New laptop - Pesonal Gaming

A few months ago I was stupid and spilled water onto my laptop. Its got lost by the post office so I can't even try to send it in for repairs anymore, meaning I need a new one.

I've been looking around for one but haven't really decided on one yet. I usually use newegg.com but the laptop that I used to have is no longer sold much to my dismay. I usually buy my laptops so that they can play games even though a desktop is better for this I go to college so bring a Desktop back and forth is such a bother.

I usually look for an i7 or i5 or a AMD quad core with a screen size of no more than 15.6in. I had one that was around 17 in but it weighed too much to lug around school all the time. Price its too big of a deal but obviously cheaper and great is better for a student.

Anyone have any opinions on which one to get for gaming? i7 over i5 probably but what about i7 over AMD quad-core?

ForceSC2strategy - Youtube gaming channel reviews

This is going to be the 4th section of my blog. As you know this is more of an entertainment blog where I review both games and movies as well as keeping you up to date with my own personal gaming life that includes my gaming setup and what I might be doing during the day or week.

The 4th section is going to be about youtube channels that I've found that are very good for gaming news or just entertaining to watch about games. Feel free to comment below about any channels that you know about that are about gaming or even those that you find entertaining.



Youtube Channel:  http://www.youtube.com/user/ForceSC2strategy
Most recent video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAhkmhyPi4o

Why watch/checkout/subscribe?:

I subscribed to the channel at first for Starcraft 2 tips and tutorials that the channel made dubbed: Like-A-Boss, where they talked about strategies and tips to improve your gaming. The channel also does Starcraft 2 game commentaries if you enjoy those. What set this channel out of the other ones for me was its most recent reviews and podcasts about the new upcoming Blizzard game: Diablo 3.

Hope you guys enjoy it as much as I do.

Finally Back - Personal Gaming

Wow, time just flies when you aren't looking. I didn't have anytime to go and update my blog sadly since once finals finished I started packing to come home (I'm back home now). I should have a bit more time now to write more reviews and update this blog regularly but I also have to work (hopefully more than 1 job since I need to pay for college).

As for reviews I don't think I'll be playing too many new games but rather more of the older ones since I left my console games at home; being back I have the freedom to play them. I will also probably be doing a ton more movie reviews so if you have any movies you want reviewed or genres then just post in the comments.

Thanks for reading my blog, commenting, and following.

Finished Guild Wars Project - Personal Gaming

Finished making my PvE dervish so I can use it in PvP. yeah I know its strange to go PvE for PvP stuff but I like the cool armor. Not to mention its nice to take a break from PvP every once in a while. I think I am going to make a mesmer next and practice with it, yeah I know I wrote about this in a previous blog post but I made up my mind to do it.


Also I have lots of comments to go through but just haven't had the time :( I'l probably do it tommrow.

Next update - Personal Gaming

Spent the day watching Smallville and playing Guild Wars :/ Almost done with Smallville and also getting a bit bored of Guild Wars again.


Think of creating a mesmer to PvP with but I'm not that good at it so we'll have to see.

Finals Week - Personal Gaming

Well I still don't really have time to do any reviews since its finals week. As the title says, but hopefully I can do a few soon enough.

For those of you still in college: Good Luck on your Finals
To those already done: Hope you did well.


Also for those of you that have been asking: I have finished Portal 2, haven't started the co-op yet since my roommate and I have finals coming up but we might do it afterwards. I haven't finished the first Portal game though but to my dismay. Just never got around to it :/

Quick Update - Personal Gaming

I've gone back to Guild Wars for now since it was Double Fame weekend. Haven't been playing anything else except Killing Floor on steam which I did a review on. So right now I have absolutely nothing to review, I might try to do one on a movie but I haven't really seen any good ones either.

Killing Floor - Game Review

* I couldn't find a good information page like I normally do on Wiki so I'll do a quick run down myself.

Its on PC only from what I know and it can be bought off Steam for around $17 (since I'm in Germany right now it says its costs 17.99 euros) [Steam sometimes seems to do a direct conversion of price of Euro to dollar or maybe even dollar to euro].

As part of the title of the game would suggest, this is a co-op game and is meant to be played online with others (there is a lan function if you wish to stay among friends only)

Graphics: 7/10

It might be a 6 but this game is still a work in progress I think so for now it is pretty well off. I've seen some pictures of it when it was just a mod for other games but now that it is a game itself the graphics have improved quite a bit. Not to mention the blood, fire, and general destruction looks nice. Some of the buildings look fake but you aren't looking at them when you are getting swarmed by a bunch of these mutated horrors.

Game play: 7/10

Very simple. Kill, buy new weapons, survive. Rinse and repeat. The key factor that makes it different from all those other zombie, survive the apocalypse games is the difficulty of it. Now I'm not saying its harder than some of the ones out there. Call of Duty is rather hard since it never ends, L4D 1 and 2 are kinda hard, but easier than this game. Killing Floor combines them both by giving you the ability to win but makes it challenging due to the sheer amount of the "specimens" that you have to kill. Not only that but there is no cross-hair targeting system so its all by iron sight unless its a crossbow then you have this scope on it but there is always a final boss that is pretty hard to kill if you don't work together.

There are also several classes that you can play and each one gives you certain benefits. These benefits increase as you level up that class. The levels are saved on the account (it does depends on the games you play as some games are modded for fun and it won't be saved)

Plot/ Storyline: 6/10

To be fair its not a bad score for the type of game that it is. Killing Floor isn't the first and defiantly won't be the last type of game where you have to kill hordes of monsters and survive. The background story is also a bit cliche. Some scientists do some experiments on people and it goes horribly wrong. Now the army or w/e military they have are sent in to find survivors and kill them off.

Online game-play:

Very important to the game. Online play is what drives this game forward but the only problem, which isn't really a game specific problem, is the team that you get. If you get a bunch of people that don't know what they are doing you can still survive but you won't get far. If you get a bunch of people that think they can go solo you won't last long either. Worse is when you join a game with assholes that thinks its funny to kill you if Friendly Fire is on. (Got a game like that today and I ended up going on my friend's steam account and killing them until they raged and left)

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To buy,sent, or leave on shelf.

Its another Buy for me. For me its one of those games that you play then maybe stop playing for a bit but when you start playing again you won't stop for a few weeks or even a few months.

My Audio Setup - Personal Gaming

Some people like to play game with speakers (surround sound, etc.) but I prefer to have headphones on. It does get uncomfortable after a few hours of gaming but I usually take enough breaks that it doesn't affect me too much. I prefer headphones and headsets over speakers since it allows be to hear more especially if I play First Person Shooter games and need to hear foot steps.

So here is a question for you:

1) Which do you prefer?: Headset /headphones or Speakers
2) What is your setup? (Brand, etc.)


My Setup

JVC HA-FX35 (Black) Marshmallow Inner-ear Headphone

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16826106455
$14^.99

Logitech Gaming Headset G330 (Black)

http://www.amazon.com/Logitech-Gaming-Headset-G330-Black/dp/B002I3OZB2/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1304817027&sr=8-5

$33.86

*My ear covering headphones broke recently and I have yet to find a decent replacement. I've been shopping around and I think I've narrowed it down to these 4. If you have other suggestions that would be awesome. Preferably not too expensive.

Sennheiser - Professional DJ styled - Hi-Fi Stereo Headphones (HD 201)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16826106455

$19^.99

Sennheiser HD228 3.5mm Connector Supra-aural Stereo Headphone

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16826106239

$54^.95

Sennheiser - Professional DJ styled - Closed Dynamic Bass Headphones (HD 202 II)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16826106508

$24^.95

Sennheiser HD203 6.3mm Connector Circumaural Stereo Headphones - DJ/MP3 closed lightweight Headphones

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16826106443

$29^.99

Diablo 2 - Game Review

Diablo II

"If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Unless it crashes, then fix it." - IGN.com

Developer(s)	Blizzard North
Publisher(s)	NA Blizzard Entertainment EU Sierra Entertainment HanbitSoft
Designer(s)	David Brevik Stieg Hedlund Erich Schaefer Chase Clements Max Schaefer Eric Sexton
Composer(s)	Matt Uelmen
Series	Diablo
Version	1.13c (March 23, 2010)
Platform(s)	Microsoft Windows, Mac OS, Mac OS X
Release date(s)	NA / PAL June 29, 2000
Genre(s)	hack and slash[1]
Mode(s)	Single player, multiplayer
Rating(s)	ELSPA: 15+ ESRB: M OFLC: MA15+ OFLC: M and R16+ PEGI: 16+
Media/distribution	3 CD-ROMs (Play, Install, and Cinematics discs), Download
System requirements Mac OS G3 processor or equivalent, System 8.1 or later, 64MB RAM plus Virtual Memory, 650MB drive space, 4X CD-ROM drive, 256 color display at 640x480 resolution (800x600 with expansion) Windows 233 MHz Pentium or better, 32 MB RAM, 650 MB drive space, 4X CD-ROM drive, DirectX compatible video card

- From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diablo_II

I'm going to make a bold statement to start off this game review. Here it is: if you haven't played Diablo 2 then you aren't a real gamer, or you are too young and definitely aren't a real gamer (you need to experience some N64, Dreamcast, etc.) 

Graphics: 8/10

Rather high but you have to remember the time period that it came out. It was amazing at the time, not realistic, far from it in fact but it was good enough. They had plenty of environmental effects, such as rain, thunder storms, snow? (think this was in the expansion but I haven't played in years). There was even a bunch of blood effects (more than enough actually), even some funny ones (remember the spinning Fallen Ones?). The cinematic on the other-hand are amazing and would alone make it close to 9/10 or even 10/10

Game play: 10/10

4 "races/professions", 2 more if you have the expansion. Plenty of spells and abilities with limited amounts of skill points so you have to choose your tech/learning path wisely, or play the game multiple times, trying a new path each time. The game play is rather simple as well, you kill hordes of monsters, demons, and anything else that Hell throws at you. You gain gold, items, and experience for killing them and then use the experience to level up and unlock skills while doing so. It gets a bit repetitive but the storyline makes up for it enough.

Plot/ Storyline: 10/10

The storyline is the same for each character but that doesn't take away from the story line. Its pretty simple actually, you are hunting down 3 brothers. The Lords of Terror, Hatred, and Destruction. The side quests and your path there is what makes this game so special. If you played the first Diablo game then there is a special treat in one of the side quests for you.

Online game-play:

Its pretty good but items that are dropped are open for anyone to pick up so you can get your drops stolen. If you play with friends then this isn't a big problem since you can just share it with each other. Also the more people in the game, the stronger the creatures you have to kill.

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Buy/rent or leave on the shelf?

BUY BUY BUY! Its a classic, another one of Blizzard's prize games. If you want play the first Diablo game first then move on to this game, the expansion, and then finally sit and wait for Diablo3 when it comes out.

Buy the Battle-chest if you have the chance since it includes the expansion and guide books.

As usual:

Amazon.com: $29.99

Bestbuy: $29.99

Gamestop: $29.99

Ebay: $1-$100

Warning: Buying things from ebay, especially games, you might receive damaged items.

Blizzard is down! - Quick News

Noooooo!

I tried to login to my Starcraft 2 account just now to play a few games and to my surprise I found that Blizzard is having some issues.

Lets hope they fix it soon and its not a Sony fiasco with them being hacked.

What games are you waiting for / want? - Question(s)

I'm going to make this post a short one for now. I'm working on my next one which should be about Diablo 2 (one of my all-time favorite games) and a movie review (but I haven't been watching anything super awesome to review yet)

I recently saw a bunch of videos of game-play on the new Diablo 3 game, which got me to thinking about which games I am waiting for to come out and which game are already out that I haven't purchased yet. My current list is:

Diablo 3
Guild Wars 2
Gears of War 3
Elder Scrolls: Skyrim
Batman: Arkam City
Assassins Creed (suppose to be out for Christmas?)
Fabe 3
Battlefield 3
Starcraft 2 expansions

and a bunch of other ones that I am looking forward to seeing some trailers or game-play, or if it is an MMORPG: if it requires subscription.


So what game(s) are you guys looking forward to or want to purchase?