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Archive for Harry Butler

Diagnosis – Purchase Justification Syndrome

Posted on 26th Nov 2009 at 11:23 by Harry Butler with 36 comments

Harry Butler
Working here at bit-tech, I’ve noticed that over time a curious ailment that afflicts all of us at some point or another. It can lead to perfectly rational people ignoring others and making completely irrational decisions, generate more anger and animosity than a BNP speech or, flowing a different way, warrant jubilant praise where none is due. The condition I speak of I’ve dubbed PJS, short for Purchase Justification Syndrome.

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Tags fanboys, pjs

I can quit the Internet anytime I want – just not today

Posted on 6th Aug 2009 at 10:10 by Harry Butler with 12 comments

Harry Butler
Those of you who listen to the bit-tech and CPC podcast (and if not, why not?!? You can even win games, you know) may know that I got married recently.

Along with taking the plunge and enjoying the perks involved therein I elected to take the opportunity of a honeymoon in Canada to see if I could go a full two weeks without hitting the internet. Working for bit-tech and CPC I practically live online (in fact, barring the two hours a day I spend commuting I’m online pretty much 24/7) and was relishing a little time 'off the grid'.

What I discovered, hardly surprisingly, is that I am a hopeless internet addict.

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Tags addiction, facebook, internet, quitter

When a patch broke my favourite game

Posted on 7th Jul 2009 at 11:31 by Harry Butler with 22 comments

Harry Butler
Back in April I reviewed Company of Heroes: Tales of Valor and it pained me to give the game such a negative review. You see Company of Heroes is one of my all time favourite games, and up until the release of Tales of Valor I played it religiously, taking to the fields of Europe for 1 vs1 auto matches on a nightly basis, learning from my mistakes and watching Shoutcasts of better players to improve my skills. Make no mistake, I absolutely adore this game. And the the developers broke it.

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Tags bugs, company of heroes, developers, dlc, fallout 3, games, relic, stalker

Why Dawn of War II Is Doomed

Posted on 22nd Feb 2009 at 12:21 by Harry Butler with 14 comments

Harry Butler
I’ve been playing Dawn of War II a fair bit since the excellent open beta launched back in January, and I have to say I’m a little concerned. You see, while the single player is a nifty fusion of RPG and RTS and so highly polished you could shave in its gloriously violent reflection, the multiplayer aspect of the game is ridiculously hostile to those new to the game that if it were an animal it’d be some kind of rabid honey badger.

After logging into Game for Windows Live (a mercifully painless experience) the game drops you into a multiplayer match without so much as a loading screen tutorial, and you’re left to fend for yourself whilst figuring out all of the game’s numerous multiplayer gameplay mechanics.

What this results in is a learning curve that’s more of a learning wall, and it’s not an easy one to overcome. Your first game will most likely be an exercise in frustration and it really shouldn’t be this way.

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Tags dawn of war 2, gaming, multiplayer

bit-tech vs. the Antec 900

Posted on 6th Feb 2009 at 10:10 by Harry Butler with 13 comments

Harry Butler
Here at bit-tech we like to think of ourselves as connoisseurs of cases, the site’s modding heritage only adding to our cultured palette for all that is aluminium and shiny. Even in our busy offices, the excitement of unboxing of a newly arrived chassis is always something that gets people up from their desks to come and have a look.

We make no excuses for our preference for smooth, stylish lines in case design over industrial or military looks, and to us cooling performance isn’t everything – what’s the point of strapping dozens of high RPM cooling fans into a case when the noise it makes infuriates anyone within a twenty foot radius? Good design needs to reach a compromise.

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Tags antec, cases, reviews

How Football Manager changed my life

Posted on 28th Jan 2009 at 16:44 by Harry Butler with 2 comments

Harry Butler
A few years ago, I had nothing but a casual interest in the coming and goings of the world of football. Sure I'd pay attention when the World Cup or European Championships rolled around every couple of years, but the inevitable seasons of the British Premier League, or even football in general, were about as foreign to me as a healthy snack to a drunkard.

That was until a friend convinced me to try Football Manager 2007, Sports Interactive's masterpiece of management, something which he had to do a great deal of arm bending to accomplish.

In the past I couldn't have given a toss about footballers, thinking they were a bunch of overpaid, over hyped idiots who's job it is to simply run around for 90 minutes. And yet here was a game that centred entirely on tracking individual players form, managing egos to get the best out of players and paying ludicrous amounts of money to secure the services of a greasy teenager.

And I bloody loved it.

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Tags football manager, gaming, management
Custom PC Issue 117

Custom PC Issue 117

Our latest issue is stuffed full of solid state goodness, with 19 of the latest SSDs put to the test. What's more we've also investigated how much memory your PC needs, and analysed the differences between desktop and tablet GPUs.

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PC Hardware Buyer's Guide August 2012

Our regular guide to getting the best components for your PC build,...
Hardware 29 – We are not Server Admins

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