA, it made no sense to lower it any further as there's no way to accurately measure lower resolutions.

UT2K4 Host Server Onslaught:

UT2K4 is another game with tons of eye candy, and it runs GREAT on any machine, but let's try to get this card to budge. Boy was it hard. I ran the CPU test; 640x480 with all setting on the lowest possible, and the average FPS was 104. Let's max her out and see how it goes. 1600x1200 with all settings maxed netted an 89 Average FPS reading. Again, this was on map Dawn, overviewing as much of the map as I could.

104 Average FPS with all settings low and no AA enabled.

For some reason I couldn't get UT2K4 to take a screenshot with the HUD in at 1600x1200 with all settings maxed. She still averaged 89 FPS during this test.

This card comes overclocked from the factory!

Yes, you're right. All regular GF6800GT's have a core clock speed of 350mhz. The GT OC version of this card runs at 370mhz, almost 7% overclocked. You can go ahead and try to get it overclocked further (it's literally as easy as dragging a slider in the drivers screen), it's quite easy with the NVidia drivers; since I plan on keeping this card for a few years, I'll let it be at it's stock clock speed of 370mhz.

CONS:

As of right now there's not a single con that I can think of for this card, so I'll bitch about the $320 price tag, and the fact that the card itself is physically a bit long. Also, make sure you have an extra power plug (not floppy size, and not SATA) available to plug into this card when you install it. She definitely pulls the juice! My version of the card is on AGP, not sure if the PCI-E has the additional power need.

BOTTOM LINE:

This card is the 2nd best NVidia card you can buy, topped only by the GeForce 6800Ultra Platinum Edition. It runs over $400 mail order, and $600 in store, so I decided to scale back a bit and jumped on the $300 deal at my local Best Buy. Was a good call since Newegg has the PCI-E version of the 6800GT (not the OC edition) for $312. Get over to Best Buy and snag one of these cards!

My old video card was the bottleneck for this system, and now the video card seems to be the perfect speed for this CPU and RAM combination. The only thing that seems to affect this card is the higher Anti-Aliasing settings, the rest it eats up. Quake 4 looks great, and I don't go any lower than 45 FPS during super high intensity combat. I've been reading and it doesn't seem possible right now to get rid of that little problem no matter what the video settings are, so let's just hope for a Q4 patch, shall we?

My upgrades are almost complete on this rig, I'll be adding another gig of the Corsair XMS Series Super Low Latency PC3200 RAM, and a new DVD burner (the burner is already ordered and in route).

9.0 out of 10 for this video card, one of the last AGP cards on the planet!

Quake 4 -- The Review by djRoME

She's finally here! The review of Quake 4 you've all been waiting for!

OK so I wasn't exactly prompt with this review, but let me tell you I'm glad I waited. I've just gotten in a new video card, the BFG GeForce 6800 GT OC, and it has made my overall gaming experience SO MUCH BETTER.

Quake 4 made me make the purchase, even though I've been meaning to finish my computer upgrade for quite some time. Anyways, ON TO THE REVIEW!

Quake 4 is breathtaking, even from it's presence on the shelf at the store. I managed to talk Best Buy out of a copy of the DVD Special Edition a day before release because of a typo on their website. Yay, Quake a day early! When I first fired it up, there was about 57 servers (theres over 1000 today, 100 of which ping UNDER 50 to me), and a couple hundred players on. My first experience with Quake was on my old video card, a GeForce FX5200. While the game ran well, there was nothing I could do to achieve a higher framerate than around 35 with that video card. Lots of work for my old card (that FX5200 has been great for me for 3 years or so), and it was obvious that if I wanted to experience the true nature of what the new Quake is about, I needed to upgrade.

Enter, BFG Geforce 6800 GT OC. AMAZING. Quake 4 has a completely scalable video setting that will allow you to run the game on an archaic video card, or one of the top of the line models, and completely max either of them out!

Ultra High Quality in Quake 4 will easily max out the memory on a 512MB video card. Needless to say, Medium video quality is plenty, and the rest is gravy.

The install went very smooth, and unlike other game titles that are rushed to the consumer, this version of Quake 4 seems largely without bugs. I'm sure they'll find plenty to patch, but let's just say this is WAY better than the first version of BF1942 for those of you who remember that.

The motion graphics in the GUI are amazing right off the bat, the player interface is very intuitive, and all settings are changed quite easily.

The first thing I tried was multiplayer, as I hate most single player experiences. The multiplayer is largely like Quake 3 Arena, and is probably best described as "what Quake 3 Arena always should have been." The game has the familiar movement, fast strafe jumping, no hanging on textures, and plenty of rocket jumping! FINALLY, A GAME THAT ISN'T TRYING TO BE REAL LIFE! If I wanted a game that was real life I'd go buy The Sims or something.

All of the familiar weapons are in, the netcode seems about as solid as netcode can possibly be in the first release, with special recognition to the hitscan weapons, GREAT registration of hits here. Your crosshair even changes color when you score a hit.

The action is fast, there is built in TDM as well as CTF, and a new mode, Tournament Mode that allows servers to act as small 1v1 tournaments, producing the brackets, and crowning a king of the hill, all on a PUB SERVER!

One aspect of the game which I found to be a con at first was the built in 60 FPS cap. After a bit of research, I've found that there's a built in FPS lock similar to what Quake 3 had. 62.5 FPS is the speculated cap, and that holds true from my experience, bounding between 60 FPS and 64. The reasoning is that player and server ticks are all the same at 60 FPS, and nobody gets any kind of advantage by being about to go faster than 60 FPS like they used to.

After every waking minute to this point had been spent in the multiplayer, and tweaking settings, I decided to hop into the single player. I'm not much of a single player buff, but I will say this. Quake 4's single player (tho it does resemble the Doom 3 single player a bit), is FAR SUPERIOR to Doom 3's. When I tried Doom 3, I noticed that the entire single player game was based on one formula:

1. Enter dark room.
2. Monster jumps out of the darkness.
3. Shoot monster.
4. Repeat.

This formula has been thwarted by a well put together single player experience. The maps aren't quite as dark as Doom 3, and the monsters don't just jump out of nowhere every time. The game isn't quite as scary this way, but it's still plenty fun. I haven't played it much more than about an hour or so, and haven't made it very far, but unlike Doom 3's single player, I will continue this one.

The server list just spiked in numbers today, due to the release in Europe. There's now over 1000 servers up, and growing by the minute!

CONS:

I was a little wierded out when I found that I had to restart Quake every time I changed a video setting, that just seems a little old school to me. If Valve can do it, ID had better be able to change resolutions on the fly.

The machine gun sound is quite possibly the most annoying sound ever. It seems the volume on that sound itwself is much higher than the other gun sounds, and that may be what's getting me. I await a patch for this problem, and I also await the newbs getting a different gun out than the machine gun.

The multiplayer is alot like Quake 3 Arena, but it doesn't seem to jump into the 21st century like the new games nowadays are. Still the same old Quake, but this game is the game that hooked me into gaming in the first place.

BOTTOM LINE:

Quake 4 owns, it's a must have, it ships on DVD as a special edition with Quake 2 bundled, and oh yeah, ITS QUAKE!

This was the biggest game release for me since Half Life 2. Quake 4 will bring lots of old schoolers back to life, and make alot of players in their late 20's upgrade their P3 1ghz rigs to something a little more suitable for Quake 4. Good thing I already have!

9.3 out of 10.

djRoME's Review: Eldar Djangirov's Album, "Eldar"

OK so in addition to liking death metal, I'm also into good jazz. While I typically prefer horn jazz like Arturo Sandoval or Maynard Ferguson (the edgier groups), I have recently stumbled upon a young Art Tatum in the making.

For those of you who don't know who Art Tatum is, he's one of the most highly regarded jazz pianists of our time. NPR should be able to help you out. To truely understand what makes this album so great, we've got to start by learning about Eldar Djangirov first:

Eldar Djangirov-now eighteen years old and an emigrant from Kyrgyzstan in the former Soviet Union-might seem an unlikely candidate for greatness as a jazz pianist. But Eldar is in fact all of these things, which have now brought him to his debut recording for Sony Classical-ELDAR, featuring sax virtuoso Michael Brecker (to be released on Tuesday, March 22, 2005).
When he was nine years old, Eldar began to explore and pursue jazz seriously. One can hear in Eldar's music influences from the classic, the inspired drive of Art Tatum and Oscar Peterson, the exuberance of Dave Brubeck, and the intensity and introspection of Bill Evans.

Eldar was featured on the 42nd Annual Grammy Awards and has taken top prizes at the 2001 Lionel Hampton Jazz Festival and the 2002 Peter Nero Piano Competition. The legendary Marian McPartland hosted Eldar as her guest (her youngest ever) on the acclaimed radio show "Piano Jazz" and later asked Eldar to perform during her concert series at the Eastman School of Music in Rochester, New York. After hearing Eldar play, jazz great Benny Carter said, "He's one of the most outstanding artists I've heard in a long, long time." An impressed Dr. Billy Taylor noted that "At age 16, Eldar Djangirov's playing shows brilliancy, complexity, and discipline." Hailing Eldar as a "remarkably advanced jazz artist," JAZZIZ magazine wrote, "The pianist's incredible hands already have him sounding like a young Art Tatum."

I stole that from his website. His newest album, entitled, "Eldar" is a great piano Jazz album with a combo on it as well. All songs were arranged by Eldar himself, and this kid is just getting started on his early 20's!

Eldar is regarded as a prodigy, and he certainly is. There is some great playing on this album, and it sounds 100% professional the entire way through. Eldar has amazing hands, and the speed with which he plays is phenominal. This CD would be impressive to everyone, regardless of whether you listen to jazz or not.

You can hear exerpts of his music on his website.

CONS:

Eldar at times shows his age, while being a prodigy he often loses sight of what music is all about, and sacrifices musicality for speed. Many also would have said that about Art Tatum himself, so I'll go ahead and overlook that tiny little fact.

FINAL TAKE:

If you like Art Tatum, and piano jazz in general, this first album is great. What virtuostic playing from the young Russian! I didn't know they got this funky out there!

9.2 out of 10, mostly because this kid is so young.

Shure E4c Sound Isolating Earphones -- djRoME's Review

One of the best pieces of swag I managed to come home from Digitallife 2005 with was a set of Shure E4c Sound Isolating Earphones. These puppies sound great! At an admittedly pricy $299, I'm not sure how fast these will run out the door, but let me tell you these things appear to be worth every penny.

Everyone representing iTG at Digitallife got a full blown demo of the difference between Shure's various models of these types of earphones, and the sound was impressive. During the demo, the Shure rep mentioned that these earphones are used by professional musicians as well as gamers and iPod owners.

Most say these earphones are designed specifically for the iPod, while it is obvious that Shure is aiming at that market, there are many other markets to tap into as well. These earbuds do such a good job with sound isolation, it's possible to be sitting on a loud train and not hear any of the train ambience at all! I spent the weekend with these earbuds on in the middle of a convention center, and felt completely isolated.

The set also comes with a connectable inline volume knob, as well as a sturdy case, and extra earpieces in different sizes. The little red box is brimming with goodies!

One of the best features about these earbuds is the interchangeable tips. You can choose from two different rubber types, or my favorite, the yellow earplug foam material. When you place the yellow foam in your ears, you are unbelievably isolated!

These earbuds are designed to be worn over the ear like a news anchor or live musician would. They are made with super strong chords, and appear very sturdy. The earpieces are interchangeable, so the E4c has the features of the set of earphones that you could own for a decade. They are very strong, and I can't see myself breaking them any time soon. I'm not really into this whole "iPod revolution" that's going on, but these earphones made me consider purchasing an iPod!

The sound of these earphones is breathtaking. PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE demo these earphones so you can hear what the perfect earphone sound should be. These earphones achieve such a good sound by their placement in your ear canal, and Shure's "Tuned Port Technology," which increases the air flow around the sound driver to bring rich bass. These earphones have HUGE BASS!

CONS:

One con is that I don't believe the chord is long enough for a computer gamer to be comfortable with. measuring 55", the chord sounds long on paper, but I am slightly uncomfortable reaching anywhere but the front of my rig with the chord. This chord should be the perfect length for an iPod owner, however. The E4g model of these earphones (these come in black) have a slightly SHORTER chord (about 50") which I find amazing since I barely can live with the 55". Make sure you're plugging in at the front of your comp.


These earphones may be uncomfortable for you if you don't like the feeling of earplugs. These earphones go in your ear canal and feel exactly like earplugs.

The design of these earphones is to be worn over the ear, so those of you who hang the chord down by your chin will have to reverse the L and R sides to achieve better comfort. That's not a huge deal, yet wierd none the less.

BOTTOM LINE:

While the Shure E4c is not an absolutely perfect earphone for every application, these earphones have single handedly made me a fan of earbuds again. I wear these when I game for the isolation, and I wear them when I broadcast to hear what my TRUE sound is that's coming out of my micrphone. The sound is crystal clear, and AMAZING from the first sound you hear to the last song you listen to.


When you demo these earphones, DO NOT listen to MP3's as you won't get the full effect of the amazing quality that these earphones bring. The compression of the mp3 files degrades the sound. Demo these earphones with a CD playing so you can hear the amazing clarity.

At a price of $299 retail, I can safely say that would have scared me away from purchasing these. If you've got the scratch, and are even slighty interested based on this review, take my word for it and BUY THESE EARPHONES! You will not be sorry. The E4g version (black, shorter cable) is priced at $199 which is slighty better. If you already use earbuds daily, get these. They will be the last set you ever buy.

I'll give these earphones an 8.9 out of 10.

New York Recap #2

Finally got around to remembering some things about the NYC trip. Aside from running the video and sound back end for iTG at the gig most of the event (no, no broadcasting for RoME at this event), I also spent lots of time getting to know lots of high profile gamers that I haven't met before.

This first picture is the table we had on the last night of the trip; lots of european UT players are at that table, the first one I met was iTG's own ReDeYe. He's a great guy, very committed to broadcasting, and couldn't have made a better roommate for me during the trip. I knew instantly that he was the best roommate possible when I popped into the room for the first time and he was sitting there with a cig in his mouth. YAY! Smoking in the room!

Event setup was a bit overwhelming at first, as iTG has alot better equipment than I'm used to a shoutcast crew having. After the setup was complete I realized that it wasn't as complicated as I was telling myself in the beginning. I could set it all up myself now after working with it all weekend.

SyN (middle, 2nd pic) and I spent lots of time in the hotel bar, among other bars. Also got to meet another great guy, Alien (far right, 2nd pic), who was from Nebraska and had the same rugged taste in bar scenes and beer as me. Needless to say, we were like peas and carrots. God bless Yueng Ling.


Also got to meet some ladies at this event (yes girls in fact do like to game), and since I had never met "gamer girls" before I found this very intriguing. One of the five nights there we had a great ride in a horsedrawn carriage and just were generally zany. Tex and SyN were there too; it was one of the funnest rides of the weekend. Plug here for the girlz 0f destruction and their two leaders, missy (left) and Ms.X (right). I couldn't have hoped for cooler or more sexy gamer girls than those to be around. Ms.X took the photos in this post, so please make sure she knows if you take them.

Can you guess which one (or more) of these pictures is me pretty toasty? Bet a 5 year old could... This one is a pic of me back at my hotel room after I tried to disappear from the bar at 5:30am... I got all ready for bed, had my beer pants on, and was almost under the covers when I heard the knock on the door. It was time for a few more beers!!! 7:30am rolled around before I finally got any real shut eye. To the airport shuttle at 9:30am!

More later as the haze clears. Q4 review coming, as well as a review of my brand new shiny GeForce 6800GT OC!!!

djRoME has Quake 4!

I own Quake 4. The review is going to be delayed now as I have more time to get in depth with it.

Single player mode, multiplayer modes (including CTF), and many others to be had. I'll probably get to the review tonight...

Wee.

Digitallife 2005 Recap

Just returned from Digitallife 2005, and let me tell you it was a great experience. I've never been to NYC before, and was really looking forward to being on the island, the closest I ever made it until now is the Meadowlands in Jersey. This weekend I was smack dab in the middle of it all! The very first building I found was the Late Show Headquarters where David Letterman films his show. I was about 1 block from there.

The GGL was kind enough to put up the iTG broadcast crew in a hotel 1/2 a block from Times Square. Times Square is definitely everything they've cracked it up to be, and more... Upon arriving Syn, ReDeYe and I all decided that a 3am trip to the McDonalds in Times Square was in order... We head in that general direction and were greeted by a strange old woman who offered to let us "introduce me to your pickle" if we gave her a cigarette. Needless to say she fell a bit over my limit of 92 years of age, and under my minimum tooth requirement of 5.

The perfect introduction to the greatest city in the world... TO BE CONTINUED with a review of the upcoming title, QUAKE 4!

djRoME is off to NYC!

NYC here I come! I'll be there for the Ditigallife technology and entertainment event that will be open to the public from October 14th till the 16th! If you're going, keep an eye out for the GGL and Inside the Game! This is my first time to the greatest city in the world, the closest I've ever come to it is the meadowlands which is right across the channel from the island... SyN, Trillian and Redeye from Inside the Game are all going to be there too, I'm very excited to finally meet them!

Who is this Cori Yarckin?

With every passing day I remind myself how much I'm supposed to hate pop music. I keep telling myself that grunge metal is the only non-acoustic stuff worth listening to, and everyone that listens to other stuff is just a jackass. Girls like Avril Lavigne definitely help me give pop music a chance... Random internet musings today unearthed another girl who is using the same formula to achieve stardom:

Enter Cori Yarckin. Yes, she's crazy hot. Yes, it's ok for me to say that because she's 20. Yes, it's ok for me to listen to her music as long as I don't remember the words and I keep staring at her picture with lust in my heart.

Before anyone starts bitching about her name, think about who she is emulating anyway, A-V-R-I-L   L-A-V-I-G-N-E. Nobody can spell it (I had to Google it to make sure I had it right), but everyone knows who she is. None the less, Cori's name definitely screams, "I'm CANADIAN EH!" She's got a nice voice, and it's sort of metal-ish pop music, so I have an excuse to say that I like this completely forced and contrived pop rip off band (of course I show my hostility for the business end of Cori's motivation). Then again I'm sure Cori's whole act is someone else's idea and Cori is just investing her time into getting her 15 minutes on MTV and a large pocketbook. It's a rather good plan in this day and age, and probably the best form of the American Dream there is.

Here is an exerpt from one of her songs, purchase her album here.

BOTTOM LINE:

Her shameless biting of familiar formulas to achieve stardom won't make me feel bad for what I'm about to say. She's hot, and she's better than Avril Lavigne because she's a brunette. Obviously I'm a brunette man. Her music is just as good as Avril's, and she looks better. Is there room for another girl rock band? She can play my concert hall anytime.

Reason #6494 to Quit

I've been a smoker for over 10 years (yes I'm still only 26), and nothing that I've seen has convinced me not to smoke as well as this video has. GFG to me for only having one cigarette today.

As long as there's beer in the world, I doubt I'll quit completely.

Day of Defeat: Source Review by djRoME

Day of Defeat: Source is a game that I pre-ordered from Steam early since I'm just hopelessly bored with HL2:DM, and I refuse to play CS:S due to the fact that everyone who plays CS is an idiot.

One rant before I start: Steam has an inherent problem with support, and I've been burned by it twice now. First was when I added my HL2 that I purchased to a new steam account, and found out later that I can't consolidate my two accounts into just one. WEAK SAUCE. The second was I preordered DoD:S from steam, and steam failed to charge me the pre-order price of $17.99, they charged $19.99. REALLY WEAK SAUCE. I won't die because of the $2 I guess, but that's half a pack of smokes, man.

All of the menus are nice and tasty looking, everything ran smoothly, and download and decoding of the files for the game was a snap. After my experience with SuperPower 2, I <3 STEAM.

Anyways, this game is one of the first really polished mods to come out. The new lighting schemes that are involve give the HL2 engine an even more realistic look, and it's beautiful to see. All of you CS:S players should be jealous of the newfound lighting schemes that are available to the mod developers now... HA!

Checking the stats of SteamPowered.com, I notice that DoD:S is 4 to 5 times more popular than HL2:DM, yet still 15 times smaller than CS 1.6. YOU CS PLAYERS NEED TO MOVE ON SO VALVE CAN.

Day of Defeat: Source takes the classic gameplay of the original Day of Defeat and improves the experience with Source, the advanced engine technology Valve created for Half-Life 2. With this technology, DoD: Source offers state of the art graphics (including support for HDR lighting) in optimized versions of popular maps, plus redesigned sound and all new player, weapon, and world models.

That pretty much says it, taken from the DoD:S website.

There's no problem finding a semi-full server of about 20-30 people with a ping under 60 from where I live. All of the players are pretty nice, admins are active, it's a fresh and new budding gaming community out there. Just what I was missing. Most of the people that I have played with in the past few weeks have been 20-somethings that have probably played clan matches for years, so teamwork was good.

Maybe I'll write an article about how gamers are a dying breed. There doesn't seem to be very many 16 year olds into computer gaming like there were when I was 16... They must all be playing WoW.

I think Source DoD plays better, runs smoother, and overall is a better game than the first DoD. Congrats, Valve, for finally releasing something that the community will regard as an improvement (although I don't understand why the CS community refuses to switch to Source).

There's only a couple of cons that I can really list off the top of my head. First, there's only 4 maps that came from Valve, that's going to be a bit of a problem, but there will be plenty of mapping for this one I'm sure. Also, in the game running into another player there is this annoying little bounceback that you do, totally losing your momentum as you run. That doesn't seem like it's working completely up to snuff. My roommate also argues that the fact that your bullet doesn't always go where you point your crosshair is bullshit. Part of me agrees, but part of me asks, "would you be 100% accurate with your bullets running at top speed over piles of bricks with mortar fire everywhere?" It's rhetorical, of course. That question is usually answered by the Quake player in me that gives me an overhand right to the chin.

BOTTOM LINE:

I played the original DoD and hated it. I played DoD:S and now it's the only reason I'll open my Steam account (until a version of Fortress comes out, of course). Same class-based system, new lighting, textures, animations and sound, and IGN gave it an 8.4. I concur.

Gorillaz: Demon Days CD Review

Gorillaz: Demon Days is one of the best new trip hop albums out. I'm more of a metalhead, but hearing Feel Good Inc. on the radio sent me promptly to Best Buy to buy this album.

GFG to the Gorillaz for bringing back the old reason to visit the CD store. I heard their song on the radio and liked it so much I wanted the whole album. These guys may just end up being the flavor of 2005 when it comes to the new trendy groups to listen to. Rather than download their album with the intention of buying and never getting around to purchase, I skipped the middle-man and bought the CD. It was a good decision.

The cover art is in the familiar fashion, also in their video. No pics of the musicians themselves, just the animated renditions of them. No lyrics in the album, but there's some cool pictures in the jacket. The CD itself looks cool, it's B&W silhouettes of the animated artists.

Of the Fifteen total tracks on the album, 14 of them are actual songs, and I absolutely love six of them. The other 8 are good also, just not standouts.

Last Living Soulz is a trippy chilled out video game track sounding song, with a heavy influence from Randy Newman of all people.

Dirty Harry is a track that should have been in the Kill Bill movies,

Feel Good Inc. will unfortunately be killed by the local radio stations playing this song 49302523 times a day. I still like it for now after hearing it 53 times on the radio driving home and 5 times in my CD player every day.

El Mañana is another nice trippy track. Great hook.

November Has Come is a track with much more hip hop "flava" to it, similar to the Black Sheep or Common.

Don't Get Lost in Heaven is one of the best grooves I've heard in years.

BOTTOM LINE:

Overall this CD is one of the few albums that I'm proud to admit I actually purchased. So much of the music industry today is about mass producing generic bullshit, and it's good to get a breath of fresh air from the Gorillaz. BLING!

New Hard Drives!

Continuing my seemly benge-like spending spree, I have purchased two Maxtor DiamondMax 10 200GB 3.5" Serial ATA150 Hard Drives. I got them from a local retailer for $99, but newegg does them online for $85. It was worth the $14 for zero wait. Plus, I got the retail version which included two SATA/IDE controller cards. Not sure what I'm going to do with those things, they'll probably just gather dust in the boxes.

What prompted me to make this change? Well I've been meaning to upgrade my HDDs every since I purchased the AMD 64 3200+, MSI Neo2 Platinum Motherboard, and Corsair XMS-XL Super Low Latency RAM (it's a shame when you spend the most money on the RAM but OMG FAST KTHX). Until today this machine was running a RAID-0 of two Maxtor 30GB ATA-133 Drives. I began getting sporadic Blue Screens after the computer was on for any extended period. After checking Google searches of my exact BSOD errors, I noticed that on about 75% of the computers, they had my exact HDDs.

Time to upgrade.

Anyways, I did and I'm happy! These drives are not quite as quiet at my 30GB ones, but the sound they make is barely audible over a computer with 4 fans in it. MaxBlast (Version 4 now) as usual was a charm and I installed and replaced the old drives with these in a matter of 30 mins, including copy time. I <3 Maxtor.

Old drives are going back to my old AMD K6-900 so it can hack Sat TV. I'll keep you posted about my BSODs in my next post.

Next part, VIDEO CARD!!!

More Travels Ahead for djRoME

I will be traveling with Inside the Game to the DigitalLife Consumer Technology & Entertainment Event that will be held in NYC from October 14th to the 16th.

This will be my first trip with iTG to an event, and I'm very excited to bring coverage of this event to the masses! Check back during the event for more updates of the fun!

SuperPower II for PC Review

My roommate and I were shopping at CompUSA the other day, and we were both tired at that instant of the many FPS games we have been playing...

We decided to try to find a new type of game, with GeoPolotical ties, a bit of world domination, and more of an RTS type of feel than anything. Enter SuperPower II.

The box reads great!

"Access the largest database of real-world data ever assembled for a computer game"

SWEET! Not only is this a political game it's got REAL maps and REAL information!

"Choose to play as any one of the 193 countries recognized by the United Nations"

Again, adding to the realism factor and my interest.

"Gameplay has been expanded and is more realistic with more depth than ever"

Depth is good because I usually get games like this and then am done playing them about 72 hours later. It sounds like this one might be one of the elusive "Diamonds in the Rough!"

"Use the in box toolkit to easily create your own scanarios or trade over the internet"

The final piece that sold me was finding out that this title was indeed multiplayer via the internet. I'm a big fan of PvP aspects of all games, and am nutorious for hating AI.

SO, HOW DID THIS GAME TURN OUT?

Let's just begin the only way I know how, DO NOT BUY THIS PIECE OF AMPHIBIAN DOG SHIT SOFTWARE. I figured I'd better get the warning out of the way just in case you don't read to the end of this post. Anyways, first install went relatively smooth until one intriguing thing happened; my roommate and I pulled out our CDKeys and both of them were the exact same. (We came to find out later there's only ONE existing CDKey for the title) That made me feel REALLY good about actually buying two copies of a game for once. $29.99 down the drain already.

After I got over that, we installed and took tutorials. Tutorials were average at best, not explaining much except how to get to the different menus. Looking in the manual didnt help much either, each facet of the game had only 3 pamphlet pages of instructions in the book.

Blazing ahead, excited for my new geo-political world domination diamond in the rough game, I began to play. Various portions of the game AI didn't seem to make sense, and Brandon and I could NOT for the life of us start a LAN game. There was a grand total of three servers up on GameSpy arcade (one of the many 3rd party programs you must install to play this). So, we continued solo until we got more familiar with the game.

Played for another hour or so, tweaking economies, nuking countries, doing all of the outlandish things you want to do with this title right off the bat, but then got bored. We were going to go nuts if we didn't get connected soon. We decided to regroup and get the LAN happening again.

Before that, I had the wonderful idea that there may be patches for this title. Simple google searches yielded information supporting my theory, and I downloaded the latest (v1.4) patch.

After install of the patch, my AMD 64 computer would not get past the CD protection message requiring a restart. Every time I started the game, after as many restarts as I could handle, the same message appeared. "Must restart to complete installation."

Brandon's went in without a hitch.

After some digging, I found out that this piece of software uses STARFORCE 3 for security, a piece of software many hate, and the game has been boycotted by many due to it's inclusion of this "virus like" protection.

Anywho this game isn't worth any more of my time than it's already stolen from me.

Final Take:

Don't buy this because it cost $29.99, there's one CDKey for millions to share, and there's no guarantee you'll be able to patch the game. Not to mention the gameplay experience was luke warm at best. File this box in the "was hoping for more from what the box said" drawer. If you don't believe me, ask IGN.



This game turned out to be reason #5843294309 review sites own.

Madden NFL 06 for PS2 Review

IGN: Madden NFL 06 Review says it best. I just bought the new title and let me say that it leaves something to be desired.

It doesnt seem to be as polished overall as the 2004 or 2005 titles were, with visible bugs in the animation, player interaction, sound, and other areas. The new motion graphics are... Well, dumb. I had the 2005 Collectors edition and loved the motion graphics on it.

The Superstar Mode is pretty cool, but lacks the depth I was hoping for, and the depth it was described to have on the package.

Gameplay is a bit more choppy feeling than the previous couple of versions, which I find intriguing. I suppose it could have to do with the fact that it's really an XBox360 game that I'm playing on a PS2, so maybe some lighting effects tax the now aging platform. It seems that EA is finally trying to have identical gameplay feel from the NCAA title to the NFL title, as there has been a rift, especially noticeable in 2004. Being as I'm only interested in NFL branded pro football titles, this was my only choice. I give it a luke warm response, even though it's still a very well designed and extremely fun game. I could have kept playing 2005 for another year and spent my $50 on beer instead and probably been just as happy.

ECTFC 7 AVI Released, Featuring djRoME

Mad props to Jack "Reaction" Allen for creating the ECTFC 7 AVI. This last ECTFC will be the last one to take place on the Half Life: Team Fortress Classic platform.

This AVI features some of the best editing in a TFC AVI that I've ever seen. I discovered while watching the video that they used exerpts from my many broadcasts of the tournament matches! Anywho, thanks for crediting me, just don't forget Inside the Game next time! To see this video yourself, download it directly from OzFortress, but be patient, it's 221 megs!

djWHEAT is a daddy!

Wow guys, what a gift for djWHEAT. He's now the daddy of djMINIWHEAT, aka James.

CONGRATULATIONS Marcus!

Summer Pic!

The one and only picture that I have been able to dig up of my adventure this summer with the Troopers... Me on the right, my buddy BOB! on the left. Taken in a little town called Schuylkillhaven, PA. It's really a town straight out of a Stephen King novel...