Cool_Freaker

Phew, haven't done anything in ages. Happy New Year! Lets hope for more success in the Xisto GFX Department. Avatar Signature Notice from mayank: Fixed the tags

Yah, I like this one - stylish, for sure

stlgoalie, I believe the AMD chips have significantly improved since then, which is a good thing really. Pricewise, I don't see there being such a big difference anymore - Intel isn't so expensive? Anyway, I got an AMD Athlon64 3200+ Venice core and it definitely runs cooler than my friend's Intel P4. The newer AMD chips are definitely running better in my opinion.

Paying for a movie ticket is probably chaper than paying for a babysitter for a few hours, so I would guess parents just bring their kids along. Still, if it was a third viewing I'm sure you've seen it enough times to know pretty well what they're saying/what's going on

I'm amazed at the amount of people on these forums that like Final Fantasy IX the best! (Think I've seen another thread on it) It's my favourite too, but on most other FF sites, or even among my friends, VII tends to be the winner, if not VI. As it was the latest one on the PSone, FFIX was the most polished, and was the only game I found engaging enough to sit there and train on random battles for hours just so I could beat a few stupid bosses .I agree with Gyad about FFVIII - it was good, but I didn't like it a whole lot either. Battles were a pain, and if you used your magic you lowered your stats and whatever. I just never got into it, and got wasted by Cerberus on the 2nd disk and couldn't go further.Flakes, I thought FFVII was one of the more "real" ones, with the pseudo-tech/future storyline.I just got FFX-2 a few weeks ago and haven't really played it that much yet. It looks different, for sure, I don't know if it's for better or worse though. FFX, I thought, was really fun - the main music theme is really good (Uematsu [sp?] favourite too apparantly), and while some of the voice acting was a bit.. well... (Yuna was boring as hell, Tidus was a girl), the characters were engaging enough.What is FFXI like? I've never played... namely because it hasn't had a big release in Australia, and it's an MMORPG (which I tend to avoid)...

Nah, I wouldn't call it your best. I know the effect you're trying to get, with the dark on one side and light on the other, but somehow that purple isn't fitting in so well. Looks nice though.

Counter-Strike tends to be a love or hate thing these days. Call of Duty is quite different, in terms of playing style, speed, weapons (duh) etc. If you're playing Single Player, it is one of the best (if not the best), FPS's around, especially if you don't count all the alien/monster FPS games such as Doom/Quake. The great thing about CoD is the sense of atmosphere - the sound is great, and the way the environments are constructed, and the human controlled allies move is just awesome.Multiplayer though, CoD is good also, but I don't believe it could be called any better than CS - it's just up to personal preference. It's definitely worth a try though.

Yeah, one of my friends got it when the original first came out, I went to his house and we'd play for ages. Then he lent it to me, and I'd play for ages - it's really cool, but what really irked me was the most popular custom built roller coasters were the really really stupid ones. My friend built a coaster that was totally flat and it was the busiest ride , coz the visitors were too chicken for anything else . What I didn't get was how to get a ride going again once it crashed. The carriages would come back, and some people would line up, but somehow it just wouldn't move (I changed the lights back to green etc etc) - usually I'd have to just scrap the ride after it's killed anyone.I've also played some Theme Park, but I found that a bit too tedious and boring (the original anyway). Theme Park World was marginally better, but in my opinion, Rollercoaster Tycoon wins hands down.

Westwood should have an online matchmaking service. I know for Generals and Zero Hour it does. Renegade uses Gamespy Arcade. I'm guessing Red Alert 2 has something of the sort as well. Red Alert and Command & Conquer originals are going to be a bit hard to get a game, I think you need to get friends to play and to get a server first.

I think the main problem with games is the price. Look at Hollywood productions, which cost millions of dollars to make, and yet you can go buy the DVD in a few months, for about 1/3 the price of a new release game. Obviously, movies have the advantage of being in the cinema for revenue, but games, on the whole, would not cost more than a movie to produce. Also, with games you have to have the hardware. There's no doubt games are expensive to make, but make it more affordable to the masses (ie be less greedy), less will pirate, more will buy, and it should work out in the end.

Render doesn't seem blended too well and text is hard to read. I think just try some brushing on top, and change the font/glow whatever, and it'd look pretty good.

I use drag for all shots apart from really, really short shots or important killing shots. It's much faster, and thus tends to give you less delay. I find slice is a bit more accurate though, and it's easier to just put a tiny bit of power on it, when your enemy is just next to you.

I am quite certain. I have definitely got the Dragon and Knight mobiles before World Championship came out. I used to play random quite a bit, but since WC me and my friends have been sticking to our fave ones - I usually go Ice, friend goes Boomer, and I lower def It depends on the shot. Shot 1 goes left I think, shot 2 goes right, no matter which direction it's shot from. Frog is so versatile as the shot moves, and can get into some impossible spaces.

Yep it's out for PC - has been for at least a few months now. I know that in Australia it's about AU$89.95, so I'd guess in the US anywhere from $50 - 70, depending on what price bracket they want to target.Anyway, I've never played Doom 3, though my friends tell me it's rather similar, though graphically they've improved quite a bit in Quake 4, and it also lacks the cheap "jump out behind you" scares. I do have to admit it still is a bit freaky, but the lighting is superb, as are the textures, especially the metallic objects. The voice acting I noted as being rather good also - suprisingly, and I would say this Quake is definitely more focused on single player.As others have said though, a speed boost and some more "mayhem" would be nice for a multiplayer mod

Checked power connectors and made sure everything was plugged in correctly? If you must, reconnect everything again... I just had my computer put together with an A8N-SLI board, and it booted up no problem. As your friend said - maybe try just booting up the motherboard. It's possible your chip got fried, but I'm sure you would have been careful putting it together ;)If it really doesn't work, just take it back as dead on arrival.

80gb should be fine for general use. Just be prepared to burn stuff to CD/DVD or uninstall things you don't use. If you're actually getting a new harddrive though, I'd recommend something bigger, considering prices are really quite cheap now, and on a $/per gb basis, it's better to get something like a 120gb/200gb HDD.

Well firstly, the render is squashed. That's a big no-no. Make sure when you resize the render, you hold shift as to keep the proportions right, otherwise it looks weird, distorted and noobish.Brushing is rather nice, though nothing seems to really have been brushed on top of the render - the render is just a little transperant on the edges, rather than having colouring on top, which I would recommend. I find the scan lines a bit dark as well. Try lowering the opacity on them.Text has a nice effect, perhaps make it bigger and more central as to fill up more of that space. A font choice less conservative might work too, considering the render is of a funky general/soldier/whatever dude.Overall it's quite nice, keep at it Dawiss

I got the demo of CoD2 off a computer magazine cover DVD. I maxed out the settings, but I am a bit disappointed with what I saw in the supposed "Pre-release Demo". Graphically, it is better than Call of Duty, but I would not say it is such a significant improvement. It plays very similarly to the original also, perhaps too much so. Whether it's a good or bad thing I'm not quite sure yet, but if I'm going to pay full price for a game I don't think I want to be buying just an updated version of something I've bought before.Still, the inclusion of a North African campaign sounds interesting, but apparantly the newest Medal of Honour also has a section of that as well. If anyone has it, I'm just wondering what the CoD2 multiplayer is like? An improvement on 1? Many servers yet, and/or players on them?

Opacity strips are alright I suppose - I'm still not a big fan of them though. Nice brushing there SM, but I don't get the render

If you must get your boyfriend a game, and a soccer one at that, I would recommend Pro Evolution Soccer 8 (also called World Soccer Winning Eleven 8 International in the US).If he has that one, maybe a car game something like Need for Speed: Most Wanted - I'm not too sure about bike manager games...

Nothing wrong with Pokemon really. The anime does not have much to it though - even from the start, years ago I remember growing bored fast. The amount of fillers and useless stuff is abundant - how many bloody episdoes does it take to travel to another town and battle a gym leader? ;)The games on the whole are much better though. I finally got my hands on Emerald just a few months ago and it's pretty damn good. I've spent more time playing it that Final Fantasy X . The inclusion of Contests, Berries, Battle Frontier etc are really great and stretch the lifespan of the game much more. Not to mention all the legendary Pokemon to catch as well. I find too many people just dislike Pokemon because it's the cool thing to do. I'd have to say though, the Gameboy games are well worth a play and should not simply be regarded as childish.

I work at McDonalds... I'm not sure it's because of that, that I tend to avoid eating it as much as possible. I find a lot of the burgers taste really rather artificial, and as others have said, are not very filling. Hungry Jacks (Burger King subsidary) burgers are better for sure in terms of size, taste and "filling-ness", even though slightly more expensive. That said, in the past year, the Maccas I've worked at, the prices have risen about 3 times. When I started a small meal was about AU$4.95, now I think it's $5.45 or something.KFC is alright too, Twisters are cool, but everything seems even more expensive. The fries are fatter (as in diameter) than Maccas and have MSG on them (good or bad - well up to you ). I'm not a huge meat eater myself though, so if not a Twister or a small box of Popcorn Chicken I tend to not eat much KFC either.

I just got the game a few days ago and I gotta say it's really rather good. I've never played Underground 1 or 2, but Most Wanted is most enjoyable - with the ability to change/mod cars, running from the cops etc etc. The graphics are pretty darn good looking too. Big improvement from the last Need for Speed I played... Hot Persuit I believe it was

Haha very nice SM. Certainly very different.

Which version you playing? Gameboy Advance versions - Fire Emblem or FE:Sacred Stones? - or the Gamecube version?Obviously though, if a character is weak, level him up and he may be useful later on. I know in Sacred Stones you have those "apprentice"-class like characters which are extremely weak, but can be levelled up and then can change to a better class - and are often well worth the effort.