Might not be posting much for the next few weeks...

[Overpaid Slacker]

Just picked up DOOM3 -- and Painkiller, for when the plot of DOOM3 gets to be too confusing.

Figure I'll be getting a new 6800 Ultra videocard in the next week or so, at which point I'll have to play FarCry all over again...

So I'm laying in provisions: 2 cartons of smokes, 10 2-liter bottles of Diet Coke, 10 packs of gum, 2 bottles of vitamins and lots of eye drops. I think I'll move the toaster oven next to the computer too, so I can warm up pizza w/o leaving the command chair. Hmm... pizza; I should probably get a few rolls of papertowels too, before I strap in to save the universe.

I should still make the NYC Pelican gathering on the 13th, but I might be late, and pale, and very sensitive to light, and a bit overtired. My employer is not going to get their money's worth out of me for the next couple of weeks.

If you don't hear from me in a week or so, send the paramedics, w/ plenty of electrolytes.

JP the Demonslayer, Scourge of the Underworld

[Icemaster]

Just do me a favor and check in from time to time, need to know if it's worth the $50 before I risk divorce and dissolution.

[turbocarrera]

Playing Doom3 in pitch blackness with headphones scares the piss out of me..

[vash]

i hear the doom3 writers have agents and publicist? is this right?

[Overpaid Slacker]

Just do me a favor and check in from time to time, need to know if it's worth the $50 before I risk divorce and dissolution.

The $50 for a premium game has always been worth it for me... Even if it keeps me at home only one night, I've saved at least the $50 on booze. Usually, a good game (like FarCry) is good for at least a week of staying home (or substantially reduced consumption).


Tony --
Thanks for the tip. Maybe I should stock up on Depends (tm) as well.

T minus 90 minutes 'til DOOM3...

JP

[Overpaid Slacker]

Vash -
John Carmack is a walking God for videogame design/conception/execution. Reviewers, designers, gamers, you name it, they all drop what they're doing when Carmack has something to say about the business.

Dunno about the rest of the id team, but I'm sure they've got some egos...

JP

[ronin]

Originally posted by turbocarrera
Playing Doom3 in pitch blackness with headphones scares the piss out of me..

lol! I used to do that with the original Doom after the rest of the famn damily went to bed. the weef thought I was nuts; getting the ***** scared out of me and laughing myself silly afterwards. good times

[}{arlequin]

Originally posted by Overpaid Slacker
The $50 for a premium game has always been worth it for me... Even if it keeps me at home only one night, I've saved at least the $50 on booze. Usually, a good game (like FarCry) is good for at least a week of staying home (or substantially reduced consumption

you mean you don't play videogames drunk???

[lendaddy]

Should one even bother trying any of these on a pretty good laptop? I've never played any of these, but if you guys like em, maybe I'm missing out on something?

[Icemaster]

Oh Lendaddy,

Let me introduce you to the additiction/cult of gaming.....

It all depends on how fast/new your laptop is. What are the specs on it? I doubt you'd want to try out Doom3 on a laptop though, you just wont get the impact of a 5.1 digital surround with a huge graphics card on a 19" LCD.

You thought an addiction to Porsches was bad....

[lendaddy]

It's got a few ponies under the hood At least I think so 2.8Ghz P4 512k RAM , etc.. 15 inch wide screen lcd. Am I worthy?

My mistake it's a 17" TFT and I double check and it's 2.8 Ghz w/HT

[ronin]

the graphics card is key here. what chipset do you have and how much ram for the card?

[Overpaid Slacker]

Dave --
I have played first person shooters, as well as real time strategy games drunk, and it is an exercise in extreme frustration (unless you're playing against other drunkards). The computer thinks way faster than I do when I'm sober ... no need to give it an extra edge.

Lendaddy -
Most of the recent top-of-the-line FPS (FarCry, Painkiller, Doom3)won't play very well on a laptop, though some of the older ones will, as long as you've got a *****-hot video card in said laptop. A lot of the RTS games will play ok on a laptop, but there are always a few more bugs/drivers/mystery issues to get sorted when you're using a laptop.

EDIT -- with those specs, it dammy well better have a real video processor!

T-minus 42 minutes until DOOM3 -- how much of a nerd am I? I'm sitting in my office reading the freaking manual!!! Like there's anything they need to tell you if you've ever played a FPS killfest before -- shoot EVERYTHING, pick up weapons, ammo, health and anything else shiny, then... continue shooting EVERYTHING. "This is a pistol, it will kill things; this is a shotgun, it will kill things really dead at close range but not so much dead at long range. There are lots of other meaner weapons in the game, so keep a look out." But I'm reading the book that's telling me to shoot EVERYTHING b/c I can't wait to get home and play this freaking game. The Credits take up more pages than the instructions.

OK, that rant took 2 minutes; t-minus 40 minutes 'til DOOM3.

JP

[ronin]

wouldn't you just ***** if the boss walked in about right now and said "hey, J.P. ... overtime!"

[lendaddy]

I think this is right, any good?

NVIDIA GeForce FX Go5700 3D graphics with 128MB DDR dedicated video memory; 1-touch TV-out button; built-in Harman/Kardon stereo speakers

[Overpaid Slacker]

Ronin -
That's the unfunniest post I've ever laughed my a$$ off about.

JP

[Overpaid Slacker]

Lendaddy -
That'll get you "in the game" so to speak, but you'll have to have the resolution/effects cranked down in many of the games (no crazy oversampling/antialiasing, turn shadows off, set texture quality to low, etc.). My main gripe w/ laptops is that their screen latency is usually too high to give a "smooth" or non-ghosted image when playing games. Big CRTs (the ones that make your entire desk into nothing more than a de facto monitor stand) are the way to go, imho.

OK, that does it -- I'm blowing this Cantonese popsicle stand and heading home. ... wish me luck.

JP

[ronin]

lol. and 30 minutes early, to boot. enjoy

[Icemaster]

Originally posted by Overpaid Slacker
how much of a nerd am I? I'm sitting in my office reading the freaking manual!!!

Hey, it's all about learning the hotkeys.

Scorched earth my man, level it all.

[Icemaster]

Len,

...what JP said. There's a good lot of games out there that are a generation or two back that you could probably pick up for 10 or 15 bucks (Unreal, HalfLife, Ghost Recon etc.) that would run just fine on your machine. Try out a few of these first before you go dropping serious coin on some of the newer ones. You might as well try it out first.

Grab a good set of headphones and plug them in, you'll be golden. That will give you more of the surround sound. Bear in mind that the screen resolution/refresh rate is a key factor in this environment. You'd be better off if you had a dock that you could plug into with an external 17" monitor, you'll notice the difference, however you could still play on what you've got, it's better hardware than my laptop, and I kill a lot of time on planes with it.