My PC currently plays CoD2, NFS:MW and Deus Ex at 1920x1080 with the 4350 I installed for HTPC duties! It's based around a dual core 939 rig with 2gig of RAM and does everything I want - except play games. Thing is I've gone for quite a while without gaming (my last flurry was the original GRAW and CoH: Opposing Fronts on my XPS laptop which is a C2D with a 7900GTX). Recently, I was just browsing around the web and came across a preview for the new Deus Ex. It got me excited - very excited! I thought I would be excited about SC2, as I was mental over the original, but I've avoided spending out so far. So...... tell me what's worth buying and give me ideas of why I should consider a new build. I was always more of a single payer person, but I'd love to mix it up with you guys.
If you loved the original Starcraft, SC 2 will become your new addiction. Its essentially the same game with 3d graphics and some tweaks. I'm not a huge fan of the Starcraft playstyle but I have several friends who play all the time. It's awesome to watch them. I highly recommend playing Battlefield: Bad Company 2. Its the most realistic (atleast in hardcore) and unique feeling of the mainstream FPS'es and the squad dynamic elevates it far above CoD and MoH imo. The weapons feel and sound like actual firearms should, and vehicle combat is integrated perfectly (Dice has been doing this for years). All of these elements along with the building destruction makes for a very intense experience. 10/10. I play on 360, as the PC version basically requires a quad core to run, but a lot of people on the forums play PC. As for components, I'm currently running a Athlon 64 x2 6500+, so I'm behind the times on specific CPUs. I know that next time I upgrade I will be going to an i7 quad core. I recently purchased a Sapphire 4770 1 gig to replace a fried 8800 GT, and it has been perfect so far. I play at 1900 x 1200 on high with no problems on most games. Where my old 8800 GT would get up to 100 celcius sometimes, my 5770 never goes above 65. Paid $140 over the summer, not sure what it costs now. Recommend, but at this point I would get one of the 6000 series Radeons. Get atleast 4 gigs of ram. I have 4, and may upgrade to 8 sometime soon. Also, I recently purchased an SSD, and it really does make a significant difference to your computer. Not only does it speed up load times and file move operations, it adds a great snappy feeling to your computer. Everything loads faster, from booting to windows to opening programs. Immediately after logging in I can hit chrome and 3 seconds later be browsing. I rarely get moments where my computer is clearly 'thinking' about what to do, it just goes. Great purchase. Hope that gives you some food for thought and helps. TL;DR: Get SC 2 and BC 2, buy a quad core, a new video card and more ram. Edit: 6000 series cards are out. Doh.
Thanks for that. The specific hardware is less of an issue for the minute as I'm still totting up options. Primarily what I want, is be excited about some games and want to play them, both single player and online (LAN would be nice, but I don't know anybody else locally who would join me) Battlefield Bad Company 2 sounds fun. I love the idea of vehicular involvement as well as the squad-based approach. That was my favourite thing about GRAW on the PC. My mate had the 360 version and it was crap by comparison. What else are people playing to death that they can get me excited about, and why?
If you like realism in the form of buildings collapsing and blowing up around you, then you'll like Bad Company 2. But get a decent GPU, and sell the 4350 for peanuts to me in the marketplace
Fallout 3 and new vegas, mass effect one and two, batman dark asylum, Bioshock, S.T.A.L..K.E.R series, Metro 2033( Didnt get a great review but IMO is a great game) Dead space, and the second one is looking good.
The STALKER series is excellent. Great atmosphere, really draws you in and makes you feel like you're there. Call of Pripyat is the best, but you really should play Shadow of Chernobyl as well as its the original, and is also scarier than CoP. I would recommend getting Stalker Complete for SoC and Call From Pripyat for CoP, as they add a lot to the game and make the gun play far more brutal. I could never really get into FO3, due to the way the engine feels, but if you can there is an immense single player world waiting to be explored. If you like tactical RTS, I would highly recommend Men of War. Its like CoH, but far more detailed and without any base building. Every soldier has an inventory and can command vehicles, so you can liberate tanks from the enemy, repair them and turn their own guns against them. You can also take direct control of your units, controlling their aim and actions. There is a learning curve because its such a complex game, but very worth it once you get comfortable. I'm currently playing the Assault Squad beta, so if you want to give it a try for free I highly recommend downloading it. Anyways, I'm on steam if you want to play something sometime. I'll be purchasing Arma 2 today and starting in on that. steam: darkspike73/kameltoemunch
Oh lordy, Arma 2. You really have chucked yourself in at the deep end haven't you seeing as you consider BFBC2 hardcore to be 'realistic'... Ah well, if you can get into it you'll find no better milsim. Just Cause 2 is an amaaaazing single player game along with GTA4. Oh and, mustn't forget, HALF LIFE 2.
For what its worth, to clarify: When I say that BF:BC 2 is realistic, I mean in comparison to other mainstream FPSes, mostly Call of Duty. Whereas CoD is still quake with assault rifles (no matter how much extra stuff they throw on top of it, this is what it is) BC 2 has an actual feeling of weight. The guns feel tangible and powerful, instead of simple bullet emitters. I'm fully aware that BC 2 isn't actually anywhere milsim or real life, but it has a much more real feel than CoD. Its all relative.
The future is about 20 days ago? I kid, I kid. I would recommend an update. The new Deus Ex looks rather sexy, and, depending on your taste, Crysis 2 may tickle your fancy. But just upgrading the system will make everything feel so much faster. My friend went from a Q8200 with 2GB of RAM to a Core i7 930 and 6GB of RAM, and even in Windows he could feel the difference. Same graphics card (a 4870x2) but generally much snappier feel, and way better performance in games.
Ah, Arma 2, I forgot about that. I'd really like to see if I have what it takes to get by in that thing. So... Bad Company 2 Arma 2 Men at War sounds very cool. SC2 obviously Really NEED Deus Ex 3 when it comes out (has anyone else looked at that trailer yet??)] Forgot to mention, I'm not very good with super scary games. Half Life was on the edge, I hated the corridor Trigen sequences in Far Cry, and once I played F.E.A.R. and that scared the crap outta me after about 5 mins, so never played it again. Quite happy with being pinned down, overwhelmed, panicked or whatever, but actual horror type stuff, or Alien vs Marine type scares are best left to movies for me. So that probably rules STALKER and Had a quick look at New Vegas on a mates 360 the other day and I can't say it appealed. Not sure why. Could you please tell me *why* Just Cause and GTA4 are so good? Is Crysis worth bothering with? The aliens thing just annoys me... Anything else? Ooh, and sub-question, considering I'll have to spend at least £500-600 to be able to play any of this stuff, is it £300 better value than just buying a PS3?
Don't even try it. Only you can answer that question. How much do you want an up-to date speccd pc with massive (and fast) hard-drive? Up until last year I'd never had a 'new' pc, only second-hand jobs that were never built for speed in the first place, so when I paid approx. £550 last year on my self-build (see spec in sig) it was such a refreshing change. Given the amount of time I spend on a pc (surfing web, playing music, editing photos and HD videos etc., playing games), the investment was definitely worth it to me. Plus, I have no interest in buying a new-release game for £25-40 when I know all I'm paying for is hype and advertising and I can buy games that are 12-18mnths old and I know are going to be good for £3-10. Games don't get as cheap anywhere near as quickly if they're any good on consoles. Mario Kart Wii is still £20 for f's sake. As for games to inspire you: Last week I bought Assassin's Creed for £4.50. I'd heard it was repetitive but felt it was worth trying to maybe then go on to ACII etc. It turns out to be one of the most enjoyable games I can remember playing. I'm less than half-way through it I would guess, and who knows, perhaps it may start feeling repetitive towards the end, but the game is gorgeous to play I find. Freedom to run through crowded streets chased by a horde of soldiers before leaping up walls to fight on the rooftops and throw people off. You can engage in sword-fighting easily and there are some great finishing animations (not cut-scenes, in-game), but you can also kill with stealth and from distance. There's clearly no FPS-ownage but if that's what you're after you should move right along. The story is also engaging, using an Avatar-style approach (i.e. you play a character who is fed the memories of another person to experience another consciousness) and it deals with issues such as the ambiguities of real-life 'what is right & wrong' in terms of the policies a society's leader adopts. There's quite a lot of talking and zelda-style horse-riding to put up with for the first half hour (which I don't think you can skip) but once you get into the main assassination assignments it's great. I would recommend you play it with a joypad though rather than mouse & keyboard. Once I've finished Assassin's Creed I'm going to move onto Batman: AA (having just bought it for £5.10 on Steam) before moving on to Assassin's Creed II and then Brotherhood at some point down the road (by which time it will have dropped in price). What's great about pc gaming is, if you're sensible enough to resist new-release hype, you can try a whole heap of games for very little money that have been patched to overcome any initial issues. So stop wasting time and get yourself some bargains. I'm off to knife a load of peeps...
My current PC was a monster back in the day. A8N-SLi Deluxe is the 88GT of motherboards in my opinion and it was the first time I'd built a high-end machine. It has since survived 5 years, two CPUs, two RAM upgrades, a Northbridge heatsink replacement and several other additions. The thought of building something like that again is indeed very exciting. +rep for that. Thank you. Plenty to think about and some good suggestions.
Porkins', I applaud you for trying out the original AC. I played it back when it came out and got extremely bored about half way through. The core gameplay is pretty good, but the problem lies in the mission structure. You can do the same couple of missions over and over throughout each city. It starts to suck. The point of this post was to say that where I found the original AC to be little more than a proof of concept, AC II is the epic game that the first should have been. Its literally better in every single way, and once you start playing it I'm sure you will absolutely love it. Two thumbs up.
Thanks for the love. Just completed Assassin's Creed. IMO it certainly never began to suck, but I did find myself wanting to get it over and done with - a lot out and out hack and slash button bashing towards the end. But the whole time it was enjoyable and always looked great, and I'm certainly pleased it covers issues regarding the legitimacy of authority, the fallacy of truth etc. Looking forward to ACII. Anyone who hasn't tried this series should certainly give it a go.
