Well deserved. I spent over 500 hours on it, with two characters at level 80, and other two in the way to; the classes had variety and are enjoyable, the world is huge and the random event system is a nice touch and is well implemented; every player helps others withut disturbing his own path; eveyone can play it as alone or as social as they want. The campaign is a good source of experience and last for 40 acts, not being stellar but still decent enough. The PvE part is really strong, with amaing art and good tech behind; the instanced dungeons are fast to do, very productive to farm and hard enough to require teamwork and determination. Din't play the PvP, but the WvWvW competitive realm vs realm gave me the most fun I had in a multiplayer game since Bad Company 2.
So far, aside from the DOTA 2 beta, nothing better or moire fun to play was released this year; I'm planning to keep playing for months and eventually being able to forge my own legendary weapon for my main character.
Best MMO in ages. 500+ hours in and still freash and addictive -absolutely hooked to the World vs World mode-. Great visuals, amazing art, huge maps and geat combat system, with several gaming modes (PvE, personal story, dungeons, PvP and WvWvW) to fit any taste, plus a solid support in contents from Arenanet. Has some flaws but still the best in its genre since EVE Online.
I like Nvidia, I had in the past the TNT 2, the 4200 Ti, but also the 9700 Pro, and then the 7800 GT, the 3850 and now the 9800 GTS 512. And this GT280 is very weak dudes. First of all, I don't known about the numbers displayed in Crysis in this Gamespot benchs: in both Tom's Hardware and Anandtech the 9800 GX2 and 8800 GT SLI triumphs over the GT280 which is much more expensive. Second, the card is very, VERY, noisy. The developement process in 65 nm makes this chip much more expensive than the new HD 4850, 4870 and 4870 X2 by Ati. I'm sorry but this time Nv has fail.
It's funny to see Vista crushed by XP, bringing us no visual earnings and doing instead punishing performance ever with the increase of requirements. Windows XP is the mean to be played, LOL.
Hellgate is, without doubt, one of the worst looking next-gen action game of the show and, as with Crysis, Bioshock, Gears, UT III and much other, you can't need Vista or DX 10 to get a wonderful graphics. So my advice is: forget to update to Vista and spent the money in a good graphic card, like the 8800 or 2900 series.
Unreal Tournament III will be >>> than Halo 3 Enemy Territory: Quake Wars will be >>> than Halo 3 Killzone from PS3 will be >>> tan Halo 3 Near to half of the yet launched shooters in Xbox 360 seems technically above from this Halo 3 beta. Belivers in the "Gears Of What..." : good luck with the landing in september. See you in the real world.
SirWrinkles : taking in account the half year delay, the very hyped specs and the actually better relationships between Ati an Microsoft, it´s awesome how ATI fails against the 8800 series,. Yes, the 2900 XT is a good price/performance card, but in the high-end has nothing to do against the GTX, and is even worse with the high number of OC GTX in the market. 8800 GTX 128 scalar ALUs >>> 290 XT 320 superescalar ALUs. People searching for cheap &powerful cards can buy a 8800 GTS 320 by 250 $, or 360 MB version by 350 $, and rich users simply will jump over the 2900 XT to pursuit the GTX or the next 8900/G90 in the next 6 months. This time AMD/ATI has lose the match...
I'll buy a PS3 in march, but the possible lack of certain BC would be terrible to me because IMO: A) Fighting Games are my favourites and one of the few generes in wich cosoles supasses the PC. B) In PS3, the list of better FG are: 1-Tekken 5: Dark Resurrection. 2-Tekken 5 3-Soul Calibur II 4-Soul Calibur III 5-Probably, Virtua Fighter 5 It´s a shame, but Soul Calibur II is better game than anyother FG in Xbox, and don't works in 360. Now, I'm afraid that the same **** will happen in PS3. Truly stupid.
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