• 28Sep 08

  Damn, another stupid problem with my PC....

  Well, the big one before this was my stupid sound system unreliability (bloody thing could stop making any sound at any time) - my bro fixed that by updating the drivers, but he had to remove SoundMAX and that caused my sound quality to go down the toilet.

  Now, it's running at an annoyingly slow speed. It takes somewhere around 5+ minutes to even startup the damn machine, and running multiple tabs at a time on my browser causes severe slowdown.

  But the most irritating issue is the fact that I can't run any large EXE files. This means I cannot install my newly downloaded Europa Barborum 1.1 (Mod for Rome: Total War) and the newly declared-freeware game The Suffering. The former isn't even 1 GB and trying to start it up causes my Total Commander to stop responding, same for The Suffering. And I can't even close them when they stop responding.

  Eventually, running these executables causes so much slowdown that it becomes impossible to run any program, and I have to shut down or restart the PC. And for some odd reason, I can't start a new campaign in Rome: Total War after patching it to 1.5 (with the correct procedure, I patched to 1.3 first).

  On the bright side, I can now play STALKER with Oblivion Lost 2.2 with the sound on.... it never came on for some odd reason before my driver update...

  

  • Posted Sep 28, 2008 9:47 pm GMT
  • Category: Computers
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• 25Sep 08

  This is by far the most facepalm-worthy news story I have ever read...

  LINK 1

  LINK 2

  Destructoid wrote:

  A man has pleaded guilty to killing an 18-day-old baby so that he could finish his videogame in peace. On October 26, 2007, Rene Edward Barrios was trusted to look after his girlfriend's newborn baby while it was sleeping. Leaving it in the next room, Barrios was playing an unspecified game when the baby started to cry.

  Enraged by the noise, the man went into the next room, where he violently shook the child and hit it in the head. With the baby subdued, Barrios then went to finish his videogame for the next ten minutes, coming back to check on the child only to find it blue and unconscious. The baby died later in hospital and Barrios was arrested there and then. He has officially been found guilty of manslaughter and faces between 10.5 and 21 years of prison.

  Having lived with far younger siblings, one can sympathize with the agony of having a child's screaming ruin your gaming. But Jesus Christ on a ferris wheel, it's depressing to think that people are capable of this.

  thehdroom wrote:

  We love our videogames as much as the next guy but there's a point at which other aspects of life supercede their importance.

  Unfortunately Rene Edward Barrios didn't feel this way on Oct. 26, 2007. He was left to watch his girlfriend's 18-day old baby who was sleeping in a bed. Rene was playing an unknown videogame in the next room when the young baby began to cry. Enraged by the noise, Rene paused the game, grabbed the baby, shook him and hit him the head.

  With the baby asleep, Barrios return to his game and finished up whatever level he was on for about 10 minutes. When Barrios returned to the bedroom to check on the baby, he was blue and unconscious.

  The baby went on to die at the hospital and Barrios was arrested on the spot. Today, Barrios officially pleased guilty in the case to manslaughter and will be sentenced to anywhere between 10.5 and 21 years of prison.

  We think he's getting off easy for whatever plea bargain he struck for the manslaughter charge versus murder. And he better not have access to an Xbox 360, PS3 or Wii in the slammer.

  • Posted Sep 25, 2008 4:05 am GMT
  • Category: News
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• 14Sep 08

  Company of Heroes - KMOD: Nations at War

  Well, after a few days of Rome: Total War, I decided to go back to CoH. But I also decided to look for a total conversion mod for Vanilla CoH V.1.70. I found KMOD: Nations at War - not quite a total conversion, but it changes a heck of a lot more than my puny lone attempts at my PC do.

  Anyway, I started a skirmish map (the one where the Axis start on a plateau overlooking a section of town harbouring the Allied soldiers) as Defensive Axis with the mod on after checking out the slightly different menu. After getting my basic military units up and running while simultaneously expanding and fortifying new territories, I ran into scuffles with the Allies.

  Before the first fights started, I noticed several things: the squads were about 1.5 times to twice as large as before, the population cap was in the 400-500 men range, resources either didn't decay at all or took a very long time, the camera view used a higher angle and was further up, there were more units and buildings to build, .etc.

  Largely because of the increased population count and the increased squad size, the firefights turned from minor skirmishes to crazy epic fights with tons of people on both sides dying (dozens per minute, and this is a medium-sized map at best!) and I also realized that everything was much easier to kill - including my own troops.

  Not only that, the range was increased, squads now have a large variety of weapons, there are no more "upgrades" to each squad except for the odd exception, all of them are capable of setting off smoke grenades and such. This also applies to vehicles - you don't upgrade them anymore, you build the modified version straight off the bat.

  For more minor details, there are a few new abilities that don't feel well developed. For example, I could use a weapon called the 800mm Gustav Cannon (I know what it is) but the resulting explosion and crater is tiny compared to what it should really be like.
  

  I've got more criticism. There's some text that needs to be fixed up, there are missing icon files, and some weapons don't work properly - like the K98 Rifle used as a grenade launcher - the grenade doesn't explode. Plus, the unit selections are disorganized, complicated and clogged up.

  Overall, I enjoyed the crazy fast pace of the battle, but there are some issues I'd like the maker to address if and when he releases the next version of this same mod for vanilla CoH (since I don't have OF yet).

  • Posted Sep 14, 2008 7:10 am GMT
  • Category: Games
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