Well my new parts arrived on Monday, despite the fact that I was originally supposed to get them on Friday. There was a mix up in when the package was to be delivered, but in the end they made it to my place. After work, I promptly set to installing them. Overall, I am very satisfied with the results.

The first thing I set to installing was the CPU cooler. My original worries about the Freezer 7 Pro turned out to be unfounded. While there was a little trick to installing this, once I figured it out, it was quite simple. I did end up taking it off at one point so I'm wondering if that will affect the pre applied thermal paste in a negative way. I may, later on down the road, reapply with some thermal paste I have from before. Performance-wise, the Freezer 7 Pro only seemed to drop my temps by a few degress on average. The big surprise, instead, was the difference in volume between the old cooler and the new one. When I originally turned on the PC after installation I was worried that something went wrong because it was so much quieter. A quick double check relieved me of my worries. So the bottom line was this upgrade gave me a little more cooling and a considerable amount of noise reduction which is a-okay in my book.

Second to install was the videocard, the MSI N9600GT. I originally worried that it would be too big to fit in the motherboard due to the southbridge heatsink. As it turns out, though, there was plenty of room for the card and it went in like a charm. Where the CPU cooler gave me a unexpected benefit, this new card gave me exactly what I was asking for. Not only does this new GPU run 20-30 degrees Celsius cooler than my old 6800 Ultra, I doubled my 3DMark06 benchmark. I think I can easily say this was one of the best computer hardware related purchases I've ever made.

Lastly was the 250 gig SATA hard drive. Here's where there was a little hiccup in things. Since I bought the drive OEM, it didn't come with any cables. I didn't realize that I didn't have a spare SATA cable till it arrived, so I wasn't able to actually install it until I was able to get a hold of one this morning. Had to check a few different places in town, but I finally came up with one. SATA cable in hand, I installed the new drive and got to installing games.

So far, I can only say good things about this experience. I got all I could really ask for and more out of the money I spent. Now I can get back to gaming on the PC, and I do have some catching up to do. One example of this catching up is The Witcher. I had originally planned on waiting for the Enhanced Edition, but since I was fortunate enough to get a free copy with the video card, I'll probably end up playing it sooner. Some other games I plan on installing and giving another go on are S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Shadows of Chernobyl (Hopefully I'll be able to use Dx9 lighting this time) and the always awesome Company of Heroes (I'll really be able to crank the graphics up now). Hell I even had a thought of playing Oblivion again, against my best judgement.

The Usual Ramblings

Much of my time lately has been spent going over PC hardware. Readers may know that I've been wanting to build a new PC since about October of last year. Unfortunately that never materialized. In the meantime, my current PC has been limping on with a chronic case of overheating. It's gotten to the point where I haven't even been playing any PC games on it. The GPU idles in the 70C range these days. That right there makes me want to do as little with the GPU as possible.

So for a while there I was still eager about building a new PC from the ground up, but what with the new job and all, I felt like I wouldn't have the time, space, or motivation to build one from scratch. Realizing this, I started pricing out laptops. I have my eyes on an ASUS M50SV. A sharp little 15.4" that would be good for taking between home and work. Knowing relatively nothing on laptops, it was kind of an eye opener to see how laptop pricing and hardware works.

I was looking for something that would be at least gaming worthy, but didn't want a heavy 17" laptop. As it turns out, though, most of the higher end laptop GPUs don't come in any of the 15" models. The ASUS I was looking at benchmarks on 3dMark06 roughly in the same ballpark as my current PC! Not a lot to be super excited about since this computer can't handle more recent games very well. This is when I started thinking I had better put a little money into my current PC in trying to make it run a bit cooler. What's the use of a PC if you're afraid to even use it?

So yesterday I spent some time pricing out some parts on newegg, in an attempt to get this hawg to cool down. The two main things I am looking for are a new CPU fan/heatsink combo to help drop the temp on my CPU/frying pan. The other siginificant thing I wanted to do is get a video card that would exhaust out the back of the PC, rather than into the PC as my current GPU does now. Some smaller additions being a more powerful 80mm fan for the side intake, and a secondary hard drive (for Age of Conan, of course). I figured I could get away for all this relatively cheaply and it would prove as a stopgap till I could afford that new laptop.

Here's a quick list of the parts I have my eyes on:

Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro This looks like a good cheap fix to my cpu heat issue. I can use this to blow the hot air straight to the back case fan. I am a concerned about the installation, as many commenters say it is difficult to install.

MSI N9600GT 512M Here's a cheap midrange 2 slot card that exhausts out the back. It's also using the new smaller die shrink that will help it run cool from the get go. With this, I predict a good drop in my overall temps. The only worry I have with this is that the southbridge heatsink on my motherboard sits very close to my current GPU and I am concerned that it will prevent me from using this card.

Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 ST3250410AS This is a 250 gig hard drive that is very similiar to my current hard drive. This will allow me to use my existing 80 gig hard drive for media, while keeping the new HD free for games. My only concern with this item is keeping the cabling organized in the case, otherwise not that big of a deal.

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Latest Gaming Update

Gaming of late has been consistent with the last update, for the most part. Rock Band and Smash Bros are constants in my gaming schedule. Other games I've picked up since the last update are GTAIV (yeah I gave in to the hype) and Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicals: My Life as a King (interesting game that reminds me of the Dungeon Keeper series). Some of my friends talked me into trying the free to play MMO, Rappelz, which I grew quickly bored with. And of course, Age of Conan has been on the top of my "want to play" list for a while still.

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Always bet on Duke!

One last thing to address.

The Duke Nukem Forever gameplay clip from a few days back totally came out of left field. I am probably more excited about that than I should be, but c'mon it's Duke friggin' Nukem. It was a short clip, but it was enough to confirm that this game isn't vaporware.

Concerning DNF's long development time, it makes me wonder what 3D Realms does to actually make money these days. They had a hand in Max Payne, and then they had a hand in Prey, but what else have they done in the past 5 years? Just seems financially unfeasible for these guys to still be in business when they've been on the backburner for so long.

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Lifesupport

Didn't have a lot of motivation for blogging lately, but once I started writing this one, it became longer than I expected. Hopefully the slump is over with. If and when the PC hardware comes in, you can expect an update telling how it went.

Here's a little update for the ol' blogspace. Been quite busy lately and haven't had much time to browse or post in my usual hangouts. Having just recently gotten a new job and a new apartment, I haven't had much web time for that kind of thing. In fact I didn't even get internet till this Monday. Hope to be able to return to my browsing/posting schedule in the next few weeks, though. While gaming has been kinda sparce, it's mostly been Smash Bros or Rockband when I can. I try to fit in some LOTRO every now and then, but haven't really lately. Will post again once things have settled down a bit.

What with the realization of the 30 gig required hard drive space and the recently announced $60 price tag, I feel the need to **** and moan a little bit here.

I have been, for a while now, anticipating the release of this game. Mostly the "SUPER INNOVATIVE NEW COMBAT" that is basically the cornerstone of its entire release. However, there's really no option for me to play it on my current rig when nearly half my current hard drive is required just to install the game, and there's no telling how much more space patching will take up. Okay let's evaluate this a little. 30 gigabytes. That's easily three or four times bigger than any other game install I've ever seen in my life. What exactly is taking up all this space? My current MMO, Lord of the Rings Online, comparatively, only required 7 gigabytes to install (with a recommended 10 gigabytes). I would be interested in seeing a graph that represents the required hard drive space for the average game over the past 10-15 years.

Also, a $60 Suggested Retail Price? Really? Is this what the "Games for Windows" trademark is supposed to do for me? PC games have, for the most part, held fast at the $50 spot for as long as I remember, so this price hike, especially considering that the user is about to embark on an extended payment plan just to play the game, seems like a scam. Yeah, yeah, you might be saying, "Big whoop, what's another $10?" My response is, "What is my extra $10 paying for?" It sure as hell isn't paying for more content than a tradionally priced $50 game would be. In this day of age where the developers and publishers are trying to force micro payments down our throat, this additional charge is most unwelcome.

So basically what this boils down to is my continued stance on PC gaming. Which can be summed up as, "Don't buy anything new." My current PC can't or won't provide the performance I want in my gaming on today's games. The last PC game I purchased at release was S.T.A.L.K.E.R. in March of 2007. While I enjoyed that game, I realized that much of the enjoyment potential of that game had been thrown out the window when I was forced to switch down to directx 8 model lighting for performance reasons. I've been waiting to build a new PC, before getting heavily back into PC gaming (which unfortunately keeps getting pushed back because of priorties).

The other thing that supports my "Don't buy anything new" stance, is the fact that you might as well just wait for the price of a game to drop, especially if this $60 a game nonsense is going to continue. I wouldn't drop an extra Hamilton on a game purchase 10 years ago when games were AWESOME, I sure as hell ain't doing it today when half the crap published is shovelware.

/endrant

EDIT: So there's no complaints on the part of the $60 price tag bit, here's where I got my info from. Link courtesy of Ten-Ton Hammer & Kotaku

Red Hot Chili Peppers: Dani California

It was too much for one kick pedal to take.

UPDATE: I got the replacement peddle on Friday. Now to return to your regularly scheduled rocking.

I know I mentioned something about putting up a list of games I'm looking forward to for the next blog post, but I didn't get around to it. Maybe I'll come up with something for next time. Instead, I'll waste some more time rambling about my current gameplay habits.

After some more time with Super Smash Brothers Brawl, I threw on a rating for it. Yeah I know that my reviewing is pretty much non existant, but I still like putting some ratings up there from time to time because it's easy to do. In this case, I ended up giving SSBB an 8.5 because, while it was a great game and I think it did a good job of updating it from the previous entry, it really drops the ball on the online component. I mentioned in the last post that there's a real lack of communication in the online game. With a game like SSBB, which I consider a very social game, it really puts a damper on the enjoyment. Yeah I can still play against my buddies from back in my college days, but it's just not the same when you can't talk about the game as it is happening. And even though I know that is someone I know on the screen with me, it still seems kind of like a faceless AI with no personality. This combined with the lack of stat tracking in online, as well as being unable to use custom stages, or take replays of onilne matches, really keeps me from saying, "Okay this is THE game". Is Super Smash Brothers Brawl a great game and an awesome experience? Yes. Could it have been much more? You bet.

That's a real "Glass half empty" perspective, eh?

Okay so obviously I don't spend all my time playing SSBB these days. In fact that takes up a relatively small amount of my time now that I finished unlocking the characters and stages in the game. Instead, I have been begun playing Lords of the Ring Online: Shadows of Angmar.

After repeated recommendations from some community members, I decided to give the seven-day trial a spin. Those seven days later, I was enjoying the game enough that I decided to jump in to a subscription. The game itself is pretty standard for an MMORPG, but it has a nice layer of polish that really charmed me over. To be honest, though, I think I was sold on the game by day two when I came across some guy playing various video game tunes on a lute. Truth be told, it is those little touches that make the game enjoyable to play. Just the same way that World of Warcraft is fun because, while it doesn't do anything new or amazing, it does most things right. In other words, LOTRO just seemed to fit for me.

Unlike World of Warcraft, however, Lord of the Rings Online really seems like it was designed with the community in mind. Just the way it plays and the kind of people I run across in game makes really helps to put it in a good light. I have mentioned in previous blogs how important I feel about the social aspect of an MMORPG, and I think that is really part of what sucked me into LOTRO. The in game player interaction just seems genuine.

I like to have a little balance when giving my impression of a game, so let me say that the game does have a few missteps here and there.

The main thing that really grinds my gears is an in game mechanic called Deeds. Deeds, essentially, are like Xbox 360 achievments that can give you a bonus of some sort, whether it's a new title or a little stat boost. This is nice, but the problem stems from the fact that deeds are tied to accomplshing goals in a specific zone. Kill X number of a certain monster in a certain zone, for example. In this case it might be that you have to farm through 60,90, or more kills in a zone that provides no challange to you. This kind of activity just isn't really enjoyable, but you feel compelled to do it in order to get the most out of your character. It's kind of relaxing after risking your neck in some dangerous zones all the time, but I never had a reall high tolerance for farming. Despite this, I spent some time the other day just killing mobs that were way under****d for a few hours. But just because it can be tedius, isn't what really bothers me about acquiring the deeds. What I really felt was a problem was that since I could kill them in one or two hits, I was potentially monopolizing those spawn points for somebody that could have actually been using them to gain experience and really advancing their character. I know just about anyone familiar with MMORPGs has had an experience where they just wanted to go out and finish a quest or something, only to have some jack nuts out farming the thing you need. This is just a lose-lose situation for all parties involved, and I can't understand why the developers would have done this.

This leads right into my second main complaint with Lords of the Ring Online, which is character advancement. LOTRO has a trait system that allows you to sort of customize your character a bit with skills or ability boosts by using things you get accomplshing deeds. It really seems kind of shallow and far less enjoyable than the talent trees featured in other games, such as World of Warcraft. I really like to define my character right down to his abilities. Perhaps I will change my opinion on this subject as I progress further into the game, but for now the virtue/deed system falls flat for me. Overall, these things don't detract enough from the game to keep it from being enjoyable and I anticipate that I'll be spending a bit of time on LOTRO in the future.