This is just an example of why the award for "Best Graphics Technically" was given to the wrong game. This Crysis which is a bit older and not as polished as Crysis Warhead and even it looks better than Metal Gear Solid 4.

I am liking the free FEAR multiplayer download.
I have been playing that a little bit recently and I like the feel of it. I am so impressed by it that I think I will purchase the full game. I have heard that is a very scary experience.
I can see how, it has the graphics and sound effects in place to allow for a creepy setting to be well presented.
The sound effects alone are very well done and sound great on a surround sound setup.

These are some of the pics of the fun I've been having in Silkroad Online.

Well I finally got Silkroad Online to run on PCLinuxOS 2007, and what a difference. The game is still glitchy like it was under Windows, but with different glitches. The best part is that the game is overall more stable. I played it for a couple of hours under PCLinuxOS today and did not have a single crash! Under Windows XP Pro the game would most likely have crashed at least once. Also the performance seems to be slightly better which is good. The only slow down I get is when I encounter something that requires a new texture to be loaded, but once the textures are loaded everything is as smooth as silk(no pun intended). So now it looks like I have one less reason to boot to Windows. There is one little thing that bugs me though. The in game chat windows does not show up when I press the key binding for it. Not sure why as of yet, but I'll figure it out(I hope).

I am trying to convert more and more over to PCLinuxOS from Windows XP Pro. One of the things holding me back from switching was the fact that I have gotten used to gaming with xfire. So now I could not just switch to PCLinuxOS for everything because there is no version of xfire for Linux. However, I saw that it was possible to run the Windows version of xfire through wine. I installed wine and xfire on my PCLinuxOS system and it works well. There are only two little hitches. One is that the fonts in the buddy list do not display as they should, but it is only a minor annoyance. Another issue is that I have seen reports from others who have used xfire under wine. They have reported that xfire will only recognize Windows executables. So even if there is a Linux native version of a game, I will not be able to use it if I want xfire to be able to recognize it. That is a small price to pay in my opinion since I really would like xfire to track my games. I wonder how well this work out?
Needless to say I have yet gotten rid of my XP Pro drive, just in case there is a game that does not work with wine.

According to post at Ars Technica there is a Project called Alky Project in development that aims to allow DX10 code to run on Windows XP, MAC OSX and LINUX!!. Yes, even Linux is included on that list. This might mean that I will not have to keep a Windows partition in the near future.

From what I have read from the Ars Technica post, "Project aims to bring DX10 gaming to XP, Linux, OS X", this will work much like WINE. Like wine it will take the DX10 instructions and translate them to an equivalent that the host OS will understand.

This method of getting programs to work is fine and is faster than a straight forward emulation, but since it is not emulated that means that the CPU must be x86 based since that is what the games are complied for. This means that anyone running a PowerPC MAC will be out of luck even if they are running OSX or Linux.

The person who wrote the blog post did not get it working but apparently has seen reports of it working for others. This is no surprise since the current release is at an alpha release stage.

Right now the project is funded soley off of donations. Those who donate get perks such as free merchandise and discounts on games. Only the first 5000 subscribers will get these perks though.

Check out Alky Project here: www.fallingleafsystems.com

 

Did I jump ship at a good time?

A little before the 360 and PS3 generation of consoles launched, I took a look at my gaming situation. Over the lifespan of my PS2 I only owned a handful of games and the thing has not really spent much time on compared to how well used my PSX was by the time the PS2 came out. At that point I decided that the PS2 would be my last console.

I have always been a PC & console gamer at this point and the only thing that has stayed some what constant is my PC gaming habits. So this decisions has not left me gameless.

Now with many games that were once console only games coming to the PC it seems as though I have made the right decision and have saved myself loads of cash in the process, since now I'll only be maintaining habits on the PC rather than both a PC and a console.
Companies like Capcom and Microsoft(who had all but abandoned PC gaming with the release of the 1st Xbox) are now taking interest in releasing their games to PC which is good news to me.

There are some things still missing in PC land for me though. That would be the fact that I'm a final fantasy fan, and not ever Final Fantasy game makes it to the PC. :(

Also I am a fan of fighting games and I have seen none of the major ones released on the PC for years now. I am currently a fan of the Virtua Fighter series in particular and I have not seen a PC version of that game series since the second installment of it :(
So it looks like I am out of luck there too.
Especially now that Virtua Fighter 5 is out and there is no mention of a PC port at all.
Those two game series alone are not enough to drive me to buy a PS3, but at the same time I still would like to be able to play them.

So I guess the question still stands. Did I jump ship at a good time?!?

 

I have been an xfire user for a little while now, and I have been wondering about the future of xfire now that Microsoft is extending Xbox's Live feature to the Windows platform(Vista to be exact).
With Live now trying to be hte social gamer client of choice I am now wondering if xfire will be able to survive.

Is there room for both xfire and Live in the PC gamer space?!

I sure hope so since I much prefer xfire over live since it offers you all of its features for free versus the two tiered pricing scheme of Live(the free one is stripped down and the paid subscription version gets all the features).

Am I the only one not interested in Windows Live?

 

 

I can remember not too long ago when I spent a great deal of my free time playing video games. Those days are gone now though. I barely have time to clear my head let alone get into playing a game. I do not know where some people find time for games anymore. The most I have played lately are some games on my Pocket PC when I have a few spare idle minutes, but it feels like forever since I have sat down and gotten into a serious game. Am I the only one with this problem?