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joebeard

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Everything posted by joebeard

  1. About my profile - I've since forgotten my UC key, which is at my parents place, so I can't update my system spec. I've now got 1GB of RAM and a Geforce 6600 GT, I'd certainly not try to run the game with only 512mb of RAM It appears that I've been able to solve the crash bug by updating my sound drivers, and then setting sound hardware acceleration to 'basic'. I'm now two missions into the game without any problems, and it's a lovely game at that!
  2. Well would you believe it... I bought the game, spent an hour moving stuff around on my HDs to make 8gb of space that the thing needed, and then the game actually causes my PC to reboot! Performance starts off OK, then rapidly drops over the course of about half a minute and then bang! Black screen, reboot. The game can't even grace me with a BSoD. Great. [Edit] Seems I'm not alone with the reboot problems, according to this URL: http://forums.gaspowered.com/index.php
  3. The upside of all this is that this is practically a win win situation: Even if the film is terrible, it's likely that UB will have to go into hiding shortly after its release!
  4. I managed to join the beta a while ago and played a couple of games before uni work got in the way. My experience with poor in-game performance and long lobby loading times was similar to Raziels, although I wasn't too bothered with the lobby having used Valves Steam for a while now. I do admit however that a 'liking' for such a system tends to be more like something that's beaten into you than anything else. When the game ran ok though, it was extremely fun to play; It bears more than a striking resemblence to TA in everything other than the graphics department, which isn't a bad thing in my opinion especially as far as the resource model is concerned. This game and STALKER will probably fight for attention with my final uni project... And I just kicked the WoW addiction too
  5. Now I'm not going to say too much about the game - I'm a fan of King of Fighters/Marvel vs Capcom and Street Fighter, to me 3d beat 'em ups are just 'fake' But... Even I can step off my high horse and comfort all those poor fans of the game who have no doubt just raked their eyes out with the nearest moderately sharp object on their desks.
  6. I agree with Darien, the combat in the game is ace and there's still areas I haven't discovered. However I'm even less motivated to go through the horror of building stations/managing a trading empire than I was when I played X2. X3 is pretty much X2.5 as many folks have said. I also upgraded my dying Geforce 4 to a Geforce 6600, framerate is acceptable now but still stutters in places. Oddly enough, disabling the HUD gives me about a 15fps boost... *strokes chin* I'm starting to kick myself for not bringing my UC cd with me to uni, 'tis the price I pay I guess!
  7. I managed to make the game run a little smoother by fiddling with my swap file and shutting down just about everything I could from my process list. The second mission is actually fairly interesting when you don't get a CTD and with the speakers off for the first part - natch. As for the combat, it is much more interesting now, as the strafe drive is mapped to the wsad keys. It's comparable to I-War lite - the ships do correct their course eventually but not so much so that you can't strafe around targets. I haven't been able to work out if the combat AI itself is any better, I can tell you that their capital ships and fighters still can't hit an m4 fighter at medium range when it's strafing. But that might just be the game being a little more forgiving on 'standard' difficulty. I think I'll stick with it and hope that the November patch gives me an extra 10fps or so, yeah yeah that's some wishing for sure, but I'd be happy with that! Also you can't really knock Ego for putting the wrong system requirements on the box, I doubt they had a say in it. In a nutshell then, changes I've noticed: Obvious GUI changes, can map keys to just about anything. Everything remodelled to at least some extent. No cockpits Strafe drive effect lasts longer, your ship conforms to a more newtonian flight model. You do not actually load another level as it were when you dock, complex stations have docking clamps outside of themsevles while other stations such as the trading posts have docking rigs slightly inside. Bartering system on trading stations which allows you to trade goods without credits getting in the way.
  8. Well I grabbed a copy of the game today and played it without the 1.2 patch for a short while before going to work. After installing 1.2 I haven't seen much of an improvement in the frame rate department, it still slows down horribly during combat and when there's a couple of the combined stations floating about. I managed to get into the missions though, which were fairly awful to say the least. The first one has you doing the usual patrolling thing, which is alright but not exactly an action packed plunge back into the X universe! The second is basically a shooting gallery with extremely irritating and repetetive insults being shouted from both sides. Once you hear Saya (or is it Elena) shout 'no YOU drop YOUR shields and prepare to be FRAGGED!' for the fifth time you begin to reach for the off switch by your speakers. Eventually I made it to some low res cutscene and then a chase through city, at which point windows said 'Oi! NO!' and crashed me to the desktop. X3 had managed to inflate my swap file beyond 1.8gb and thus windows had intervened. On the plus side, the combat is far, far better. The ships glide a lot more and the enemies appear to be better co-ordinated. Though sadly, my game doesn't seem to want me to experience it at anything greater than 15fps. This rant would be invalid of course, if my PC wasn't within the requirements for the game, but it is, in fact the only thing that isn't listed as the recommended spec for my PC is my graphics card - a venerable Geforce4800 Ti which had no problems running Quake 4.
  9. I'm engaged in a war against the Split myself, two capital ships on the front line and a host of corvettes backing up the supply chain >) Aah X2 is great fun! I just hope the Return adds a bit more 'life' into the inhabitants. Freelancer might have been simplistic, but the radio chatter rocked
  10. Gwahahahaha! Anyone notice that age old sound that was even featured in Doom?
  11. How can you even question if it's fake or real? Just look at the way the question is twice as bright as the rest of the white text! Still, the contestants got that classic look on her face hehehehaha
  12. After playing Doom 3 on nightmare (the way it SHOULD be played in the first place!) and Undying that hotel bit didn't really freak me out at all, especially as all the objects flung at you do so little damage. At least the level design was nice, the flashback bit at the end was probably the most advanced thing they did with the source engine.
  13. Urgh SC... It took Gearbox over a year to convert Halo to PC and look at the results... I'd hate to think what it could be like in just a few months! This is total balls though, because if you're right, then it could have been jointly developed in secret or something... OoOoh speculation! I personally think it's the action figures, as someone pointed out
  14. It occurs on the level load once you exit the 'caves about to explode around you' part of the game. You have to change the levels manually for some reason.
  15. I finished Bloodlines a few days ago, it's really worth enduring to see the ending which raised a little smile on my face >)
  16. Might I also add that the slow down I experience is not due to HD fragmentation (I initially thought this). Also, my rig is more than capable of running the game.
  17. Better than HL2? Umm... Combat - firearms are practically useless as you'll seldom fight human enemies. The recoil on your weapons is huge unless you've invested a massive amount of points into your firearms skill (and thus neglected skills like Dexterity which not only add to your melee skill, but also to others such as lock picking). Melee combat is about as unexciting as you can get, the silent kills are identical for most of the weapons and the use of combo attacks is almost redundant as you only have about 3. The level design is horrible! There are frequent design floors such as square rooms, pipes emerging through walls and ending in mid-air, water brushes not touching the edge of walls etc. Not only that, for the most part the design is uninspired. Where as Deus Exs Hong Kong area was on many different levels, the level eds at Troika seem to think that all cities are entirely flat. The levels remind me of Postal 2 - At least Running with Scissors made fun of the lack of cars actually moving in the game! The bugs! There is a game stopping bug around the half way point that can only be solved by manually changing levels via the console. Now, didn't these guys have about a year of waiting where they could have corrected this? Even rudimentary play testing should have picked that one up, seeing as it occurs every time! I admit, this is probably due to Activision as Troika really do want to release a patch for the game. However it only serves to damage the quality of the game further. There's also the fact that they've somehow managed to make the game look fairly hideous despite using the Source engine. Add to this that nearly every step you take causes the game to freeze for a few seconds and well... You get the impression that they didn't really know what they were doing as far the engine goes. So thank god then, that the story is absolutely excellent! It's kept me playing nearly nonstop and it is very long. Certainly better for money than HL2. The radio shows and clubs are also very entertaining and there's frequent use of... err, dodgy humour throughout hehe I've found my Malkavians chat lines to be extremely amusing. 'To which of my personalities are you addressing this to?' Also the abilities in the game are incredibly cool, again I point to my Malkavian who can kill people just by looking at them >) In conclusion, if you're equally a fan of action as RPG, I'd plump for HL2, sure it's short if you're good at FPS's, but it's overall presentation and immersion is far beyond that of Bloodlines. However if you're a fan of RPGs, or want a nice alternative to Deus Ex (Aaah the good old days before Invisible War!) then hell yeah, Bloodlines is a fairly accomplished cross between FPS action and RPG longevity/story. It's just a shame that the aesthetic aspects have really let it down. Personally, I got both!
  18. Before I read that I'd heard rumours flying around about EA from friends that had graduated my course. This is extremely worrying for someone like me, who is actually studying a course in computer game design. I have been able to work for several weeks on end coding non stop, however, it was always for something that I was passionate about. As one of my friends put it, you might end up coding ball physics for the latest EA Rugby game... I've never been a fan of EA, especially because of their 'Challenge Everything' logo which just REEKS of corporate bull ****, and their cash cow sports games. I have absolutely no intention of ever working for EA. Though this shuts off options for me, I'd sooner work extra time in my job at Marks and Spencers than contribute to such a sickening money making machine. Maybe EA should take a leaf out of M&S's book, sure, M&S are only retailers, but they treat their employees like gold dust.
  19. When I read about that on PlanetHL first I grinned, then let out a little heckle and finally burst out in a fit of laughter. As the saying goes 'GG Valve' HL2 was worth my hard earned pennies, if only for the little 'accident' toward the end of the game that tips the odds in your favour somewhat >)
  20. For a news network, their punctuation is pretty damn aweful!
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