TF2 Digital Jedi

This has nothing to do with TF2. So here’s a recreation of The Simpsons in Quake3.

I have been keeping track of some overclocking adventures on personal blog and just wanted to share some of the results that I was able to get with the addition of the Antec 900 gaming case.

Over the weekend I rebuilt my computer into the Antec 900 case. The parts arrived on Tuesday but with work and TF2 matches I couldn’t risk being down during the middle of the week. This case is a definite improvement in cooling over the Sonata III that I originally purchased for my system.

When I initially was putting this system together I didn’t expect to do any overclocking. The hardware was already pretty fast and would play any games out now and rocked my primary concern of Team Fortress 2 without breaking a sweat. Then I tried overclocking just to see what performance gain I could achieve and was pleasantly surprised that I could take the processor to 3.6GHZ on stock cooling.

Sorry for the cross post, but copy & paste is too easy and I really think other gamers can benefit from this case.

A friend of mine sent me a really sweet trailer for the upcoming Star Wars game where you start as an apprentice to a dark lord and learn the powers of the dark side. See what it took to bring this game from a concept and a collection of technologies into a single cohesive game. Some of the in game shots are simply incredible, check it out for yourself.

Tendril pointed me to this article, which contains the most useless set of stupid addons for a gaming system ever. The brand new Wiimote weapon kit takes uselessness to dangerous new levels. With people already throwing their wiimotes through their televisions through overzealous use, it’s only a matter of time before somebody loses an eye. ….Or is that when the fun starts?

It’s tough to beat this latest bundle from the folks at Dragon Electronics, which offers no less than eight ways to accessorize your Wiimote and nunchuck. That includes a pair of daggers, an axe, and a pistol to name a few

Holy crap, after 6 years with no sign of graduating from vaporware, shacknews had a post discussing the newly released Duke Nukem Forever Trailer. I waited over 10 years for TF2 and it finally came out, so this is a glimmer of hope for all the fans of the Duke 3d series. Enjoy.

Guitar Hero has been a breakthrough series. However Yahtzee over at The Escapist makes some great points about their latest release GH3, apparently without taking a single breath.

This week on Zero Punctuation, Yahtzee gaily shreds Guitar Hero III.

Yahtzee is a British-born, currently Australian-based writer and gamer with a sweet hat and a chip on his shoulder. When he isn’t talking very fast into a headset mic he also designs freeware adventure games and does the occasional feature for Australia’s Hyper Magazine. His personal site is www.fullyramblomatic.com.

Spike has announced the winners for their 2007 Video Game Awards. Orange Box which brought home two awards this year, won for the best technology in Portal and best PC game thanks to it’s multi-faceted single player and multi player experiences. Orange box included the entire HL2 story line as well as Portal and Team Fortress 2. I don’t have any idea how Halo-3 won best multiplayer game, possibly due to fluff surrounding the game like Xbox live. Team Fortress 2, while it has a learning curve, presented an entire new way of thinking about online teamplay, to an entire new audience that may never have experienced the joy of team fortress that was enjoyed by so many during the quake world era.

Also of note are the awards by a relative latecomer in 2007, Call Of Duty 4. This shooter was by far the most impressive single-player experience I have had the pleasure to play in the past few years. It was the clear winner in the two categories it came away with, top shooter and top military game.

2007 Awards

• Game of the Year: BioShock
• Studio of the Year: Harmonix
• Best Shooter: Call of Duty : 4 Modern Warfare
• Best RPG: Mass Effect
• Best Military Game: Call of Duty : 4 Modern Warfare
• Best Individual Sports Game: skate
• Best Handheld Game: The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass
• Best Graphics: Crysis
• Best Game Based on a Movie or TV Show: The Simpsons the Game
• Best Rhythm Game: Rock Band
• Best Driving Game: Dirt
• Best Action Game: Super Mario Galaxy
• Best Team Sports Game: Madden NFL ‘08
• Best Soundtrack: Guitar Hero 3
• Breakthrough Technology: Half Life 2: The Orange Box
• Best Xbox 360 Game: BioShock
• Best Wii Game: Super Mario Galaxy
• Best PS3 Game: Ratchet and Clank: Tools of Destruction
• Best PC Game: The Orange Box
• Best Original Score: Bioshock
• Best Multiplayer Game: Halo 3
• Most Addictive Video Game fueled by Dew: Halo 3

In my insatiable quest for all that is TF2, I ran across an article about crits on another new (to me) site called TF2 Insider. In this article, which is a copy of a post on Catacombs, the interviewer asks a few questions regarding crits and how they change the game from a boring deterministic system to a somewhat random tactical experience. They also talk about the logical fallacies made by players who don’t fully understand the system.

Adding randomness increases the range of possible tactical skill options. Sometimes, the crazy thing works. If a game is 100 percent deterministic, then only one tactic works. The more randomness you add, the wider the range of options becomes.

Finally, Hellgate London to become playable as a multiplayer game. The most annoying part of this game, the invisible party member bug, that should have been fixed *BEFORE* the release, has finally been fixed. This bug was so annoying, you and a single buddy could possibly see each other and destroy a board, but if you had more than that, forget about it. At least one person on everyone’s screen would be invisible, sometimes the entire party. I haven’t played this game in more than a week due to the stupid faults that weren’t caught before going live.

Patch 0.6 has one very notable fix – the invisible group member bug has been slain. This was a crafty, fierce thing with rows of nasty sharp teeth, but we believe it has now fallen into the mists of legend. We’ll stay vigilant in case it raises its ugly invisible head again.

I wish that Flagship would have waited until all major bugs were officially fixed before beginning to sell a faulty product. I hope that their oversight has not caused would be players to drop the game and go with something that doesn’t suck so bad. Patches are great, but the game is forever tarnished by this ugly bug. Read the full post over at Hellgate London Underground.

The guys over at TFTV have put together yet another improvement over their last video predicting the outcomes of CEVO’s quarterfinals in TF2. I would love to see some TGL coverage before STA though. TGL is further along in their tournament and as kaybee has pointed out, there are some stellar matches coming up in the next few days. I completely agree and hope that STA is delayed in leiu of these more competitive games.

Why would you do STA predictions when you have some awesome matchups in TGL this Sunday….20id vs SB, SIT vs UGKZ, -P- vs [TDA], 50|CAL vs ex. TGL is starting to have some interesting matchups this week. Would be nice to see some preds on that. -kaybee

Once again those guys, amazing work on your videos, this is the best thing that the TF community has had since modems went to 56k.