Gaming

Command & Conquer 3 : Tiberium Wars

The lastest installment of the Command & Conquer RTS games is due for release on the 26th ofcnc3.gif March. I decided to take a peek at the new game and if I should buy it soon.

After a hefty 1.2GB download, i installed the demo (all 2.7GB of it) and started up the game.

The tutorial and fire training level are very good and give nice introduction on how things are managed. the one key element that you will notice is that the mouse button are reversing roles again (compared to those in Generals). It took me a good while to get into the flow of the battle but i have to admit, it was difficult to stop once started.

In addtional to the normal DVD version there appears to be a Kane edition, witha few extras that will cost another £3 on the cost of the game.

Here are the minimum Specs:

  • OS: Windows XP, Windows Vista (32-bit; 64-bit versions of Vista are not supported)
  • CPU: 2.0GHz or high, or AMD equivalent
  • RAM: 512 MB or more
  • Disk Drive: 8x or faster DVD drive for retail SKUs, not required for digitally downloaded version
  • Hard Drive: 8.0 GB or more of free space
  • Video: GeForce4, ATI Radeon 8500 or greater (ATI Radeon 9200 and 9250 PCI, NVIDIA Geforce 4 MX cards not supported.)
  • Sound: DirectX 9.0c compatible sound card
  • Network, Internet Multiplayer: 2 players (no voice support) – 56 Kbps Internet connection; 2-8 players (with voice transmission) – Broadband-class connection

Another Beast on DVD is seems.

The Official Website Here

The Lost Experience (ARG)

Hot on the heals of the new series of Lost (2nd UK) an Alternate reality game (ARG) has been launched.

If you haven’t seen heard of ARG’s don’t worry, they often start with single piece of information known as a ‘rabbit hole’ (referencing Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll) which drags people into the game. In the case of the LOST Experience you are given a phone number to call, leading you to a website.

I’ll not bother to repeat content that has already been posted on countless other sites, but there are groups of people joining together to crack the puzzles and codes of ARGs, The lulls between clues can be fustrating and efforts to work on all possible information is theorised and debated on forums accross the world.

Going Retro

Armed with drink and snacks, Dok and I spend the evening looking up old games and listening to the dulcet tones of ZX Spectrum loading noises. We also found some classic samples of in-game music

Remember when games had a seperate cassette with music you could listen to while playing the game? Seems odd that now that modern games often have their soundtrack released seperately.

I can safely say that the Spectrum was the one item that changed my life, from the commands in BASIC, I wrote simple programs (aged 8-9), I think these would later place me in the frame of mind to become a programmer in the future.

My tribute to the ZX as you may have noticed is a loading image (it’s very small) in the top left-hand corner of this site. I’ve had it there since I themed the site.

Planetside Reserves

As you may or may not know Dok and myself play a MMOFPS/RPG called Planetside, it has been running for nearly 3 years now (launched May 19th 2003). Until now has always been a subscription game with the odd 14-30 free day trails floating about the place. Set to launch today (23rd) is a Planetside Demo named Planetside reserves (FAQ). 

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If you want to see what planetside is like before downloading the client then check out this video (8mb/16mb – MS Media Player 10) created by player MarcoPolo as part of the UK fans guerilla marketing campaign.

Lightning Tank EventIf you are going to play then drop me a line chaoticdecimation[at]chaosnc.com or pay my outfit (ChaosNC) a visit at our website, we will be glad to show you the ropes, answer any questions you have and run a teamspeak server for use in game.