Fatal_Papercut~SPARTA~

I am totally not joking. Furthermore, I am a big proponent of wife-beating because, in my experience, it's really the only thing that keeps women in line. True, I have gone through a few wives in my time (6 to be precise), and they just can't seem to keep their pieholes closed long enough for me to finish capping a flag or to finish watching a Steelers game. However, I have already made some changes that should make my next marriage more successful: I have completed construction on what some might call a "dungeon", but I prefer to call it a "maximum-security time-out facility". P.S. I would never give a woman a firearm and then laugh when she hurts herself with it. I would prefer to shoot her myself.

To me, this is proof-positive that women should not be allowed to handle firearms.

I'm sure a few of you picked up 'Evil Genius' while it was on sale (or perhaps you already owned a copy). By default, the game does not support widescreen resolutions, but I have found a fix for that. 1. Download URes Changer from here. 2. Put the d3d9.dll and resolution.ini files into the directory that has the Evil Genius Executable: drive:\...\Steam\steamapps\common\evil genius\ReleaseExe 3. Edit the resolution.ini file for your desired resolution. The HUD elements and still screens will be stretched horizontally, but the actual playing field will display in the correct aspect ratio.

* Steam does have an offline mode, so most games can be played once they have been installed without the Internet connection. However, my understanding is that, after a while, you do need to eventually have your Steam client connect to the mothership, otherwise it will stop working. I don't know how long that time period is, because I've not had my PC disconnected from the 'Net for any great length of time. And, for as long as I choose to remain a gamer, I will never live anyplace that does not have broadband available. Gaming and the 'Net go hand-in-hand these days. * As sad as it would be to somehow lose my Steam account, they are only games, not my life savings, home, or investments. I would not only get over it, but some of my friends and family would actually say that such an event would be a good thing. Then I would likely create a new Steam account. * There is one downside that I do deal with by having almost all of my games through Steam these days (roughly 70%) is that fact that, every time I log into Steam, SOMETHING has to update (with Valve's damn games getting updates on a seemingly daily basis).

As much as it pains me to say this, I agree with most of Gunthar's statements. While it is still possible to "live off of the grid", doing so has become much more difficult in today's society. To me, the pros outweigh the cons, and I do take every precaution that I can think of to protect my personal information. When it comes to Steam in particular, I think it is THE greatest thing to happen to PC gaming since the day it went online, and I rarely purchase games elsewhere. Sure, technically I am only "renting" my games, but as the game market has changed, so has my attitude towards games and the way that I purchase them. I used to be enamored of boxed copies; I loved having something tangible that I could hold in my hands, and I felt a bit more secure by having a physical copy that I would always have available and could always reinstall years down the line, long after the game publisher had gone out of business. These days, new retail games no longer offer that type of security. Having a physical copy no longer ensures that you can reinstall the game in 10 years, because even with a disc, many games still require online activation/authentication, and who knows if the servers that do these things will be online 10 years from now? In fact, I trust that it is more likely that Steam will outlast the any of the publishers currently in business, because it is likely that they will continue to adapt to the changes in the market. I think the only thing that would kill off Steam would be the death of the entire PC gaming market. If anything, Steam and other online retailers play a huge part in the continued existence and health of the PC games market. On a strictly personal note, the idea of "renting" my games no longer bothers me as it once did. The fact is, with the large number of games that I own, I struggle (happily, I might add) to find the time to play all of them, particularly since I always finish games that have a story that comes to some sort of conclusion. It is very rare for me to go back and replay a game that I have already finished, even if I really enjoyed it, because that means that I will have less time to have new experiences that are waiting for me in my games queue. So while the idea of replaying old favorites is appealing--and I DO replay old games on rare occasions--I am no longer bothered by the idea that I may not be able to reinstall and replay some of my game 10 years down the road. In fact, I'm looking forward to whatever technology we will have in 10 years that will have me looking back and laughing at the "obsolete" technology that we used to play with--the very machines we are playing with today. Online distribution is the future of gaming; I have no doubts about this. To shy away from it is to eventually shy away from gaming entirely.

Unfortunately, this will conflict with our podcast recording session, so I won't be able to be there.

Don't hold back, John; tell us how you really feel. P.S. Please post your email address in this public forum so that I can gift you a game via Steam.

With the recent cuts to his salary and playing time, Pele began moonlighting as a proctologist.

If both of you end up getting this and give it a "thumbs up", I'll be glad to join you.

It's only a matter of time before some of our members and guests start using their webcams to play with LEGOs together. TeamSpeak 3 - Welcome to Legion of Sparta * Welcome Channel * AFK - JHunter - Zeno * LEGOs, Rainbows & Bubblegum - EMT - KalXen - Hajimoto - El Noobiachi

At some point earlier today, Steam dumped a lot of games into the "Specials" category. Among the highlights: * The Rainbow Six games (Vegas 2 is $6.69). * The Silent Hunter games (Silent Hunter 4 is $13.39) * World in Conflict ($13.39, you might like it if you enjoy CoH, and there is a demo available). Worth looking into. Personally, I would recommend WiC if you enjoy RTS games; the game focuses on a "what-if?" scenario where the USSR invades the USA in the mid/late 1980's. The narrative for the SP campaign is excellent, and MP is very different from CoH because each player on a team focuses on controlling one aspect of their side's forces (air, armor, infantry, artillery, etc.) instead of each player having an entire army of their own to manage. And if you don't purchase it now, I'm sure it will be on sale again soon during Steam's Summer Sale. ** EDIT ** I should correct myself and say you might enjoy WiC if you enjoy RTS games, but not necessarily CoH. WiC has no base-building mechanics; the game focuses entirely on tactical combat.

It is indeed, however, these SSDs have some of the best performance benchmarks. There were cheaper options, but in my research, these had better performance reviews, which is the reason why I chose to upgrade. I'm really NOT looking forward to installing everything again, but doing so won't take nearly as long as previous rebuilds. Most of my games are through Steam now, and I've used Steam's back-up function to archive every single game to an internal 2TB drive. Re-installing from these archives is MUCH faster than installing from CDs/DVDs, and they should install even faster now that they are being written to SSDs. And of course, I'll only be re-installing less than half of my game library: the games I play regularly and games I have yet to play but that I plan on playing very soon. Also, I'll be installing Windows 7 from a USB flash drive, so that should be interesting, installing from one flash medium to another. I'll have to use a stopwatch to measure the period from the time I press 'go' at the install prompt until I get to my first desktop.

UPS just delivered the following to my front porch (I'd like to say that they did so out of kindness, but I had to pay for everything): * 2x Intel 250GB SSDs * A few random parts to upgrade one of my workstations I've finally decided to use my "power rig" exclusively for gaming. The other random parts I mentioned above will be used to upgrade a workstation that I will be using for all tasks EXCEPT gaming. As for my main machine, I am going to RAID the two SSDs to show as one 500GB drive, and I'll keep one of the 2TB platter drives installed for recording Fraps footage. The only downside to all of this is the fact that, with only 500GB of space--part of which will be taken up by the OS--I will no longer be able to have ALL of my games installed (my 2TB 'Games' HDD shows 946GB used). I'll just have to go without the games that I've "finished" (which is about half of my library). In addition to faster boot and loading times, I'm hoping that I'll see some performance improvements in some games; Zeno has said that he's noticed better performance in Arma when it comes to loading textures. Since I'm new to SSDs, I'll have to read up on the utilities required for proper feeding and maintenance; I know that I'm not supposed to defrag the drives, but that instead I should use some sort of utility that more or less does the same thing to keep performance standards up-to-speed. Before I reinstall everything, I'm going to do a few benchmarks (boot and loading times) so that I can compare those results to post-upgrade performance measurements.

Thank goodness. With only 200 games installed on my system, I was worried about getting bored.

So this is how Microsoft is promoting PC gaming: by giving an Xbox to any student purchasing what is probably a gaming-capable PC ($700 minimum price tag). Good job, MS!

It's a good thing that I was planning on building a new rig for myself at Christmas or at least by early next year; looks like I am going to need it. Those system requirements are the most demanding that I've seen as far as minimum specs are concerned.

Thanks, I will look for it during the Steam Summer Sale. I never planned on playing its MP, hence the reason I never bought it. But for $15 or $20, if it has a good SP campaign, that is worth it to me.

I'd be up for some Terrorist Hunts. I have both R6Vegas games.

I doubt that it will make a difference. We used my server when we made the 'BattleBus Swing' video, and there was still rubber-banding with two of the three Hummers we used, as well as with the buses. I think the rubber-banding is caused by the wide array of pings we have; as long as we have both EU and NA players involved, it will happen. So, obviously, we need to get rid of the EU players.

I will be there, ready to record if necessary.

I stopped at Best Buy for some printer ink today and noticed that Brink was on the half-of-the-part-of-the-small-section-of-a-shelf that is their PC Games Section. It was hidden behind the Bad Company 2 copies, and I only noticed it because the retail box is a very bright blue color. Of course, I would have waited until I got home to purchase it from Steam, but I decided to look for reviews first, and am now glad that I did. I've read 5 full reviews of the game, and even with a patch forthcoming, it just doesn't sound very interesting. I was never really interested to begin with, so I'm going to pass on it.

I am also of the 'wait-and-see' attitude. There's nothing about this game that jumps out at me and says 'BUY ME!', but if it gets great reviews and recommendation from friends, I will be willing to jump in. I'm finally letting older MP games fade out; CS:S and BC2 were great fun, but I think I've done all I can with those games, and I will only load them to play if invited by friends. TF2 I love still, but I usually only play for a weekend, then go up to a month without loading it up. Black Ops I have retired for good. In the meantime, I plan on getting into the new Section 8, and I hope I can get some co-op time in with TQ: Immortal Throne. Arma is always an option. But I think this leaves room in my gaming schedule for a new MP shooter, and Brink might fit the bill if it's good.

Dai, could you please post some gameplay video and your impressions when you get a chance? This looks interesting, perhaps similar to EVE but without all of the spreadsheets.

My apologies, Batwing, but I had to do this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fE5IXFuw1pQ

I have to admit that I am a bit envious that you have this facility in your back yard. Still, I am also fortunate. The Miller Motorsports park is a 30-minute drive from my home, and I already have my tickets for the first big event of the year: http://www.millermotorsportspark.com/events/featured/big-m-weekend-sbk-usa.html And some video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3orw9n1LCo