It’s that time again, time to review some of my cherry picked smaller stories of the week for those that might have missed them. This time round we’ve got an Adobe Flash update that doesn’t suck. OK, sucks a little less. Flash 10.1 beta was unleashed to the willing public with GPU video acceleration for certain Nvidia cards on Windows, but perhaps more importantly reduced CPU usage across all platforms. What does this mean? YouTube that doesn’t make your Mac or PC red-line that’s what. A step in the right direction Adobe, maybe Flash isn’t a lost cause after all. I’ve certainly seen some improvements on my netbook and Mac. (more…)

The ATI 5870 series

In recent years, few graphic cards have managed to capture the imagination of the PC building community. The recent release of the ATI 5800 series has turned the market on its end and people are lining up to get their grubby little paws on the latest iteration, the 5870 series. Its the first card on the market with native DirectX 11 graphics technology, the card boasts 2.15 billion 40 nanometer transistors, pumping out 2.75 teraflops of power,  1600 stream processors, a memory bandwidth of 153.6GB/sec and a clockspeed of 850mhz. The graphics powerhouse supports up to 3 displays simultaneously with independent refresh rates and resolutions or they can be combined into one large display using the new ATI Eyefinity system. Dual-Link DVI and displayport with a resolution of 2560×1600 is included as is HDMI 1.3 with a native resolution of 1920×1200.

5870

The 5870 can support up to four cards in CrossfireX mode for an incredible boost in power. This beauty definitely has the hunger of a beast, requiring at least 500 watts (600 is recommended for crossfire) to run a complete system. It also requires two six pin PCI-E connections. This baby is fantastically powerful, vastly outperforming its brethren, but this greatness comes at a terrible cost. Finding one of these beauties for sale has proven difficult. Retailers like Microcenter and Newegg have had a hard time keeping the cards in stock and with good reason; ATI has had major supply issues trying to churn this thing out. With demand well outpacing production, we may not see another large shipment of the 5870 till very close to the holidays. While this powerhouse does exist (and exist very well it does!) it certainly doesn’t feel like it does. Overall ATI’s new top dog very much lives up to its own hype and is king of the pack when it comes to graphics processors. Nvidia, the ball is in your court.

So patch 3.3 approaches. Icecrown awaits. It is more than likely the final content patch of Wrath of the Lich King, if history holds true.  While this expansion was the best content Blizzard has released to date and probably the best expansion any MMORPG has ever seen, I can’t help but get the same, predictable end-of-expansion blues I’ve not yet managed to dodge in all of my years in this genre.  EverQuest, DAoC, WoW… When each of these games approaches an expansion, I am at once thrilled by the promise of new, amazing content and yet standing in one spot, sporting my now outdated Tier 8.5 set going “So wait, WTF am I doing this for, now?”  I have an answer, I think.

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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.

This weeks release list is quite surprising. Especially considering that 2 Rad Super Manly Movies is finally hitting Blu Ray. If Gladiator wasn’t enough there’s Braveheart to back it up. Then follow that up with a great list of Video Games this week including Soul Calibur for PSP, which honestly I don’t really care about except that there’s Kratos as a playable character. Let us not forget that this week will also have yet another version of Guitar Hero. Which begs the question is there more Guitar Hero Games then Tony Hawk?? It should be getting pretty close. Anyways just like before if I miss something please drop a comment. Or just plain drop a comment.

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Codemasters announced the system requirements for the latest installment in the Operation Flashpoint series and they are no joke.

The game is boasting impressive graphics but the real system hog will be the scale of some of the battles you will be fighting in, with hundreds of soldiers and vehicles dotting the landscape.

Here’s what you’ll need just to be able to run the game:

Minimum requirements

Operating system: Windows XP SP2 or later

• GPU: DirectX 9.0c GPU: Shader 3.0 (GeForce 7900 GT / 256 MB VRAM or higher)
• Sound Card: DirectX Compatible
• 1 GB Memory: 1 GB
• 8 GB Hard disk: 8 GB
• CPU: Dual Core CPU 2 x 2.4 GHz
• DVD-ROM DVD drive: Dual Layer DVD-ROM

And here’s what you’ll need to be able to run the game and actually enjoy it:

Recommended System

• Operating system: Windows XP SP2 or later
• GPU: Shader 3.0 (GeForce 8800 GT / 512 MB VRAM or higher), DirectX 9.0c
• Sound Card: DirectX Compatible
• Memory: 2 GB
• Hard disk: 8 GB
• CPU: Quad Core CPU
• DVD drive: Dual Layer DVD-ROM

Just for a comparison Crytek recommended running Crysis with a Core 2 Duo @ 2.2GHZ.

So dust off your meth labs, you’ll need the money for some upgrades to your rig if you want to pimp this game. For realz.

I don’t know about you but here at PixelatedGeek we’re pretty excited by what we’ve seen of Command and Conquer 4 so far. The teaser trailer looked awesome and these screens look great. So enough talking and hit the jump for loads more (click for 720p). (more…)

First-Person Shooters are a dime a dozen these days. Call of Duty, Halo, The Orange Box, Resistance. You can’t walk into a game store with slamming face first into a dozen FPS games, so announcing a new FPS title will probably be met with a resounding “meh” unless something about the title screams innovation or originality. And such seems to be the case for PhantomEFX’s Darkest of Days.

While the game itself seems to be your standard FPS war game at first glance, Phantom EFX and developer 8monkey Studios have designed an interesting time-traveling war game. The game begins at the Battle of Little Bighorn, where the player takes command of soldier Alexander Morris. After a grisly battle, in which Morris is nearly killed, he is ripped from the battlefield and transported into the future by time agents, who offer save his life on the condition that he work for them.

The overarching plot of the game centers around time agents from the future, who have begun noticing that somebody is going into wars of the past and killing soldiers who were supposed to have survived in an attempt to change the future. The time-travelers the main character represents are attempting to stop that, taking soldiers who were listed as MIA (missing-in-action) and bringing them into the future, building an army to stop enemy time agents from killing war survivors.

This part of the plot plays into the core gameplay of Darkest of Days. Your aim is not only to fight, but to ensure that those meant to survive the battle do indeed survive. Soldiers who are supposed to survive are marked by a blue aura. While killing one or letting one die may not affect things too drastically, killing enough will enable enemy time agents to lock onto your location, freezing time as the appear to take you out. Also, as you are sent to many historical battles, drastically changing the outcome of the battle will cause a change in history, causing the player to have to go back and fix things, presumably from the other side of the battle.

Also, aside from just participating in historical battles, the landscapes you are dropped into also allow for a certain level of exploration, which is rewarded by being given futuristic weaponry from other time-traveling allies you may come across. The only downside with futuristic weaponry is that, although it is quite powerful, its ammo will be limited. And, perhaps, this is for the best.

While we seen time-travel First-Person Shooters in the past, TimeSplitters comes to mind, the whole aura system and need to preserve the past. According to Aaron Schurman of Phantom EFX, historical accuracy is something that the developers were striving for when developing Darkest of Days. The game itself spans several historical battles, such as the aforementioned Battle of Little Bighorn and the Battle of Antietem, as well as the practically mandatory World War II level, taking the player on a trip through humanity’s darkest days, hence the game’s title. 8monkey Studio’s newly developed Marmoset engine was specifically designed to handle 300 characters onscreen once in order to provide massive battles for the player to partake in.

The game is set to launch next month on September 8th on Xbox 360 and PC. Sorry PS3 owners, but it seems you won’t be getting this one. Till then, this game definitely seems interesting. Can’t wait to see what it’s like.

After the wonderful playthrough of Sam N Max I’ve been itching to get into another Point N Click Adventure. My requirements were pretty high as I wanted that lovable charm and twisted sense of humor that was Sam N Max. After various failed attempts at getting my old copy of Full Throttle to work I had all but given up. Avast, Tales of Monkey Island of the port bough? Oh yes it was time for Guybrush Threepwood Mighty Pirate™! Though to my dismay Vista had to give me just a little bit of shit. After sitting there “patiently” and updating my flippin Direct X Drivers it was time to set sail. How does this game hold up against one of the most beloved Point N Click Adventure series.

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Some Great News for all those Monkey Island Fans out there. Get ready for some Grog and some Pointing and Clicking cause Monkey Island Special Edition is getting ready to set sail for both PC and XBLA. PC version will be available on Steam. While the XBLA version will be on XBLA… No price point yet here is hoping for $10.

[Source]