My Time with Unreal Tournament III

UTIII-

Rating: Mature
Price: 59.99 (Collectors), 49.99 (Standard)

The Necris invasion has begun, and your clan was one of the first to be slaughtered. Head to the front lines and join this Epic battle to defend humanity while taking your revenge. Unreal Tournament 3 marks the return of the premiere tournament-style first-person shooter. Unreal Tournament 3 unleashes the full power of Unreal Engine 3, taking graphics, gameplay, and challenge to a whole new level. Players engage in intense and hyper-real battles with other human players online or against incredibly realistic Unreal artificial intelligence. Over two dozen weapons and vehicles have been upgraded and enhanced for maximum killing potential. Take on all comers in a variety of game modes including Deathmatch, Team Deathmatch, Capture the Flag, an all-new Warfare mode and more.

My Current Rating:

Graphics -
Based upon the Unreal 3 Engine, which was used in Gears of War (using version 1.00), but now the Unreal engine has reached its maturity; honestly this is the most graphically intense game aside from Bioshock; no other game has made me say, WoW!. I did spot a few visual glitches, but this was just the demo; it should be fixed in the final game, but that doesn't hurt its score. - 10/10 -

Gameplay -
More brutal, more fast, and more intense than any Unreal game that has been released; weapons all kill in 1-3 hits. Move aside the Sword from Halo, the Impact Hammer owns, not only can you obliterate your enemies, you can also team kill by pushing them off a cliff. Vehicles control well, the vehicles from UT2k4 have been remodeled and redone well. Also there have been an addition of a few new vehicles, new weapons (highly modified originals) have been added also; though as great as they are, they are still lacking a little bit. - 9/10 -

Sound -
Everything in this game has been revamped to HD, the graphics, the gameplay, and also the sounds. Using an uber version of the announcer in UT2k4, it sounds awesome. The best thing is the sounds of an intense fire fight; you shooting your powerful rockets while plasma bullets and shock waves fly past you, positioning is done well, so you can tell where you are being hit from. - 10/10 -

Average rating -
9.8/10

Screenshots

Half Life 2: Episode 2 Review

HL2 : Episode 2

Though it came out yesterday, I have just got a hold of the game; its really something; heres my minor review on it:

Graphics - 9/10

The updated version of the source engine; you can tap that, the graphics are superbly well done, HDR still holds its umph, I could not find visual bugs or glitches; though the graphics are not super-top end (i.e. Bioshock), but its still something.

Gameplay - 8/10

Though I am getting tired of the gravity gun, I still love it. One thing I love of the HL series, is that they keep what works, and add more. Though sometimes the game can get a little bit tedious, it is definitely a fine example of an episodic game.

Controls/Sounds - 10/10

Keeping to the WASD form (as any FPS would do)the game plays fine, though the learning curve is a little bit tough for beginners. The game uses the same sounds from HL2, but adds a bit more, everything is well blended; and immerses you in the gameplay.

Average Score: 9/10

New Creative Alchemy patch

Creative Alchemy helps emulate software sound which is lost due to Vista dumping a lot of the main components to run the enhancer, check it out, you must have a Creative Audigy, or Xi-Fi product:

http://connect.creativelabs.com/alchemy/default.aspx

Mac Malware? Mac Gaming?

Macs and Malware:

The Mac has certainly took a nose dive in video games that are compatible with the OS X, so bad in fact that Apple has just said, "Screw it, XP is better", and wham-o here comes boot camp. Boot camp is so successful amongst the noob Mac users that majority of non-techno impaired persons actually use XP over OS X.

My deal with this is; why spend your 1.4k on a Mac thats far inferior to a PC? It used to be because of no malware; but if you read the Mac Magazines for the past few months you will see the emergence of Mac malware and viruses; take that Apple.

Its about time the Mac-o-philes learn that everything is effected by malware and viruses, even linux. What does this have to do with gaming? Well, not much, but its about time, they will get hit hard; and since many Mac users are techno-weenies, it will be a sad sight. Well, at least they switched to XP :)

Macs and Gaming:

To you Mac-o-philes, PHOTOSHOP ISN'T A GAME, photoshop actually runs better on a PC hardware machine. Besides this, there are really no games and no topic on games for the Mac, you get a few good games that run better on a PC equipped machine, you will never be able to run Vista with DX10, because you won't be able to get DX10 cards. which basically means; for that 1.4-2.5k you spend on a Mac, sure you get current generation security for your ported games, but in the long run; your screwed.

Now to the die-hard, Mac-o-philes; theres really nothing I can do to change your mind, but keep this in your head, your Mac, isn't a Mac anymore; its a PC.

DX10 and its Application

Direct X 10, the selling point of Microsoft's Windows Vista, but what makes this so different from DX9? I will explain in basic terms and what it means to you; the non-developer end user.

DX10 is Microsoft's Vista exclusive API (Application Programming Interface), it boasts high-end graphics, and a radically new construction. What really makes DX10 different from DX9, is that it was not just built from the ground up, but its also a compilation of the older DirectX API's. But what really makes it awesome is how it runs; before the CPU (Central Processing Unit)would handle Physics, and Game Objects entity rendering which caused major stress on the CPU, limiting performance.

With the new API, the GPU (Graphical Processing Unit) runs the physics, the entity spawning, the rendering, etc. This boosts HUGE performance increases with the CPU, freeing up memory, thus increasing Frame Rates.

Microsoft has made it a requirement for a graphics card to be labeled DX10 compatible, is things such as: Physics processing, Unified Shader Units, etc. Before this, company's would include somethings, and leave out others to save money, but with this; company's MUST follow the guidelines or not receive a DX0 compatible seal.

DX10.1

DX10.1 is basically a patch up for DX10, small improvements such as required AA (Anti-Aliasing)and it improves on GPU usage and reduces strain on the CPU furthermore, thus increasing performance. THIS DOES NOT MAKE DX10 OBSOLETE; it is just a patch up, though a game must support DX10.1 to make advantage of the new features.

DX10 for the End User

DX10 is mostly for a Performance/Graphical upgrade, it is the real selling point for Vista, and with SP1 (Service Pack 1) coming out for Vista soon, the performance upgrade will be more apparent.

DX10 uses a Unified Shader Unit(s), which basically means the GPU will adapt the the games needs. Say a game requires more shader than physics processing units, the card will level the shader units to the correct level also the physics units level to form an even ration; Ex. Card supports 30 Units, game requires more Shader, card adapts to 20:10, shader:other.

This increases performance, and doesn't waste your units like the DX9 and below API's.

Heres some basic information from Wiki about Shader Units, etc:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shader

Performance in Games

A game running DX10 will typically run 1.5 - 3x slower in full graphics, AA to high, etc; this is mainly because you trade off a little performance for an increase in graphics; currently the game making this the most obvious is Bioshock
, though to run DX10, you must have extremely good hardware, at least a 8800 GTS to run with mediocre to high graphics w/ DX10; though some people prefer a frame rate over 50 (the human eye cannot tell the difference over 60).

Heres a load out I recommend:

CPU - E6600+ Intel Cpu
GPU - 8800 Nvidia GTS or above
Memory - 2 Gigabytes of memory or more
Hard Drive - at least a 500 Gigabyte or more HDD
Sound Card - Creative sound card (Audigy 2ZS +)

This will allow you to play on maximum graphics with todays current DX9 games at high-resolution; and will enable medium to high graphics at a 1680x1020 resolution with DX10 enabled.

Hope this helped

My apologize

Due to my extremely busy schedule I was not able to update this blog, but I am back, and will be able too :)

This month: Video Game hardware

This month on Techno World, I will be discussing hardware concerning Video Games; tweaks, updates, patches, and more! Stay tuned!