Avatech - Computers, Technology, Games, Movies, Airsoft Guns and More!: game

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19 April 2008

Rainbow Six Vegas 2 - Back to Sin City With Some New Stuffs

For anyone who ever played Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas last year, they will already know how intense and fun the game. Now Rainbow Six Vegas is back with a sequel, still in the same city but with some new fun additions.

Rainbow Six Vegas 2 is one of tactical team shooter based on Tom Clancy's franchise. You are a Bravo team leader named Bishop, the mentor of the first game's main character, Logan. You are back in Las Vegas to continue the story of the first game and to eliminate terrorist threat once and for all. For anyone who has played the first game, you will know that the main enemy is Gabriel Nowak, the former Rainbow Six team member gone bad. And once again, you will be teamed with Michael Walters, the demolition expert and Jung Park, the electronics expert.

The gameplay of this game is very similar to the first one, which is good because it can create an intense full-action combat complete with some simple team coordination. You can order your team to open a door, storm a room, throw a grenade, and move to a certain position just like in Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter. However, since Rainbow Six Lockdown, this team coordination and tactical choice has been much simplified. There are no more mission planning and elaborate team commands like in Raven Shield or Rogue Spear. This might be a dissapointment for someone who are interested in detailed planning and realistic condition. However, this simplification means broader acceptance for gamers because it is more action oriented and more gamer friendly. Basically the action in this game is intense without losing much tactical aspect of coordinating other team members. And about AI, both enemies and team members are very good. They can improvise based on locations and situations making their action looks real. However, there is some bug where the team members cannot pass through a door or stuck in some location. But after loading the last checkpoint, the bug is gone as the team members position are reset.
About the graphics, it uses the same Unreal Engine 3.0 as the original game. It gives a nice graphical effect complete with Shader Model 3.0 (SM 3.0) and blur motion. However, I notice that there is no improvement compared to the last year's release. Knowing that Unreal Engine is capable to do much more (See Unreal Tournament 3 or Assassin's Creed for comparison), Rainbow Six Vegas 2 graphics quality should have been improved, specifically in coarse texture details which makes it looks more like an XBOX 360 game than a PC game. However, overall the graphics looks quite nice with some special effects which suitable for the full-action gameplay experience. Note that to play this game, you will need a modern graphic card that supports SM 3.0.

While the gameplay formula and graphics quality remains the same as the first game. There are some additional features which makes this game more interesting. The most significant change is Vegas 2 includes a complete character editor which allows you to customise your character appearance from gender, face, armor, clothing, accessories, and arms. The best thing is that now you can use your own face for your main character by using an attached webcam in your PC. It looks really cool having the main character with your very own face. Other additions are the experience points known as A.C.E.S. system. As the game progresses, you will gain more experience points which allows you to unlock weapons, clothing, armor, accessories, and clothing colour / texture. Overall, the developer team has made great additional features which makes the game more fun.
Personally, I like this game even more than the first one. Although my dissapointment comes from the so-so graphics quality and almost no gameplay improvement. But with the same gameplay and some fun additions this game is superb. I would recommend this game for Tom Clancy series fans and any first person shooter gamers.

For more information, visit here: http://www.rainbowsixgame.com/

Download links (Only 2.1GB installer, Full-Rip edition and nothing lost!):
http://rapidshare.com/files/106263673/Tom.Clancy_s.Rainbow.Six.Vegas.2.Full.Rip-Team.JPN.part01.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/106266874/Tom.Clancy_s.Rainbow.Six.Vegas.2.Full.Rip-Team.JPN.part02.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/106269994/Tom.Clancy_s.Rainbow.Six.Vegas.2.Full.Rip-Team.JPN.part03.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/106273255/Tom.Clancy_s.Rainbow.Six.Vegas.2.Full.Rip-Team.JPN.part04.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/106276682/Tom.Clancy_s.Rainbow.Six.Vegas.2.Full.Rip-Team.JPN.part05.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/106279739/Tom.Clancy_s.Rainbow.Six.Vegas.2.Full.Rip-Team.JPN.part06.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/106309183/Tom.Clancy_s.Rainbow.Six.Vegas.2.Full.Rip-Team.JPN.part07.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/106312829/Tom.Clancy_s.Rainbow.Six.Vegas.2.Full.Rip-Team.JPN.part08.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/106316788/Tom.Clancy_s.Rainbow.Six.Vegas.2.Full.Rip-Team.JPN.part09.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/106321054/Tom.Clancy_s.Rainbow.Six.Vegas.2.Full.Rip-Team.JPN.part10.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/106325312/Tom.Clancy_s.Rainbow.Six.Vegas.2.Full.Rip-Team.JPN.part11.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/106330191/Tom.Clancy_s.Rainbow.Six.Vegas.2.Full.Rip-Team.JPN.part12.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/106335239/Tom.Clancy_s.Rainbow.Six.Vegas.2.Full.Rip-Team.JPN.part13.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/106341666/Tom.Clancy_s.Rainbow.Six.Vegas.2.Full.Rip-Team.JPN.part14.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/106346862/Tom.Clancy_s.Rainbow.Six.Vegas.2.Full.Rip-Team.JPN.part15.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/106353353/Tom.Clancy_s.Rainbow.Six.Vegas.2.Full.Rip-Team.JPN.part16.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/106359924/Tom.Clancy_s.Rainbow.Six.Vegas.2.Full.Rip-Team.JPN.part17.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/106368334/Tom.Clancy_s.Rainbow.Six.Vegas.2.Full.Rip-Team.JPN.part18.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/106376939/Tom.Clancy_s.Rainbow.Six.Vegas.2.Full.Rip-Team.JPN.part19.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/106383951/Tom.Clancy_s.Rainbow.Six.Vegas.2.Full.Rip-Team.JPN.part20.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/106391833/Tom.Clancy_s.Rainbow.Six.Vegas.2.Full.Rip-Team.JPN.part21.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/106400081/Tom.Clancy_s.Rainbow.Six.Vegas.2.Full.Rip-Team.JPN.part22.rar

14 April 2008

Assassin's Creed for PC is out!

24 March 2008

Audiosurf - An Addictive Puzzle Game You Never Seen Before

When the first time I read Audiosurf review from IGN.com, I was really not interested about this game theme. At first sight, I thought that this game is a musical game like Rock Band (which is lame in my opinion), but when I saw its screenshot, it looks like Tetris. Soon when I read the review, I got confused, what kind of game is this? It really makes me anxious to find out. Then at its official website, I found that this game is really cheap, it's just $9.95 to download!

This game is very unique, each level in this game is generated using your a music (MP3, WMA or AAC) file in your drive. After generating a level, you will be given control of a futuristic car where you have to try hit correct blocks based on your music rythym. This blocks-hitting concept is just like a combination of Guitar Hero with Puzzle Bobble or Zuma, where 3 blocks with same colour will give you some points (and there are much more other combination styles you can do). The faster your music flows, the harder the level will be. You can also change your "car" with other car type. Each car has its own special abilities and will effect the level design, e.g: Vegas car will let you shuffle your blocks collection so that it may create correct combination which will give you bonus points. In addition, you can have two player playing together using mouse and keyboard. And the best thing is that you don't have to own a super computer in order to play this game, any system which have a video card with 3D support can play this game smoothly.
After finished playing a level, you can see your high score compared to everyone that played the same song at the same level.

Personally, I've never seen a game like this before. It's very unique, creative, and very addictive (assuming you have a huge music collection in your hard drive). I would say that this game is suitable for all ages, from casual gamers to hardcore. Try this game and test your reflex now! I'm sure it will keep you busy for hours ;-p

Download here:
http://rapidshare.com/files/94237370/Audiosurf-DETONATiON-marquez.part1.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/94248818/Audiosurf-DETONATiON-marquez.part2.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/94260936/Audiosurf-DETONATiON-marquez.part3.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/94271945/Audiosurf-DETONATiON-marquez.part4.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/94273056/Audiosurf-DETONATiON-marquez.part5.rar

Here's the link for Update 1:
http://rapidshare.com/files/97531268/Audiosurf.Update.1-DETONATiON-marquez.rar

Note: You have to use virtual CD program like Daemon Tools to mount the .bin file.

22 March 2008

Crisis Core: Final Fantasy VII for PSP is Finally Released

For you who are Final Fantasy or RPG fans, after long waiting time, the English version of Crisis Core is out now! It's been few months since the Japanese version is released, there has been many efforts to translate it into english, some hacker even create an English translation of this game (for menu and texts only), but now the official release is in the market! Rejoice for all of us :-)

Crisis Core is the fourth installment of Final Fantasy VII series. The game focuses on Zack Fair and Cloud Strife's story. It features a new set of combat system, new characters, intriguing story, and even it includes some scenes from Advent Children movie. Anyway, just grab your PSP and play!

Here's some screenshots of the game:

Here's the link for the game:
http://rapidshare.com/files/100927425/em-ff7cc.part01.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/100927566/em-ff7cc.part02.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/100927643/em-ff7cc.part03.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/100927538/em-ff7cc.part04.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/100927499/em-ff7cc.part05.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/100927706/em-ff7cc.part06.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/100928860/em-ff7cc.part07.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/100935058/em-ff7cc.part08.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/100935117/em-ff7cc.part09.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/100934372/em-ff7cc.part10.rar

Password: www.pspisos.info

07 March 2008

God of War - Chains of Olympus is out!!

For everyone who wait for this game, let's celebrate! Your waiting is over, God of War - Chains of Olympus for PSP is out!

For anyone who don't know this game, here's the story: God of War is a hack-and-slash action game originally developed for PS2 by Ready At Dawn Studios. Now, this best-selling game has come to PSP with new story, new weapons, new bosses, and new fun action-adventure!

The story itself is all about Kratos, a fearsome Spartan warrior whose army foughts against thousands of barbarian horde. In Chains of Olympus, the timeline takes place before the original God of War. Some of the places that Kratos will visit are Gates of Hades, Tartarus, and city of Attica as you may have seen in the demo.

Here are some screenshots of the game:

If you want further information, please follow this link:
http://www.us.playstation.com/godofwar_chainsofolympus/

Here's the link to the game:
http://rapidshare.com/files/97207333/gowcoo.part01.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/97207601/gowcoo.part02.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/97208397/gowcoo.part03.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/97209368/gowcoo.part04.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/97209620/gowcoo.part05.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/97210483/gowcoo.part06.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/97211035/gowcoo.part07.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/97211896/gowcoo.part08.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/97212827/gowcoo.part09.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/97213714/gowcoo.part10.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/97215070/gowcoo.part11.rar
http://rapidshare.com/files/97214791/gowcoo.part12.rar

Password: www.pspisos.info

04 March 2008

Yoda Stories - A Forgotten Game for Star Wars Fans

I still remember around 10 years ago, when I was playing a simple Star Wars themed adventure game named Yoda Stories. I was still using Windows 95 when playing this game and for that time, this game was really great! Nice graphics, sound and the most important, it's really addictive. I always spent around 1-2 hours everyday playing this game after school and never got bored with this game.

The game itself takes place around episode 5 (Empire Strikes Back), when Luke was being trained by Jedi master Yoda. In the game, you will find almost infinite adventures, because maps and the quests are generated randomly. You can also change the map size for a longer gameplay. The missions are actually simple puzzles, from finding a tool, repairing a ship, moving a block to rescuing a rebel fellow. Whenever one mission is solved, the result of that mission (whether it's a keycard, hydrospanner, bomb, etc.) will be useful in completing the next mission. After all small missions are completed, there will be a final mission which takes longer to complete. The gameplay are designed in simple way but very creative and exciting, especially for a Star Wars fan.

Screenshot:

Luke Skywalker meets R2-D2 in Dagobah

And here's the game link (Already optimised to be compatible with XP and Vista):
http://rapidshare.com/files/96961586/YodaStories.zip

28 February 2008

iDeaS - A Nintendo DS Emulator for PC

You dream to play Nintendo DS games in PC but don't want to wait until the console is obsolete just like Bleem did? Now you can have a playable Nintendo DS emulator for PC. It has flaws and performance problems, but it is playable and run quite smoothly on modern computers.
Complete with WiFi and gamepad support, it's a real emulator and supports many games. However, due to heavy processing load, some 3D intensive games runs quite slow. It still needs many optimisation for future release.

Screenshot:
iDeaS with PES 2008 running

Here is the download link (Version 1.022 with WiFi and DirectInput plugins):
http://rapidshare.com/files/95606629/ideas1022.zip

27 February 2008

Mass Effect is Coming to PC!

Mass Effect is a RPG game by BioWare released in 2007 for XBOX360 and has been Nominated Game of the Year by many game magazines and websites. It features a stunning graphics and visual effects as well as an intriguing story and gameplay.

Mass Effect is set on 23rd century in Earth. Where there are many conflicts between human and alien races and artificial races. You play as Commander John Shepard (but you can customise his appearance), you will encounter many planets, races, and many decisions that you have to make. The world will be very dynamic where every actions that you made will affect the environments and characters attitude toward you. Apart from main quest of saving galaxy, you will be given a lot of interesting side quests and minigames. For a Knights of the Republic veteran will surely like this game, however, the gameplay mechanics are not recycled.

Mass Effect has gained many good reviews (for the XBOX 360 version). Gamespot gives 8.5 / 10, IGN gives 9.4 / 10, and GameSpy gives 5 out of 5! So, we can expect that the PC version will be at least as good as the XBOX 360 one.

Originally only intended for XBOX360, BioWare now has confirmed that it will be released for PC on May 6th, 2008. PC version will have better resolution, more detailed, and better support for mouse and keyboard. At last, the most important thing is that it will run quite smoothly in mid-range gaming computer. I'll return later with full download links when it has been released!

Screenshots:

23 February 2008

Gears of War PC Savegame Backup

The two most annoying bug in Gears of War PC are:

It only installs in C:\Program Files\, it is ridiculous since many users don't keep their files in the same drive as Windows files. But it can easily fixed by moving the game directory to another location later after installation.
Savegames are often corrupted, moreover you have to sign in to Microsoft Live in order to save your progress, it's really pain in the ass! In this case, internet connection is practically required. In this guide, I will show you how to relieve this savegames mess.

Suppose that you've just reformat your Windows drive, or your games goes crash, then you definitely want to restore your last position in the game. But guess what, when you run the game, your profile is lost!! And what's worse is that you cannot find where your savegames are located.

It is hidden by default, but that doesn't mean that you cannot back it up. Before backuping, make sure that your Windows Explorer is able to show hidden files and folders. Your profile location, along with the savegames is located in:

For Windows XP: C:\Documents and Settings\[Your Username]\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\XLive\Content
For Windows Vista: C:\Users\[Your Username]\AppData\Local\Microsoft\XLive\Content

After you backup this directory, you have no more to worry about! Game crash, repairing Windows, formatting your partition, you are ready to go!

Now you can go kick some bloody locust's asses!

22 February 2008

Crysis Benchmark Part 2

Here is the second part of my Crysis Benchmark as I promised. Now I have upgraded to Pentium D 940 3.20 GHz, let's now see the difference in Crysis performance!

Since Pentium D processors are naturally friendly to be overclocked, I used two clock settings in my benchmark. The first one is the original clock, which is 3.20 GHz, and the second one is the overclocked one 3.60 GHz. I got this by increasing the bus speed from 200MHz to 225 MHz (225 MHz x 16 = 3.60 GHz)

An overclocked Pentium D 940

To see my complete computer specs, please see my first post at: http://avateck.blogspot.com/2008/02/crysis-benchmark-part-1.html

I. Pentium D 940 original speed (3.20 GHz)
In this part, like usual I used two settings, one is overall high and the other is custom settings I used to play Crysis (combination of medium and high settings).

Test Run #1
Settings: High (Global settings to High)
Resolution: 1024x768
AntiAliasing: No
Demo Level: benchmark_cpu @ 7a.m.
Average FPS Results: 12.95 FPS
Screenshot:

Test Run #2
Settings: Custom
- VolumetricEffects=Medium
- Texture=High
- ObjectDetail=Medium
- Sound=Medium
- Shadows=Medium
- Water=High
- Physics=Medium
- Particles=Medium
- Shading=High
- PostProcessing=VeryHigh
- GameEffects=Medium
Resolution: 1024x768
AntiAliasing: No
Demo Level: benchmark_cpu @ 7a.m.
Average FPS Results: 15.96 FPS
Screenshot:

The result #1 shows that there is an increase of 1.05 FPS from Pentium 4 524, well it's not quite an improvement though. However, the second test shows a better result, 3.02 FPS difference from my old Pentium 4 524 or roughly 39% better performance!

II. Pentium D 940 overclocked speed (3.60 GHz)
Now let's see how Pentium D 940 performs when it is overclocked.

Test Run #1
Settings: High (Global settings to High)
Resolution: 1024x768
AntiAliasing: No
Demo Level: benchmark_cpu @ 7a.m.
Average FPS Results: 13.08 FPS

Test Run #2
Settings: Custom
- VolumetricEffects=Medium
- Texture=High
- ObjectDetail=Medium
- Sound=Medium
- Shadows=Medium
- Water=High
- Physics=Medium
- Particles=Medium
- Shading=High
- PostProcessing=VeryHigh
- GameEffects=Medium
Resolution: 1024x768
AntiAliasing: No
Demo Level: benchmark_cpu @ 7a.m.
Average FPS Results: 16.39 FPS

Now with overclocked speed. Test run #1 shows that there's only a little improvement at 13.08 FPS from 11.90 FPS at Pentium 4 524 and 12.95 FPS at original speed. And the second test show 16.39 FPS, which is only 0.43 FPS difference from the original speed.

The results conclusion is that overclocking Pentium D shows not much effect in 3D games performance. Especially Crysis, the performance depends more on video card power rather than CPU. However, a transformation from a single core processor (my old Pentium 4) to a dual core processor (Pentium D) indeed shows a significant performance. Perhaps the performance difference between these two processors is more significantly visible in general computing tasks (such as office programs, image editing, rendering image from 3D applications, etc).

19 February 2008

Crysis Benchmark Part 1

Hi! This is my first post in my blog. Today I'm going to benchmark my beloved PC to run Crysis, A new game from Crytek that boasts breathtaking visual graphics with realistic physics you never seen before.
Now before judging about anything, let's see if the visual effects are indeed stunning or killing.. if your PC cannot handle it.

First, I will show you my current PC specifications:
- CPU: Intel Pentium 4 524 3.06GHz with 533Mhz FSB (Prescott LGA775 32-bit 1MB L2 Cache)
- Mainboard: Gigabyte GA-8I945PLGE-RH with Intel 945PL Express chipset
- Video card: EVGA GeForce 8600GT 256MB (Standard version with 169.25 Forceware driver)
- Memory: 2GB PC-4200 DDR2 533MHz
- Hard disk: 3 7200rpm hard drives (1 SATA II, 1 IDE ATA 133) with the total of 360GB
- Sound card: RealTek Azalia on-board
- OS: Windows Vista Home Basic Edition SP1 v6.0.6001.18000 RTM (Yeah, I don't like the Ultimate one, I tried that one and I am really dissapointed with its performance!!)

For testing purpose, I use Crysis Benchmark Tool v1.0.0.5. The Crysis game itself is patched to v1.1.

Here are the test results!
Test Run #1
Settings: High (Global settings to High)
Resolution: 1024x768
AntiAliasing: No
Demo Level: benchmark_cpu @ 7a.m.
Average FPS Results: 11.90 FPS
Screenshot:

Test Run #2
Settings: Custom (This is the settings that I used to play the game)
- VolumetricEffects=Medium
- Texture=High
- ObjectDetail=Medium
- Sound=Medium
- Shadows=Medium
- Water=High
- Physics=Medium
- Particles=Medium
- Shading=High
- PostProcessing=VeryHigh
- GameEffects=Medium
Resolution: 1024x768
AntiAliasing: No
Demo Level: benchmark_cpu @ 7a.m.
Average FPS Results: 12.94 FPS
Screenshot:

Conclusion:
I didn't turn the settings lower than that because there will be huge noticeable differences in terms of visual quality which will make the gameplay somewhat unsatisfying (apart from the better FPS). So in this case, I think I have four options:
1. Upgrade my CPU to Pentium D
2. Upgrade my video card to 8800GTS (Which is quite impossible as my fund is limited and I just recently upgrade to 8600GT!!)
3. Upgrade the whole system (This one is ridiculous!!)
4. Throw away Crysis (This even more ridiculous, because I really like it!!)

So.. it seems that the reasonable option is to upgrade my CPU. Alright, next time I'll return with my new benchmark using Pentium D 940 3.20GHz 4MB L2 Cache. I think it should improve the FPS to 4-7 FPS.

If you have performance problem for Crysis but don't want to upgrade your PC, the Crysis guide from TweakGuides.com may prove useful. With some text editing, your PC may be able to run Crysis quite smoothly with a lot of visual effects compensation (Still, better than heavy lag..).

Links:
www.ea.com/crysis/ - Official Crysis website
downloads.guru3d.com/download.php?det=1791 - Crysis benchmark tool
www.tweakguides.com/Crysis_1.html - TweakGuide for Crysis