Blog - September, 2009 | bit-tech.net

Games I Own: Street Fighter IV

Posted on 30th Sep 2009 at 14:25 by Mark Mackay with 10 comments

As anyone that has read my blogpost about why I don’t like consoles will know; I don’t like consoles.

However...

There was a time when console gaming was all I was interested in. When I was a wee tiddler (well, seven years old) I went over a schoolmate’s house. He had a SNES. He had Street Fighter II. That day was just shy of 20 years ago. That day was the first day that I fell in love with a game. I loved the glorified violence and being able to bring my wrath down on my opponent with my own tiny hands.

I Have Never Played A Good Star Trek Game

Posted on 29th Sep 2009 at 10:05 by Joe Martin with 42 comments

I’ve owned a lot of games in my life. I was also a bit of a Trekkie growing up. There have been points in my life where those two facts have overlapped and I’ve owned computer games that are based around Star Trek – but I’ve never played a good Star Trek game, ever. I’m honestly not even sure they exist.

I’ve played a lot of them, from idiotic non-games like The Captain’s Chair which offer a virtual tour of some of the ships in the series, to poorly thought out action games like Hidden Evil. The ones I’ve spent the most time with though are probably A Final Unity and Generations.

Generations is a particular sore spot for me, as I pressured my parents into pre-ordering it for me from America based solely on hype I’d read in a copy of the official Star Trek magazine.

Yes, I was that sad as a teenager. I like to think I’m a lot cooler now though, even if I still can’t grow a beard.

Games I Own: Dungeon Keeper, Theme Park, Theme Hospital

Posted on 26th Sep 2009 at 11:38 by Joe Martin with 16 comments

I was never any good at Dungeon Keeper – and when I say ‘not any good’, I really do mean that I was seriously pants at it. Something to do with being only 12 when the game came out and not really being interested in strategy games – which kind of begs the question of why I played it at all.

There are two answers.

Firstly, it wasn’t my game. It was my brothers and, while I can’t remember if it was a present or something he actually bought, I do know it was his. In the days when the family shared just one PC and my brother and I shared every game, it was inevitable that I would play it. Likewise, it was inevitable then when he stopped playing PC games and I moved out that I would steal it from him, along with about ten other games. Sorry, Sam!

Secondly, making people think that they liked strategy games even though they didn’t really was one of the things that made Bullfrog such a successful company.

Would you buy cooler-less graphics card?

Posted on 25th Sep 2009 at 11:15 by Antony Leather with 44 comments

Lets face it, water cooling your PC can be expensive. One of the most wallet-shredding bits is when you get to the graphics card. Full cover copper blocks for some of the larger graphics cards can cost over £100, but I recently had an idea that I thought I'd throw out to you guys to see what you think.

Instead of buying an air cooled card or a hideously expensive pre-water cooled example, what if you could buy just
the PCB?

Let me explain my madness.

Hardware Podcast 5 - Core i5 and i7, Radeon HD 5870

Posted on 24th Sep 2009 at 17:32 by Podcast with 12 comments

The fifth (or first) Hardware Podcast sees the chaps talk about Intel's Core i5 and i7 LGA1156 processors and they're stupid naming convention. And discuss why maybe it won't seem so stupid in a few month's time. Also up for debate is the HD 5870, the Asus Mars graphics card and Nvidia's odd drivers.

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I'm an Evil Basterd

Posted on 24th Sep 2009 at 10:16 by Joe Martin with 30 comments

Those of you who follow the bit-tech blogs and podcasts with anything more than a cursory interest will know that my extra-curricular gaming habits lately have been…focused to say the least. I’ve been playing Baldur’s Gate exclusively, pausing only to rush through Kane and Lynch: Dead Men after a Michael Mann marathon left me wanting a certain type of adventure.

Baldur’s Gate, as I mentioned when I set myself the challenge, is my Everest. It’s the mountain I’m climbing to prove something to myself, namely that I have an attention span longer than – hey look, there’s a squirrel outside!

I’ve not really blogged about my time with the game since then – and for those of you who are curious, I’m still in Baldur’s Gate 1 and have completed all quests in the lower half of the world map. I’m a male, true neutral, half-elf conjurer called Jacob accompanied by Viconia, Imoen, Shar-teel, Jaheira and Khalid. I was tempted to go with a full-on, all woman band of adventurers, but I always had a soft spot for Khalid.

More to the point, I had a really horrible experience with the game yesterday.

Lab Update: Many-a-P55 Motherboard

Posted on 23rd Sep 2009 at 10:56 by Richard Swinburne with 16 comments

I wouldn't be understating the situation when I say we've got a lot of P55 boards to get through: three Asus (P7P55D Deluxe, Vanilla and Maximus III Formula), two Gigabyte (UD5 and mATX UD4), three MSI (GD80, GD65 and CD53), ECS (something-or-other) and requests for more.

As it stands we've already reviewed the P7P55D Deluxe and found it just too expensive to justify a purchase. That's not Asus' fault, but Intel and Foxconn for making the platform cost just prohibitively expensive. To be honest, in the time we've already spent with the Gigabyte UD5 we highly suspect it to end up the same way.

In fact, we'd have had a full UD5 review already but someone got cake in the CPU socket. I kid you not.

Despite suffering assault via a Victoria sponge (we suspect, on evaluating the evidence), the board still worked and overclocked very well, even though six socket pins were damaged. The memory capacity constantly flicked between single 2GB and dual channel 4GB, so it took us all day to pin-point the problem with inconsistent results.

The plus side of all this is that we can conclude Intel's Lynnfield CPU and socket design is remarkably resilient to damage. And dessert. The downside is that it makes our job harder to work out what the hell is going on!

My First Experience With Sky

Posted on 22nd Sep 2009 at 15:00 by Mark Mackay with 39 comments

Having recently moved into a shiny new flat I decided that it was time to get Sky TV. After learning that my flatmate and I could get Sky+ HD, a 16MB broadband connection with no download limit and a phone line with free line rental for a entire year, for just under £20 a month, each, we made the leap of faith and signed up.

It wasn’t long before the nightmare began. I'm cataloging the series of events I had with one of the UK's only premium (HD)TV providers.

Below is the first letter of complaint that I sent Sky. Helpfully, you’re only allowed to use 1000 characters, hence the shorthand.

One, Two, Seven - get ready for the recovery

Posted on 21st Sep 2009 at 15:32 by Tim Smalley with 7 comments

Over the past six months or so, it has become increasingly difficult to get excited about the computer hardware industry. Regular bit-tech readers have probably noticed my own output has dropped a little.

I've been focusing on the bigger picture (which included a lot of strategic work and a bit-tech site design refresh), and also turned some of my attention to new projects within Dennis that I'll be working on while I continue my role as Editor of bit-tech.

The lack of excitement is, in many respects, down to the recession - companies have been pulling down the hatches and boarding up windows while they weather the storm. There's been nothing exciting to talk about and it has been difficult to get hugely enthusiastic about the industry's future when nobody has announced a major technology breakthrough.

I’m So Sick Of World War II

Posted on 21st Sep 2009 at 11:46 by Joe Martin with 54 comments

I don’t mean any disrespect by this by the way, but as far as computer and videogames go I have to say, I’m so bloody tired of World War II games!

Don’t get me wrong, they can be great. I thought Call of Duty 2 was a fantastic game, for example and that bit where you’re crawling through that pipe above the heads of Nazi soldiers is cemented into my head as a favourite. But that was five years ago and it feels like we’ve had nothing but re-runs since then. Not just in the FPS genre either, but with RTS’ too.

And they all have similarly bland names as well; Call of Duty, Men of Valour, Company of Heroes, Brothers in Arms, Order of War, Medal of Honour and the blandest of all, Men of War. It really is like the publishers have two wheels of words that they spin, connecting the result with ‘of’.

The frustrating thing is that, judged on their own merits, the games are often quite good. It’s just the quantity of them that I object to, along with the fact that they all re-use the same bland moments of cinema. I’ve stormed Omaha and sought cover in Normandy hedgerows so many times that I can’t visit France for fear that I’d shoot nearby German tourists on sheer reflex. It’s that old disconnect between the enjoyable mechanics of the game and the repetitive visuals. I’m not tired of shooting people, I’m just tired of doing it then and there.

bit-tech.net

Games I Own: Street Fighter IV

I Have Never Played A Good Star Trek Game

Games I Own: Dungeon Keeper, Theme Park, Theme Hospital

Would you buy cooler-less graphics card?

Hardware Podcast 5 - Core i5 and i7, Radeon HD 5870

I'm an Evil Basterd

Lab Update: Many-a-P55 Motherboard

My First Experience With Sky

One, Two, Seven - get ready for the recovery

I’m So Sick Of World War II

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