Haven’t posted in a while so I thought I’d do a little update.
Over the past few weeks, I’ve been enjoying Windows 7, both on my desktop and netbook. I haven’t had any trouble with either so far, so if you’re still on the fence about upgrading, go for it. Victor moved over to Windows 7, and he is already enjoying it. Although it took a bit to build an ISO from the digitalriver student copy, it was worth it in the end. Windows 7 Pro for 40 dollars? Well, it’s not free like my MSDNAA, but it’s still a hell of a good deal.
The majority of my time lately has been taken up by school and homework, making sure my everyday tasks in my apartment are completed, and sleeping enough so I don’t pass out in class. The majority of my spare time beyond that has been spent either browsing the web, or playing new games! I’ll get to the new games in a little bit. First of all though, future upgrades.
The netbook really isn’t cutting it, processing-wise. So, my first upgrade that will be happening very soon will be a new notebook! I’ve been looking around for ages, and I really like the form factor of the netbooks, I just wish they were more powerful. Enter the affordable ultra portables, namely the Asus UL series. Currently available is the UL20, UL30, UL80, and the UL50. 12.1”, 13.3”, 14”, and 15.6” respectively. The advantage of the Asus UL series lies in the 14” model, the UL80VT-A1. It has a 1.3Ghz Intel SU7300, 4Gb of DDR3 RAM, a 320Gb hard drive, and switchable graphics- An on board Intel GMA 4500MHD for energy savings, and a discreet 512Mb nVidia GT210M for multimedia. One of the best things about this laptop, besides its tested 9.5 hour battery life while browsing, would be the fact that the CPU is overclockable to 1.73Ghz, while only dropping about an hour off that battery life. That’s a nice little performance boost, for an ultra portable, ultra thin laptop. Of course, I was very set on this, and was going to order it very soon, but Mother and Father made me an offer I couldn’t let go. If I waited to get a laptop until after Christmas, they would put 450 dollars toward it. And if anything comes up in the boxing week sale on NCIX, I might even be able to order then. So, I decided to wait on it. And that was, of course, a good idea. The UL30VT has been announced, with the same specifications as the UL80VT, minus the DVD drive, and it’s smaller and lighter. Mid December release. So, with this, I’ll be able to game while at home on the weekends, as well as not have to tote around a charger while out and about at school or at friends places. And the processing power is much greater than my netbook, which is just amazing for something with such a great battery life. Anyway, enough of this notebook, let’s get onto the games.
There have been a lot of really big releases and some not so big, but definitely worth trying out. First off, I did not, and WILL NOT purchase Modern Warfare 2. Why? Because, unlike some people, I know what boycotting is. I assume if you’re reading this blog, you probably already know my thoughts on Modern Warfail 2, so I won’t go into details. I’ll save it for another blog post.
So, the past few months I’ve been gaming in my spare time. The latest title that I just played through was Borderlands, an amazing RPS [Role playing shooter]. It’s like a mix of Diablo, and COD4, in a Fallout 3 style environment. 2 of the most amazing features of this game would definitely be the art style, all of the textures are hand drawn, and the random weapon generator. There is something like 17 billion different guns, if not more, that can be made by the generator. Amazing. And the more you play through the game, the better the guns get. So, first play through, guns are average, second, it’s like holy shit this is awesome!, and third, simply blows your mind. Of course, as you play through, the enemies get harder as well, but you get to keep your weapons and level from the previous play through. But yes, I went through that pretty quickly. Overall, very fun game, and ran very smoothly at 1920x1080, all settings on high. [45-60fps]
Next game would be a shooter from Futuremark, the benchmarking company. Multiplayer first person shooter, based in space. Basic gist is that it’s 40 years in the future, something impacted the moon causing a giant crater, and now 2 different factions are fighting over control of mineral heavy portions of the moon. The game supports 16 vs 16 multiplayer, dedicated servers, and free downloadable content when it’s released. Game play is really fun, albeit a bit confusing at first. You’re in space, so there is no gravity. You have a jetpack though. It’s just getting used to having everything going on around you, and not having a true up or down. There is only 1 weapon, the assault rifle, but it’s multipurpose. Fires either automatic, or while scoped, it will fire 10 shots at once, acting like a sniper rifle. It also fires your grenades. Emp [shuts down the suit and all of the control/sound until it reboots. You can still turn and shoot though, just no targeting reticule or sound.], ice, which is the smoke screen, and an explosive grenade, which is self explanatory. Sadly, the game pretty much rapes my system, which isn’t a slouch at all. I can run the game at the highest settings, 2x AA, but I need to run it at 1280x720. It looks good in windowed mode, but when expanding to full screen, it makes me vomit slightly. Overall, really fun, albeit confusing as all hell at first.
After this, we have Audiosurf! This game is simply awesome. You can upload any track from your collection of music, it will convert it to an audiosurf track, and then you ride down it, collecting coloured blocks, while evading the grey ones. There are different game modes as well, but I have yet to explore them. Generally speaking, the faster the song, the faster and harder the track. It’s a game that needs to be tried to get the full experience, and try you can, because Steam has a demo available. And hey, if you like it, it’s only 10 dollars! It’s what I consider a chill game; it allows you to occupy your mind while you just listen to music. I find that a lot of the songs by The Killers are really fast paced, such as Mr. Brightside. Really fun, check it out.
Other titles purchased but yet to be played a lot, are the Sins of a Solar Empire expansion Entrenchment, really fun, addition of star bases and a few other things, Knights of the Old Republic for the PC, got it off Steam with Audiosurf, one of my favourite titles on the Xbox, so I should enjoy it on the PC whenever I get around to it. The latest title would be Left 4 Dead 2, mainly due to PEER PRESURE. A lot of my friends are going to be playing it, so I thought I’d grab it and enjoy it, especially at 38 dollars in the Steam black Friday sale.
And of course, I’ve been playing 2142 as usual.
Probably going to see me get into the evil card game again, Yu-Gi-Oh. I guess there are a few guys that play in the dorm, and I still have all of my cards left over, along with my macro monarch and warrior toolbox decks, so I should be well armed. I just hope they play advanced format, because if they don’t, I’ll try to convert them over. I hate playing traditional, as it seems a lot less fair to me.
So, that’s the blog post for tonight, I’m going to really try hard to get things updated more.
Cheers,
-Jon
Over the past few weeks, I’ve been enjoying Windows 7, both on my desktop and netbook. I haven’t had any trouble with either so far, so if you’re still on the fence about upgrading, go for it. Victor moved over to Windows 7, and he is already enjoying it. Although it took a bit to build an ISO from the digitalriver student copy, it was worth it in the end. Windows 7 Pro for 40 dollars? Well, it’s not free like my MSDNAA, but it’s still a hell of a good deal.
The majority of my time lately has been taken up by school and homework, making sure my everyday tasks in my apartment are completed, and sleeping enough so I don’t pass out in class. The majority of my spare time beyond that has been spent either browsing the web, or playing new games! I’ll get to the new games in a little bit. First of all though, future upgrades.
The netbook really isn’t cutting it, processing-wise. So, my first upgrade that will be happening very soon will be a new notebook! I’ve been looking around for ages, and I really like the form factor of the netbooks, I just wish they were more powerful. Enter the affordable ultra portables, namely the Asus UL series. Currently available is the UL20, UL30, UL80, and the UL50. 12.1”, 13.3”, 14”, and 15.6” respectively. The advantage of the Asus UL series lies in the 14” model, the UL80VT-A1. It has a 1.3Ghz Intel SU7300, 4Gb of DDR3 RAM, a 320Gb hard drive, and switchable graphics- An on board Intel GMA 4500MHD for energy savings, and a discreet 512Mb nVidia GT210M for multimedia. One of the best things about this laptop, besides its tested 9.5 hour battery life while browsing, would be the fact that the CPU is overclockable to 1.73Ghz, while only dropping about an hour off that battery life. That’s a nice little performance boost, for an ultra portable, ultra thin laptop. Of course, I was very set on this, and was going to order it very soon, but Mother and Father made me an offer I couldn’t let go. If I waited to get a laptop until after Christmas, they would put 450 dollars toward it. And if anything comes up in the boxing week sale on NCIX, I might even be able to order then. So, I decided to wait on it. And that was, of course, a good idea. The UL30VT has been announced, with the same specifications as the UL80VT, minus the DVD drive, and it’s smaller and lighter. Mid December release. So, with this, I’ll be able to game while at home on the weekends, as well as not have to tote around a charger while out and about at school or at friends places. And the processing power is much greater than my netbook, which is just amazing for something with such a great battery life. Anyway, enough of this notebook, let’s get onto the games.
There have been a lot of really big releases and some not so big, but definitely worth trying out. First off, I did not, and WILL NOT purchase Modern Warfare 2. Why? Because, unlike some people, I know what boycotting is. I assume if you’re reading this blog, you probably already know my thoughts on Modern Warfail 2, so I won’t go into details. I’ll save it for another blog post.
So, the past few months I’ve been gaming in my spare time. The latest title that I just played through was Borderlands, an amazing RPS [Role playing shooter]. It’s like a mix of Diablo, and COD4, in a Fallout 3 style environment. 2 of the most amazing features of this game would definitely be the art style, all of the textures are hand drawn, and the random weapon generator. There is something like 17 billion different guns, if not more, that can be made by the generator. Amazing. And the more you play through the game, the better the guns get. So, first play through, guns are average, second, it’s like holy shit this is awesome!, and third, simply blows your mind. Of course, as you play through, the enemies get harder as well, but you get to keep your weapons and level from the previous play through. But yes, I went through that pretty quickly. Overall, very fun game, and ran very smoothly at 1920x1080, all settings on high. [45-60fps]
Next game would be a shooter from Futuremark, the benchmarking company. Multiplayer first person shooter, based in space. Basic gist is that it’s 40 years in the future, something impacted the moon causing a giant crater, and now 2 different factions are fighting over control of mineral heavy portions of the moon. The game supports 16 vs 16 multiplayer, dedicated servers, and free downloadable content when it’s released. Game play is really fun, albeit a bit confusing at first. You’re in space, so there is no gravity. You have a jetpack though. It’s just getting used to having everything going on around you, and not having a true up or down. There is only 1 weapon, the assault rifle, but it’s multipurpose. Fires either automatic, or while scoped, it will fire 10 shots at once, acting like a sniper rifle. It also fires your grenades. Emp [shuts down the suit and all of the control/sound until it reboots. You can still turn and shoot though, just no targeting reticule or sound.], ice, which is the smoke screen, and an explosive grenade, which is self explanatory. Sadly, the game pretty much rapes my system, which isn’t a slouch at all. I can run the game at the highest settings, 2x AA, but I need to run it at 1280x720. It looks good in windowed mode, but when expanding to full screen, it makes me vomit slightly. Overall, really fun, albeit confusing as all hell at first.
After this, we have Audiosurf! This game is simply awesome. You can upload any track from your collection of music, it will convert it to an audiosurf track, and then you ride down it, collecting coloured blocks, while evading the grey ones. There are different game modes as well, but I have yet to explore them. Generally speaking, the faster the song, the faster and harder the track. It’s a game that needs to be tried to get the full experience, and try you can, because Steam has a demo available. And hey, if you like it, it’s only 10 dollars! It’s what I consider a chill game; it allows you to occupy your mind while you just listen to music. I find that a lot of the songs by The Killers are really fast paced, such as Mr. Brightside. Really fun, check it out.
Other titles purchased but yet to be played a lot, are the Sins of a Solar Empire expansion Entrenchment, really fun, addition of star bases and a few other things, Knights of the Old Republic for the PC, got it off Steam with Audiosurf, one of my favourite titles on the Xbox, so I should enjoy it on the PC whenever I get around to it. The latest title would be Left 4 Dead 2, mainly due to PEER PRESURE. A lot of my friends are going to be playing it, so I thought I’d grab it and enjoy it, especially at 38 dollars in the Steam black Friday sale.
And of course, I’ve been playing 2142 as usual.
Probably going to see me get into the evil card game again, Yu-Gi-Oh. I guess there are a few guys that play in the dorm, and I still have all of my cards left over, along with my macro monarch and warrior toolbox decks, so I should be well armed. I just hope they play advanced format, because if they don’t, I’ll try to convert them over. I hate playing traditional, as it seems a lot less fair to me.
So, that’s the blog post for tonight, I’m going to really try hard to get things updated more.
Cheers,
-Jon