Moody Gamer

Yep, I couldn’t help it. WoW is great fun and even though many hate it for being an addictive game, for whatever reason, it is just that good that I went back. Lots have changed since I left back in March 2008 which is when patch 2.4 was released with new content on the Island of Qual’Thalas that brought the Scryers and Aldor together against the forces of Kael’Thas who is planning to bring Kil’Jaeden back in the new and tough raid instance: The Sunwell. In addition of lots of new dailies (almost all daily quests are on that island) and badge gear, lots to keep people busy. Oh and lets not forget the cool new 5 man instance: The magisters Terrace.

Now that I am back, post patch 3.0.2, lots have changed and have been added since 2.4. Mainly in preparation of the second expansion pack: Wrath of the Lich king. Talents have been changed a lot, lots of class changes, the new inscription profession, the cool achievements system and huge raid encounter nerfs (Reported by many as 30% reduction from mobs to bosses) are just some of the main highlights of the patch. You can check the patch notes for further details. Also because of WotLK release date is nearing, you will find Argent Dawn officers around the cities asking for help to kill the undead showing up because of the Scourge invasion. There are cool rewards that you can find there so easily that can compete against Tier 5 items but as of writing, the invasion has stopped and only the vendors are still around.

The best thing is, everywhere you go in Azeroth or Outland, you will find huge amounts of activity going on. Mainly because people are trying to earn achievements or leveling their alts. I also started to level two new alts as well on separate accounts and using dual boxing to level them. Dual boxing is simply controlling two or more WoW characters at the same time on one or more machines. For me am using the same PC but having two windows open. The idea is that both characters level at the same time and help each other quickly to finish quests.

As for my main who is a Warlock, he is trying to finish any remaining quests in Outland and get exalted with remaining factions before the expansion arrives.

One big change I noticed is how much the latency has improved since early this year. Currently the ping stays in the range of 200-400 ms which is damn playable compared to the disaster that was before in the ranges of 600-1000+ ms. Also, a nice graphical update has been done to the game as some cool lighting and shadow effects have been added. It would be nice if Blizzard adds more shaders to the game to make it shinier at least.

Will keep you posted on new stuff as they arrive with my progress as time goes.

Just after the release of Crysis Warhead and on the 18th of September 2008, Mythic Entertainment has released the much anticipated MMORPG game based on the popular Warhammer franchise: Warhammer Online - Age of Reckoning. You can learn more about the game and how it fared by reading MEGamers Warhammer Online Review.

Today also marks the game’s first month since release and it is going strong. With 750,000 accounts and being the smoothest MMO launch ever, Mythic are off with an impressive start. All that remains is to see how WAR will fare against the test of time. Read up more about the first month of WAR.

For me, WAR is currently the game I am playing and, until now, plan to play for maybe a couple of months. At least hit the level cap which is 40 and am currently level 24 (Rank 24). I play as a Black Orc, named Grimaxe, which is a tank class but can play as a melee dps class (damage per second class, also known as damage dealers). The game is quite enjoyable and my first impression is better than when I started WoW. You got a lot of things to do from the start and there is that sense of no need to rush to Rank 40. You can experience almost a huge portion of the game from the start and during leveling.

When I do reach the level cap, I will evaluate if it is still fun to continue or stop. Keep in mind that even though I am limited by Rank 40 (Which is harder than getting WoW level 60 btw), there is a lot to work on to reach renown rank 80 (renown is like experience for participating in RvR activities like killing players from the other faction).

I have some concerns with the graphics engine since even with 3GB of RAM, it stutters, which can only means some sort of optimization is required. The other thing is the animation, Mythic really need to work on it and get it in sync with the actions. There are some other bugs and concerns but nothing to take away the fun and/or obvious. I log in and check for an open party to join for PQs (Public Quests), do normal quests, queue for scenarios or join a warband to siege a keep.

I managed to get into some of the dungeons but still have to clear one. Being a player who farmed WoW dungeons heavily, things are different and don’t work the same way. I guess with time we will figure it out.

If you are interested to joining the WAR then you can find me on the European server “Sea of Dreams” (not to be confused with the upcoming Bioshock prequel). Keep in mind that the monthly fee for the game is 15$ and you do get a one month free trial when you purchase an account.

Feel free to ask me any questions about the game.

Since I updated. Lots happened during that time: Ramadhan, Eid, started Masters program, excessive workload and working on some new reviews at MEGamers. So on the gaming scene, a huge amount of new stuff came out and/or happened that I don’t know where to start. Maybe a good starting point is what was I doing related to gaming.

First of all, I played and finished Devil May Cry 4 on the PC. Easy recommendation for button mashing players. You get to play as both Nero and Dante with each having their own play style. The game does suffer from one of the most horrible repetition of levels and boss fights. It is also worth to mention that it runs great on the PC compared to it’s older brother DMC3, so good job Capcom.

I also managed to grab a PS3 and a copy of Metal Gear Solid 4. All I can say that it is AWESOME. I can’t remember a game having a more complicated, twisted and emotional story better than this. I must warn you that it is very much recommended that you play MGS 1 to 3, which you can play on the PS2 (MGS1 was released on the PS1 and PC, while MGS2 was released later on PC after PS2 release). Keep in mind that MGS4 is about granting the player an experience through both cinematics and gameplay which both complement each other very well. The game is quite lengthy since I managed to go through it in about 19 hours without checking many features out because I aimed for the story. Though that time can be extended thanks to the replay value MGS games have. I haven’t checked out the multiplayer part of the game but from various feedbacks, it seems to be a blast.

Going back to PC, As I told you before, I purchased Crysis Warhead from Steam. Being in Oman, I totally recommend against this. It is both slow and expensive to get the game that way. Since you will have to pay 30$ for the game and then pay for the gigabytes to download through Omantel which many of you know, is bloody expensive (1RO per GB or about 2.6$ per GB). So you will end up paying more that 60$ for the game over here. Check out the review of Crysis Warhead to know more about the game.

One thing many of you know, Warhead is quite demanding on the PC, so I went ahead and bought me a Gigabyte Radeon 4870 512MB card (Contact me if you want to know where to get one in Oman) and am happy that I did. The game is now very playable on Enthusiast setting at 1680×1050 resolution. Though I can’t enable Anti aliasing ore Anisotropic Filtering. I also got me an extra 2 GB of RAM which helps a lot since Warhead is very resource hungry. Of course I did suffer the penalty of using Windows XP 32Bit version hence my PC shows only 3.25GB instead of 4GB. I guess 64 Bit OS is the way forward, but an extra GB is still useful.

I still have a lot to write about and because of time, I have to stop here and will update another day. Feel free to let me know of your experiences about the games mentioned above.

Well, it seems we have been discovered! Not sure if it was the first time or not but a recent report has been written about gamers in the middle east, more specifically in the Gulf area by rockpapershotgun. A website that has been around since the eighties!

I couldn’t have written about gamers (well the general gamers, not the “literate”) better than this. Since most who call themselves gamers around the region play one or a combination of the following: Counter Strike, WoW, C&C Generals and Dota. While the console gamers play Pro Evolution Soccer (especially modded ones which I came across personally). Regarding PES, it is widely known around the gulf as “Konami”. So don’t look puzzled when someone asks you “hey, wanna play Konami?”.

The report also mentions about the censorship here in the region which is true and many times are properly applied yet I fail to see why ban CoD4 and on the other hand watch ten year olds playing GTA4. With my own eyes I saw a mother buy a “P”ed GTA4 game for her son which was in that age range. Imagine how many bought it that i did not see. I played CoD4 and I don’t see it different than the many war books that you can easily find in the libraries.

In regards to the “P” word, the government tries to fight it, on PC only! It is so easy to find bootleg PS3 or Xbox360 games displayed at many shops at 10 times cheaper than the original’s price.

All in all, I recommend anyone who wants to have a current view of gaming in the Middle East to read the report at rockpapershotgun. Oh and laugh out loud at the “Really, All your games are original? Why?”.

Crytek, the developers of the very much hyped yet great game: Crysis will soon be releasing the Standalone expansion of the game named Crysis Warhead. The game story is the same as the first one except this time you get to play as Psycho instead of Nomad. The single player levels will be more action packed than before with a lot of improvements almost everywhere. The multiplayer has been also tweaked and also the big question answered: Will it run better? YES IT WILL. The first two reviews that went online already are giving great scores for the game. IGN gave it 9.4 while Eurogamer (which was harsh on MGS4) gave it 9/10. The reviews already say that it can run at high resolutions on Enthusiast (Very High) setting pretty well on a 8800 GTS card. Ofcourse no mention of Anti-Aliasing or Anisotropic Filtering being used. Still, the talk about performance optimizations are pretty evident in the reviews which is always good.

After Crysis was released, Crytek wasn’t happy on how the sales went and blamed it on piracy. So they already announced that they will stop releasing PC exclusives and might consider console releases. Though with the near release of Crysis Warhead (25th September 2008), in a surprise move, Crytek announced that both Crysis and Crysis Warhead are available on Steam! For those who don’t know, Steam is an application you can install on your PC and through it buy and download games. You can quickly learn more about Steam at store.steampowered.com/about. This marks the first EA game being released on Steam and questions are already floating on whether more games will follow (Red Alert 3!).

The reason for Crytek releasing both games on Steam is because it proved to be a very effective way to sell games with lesser risk of piracy and hence better sales which might help Crytek reconsider their PC exclusives direction, though I doubt.

Lastly, I went ahead and pre-ordered Crysis Warhead of Steam (it is released there on 16th of September) which is the first time I use it, lets see how it goes oh and keep an eye for MEGamers review.

A company named Stardock, who are behind a game called Sins of a Solar Empire, have made a list that contains what they consider “The Gamer’s Bill of Rights”. Which I have listed here:

1. Gamers shall have the right to return games that don’t work with their computers for a full refund. (Barely any store store around here in Oman does that, though you can exchange with something else)
2. Gamers shall have the right to demand that games be released in a finished state. (This one is much needed since half baked games are the norm these days with lots and sometimes no patches. Must be enforced)
3. Gamers shall have the right to expect meaningful updates after a game’s release. (Yep, no patching something that SHOULD have been working from the start)
4. Gamers shall have the right to demand that download managers and updaters not force themselves to run or be forced to load in order to play a game. (Yep, though such programs are being forced on us and I hope they stop it)
5. Gamers shall have the right to expect that the minimum requirements for a game will mean that the game will play adequately on that computer. (Another true statement, lots of games minimum requirements are really not minimum since they will run the game in a sort of crippled mode)
6. Gamers shall have the right to expect that games won’t install hidden drivers or other potentially harmful software without their consent. (No Starforce or root kits please)
7. Gamers shall have the right to re-download the latest versions of the games they own at any time. (Logical and makes sense)
8. Gamers shall have the right to not be treated as potential criminals by developers or publishers. (Yeah, as in potential pirates I guess)
9. Gamers shall have the right to demand that a single-player game not force them to be connected to the Internet every time they wish to play. (Half-Life 2 and Bioshock anyone!)
10. Gamers shall have the right that games which are installed to the hard drive shall not require a CD/DVD to remain in the drive to play. (Hence will stop many from using Cracks and Mini-Images. It really is annoying to swap CDs/DVDs when someone plays different games)

The list is quite comprehensive and includes a lot of stuff many gamers lack in terms of such rights.

I have written a small guide in august that could help you decide what card to buy at the time for your gaming PC. You can still check out the August Graphics Card Upgrade guide since almost all the points I mentioned are still valid.

While I was checking around, I stepped on this really useful guide at Tomshardware.com. It skips all the charts and technical stuff that many are forced to go through to decide if a certain card really meets their criteria and requirements. Instead, the guide goes directly to the point. By going through price points and advising on the best card that such a price point can buy. The card prices go from sub 100$ to the 400$ point. Of course since cards like the mighty AMD 4870×2 and runner-up nVidia Geforce 280 are not included in the list simply because their performance/price ratio don’t fit in that guide. Hey, if you can buy such cards, you shouldn’t be even reading this!

To add the icing to the cake, the guide includes the best AGP graphics card out there PLUS a graphics card hierarchy chart which lists, from best to worst, cards out there including mobile versions.

The guide isn’t long and will definitly make your life easier in selecting the card that fits your pocket. Check out the Best Graphics Card for the Money September 08.

For those waiting for Activision Blizzard’s big hit RTS StarCraft II, a recent announcement hinted that the game won’t make it in 2008 and might end up being released in 2009 even though they are sticking with “when it’s done”. Knowing from Blizzard’s past, 2009 seems a more realistic release date than 2008 since they are pretty much famous for very long delays just to polish their games.

Another news tidbit that relates to StarCraft II is a possible fourth race to be included in the expansion. Since we all know by now that popular games do get expansions. Activision Blizzard noted that it was time consuming and difficult to include a fourth race in the base game. With races like humans, high tech aliens and brood monsterous aliens what kind of fourth race can we expect? Robots or bionics? One thing for sure, we won’t know before StarCraft II is released.

Check out the details regarding the release date at StarCraftWire.net and the fourth race tidbit at ShackNews.

Am sure by now you have noticed how much of a fan of Red Alert series I am. Why not when the game really focuses on fun factor a lot. Keep in mind I play almost every popular RTS out there too! Anyway, fan or not, EA are giving away the first Red Alert for FREE. Yep, no strings attached, no registration required, just a direct link to the compressed ISO images which you can load on a virtual CD or burn on a blank CD and get started playing the first Red Alert and second C&C game.

Scroll down at this EA link to get the download files.

In addition, if you pre-order Red Alert 3, you will instantly get Red Alert 2 with it for free. It isn’t really necessary to play the previous installements but it is great fun to pass time if you are waiting for Red Alert 3 to be released or just want to explore the old versions.

There has been a lot of talk lately with the advent of current generation consoles like XBox 360, PS3 and Wii about PC gaming being in decline. Most of the flak being shot because of the ongoing trend of PC developers are either going cross-platform, console first PC later or console exclusive development. Add to that the rampant piracy on the PC platform coupled with possible difficulty in developing for various hardware configurations versus a single platform configuration that is available on the consoles.

Yet what is being reported by the PC Gaming Alliance shows otherwise and that PC gaming is far from dieing thanks to online gaming power on the PC (MMOs anyone) and ability to directly download games to your PC (Steam everyone!) are some of the dominant yet few of the reasons why PC gaming will continue to breathe.

Check out the full report on PC Gaming Alliance website.