Echoes221's Blog

Quick PC Build Log

So I haven't done a blog post in a long time and I've realised I'm a compulsive procrastinator so have a quick build log/images of my PC build that I did last week for my 21st!

Reciving new parts is a little like Christmas, so much anticipation and boxes and wrapping fly everywhere...and occasionally manuals, but no one needs those...right? So I spent about £970 on this build including delivery from Aria.

-i5 2500K (3.3.GHz)
-ATI 7870 GPU
-750W OCZ Modular Power Supply
-64GB Crucial M4 SSD
-1TB Segate SataIII HDD
-Be Quiet! Dark Rock Advance Cooler
-Corsair Obsidian Series 550D Case
-Gigabyte Z68-UD4 Motherboard
-Sony SATA Disk drive
-8GB Corsair Vengeance (Low Profile) 1600Mhz Ram

Fresh from delivery:


So I started to assemble it all, checking that everything was correct and orderly for the post test, all good so far:


The heatsink was a little awkward, so I had to alter my usual (and correct) fashion of post testing outside the case in lieu of affixing the backplate with the motherboard screwed down to the gorgeous, sexy corsair case:




Post test was successful on first try which was brilliant! Then started the cable management which I really get a kick out of doing. I love having a neat system inside, not only does it look good, it promotes airflow allowing heat to dissipate correctly. Usually I would take the top HDD cage out to allow direct airflow to the GPU, but I had some difficulty cable managing the third HDD in so its located in the upper shelf. She's looking like a sexy beast now if I do say so myself:



A pic of spaghetti junction behind the motherboard tray. All tied down, there is method to this madness, just a limited amount of space to do it in:


All done! Looking gorgeous with my newish monitor. I also picked up a mechanical keyboard for a hefty price, but it was well worth it - gaming and typing is orgasmic on it, I can't go back to membrane keys now. I'm still running the same mouse and mat that I have been for the past 4 years and I can't think of using anything else (perhaps a mamba in a year or so time) as I love it. A very slick looking build if I do say so my self:



The SSD is well worth the cash. I have windows installed on it and a few drivers and once the bios is done initialising windows takes about 10-15 seconds to load in, meaning that the computer boots in about 30 seconds. It's like using a Mac. Windows experience index lowest is 7.5 with the CPU which can be overclocked with everything else at the maximum 7.9 Battlefield 3 and all my other games run very well. BF3 I get between 55-70 FPS on Ultra. Team Fortress 2 around 300 FPS, L4D 200ish. Metro 45-75 and crysis 2 50-70. It's a brilliant system and I haven't done any over clocking yet! Some pictures of the front of the case:


All the insides are sound damped which is glorious, I can barely hear the thing and there is no difference in acoustics under load. Brilliant case. It has loads of fan filters and hidden doors too:




So happy to have a powerful gaming PC that will see me through for a long time and I can throw another graphics card in at a later date. I had to persuade myself not to get a GTX680, I would have had to made some sacrifices and I love my build as is.

I also did a build for a mate as well last month and that turned out brilliantly:



There's something about building PC's that gets me excited and its also relaxing as well when everything goes smoothly.

It also wouldn't be a blog without an awesome gif either.

A Day With Ubisoft

Recently I was invited to attend an event with Ubisoft that showcased all of the upcoming titles that had been initially shown at the E3 2010 back in June this year from the company. It was like stepping into a little holiday location (in Chelsea, no less) complete with ice cream, popcorn and a multitude of screens hosting the publishing outfit’s latest demos. Trying to avoid getting too excited was certainly quite a difficult prospect! With everything from Sony’s PlayStation Move and Microsoft’s Kinect, through to Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood and Tom Clancy’s HAWX 2 to try out, there was plenty on show. Whilst you can catch up on my thoughts about Just Dance 2 and Shaun White Skateboarding, here I will break the Cubed3 taboo and talk about the non-Nintendo titles on show, and, more specifically, the Kyoto Company’s competition in terms of Sony and Microsoft’s new motion controllers that are due to hit later this year. This blog will also be in two sections so be sure to check out part two. We’ll see where this goes shall we? See you on the other side. Enjoy!

Microsoft’s Kinect, and Your Shape: Fitness Evolved
I’ll jump straight into the deep end with one of the biggest contenders, Microsoft’s Kinect, which has raised heads across the Industry in terms of the tech featured behind the device. In short, it’s a camera that maps the player in 3D space and allows them to interact in the gaming world on-screen. My first thoughts on seeing the Kinect module in person is that it is rather on the large size. Quite a bit longer than Wii’s sensor bar and almost as thick as the Wii itself (though obviously not as deep), if you plan on having movement capabilities from all three companies, Kinect will take up the most space below your TV.

Playing the device is like nothing I have experienced before, and believe me, it felt so alien. Whilst movement-oriented gameplay with the Wii Remote and PlayStation Move (more on the latter later) focus on a solid controller in your hand to flail about with, Kinect is nothing but your body, which feels both natural...and extremely weird at the same time. This odd feeling came from seeing your body moving on-screen and touching objects featured there, but not actually coming into contact with any matter in the material world. Perhaps the most the surprising thing was that the device actually worked, far better than I could have ever imagined, especially given my initial doubts when first hearing about it. Whilst I imagined this kind of technology appearing in another ten or so years, Microsoft has instead delivered it, right here and now in the flesh.

Taking on Ubisoft’s Your Shape: Fitness Evolved was entertaining. It accurately measured my height, shoulder breadth and other miscellaneous pieces in what can only be described as a Superman-esque x-ray; again, it felt strange but all rather high-tech, showing off how accurate Kinect is. The demos available for Fitness Evolved included one from each of the modes; Personal Trainer, Gym, and relaxing exercises such as yoga. Starting up with the gym session, which had me cross punching boxes, it was remarkably precise with only a slight amount of detection lag. Not feeling flexible enough (as well as not wanting to embarrass myself to passers-by...) I opted not to do the yoga class but went for the upbeat personal trainer class instead. This snippet had me lunge punching in time to the on-screen teacher and wow, you really do work up a sweat! Kinect forces you to do the exercise as accurately as possible otherwise it will not count your move sequence.

As far as what this particular demo showed me, Kinect does work; quite well in fact. Whilst accurately assessing my body as I made a fool of myself to make sure the exercises were done correctly, it soon lost that weird feeling and became more natural. While it works for these type of games, and there are many possibilities that it could be used for, I can’t imagine running on the spot to move around inside a game world. You will still need your controller for more traditional experiences, unless Microsoft comes up with a friendlier proprietary input device. As it stands, Kinect is impressive technology and works for the ‘casual’ games, but it needs more titles to appeal to the veteran audience to warrant a purchase at its currently hefty ���£130 price point.

Playstation Move with Racket Sports and Ruse
Here is a device a little bit closer to home in aesthetics and function, PlayStation Move. Surprisingly the wand is lighter than the Wii Remote, and considerably lighter than Wii with a MotionPlus attachment. As for the overall ergonomics of the device, it sits in your hand as comfortably as the Wii Remote does, with easy access to the five face buttons and the underside trigger. However, the start and select buttons are placed rather awkwardly on the upper sides of Move making it difficult to reach in-game. The Move has one main difference compared to the Wii Remote too, and that is the glowing orb on the end of the wand. It’s satisfyingly squidgy, so you won’t be able to harm anybody if you accidentally whack your friends with that part of the controller. The orb itself glows different colours depending on the player or actions on screen, and it even (somehow) tracks if you cover it up with your hand, which is nice to know as, since you’re waving your hand around, it is bound to get covered up at some point.

As far as games go I got to try out Racket Sports, which in essence is Wii Sports: Tennis, featuring beach ball, squash, ping pong, badminton and tennis. Racket Sport’s similarities to its Wii counterpart is uncanny. The players move automatically to the best place on the field to return the ball, the arenas themselves look very similar (albeit with a new theme for each game type). However, there were some pretty pressing negative matters. I don’t know whether this was due to the game’s code, the Move controller itself or some other external factor, but there was quite a lot of noticeable lag. Taking a swipe at the ball took a second or so for it to register in-game, which made playing the title pretty difficult as it required relatively quick reflexes. Motions themselves also had to be overacted, and sometimes weren’t recognised by the PlayStation Eye camera that helps Move to work. This put a dampener on the experience as a whole, but judgement shall be reserved until more games show up.

There is one genre that is sorely missed on consoles, and sadly enough, the Wii as well. We have our shooters, puzzlers and adventure games, but where are all the real-time strategy (RTS) games? This is one genre that that is near non-existent on the Wii, possibly due to the power or lack of demand. It seems, however, that Ubisoft are tapping into that potential and are bringing Ruse, a popular board game that has recently been re-invented as a video game for the PC, and wildly enough, will now be featuring on the PS3 exclusively for Move. Many of you have probably guessed by now that this brings control over your territory not unlike a mouse would on the PC, one of the reasons why it has never worked on conventional controllers. Players are now able to flick in various directions to open up sub-menus to build barracks and weaponry as well as selecting different squads through the pointer. Thankfully, the lag that was experienced with Racket Sports was not present on Ruse, making the play seamless and effortless. This isn’t a stripped down version either; everything remains intact from the visuals to the day/turn based combat system. If this takes off, hopefully we may see some more RTS titles hitting consoles, hopefully including Wii, since so far the main examples have been the superb ANNO and the average SimCity Creator.

Carry on to part two!

A Day With Ubisoft Part 2

Welcome to part two, lets carry on where we left off....

Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood
As a massive fan of the past games, I was eager to see what Ubisoft had in store for us with the next iteration of its Assassin’s Creed franchise. On the show floor they had a demo of the beginning of the single player story mode which an Ubi-guy walked us through (no hands-on), as well as nine or so booths set up for online multiplayer. As the single player was demoed to us, the action looked much more fluid with enemies being dispatched in a flurry of attacks without the need for the slow counter-attack system of the past games, as well as being able to pick items up such as axes and throw them at oncoming attackers. Brotherhood features Assassin’s Creed 2’s Ezio as a master assassin with a whole order in the palm of his hands. Instead of dispatching enemies yourself, you can order your comrades to do it for you and quite literally walk into your contract’s house to kill them. Of course, you won’t be able to just do this for every fight; there is a recharge feature in use here to keep the play a little more challenging. It is shaping up to be a very good title to say the least.

Many of you may be wondering how on earth multiplayer work for such a game. Well you can relax, as it works pretty well, actually. In the demo, players could choose from a plethora of characters, each with their own unique abilities such as ‘run faster,’ ‘change your appearance’ and ‘multiply yourself to distract your enemies.’ You are then sent into the arena (essentially a small portion from the game) to hunt down another player whilst you are being hunted down yourself. You get more points for stealthy kills and lose your contract if they are alerted to your presence and get away or you kill the wrong person, which is pretty easy to do. Personally I bolted across rooftops and slowed down when targets were in sight, which made it harder for people to follow but stealth less apparent. It’s all about finding the right balance between stealth and movement to win the game, as well as predicting opponent’s moves. Oh, and did I mention that the crowd are all replicas of the in-game characters? Anyone could be your enemy. Gripping stuff.

Tom Clancy blowout
That’s not all that was at Ubisoft’s event however, as they were also showing a game demo of Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Future Soldier, which featured the players deep behind enemy lines, stealthily taking out enemies using a whole host of technology, such as cloaking devices, enemy locaters and an all-new and improved cross-com system that allows you to see the field of view of your squad mates, and ultimately take out the target along with any surrounding foes. Speaking of the squad, it seems Ubisoft has opted to improve the enemy AI considerably so that you no longer need to give them specific attack and defend orders; the AI is now smarter and they operate separately on the mission to take down enemies and make play more fluid, whilst always being there when you need them. It’s not all stealth however; we were given a taste of what happens when all hell breaks loose, which as it happens is a massive fire fight with an intuitive cover system and destructible environments, so you can’t stay in one place for too long lest you want to succumb to a storm of bullets. Future Soldier is shaping up nicely and features some impressive gadgets and gameplay, not to mention that it looks a hell of a lot nicer than Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter in terms of scenery, character models and general attention to detail. If they manage to make the game balanced with the use of devices such as the cloaking system, this should be a title to look forward to in the future.

Sticking with the theme of Tom Clancy, Ubisoft was also eager to show off a demo of H.A.W.X. 2, which features the same ridiculously over-powered jet fighters taking to the skies in all-out warfare. Essentially it is the same game as in the past, but they have made many improvements across the board, as well as including new missions. Taking off is now much faster and adrenaline-fuelled than it used to be and the weapon systems have been upgraded to become more user-friendly and, ultimately, more deadly. Ubisoft has also taken players’ complaints from the last game on-board and made changes to the ‘night cover/sight/attack’ system that plagued players of the previous iteration. There really isn’t much to more to say about H.A.W.X. 2, other than it is very similar to the previous game. However, what was shown was only really a taster. If you like fast-paced dogfights then this will probably be a title for you. Be sure to keep your eye on this one, because what was shown barely scratched the surface of what the finished product will be.

To Conclude
With many new titles to explore, what is written above barely covers the experiences that were had. The biggest crowds were around the new Microsoft and Sony controllers, new technology that everyone was eager to try. I’m not sure which one has more potential, but I’m partial to say that the Move will be better due to its lower price-tag and also due to the fact that it is familiar and I have an idea of what type of games will accompany it. However, I wouldn’t rule out Microsoft’s Kinect either, as this is new technology and has the most undiscovered potential as nothing quite like it has been done before. It’s hard (or easy, depending on which way you look at it) to see how the games for the system will go, but as I said before, the games have to come for Kinect before we see its true potential.

New controllers aside, the games that were presented show an impressive year or so for Ubisoft. They are all looking pretty stellar with no laggards in the mix, though particular interest must go towards titles such as Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood and Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Future Soldier. I’ve gone on for a fair bit of time here to cover as much as possible, but all good (and long) things must come to an end. I hope you have enjoyed this dip into the other side, and catch you again soon!

I'm not leaving

Contrary to previous blogs around this time, I'm not gonna pull the standard trick. Just to say that I'm going away to italy on holiday for a couple of weeks to Italy. I'll check in from time to time on my ipod but I'll see you guys on the other side! I'll be reading, playing pokemon, and most importantly, eating a life's supply of Ice Cream!

I think I'll leave it at that, too late to write a long blog (though this does have to be my shortest yet!)

Ciao!

p.s. If my star inbox is empty when I get back, there will be blood! ( Just kidding)

Obligatory once-a-thousand-post blog

What? 4000 posts? Already? Dayum, doesn’t time fly! A lot has happened in my life over the course of 1000 posts, I’ll keep this as short as possible to prevent the inevitable TL;DR syndrome that seems to be a factor in a ‘I want it now’ society, ah what a world eh?


So within the last 1000 posts, I’ve successfully joined, made friends and finished my first year of Business & Management at Oxford Brookes University. I have to say, it has been a real blast! Keeping busy with new found friends, going out to various clubs and bars, having the odd tongue wrestle (hehehe) and generally doing what students do; Studying 12 hours a day, 7 days a week.....2 weeks a year (yes, thanks FB). Hopefully I have passed the first year rather successfully, I’ll find out in the next few weeks I suspect. Can’t wait to start my second year and begin to plan my year in industry....Something business & game related would be good....just to keep the interest flowing - anything is good, but I would like to find an industry that I am comfortable in, but business is business.

Some of the more acute/regular (and sound of mind, I never said I was however!)of you forummers may have noticed that I have come on board this very site as a news poster along with Stewart Lawrence (AKA StuLaw) and Ross Marrs (AKA Marzy). Along with that, I’ve been helping out with the reviews, you can check my, better late than never, review of Avalon Code out too! As we speak I’m getting ready to write another! C3 has also opened up a few interesting new prospects via whisking me off to different events, the last being the Monster Hunter Tri hands on back in February - and the next being, well, you will have to wait and see won’t you! Keep your eyes peeled! But it’s been fun, and I’m getting back into the swing of things again as the final few uni weeks shook up my ‘C3 time’ schedule somewhat, but I’m back now!


I have also gone multiplatform (HUZZAH!) as apposed from Wii and PC, now to be joined by the black beast that is the Xbox360 (nah, not the George Forman of a PS3 - though forgiven in its new slim design). This has given gaming a new leash of life for me, as my PC was struggling somewhat with newer titles. It is nice to actually look forward to a game and actually be able to play it with some decent quality and no frame rate issues! However, it has made my PC slightly obsolete, but I still jump on there for some L4D2 etc, as if I was to get it on Xbox, no doubt that Microsoft would make me pay for all the extra DLC, whereas valve love PC too much - There are plenty of advantages to it. Now opens up a new door of fun online games with friends (Can’t believe I’ve been missing this) but Xbox’s online capabilities are pretty superior if I do say so myself.

Anyway, enough of Micro-steal-your-money-soft, how about that Monster Hunter Tri eh? I told you back in February it was going to be something special, and boy, was I right! Loving every minute of it, it’s the game I turn on for an hour, only realise it has been dark since the last time it was light! Getting through it at a steady pace whilst juggling old and new xbox catalogue games (open worlds!) as well as socialising.

Other than TV’s imploding, and the amount of good game releases that have managed to empty my wallet on copious occasions this month (seriously, before E3 is meant to be deathly quiet on the game front! Has the world gone mad?) As well as securing a summer Job, there hasn’t been that much that has gone on; just flitting through the viscous jelly that is life. I also think I’m going to pluck up the courage to ask a girl out that I’ve been thinking about a lot too (seriously, I can’t get her out of my head), I just find that kind of thing to do. It’s strange, I’m not socially inept in any way and I can get a whole room of people to like me in a matter of minutes (MAGNETISM) I struggle when it comes to the beginning of relationships....I’ll work it out, or cry myself to sleep, either way it’s going to happen!


Jesus! This was going to be a short blog! 761 words later.... You guys should give a listen to a band that I’ve been enjoying over the past few days, they are called Band of Skulls, if you have Spotify, give it a listen, and I’ll try and fit a video from the old tube of you’s below.

I wonder what the next 1000 posts will bring? Love? Dispair? Red Rings of Death? Find out in the ne....when I can be arsed to write another blog, I would have gotten away with it too, if it wasn’t for you meddling kids.

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