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Geek Culture / I might just give up on buying PC games

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Jeku
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Posted: 22nd Jan 2009 16:55 Edited at: 22nd Jan 2009 16:58
@Toasty Fresh - Software Engineer in the front end department. Basically if you've played an EA Sports title in the past few years I make those screens, backgrounds, pause menus, and essentially make them "talk" to the back end code (whether it's accessing a database, setting values, etc.) through adapters. We also have the responsibility of giving the screens all the polish the interface designers want.

It's not as sexy as, say, AI, but it can be technically challenging because we have to work with so many different technologies at the same time (C++, Actionscript, build servers, pipelines, etc.).

And, the first thing you see when you play a game is the FE--- we have to give you the great first impression even though reviewers rarely mention it at all unless the UI is frustrating


Seppuku Arts
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Posted: 22nd Jan 2009 17:02
If you did Fifa 2009, if so, well, I can yell 'Jeku did that' every time somebody in my house plays the game, it will probably get quite irritating, but the ways you can amuse yourself and become unpopular are amazing.

Plus, I'd be able to applaud your hard work and people may become confused as to why I'm clapping at a TV screen, but everyone's has got to have a nutcase worshipping them at every corner. Goodness, if I'm like this, then I wonder what mine will be like?...oh dear, Alucard?

Jeku
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Posted: 22nd Jan 2009 17:06
Sadly never had the fortunate timing to work on a Fifa title yet. After NHL 09 I've moved onto Fight Night Round 4 and have been busy with that for close to 5 months. My how time flies


Seppuku Arts
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Posted: 22nd Jan 2009 17:41 Edited at: 22nd Jan 2009 17:46
Ah cool, so my insane ramblings would be unjustified, as usual.

Though you won't have my insane worship, unless I nab Fight Night Round 4, so I'm sure you are relieved for now, though having a nut-case sitting at the TV crying your name can have its advantages.

[Edit]
My sig was a little too big

David R
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Posted: 22nd Jan 2009 17:45
Quote: "And, the first thing you see when you play a game is the FE-"


Oh, annoying corporate logos was my first thought


09-f9-11-02-9d-74-e3-5b-d8-41-56-c5-63-56-88-c0
KeithC
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Posted: 22nd Jan 2009 18:02
I feel your "steam" pain, Butters. Though it has gotten better since I got high-speed internet.

General Reed
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Posted: 22nd Jan 2009 18:29
I had this steam problem with dark messiah when i install it. But i found that if you install it from the cd, Using CUSTOM install, you get the option to install 99% of the game files from the cd. The game is then updated through steam.

CPU: AMD X2 6000+ 3.0ghz GFX: NVIDIA BFG Geforce 8800GTS 640MB OC-550mhz core RAM: 2048mb

darimc
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Posted: 22nd Jan 2009 20:43
Yup, I have also lost faith in pc games, aside from a few indie games. I bought far cry. What a load of junk, crashed my computer three times before installing, then it wanted me to sign up to play online.

Agent Dink
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Posted: 22nd Jan 2009 22:02
Steam has been nothing but awesome the last few years. It was a tad buggy and annoying at first, but it's great now. I dunno why everyone is having issues with it.

MISoft Studios - Silver-Dawn Gorilda is lost!

tha_rami
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Posted: 22nd Jan 2009 22:50
Quote: "Oh, annoying corporate logos was my first thought "

EA Sports - Challenge Everything!
NVIDIA - The way it's meant to be played!
Awesome Dolby 5.1 stuff you never use!


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Jeku
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Posted: 22nd Jan 2009 23:57
Anal retentive reply here:

Quote: "EA Sports - Challenge Everything!"


EA Games - Challenge Everything
EA Sports - It's in the Game


Crazy Ninja
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Posted: 23rd Jan 2009 00:10
Quote: "EA Sports - It's in the Game"


I love hearing that. Brings back memories of the old fifa games.

Quote: "Steam has been nothing but awesome the last few years."


Agreed, I haven't been using it for very long, but it has been great. I mean some of the deals you can get are insane. I nabbed audiosurf for $2.50, that's cheaper than some expensive candy that doesn't last nearly as long as an awesome indie game like that.
Seppuku Arts
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Posted: 23rd Jan 2009 00:18
Quote: "Quote: "EA Sports - Challenge Everything!"

EA Games - Challenge Everything
EA Sports - It's in the Game"


That's what I thought it was. Goodness, how old is the 'EA Sports - It's in the Game'? I've had it imprinted on my brain since childhood.


Quote: "Awesome Dolby 5.1 stuff you never use!"


I would if I had the surround sound to plug into, I hope the idea of having the sound of zombies being behind you is as cool as it first sounds. Saying that, I could just turn my back on McDonalds staff.

Robert F
User Banned
Posted: 23rd Jan 2009 01:46 Edited at: 23rd Jan 2009 01:49
Quote: "I personally can't justify spending $240 to buy 4 new PS3 or Xbox games, it's just ridiculous."


You sound a bit ridiculous because it would still be $200 bucks, which is still a bit of money...

I liked how in Madden 07, or 08 or something at the beginning it had an actual player saying that. They would be like E.A. Sports! Its in the Game! It sounded cool.


General Reed
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Posted: 23rd Jan 2009 06:46
Quote: "Yup, I have also lost faith in pc games, aside from a few indie games. I bought far cry. What a load of junk, crashed my computer three times before installing, then it wanted me to sign up to play online."

Has it ever occoured to you, That maybe your machine is not up to par? The only time ive ever had difficulty installing a game on my PC, Is when the disk was physicly ruined.

Quote: "You sound a bit ridiculous because it would still be $200 bucks, which is still a bit of money..."

PC Games tend to depreciate in a more normal mannor. I mean, I remember when my freind thought he could get one of the FF game's for cheaper, about a year after release, But it stayed at £35 for like 2 years. It then suddenly was not sold anymore, And it could be gotten cheaper, But second hand only.

CPU: AMD X2 6000+ 3.0ghz GFX: NVIDIA BFG Geforce 8800GTS 640MB OC-550mhz core RAM: 2048mb

Toasty Fresh
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Posted: 23rd Jan 2009 06:52
Well, I was just beginning to like Steam for it's low prices, but now I'm going to be waiting another four hours until I'm able to play Mass Effect...

Butter fingers
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Posted: 23rd Jan 2009 10:23
EA games - Challenge Everything.

No.


Asus is my favourite - Rock Solid , Heart Touching.

How on earth is a mother board heart touching?!?!

I want robotic legs.
Seppuku Arts
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Posted: 23rd Jan 2009 12:00
Quote: "Has it ever occoured to you, That maybe your machine is not up to par? The only time ive ever had difficulty installing a game on my PC, Is when the disk was physicly ruined."


Not always the case, sometimes programs won't work on fairly decent PCs, especially if the developer hasn't properly bug tested their software.

tha_rami
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Posted: 23rd Jan 2009 23:14
Thank you, Jeku. That was indeed anal.


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CoffeeGrunt
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Posted: 23rd Jan 2009 23:43
I personally think that DRM could cause a gaming recession like in the 70s-80s....

Back then, the market got flooded, and no-one bought games. Then Indie developers took over, soon it might be our time to rise again, lol...

I personally find that the Wii is designed for 8 year olds and your mum. Wave a stick, simple, easy, gotcha. The PS3 is for those who use a console slightly infrequently, and like having a game with up to date graphics and physics. The XBox is basically an all-rounder, like all other MS stuff, does the job, has a huge selection of pretty good games, Live works great, but it's a bummer that you have to pay for it, and it's what I personally settled with...

If you keep it and look after it, it'll last, mine kept going for almost a year, and they had it repaired and back to me within ten days when it did, along with a month's free Live. The games are mostly over-machoed "kill dem peepulz" games, but there's some genuine gems available for it...

"Give a man a fish, and he'll eat for a day. Give a man a fishing rod, and he'll break it up into firewood...or swap it for a fish."
-Frankie Boyle, on Mock the Week
tha_rami
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Posted: 24th Jan 2009 23:34
I bought my XBOX like a month ago, and I got Lost Planet, Fusion Frenzy 2 (auch, I really liked FF1), Halo, Assassins Creed and three gems that go by the name of Eternal Sonata, Blue Dragon and Castle Crashers.

I'll be getting Halo 2 and Halo 3 to run through it with my girlfriend, who has thus far never played shooters but really seemed to like Halo and its story. From there, I'll probably get Gears of War 1 and 2, then get ourselves some nice new casual Arcade title. I skipped Braid, I don't know why - it just didn't feel good after playing the demo.

For now, we're running through Blue Dragon simultaneously, trying to keep at an equal pace. We've sort of decided that after completing it, we'll go through the other Halo games (seeing 1 didn't really 'connect' to 2, but 2 & 3 are basically one continuing story) and then play Eternal Sonata in coop mode.

I really love Live Silver, with being able to watch trailers of new games from the screen, and downloading demos. Gold adds a little for me, as I'm more of a 'couch gamer', but I've lengthened my subscription anyway. At about $5 a month with a year subscription, it can't really bother me - I really think people complaining about the 'cost' are heavily exaggerating. I spend more on useless gizmo's per week than I spend on Gold per month.

Oh, and Marketplace is pretty good too. They should 'hire' movies through there, that would be a blast. Instead of going to the cinema, buying a DVD of a movie you've never seen, or hiring it through storm and rain, you'd just turn on your XBOX and select and watch the movie. Would make me visit the video Marketplace, which now feels a bit forced. The Game Marketplace is awesome - can really recommend Castle Crashers.

Yes, I love my 360.


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RalphY
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Posted: 25th Jan 2009 00:33
Quote: "They should 'hire' movies through there"

You can rent movies through the marketplace, or do I not understand the point you were trying to make?


Oh boy! Sleep! That's when I'm a Viking! | Super Nintendo Chalmers!
Jeku
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Posted: 25th Jan 2009 00:51 Edited at: 25th Jan 2009 00:52
Quote: "They should 'hire' movies through there"


They probably don't give you access in your region. They just opened it up to Canada last year, but the US has been enjoying that for quite a while now.

There's no savings than going to Blockbuster, though, and it's more restricted. They give you a few days (7?) to start watching. Once you've started watching, it will allow you to watch for 24 hours, then it will deactivate. At Blockbuster you can rent a new movie for the same price and keep it out for something like 2 weeks. Plus with a Blu-Ray disc you can at least watch all the extras and director commentary if you feel so inclined.

I believe the movie studios have a deal with Blockbuster to not allow Microsoft or Sony to undercut their rental costs, otherwise if the price was a bit cheaper everybody would just download instead


tha_rami
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Posted: 25th Jan 2009 01:29
Aww. We're missing out on cool stuff .


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SunnyKatt
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Posted: 25th Jan 2009 02:12
I don't pirate either, butter fingers. Woo!

Commercial games are not only annoying to install, but are hard on my PC. I've moved on to mostly indie games - Battle for Wesnoth and Cortex Command have kept me busy lately. Not only are they awesome and original, they are easy to run on your pc (2d!) and some of them are free.

Good luck with your stuff, I only read a couple of posts (I'm busy, waa.)

Join team [logo] - The most epic logo creation team out there! Click below...

Toasty Fresh
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Posted: 25th Jan 2009 02:26
Quote: "They probably don't give you access in your region. They just opened it up to Canada last year, but the US has been enjoying that for quite a while now."


What about Australia?

I read somewhere that you could get episodes of Death Note off XBLM. Which would be awesome, I love that show.
Zdrok
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Posted: 26th Jan 2009 15:44
I don't pirate either.....that's a good soldier!

I don't really like those new, flashy, resource-eating PC games; every game company should take into consideration that not everyone's PC has 500Gb and have the best drivers. I can run Battlefield 1942 + expansion packs, Battlefield Vietnam, 12 Steam games including mods, but I cannot run CoD5?? What...the...crap! I have about 170Gb of RAM on my C:/ drive but only 1.87Gb on my hard drive. How stupid. It should be reversed.

You think I want to pay $30+ for more RAM? No, I don't. Game companies should supply their games with a 10Gb RAM card so I can play it (I'm looking at you, CoD5)! This ticks me off. At least I can play the aforementioned games on this thing.

/rant

Kola
Semi-covert ops in north Russia
TBA 2009
Jeku
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Posted: 26th Jan 2009 16:07 Edited at: 26th Jan 2009 16:07
^^^ I think you have things confused. For one thing, your hard drive and RAM are different things. Secondly, the PC industry has always been like this. If you still want to play games on cartridge or floppy disk, be my guest. Nobody's stopping you from playing some of the old classics!

I for one enjoy looking at pretty games that are fun to play.


Zdrok
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Posted: 26th Jan 2009 16:09
Me too, but not if I have to turn the graphics down low in order to play it.

BF42 is great fun though, but I haven't played online for a couple years.

Kola
Semi-covert ops in north Russia
TBA 2009
Bizar Guy
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Posted: 26th Jan 2009 16:39
I have only one issue with steam, and that is that after getting to the point in HL 2 just before the citadel, the game stopped working on my computer. No solution on steam or anywhere else on the internet gave a solution that worked, the only thing that now lets me play the game is ifI uninstall it and don't put my old save in. And then if I close the game and try opening it again, the error returns. So, for the past three or four years, I've almost finished half life 2.

Heck, it's been so long since I tried to get it to work I can't remember the problem.

Toasty Fresh
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Posted: 27th Jan 2009 01:27
Quote: "170Gb of RAM "


Dude, I really think you have your figures mixed up there. 170gb of RAM? That could run Crysis at bloody, Ultra-Super-Uber-Mega-Very-high.
Zdrok
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Posted: 27th Jan 2009 02:20
From a minute-ago DXDIAG.exe (numbers have dropped a bit, but not much). This is not a joke.

Quote: "Drive: C:
Free Space: 156.1 GB
Total Space: 238.5 GB"


There's yer proof, Toasty.

Kola
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Benjamin
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AndrewT
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Posted: 27th Jan 2009 02:28
Quote: "From a minute-ago DXDIAG.exe (numbers have dropped a bit, but not much). This is not a joke.

Quote: "Drive: C:
Free Space: 156.1 GB
Total Space: 238.5 GB"

There's yer proof, Toasty."


I still can't tell if your serious or not...

Toasty Fresh
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Posted: 27th Jan 2009 03:00
Dude, in a recent PC mag the best motherboard could have a maximum of 16 gb of RAM.

What you are quoting in the above post is your hard disk space.

And while we're on the topic...
Inspire
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Posted: 27th Jan 2009 03:03
You can get Mac Pros with up to 64 GB of RAM.

And they are also self-aware.
ionstream
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Posted: 27th Jan 2009 03:06
I knew nothing good could come of Apple acquiring Cyberdyne!

Zdrok
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Posted: 27th Jan 2009 03:22
@ Andrew T and Toasty: attached is the full DxDiag from my PC (don't hack my computer, please).

Kola
Semi-covert ops in north Russia
TBA 2009

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AndrewT
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Posted: 27th Jan 2009 03:24
Quote: "@ Andrew T and Toasty: attached is the full DxDiag from my PC (don't hack my computer, please)."


Quote: "Memory: 1918MB RAM"


Zdrok
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Posted: 27th Jan 2009 03:34
Aha! I always get those mixed up.

I need to get more RAM.....

Kola
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TBA 2009
Toasty Fresh
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Posted: 27th Jan 2009 03:54
How can we possibly hack your computer with a copy of DXDIAG?
Zdrok
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Posted: 27th Jan 2009 04:05
I was just gonna say....

Kola
Semi-covert ops in north Russia
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bitJericho
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Posted: 27th Jan 2009 04:10
@!#$ don't know bout my dxdiag hacker skillz.

(also, pc's can get up to 64gb of ram, with servers hitting about 128gb)

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