It’s a debate we hear all the time. The experienced old-timer talking about how they did it in their day and how things were so much better “back then”. Even when it comes to video games, there are people who prefer the way things were back in the old blocky, 2D days.

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Straight from the buzz on wired.com comes a fascinating story regarding the history of gaming.  It turns out the ancient Romans used twenty-sided dice (or icosahedrons, for you delightful geometry geeks) in their various games.  Check out the full story here. I’d like to think E. Gary Gygax discovered time travel and went back a few millennia to inform Julius Caesar about his game, so when Caesar recited alea iacta est (or “the die has been cast” for you delightful classical language geeks), he was just rolling his initiative to cross the Rubicon and engage Pompey in civil war.

Oh, and the die from the pic above sold at Christie’s for nearly $18,000.  That’s some expensive glass.

Well here’s an interesting development, Apple has invited a couple of gaming news organisations like Kotaku to it’s January 27th event in San Francisco. Now we already know from their tagline that it’s something new, which most people presume to mean the Apple tablet. We also know that Apple has been making larger and larger strides into the gaming market with the iPod touch and iPhone with the help of big name developers and indie studios alike. Does the inclusion of gaming press mean that Apple is going to aim it’s ‘Latest creation’ with much more of a gaming bent?

Without the confines of the smaller for factor of the iPod touch, many will be expecting more umph and processing power in any tablet that Apple may or may not ship. Perhaps we’ll see some decent graphics hardware in there too. After all, the Nvidia Ion (9400M) is already in the MacBook Pro line, so inclusion in the tablet isn’t as far as stretch as you might think, even if the rumours ring true about an ARM processor powering the device. Of course the Apple tablet might just end up being a massive iPod touch, which I don’t know about you but I would be extremely disappointed about.At this stage though, the fact that we’re even talking about a tablet device is just down to rumour and speculation. Who knows, Apple might have pulled a fast one on us with all this tablet subterfuge and in reality has a games console under development. The Apple TV on steroids perhaps. All we know is that until Steve busts it out at the event it could be anything, so we’ll have to just wait and see.

I’m not the type to try to advocate products or companies, normally.  I’m not sure why, I just don’t do it.  I’ll make an exception this time.  Anyone who is in the market for a new gaming rig has only ONE place they need to visit.

www.doghousesystems.com

I just received my new desktop machine from them last week.  I got the Armor VS model.  Tossed 8 Gigs of RAM in that baby and she was still under $1,200.  Having just had a baby recently, I drooled over getting an awesome gaming PC for that price.  But I figured hey, its entry level price, the PC will probably be middle of the line at best.  I couldn’t have been more wrong.  This thing flies.  I mean flies.  In WoW at peak times, in Dalaran, maxed settings, I get over 60 FPS.  Over 60 in 25 man raids, as well, again with everything maxed out.  I get almost 75 in maxed settings Left 4 Dead.  I is a happy panda!  I don’t have any of the super high end games like Crysis to test it with, but I can only assume I would find similarly pleasing results there, as well.

My little setup.

Again, I can not describe with how happy I am with the performance of this machine.  No “Optional” trial software, no crap running in the backround I don’t need, these guys at DogHouse ARE gamers.  They know how we want our PCs to arrive.  It came with WoW Pre-installed and Pre-Patched.

If my pleasure level with the machine itself was a 10/10, then my review of DogHouse’s customer service would be about a 12/10.  It started early, too.  When I ordered the machine, I had to call their sales department to ask if 8G of RAM was possible in an Armor VS, since the choices on the order form were 2G and 4G.  After a moment, they came back and not only told me 8G was possible, but to reload my browser.  I reloaded my browser, and lo and behold, in that moment, they ADDED a choice for 8G.  If that isn’t prompt shit, I don’t know what would be.

The excellent service continued throughout the next 2 weeks.  They emailed me, letting me know the PC’s status, asking a few setup questions so that upon arrival, I could simply uncrate my glorious machine and get to pwning n00bz.  So it is roughly 2 weeks after I placed me order that FedEx arrives with my big box of joy.  Now, if I love DogHouse Systems, I fucking hate FedEx.  I watched the dude carry it from his truck to my door, dropping it once and hitting the door I opened for him with it.  Twice.

I get it to my little Nerd Lair, set it up – Which by the way, if you’re computer retarded, DogHouse sends a full color, lamens terms, very well labeled instruction binder on how to set it up – to find out that the bumbling idiot from FedEx managed to bend the housing on the top case exhaust fan.  What the fuck, FedEx?  So I call DogHouse, let them know my problem, and while I am far from computer illiterate, I’m not confident enough to go digging around in my new PC trying to fix this, so a gentleman named Sina walked me through getting the fan unhooked until they could ship me a new one.  Thats right.  FedEx fucked up, and DHS is fixing the problem.

These guys have my future business for all PC purchases and I can not stress enough how pleased people will be ordering from them.  If you need a new gaming rig, whether you’re looking to spend $1,000 or get the absolute top end shit, this is the place to go, geeks.  Keep up the good work DHS.  You guys rock.