SpartacusUSTASA

I am looking for a new Video Card and was wondering what the prices range from. In my current one I am getting video, but the quality is not too good. I played that new game Rome and the game works, but when they get to the parts where the animated characters talk it starts lagging, and same with age of empires III. I just want a video card that can play all the games properly and above the minimum requirements. Anyone got any ideas on what kind I should get?

I am looking for a new Video Card and was wondering what the prices range from. In my current one I am getting video, but the quality is not too good. I played that new game Rome and the game works, but when they get to the parts where the animated characters talk it starts lagging, and same with age of empires III. I just want a video card that can play all the games properly and above the minimum requirements. Anyone got any ideas on what kind I should get?

I just bought the game and I love it. The graphics are good too and I'm liking the campaign.

I'm a huge fan of Empire Earth. I didn't get Empire II yet, did anyone play it?? It has a good review Thereâs just no easy way to mesh our pre-history with our present technology. Handing a Neanderthal a lighter might seem like fun, but would do little to help him take down an Abrams tank. Likewise, that tank doesnât seem very tough when lined up across from a giant mech. Can a horse kick a jetâs *bottom*? Not unless it has wings. But Empire Earth II embraces such technological inconsistencies, allowing you to enjoy the breadth of our historyâs war experience by letting you battle throughout the ages. At the same time, the game manages to retain its solid RTS foundation while making an evolutionary leap with loads of new features and functions. The result is a monstrously deep strategy game that will have fans of the genre happier than an ape with a bazooka. To help you cope with this depth, the interface has been cleaned up, presenting data in a more logical manner. Still, the sheer amount of new options will intimidate casual strategy fans, at least through the initial tutorial run. Much like the original, Empire Earth II is an epic game spanning fifteen epochs and civilizations, beginning with the early days of hunters and gatherers and winding up in the distant, sci-fi future. Each era comes packed with units (totaling a whopping three hundred), leading to a strategy game so large and complex itâs almost hard to wrap your head around. One of the major new features in Empire Earth II is the ability to switch between field view and a full- screen, overhead map. The map displays visual data relating to resource mines, unit movement, and building positions and is great for quickly jumping to any point on the battlefield. And a sweet Citizen Manager tab allows you to keep tabs on the influx of resources as well as the idle pockets of workers, keeping your people right where they should be - under your thumb. Another Overhead map feature called War Planner allows you to quickly draw arrows, targets, areas, and/or labels atop the Overhead map, send a copy of your coordination proposal to allies for approval, and launch well-orchestrated strikes between multiple fronts. In keeping with our speciesâ love of exploiting tools, you can also âaccidentallyâ send âfaultyâ plans to enemy players as a bluffâŚand then send him the real ones next time, just to keep him guessing. As a nice design touch, your War Plans remain drawn over your mini-map. Whether youâre in field or Overhead map view, a Picture-in-Picture display lets you keep a close eye on a given area of interest. Every friendly object in the PiP is controllable, so you can follow your troops into battle with the main window, set your PiP on a barracks and quickly reinforce yourself without having to take take your eyes off the action. Alternatively, you can keep a scout in the PiP to scope out the enemyâs defensive holes or watch your flank for a counter-attack. The possibilities are as bad-*bottom* as they are endless. You also have a great degree of control over your units' behavior. You can set offensve and defensive formations to suit the conditions of a battle, and units will break formation to attack, then fall back in line when the carnage is over. At times, however, when commanded to an area on the opposite side of the map, units will take the shortest path to the target and get stuck for a couple of seconds as they figure out another route. This pathfinding problem is a common annoyance, not a dealbreaker. Three single-player campaigns follow the Koreans, Americans, or Germans from varying eras in their respective histories. As a bonus, you may also take on D-Day as either the Germans or Americans and control either Wu or Weiâs side of the Three Kingdoms power struggle in ancient China. The campaigns mostly serve as proving grounds for all of the skills youâll want to master in multiplayer. You can create battles for up to ten players, be they Human or Computer controlled. Nine victory conditions are also available, including King of the Hill and various Score measurement modes. The nerds will dig the fully functional map editor; go ahead and make a map huge enough to span all fifteen epochsâŚif you dare, dork. For the most part, the gameplay has remained fundamentally the same having you research, build and destroy. A new reward device, Crowns, helps bolster some of the team play dynamics by letting you buy upgrades. You may beef up your naval fleet or ground troops if youâre the teamâs warlord, since you will be awarded for successes in the Military category. If youâre more of a defensive player, Crowns will be awarded to you in either the Imperial or Economic categories. In addition to trading resources and troops, you can also trade whole territories, opening up other strata of negotiation between players. Considering its leap forward in terms of gameplay depth, Empire Earth II delivers a stagnant visual package. At a distance, the textures and polygon count seem acceptable, but the ability to zoom in reveals jagged lines and clunky animations. With so much going on, the lackluster visuals of Empire Earth II are partially forgivable, and at least the framerate stays high throughout. Still, we would have preferred a fancier new engine to go with the fancy complexity. The minimalist music differs depending on the civilization you choose, subdued enough so as not to detract from the roar of thunder and the arrows whipping through the air. The sound effects are all entirely believable, though the unit dialog is very repetitive. Youâd think somewhere in all that evolution, someone would have invented a thesaurus. Still, Empire Earth II succeeds far, far more often than it fails. The ability to multitask is essential to the success of any RTS player, but few interfaces have so naturally supported this fact. The strategic possibilities are limited only by the skill of the player. Itâs likely too complex for some and isnât without a few hiccups, but those with patience to burn will find this a bright candle indeed. http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/

From what I hear Comcast Cable is the higest internet speed. It's good, but they keep raising the prices. There's that new Yahoo DSL for only $19.99

Maybe his firewall or anti-virus might be slowing down the computer, it happened to me once. Or if you downloaded kazaa or some file sharing program it will make your system run slower.

Has anyone played the new Axis and Allies yet? I was thinking of getting it, but I'm not sure if it's good.It does have a good review from gamespyYou'd never guess that one of this year's best real-time strategy games and one of this year's worst real-time strategy games were made by the same developer. With Kohan II, Timegate Studios established itself as imaginative, innovative, and talented developers with a keen sense for what it takes to turn a great design into a great game. With Axis & Allies, well, not so much. You could say the company has broken even this year.What made Kohan one of the all-time great real-time strategy games is only partly carried over into Axis & Allies, a World War II-themed makeover of Kohan's basic gameplay. The most notable through line is the way you build and manage your forces. You build regiments rather than individual units (in Kohan, you could design your own regiments, but they're fixed in Axis & Allies). You then manage them as groups, setting their formations and moving them around the map. During combat, the A.I. controls the individual units on a tactical level. They fight battles until they've won, until their morale breaks and they flee, or until you give them orders to pull back.As Kohan demonstrated, this works great for infantry battles. But when Axis & Allies throws the machinery of modern war into the mix, it becomes a messy goulash of combined arms. There's a soft-pedaled paper/rock/scissor interplay between infantry, armor, and artillery that basically comes down to damage modifiers buried under the hood. It gets hopelessly jumbled up once you introduce mechanized infantry, machineguns, recon teams, anti-tank weapons, anti-infantry guns, and various weight classes of tanks, often into the same regiment. It's particularly messy during the actual fighting. This is not the sort of game that lends itself to positioning your anti-tank weapons in the trees while covering your infantry's advance with artillery and armor. Instead, it comes down to just scooping up a whole mess of units and telling them where to go. Geronimo! However, by virtue of the game design, the particulars of unit interaction aren't your concern, so your strategy is a matter of choosing what to build. And here's where Axis & Allies veers away from Kohan's clean elegance and hurtles headlong into the realm of bad game design choices with bad interfaces. Axis & Allies organizes its regiments into divisions attached to headquarters. Based on centuries of military history, this obviously works great in the real world. Based on how hard it is to keep track of everything in Axis & Allies, this doesn't work so great in an RTS, especially when the interface is so stingy with vital information.The result is a sprawling base building sub-game, whereby you have to (1) unlock a headquarters by building its prerequisite headquarters and brigades; (2) then build it; (3) then drive it somewhere to deploy it; (4) then wait for it to unpack; (5) build its component regiments one at a time. It's just as rigid and obtuse as real-world military hierarchies. It's hard to believe these are the same developers who single-handedly solved so many of the traditional problems of unit management and base-building three years ago with the original Kohan.The resource model is also tied into this sprawling base building sub-game. You earn gold from your headquarters, but you build ammo and oil depots to support your units, peppering the map with the mobile equivalent of Warcraft's farms. There are fixed cities on the map you can control for additional resources, but these are more significant for extending your supply.

The Civilization Four game looks pretty good.2005 will witness the release of Sid Meier's Civilization IV, the latest and coolest installment in the greatest strategy game series of all time. Civilization IV features breathtaking 3D graphics, cool reward movies, brilliant audio and music, and, most importantly, the best and most addictive gameplay of any strategy game ever created. As a matter of fact, Time magazine has named Civ IV one of the hottest new games this year!A game of remarkable depth, Civilization IV spans the entirety of human history, from the stone age to the space age. At the start you choose the nation you want to lead. At first, your people are primitive stone-age villagersand its your job to guide their development and research technologies to drive their advancement. They begin by discovering more primitive technologies such as sailing, archery, mysticism, and mining; eventually - if they survive - you will lead your people to the modern era and beyond, becoming the greatest ruler in history.During the game, you will meet other growing civilizations - the United States, Mongolia, Persia, China, India, France - there are 18, each ruled by famous historical figures. Each civilization has its own special military units and strategies - some are fairly peaceful, while others are expansionists and conquerors. You will battle your foes with a huge arsenal of weapons, beginning with primitive archers and warriors, then catapults, knights and frigates, and eventually with modern tanks, submarines, mobile infantry, helicopter gunships, stealth bombers, and nuclear weapons. However, Civilization IV is more than just a great combat game: you can achieve victory through global conquest, diplomatic cunning, cultural or religious alliances, and technological dominance.Sid Meier's Civilization IV offersthe most fun, addictive and visually exciting Civ experience ever. In addition to faster mid- and late-game AI turns, as well as vastly improved graphics and audio, Civilization IV offers greater control over your civilization's government and religions, while at the same time de-emphasizing the less fun portions of the earlier games (cleaning up pollution, for example). Further, Civilization IV has been designed from the ground-up to deliver fantastic multiplayer gaming options, as well as easy modding - allowing you to create new units, game maps, scenarios, and even entire new civilizations!Sid Meier's Civilization IV is scheduled for release in winter of 2005. Check this space often for further updates.

Anyone play Shadow of Rome?? I'm thinking of getting it but want to know others opinions.Got an 8.2 from Gamespot, 9.0 from the users on Gamespot.Gladiator fever might have cooled off in the past year or two, but don't let that keep you from checking out Shadow of Rome. This latest action adventure game from the people who brought you the Onimusha series packs some of the most brutal hand-to-hand combat ever, and there's plenty of story and intrigue to conveniently justify all the gory violence. In fact, Shadow of Rome quite successfully combines two distinctly different types of gameplay, since there are some decent stealth sequences thrown in between the numerous gladiator pit fights. These ultimately help give Shadow of Rome a good sense of variety, though the combat is definitely the main attraction, and it takes center stage more often than not. Feature for feature, there's nothing hugely original about Shadow of Rome, but its combination of different elements is definitely unique, its characters are expressive and fun to watch, and the quality of its presentation is right up there with the best of what the PlayStation 2 has to offer.Imagine a society in which humankind relished the sight of its own blood being spilled purely for the sake of entertainment. Those savages!Shadow of Rome is the story of two young friends, the muscle-bound centurion Agrippa and the mild-mannered Octavianus, who looks like a younger Owen Wilson. When Julius Caesar is brutally murdered and Agrippa's father is accused of the crime, Agrippa ends up becoming a gladiator in a desperate attempt to stop his father's impending execution at the hands of the champion of the gladiatorial games. Meanwhile, Octavianus suspects foul play and proceeds to investigate what really happened by skulking behind the scenes. Shadow of Rome's story is told through frequent, beautifully produced cutscenes that succeed at enriching the game, meaning they don't overstay their welcome or take the focus off the gameplay itself. Some of the dialogue is awkwardly translated, some of the characters' acting isn't quite convincing, and you'll spot some minor inconsistencies from gameplay to cutscene, but the unusual story is still absolutely one of the highlights. Don't expect a history lesson from Shadow of Rome, but do expect an interesting and surprising sequence of events to unfold. The story does a fine job of tying up all its loose ends and delivering a satisfying sense of closure while still leaving room for the possibility of a next chapter in the saga.The meat of the game follows Agrippa's rise through the gladiatorial ranks in a series of bloody battles to the death, but the occasional stealth mission, starring Octavianus, is thrown in for good measure. In the game's equivalent of a halftime show, Agrippa will also get to compete in a series of exciting and deadly chariot races. And, without spoiling anything, there's even more to the game than that. All told, Shadow of Rome packs in a good-sized adventure that will take you close to 20 hours from start to finish. There are multiple difficulty settings and plenty of other extras to keep you busy after that, and the core combat system offers enough depth and pure visceral satisfaction that it could keep you entertained for a while longer as you pursue all the bonus content. Of course, getting all that stuff won't be easy. The normal difficulty mode presents a significant challenge all by itself. It actually starts out pretty easy, teaching you the ropes as you go, but then it scales up nicely into tough territory. And, as hard as some of the later encounters can be, Shadow of Rome never sets you back far should you fail.Limbs fly and blood spatters everywhere in a typical battle, though you can toggle off the graphic violence if you like. Still, this is pure hack-and-slash combat. Agrippa will take on multiple foes of all shapes and sizes, sometimes all at once. The melee's grisly and sometimes shocking, but it's not mindless. Plenty of unique moves and a great variety of gnarly weapons are available, and there are plenty of different match types, each with its own twists, so it's not all about being the last man standing (though that's usually a desirable outcome). Thanks to all the different factors at play, there's a real sense of chaos on the battlefield, which is great. Battles never play out quite the same way twice.One key aspect of combat is that weapons, shields, and armor are all quite flimsy and will soon shatter from use. It seems that in 44 BC, humankind had already invented tools perfectly suited for butchering itself, but it hadn't yet discovered how to make them last. Sure enough, you can't block weapon attacks while barehanded, so Shadow of Rome often requires you to scavenge the battlefield, snatching up a fresh weapon just as soon as you shatter the last one you were using. It's possible to wrench weapons from your enemies' hands, sever or crush their arms with well-placed power attacks, drag enemies to their feet after knocking them flat, and more. It's also possible to throw virtually any weapon (even the gigantic two-handed ones), and each makes a suitably sickening thud when it hits home. Delightful fun for the whole family.It's easy enough to pick up on the basic controls, though mastering some of the more advanced moves will take time, which is good. You'll also find decent variety in your opposition. Foes will attempt to gang up on you, and like you, they'll make use of any weapons they can get their hands on...possibly even their own severed limbs. Shadow of Rome's numerous boss opponents are particularly impressive, though most can be beaten after you properly gauge their distances from you, bait them into swinging at you, and then dodge and retaliate. Nevertheless, expect to get hit often, and expect to get hit hard. (Lucky for you, you can't lose any of your extremities, no matter how hard your adversaries chop you.) The way you regain health is in classic beat-'em-up tradition: by shoveling food down your gullet in mid-battle. Spectators will sometimes help you out by tossing you pieces of food, so you'll need to grab these and quickly wolf them down to keep yourself in fighting shape. It's silly in a good way, and it adds plenty of tension to the typical battle.Appealing to the crowd works similarly. As you fight, you'll get the crowd all riled up, and you can then take your attention away from your foes to briefly salute your bloodthirsty onlookers...who might toss you a nice weapon or some food for your trouble. In short, though Shadow of Rome features plenty of pure nonstop action, there's lots of tactical nuance to keep it interesting.Those gladiatorial battles may sound like a tough act for Octavianus' stealth sequences to follow, and sure enough, the stealth sequences aren't as fun. But they're certainly not bad, and they offer a suspenseful style of gameplay that fans of the Metal Gear Solid or Hitman series should pick right up. Octavianus can't really fight, though he can knock foes unconscious by creeping up on them and bashing them over the head with vases or even by that age-old tactic of making them trip up on banana peels. Mostly, though, he'll be trying to avoid contact with enemies altogether by creeping silently outside their fields of vision. An incredibly helpful map is always available, revealing exact enemy locations and where you need to go next so you won't waste any time just wandering around. You'll fail certain sequences automatically if your foes so much as spot you, but each sequence is pretty short, so the occasional need for trial and error doesn't get too frustrating. In fact, some of the combat portions are probably more frustrating than the stealth bits, though the piecemeal nature of Shadow of Rome's action sequences means that no single hurdle should take too long to overcome.Shadow of Rome's few problem areas aren't big deals. For example, the stealth action sequences exhibit the sort of artificial intelligence that's ridiculous on the one hand but is, unfortunately, conventional to this style of gaming on the other hand. It's possible to toss a banana peel in front of a guard and watch as he and his three friends angrily come running at you, tripping over the same peel and getting knocked unconscious one after another. Guards on alert will actively search for you...for a little while, and then they'll simply forget they saw an interloper in the Roman senate building, or wherever it is you're sneaking around. You'll probably start to notice a few limitations in combat, too. You can slice off arms and heads, but not legs. Bow-wielding foes will always aim straight at where you're standing, making them incredibly irritating at times but easy to avoid if you simply keep moving. Most enemies can't actually hurt one another with their attacks, so you can't try to use their greater numbers as an advantage. Some brief portions also seem a bit pointless, such as sequences in which Agrippa can explore the gladiator camp and talk to some of his brothers in arms. Some of their advice may be somewhat helpful, but you'll probably want to cut straight to the next match rather than dillydally at base. But, whatever. None of these issues are significant, and they're easily forgotten about pretty much whenever, say, you bash an opponent's skull in with a two-handed maul.Gruesome violence is par for the course throughout Shadow of Rome, and if you've got a stomach for this kind of thing, you're going to love it. Of course, the presentation isn't just for cheap shock value. The frame rate remains perfectly smooth almost 100 percent of the time, despite the richness of the visual quality on display. The characters look surprisingly lifelike up close, exhibiting truly believable emotion at times. Animations are terrific, especially when Agrippa is swinging some of the larger weapons available, seemingly with all his immense might. Octavianus, meanwhile, looks like he learned all his moves from Solid Snake himself. Impressive environments and great special effects also abound. For instance, you'll notice how weapons and armor seem to sparkle in the sunlight, as well as how gladiators' bodies seem to glisten with sweat.The audio is great, too. Generally good voice acting helps give the cutscenes some emotional impact, and plenty of cringe-inducing metal-on-flesh noises make the combat sound as hard-hitting as it looks. And the roaring and chanting of the stadium crowd is possibly the best part of the audio, as it swells to the carnage onscreen. Some of the speech grows to be repetitive after a while, and the suitably bombastic soundtrack repeats maybe a bit too much as well. But, for the most part, Shadow of Rome sounds just as good as it looks. Pro Logic II support also means you can gain a tactical advantage through the use of positional audio. When someone in the grandstands yells, "Use this!", and tosses you a gigantic two-handed sword, you're going to want to make a beeline for that weapon before anyone else can get to it.Shadow of Rome offers some of the best hack-and-slash combat out there and wraps it up in an interesting story that puts an original spin on the whole Julius Caesar-getting-murdered thing. It's also got plenty of gameplay variety to keep you motivated from start to finish, and it's always pretty to look at. Some say that video game shelves are flooded with sequels that are too short and too easy these days. If that's you, then Shadow of Rome is definitely your game.That's the review from Gamespot.

Not video games made out of movies, the opposite. This could be interesting. They're gonna be or very good or very bad. I read on a Game Pro magazine that there's about more than 40 games that have been licensed to go on the big screen.As I posted on a Halo Movie thread, here's some of the movies they're making out of video games.BloodRayneDoom(script completed. Starting The Rock O.o)The GetawayHitmanMax PayneMetriodResident Evil: AfterlifeHouse of the Dead: Dead Aim(first one sucked)and lots more...We'll just have to see if it's really a good idea what they're doinFor more info go to gamepro.com

ok, thanks guys. So by July then I should get a whole new fresh bandwith space right?Also do you guys know about how much of the bandwith it takes up when other people download it?

I am unable to connect to my C-Panel today,, and yesterday when I tried to play the music files I uploaded in my account, i get this error message that says "The sites administrator exceeded his bandwith"Does anyone have the same problem?? I understand that the site was going through some changes, but for past three days I was unable to connec to my c-panal and my music files that were uploaded are unable to play.

I like the first Metal Gear Solid. The second one "Sons of Liberty" wasn't as good. It got kind of stupid at the end with the "Patriots" stuff. You also didn't get to be Snake for the entire game. But I like the stealth and having to be hidden strategy in the game.

Which player do you think is the best? Is it Realplayer, Winamp, Windows Media Player? I switch around alot of times and right now I think Winamp is the best.

Kazaa Lite is pretty good. It has alot less spyware then Kazaa and is pretty safe. Most people I know have LimeWire for some reason.