Gaming

CS:S Quick Update 2

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Steam has done it again with another great map release in the form of cs_militia. Hands down this is one of my favorite maps and I have been playing it a lot in the past couple of days. There are so many ways of getting to the opponents on this map. You can jump on the roof or tunnel through the sewer or take the direct approach and rush the house. This map has so much going for it and in the visual department the map makes other maps look like monkeys flinging their feces. I know that is harsh but cs_militia has HDR lighting and perfectly fine tune details in every corner. Just as before you have to restart Steam for the update.

Free FPS on Wikipedia

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I am becoming a first person shooter connoisseur and on my quest to becoming the FPS dominating human. I will need more games to feed my FPS frenzy. What better way to do this than with free FPS. That is correct my current broke or just finished another game people, we now have a place to fill our gap. It is located at the List of free first-person shooters – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. These are free FPS games so it may not be the most visually stunning or precise controls but it makes up for it in the free department. Try the free FPS at Wikipedia and let your money build for the upcoming FPS.

Warrock Quick Update

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Warrock has been trying to keep up with my Steam buddies at Valve by releasing new features and updates constantly. From the time I started playing it they added blood splatter and a new map. Now they have added another new map: Ravello, a new vehicle: K1A1 (A tank!) and nProtect: an anti-hacking program. So if you have not tried it yet now is the time and again it is completely free at Warrock.

CS:S Quick Update

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Valve has done a great thing for the gaming community by adding Steam as their download system. It not only allows for people to buy games but also download demos, patches and models. Speaking of that if you have not restarted your Steam in awhile you will be missing the new map: de_nuke and new player models for counter-terrorist and terrorist.

SiN Episodes Coming Soon

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SiN Episodes will be another game delivered through Steam provided by Valve. Valve are the makers of Half-Life and Counter-Strike series and have created a download system for their games as well as third party developers. Another great thing that Valve does for the gaming community is open its Source Engine (which runs Half-Life 2 and other games) to other companies to develop games faster and more efficiently. SiN Episodes will be released on the Source Engine and will have new characters and environments based on the SiN universe. Sin will be a First-Person Shooter or FPS and looks stunning in the graphics department. Also SiN Episodes will be released in episodes so you can play one story or the entire story in series. This seems like a great idea with the SiN developers having the option to listen to the SiN community and change content as needed. Keep an eye out for this one and check out SiN Episodes sight for more information and other goodies. Here is a screenshot from their fansitekit:

War Rock: The BF2 Killer?

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So I stopped by one of my favorite sights for optimizing my pc, TweakGuides and low and behold sitting on the front page is this tagline: WarRock – A Free Battlefield 2 Alternative. I thought for free, a BF2 clone worth a shot, right. So I go to the sight at WarRock.net and register my information (but make sure you fill out everything because it will say your nickname is unavailable when it is available and other nag screens). Then I hit the free download button and it started to download. At this point I looked at the speed of the download and knew it would take awhile so I played some Quake 4 (download speeds are slow, so be patience). Once it finished I installed it I was on my way (be sure to restart Xfire so that it recognizes the game or you will not get all your hours logged like me). The game play is fantastic and it is remarkably close to BF2 but different enough to be its own game. One thing to note for people that do not read the key controls and jump in the game. The “F” key is the button for entering/exiting vehicles and for getting health and ammunition. You can run and double tap the “W” key for a quick dash. There are five characters to choose from and different weapons to select. Something that is original to the game in my opinion is the “Knuckles” weapon. What is the “Knuckles” weapon you ask? Well it is as the name implies two fist balled up and ready to swing. It is funny when you run up behind a camper and knock his block off. The sound effects are good too with everything pretty much sounding how they should. In War Rock there are also vehicles to control like tanks, hammers and motorcycles and their War rock sight states that planes and arbutus will be added later. The graphics on the game are pretty decent too but as an added bonus for people with low-end PC, they can still play with the minimum requirements only asking for a Pentium III 700mhz, 256mb, GeforceMX2 or better and Windows 98 or better. Now its time for me to break out my old CPU and use it for something again. Seriously though on high-end PCs there are shaders, textures and everything else to make it look beautiful. Hitboxes on War Rock in my opinion are better than some games I play and actually open for some fragging to happen. Remember this is a public beta so with that being said there are possible bugs or glitches but I have not experience them yet. So in conclusion is this the BF2 Killer that is in the tagline? It is free so go download it and found out for yourself.

E3 and Me (My First Experience) Review Part 1

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My E3 experience could not be summoned up in one word. It would probably fill up three thousand pages if I wrote out every little detail of days at the big event. To give you a picture of my mindset and excitement going into E3, I will have to give you a little bit of my video gamer background. I will also tell you how I got my pass into the show, some of the companies that were there and the video I shot.

I don’t think my mom even knows this but I will have to credit her with my first gaming experience. My mom would bring home her computer from work probably a Commodore, I don’t remember but the games were addicting. My first video game system was an Atari 2600 with a lot of great games like Commando and Pacman and one of the weirdest, nonsensical games ever invented: E.T. Wait that is getting a little negative lets turn it around. He was green if you had a color television back then that is positive, right! More quarters dropped in arcades than I could count back then. Fast forward to present day and a growing video game addiction and we come to my very first experience at E3.

Again special thanks to Clark Steel at Gamerave.com for the pass. When I received the pass I immediately got all three days off from both my jobs because I wanted to get the full experience. Next I had to get the requirements for E3 so I used my first job because they actually used to attend before I started working there. They would go for educational games but stopped for lack of educational games offered at the show. So I go to register a day before the event and had all the credentials from my company. I asked the lady at the desk if I had to use my company’s name or if I could use my website company. She said it would be fine to use the website name. So on my new shiny badge it said Tobias Henry, Game Consultant/Reviewer, EclipticSight.com. With my badge in had I was ready for the next day. Let me tell you I could not even sleep that night thinking of all the games I was going to see and play.

I picked the perfect time to attend E3 2005 because the next-gen consoles were going to be shown with the exception of the Nintendo Revolution. That was a big disappointment on their part. All the big players in the video game and computer industry were there from Sony, Microsoft, EA, Nintendo and a host of small and independent developers that I didn’t even know about.

I made sure to have my MiniDV camera in hand to record the event but later after reviewing the film, I found out most of it was pixelated with garbage on the screen and could not use it. I also took my PSP to E3 hoping to get demos or something but no luck. I do have a good story about my PSP and Nintendo for later. I got the capture below from the now retired MiniDV with my swag in all its greatness.