I thiought I'd Sneak One In

      Hey folks! First, let me apologize for the long overdue post. I haven't stopped gaming, I simply started working a day-job again. Frankly the added time sink has made me extraordinarily lazy when it comes to writing. When coupled with the fact that this job leaves my head full of doubt, I generally go for my "comfort foods" in gaming.

      I have always found myself going back to Splinter Cell games more often than almost any other series. This years release of Conviction has proved almost as addictive as heroin. I will be accosted by fellow Sam Fisher stalwarts due to the games departure from the play style of old, but I really think this game is a step in the right direction for mass appeal. In today's industry with budgets bigger than Hollywood blockbusters, mass appeal is required for a franchise to survive.

      The game mechanics have been stripped down quite a bit, to the point of deleting Sam's ability to move bodies as well as the infamous "split jump". Those have been eschewed in favor of a quicker style of stealth play. Popping in and out of shadows for quick kills is very entertaining. It also controls very intuitively unlike previous games in the series. Don't get me wrong, I love the old style however, the controls would be a bit clunky for the pacing in Conviction.

      P.E.C. Challenges, Infiltration, and the co-op should keep you coming back for a while. P.E.C. challenges, such as kill 10 enemies in a row without being detected, net you points. Points that can then be used to upgrade weapons and gadgets. Infiltration sets you up with some of the set pieces from the single player campaign and reconfigures them a bit. Then it's up to you how to take down everyone. It's a bit of a sandbox mode the way I see it, and it can be very time consuming for the OCD inflicted. The co-op is probably the shining star of the package. I won't spoil the story, but it's short and is a prologue to the main story. But cranking through it and toying with the AI as a team is crazy fun with a friend.

      For a game that had it's original idea scrapped after 2 1/2 years of development, this is one of the most polished titles I have seen in a while. Possibly the most polished in the franchise. I'm not saying it's the second coming of Crysis, but it is one of the better looking games I have played this year. I highly recommend the PC version if you really want to see it shine, though the 360 version is still a sight to behold.

      At any rate, I highly recommend this for any gamer. I mean really, it's October and I still pick it up often. Until next time kiddies, in which I will probably rant about Borderlands or perhaps being the worlds first real geeky-ass geek stripclub bouncer, hasta winnebago!

Is Nvidia Effectively Dead?

A bit earlier today I found this story. Obviously being on a site called "Semi Accurate" I'm a little hesitant to believe it outright, but I think many of us PC gamers have seen this coming. In the interest of full disclosure, I am running Nvidia chips in both my boxes. I have felt they put out a descent product ever since I picked up a GeForce 256. That was my 3DFX Voodoo 3 replacement, and it was a beast of a card at the time. Nvidia was also one of the most competent companies when it came to driver support, especially in Linux. The hardware was always pretty damn solid with nary a lockup due to a stock clocked card in my experiences. ATI on the other hand at the time was a finicky beast for me, especially when VIA chipsets were involved.

In recent history however, Nvidia had been getting very low yields with their GPU's. That helps keep prices very high in an industry that fosters already high priced products in the first place. Especially these days where SLI has become the norm for the hardcore system builder. A while back ATI had conceded the high end market to Nvidia to focus on mid level product, and in a time of economic decline, that turned out to be a strong strategy for them. I know they really haven't stuck to mid level performance lately, but I do believe that strategy helped them avoid a possible financial disaster long-term as a company. Meanwhile Nvidia continued headstrong into manufacturing hardcore hardware for the gaming elite. Which, while I consider myself one of these hardware junkies, I realize I am in a great minority, and Nvidia should have as well.

Low yields, high manufacturing costs and a six month product cycle just doesn't seem practical in this bear market. I don't really understand their logic, and perhaps never will. My biggest fear if they indeed do fail, is a stagnant GPU market. Technology will continue to get better as always, but will it be at a snails pace? Competition breeds innovation, and if this indeed comes true, ATI will own the high end market alone.

PC Gaming is not dead! (It's just sometimes broken.)

Wikipedia on Edgar Martinez:

"Martínez, Ted Williams, Babe Ruth, Stan Musial, Rogers Hornsby, Lou Gehrig, and Manny Ramirez are the only players in history with 300 home runs, 500 doubles, a career batting average higher than .300, a career on-base percentage higher than .400 and a career slugging percentage higher than .500."

Why isn't he in the Hall of Fame?

As a Mariner fan I can't help but randomly rant about such issues on occasion. Be forewarned, these issues may also include the Seahawks, Blazers and Redwings for future reference. There will almost certainly be the singular mention of the Oklahoma City Thunder. Right now seems like a good time, just to get it out of the way and off the table. They should have been called the Bombers. Tastless, yes. But it still stings.

Sorry about that. /Rant


I have been playing PC games a lot lately. I picked up The Witcher recently, and I really want to like it. I absolutely love to dig deep into a good RPG. I've put over 400 hours in Oblivion and well over 150 in Fallout 3. I played through Mass Effect 5 times. I have finished Lost Odyssey and I am also very close to finishing Blue Dragon, and that is just a list of Xbox 360 RPG's. The problem comes in when I try to play it.

It's made by a small developer, CD Projekt RED, that have done a great job of supporting the game since it's release. I tend to let quite a few things when that is the case. This game crashes after 30-45 minutes of play everytime without question. For me, that just puts it on a level of annoying that keeps me from wanting to start playing it again. Here's to hoping that 1.5 patch that is soon to be released will fix this issue amongst others. There stands to be a relatively good chance of that as well. We are talking about a company that has gone to the trouble already of re-recording the voice work for the game, due to complaints regarding the quality of the performance. They also give registered users an upgrade to the Enhanced Edition for free, which is a pretty cool thing to do. I'd like to play it, but I just can't.

So instead, I have been getting down on some Flight Sim X, Plants vs. Zombies, World of Goo and Spore mostly. I have also been messing around with a Simbin racer that feels pretty realistic and nice to drive. Flight Sim X has been getting the most attention, especially the Extra 300s. That is one enjoyable plane to fly, it's just a bit rough to land though. Plants vs. Zombies has really appealed to the OCD side of my gaming habbits, as I have purchased everything and have a 100' tree. Spore got addicting for a breif time, but quickly became tedious and World of Goo is relaxing. That's about the extent of my gaming lately, post-E3.