Posts Tagged ‘crysis’

Big FPS shoot-out

Sunday, January 6th, 2008

Some while ago I got my new computer, and I bought some FPS (First Person Shooter) games, and now I’ve finally played enough to make up an opinion about them:

Crysis
Well, first of all I had very high expectations to this game, as Far Cry was my favorite FPS game ever, and all the graphics hype also rose the expectations. I bought this game together with COD4 and HL2, and played it first right up until you go from fighting Koreans to aliens. Then I tried out some HL2, and then I forgot all about Crysis.

I still have not completed the game, as I kind of lost interest after getting to the part with the aliens. The graphics is superb, and the first part when you are on the Island fighting Koreans is great (basically just Far Cry with a fancy suit on), but after this the levels get boring. Will probably play the first part again, while I wait for Far Cry 2 :)

Rating: 7.5 / 10

Call of duty 4
I played this for a night when I thought there was something wrong with my Crysis disc (but it installed fine with antivirus disabled). However HL2 completely dominated my game time pretty long, then I got back to this game.. It is by far the most enjoyable Call of Duty game so far even tough it does not let you attack Normandy :( The game is very short, but has several enjoying missions like shooting at people miles away from the gunship only Thermal video, the sniper mission, shooting at people from a moving car, etc.. The graphics and sound is great and the missions are fun, but the game is to short :|

I don’t care much for the endless waves of enemies popping up, forcing you to constantly push forward, but it actually worked pretty well in this game.

Rating: 8 / 10

The orange box

  • Half-Life 2
    I played trough this game in 17 hours, and was not even tempted to start up crysis once ;) The story is very good and the game is way better than the original Half-Life ever was. It might have been a bit short, but defiantly one of the best FPS games I’ve ever played, up there with Far Cry.
  • Half-Life 2: The Lost Coast
    Well, this was 20 minutes of moderate fun, nothing special, but it was “free” so I cant really complain. Not worth playing
  • Half-Life 2: Episode one
    This starts up right after Half-Life 2 end. I’m really glad there is a episode 1 and 2, as both the original Half-Life 2 and episode 1 ends rather abruptly. The episode was a bit short, and only lasted around 5 hours.
  • Half-Life 2: Episode two
    Again, this picks up where Episode one left off, But I think the maps of episode2 are better, and the story is great.. It does not end as suddenly as episode 1 or HL2, but I will be buying episode 3 as soon as it is available on steam or in the store. This episode took 6 and a half hour to play trough.
  • Portal
    This was the first game from the Orange box that I tried, and the gameplay is pure genius, I’ve already written a whole post dedicated to portal, but to sum it up: Extremely fun, really refreshing and cool gameplay, funny humor, but much to short :(
  • Team Fortress 2
    Pure multiplayer, but pretty fun.. Very cartoony and a bit silly.. I think the playable classes are very well balanced and fun to play, the maps and game modes are also very entertaining.

rating: 10/10

Conclusions
Now the original Far Cry is the second best FPS game I’ve ever played :|

Half Life 2 completely blows Crysis out of the water, sure Crysis looks fantastic, but when it comes to the story Crysis basically has “special ops kill Koreans, stop aliens” while the Half Life universe has a brilliant story and lovable characters. I am really looking forward to Episode 3 which is said to end the HL2 story arc. Also Since a cargo/research ship owned by Aperture Science will be the main focus, one can only hope for a Portal gun :D

Operation silent computer

Sunday, December 9th, 2007

Everything comes at a price. For example, my new computer though being able to run Crysis pretty smooth, sounds like a small hovercraft. And as requested by Stacy I decided to move the computer out into the hallway.

Step 1: Drill a large hole in the wall between the living room and the hallway, the hole is up under the roof, next to the projector screen
Hole in wall

Step 2: Order one 10 meter long DVI cable, 2 PS2 cables, 3x audio cables and wait around 2 weeks :(

Step 3: Extend the hole to so that the DVI connector fits trough it :)

Step 4: Put a junction box over the hole and run all the cables trough it
Cables trough the wall

Step 5: Put the PC in the hallway on top of your weapon safe and connect all the cables, then close up the junction boxes
Pc in hallway (Click for larger view)

Step 6: Enjoy your very tidy desk (that shuttle computer on my desk is my trusty server hosting aakretech.org, etc..)
Tidy desktop (Click for larger view)

The result is really amazing, and the living room is much more quiet and pleasant. And when I walk into the hallway and is hit by that monstrous sound I find it hard to believe I could sit 50 cm from it for hours on end :)

Portal

Thursday, November 22nd, 2007

I managed to drag myself away from Crysis and play Portal which came with the Orange box, and DAMN.. that was one of the best games I’ve played in years.

The level designs are very funny and clever, and using the portal gun was the most fun I think I’ve ever had in a game. The humor is also very good, and the levels.. Did I mention the levels? :)

The cake is a lie!

Anyway the game has a small downside, it is WAY to short and the last levels where not very challenging, I am however looking forward to playing the 6 advanced bonus levels. The main story only took 3.2 hours to complete (thank you Steam), and I feel it should have been at least twice as long. I can however see myself playing this game over and over again, especially to get the “achievements” in the game (make very long jumps, make a loop and fall 30’000 feet, etc..). I think this is one of the games with the best replay value I’ve seen this year.

Rating 9 / 10

This weekends code

Tuesday, November 20th, 2007

While most of this weekend was well spent playing Crysis, I actually managed to get a bit of programming done. At work we usually work on several projects a day and we have to keep track of the hours we use on each project so that customers are billed correctly.. and at the end of the day it can get pretty hard remembering what you did and how long it took you to do it.

So i made this little Java application called TimeTrack that pops up every 45 minutes (or whatever you ask it to) and asks me what I’m doing. This should make it easier to write up my hours every Monday morning :)

TimeTrack time track options

It was also kinda therapeutic to work on a small program where I get to design everything, and there is no changing requirement specification and I can finish the program and put it behind me (well maybe I’ll throw in a few quick fixes). Anyway.. I’m going to continue my Halflife 2 install and try out Portal

Crysis scare!

Friday, November 16th, 2007

I got my new computer set up now, with two XFX 8800GTS in SLI, and imagine my horror when Crysis refused to install:

Error 1335. The cabinet file ‘Object~1.cab’ required for
this installation is corrupt and cannot be used. This
could indicate a network error, an error reading from
the CD-ROM, or a problem with this package

I tried installing it 3 times and then I gave up, asuming the DVD was damaged. I played Call of Duty 4 for a few hours (pretty neat campaign so far).
Then I tried googleling the error message and found out I’m not the only one who had this problem.

I tried the simplest of the solution first (disabling my AVG antivirus software) and hey presto, Crysis installed without problems :)

New Computer

Friday, November 9th, 2007

I used my shiny new credit card to order myself a brand new computer today :) Just ordered the computer, will keep my old screen/keyboard mouse.

Specs:

  • Cooler Master Centurion 534 tower
  • Corsair Powersupply 620W
  • Asus M2N32-SLI Deluxe motherboard
  • AMD Athlon 64 X2 6000+ 3.0GHz CPU
  • Corsair TWIN2X 6400 DDR2, 2GB RAM
  • Samsung SpinPoint T166 500GB hard drive
  • 2x XFX GeForce 8800GTS 500M 320MB graphics card
  • And a new DVD Burner + a fancy mousepad

Now I can look forward to playing games such as:

  • Crysis
  • Farcry 2
  • Silent Hunter 4 (this was so choppy on my current computer that I could not play it)
  • NeverWinter Nights 2 (my computer had a really hard time running it, choppy even at low graphics)
  • Call of Duty 4
  • BioShock (maybe, don’t think it’s my cup of tea, at least I should play the demo)
  • Half Life 2 (never really got to try this game)
  • Oblivion (have not completed it yet :( and there is also the expansion)
  • Age of Conan (Just going to try it a little, can probably quit any time I want)
  • Brothers in Arms: Hells Highway
  • Fallout 3
  • GTA 4
  • Postal 3
  • Startrek Online
  • Anything else that pops up :)