For those that are considering following this blog, the game giveaway is going to become a monthly staple. It will be for a $10 game (not two), so make sure you follow my Twitter feed or check me out on Facebook. There’s free games for the takin’!

So, here’s the final tally for this month’s giveaway with some of the commenter’s thoughts below.

Cryptorus: 13

jack keys: 12

Tommy: 5

geophase: 3

krahswar: 2

Eromu: 1

IMHI: 1

Juice mmm: -5

Cryptorus edged out the win for the $10 game, the $5 game going to Jack Keys!

Thanks to all who read the original article and then commented on what’s going to make Skyrim so great.

Cryptorus had a great point about the Radiant Story system. If it comes together the way he’s described, this could be more immersive than virtually all RPGs before Skyrim. Here’s his thoughts.

And the third and final reason I believe Skyrim will rock, is the Radiant AI/Story system in the game now. With this, your world will be truly unique to you, with your decisions causing impact in the game as well as more realistic reactions from npcs, for example:

Let’s say you’re in town, walking through as people go about their daily tasks. blacksmiths blacksmithing, beggars, well begging, merchants barking and selling their wares, how they would in real life medieval times(which is the impression I am getting from what they are saying on this whole system. After all, this is all speculation so bear with me here).

You go into someone’s house while they are home, and begin smacking their stuff (and them) with your pointy metal stick. They won’t be just “Oh hey stop doing that!” or just not even react to it at all. They will get angry if they don’t know you, and there might be a chance that they might attack you, call the guards in an attempt to remove you from their abode. So, you take your sword, and stick it in them a few times. People find out, the guards get most likely called, and your reputation is lowered after people find out you just became a murderer. Real things happen when you do something.

The Radiant story system will keep track of those actions, put some side quests in different places, what dungeons you have been to, and what you’re doing. You won’t be going to a dungeon you already cleared to save a kidnapped/missing person, you will be heading into unexplored territory. You also won’t be doing mundane tasks as well, which is part of the point of the implementation of the radiant story system.

Jack Keys discussed the combat at length, suggesting that the upcoming changes to the combat system are going to make the feel of combat more exciting and visceral.

Another reason I’m excited for Skyrim is because of the changes to combat that are promised. Instead of every encounter turning into a hack-and-slash, it sounds like there will be many more options open to players, and like the combat system has been made more enjoyable.

Some specifics that I’m excited for in this regard:
– Dual-wielding, and experimenting with the different combinations

– Ranged combat getting revamped to be stronger, but slower firing, making it a much more viable option (bonus points for this being influenced by a community mod)

- Finishing moves to make combat feel more visceral (so long as they don’t become intrusive after 50+ hours)

Thanks again to all, keep reading the blog for more interesting (possibly slightly less controversial… but maybe not) articles.

I know that Bethesda has tons of people – the best in the business – working on Skyrim, making it the best Elder Scrolls game yet. I’m not a complete pessimist. But when I play Oblivion and feel like I have to use mods to truly make it shine like the gem it is, I get concerned that Skyrim might also need some polishing. Hence the article.

Let’s discuss why Skyrim will rock

I want people to know that I wasn’t just flaming Bethesda, and I’m anything but a troll. In order to prove that, I’m offering 2 gifts. A $10 Steam gift of a game of your choice and a $5 Steam gift of a game of your choice. Here’s how it’s going to work.

1. Comment on this article why you think Skyrim is going to rock. Be concise, but have a valid point. I’m going to use my discretion as to what and what doesn’t count, but anything with more thought than “I think it’s going to rock because the world is huge and there’s a ton to explore.” counts. If you reply with “It wil b awsum!1!” – that’s not gonna cut it.
2. You can comment as many times as you like. Each one that has a valid point will get counted.
3. The more LIKES your comment gets, the more votes you will get. For example, if I say how much the exploration is going to rock and 3 people LIKE my comment (not reply to), I will get 3 votes for that. FYI, I’m not counting my own comments in this.
4. Use your CORRECT email address when commenting. If I can’t contact you when you win, no game for you.
5. The person with the MOST comments (including LIKEs) will win the free $10 game of their choice. The person with the second most gets the $5 game.
6. The deadline is 9pm MST on Sunday, July 24th, 2011.
7. I reserve the right to use your comments in my next article and I will quote you.

By the way, there’s no catch here. I’m going to spend $15 of my own money and gift games to people who comment. I’m a long-standing member of Steam (oliverh72) and you can find me on XBL (gunRunnr). I just want to read your comments.

Skyrim is going to rock because…

I love Bethesda’s worlds – they’re massive and there’s simply tons to explore. The fact that this world is hand-crafted means it’s going to rock even more.

Dual-wielding. Fire & Ice. Together at last.

Perrrrrks, baby! I love perks – they give you a whole new reason to love leveling up.

It’s gonna sell a bazongajillion copies, I’m sure. And it’s probably gonna be good. But what if it’s not?

Tell me why you think it’s going to rock to win free games on Steam!!

The UI and menu system

Described here as ‘pure sex’ could be really, really clunky and annoying. It looks like it’ll be great on consoles, but on a PC? Probably not so much.

I suspect it may be annoying to have to constantly jump in and out of submenus to view, compare, or equip items. Think of it this way: Todd Howard (Todd, from now on. Like we’re buddies.) described it by saying that they have ‘thousands of these things, and what’s really cool is that they’re all in 3D. … Literally thousands of objects.” I think this is a Great Thing™. Really, I do. I just don’t want to have to spend an hour finding that wheatgrass I just picked up. We’ll see if the UI and menus are as quick and simple to use as they are pure sexy.

The dumbing down of my RPG

27 skills in Morrowind. 21 skills in Oblivion. 18 skills in Skyrim. Let me jump over a house, goddammit! This is a disturbing trend that is evident in most big RPG franchises nowadays. Less skills, less customization, less… everything… in the ungodly name of ‘streamlining’. Now, I’m all for cutting to make a game better. Which this may do. It might be that they have ferreted out the exact skills that were pointless in Oblivion and kept in all the ones that are useful and fun and made sense in your character progression.

But I guarantee people are still gonna bitch that they can’t jump over a house with their acrobatics maxed. Or beat the tar out of everyone in the game with Hand to Hand. I might not notice they’re missing, but I’m sure some people will.

Level-scaling

This was glazed over awfully quickly in the longest video interview Todd gave with G4TV. He basically says it’ll be a lot like Fallout 3, so level-scaling is still in, but with some areas with random-leveled mobs and some areas with harder mobs, some easier. This is okay, but still not the best solution, in my opinion. Maybe it’s been tweaked and improved since Fallout 3? We’ll see.

Minimum specs from the future

How Skyrim runs on the 360 and PS3 is oh-so-likely to suck. How it’s going to run on my brand-new computer? Still sucky, probably. Back when Oblivion came out, it was like you needed a freaking Cray Supercomputer to run the damn thing. All that grass moving made my computer just start crying randomly. I swear if it could have, it would have renamed the Oblivion shortcut to ‘fuck that, it hurts’.

And here I just went and built a new computer, 4 months too early. Anything that doesn’t come from the future is probably going to run Skyrim like shit. And I know that Bethesda’s probably got the 360 and PS3 all figured out now (right? right?), but it’s probably either going to look like crap or run like crap, one or the other. You can’t push the limits of a platform without some sort of give.

Third-person view slo-mo ‘finishing’ move videos

I’m not sure why I haven’t heard anyone mentioning anything about this, but in that now-mythical 14 minute gameplay video seen below, it clearly jumps to a slow motion ‘finishing move’ when he takes out the last wolf. Now I hope to all of the gods in Skyrim that this is optional. Please, for the love of Akatosh, let me skip these or turn them off entirely. Maybe it was a demo thing.

No minimap

This might not be to everyone’s tastes, but I prefer a minimap to the compass. The compass is just so half-assed. Most of the time in the previous games, I didn’t know what the markers were even for, so I just ignored it entirely. Occasionally I’d decide to use it and end up going towards the wrong quest marker. Bah. Give me a minimap please, or at the very least, make my map marker and/or quest markers unique so I can tell them apart. Why is this so hard?

Where’s my inventory comparison info?

Sure to come in one of the first mods – currently equipped comparison info when viewing items in your inventory. Another personal beef, but it’s in so many games nowadays, why couldn’t they find room for it? Perhaps that’s what the little ^ marks are for in the inventory lists? I dunno. But if it takes me 10 seconds to find and equip an item only to discover it’s worse than the one I had previously, then another ten to go find the original one…

You get the picture. Modders? Please make us all happy.

Radiant stuff… again. This time, Radiant Story

It didn’t work so hot in the last game. Something Awful spent many words telling you what they thought. Go read what they wrote.

‘Nuff said.

Unproven Third Person view

Bethesda’s never been good at this and up until now, the third person view option has always felt tacked on so few people used it unless it was supplemented with a mod that improved it.

I generally prefer to play in third person view, but I’ve never been able to in a Bethesda game. They’re just… awkward, somehow. They’ve never felt right, from the slightly off-center camera to the strange running animations. There’s a slew of mods out there that’ll fix it and let you customize it to your heart’s content, but despite rumors (and comments in interviews) to the contrary, consolers are likely to be shit out of luck. Please get this right on the first try, Bethesda.

Reality < Hype

Todd, we know you believe in your game. And I’m sold, really. I’ll buy it. But when the hype machine begins in such earnest more than 6 months in advance of release, I start to get a bit squirmy. I know it’s probably going to be good. Heck, it’s probably going to be really damn good. But the higher my expectations mean that they’ve got a lot farther to fall if I’m disappointed.

Am I being overly cynical? Maybe. But I’d rather be slightly skeptical and end up pleasantly surprised than go in proclaiming ‘Game of the Year’ and be disappointed. What are your thoughts?

View the specs and photo gallery after the break.

Small Form Factor PC Specs

So here’s the parts I used, with links to the manufacturer’s sites.

Silverstone SG07 case (comes with a 600W power supply, 80-plus certified)

Asus P8H67-i Deluxe (WiFi, Bluetooth, USB 3.0, SATA 3.0)

Intel i5-2500k CPU

2 x 4GB G-Skill DDR3-1333 SO-DIMMs

Powercolor PCS+ HD6850 Call of Duty edition

OCZ Vertex 2 240GB SSD

Seagate Momentus 7200.4 500GB HDD

Silverstone SOD02 Slot-loading slim 8x DVD drive

Prolimatech Samuel 17 CPU Cooler

Zalman ZM-SF3 120mm Fan

The goal here was to build a reasonably-priced gaming system that would have built-in WiFi, Bluetooth (nice to have) that would be reasonably quiet and not take up much room. I already had the SSD and the video card; the rest of the parts I chose after doing research and asking questions on forums where the people were incredibly knowledgeable.

Background

This isn’t essential to discuss, but if you’re considering building a Small Form Factor PC, this might help you. I’ve built my own systems for years; since about 1995 or so. I haven’t built on recently since I’ve used laptops for quite some time, and all of the ones I’ve built have been mini-ATX PCs. I found this far trickier to build than other machines, simply due to the lack of room. It forces you to think somewhat strategically about what order you install components so that you can actually get everything into the case easily. I made a few mistakes and had to backtrack a bit; give yourself time, be patient, and you’ll be fine. Read the instructions – they actually point out useful information.

The Photos

I’ll comment a bit about each step, things to make note of. I ran out of time near the end, so there’s no pics between getting the motherboard in and hooking up all the cables. Enjoy.

Here’s all the components – I ended up not using the PWM fan at all. I substituted that for the Zalman 1500rpm case fan.

Closeup of the SSD and HDD.

Closeup of the video card, CPU, CPU Fan.

This was one of the trickiest parts of the whole build. It’s hard to see in the

image, but the mounting plate is about 2″ under the lip of the slim drive, which is then another 2″ from the edge of the bay. So I needed a tiny screwdriver – the screw was less than 1/5″ across – that had a 4″ shaft just to reach the screw. Trying to actually keep the screw without dropping it repeatedly was a challenge to say the least. As you can see, I ended up using a screwdriver bit on its own. Not optimal, but it got the job done.

Got it in! The case already has fingerprints all over it. Sigh.

This was much easier. Got them in with no fuss, ready to be hooked up. Note the power button behind the cable in the bottom left. This will be mentioned later.

Make sure you put the right brackets on and don’t touch the CPU plate if you’ve removed that sticker! Also, be careful with those fins – they’re sharp. I cut my finger on one while installing it. Slow and steady gets it done.

This isn’t a hard step, but is possibly the most crucial. Be really careful not to bend any pins and to get the CPU oriented correctly before dropping it into place. That’s not a part you want to have to re-purchase.

With the Samuel 17 Heatsink installed, there’s plenty of room between it and the RAM. This orientation was best as it allowed for about 5-8mm between the heatpipes and the GPU (not shown). As you can see, there’s plenty of height clearance, but precious little room next to the heatsink. If you had heatspreaders on that RAM (not common on SO-DIMMs), you’d likely have problems. Plus, make sure you install your RAM first, as there’s no room to do it after the Samuel 17 is installed.

So the board’s now in, the Samuel 17 is installed. I lost some time here as I originally tried to install it with the fan already mounted. That does not work – put the fan afterwards.

Yup, I know it’s a bit of a jump from there to completion. I rushed the last part since I was just so hot and starting to get frustrated, plugging in all those tiny cables and connectors. My cable management leaves a lot to be desired, big-time. I found that part really tricky, especially with how little leeway you have with everything.

Thankfully I had read about this on forums. The Power Supply ships with the switch in the OFF position, and it’s really not very noticeable, seeing as how it’s inside the case. I wonder how many calls for DOAs go in on this case because people haven’t noticed the on/off switch. Anyway, if you’re building with this case, switch that to the ON position and you’re golden. Check out that monstrous 180mm fan on top. It makes the Zalman 120mm look tiny.

Summary

It was a fun, but hot build. I’m glad it’s done, but wish I had taken a bit more time to complete it; I could have continued working on it today, but I suppose I’m just a bit too impatient for that. If I had had experience building a small form factor system in the past, it would have helped a lot. Silverstone attached the front USB port cable to the front of the case, circumventing the power supply – by the time I got around to trying to plug it in, I realized that it was shortened so much that it was impossible to plug it into the motherboard. By this point, I was loathe to disassemble the whole system just for two front USB ports. That’s 2 less for me. Boo.

All in all, it looks like it’ll be exactly what I was looking for – a fast, cheap, small, quiet gaming PC. Hopefully this gallery helps you a bit in your build.

Here’s my thoughts…

Foster a community developed for – and by – your fans

The most important word here is foster. Just because you’ve thrown a blog up or a forum and you’ve got a twitter account, doesn’t really mean you’re fostering a community. To build the community and have it last, you’ve got to be involved with it. This means listening to, responding to, and even implementing the community’s suggestions for the game. If you’ve drawn people to your site that are bothering to post, tweet or comment on your game, chances are they’ve got some good ideas. Clearly not all of them are, but every now and then there’s a gem that’ll actually improve the game. Don’t be scared of trying a few of these ideas – the community will appreciate the fact that you’re paying attention.

Big companies generally have the budgets to go beyond these basics – they create art packs and/or music for their community to build their own fansites. This is huge – you’re basically giving your community the opportunity to do your marketing FOR YOU. Let them do it – give them the art, screenshots, wallpapers, mp3s. Whatever it takes to get your game out there – after all, there’s thousands of games coming out a year, yours needs to stand out. So let your community work for you.

Don’t worry about graphics, but DO pay attention to art style

Many indie games do this right (Braid, Terraria, Revenge of the Titans, Castle Crashers, Frozen Synapse, Lume, etc etc). There’s a ton of great examples where in lieu of big-budget graphics, they’ve opted for 8-bit looks or just a clean, stylized look. This is great for several reasons – it makes your game more recognizable and also makes your game far less hardware-dependant.

Where this might be a negative is if your look strays too far into a design that some might consider childlike or ‘kid-friendly’. Bold, colorful graphics are great, but you might turn off some people who just prefer a more “adult game” look. Regardless of how many people think your game is the best-looking one they’ve ever seen, by making sure your game looks unique, you’re going to guarantee that it will at least stand out, which gives it a far better chance of being remembered by your target audience.

Mods, mods, MODS

This is going to give your game longevity out the wazoo. Heck, I’ve replayed games for hours and hours just to try out new mods. Notable games that have a great mod scene are Half Life 2 (2006), Stalker: Shadow of Chernobyl (2007), Oblivion (2006), Torchlight (2009). Heck, even Morrowind (2002) has a dedicated mod community that’s as strong as ever. There’s many more than just these few examples, but the key here is longevity. Granted, Oblivion and Morrowind are huge games, expensive games, but even in the most recent super-ridiculous Steam Sale, they only dropped in price by $6 and $5, respectively. They’ve been lower in the past, but they maintain a reasonably high price for old games, mostly due to the fact that they can get it. They’re well supported, they (by now) run on almost all hardware, and staggeringly enormous amount of mods are available for them. You can quite literally play these games for years. Only Half Life 2 has a mod community that rivals them.

Let me play it first – the disappearing demo

This is something some devs do really, really well – Spiderweb Software and Soldak Entertainment come to mind here. Not only do they both provide comprehensive demos for every game they make, Soldak goes the extra mile and updates the demo with pretty much every patch they apply to the full game, so when you download one of their demos, you know it’s going to be representative of what you’re buying. Kudos to you for that, Soldak.

Demos are going the way of the dodo in the era of 10+ gigabyte games. That’s not surprising, but if you’re an indie developer, this is your chance to get your game out there into people’s hands. This may not always result in a sale, but if it does, that’s not only cash in your pocket, but also a potential one-person marketing team. If they like it, they’re probably going to tell their friends about it or possibly even join and become active in your community. This is worth its weight in gold.

Stay focused on your simple, unique idea and implement it well

This is a tricky thing to nail down. You’re developing the game, so clearly you’re doing this. And in some ways, it flies in the face of my suggestion to take your community’s suggestions and implement them. I guess what I mean is this: make sure that whatever the core of your game is, do that one thing really well. In Braid, it was time-manipulation in a platformer. This could have bombed, if they’d over-complicated it, but they stuck to the basics and polished it until perfect. That’s what is going to make your game different from all the others, so make sure it works.

Make your website look professional enough for people to give you money

This is something that can be overlooked quite easily. It’s also something that isn’t necessarily a hard-and-fast rule. But the way I see it, if I’m going to give you $10 or $20 of my money – or more – I want to feel like you are going to be around for a little while. I don’t want you and/or the site to disappear. This goes hand-in-hand with creating and supporting a community. If you’re working on your game a bunch and want it to be awesome, this is really a no-brainer. If web’s not really your thing, you’re more of a programmer, put some feelers out to the community and see if you can get some volunteers to add a level of polish.

Keep working on it and keep those patches coming

This, like above, is going to give your audience and potential customers a lot of confidence. They want to feel like you’re working to make this the best game ever. If you don’t patch it regularly, and especially when it’s necessary, kiss a lot of possible purchases goodbye. Nothing kills enthusiasm more than a buggy game that’s not getting the love it needs. People will talk, negative reviews will get posted. Start working on patches regularly, even if it’s not perfect, people will start talking about that. This exact thing happened to Star Ruler last year. By most accounts, buggy and unfinished out of the gate. This was admitted by the developers, as they simply ran out of cash. People took them on their word that they’d keep working on the game and bought it. Since that time, they’ve sold enough to be around a year later with reports of the games’ current state being a massive improvement.

We’ll support you – we just ask that you support us as well.

Design your game for netbooks and other really low end hardware

This is sort of a given for most Indie developers simply due to the fact that the majority of them are developing low-poly count, reasonably non-hardware-hungry type games. Generally they’re slightly more casual. That being said, some of them aren’t. However, with the explosion of netbooks and now handheld devices, be they smartphone or tablet, I have a ‘gaming platform’ with me at all times, pretty much. The more platforms you can get your game on, the more it will sell.

Make it addictive

This is one that can’t always be implemented. And of course, all designers probably want this. Get ‘em hooked on a simple but addictive gameplay element and you’ve pretty much guaranteed yourself a bundle o’ dough. Hell, who woulda thunk a game with a unicorn mascot based around a game that became popular with a daytime TV show (Pachinko) would help get their company sold for over a billion dollars? I probably wouldn’t have put money on it if someone had said it that way… but if you play Peggle… then you start to understand why. That crap is addictive like heroin added to your morning cup of coffee. Heck, I’ve put more hours into Zuma-alikes than I’d care to admit.

And frankly, although I seriously dug Crackdown, the thing that kept me playing for hours and hours on end were those goddamn orbs. I just.. needed…. to… get… one… more…

Addict me, I’m begging you.

For you indie gamers, don’t forget to buy your games from the below sites to support the devs!

This is not true.

It breaks down to this: if you are currently doing illegal things with videos online – like streaming stuff you’re not allowed to stream (live TV, sports, movies, etc), that’ll be still illegal. But now also a felony. That’s the gist of it. I’m sure there’s other things in there that’s important, but that’s what I took away from it.

Oh right, the source: Giant Bomb.

In other, completely unrelated news, here’s Nixie Pixel reviewing Red Dead Redemption. It’s a good ‘un.. I love how she complains that she can’t bang prostitutes, stating that it results in her having ‘blue ovaries’. Heh.

I thought I’d write a post commemorating guns. The ones I’ve loved, the ones I didn’t know about until ‘researching’ on Youtube, which I’ve fallen in love with.

What are your favorite guns, and in what game?

I’ll start with Quake 2. Along with the first Unreal Tournament, Quake 2 gave me many fond memories of shooting people in the face. That was back when I was young and had reflexes like a world-weary squirrel. Here’s some Quake 2 for ya, with the obvious BFG 10000, which I’m pretty sure was a mod, but whatevah. It’s still full of awesome.

Check out more videos of weapons you might never have seen before, after the break.

Quake 2 – the BFG 10000

Bulletstorm – it’s all about the guns

So these guns are new to me simply because I haven’t played Bulletstorm. But after watching this guns trailer, I think I might have to. Check it out – I especially like how he launches bodies into the air before exploding them all with the barrels. Sweeeet.

Fallout: New Vegas – the Fat Man

Apparently, there’s more guns in Fallout: New Vegas than you can find. I know I didn’t come across most of these and my buddy and I played this game for somewhere around 60 hours. I guess we weren’t looking hard enough. Or using cheat codes. Pity. The Fat Man looks like a lot of fun.

Just Cause 2 – the Air Propulsion Gun

Just…. Wow. I want this game now. Please go on sale again soon.

Armed and Dangerous – the Landshark Gun

Why more games don’t offer this weapon is a complete mystery to me. You shoot sharks. Into the ground. They pop out of the ground and swallow your enemies whole. This should really be its own game. I know I’d buy it – it’s pure, unadulterated genius.

Red Faction: Armageddon – the Mr. Toots

By a huge margin, I’ve saved the best for last. There are no words to describe how awesome this weapon is. Seriously, just watch the video and marvel.

(spoiler: it’s a rainbow-horned unicorn that shoots exploding rainbows out its ass! Really!!)

Nonetheless, this here edition is a fancy-pants velvet-themed edition, and darned if I ain’t never heard of a velvet edition before. Awfully spiffy, there TopWare. Since I’ve just bought and begun playing the Two worlds that have been sequeled, this caught my eye.

Apparently it will arrive this October 18th, so bellows the hype machine. Click past the break to read the hyperbole and see some close up pics of the packaging.

Two Worlds II: Velvet Game of the Year Edition coming this October!

Including the expansion; Pirates of the Flying Fortress, which also releases this fall, Two Worlds II: GOTY hits shelves with a grandiose entrance!

Las Vegas, Nevada – July 15^th, 2011 – TopWare Interactive is releasing the Two Worlds II: Velvet GOTY Edition this October 18th and they are doing so with glamorous class! The TWII: Velvet GOTY Edition not only comes bundled with the sought after expansion Pirates of the Flying Fortress, but is also uniquely designed in a limited collector’s box which is wrapped in black velvet (PC/Mac) or red velvet (console versions) and highlighted with metal corners made to look like antique brass. Moreover, there is a bold relief TWII logo of the same real metal at the top of the box.

Along with the multi-lingual version of TWII, this collector’s item also comes with all of the up-to- date upgrades. Additional extras include a huge double-sided world map and a valuable pirate head pin collectable, which subsequently is also available in-game! This exclusive item actually boosts the player’s parameters if hefted to armor! Together with another bonus disc containing artwork, wallpaper, videos, an extended soundtrack and two additional PvP multiplayer maps. More Antaloor simply isn’t possible!

This limited collector’s edition will be available for PC, Mac, Xbox 360 and PS3!

Sol Survivor is a tower defense game.

For those not familiar with tower defense (since you’re reading this, I’m not sure how that’s actually possible), the mighty Wikipedia proclaims: The goal of tower defense games is to try to stop enemies from crossing a map by building towers which shoot at them as they pass. Enemies and towers usually have varied abilities, costs, and ability costs. When an enemy is defeated, the player earns money or points, which are used to buy or upgrade towers, or upgrade the number of money or points that are earned, or even upgrade the rate at which they upgrade.   …  this cycle often causes the player to enter a state of rapturous addiction, ignoring bathing, spouses, food and sleep.

Okay, that last addition was mine, I admit it.

It possibly flew under your radar, and if so, that is a shame – one that needs to be rectified. To be clear, it’s not just any tower defense game. It is one that offers variety, challenge, and achievements galore. It isn’t necessarily a complete break from the genre, but the sheer number of ways you can succeed at this game begs you to play it, over and over and over again.

It is also perhaps the most polished tower defense game I’ve ever played – the graphics, sound, effects, and UI are all top-notch. The obvious comparison here would be to Defense Grid which is in all respects, its equal.

So let me tell you about Sol Survivor.

Before I wax oh-so-poetically, have a gander at this video, showing the game in all its addictive glory.

Sol Survivor, how do I love thee? Let me count the ways.

1. Steam tells me I’ve played Sol Survivor for 172 hours

I hope my wife doesn’t read this. I think she knows already, to be honest. And Steam doesn’t count the hours I’ve played on the XBLIG version, which I also bought. It rocks as much as the PC version, so whatever your platform, you really should buy this game. The reason I’ve played this game for more than any other on Steam is simply due to how incredibly addictive it is. I think we’ve all experienced this, either with something like Angry Birds or other Tower Defense games. For me, though, Sol Survivor simply adds to that base level of addiction with varied maps, co-op play, and truly different and varied characters to play with.

2. In Sol Survivor, I can call down (frickin’) lasers and roast my enemies

And if I lasers just don’t do it for me, I can firebomb the little f*ckers. Or perhaps I feel more like noxious gas. No problem. If things are really going sideways, the last resort is always the nuke. That’s covered here as well.

See, Sol Survivor features different commanders, each of which can place a variety of towers. Pretty standard stuff, except here, each commander has a different focus, with the towers they have access to. Some are area of effect gods. Some do damage over time. Some prefer to deal massive amounts of injury to a couple of creeps at once. And that variety is fantastic – repeating a mission with a different commander makes it an all-new puzzle that you have to solve.

So, calling down the lasers. Or firebombs… that is the other capability of your commanders. Each of the 10 commanders has access to a variety of the 19 different Orbital Support options. And it’s not just  for show either – you get massive bonuses for using upgrades throughout the mission.

3. The massive variety of gameplay styles and maps

There’s 4 different Multiplayer gameplay types alone, including Co-op. 20 different maps, with 3 different difficulty levels for each. And if that bores you, see how long you can last in Survival mode. Trust me, it’s hard.

The different maps are spread across 4 different planets, each with a different style of terrain, from ice to desert to lava.

4. I love me some achievements and the Steam cloud

This is probably why I bought both the Steam version and the Xbox 360 version. For each game, there’s a bunch of achievements for doing particular things, such as defeating a particular map using only one tower type. This in itself is addicting, as if the game wasn’t already bad enough. To add ice cream to this delicious pie, all your progress is saved to the Steam so don’t worry about backing up your saves so much.

Nothing gives me a fix quite as much as seeing that little achievement notification pop up.

5. Fabulous camera, UI and graphics

If you’re an FPS player, Sol Survivor probably isn’t going to make you a strategy gamer by wowing you with the graphics. But for a Tower Defense game, this is la creme de la creme. It looks awesome and runs great on almost all hardware.

The UI can be shrunk or enlarged to your preference. The cameras controls – on both PC and Xbox 360 – are smooth, simple, and functional, letting you get your nose right in the action or zoom way out to oversee the battlefield from on high. This is fabulous, especially when you’ve dropped a nuke and you want to watch the destruction. It simply draws you into the game that much more.

6. Subtle and beautifully layered soundtrack

I would call it eerie and ethereal. It suits the game to a T. You notice that it’s there, but it never grows wearisome or annoying. It’s just the right mixture of sci-fi and ambient to complement the gameplay. Kudos to the composer.

7. It’s got a built in encyclopedia!

This might not be your thing. I find it awesome. Basically, everything you uncover as you play – the creeps (enemies), new towers, new orbital support options, new Commanders, new gameplay modes – they’re all listed in the in-game encyclopedia with more information, listing their strengths, weaknesses and abilities. This makes my reference nerd very happy.

If I had to give Sol Survivor a score, I’d give it a 9 out of 10. The only complaint I could really levy against it is that I want more maps, more gameplay modes, more achievements. So I don’t really think that that counts as a knock against it, but since no game is perfect, a 9 it is.

Thank you, Cadenza Interactive, for helping me cheerfully give up 7 full days of my life to this game. It’s been wonderful.

And to those who might be wondering – I paid for Sol Survivor, twice. Yes, I’m gushing, but at least it’s sincere.

Buy Sol Survivor below if I’ve tweaked your interest.

Let’s celebrate those decisions.

Once again, these are not in any particular order. So let’s get on with it:

the top 10 great decisions game designers make

Great decision 1: tooltips and other great user interface innovations

This could be an article all on its own, no problem. You have to go pretty far back to be able to see just how far we’ve come with respect to games’ user interfaces. I’ll give some examples, but first, let’s talk about tooltips.

Tooltips are those floaty things that pop up a description when you’re trying to figure out what the heck some icon means. This is a fabulous innovation, and in many games, I can’t live without them. As stated in the previous article, I’m a bit of a loot whore. So if I have 45 different kinds of armor that I’ve picked up, I really don’t want to try each and every piece on to see which one is better. Tooltips make my life easier, and your game more fun. Torchlight did a great job on this, though they’re by no means the first – I’m just pointing the finger their way because they simply did it so well. In World of Warcraft (and probably every MMO since), they provide tooltips for the loot, then they auto-compared it to what you’ve got equipped, along with an easy system for determining which stats are better or worse than your currently-equipped gear. Smart. (green is better, red is worse) Do you know who did this first?

Other great user interface decisions (this list could go on and on)…

• tips/hints/objectives that display when important, then auto-hide (most MMOs do this really well)
• remembering what I was last viewing in my quest log/character sheet/inventory
• making me aware of impending death with color and/or sound cues (pretty much all FPSes, as well as Diablo)
• color-coding game items so that I instinctively know what they’re for
• world maps marked with NPCs, quest objectives (I’ll cover minimaps below)
• a changing cursor to indicate interactivity, with an icon that represents what type of interactivity
• inventories with movable items (this wasn’t always the case)
• stackable items
• no interface at all (Dead Space, Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth)
• and of course, visible ammo/health
• the fog of war/exploration
• completely customizable UI (Guild Wars, you rocked this)

Great decision 2: rewarding me for success

This is one that could be argued is a design decision at all. Clearly it’s one that is all but invisible to the player, or at least it should be. This is basically the carrot on the end of the stick that keeps you playing, but the best games will implement it so subtly that you don’t even know it’s there.

This is the ding when you level, the quest reward, the gun that enemy drops, the building upgrade that I can now build, the next level (game level or character level), the armor you can now afford. This is that area that was previously unreachable, the boss you couldn’t defeat whose sword you now carry. The proverbial princess, if you will. Heck, this is eating the ghosts, the euphoria you feel when you have succeeded. Thank you game designers’ for giving me this.

Great decision 3: minimaps!!

Ah, minimaps. I can barely remember not having one in a game. I’m pretty certain it didn’t start with Dune II, but that’s where I first remember seeing one. Since that time, they’ve gotten better (most of the time) and allow zooming, navigation, tooltips for areas/NPCs, sometimes even they let you add notes right to the minimap. Some are even movable and resizable. This is a good thing, in my mind. Letting a user hide the minimap if they don’t like it is great too – it’s all about choice. But I’m a focused gamer – I like to check off my objectives, so being able to orient myself easily and get my bearings makes me enjoy a game more.

Great decision 4: making me feel like a hero

Nothing much compares to this feeling – for many people, it’s the sole reason they play games. You can’t leap buildings (trust me, I’ve seen the FAIL videos) in regular life, or take 14 bullets to the chest, or erupt jets of flame from the ground around your enemies. Making me feel like I can do all these things – priceless.

• Everquest II – you made me feel like a badass even though I was only a level 9 sorcerer.
• Half Life 2 – you made me feel like the world was after me in that opening sequence.
• All of the Gothic games – eventually, you made me feel like I could take on anything.
• Dragon Age – you made my decisions so difficult, but no matter what, you made them feel significant.
• Company of Heroes and Medal of Honor Allied Assualt – you made me feel like I was storming Omaha beach.
• Quake I and II – you made me feel like I could pwn anyone.

Great decision 5: introducing the world/character/NPCs/story organically

This isn’t always done so well, probably because it’s so freaking hard to do. A game I just started, Hydrophobia: Prophecy does this really well. It doesn’t force me to sit and watch 25 minutes of cutscenes before playing (see below). Instead, it just puts me in a room, with my stuff in it. It lets me explore a bit, with some short CG sequences to let me get a feel of who I am, what I do, and who’s in my life. This is a great way to do it – it lets me, the player, learn to the extent I choose, why I need to save the world. Don’t just tell me I need to save the world because I’m the chosen one.. let me decide for myself that it’s worth saving.

Great decision 6: those fantastic cutscenes

Oh, the double-edged sword of cutscenes. Remember the ones from Diablo and how blown away you were? Yeah, me too. Same goes for Warcraft III, World of Warcraft, ummm, every Blizzard game ever. Yep, other companies do it fabulously as well. Some are so memorable, it’s like you are there, the ones you tell your friends about. Like the one a few months back for Dead Island. It’s still in my Youtube favourites list. But done wrong, an expensive cutscene can make gamers laugh at the game the designers are trying so hard to immerse you in. The best ones suck you into the world, immerse you in the characters and set the stage for the game, all at the same time.

What are your favourite cutscenes and why?

Great decision 7: encouraging exploration and discovery

The Gothic games have to be targeted for being the series to follow, as far as exploration is concerned. Since their worlds were hand-crafted, there was always some reward for exploration. Some little area to find, a fantastic weapon or scroll. Great worlds demand to be explored, so encourage me to do so with special encounters or awesome loot. Or even just a stunning vista to look at.

Great decision 8: allowing me to forget about the camera

From RTSs to RPGs to FPSs, the last thing you ever want to do in the middle of a game is to be constantly tweaking your camera because you can’t properly see what’s going on. Alone in the Dark (the originals), you were innovative, but MAN did your camera drive me crazy. However, that being said, the way the camera worked, even in that – much like in the Resident Evil games, pre RE4 – added to the tension of being chased, being unable to get away, being hunted. So for that, I thank you as well. But in most modern games, having a camera that is so seamless, so unobtrusive and smart, that I forget there is one. This makes me feel not just that I’m in your world, but that I AM the character – the camera is my viewport, my eyes.

Great decision 9: tell me, don’t show me

Wow, this is one you don’t see done well very often. That is, of course, voice acting. Countless games have tried to do this well, countless games fail. Maybe it’s the disconnect – the fact that I know it’s not real. Often it’s the simple fact that the lipsyncing is completely out of whack so I’m not sold. But when it’s done well… those times are special, indeed.

Dragon Age was immensely successful in making me believe that the people in my group, those that I met, pretty much everyone in the world cared about that world. That my actions mattered. I believed them, so I believed in the world. LA Noire, you showed me that sometimes I can’t read people at all, even though I think I can. You gave me the clues and made me think the people were lying, so it’s really my own fault when I couldn’t figure it out. Because of you, I’ve been to 1940s LA. Half Life 2, you let me wake up and smell the ashes.

Great decision 10: creating interesting, interactive open worlds

This one is a personal preference, clearly. Not everyone likes open world games. If they’re done poorly, they offer little more than gigantic stretches of time between actually doing anything. Done well, and they make you feel like you’re inhabiting the world with so much to do it’s hard to believe you’ll have time to actually go to work tomorrow. How will you fit it all in? After all, I’ve got this quest to finish, some harvesting to do, I need to climb that mountain over there, then there’s all these people to shoot… yeesh. Thanks designers, for giving me a world to play in that’s sometimes more interesting than the one I really live in.

Since the dawn of home video gaming, circa 1980, games have offered exploration and adventure. They give everyone the ability to feel like a hero, to explore dangerous and uncharted lands. And since the very beginning, game designers have made huge blunders in creating those worlds. That’s not to say that they don’t get a ton of stuff right – they do. We wouldn’t keep playing games if they weren’t fun. But as the medium has evolved, some game design blunders have inexplicably remained consistent.

Perhaps this is due to the mass-marketing of games to all, perhaps it’s just laziness. No matter what the reason is, these aren’t acceptable any more. Gamers should demand more. I demand more.

So without further ado, I bring you (in no particular significant order) …

the top 10 mistakes that game designers still make

Mistake 1: Non-moving NPCs

This mistake is as old as some of the first Ultima games. Probably older, but that’s where I first saw it. Heck, it was in Zork I. That damn Grue was always in any dark area. Nowadays, we’ve got quest markers, minimaps, area maps, world maps, all nicely marked with quest givers, quest locations, sometimes even with quest objectives right on the map. So why on earth can’t we find NPCs that move around a bit? I know, game design 101 right? Make sure that there are landmarks for gamers to attach to and recognize. I get that. But having Johnny Questgiver walk to his house or down to the fountain isn’t a grievous error – especially not if I can read a note on his door saying where he went, or if he’s wearing clothes that are unique.

Heck, knowing most designers, he’s likely got a giant grey exclamation point floating over his head anyway, so he shouldn’t be too hard to spot.

noticeable exceptions: The Gothic series tries really hard to mix this up, and those titles succeed, for the most part.

Mistake 2: Boring, repetitive quests

How often in any game you play, regardless of genre, do you find yourself genuinely surprised in the first hour of gameplay? I would say that happens very, very rarely. This is even more grievous further in the game when you’ve done 4 variations of each of the primary quests, each about 7 times. Heck, this has gotten so bad that these quest types have gotten nicknames!! How is this acceptable? If you aren’t aware and you’re wondering what I mean, the nicknames generally are something along these lines:

• fetch quests (you have to go get something)
• fedex quests (like the above, but often you have to repeat this with multiple NPCs to get more than 1 thing)
• kill X of Y quests (sometimes followed by a boss or miniboss)
• find item in area
• escort quests
• gather X of Y

So where’s the imagination? Give me more interaction! I want to solve a puzzle. Or become involved in a random action sequence that only occurs with a specific item in my inventory. Or I may need to decipher clues to complete a quest. Perhaps talk to an NPC about an item in my inventory to solve a quest. I’m just throwing stuff out here, but if a team of designers sat down and thought a little harder about this, perhaps we’d see some real imaginative quest designs.

Does anyone have some examples of quest design throughout a game that is unique, interesting and fresh? If you have more than 2 people on your team and/or a budget of more than your spare change, this mistake can be easily avoided. Heck, most of the low-budget games deftly avoid this problem – your massive-budget game should be able to as well.

Mistake 3: One gameplay to rule them all

This mistake is probably due to most games trying to adhere really closely to a specific genre, but I’d like to see WAY more slashes in many games’ genre. I’m tired of straight-up FPS. RPGs get boring. RTSes have been boring for years. If you’ve been a gamer for a couple years at least, you’ve likely shot, leveled, built, and hacked more times than you can count. So how come in almost every game I play, there’s about 4 main things I have to learn to do (and almost every single time, I’ve done it in a very similar way in dozens of other games) and I do those 4 things over and over and over.

Maybe that’s shooting some dude in the face and collecting a health pack. Or building a base to churn out units. Or slashing beasties to oblivion so that I can get another stat point. Mix things up a bit, designers! We’ve done these things. Break the mould.

Mistake 4: Assuming we’ve never played games before… oh those awful tutorial areas

This kind of goes hand-in-hand with the above mistake… If you’ve spent all this time making a really awesome game (and you’d better think it is, you designed it), make my first 15 minutes awesome. I don’t want to feel like I’ve played this exact same game before. I want to be wowed. On top of that, don’t show me how to navigate with WASD, unless you give me an option to skip the basics. I know how to steer with WASD. I can figure out how to control the camera and pick stuff up and open my inventory and shoot my gun. If you’re going to force me to do this, I’m going to be bored. At the very least, let me skip it your lame tutorial! Give me quick help page popup or something so I can quickly check out what I need and get to playing.

Two games I just got that do this very differently: Two Worlds II and Hydrophobia: Prophecy. Although in both the first hour is all about learning the controls, Two Worlds II makes the grievous mistake of making most of this a weary process, making me watch some non-skippable (see #10) cutscenes (though some are skippable) and interspersing that with dull, dull instruction about how to run and such. I finished the first game (I think I’m the only one), so I think I can figure this out. Besides, they’re marketing this to people who have bought Oblivion and similar RPGs… I’d say these are the types of people who’ve played an RPG before. Hydrophobia, on the other hand, gives you a similar intro, showing you the ropes. Some of their cutscenes are also non-skippable (SERIOUSLY??), but the environment that I’m learning this stuff in makes all the difference in the world. I’m thrown into a burning, sinking ship and am forced to learn how to play in a truly exciting atmosphere, where if I fail, I drown. This completely makes me forget that I’m playing a tutorial, immersing me in the gameplay and the environment right off the bat.

Mistake 5: The same UI for consoles as PCs

We’ve all been there. You buy a game for your PC because it’s got way more horsepower than your Xbox 360 or Playstation 3. You want to be able to max the textures, crank up the shadows and view distance and immerse yourself in the world the designers’ have created. Then you bring up the inventory and you’re greeted with enormous icons and asinine keyboard controls. WTF?? Hello, console port. Let’s utilize the amazing capabilities of the mouse to its fullest, okay?!  There’s not a lot else that needs to be said here. I’m on a PC. Do NOT tell me to ‘Press Enter to start’. Borderlands, I’m looking at you.

Also, every Gothic game that was ever made, Two Worlds II, the Saboteur, Oblivion without mods, ummmm… anyone else want to chime in here?

Torchlight, you did okay.

Mistake 6: Crappy crappy loot

This is possibly one of the most annoying things ever. Oblivion, you are the worst offender here, though Torchlight and I’d say likely any hack-and-slash is up there as well. I’ve played your game for 30 hours. I hack and I hack and I hack and kill all of teh monster. And you give me a PLAIN sword? You give me the same DAMN SWORD I GOT 20 LEVELS AGO! If I’m playing New Vegas, insert GUN for SWORD. Seriously?? Why did I bother slogging through this enormous dungeon? I like loot. I play games for loot. I want to feel more powerful. The best thing a game designer can add to a game is a decision that makes the player second-guess themselves and be unsure which choice to make. This is what I want when I find loot. I want loot that’s unique enough, fun enough, and COOL enough to make it worth my while. And all the loot I get should compete with this loot for coolness, making me struggle to choose one gun/sword/armor/fish over another.

If it doesn’t, you FAILED.

A HUGE exception to this rule goes to Borderlands, and remarkably, Two Worlds. Borderlands, well… Borderlands had like 18 quajillion guns. So, duh. Awesome. On the other hand, Two Worlds gave you the same crap over and over, but they made finding the same shitty loot over and over again very exciting. You see, you could just auto-merge all identical loot in that game, basically leveling it up. I made some really badass weapons out of the lousiest gear in that game – it’s probably why I finished it. The rest of the game was terrible. Except for the voice acting which was horrifically wonderful.

Mistake 7: No in-game cues for completion

I shouldn’t have to have a mod to tell me when I’ve done something in-game. Now, this one might not be huge, but it’s annoying nonetheless. I play a lot of RPGs, especially open-world ones. Think Oblivion, Two Worlds, Risen, Gothics, Drakensang, that sort of stuff. Sometimes I can’t remember if I’ve been in a cave or not. I can’t remember if I’ve opened that chest and looted it or that body. Don’t make me watch your oh-so-slow search animation/open door/open chest animation YET again! Give me a tooltip that indicates I’ve looted it. If it’s a chest or room or box or cabinet, leave THE DAMN DOOR OPEN! Is this so hard? In a game like Oblivion, this is especially grievous. This goes the same for maps – let me mark on maps, or even better, have a ‘map fog of war’ that shows where I’ve explored. Sometimes I just can’t remember, or I’m coming back to the game after a long time away. I don’t want to run through your infinitely-spawned monsters (grrrr… see below) again, only to discover I’ve actually already been in that area.

Mistake 8: Spawning enemies

Sigh. I think this is the game designer’s worst mistake ever. Some people like spawning enemies, so if you’re one of them, feel free to move on to #9. I don’t. If I wanted spawning enemies, I’d play Space Invaders. I’ve moved past that. Give me intelligent enemies that are tough and challenging. Kill me. Make me think to get past them. Then I will feel achievement and you will have done a good job. Good game designer. But for the love of God, don’t get sadistic about it. Give me a little bit of fodder so I get just a little bit cocky about how awesome and heroic I am. Then kill me again. Piranha Bytes, please read this very closely as I feel you are all sadists.

Mistake 9: Non-skippable cutscenes

This shouldn’t even be on this list. If I like a game, I might play it more than one time. Really! Or I might lose my save game and be forced to play it again. Either way, sometimes I don’t want to be forced to watch your hammy, poorly voice-acted, poorly written CG puppets act. I ESPECIALLY don’t want to watch your stupid INTROS proclaiming Intel/Nvidia/AMD over and over and over again. I’ve paid for your damn game, let me skip that and get right into the game. If you make me wait and don’t let me skip this stuff, I’m going to write another post just like this one only with a lot more swearing.

Mistake 10: Asinine autosave points / no “save anywhere” option

Don’t put an autosave point right before a boss fight. Hell, if I’m on a PC, don’t make autosaves without ALSO giving me a full “save anywhere” option. I’m didn’t buy your game on a cartridge. I have TERABYTES of space for your silly, bloated save files. So let me save, whenever and wherever I want. And if you absolutely MUST make autosave points, do it OFTEN. I don’t care if I have 48 saves. Or 112. Just don’t make me redo massive areas, HOURS of gameplay because you made ONE autosave point and it was at the beginning of the level, and your game crashed when I tried to exit. That will keep me from ever buying your game again. Just a tip.

So all you game designers that I really wish were reading this post.. please feel free to comment, and at the very least, pay attention to some of the above in your next game. You likely won’t make everyone happy by avoiding the above mistakes, but I know damn well I will be.

Could this be the last nail in the coffin for Sony and its troubled Playstation? We shall see.

Source: Windows 8 will allow for Xbox 360 games to be played on PCs

Two Worlds II ($17!)
Hydrophobia: Prophecy ($4!)
Massive Assault: Phantom Renaissance ($5!)
Anomaly: Warzone Earth ($5!)
Twin Sector ($1.70!) -> This probably isn’t even worth that. The audio statics like mad and after trying to ignore that for about an hour, I finally uninstalled it. Hopefully it won’t do that on my new system, but what are the chances?

What did you buy?

Paradox Fantasy Pack – $7.99

Comes with all the Elven Legacy games and addons (great turn-based strategy) as well as all the Majesty games and addons (great real-time strategy games).  That’s really a no-brainer for 8 bucks.

King’s Bounty Pack – $6.99

If you missed this great mashup of real-time adventuring and turn-based strategy meets lightweight RPG, then it’s time for you to plop down $7 in cold hard cash. You’ll get hours out of this and if somehow you don’t like it, ooooOO pretty graphics!

Click on the images to spend your hard-earned money.

the CPUs in question and the $100 question

Even though I’m building a small-form factor PC, it still takes standard components (mostly). So as part of my search, I’ve been trying to decide which processor to buy. The two fastest ones at the moment are the Intel i5-2500k and the Intel i7-2600k. Well that should be obvious, right? Bigger numbers, so the i7 must be better, no? Not so fast. After doing some research where I look at the differences between the Intel i5-2500k and the Intel i7-2600k, I frankly can’t see the benefit of going with the i7.

For those that are unfamiliar with small-form factor PCs, they are basically your standard tower-style desktop computer, but one where the tower is the size of a shoebox. Literally. The one you can see below is a good example, and it measures 8.7 x 7.5 x 13 inches. It’s wee.

the price of admission

For info’s sake, up here in icy Canada, the i7 will run you somewhere just over $300. Quite a highly priced piece of silicon. The i5 on the other hand, drops to around $200, or just over $100 less. The differences are astonishingly minor for that $100 you’re spending.

the differences between the CPUs – the “magic” of hyper-threading

100 Mhz! Hyper-threading! 2 MB of Smart Cache! Well, that sounds good, right? After all, 100 Mhz is … uhhh something. And Hyper-threading sounds cool, as does that cache stuff that is so smart. Well not really so much, it seems. Read on.

Tom’s Hardware did a rundown of the benefits of Hyperthreading in a CPU (which is the most substantial difference between these cpus), and there almost literally was NONE, except for video/audio de/encoding. Check out all their hard work over here. For info on what Hyper-Threading is and why Intel thinks you should have some, check out what the smart folks who update Wikipedia said about it. Now, the Tom’s Hardware article was based on the last generation of i7 CPUs, mind you.

In a different article, Techgage checked the benefits of hyperthreading on Lightroom (which I use), and there’s pretty much nil benefit there as well.

On top of that, according to Tom’s Hardware, the list of software and games that even support hyper-threading is incredibly short.

So after all this, you may be asking yourself “why should I even care about hyper-threading?“. And that, dear reader, is a damn good question. I will give Intel a small bit of credit here. If you do video encoding/decoding or if you’re into 3D rendering applications, or even heavy-duty audio, that Hyper-threading will make a difference. It is the regular applications that most of us use day in and day out that will see almost zero benefit.

What about the 100Mhz and the 2MB of Smart Cache?

Well, that proves to be somewhat bunk as well. When the CPUs first came out, there were reviewed at a variety of sites, all far more reputable than this one. For instance our northerly neighbours at Hardware Canucks put both of these CPUs through reams of extensive testing in their i7 2600k and i5 2500k review.

As you can see in the below chart, with all other hardware being equal, the two processors produce practically identical results.

image credit: Hardware Canucks

The reliance on assumption

I think that’s the main reason people keep buying the 2600k. I had assumed it must be better in some way, and that assumption nearly cost me $115 + tax. Thankfully I did a bit of research to discover how minor the difference is. I just saved myself a bunch of money – you should too.

Now you may be asking… what the heck is an ExpressCard slot? Do I have one? Why should I care. All good questions. It looks like that image over to the left there, and for a while, lots of laptops had them, including MacBook Pros as you can tell. Nowadays they seem to be going the way of the dodo, what with laptops either getting too skinny for them or having somewhat decent onboard video. Now if you’re into gaming, you really need a decent video card, even if you just want to do casual gaming – everything is in 3D these days, heck even Minecraft.

The Pros of the ViDock + Laptop combination for gaming – the benefit of the video card

Which brings me to the ViDock. It is (they ain’t dead yet) a manufacturer of docks for a standard desktop video card that would then plug into your laptop, immediately blessing you with the ability to play decent games again. Goodbye, Minecraft! I’m using mine with a Radeon HD 6850 and can play most games with most details on at a res of 1360×768. Yeah, maybe not that impressive, but since I’m only running a 2.4ghz core2duo and an integrated Intel video card otherwise, I’m not complaining.

The great thing about them is that they really work as advertised and you really can play games as though you had a real video card. But two major things are an issue. If your hobby is gaming, you’re likely into upgrading your PC. Heck, you’ve got to, every couple of years at least. And since this is my hobby, I’m really just better off going with the full enchilada, as it were. I’ve liked gaming with the ViDock – a lot – and because of it, have a pretty decent video card to put into my new small form-factor PC.

Why I’m moving back to a desktop platform, or The Cons of the ViDock

The problem is, they are expensive. Like $250 expensive, for the dock alone. Then you have to buy a decent video card for it as well. So only really geeky and desperate people were likely to buy one… like me. But the time has come for me to move back into the desktop realm and pass on my ViDock to some other lucky soul. Probably on the cheap too! (hint, hint – contact me for a slightly used, perfect condition ViDock!)

If you want to read more about the awesomeness of ViDocks, check out their website here. Keep in mind that vidock4 dot com just went kablooie (don’t go to that URL), so they might not be around for too long, even though their Facebook page seems to be going great guns.

Coming soon – the configuration of my new small form factor PC. Details, specs and pics!

Of course, it’s only 80GB vs 500GB for the Seagate.

That being said, after I cleared off my HDD, did some creative backing up, moved all my media files over to the HDD, I still have 24GB free. This is with all my apps installed, Windows 7 64-bit, and enough games to keep me occupied for a long time.

The most impressive thing about this is speed. With the specs that my computer has, I don’t think there’s any other upgrade I could have purchased that would have given me such a noticeable increase in speed. I already have a quad-core 3.1ghz processor and 4GB of RAM, but I suppose I could have bought a new processor. The price would have been huge as it would have necessitated new RAM, a new motherboard, etc. And I don’t think it would have made the whole OS as snappy as the SSD has.

To give you an idea of how snappy, from off to my Win7 desktop, it takes 21 seconds. 9 of that was staring at my POST. So we’re talking a 12 second boot. That is crazy-fast.  Everything else has sped up as well; all my apps start in record time, compared to previously. Open Office starts in less than a second, without running the ‘speed start’ program at boot.

What a fantastic tech. Here’s hoping the price will come down enough and the sizes will enlarge enough for them to go mainstream.

For those inclined to care, here’s a quick benchmark in AS SSD. This was done in IDE drive mode as I installed Win7 without switching this over the AHCI and I got a pretty BSOD when I tried to switch it afterwards.

Since we’re all geeks here, you know that more RAM is always better. If you want to get your husband a wonderful father’s day gift, a hermetically sealed plastic helping o’RAM is always going to make his heart leap with joy.

Thank God Seagate understands this. I’ve not had a Seagate drive in many moons, but it does appear that one two are in my future. They announced this drive last week or so, with much fanfare. It appears, that for once, a new hard drive deserves it, completely shocking the entire tech community. These days, the only time techies getting excited seems to be when a new Call of Duty get gets announced. Who woulda thunkit?

So, what’s so special about this new yet old-fashioned spinning platter of love? Well, Seagate up and stapled a buncha RAM to it. 4Giggybytes, to be exact. And that seems to be the crucial icing on the cake as far as making it be oh-so-much more than just a reg’lar old hard drive. It apparently makes it awesome.

There’s many reviews out on the web, but to get a true sense of how awesome this drive has the potential to be, check out the Overclocker’s Club review where they have plenty of colored graphs showing why you should buy two of these right now and install them in RAID 0.

That’s why I’m so excited about em – by doing that, you get a 1TB drive that’s all but indistinguishable speed-wise from a miserly 128GB SSD. Oh, and you get it for $300.

The mad scientists at Samsung have come up with something cool. No, not a time machine, though that would be super-cool. It’s an LCD monitor that’s powered by USB. Yes, I know it’s been done, but I’m not talking about one that’s the size of your dad’s first TV. I’m talking about one that’s nearly of drooling size. Drooling size being anything over 22 inches. This one below is 19 inches, which is nothing to sneeze at. Here’s hoping it’ll sell like hotcakes so that every manufacturer will have to do it.

Then we’ll see ‘em in 22+ inches. Drool.

Another pic can be found over at Tech-on! (exclamation point theirs)

Hegemony: Philip of Macedon.  Okay, so the title could use some work. Too late for that, I guess. But hey, the game plays great! That’s something, at least. I tried the demo and thought it was a really cool mix of empire building, RTS, and board gaming. I liked it enough to recommend it to my dad, who really enjoys his historical wargames.

And not just him! I recommend it to you, too. You can find the demo at the above-linked site, or just go ahead and buy it half-off this weekend over here on Impulse.

And if I haven’t yet convinced you of it’s pure awesomeness, here’s a video and a review on James Allen’s excellent Out of Eight Reviews. See, I did all the work for you… all you have to do is pony up fifteen smackers. And that fifteen bumps back up to it’s normal thirty smackers at midnight on Sunday.