Sunday, December 23, 2007

Gaming in 2007

I mostly concentrate on PC games because I can afford only that genre. Console gaming like using a Playstation3, Xbox360 or the Wii is simply not for me. I am of the opinion that investing in a games-exclusive machine is just a waste. One, you are stuck to only one console and second, you can’t configure the graphics options as newer technology is being developed only on the PCs. Finally with a high quality PC, gaming is only one dimension. The PC as an entertainment hub provides you with infinite possibilities which you can take advantage of. So most of the games I will be reviewing will be either PC exclusive or PC versions of the console games. If you are interested in console games as well, you can visit the important websites like:
a) Gamespot(http://www.gamespot.com/)
b) IGN (http://www.ign.com/).
Before playing:
No need to mention that at least you should have a decent PC to play games on. By decent PC I mean the following:
Intel Dual Core/Core2Duo processor
Windows XP SP2/Windows Vista (of course you can get only shitty games on the Mac or Linux)
At least 1GB of memory. The more the RAM, the better it is for gaming.
At least 120GB of Hard disk. (Modern games are space hoggers, you know.)
Most importantly, at least 128MB of graphic card memory of NVIDIA 7xxx series or
ATI X1xxx series.

With this configuration you can play most games at low or medium settings and even then the latest games on low settings will make your PC crawl on like those computers of yore running Windows 95. So as not to suffer the tendency of smashing your PC to vent your frustration at it, I therefore recommend you to spend a tad more cash in improving your system memory.


A finely tuned gaming rig which can deliver blistering frame rates may consist of the following specifications:
Intel Core2Duo 2.0 GHz+ processor
2GB DDR2 RAM
Windows Vista Ultimate x64 edition
320GB+of Hard disk space
1024MB NVIDIA GeForce 8800GT

Manufacturers of gamer friendly computers include
Alienware, Voodoo PC, Falcon Northwest, Velocity Micro.
Unfortunately none of these companies are present in India and so gamers have to rely on assembled components to make their own machines.

Many game publishers have been nicely packaging their game titles by pasting the cover box with attractive stickers like “Games for Windows” and “With DirectX 10 technology”. These are only huge marketing tactics. DirectX 10 is available only in Windows Vista, Microsoft’s latest operating system and that too it will run if you have a DirectX 10 capable graphic card in your computer. Graphic Cards utilizing DirectX 10 are:
a) NVIDIA GeForce 8xxx series.
b) ATI Radeon HD 2x00 series and HD 3xxx series.

So practically anything less than either of these can’t run DirectX 10 but only the older DirectX 9c which also comes with Windows XP SP2. Also before playing a game verify that all your graphic card drivers are up-to-date. You can update your graphic card drivers from your PC manufacturer’s website or from ATI/NVIDIA’s sites where they provide the latest drivers.
An important misconception among the gaming community is that gaming on XP is much faster than Vista. So true, you will get 5-10% more frames in XP than in Vista. But with the latest graphics hardware and the cinematic feel of DirectX 10, Vista has managed to edge ahead of XP as of now. Sadly, Direct X 10 is not made for XP. So with the correct hardware and the operating system, you can experience gaming like never before. The fine line between virtual and real will diminish as the raw power of game engines will be unleashed.

Integrated graphic cards (IGCs):

I recommend those people still relying on their age old shared memory “graphic cards” for gaming to either upgrade or leave gaming. IGCs have no cores or memory of their own and they feast on the system memory to work. They are only good for writing documents or browsing the Internet or to make a Paint project. Don’t even expect to play games. Playing games on an IGC will only tend to make the motherboard weaker and this may in turn shorten its lifespan due to heat production. You can very well get an idea when the latest IGCs’ performance (Intel Graphics Media Accelerator (GMA) X3100) is comparable to NVIDIA GeForce 4xxx series that too at the expense of RAM when the current NVIDIA 8xxx series is on its last legs and is on the transition path to the 9xxx series.

Let’s leave all this techno talk and move towards the main topic of how the past year 2007 has influenced gaming and what the future holds for PC gaming in particular.With 2007 soon coming to an end and 2008 waiting ready to welcome us, I therefore present you with a review of the gaming world which has been one of the best in recent times in terms of quality of releases. The interesting fact is most of those games came in the latter half of the year. The above average games include Colin McRae : Dirt, S.T.A.L.K.E.R, Need for Speed:Pro Street , Medal of Honor : Airborne, Hellgate:London, Call of Juarez। All of them are visually great but apart from them there is nothing more,yes,absolutely nothing more. Games like Airborne and Dirt are too taxing for the systems and if they don’t provide some new elements of surprise for the gamers, they are surely going to be dumped by the wayside.

NFS: Pro Street:

NFS:Pro Street for example is another game from EA's stable which exemplifies the deteriorating quality of the NFS series. Gone are the days of Hot Pursuit, Porsche or even the more pleasing Underground series which emphasized on gameplay than on graphics. With the increasing rush of high definition graphics concept which stresses more on cinematic quality rather than on innovative gameplay, game developers are seeming more like empty headed programmers who care less for the customers investing money on their creations and hence the low sales . That EA validates my point can be seen from their recent releases which are mostly duds. Pro Street in fact takes away the entire street racing concept which has been the bread and butter of the entire NFS series and introduces closed track gameplay. Please EA, we already have Trackmania and GTR. Enough of this circuit shit! If you tamper with the core idea of a game which has been its selling point in the past, you intentionally destroy its caliber. The NFS series is getting nauseating day by day and unless the developers do something with the gameplay and introducing something revolutionary this series is as good as lost.

Bioshock:

One game which surely stands among all is 2K Games’ critically acclaimed “Bioshock”. It revolves around a utopian underwater paradise gone wrong called Rapture. Inspired by the likes of George Orwell and Ayn Rand, Bioshock has been a revolution of sort this year bagging the Game of the Year awards in most of the surveys. Playable on even 2-3 year old systems, the game introduces new gameplay features in terms of new plasmids (an integral feature of the game), next generation graphics utilizing Microsoft’s much vaunted DirectX 10 technology which rivals even the high definition movies in terms of sheer quality and most importantly the option to choose morality or the other side which subsequently leads to alternate endings depending on which side you choose. Now that was an absolute clincher and even the diehard game critics were impressed by it. Bioshock is truly a game to cherish and will be remembered for years to come. I recommend it from the core of my heart.


The Halo extravaganza:
Microsoft’s own Bungie Studios-developed Halo has grown to be one of the legendary game series for the Xbox console. With sales close to 15 million (Halo-5million, Halo2 >8million), much was at stake for Halo3 to live up to its expectations. And what happened? The story of Master Chief and his struggle against the Covenant garnered up the greatest amount of cash by any entertainment project in a single day. Till December 2007, it has reached sales of more than 5 million and is expected to break its predecessor’s record.
Sadly the PC release of Halo2 was an utter dud। Microsoft’s much vaunted Tray n Play technology was unsuccessful as gamers questioned how a game like Halo2, which ran smoothly on an Xbox having mediocre hardware , was resource heavy on a modern PC having much powerful configuration. The unoptimised PC version of Halo2 thus fell flat on its face after being heavily ridiculed by gamers that Microsoft doesn’t know how to optimize an old game like Halo2 for its own Operating System Windows Vista.


Grand Theft Auto IV:

Will the PC version come out? Won’t it? Gamers all over the world were left with their questions unanswered as Rockstar Games delayed its highly anticipated epic GTA IV till Feb-April 2008 and that too for the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions. Whether the next version of one of the greatest game series ever will hit the PC or not is still is a mystery. Publisher Take Two Interactive, the parent company of Rockstar has not announced any plan of a PC version so far. But it is hard to believe that with sales of the series already touching the 65 million mark, the publishers won’t try to make more money with the PC version. The latest version revolves around one Nico Bellic who arrives in Liberty City to meet his cousin. The Liberty City of GTA IV has been completely redesigned unlike that of GTA III. Built on Rockstar’s own RAGE game engine, GTAIV promises limitless opportunities, highly textured environments and aims to blur the line between the simulated city and real life environments. It also aims to make the player to choose which missions to do and which big shots of the city to contact. In short, this is expected to be a hell of a game with much better graphics and gameplay standards than its predecessor, GTA: San Andreas.


Crysis:

If ever there has been a game that garnered huge publicity almost 2 years before its release, it is this one-Crysis. Made by the German game developer Crytek, whose previous game FarCry released in 2004 was a trend setter in the graphics technology, Crysis is published by EA games and was released in North America in 16 November 2007. Based on CryEngine2, it revolves around a US Delta Force Marine who along with his teammates airdrop into a remote Pacific island to investigate its takeover by North Korean soldiers in the wake of an asteroid crash into it. The game features PolyBump technology and utilizes the advanced features of DirectX10 to render thick vegetation and uneven terrain. It has been hailed by the gaming press as “the most advanced video game ever made”. Highly destructible vegetation and objects coupled with a highly developed AI has made this game an object of desire among the gaming community. But beware!!! Crysis requires a powerful machine to run in even medium settings and currently there is no graphic card which can run the game seamlessly with all settings maxed out. You still have to lower the resolution to get playable frame rates. Critics have said that game developers should make game which people can atleast “play”. But nevertheless, Crysis has been hailed as one of the best FPS (First person shooter) games made till date.




Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare:

The newest version of the famous Call of Duty series is here. Released in the first week of November, it strays away from its traditional World War based theme and instead focuses in the modern era where you have to encounter ultra nationalists and terrorists. The graphics are clearer and the advanced game engine makes for some excellent gameplay. It was released on all three platforms-namely Windows, PS3 and Xbox360. And expectedly it has achieved high sales across all three platforms. The game was released amidst heavy marketing and has won several awards worldwide.

What lies ahead?
The coming year 2008 is expected to see several high definition releases like Assassin’s Creed, FarCry 2, Alan Wake and Fallout 3. From the reviews and previews which I have seen in numerous magazines and websites, I can safely say that the age of single core processors is over. With processors tipping over the 3 GHz mark and RAM exceeding 2 GB a reality, the gaming world has become one of the most lucrative markets for the hardware manufacturers. The recent games are so demanding that they will refuse to run on anything less than the mentioned specifications. Manufacturers like NVIDIA and Intel have gone a step further by tying up with several game publishers like EA games, Ubisoft and Microsoft Game Studios. With the opening up of several economies and globalization engulfing the entire world, the untapped markets of developing countries like China and India provide enormous potential to these manufacturers. Much of this is evident from the fact that whenever any big shot manufacturer releases a product globally they also go for simultaneous release in India whereas just about 4-5 years ago, Indians had to wait for almost a year or two to get their hands on their desired products. The never ending race to conquer the speed barrier in computing will see more and more releases in the future and we all hope nonchalantly that prices will hit rock bottom

Friday, December 21, 2007

New Downloads

Hi again. In this column I will be carrying the download links for the latest versions of freewares which you can download easily.All these softwares are completely free and legal and efforts will be made to keep the download links up-to-date.

Below I have added the links for a few useful software which will help you to maintain your PC.

1. Defraggler 1.01 beta

A quality defragmentation tool from Piriform which speeds up your system by adjusting the hard disk sectors in an efficient manner. Very light on the system, uses less RAM and compatible with both XP and Vista.
Download link here:
http://www.defraggler.com/download.

2. VLC media player 0.8.6 d

Leave your media player worries aside by downloading the latest version of this all-in-one player.
Download here:
http://www.videolan.org/vlc/download-windows.html

3.Avast Home Edition 4.6


The top rated free antivirus for your home PC.
Download here now:
http://files.avast.com/iavs4pro/setupeng.exe

4.Apple iTunes 7.5

The music jukebox from Apple providing you with online store,multimedia player and podcasts.

Download here: http://appldnld.apple.com.edgesuite.net/content.info.apple.com/iTunes7/Win/061-4183.20071213.FNXDz/iTunesSetup.exe


Keep watching this space for the latest tech news and new softwares.

Introducing Myself

Hi, I am Pranjal Patowary from Guwahati,India and I created this blog to have a go at my writing skills which I believe will help me and the visitors to know each one of us better. I am currently doing my MBA at Amrita School of Business,Coimbatore,India.