Gaming Bros

Well, it seems we have been discovered! Not sure if it was the first time or not but a recent report has been written about gamers in the middle east, more specifically in the Gulf area by rockpapershotgun. A website that has been around since the eighties!

I couldn’t have written about gamers (well the general gamers, not the “literate”) better than this. Since most who call themselves gamers around the region play one or a combination of the following: Counter Strike, WoW, C&C Generals and Dota. While the console gamers play Pro Evolution Soccer (especially modded ones which I came across personally). Regarding PES, it is widely known around the gulf as “Konami”. So don’t look puzzled when someone asks you “hey, wanna play Konami?”.

The report also mentions about the censorship here in the region which is true and many times are properly applied yet I fail to see why ban CoD4 and on the other hand watch ten year olds playing GTA4. With my own eyes I saw a mother buy a “P”ed GTA4 game for her son which was in that age range. Imagine how many bought it that i did not see. I played CoD4 and I don’t see it different than the many war books that you can easily find in the libraries.

In regards to the “P” word, the government tries to fight it, on PC only! It is so easy to find bootleg PS3 or Xbox360 games displayed at many shops at 10 times cheaper than the original’s price.

All in all, I recommend anyone who wants to have a current view of gaming in the Middle East to read the report at rockpapershotgun. Oh and laugh out loud at the “Really, All your games are original? Why?”.

Crytek, the developers of the very much hyped yet great game: Crysis will soon be releasing the Standalone expansion of the game named Crysis Warhead. The game story is the same as the first one except this time you get to play as Psycho instead of Nomad. The single player levels will be more action packed than before with a lot of improvements almost everywhere. The multiplayer has been also tweaked and also the big question answered: Will it run better? YES IT WILL. The first two reviews that went online already are giving great scores for the game. IGN gave it 9.4 while Eurogamer (which was harsh on MGS4) gave it 9/10. The reviews already say that it can run at high resolutions on Enthusiast (Very High) setting pretty well on a 8800 GTS card. Ofcourse no mention of Anti-Aliasing or Anisotropic Filtering being used. Still, the talk about performance optimizations are pretty evident in the reviews which is always good.

After Crysis was released, Crytek wasn’t happy on how the sales went and blamed it on piracy. So they already announced that they will stop releasing PC exclusives and might consider console releases. Though with the near release of Crysis Warhead (25th September 2008), in a surprise move, Crytek announced that both Crysis and Crysis Warhead are available on Steam! For those who don’t know, Steam is an application you can install on your PC and through it buy and download games. You can quickly learn more about Steam at store.steampowered.com/about. This marks the first EA game being released on Steam and questions are already floating on whether more games will follow (Red Alert 3!).

The reason for Crytek releasing both games on Steam is because it proved to be a very effective way to sell games with lesser risk of piracy and hence better sales which might help Crytek reconsider their PC exclusives direction, though I doubt.

Lastly, I went ahead and pre-ordered Crysis Warhead of Steam (it is released there on 16th of September) which is the first time I use it, lets see how it goes oh and keep an eye for MEGamers review.

A company named Stardock, who are behind a game called Sins of a Solar Empire, have made a list that contains what they consider “The Gamer’s Bill of Rights”. Which I have listed here:

1. Gamers shall have the right to return games that don’t work with their computers for a full refund. (Barely any store store around here in Oman does that, though you can exchange with something else)
2. Gamers shall have the right to demand that games be released in a finished state. (This one is much needed since half baked games are the norm these days with lots and sometimes no patches. Must be enforced)
3. Gamers shall have the right to expect meaningful updates after a game’s release. (Yep, no patching something that SHOULD have been working from the start)
4. Gamers shall have the right to demand that download managers and updaters not force themselves to run or be forced to load in order to play a game. (Yep, though such programs are being forced on us and I hope they stop it)
5. Gamers shall have the right to expect that the minimum requirements for a game will mean that the game will play adequately on that computer. (Another true statement, lots of games minimum requirements are really not minimum since they will run the game in a sort of crippled mode)
6. Gamers shall have the right to expect that games won’t install hidden drivers or other potentially harmful software without their consent. (No Starforce or root kits please)
7. Gamers shall have the right to re-download the latest versions of the games they own at any time. (Logical and makes sense)
8. Gamers shall have the right to not be treated as potential criminals by developers or publishers. (Yeah, as in potential pirates I guess)
9. Gamers shall have the right to demand that a single-player game not force them to be connected to the Internet every time they wish to play. (Half-Life 2 and Bioshock anyone!)
10. Gamers shall have the right that games which are installed to the hard drive shall not require a CD/DVD to remain in the drive to play. (Hence will stop many from using Cracks and Mini-Images. It really is annoying to swap CDs/DVDs when someone plays different games)

The list is quite comprehensive and includes a lot of stuff many gamers lack in terms of such rights.

I have written a small guide in august that could help you decide what card to buy at the time for your gaming PC. You can still check out the August Graphics Card Upgrade guide since almost all the points I mentioned are still valid.

While I was checking around, I stepped on this really useful guide at Tomshardware.com. It skips all the charts and technical stuff that many are forced to go through to decide if a certain card really meets their criteria and requirements. Instead, the guide goes directly to the point. By going through price points and advising on the best card that such a price point can buy. The card prices go from sub 100$ to the 400$ point. Of course since cards like the mighty AMD 4870×2 and runner-up nVidia Geforce 280 are not included in the list simply because their performance/price ratio don’t fit in that guide. Hey, if you can buy such cards, you shouldn’t be even reading this!

To add the icing to the cake, the guide includes the best AGP graphics card out there PLUS a graphics card hierarchy chart which lists, from best to worst, cards out there including mobile versions.

The guide isn’t long and will definitly make your life easier in selecting the card that fits your pocket. Check out the Best Graphics Card for the Money September 08.

For those waiting for Activision Blizzard‘s big hit RTS StarCraft II, a recent announcement hinted that the game won’t make it in 2008 and might end up being released in 2009 even though they are sticking with “when it’s done”. Knowing from Blizzard’s past, 2009 seems a more realistic release date than 2008 since they are pretty much famous for very long delays just to polish their games.

Another news tidbit that relates to StarCraft II is a possible fourth race to be included in the expansion. Since we all know by now that popular games do get expansions. Activision Blizzard noted that it was time consuming and difficult to include a fourth race in the base game. With races like humans, high tech aliens and brood monsterous aliens what kind of fourth race can we expect? Robots or bionics? One thing for sure, we won’t know before StarCraft II is released.

Check out the details regarding the release date at StarCraftWire.net and the fourth race tidbit at ShackNews.

Am sure by now you have noticed how much of a fan of Red Alert series I am. Why not when the game really focuses on fun factor a lot. Keep in mind I play almost every popular RTS out there too! Anyway, fan or not, EA are giving away the first Red Alert for FREE. Yep, no strings attached, no registration required, just a direct link to the compressed ISO images which you can load on a virtual CD or burn on a blank CD and get started playing the first Red Alert and second C&C game.

Scroll down at this EA link to get the download files.

In addition, if you pre-order Red Alert 3, you will instantly get Red Alert 2 with it for free. It isn’t really necessary to play the previous installements but it is great fun to pass time if you are waiting for Red Alert 3 to be released or just want to explore the old versions.