Quake Wars Tweaks ⁰

by Adam Blue • Editorial

A poster on the Evil Avatar forums posted a tiny tweak guide that actually makes Quake Wars play at an enjoyable level. Basically, it turns of a 30fps lock, which I find to be unnecessary for the Beta. It is probably on to keep everyone’s game running at a similar level, possibly to create less technical problems for people trying to enjoy playing on lower-end systems. The odd thing about that is this is a Beta. Usually people that play a Beta have pretty decent rigs, or know how to adjust settings for it to play well. I used the following instructions:

First off, go to My Documents/Enemy Territory Quake Wars Beta/base. This is where we’ll be doing our work.

You have to have “Hide File Extensions for known file types” unchecked in Control Panel –> Folder Options –> View on Windows XP.

Create a new text document and name it “autoexec.cfg”

Now you have a blank CFG file.

Note: The cfg tweaks I’m giving you here are basic, and are targeted towards systems with 1-2 GB of RAM, a 256MB videocard that’s decent, and having a max of 60 FPS. If you’ve got an 8800 series, you can change it to 90 FPS or so for even smoother gameplay.

Copy the following into it…
Code:

r_useSMP 1
image_useCache 1
image_cacheMegs 256
image_cacheMinK 3072
cm_backFaceCull 1
r_usePortals 1
r_orderIndexes 1
r_useOptimizedShadows 1
r_useShadowCulling 1
r_useLightCulling 3
r_ignoreGLErrors 1
r_useIndexBuffers 0
r_useStateCaching 1
r_useVertexBuffers 1
r_useCachedDynamicModels 1
r_useTwoSidedStencil 1
r_useTurboShadow 1
r_useShadowVertexProgram 1
r_useShadowProjectedCull 1
r_useTripleTextureARB 1
r_useConstantMaterials 1
g_projectileLights 1
image_preload 1
com_showfps 1
com_unlock_timingmethod 1
com_unlockFPS 1
com_unlock_maxfps 60

Save and you’re done! This also enables an FPS counter in the corner, if you don’t like it erase the “com_showfps 1″ line.

Using the above, I also changed the maxfps to 90 given my Sli setup. I enjoyed the match I played. Aiming was much more enjoyable and I actually leveled-up. It still has its issues, though, but this is much more promising.

-Adam

Resident Evil And Quake Wars ⁰

by Adam Blue • Editorial

I now have a Wii. I never really planned on getting one before Mario Galaxy or Smash Bros., but my half-brother is leaving for Korea and offered me his Wii plus extras for $150. I had to bite. But honestly I haven’t played much, which is the reason why I wouldn’t buy one anytime soon – there’s nothing to play on it. I guess you can say the VC library is robust enough to warrant a purchase, but I’m a hardcore gamer. I already own the VC titles in their original form(not every single one, but you know what I mean…).

Moving on, a friend of mine let me borrow Resident Evil 4 for the Wii. I played through it on the GameCube, so I wasn’t really in a hurry for a re release. Well, last night after a night at the clubs, I came home with an urge to give RE4 a shot. Loading up I noticed the aliasing was atrocious. It might have also been like that on the GameCube…but that was a while ago. Then the first action sequence arrived, and holding down the ‘B’ button, Leon’s gun aims and a green reticule appears. Using the wimote like a gun, I point and shoot at the villagers…and it was fun. I continued through the beginning just a bit and realized these Wii controls do justice. I decided I’ll be selling off my copy of Paper Mario, and using the money for RE4. It’s only $30. That’s pretty damn good.

I also got into the Quake Wars Beta, via FilePlanet. so far…not too impressed. Just aiming and shooting felt very clunky. And it’s not a performance issue – the game looks decent; not trying to show off amazing graphics in exchange for smooth play on loaded servers. After a few play-throughs, I got an itchin’ for Battlefield 2142…which I promptly inserted into my DVD-drive and began playing.

We’ll see what the future holds for QW…it has a lot of potential and being a Beta might explain the lack of…anything.

-Adam

The Post About C&C3 ⁰

by Adam Blue • Editorial

I’m a huge C&C fan. Even compared to Blizzard’s games, I’ve always thought the C&C franchise was usperior. One question about Blizzard’s RTSs always ran though my mind: Why a unit cap?

But anyway, C&C3 hit. That was probably the most anticipated game for me in a long while. I’ve played the crap out of it. EA could have done better though…to be honest it is better than I thought, but it’s still lacking. A lot of Tiberian Sun is missing. The game was primarily made by C&C fans which would be good as a mod community, but not as a primary dev. So, instead of a C&C evolution we get another C&C game. And like I said, that’s fine. But it could have been better.

There are many issues that need to be adressed, and haven’t yet. I’ll list them here:

-With the Tiberium Infusion, Nod infantry is immune to the affect of Tiberium. Yet, I still get a warning that my units are under attacking when they’re standing in the Tiberium.

-Online Ranking. Updates oddly, or not at all. Too many dissconnectors that get away with it. This is usually done by repeatedly hitting the F12(screenshot) key. It’s sickening, and I’ve been affected by it. Not cool.

-Planning mode. works awesome until a point. Orders given to an aircraft have no way of reproducing the same orders from their airfeild unless you set all new waypoints, which looks messy and is time consuming. Possibly overlooked, possibly intentional…but better not be the latter.

-This might be me, but I think it’s universally understood. There are some useless units, like infantry. Anything can really counter infantry, so there’s really no point to build them unless you just want to garrison buildings. And even then it’s pretty simple to flush them out. I wish there was a medic. You could micro to keep it alive while it keeps your men alive to fight. Creates more veteraned untis.

-If you build a structure in a units path, it will stop – just like an ant. Very annoying, especially if you didn’t realize this happened. Very costly time-wise.

-In a 2v2 game, if you get destroyed but your team mate wins the game, it still counts as a loss for you. Does that make sense? It is possible that the losing player affected the game to the point that gave his/her team mate the chance to pull a win.

-When you have a group of Shadow Team land in an enemy base, sometimes only a few will land. Because of this, you may not have enough of them that second to destroy a building, or the AA will end up killing the ones that didn’t land. Very frustrating.

-The text of the chat system in multiplayer is horrid. Small and invisible depending on the color.

If I think of more I’ll add it on. It sucks. Even Generals had some problems that EA didn’t bother fixing. But why? I don’t think they hate us. Was it a problem that none of their programers could even deal with? Are some problems too costly? It makes no sense really.

There’s supposed to be a C&C3 podcast tomorrow. They also mentioned a huge balance change that would make tank spamming obsolete. I’m interested in what they have to say.

I’ll be out for now.

-Adam

Catching Up ⁰

by Adam Blue • Editorial

Okay, so to start off, I’ve been back in forth with my 360 and PC. Dark Crusade on PC is just amazing. I love CoH, but Dark Crusade is just that much better. This is the direction in which RTS’s are going(although, in reality CoH brings along more new RTS features than DC).

The 360 has been full of R6:V, Assault Heroes, and a few other titles. Vegas is just damn sweet. I love the ranked multiplayer implementation of upgrades. Battlefield started this idea, and it seems to be continuing. Another game I got recently is Call of Duty 3, which has the same type of multiplayer.

I was at Best Buy today and saw a ton of PS3′s. It’s just not as hot as it should be. What would make it hotter? Maybe some games. It has Resistance which might be a good game, but when consoles are launched, they should include system sellers. Why did the PS3 not have any system sellers? Was Sony banking on Blu-Ray? I don’t know, but all I know is they don’t care.

I tried out the 360 HD-DVD player and wasn’t too impressed. Either I need a 1080p set, or I just need a real player using HDMI. Standard DVD’s don’t upconvert. So, that’s pretty dissapointing.

-Adam

This Is How I Feel ⁰

by Adam Blue • Editorial

I finally got my 360 back from Microsoft. This thing is silent, which is good. Well, not totally silent but a lot quieter. Anyway, I borrowed Gears of War from my little brother. I finally got the chance to play it. But honestly, I was underwhelmed. Shooting felt odd. It never really felt like you were hitting your enemy. And there wasn’t much to it. Just advance and flank. I’m dissapointed really, because from wathcing my brothers play, and doing the little bit of playing I did before hand, it seemed wonderful. Now, it’s not a bad game. But I won’t be buying it for $60. But I’ll eventually get it. The online multiplayer was even boring. I can see co-op being fun, which could be what the dev team was focused on.

At the same time I bought Rainbow Six: Vegas. It’s a great fucking game. The singleplayer story is just awesome, but then the online component just blew me away. I’m still not into the whole lobby thing though. Halo 2 did it right. I want to just select quickmatch and be in a game rather quickly. Except in this and Gears, you have a few rooms to select from, join, and then wait for others to join. But I like that you gain experience, equip your own character, and even use your own mug via the Xbox Live Vision Camera.

Having my 360 back has kept me away from Battlefield 2142 unfortunately. I really like that game. More options for leveling up your character is a must, as it keeps me playing the game. There are still a few bugs that need to be worked out, but given time EA should get to it. Damn you EA.

That’s it for now.

-Adam

Supreme Commander ⁰

by Adam Blue • Editorial

Boy, did today suck. First of all I wake up to the fact that I don’t have to go to work. That is one good thing. But the internet was down, and I had to contact Time Warner at a certain number…which didn’t work. In the meantime I figure I’d wait for my 360. It never showed up. So no internet and no 360. I went crazy. I even started writing a James Bond script. Later in the evening I was on the phone with Time Warner for about THREE HOURS, finally getting my internet up. Hopefully my 360 comes in tomorrow, I really want to play Gears of War.

I tried the Supreme Commander Beta. Interesting game. I love RTS’s and am always waiting for something new. Company of Heroes set the fucking standard. SC is unique. During the one match I played, I didn’t understand a damn thing I was doing. I need a single-player demo. And that’s my conclusion.

Tomorrow I might be picking up a new processor. Dual-core. Make my baby rock even more. Well, that’s it for now. Bungie is announcing something Halo 3 related at two a.m. We’ll see what that’s all about soon enough.

-Adam

Worst Time For This ⁰

by Adam Blue • Editorial

Gears of War came out Tuesday, and damn, I wanted to play it so bad. Yes. Wanted. You know what happened? My 360 died. Three red lights on the ring of life. Now, it was an older console. And by old, I mean manufactured before January of this year. Not too long back Microsoft said they would repair/replace any broken 360′s that were manufactured before January. Then, a few weeks later or so, they released the Fall Update. After the update I was reading on the internet that it bricked a few consoles. Luckily, mine was fine. After a few days it kept freezing up in BF2, showing random graphical errors and such. Now, this didn’t persist for too long. But then, one morning after a few good rounds of BF2, my system crashed. I tried turning it back on and got the three red lights. Luckily I called Microsoft about it, and they hooked me up with a repair.

But how could they write code, as a mandatory update, that would brick a console? Reading about the update, I learned it required over 4 million lines of code. Well hell, you could mess up anywhere in there. But you shouldn’t. I think this was done on purpose. Mainly meant to destroy modded 360′s. Or, to destroy the older consoles, because only the new ones are compatible with the HD-DVD drive. Yes, conspiracies. But, fuck, I really don’t care that much.

The point is, I can’t fucking play GoW or CoD3. That really blows. Hopefully I’ll get it back sometime next week. Two days shipping there, two days shipping back. It sucks. But at least I have my PC.

So anyway, GoW has been getting some very, very positive reviews and comments all over the internets. My site of frequent, Evil Avatar, is one hell of a site to judge a game by. The community is very well spoken for a group of gamers. And it’s unanimous. They love GoW.

The following little tidbit was found over there at EvAv. Apparently, Alain Tascan, general manager for Electronic Arts Montreal, disagrees with GoW. He’s trying to say that it’s way too overrated.

“What is Gears of War? I mean Gears of War brings nothing in terms of innovation to the shooter… Like, zero.”

Ok. This coming from a Manger at EA? EA, as we all know, puts out crap. If Warren Spector said this? Sure. Will Wright? Yeah. But a douche from EA? Please. They fucked the Bond franchise up so bad, that now Activision has it. Fucking Madden on PSP can’t even play right because they couldn’t code a game. So really, this man has no room to talk. I could go on and on about EA’s mishaps, but that’s just a broken record.

While GoW is almost another standard shooter, it takes that ‘standard shooter’ and adds so much more to it that needed to be done. They made a great arcadey shooter with immense tactical elements. On top of an incredible engine. It is extremely different. If you ask someone what it plays like, saying ‘Quake’ isn’t good enough. Saying ‘GRAW’ isn’t good enough. Saying Quake and GRAW got together one night, dropped a bunch of pills and finished a bottle of everclear, then took a limo ride home where nothing of the night is remembered, except for a positive pregnancy exam the next morning, leading to the birth of GoW…then you did a good job of explaining the game.

EA just don’t get it.

Well, I’m glad I finally made a post. That EA bullshit just pissed me off enough to write about it. I wish I’d get my ass to post more, but between work, playing video games, and my girlfriend…my life is pretty much covered.

-Adam

Where are the gamers? ⁰

by Adam Blue • Editorial

So, people will skip out on the XBox consoles and the games they offer, just because of a grudge they have on the company? After the recent announcment of Ninga Gaiden Sigma for PS3, all the trolls come pooring out of the woodwork in excitment, finally able to play Ninja Gaiden But wait…why didn’t they play it when it was originally released? Some people have this hatred for MS, that doesn’t really make sense. Its like those punk rockers. They want Linux so they can do what they want. You know what…I’m not gonna get into that rant, so I’ll get back to what I really want to say.

You are not a true gamer if you didn’t own an XBox.

You don’t consider yourself a true gamer? That’s fun, but I’m not going to listen to anything you have to say, so if I’m an ass, get over it.

Ninja Gaided revived true gaming. It was lost during the Playstation era. the PS became mainstream, offering quick pick-up-and play titles, slowly diminishing the hardcore. When was the last SHMUP released in the states? Yeah. So we got these so called ‘hardcore-gamers’ who don’t even own an Xbox, and frown upon Ninja Giaden. Now that it’s being released on the PS3, these so called ‘hardcore gamers’ are now cheering and joy, given the chance that they can finally play a last gen game on a $600 console. Dumbasses.

Second point. Someone at Evil Avatar proclaimed NG as being Overrated! What the fuck? I know everyones got their own opinions, but it’s a fact that NG wasn’t overrated…it got very good reviews and a lot of people agreed with those reviews, except for the one or two that thought it was too hard. Yeah too hard…so they don’t like it. No joke. Since the Playstation generation started, gaming has been in the panzy era. Games are easy, gamers complain when a game is too short(easily beaten), yet complain when a game is too hard. Fuck, I don’t know. Maybe gaming is way too mainstream nowadays. No, not maybe…it IS too mainstream.

So, for me, it’s hard to visit a gaming community where you don’t hear this kind of crap. No matter where you go, you will find Anti-xbox activists. Until MS does something to further diminish the gaming scene, cheers to them, and boo to Sony.

-Adam