It'll be nice for the game to finally come out.......but from the time of it's originally scheduled release up until now, so many great shooters have made their mark on the gaming landscape, Duke's reception might be a little more lukewarm than the fans would like.....

These are kinda old school........but Mafia + GTA Vice City do it for me in addition to Far Cry, Crysis (+Warhead) and all the others mentioned

You should check out the HT Omega Striker instead of the SB ;)

I could've sworn I posted here after I finished buiding my rig, but evidently not. Have had it going on 15 months, but will soon sell it to a friend who's rig crapped out on him. (Ordered parts for an upcoming build today ;) )

Case: NZXT Apollo (Silver)

Motherboard: DFI BloodIron P35-T2RL

PSU: CM RS-600

CPU: Intel C2D E6750 (2.66GHz stock--OCed to 3.0)

CPU Cooler: CM Hyper TX2

RAM: Patriot Extreme Performance (1 x 2GB)

GPU: VisionTek 512MB HD3850

HD: Hitachi Deskstar 320GB

OEM 250GB (Salvaged from my old HP a1130n)

Optical: Pioneer DVD-115D DVD/RW

OS: Vista Ultimate x32

Misc: Samsung 19" 906BW (1440x900)

Altec Lansing 251 5.1

Logitech UltraX Keyboard

Microsoft Optical Mouse

Never took any pics of the rig itself, but have a W-Prime/GPU-Z screenie plus a GTAIV Benchmark shot ;)

Ultrabots

I wouldnt waste your money on the i7 setup right now. I would go with The AMD P2 940 which is almost equal in gaming and other things with the i7 920. It overclocks really well and the setup could save you $300-$400 for nearly the same performance. Right now your Pc is good all you need to is upgrade the memory and Gpu and you will fine for future games.04dcarraher

Oh yeah, my setup works pretty good. A friend of mine is looking to build another rig as well though, I told him he could save a bunch of $$$ if he just bought mine and upgraded a few things--hence the reason I'm building another one. So in the end any price difference will pretty much be negated. Have read good things about the Phenom II so far though.

I think it's pretty clear that graphics have progressed a lot over the past four or five years, along with implementation of physics, better AI and some other developments in terms of gameplay. On the other hand, I don't think there was been quite enough innovation when it comes to gameplay. We tend to see the same old games rehashed in prettier pixels while 'streamlining' the gameplay and making it more 'accessible' for some reason.

While I do generally put gameplay before graphics, the visuals of a game can be important for helping to immerse you in environments and set the mood, and I think many devs have managed to achieve that in their games more than in the past. More realistic characters with ever-improving animation (including facial animation) can go a long way to making these 'virtual actors' more believable on screen, which helps to draw you into the story and help you to become attached to certain characters.

Given the choice, would I want to go back to the graphics of five years ago? Not at all. I just wish we could see similar kinds of progress in terms of story, gameplay and settings for many games, instead of rehashing the same tired old ideas. Like seeing mechs in just about any SF game, or zombies in any horror game, or elves/dwarves/orcs in fantasy settings, and crates/barrels in just about every game. In those terms I feel games are becoming a bit stale.

RobertBowen

Amen to that....

The current rig I have is a real workhorse, but at the time I built it, my finances were fairly constrained. Now though, that's not the case and so I'm setting out to build my 2nd one and going high end like I wanted too originally :)

My specs are pretty much cemented in stone (save for the GPU brand--EVGA or Asus?).....all I gotta do is wait for my tax refund/direct deposit to hit the bank and I'm off and running ;)

CM HAF 932 Full Tower

MSI X58 Platinum Mobo (LGA 1366)

PC Power & Cooling 750W PSU (S75QB)

Intel Core i7 920 Quad Core CPU

G.SKILL 6GB (3 x 2GB) Triple Channel DDR3 RAM

EVGA GeForce GTX 295

LG DVD/CD Burner (GH22LS30)

Western Digital Caviar SE 320GB/7200RPM HD

Cooler Master V8 Rifle 120mm CPU Cooler

Vista Ultimate x64

Additionally, I have a monitor/keyboard/mouse upgrade planned to go along with it (but will have to wait)

Asus VH226H 22" LCD (1920x1080)

Logitech Ultra-Thin Illum. Keyboard

MX518 Mouse

For comparison, this is what I'm running now....

NZXT Apollo Mid Tower

DFI "BloodIron" P35-T2RL Mobo (LGA 775)

CM RealPower Pro 750W PSU (a bit too much for this baby...?)

Intel C2D E6750 (OC'ed to 3.0GHz)

Patriot 2GB DDR2 RAM

VisionTek HD 3850

Hitachi Deskstar 250GB HD

Pioneer DVD/CD Burner

CPU Cooler was supplied by a friend....dunno what this thing is lol

Vista Ultimate x32

Samsung SyncMaster 906BW 19" LCD (1440x900)

Microsoft OEM Keyboard/Mouse

If I don't part this thing out or sell it (which is pretty likely), it'll prolly get a mild GPU/Wireless/RAM upgrade sometime down the line.

Enjoying Crysis (+Warhead), GTA IV and a few other current titles right now.....am looking fwd. to Mafia II, GTA IV (being playable LOL) and Alan Wake (if it ever comes out O_o). Hopefully this economy doesn't put too much of a damper on the industry here and keeps quality titles from still hitting the shelves!