Demo trucks in C&C Generals.

"Oh look! A swarm of friendly construction vehicles are coming to help us!" *The Chinese General pauses for a moment* "Wait, why do we have so many construction vehicles and why are they all driving towards our power plants?"

Well, part of Microsoft's recent campaign against Apple is the launch of "Games for Windows". Purely designed to shove Apple out of the picture when it comes to what used to be described as "PC CD/DVD" titles.

As much as I dislike some of the marketing campaigns of Apple and their blatant extortion of people's hard earned money for a hardware locked OS - they need to be included to help bolster PC Gaming.

Either way, as funny as it sounds - for as long as housewives/husbands and kids exist, PC gaming will never die. The casual market is what keeps it afloat. Most of the general population in the Western world owns a PC that can operate a game of some variety.

I think for Apple to grow to be a core part of PC Gaming in general, the casual games need to make themselves available en masse - for that is where the bulk of PC Gaming takes place.

Really that only applies to some of the newer more "casual friendly" team based FPS games. Back in ye olden days of Quake and UT, a single good player could absolutely destroy a n00b, denying him of every weapon on the map and just constantly instakilling him as soon as he spawns.Olidsc

It's not so much "casual friendly" as it is more thought-out and balanced. When they first arrived on the scene they opened up the genre, considering they are several years old, their weaknesses have been highlighted remarkably - other games have learnt from these weaknesses.

If you look at the Battlefield model, I believe it to be one of the strongest in multiplayer gaming because it is very hard for one person to dominate heavily. Teamplay is paramount, and usually the team that wins is the team that employs the most teamwork.

"Spain" was the most powerful empire of the world!!!!!!Rylsadar

It was powerful, definitely. But not the biggest nor the most powerful. The British Empire had the widest control and influence covering 36.6 million km² (a third of the planet's land mass). Spain is *one* of the biggest certainly, but the title belongs to the BE I'm afraid ;)

If you buy OEM, once activated, it can only ever be re-activated on that specific CPU ID thereafter.

The poster above has no clue - it is not just a difference of "no box or manuals", it is designed for system builders so that they can provide a cheap "only for use with this computer" copy of Windows.

Retail Vista can be installed on as many subsequent computers that you own.

If you plan to build your own computer in the future and want to re-install Vista on that - do *not* get OEM.

where do noobs come from??? good question. but the answer is pretty simple they come from RL (real-life). i have my own theory on calling ppl noobs.

u cant say a person is noob because of what u have seen tht person do. maybe he is intentionally acting like a jerk, or maybe he just started it. if he is not good in a game tht does not mean he is missing out on something interesting. the main point of games is enjoyment (atleast thts the way i look at it). if a person is enjoying himself tht itself should have justified the reason for him to be playing a certain game. ofcorse there are ppl who are really competitive and its alrite with me. they play a certain game with a goal of being best at it and as all games, they criticise other ppls style of play coz they are better than them. imo the so-called pros should actually be a little helpful.

to me no person is noob coz i knw i am not best in every game and they could easily beat me in some other games. imo noob lies in the eyes of the beholder.

dmn_fox

Eeriely profound ;)

Hmm. Someone needs to develop a Wii-like controller, get it cheap to manufacture and voila, the PC becomes a Wii. Or at least, capable of Wii-style play.

That has always been the thing that infuriates me about PC, the lack of drive when it comes to HDIs. Had there been a united effort in the PC Gaming Industry, we could have full motion-tracking headsets, motion-sensing joysticks, etc.. But because the sodding PC lacks centralisation, we'll never get such things in mainstream acceptance. Sure the PlayStation as the EyeToy, we just have generic webcams. We have had the technology for longer than ever, but because the game developers are petrified of commiting to a peripheral that if it goes out of production, it'll render the game immediately obsolete.

Microsoft really should be plugging unified architecture/standards (more than just DX10) and peripheral support and standardization than simply slapping a price tag on our beloved *free* online gaming. Thankfully, however with the presence and dominance of Steam in online distribution and online gaming community, GFW's paid service won't last - provided Valve don't start charging either.

Aye it is frustrating, I personally prefer online validation to invasive copy protection (when online validation is done *well*) but it does leave people who are offline or are transitionally offline a bit down **** creek without a paddle - if there is no alternative.