This is what I did to get my game working: 8800GTS, 191 Nvidia drivers.
Fearing the 196 Nvidia Drivers would make the game even more unplayable, I gave it a shot!! I was using 191 drivers before hand and had the choppy jumping graphic textures.

It seems to be totally random from user to user, but this worked and is working SO FAR for me. Played for about an hour, no visible problems. Campaign map is a wee bit laggy in places, but playable.

And Finally!! I got this biatch working. Everyone on the forums with Nvidia drivers have to roll back to 185 or soemthing. Also, I never play RTSs with shadows either so I switched them off. I lowered the shader quality too for pig iron.

I’m really getting into it, I love the tech tree they included and the politics side of things, I learned last night that the only way to change government is to start a revolution. When the revolution starts, you lose control of your empire but gain control of the rebels and have to invade the capital!! If you lose the fight you lose the campaign. Fairly realistic I thought.

Trade is brilliant too, you can build trade vessels and sail to places around Africa and India and trade in Ivory and spices for extra cash, as Russia I’m using my fur pelts, and I recently annexed Mesopotamia and set up Cotton plantations!! Huzzah!

I was at war with the Ottoman Empire, I captured 1 port and was trying to get my Navy on the go, but the Turks had a huge navy and were blockading me. My navy sat in the port for decades LOL. Something like 20 turns. But all his money was in a sea war, where Russia pwns at a land war, so I took all his European regions and pushed him right back to Egypt. Bulgaria, Hungary and all the South Eastern Europe states surrendered to me right away. I like the way you can have an army in a city, but it also tells you that in the event of a siege or an attack the populace will take up arms and fight with you. The thing I haven’t mastered at the moment is the naval battles, I tried a custom battle and didn’t know what was going on in time and I lost. I forgot about several ships and they sailed away, probably off the edge of the world! They are huge and can drag on, one fellow gamer told me a massive fleet battle took 2 1/2 hours. I think I will be auto resolving them in future. I’m much better at land based warfare!! Tally Ho!

I think it’s alot like Civ (with trade, politics, research) but on a smaller scale, but then again you have the battles too.

At the moment I’m research box formations, plug bayonets and fire by rank! Which will have me pwn the battlefield. You can garrison buildings in townships and build siege defenses, like stockades, hedgehogs and trenches. The artillery is savage. The bigger guns can land shells almost anywhere on the map. I was attacked by rocket artillery in one battle and would lose up to half a regiment in one successful attack. The body count is insane in this game. When a good shot hits a regiment it tears right through the line, and you can see the bodys fly over and the numbers on his flag drop. You can use canister shots when the men are at close range, once they come inside the kill zone, they will never make it to combat stance once the canisters hit them! They flee right away lol

It’s fairly well done I think, when a cavalry regiment is charging and they hit the lines they can wipe out a full regiment of foot, or on the other hand if the regiment of foot get a shot off it can almost wipe out all the horse. I try to interlock the fields of fire so my men back each other up. Cavalry charges are lethal, in one scuffle, I had about 6 regiments but only a hand full in each, maybe 50 horse in total and they decimated about 250 men using charge, disengage, charge tactics.

Body Count ftw.

You speak of NAT in hushed tones. “NAT Lore! Old man, Speak! What do you know of this?” You ask. The old crooked man, eons old, looks up from his scibbles and says…

- “What…is your favourite colour?”

For ages myself and fellow CoH gamers have had constant NAT negotiation errors when trying to connect to each other. Sometimes we couldn’t get a game at all. In about ten tries we might connect once or twice.

According to one of the many forum threads, it’s a worldwide error, Relic DON’T know how to fix it, and when you post anything about it on the Relic forum it gets deleted!! Well I thought I’d add some of the solutions here that might help anyone else suffering the NAT plague!

1)) I fixed the problem by setting my DSL modem to a “PPPoE Bridged” mode. And then setting my router to connect via PPPoE, rather than “Automatic configuration - DHCP” (had to give it the username and password that the DSL modem used to use to connect)

2)) If you are on a DSL connection, you may need to ask your ISP to forward ports for you. You may be behind a NAT inside your ISP. That is, a router that needs it’s ports forwarded as well, but one you can’t control.

Another poster opened the following ports 6112,9100,30260,30261,6113 and 9101. But I think all you need is 6112 UDP and 30260 UDP.

What I did:
I opened up those two ports via Control Panel > Windows Firewall > Add port tab
Then I updated my fireware on the router (Linksys WRT54G)
In the router setup I have also forwarded those two ports.

I can connect to gamers locally now, but for some reason I’m having problems connecting to hosts in Sweden or Germany for example. If in the games list in CoH you see a red X where the ping should be, that indicates that you won’t connect to it. Like your computer can’t see that dude’s computer.

www.portforward.com has all the solutions and router fixes for most if not all makes and sizes of routers and games. It’s a work in progress for me, but at last I can get some games in!

Updates to follow.

- “Blue…no yellow!!”

After some ‘Murder she wrote’ style research, minus the pearls, I made some nasty discoveries. Selecting some top games out at the moment, and looking on some of the more prominent game suppliers versus the power-fuck-house that is Steam, here are the results. Bear in mind, Steam do not make their prices universal, i.e. $1=€1 NOT…

I checked Amazon.co.uk and Play.com

Company of Heroes: Tales of Valor Steam €34.99 Play.com €14.45 - €22.99 Amazon €14.30

Empire:Total War Steam €49.99 Play.com €38,99 Amazon.co.uk €16.50

Medieval:Total War 2 - Gold (Game plus expansion) Steam €19.98 Play.com €9.99 @ sale/purchase (€14.50 now) Amazon €7.50
Individually bought, Steam is still 5 euro dearer on both titles, the main game and ‘Kingdoms’ expansion

Call of Duty MW:2 Steam €59.99 Play.com €45 Amazon €33

Left 4 Dead 2 Steam €50 Play.com €35 Amazon €27.50

This one is the best…

Grand Theft Auto IV Steam €50 Play.com €12.99 Amazon €11

Steam Fail!!

I have used Play.com alot and initially I thought it was one of the cheapest out there, but after this little excercise Amazon has proved its worth! Of course the whole debate about digital downloads can rage, but when it comes down to it, there are huge discrepancies there!

After a recent stint abroad, and much to lament when I returned home, I fired up the hog and searched the fragged HD for some HL! Defrag done, 3 days later, HL fired up, waffles in the toaster. Bam! Seeing the G-man’s scaly skin gave me a colossal chubbie! I know everyone harps on about Half Life..but fuck me. It’s better than sex. I didn’t bother playing HL2 again, just Ep1 and Ep2 to top up the veins with Valve goodness.

The other day after another harsh non-win non-sense! Versus game in L4D I was : “like, omg like, gief me some HL, something that I can pwn and still love!”. Portal was as far as I got. “Lul!” Well I love Portal too. What can I say? I downloaded about 34,000 maps and played through them. (It was 3 actually - Ed) And the Valve goodness again pumped in my wretched surly veins.

I keep clicking ‘My Games’ tab in Steam to see if HLEp3 just happens to materialise-fuck-out-of-thin-fuck-air. (Thanks, Lewis Black) But to no avail.

Like having no molo to fight tank. What?

Half-Life 2: Episode Three is the third of a series of stand-alone episodes based on HL2, the popular and acclaimed shooter epic.
Genre: First-Person Shooter
Publisher: Valve
Developer: Valve
Release Date: TBA 2010
MSRP: $19.95
Exclusively on: PC
ESRB: RP-M+

(Thanks, Google) GTFO.

Beef

When L4D was released, I was blown away. The games only major complaint, was the lack of content…..I guess I shuld have got worried when Valve dragged their heels about releasing the SDK. If that was not warning sign enough the “Survival Pack” was basically 2 vs levels we had hacked 6 months before, and one one impossible Survival lighthouse map.

I guess this was the biggest warning sign, very poor effort at a DLC release. That said I was sure Valve would make good at E3, and wow us with 4 new maps for the excellent L4D, but no…they release L4D 2….with the plastic wrap still on the ground from the first release!

WTF guys? Do you really expect us to shell out for a new game, after getting a game that was 70% finished to begin with. I buy all my PC games, as I know my custom helps make games better and keep prices down. This is nothing short of betrayal by what I used to consider a PC institution. Shame on you. Thumbs up to the developers who I know went: “Are you sure this is a good idea?” - Well the Boycot L4D group has 10k members….and that will only rise….

Left 4 Dead 2 Boycott, join up here.

Like most players I did not invest much time in the single player game. Although the L4D bots are excellent, they are still bots and can never come close to human companions. For this reason most player were drawn online to the fantastic campaign mode.

If I can make one major criticism of L4D, it would be the lack of content from the outset. I thought that 4 “movies” was not enough content to launch with, and that delaying the game to add more movies would have been a better idea, and lead to a better product hitting the shelves. That said I was surprised how the AI Director really did make each play through a completely different experience, however it is not strong enough on its own to make up for a lack of content and the fact that after 6 months

Online campaign mode is excellent. With a good team you will quickly overcome the game on expert, and earn your achievements without too much difficulty. Valve (Turtle Rock) have managed to meld excellent multi-player FPS action, with scripted crescendo events that would usually be seen in Half Life 2. The union of of classic multi-player with scripted events allows the developers to get the best of both worlds. They can deliver a strong narrative, while still making a game with excellent co-op play.

Where Left 4 Dead has come into its own is the versus mode of play. While I battled my way through the campaign mode I spared little thought for versus, but having played it for a few months…I can never see myself going back to campaign mode again!!! Vs puts two teams of 4 players against each other. Both teams get to play as Survivors and Infected, which each round being scored based on how well you did (or how poorly you did!!!)

The jewel of the versus mode for me has to be playing as the infected. The level of co-ordination involved to bring down a team of good survivors is astonishing. Smokers can be used to pull a well disciplined team apart, right after a boomer has blinded the entire team with some well place vomit!!! To add to that the excellent Hunter class allows spectacular acrobatic leaps from rooftops right down on top of your unsuspecting victims!! What I really love about this mode of play is that the sometimes predictable AI director takes a back stage, as human infected players can set ambushes that the infected AI could never hope to match (The top of the ladder in Mercy Hospital Finale being one that springs to mind).

The only disturbing trend I have seen in VS mode is the “race” to the safe room you sometimes see. Basically the survivors charge as fast as they can, seriously limiting the amount of time the infected players have to spawn. The end result is the level is over with a handful of rounds fired!!! ITs an exploit I thing the developers need to address, because 12 year old spotty teenagers are getting a great kick out of doing it over and over…..

I would have to give this game a 9.5 out of 10, its a gem. More content please.

The review given by my friend was mostly negative. Most of the elements we enjoyed from the first game seem to have been stripped from this new sleek version of DOW?! The onus now seems to be on controlling smaller groups of men, in an attempt to push the DOW franchise more towards Company of Heroes (Which in our opinion is now a glowing symbol for Real Time Strategy). Now this move alone is not cause for concern, and indeed with the new Tales of Valor their are hints about controlling just one Tiger tank in some of the missions.

There is nothing wrong with trying to drive a genre forward, but I’m afraid all of the above can be viewed from a more cynical point of view. Stripping out base building will annoy people who like base building….like me. I enjoy being able to build defenses and indeed using base building as a game winning tactic (least we forget the Eldar teleport and cloak, build a webway and “appear” in your enemies base). I know I am not alone in my base building fetish. In COH it was great fun to build a structured front line of barbed wire, sandbags….tank traps etc…etc….

Now all this is leading me to this….they are dumbing down PC gaming. It’s blatantly obvious the console market is now bigger than the PC market, so PC gaming and indeed PC game developers are facing “The Console Effect”:

“Can you build a base with an XBOX controller”
- Yes but its very difficult, if not so annoying that its useless
“OK cut it and put more onus on the units”

“Can you select and assign teams for co-ordinated strategic strikes”
- Yes but its very difficult to do
“OK cut down the number of units, and lets introduce Boss fights!!!”

What in the name of christ jebus were you thinking!!!!! Boss fights!!!!! FFS!!!!!!
Why not just put Mario and Sonic in power armour and let us run them around the place picking up gold coins!

My friend made the point that the introduction of a commander who could gain XP, is a concept that was first introduced in Warcraft 3 (6 years ago). He then made a point that the first shooter to crack the console was Halo…..10-15 years after wolfenstein/doom/unreal had created the genre.

It must be really annoying for PC developers who have to dumb down their content and indeed detract from the overall experience to service a larger part of the market who cannot use “wasd”. It’s a very sad time…..”The Console Effect” is a creation the of Sony, Nintendo and MS…..and as we have seen with MS its not about innovation or improvement….its about making things look shiny and stupid, and requiring massive hardware to then run said content!!!!!

Story
Fairly standard stuff here. Set in default generic African war torn country. Two factions are fighting for power. Supplying both sides with guns and ammo is the ominous “Jackel”. you goal from the outset is simple, kill the “the Jackel”, the bastard supplying both sides with weapons. As the story plays out it becomes clear your mission will not be ending quite as planned.

Gameplay
First the bad…always the bad. There are too many checkpoints in this game. When starting a mission from point A to point B, you may encounter as many as 3-4 checkpoints en-route. These checkpoints are manned by up to 4-5 men, including fixed machine guns and “the jeep of death”. Now I would not mind if you could drive around them, or simply plow straight through…but the developers kindly gave the AI the ability to race after you in jeeps. Dont get me wrong, the idea/action is great…..but when it happens 4 times in 10 minutes, it becomes very repetitive and a major hastle as you expend precious ammo en-route to your target. I hear the checkpoints were added because play-testers complainind the game could be too boring due to its size, wrong solution. The ability to attack and destroy a checkpoint (permanently) would have been a good feature, as endless firefights on your way to a mission becomes annoying.

Weapons Shops: Everyman needs an AK. To acquire new weapons in FC2 you can simply pick them up. Doing this however has one major problem. The enemy weapons break and jam all the time, only when you use them….I never noticed an enemy having weapon malfunctions when gunning me down so the answer is the weapon shop, where you pay for new weapons in raw diamonds. The problem is the the unlocking system. In order to get new more powerful weapons you need to do a mission for the arms dealer. The missions are all the SAME! You travel to an area and attack the same convoy of 1 truck and 2 jeeps. It plays out the same, all the time. I really can’t see why the devs would not have introduced a variation to the missions. Maybe the truck convoy as one, kill a competitor as another, blow up a shipment coming in by air/boat etc…..variation.

The end….this is the end….my only friend The Jackel. The end is very linear. More of a gripe than a problem, would have liked to have a bit more choice.

Another compliant from a fellow gamer (playing on an archaic PS3 with a really rudimentary joy pad for control) noted that the payoff for exploring alone is not enough. The odd diamond case scattered about is a joke. Who puts one diamond in a case and goes to the trouble of putting it at the top of a mountain!!! Missions to recover cases of diamonds could have featured. The barkeep in Mikes could have told you a story about a plan that went down or a convoy that got hit, you go off find the convoy and a clue to the guys who took it. Finding random diamonds did not reward exploring, like in S.T.A.L.K.E.R the quests should encourage exploration of all areas, not token diamond treats!

The Good - Excellent gunplay. Firefights are dynamic and sprawling. You can approach an enemy village and tacky it by simply setting it on fire, or by peppering it with grenades from a hillside. You can snipe….or run and gun. There were complaints about the AI, I did not see many issues with the AI, certainly worked better than Crysis.

The Fire: Great touch. Tactical use of fire introduced a new dynamic into the FPS genre. Fire burns and spreads. People run away from fire…..people run into sniper scope……people die.

The Story: While being very simple, it does create a sense of a desperate country on the verge of breakdown. A country awash with guns in Africa is a bit of cliche, but there is enough meat in the story to keep you engaged (no need for aliens…thank god)

GFX
What can be said, great. The game looks great. Shadows and textures are excellent. Day night cycle is great. 10 out of 10 on the eye candy front.

Sound
The sound is really good. The noise of the open savanna is like watching a national geographic. Zebra can be heard “Zebraing” out of them. White enemies speak in a “diplomatic immunity” S.African accent. All good on the sond front, with the score changing when danger is afoot. 9/10

Longevity/Replay Value
Well I have only played it once, but will definitely play through it again. I did find it quite easy once I got better weapons, however the dynamic narrative does make every playthrough different. Although the missions wil remain the same, its the order in which they are done, and the characters invloved that make it appear different. I would give it a 7/10 for replay value, it’s certainly not one to sit on the shelf for years untouched.

Conclusion
Very enjoyable game to play that has annoying niggly bits. This is not a truly open world, and if your after dynamic faction conflict this is not the game for you. The factions do not fight outside of scripted battles. In fact they do not move, at all. The world is truly beatiful and an amazing achievement in itself. All in all it has to be an 8/10. Its gun play saves it from the design decisions that really annoyed me.

How long was World War 2! Seriously, if you were to play every WW2 FPS out there it would probably take you twice as long as the bloody war. In saying that though the Brothers in Arms series has been alittle different in its approach to the WW2 FPS. This is mainly due to its hint of RTS.

Unlike convensional FPS games in BIA you also control squads of troops. With each squad rocking their own specific weapons and abilities. This simple game mechanic has always made the series stand out from the wave of games in the genre. And once again its what keeps the series fresh and fun.

Gameplay = 9

As i’ve explained, BIA is alittle different from your standard FPS. You play as Sgt.Matt Baker, Baker’s been the lead character since BIA:Hill 30 or in timeline terms since Normandy.The 101st has reached Holland and you rejoin Bakers squad just at the cusp of Market Garden. While playing as Baker you will have control over between 1 and 3 squads. They range from Assault teams (Used to flank and attack suppressed enemies), MG Teams (Used to suppress enemies), Bazooka Teams (Used for taking out tanks and MG emplacements) and Standard Fire Teams (which double as both suppression and assault teams).

Of course Baker can also bag a few Nazi’s himself but you will quickly find that in BIA numbers make a major difference. Trying to rush an MG emplacement single handed is a sure fire way to get ripped in two. You really have to take advantage of your men to progress. Suppressing, flanking or finding higher ground is just a few of the examples of tricks you’ll need to use to get the drop on your enemy.

There is some change ups in the gameplay though. During some missions you may be seperated from your troops. These instances probably pose some of the biggest challenges in the game. You also get to man a tank for several missions. While fun the tank missions just seem like filler in an already short game.

The gameplay has held up quiet well since the first title. Also the minor tweaks, such as improved aiming and additional teams really add some spice to BIA:HH.

GFX = 8

The only way to describe the graphics in BIA:HH is ‘adequate’. At times the game can look outstanding and at others dated and alittle ugly. This may be down to the long delay with the release. But when your working with probably the best engine on the market at the moment, Unreal 3, there’s really no excuse for having average GFX.

The overall design is gritty and rustic which is fine but unlike something like Gears of War the style wasn’t captured with the same level of graphic quality. The game looks more basic or dull then realistic. In saying that though dispite this cinematics look great, aswell as character animations and explosions. So although the GFX are alittle dated they still do the job well enough.

Sound = 9

No complaints here. Weapons and enviromental sounds come across as authentic. Also the voice work is exceptional, with stellar performances from both Baker and Hartsock.

Longevity/Replay Value = 6

Unfortunitly this is where BIA:HH really suffers. With a measly campaign lasting only 6-7hrs, there really isn’t awhole lot of gameplay here. Although the story is well written there is alot of intrusive cinematics that cut into that 6hrs, so gameplay wise it might boil down to 5hrs. Also on the downside is the story, it progress’s the previous games well but new players coming in late will probably be completely lost.

On the multiplayer front the game will hold your attention for awhile but given both previous multiplayer games died a quick death don’t expect to have many players to play with in the near future.

Conclusion

Brothers in Arms: Hell’s Highway is a good game. It has its problems sure, but as a fan of the series i’m happy enough with this iteration. If your new to BIA i’d definitly advise you to play the first two games before playing HH. Their now available on several systems including a double pack on the Wii.

Verdict = 8

Brief preview of Fallout 3 on the Xbox 360 (First 10 Levels)

The christmas rush is here again. Developers around the globe are working round the clock to have
games on store shelves for the holidays.And as always with this time of year we’re spoiled for choice
with dozens of games battling for our cash.One such game is the new offering for Bethesda, makers of ESIV: Oblivion and now Fallout 3.

First off i’d like to clarify, i have never played the original Fallout games. But judging from screenshots that really doesn’t matter as this new title seems to be nothing like its predecessor’s.
Of course we have a similar setting but apart from that gameplay, view and pretty much everything else has been changed for this new outing.

Outline/Gameplay

The game kicks off in typical RPG fashion as you design your character and lay the ground work to mold him into a certain class. I have to say i was really impressed with how Bethesda freshened this experiance up. When you start the game you literally start at your character’s beginings. After ploping out of your mother you are greeted by your father (Liam Neeson). And through him you make choices on sex and apperance. You then get to experiance a gaming first as you take your first baby steps around and discover your skills using a pop-up book. There’s more progression iinside the vault as you move up through childhood, teen years and finally become an adult.

Its then that the game really kicks off as you leave the safety of the vault and enter Capital Wasteland. Once outside you really get the Oblivion feel about the game. Lots of open world to explore and NPC’s to meet. You really have to take alook around your surroundings to find what to do. The story isn’t sppon fed to you. Its all around you, on the radio, in books and notes or just picked up by earwigging on NPC conversations.

Now on to the fun part, the combat. This is where Fallout really sets itself apart from Oblivion. Combat is handled in two ways. As a basic FPS, relieing on your own skills to take down opponents. Alternatively you can use V.A.T.S, this feature basically lets you target specific parts of your enemy with the hit percentage based of distance and your skill with the equipped weapon. Its comes in really handy when the surrounded as you can target multiple opponents to attack. It also works as a kind of overview/command tool, giving you the chance to think about your strategy before attacking.

There is a downside to V.A.T.S though, it relies on AP (Action Points). This means you are limtied to a certain number of shots. The amount per shot depends on the weapon equipped. Once you expend your AP you need to wait from them to replenish. I think this was a smart idea by Bethesda, if you had infinite AP the game would be more like an RPG from FP than an FPS/RPG.

GFX

Graphically Fallout looks gritty and dull, but in a good way. Th art design matches the setting very well and although it wouldn’t rival Crysis it suits the game. Of course the version tested was on the 360 so add some AA on the PC and it will look even better.

What really stood out so far is the graphic ways to kill your enemies. There’s lots of bloody murder with arms, legs, torso’s and heads flying especially when using V.A.T.S. There’s also the Bloody Mess skill which basically devastates your opponent to bits, this has been one of my favourites so far.

As with any RPG there’s not much to say about the GFX apart from they lend themselves well to emersing you into the gameworld.

Conclusion

So far i’m really enjoying the game. Although it is very reminescent of Oblivion it brings enough to the table to keep me involved. I think the best way to describe it is as a lovechild of Oblivion and Stalker. After 8hrs i’ve barely cracked the surface of the main story and i feel there’s a hell of alot more to experiance. Expect a full review soon.