The science of… just some updates

Posted on October 14, 2011 by InV4d3r

As you might have already read, I tried to rent a vServer to setup some stuff which will be a lot gaming related. Like dedicated servers for some older games. In addition is a TeamSpeak server coming up. The current TeamSpeak server will simply be abandoned. It’s actually running on a server at my last company I worked for and I’ve no longer a possibility to maintain it correctly. I’ll also initiate to completely remove this instance.

Anyhow, the new server will probably sail under the n3gative.Gam!ng flag. There’ll be two domains coming up, one’s for the clan/gather related things only and the other domain will mainly publish news, reviews and opinions about video gaming in general. I’m still thinking about separating the content of this blog right here. I’ll perhaps move the game related content to the n3gative.Gam!ng site and leave this blog here for trivial “real life related” posts only.

There’s another site that is still in progress, mainly in a brainstorming period. It’s called “chickenday.net” and is based on some posts I did on Facebook. To make a long story short, I eat two halves of chicken every Wednesday and I posted a picture of this meal on Facebook. Some of my friends liked the idea or simply found it hilarious. I also had some of my friends posting chicken pics, too. Due to the some copyright issues I completely moved away all my content off Facebook and decided to do this thing on my own. Till now I just bought the domain, setup a tiny blog and that’s it. If I’m certain of the concept and the direction of the site, I’ll put some more effort into it and get a go live as soon as possible.

If you want to ask what happened to all my fitness and sports ambitions, don’t.

This thing called… what did you say?

Posted on September 22, 2011 by InV4d3r

It’s been a while. After having almost a month of free time to waste on pure debauchery I’m finally back to the working class heroes with a regularly, fixed schedule. I feel much in my new company and I’m a thousand per cent certain that it was the right decision I’ve made. It’s a huge challenge, also a very interesting and intriguing challenge, but most importantly, no pack of Hyenas surrounding me bothering me with ideas and tasks of non-sense. Please understand that I’m not giving any further details on what I’m doing and so on, discretion is advised. Just feel informed with the fact that I like it where I’m at and I hopefully can be here for a while.

Once upon a time I had the will and lust to do some sports again but in the end I simply though “What the heck!

Well, I gained a massive amount of weight, especially on my free days, but I also have to admit that I’m not feeling very unwell. With this new job and the fact that I have to travel each day 120km I wanted to get a little bit more in comfort with ‘the new situation’ before starting this sporty thingy again. I also have to say, that I’m not in the mood to do any sports and I don’t want to force me to do anything I actually don’t want or like. Maybe my attitude on that is a completely different one tomorrow and I’m going to jog for like an hour.

Despite, I’d rather stick to gaming these days. I just started “Deus Ex: Human Revolution” and I’m also playing “Dead Island”. Both are great games in their genre BUT both are totally buggy or have several issues.

“Dead Island” is the game that has a lot of serious hardware related issues on my system. First of all, I use a 7.1 sound system on my gaming rig and I gain a lot of terrible, loud noises when I have the 7.1 speaker configuration turned on. I could fix by running in 5.1 mode only. The graphics are, let us say okay, but they stutter. This shouldn’t be an issue on my system due to the fact that the game runs at 180-200fps on maximum details at a resolution of 1920×1200. Hopefully they’ll fix this issue.

Another thing I don’t like, which is not hardware related, is the fact that you have a save point system and there’s no real indicator given when the game actually saves your progress. Terrible on a PC. Why no quick-save? Anyhow, the game itself looks promising and despite these issues I’ll continue playing and see what’s up next.

“Deus Ex: Human Revolution” is in my personal opinion the sequel the first “Deus Ex” deserved. It’s still far away from the class of it’s pre-predecessor, but it’s good and feels like “Deus Ex” and the developer does not go strictly mainstream as they were trying with “Deus Ex: Invisible War”, which was terrible game, if you ask me. I play “Deus Ex: Human Revolution” on highest difficulty level and I’m stuck at the first boss right now 😛 Anyhow, this game is definitely worth the play.

DiRT 3 shadow errors [SOLVED]

Posted on September 18, 2011 by InV4d3r

Since the latest update of “Dirt 3” the shadows in split screen mode are a little weird, not to say totally wrong. I’ve added an example picture to show you guys the graphics error. The problem occurs on two different systems. One with moderate graphics setting with a GeForce GTX 560ti and on one system with ultra-settings with a GeForce GTX 580. There are no special settings made inside the driver menu or other weird stuff. I’m also not noticing any other graphic issues in other games.

If there’s someone out there knowing how to get rid of this problem or how to solve this issue, please feel free to contact me via inv4d3r [at] bloodreaver.com

[Update:]

I’ve found the cause for this problem and was able to fix it. The reason for this issue is very simple – Fraps. For some reason does Fraps and DiRT3 no longer work well together in splitscreen mode, so I quit Fraps before actually starting DiRT3. That’s it, nothing special.

Game of the week #10/2011 – From Dust

Posted on August 22, 2011 by InV4d3r

I’m still on my free days and I still use this time to finish and complete a lot of games I haven’t found the time for yet. These days I stick pretty much to some download only games. One of them is the long awaited “From Dust”. I personally always wanted to have a game like “Populous – The Beginning” again and Ubisoft made my dream come true and released a game that is pretty much the same. You play a godlike person that is able to manipulate the elements. In the old “Populous – The Beginning” it was a shaman that was able to control several elements. Shamans in “From Dust” play a minor role.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8nABQLSfmU[/youtube]

The game is basicly about capturing totems, these totems gives you the opportunity to control several elements, like water, lava and of course earth. It’s by far not that easy because your tiny and progressively stupid worshippers are in danger due to some catastrophes coming up, like floods, volcanos and earthquakes. The first levels of the game are easy compared to the ones you have to face by the end of the game. Unfortunately, if you’ve found the strategy needed to finish a level, it turns out to be too easy, even on the last levels. You don’t really have to solve submissions and such, it’s always the same schema. You enter the new level, you find out what the catastrophe is your people have to face and develop methods against it.

Anyhow, “From Dust” is an intriguing game that has some gameplay issues and is far too short and easy for my concerns. I used to play the game in a way that I was able to finish every level with a 100 per cent rating and it took me almost eleven hours of pure gaming. Ubisoft announced, if the game will find an audience they might add some content to the game. Even a mod function would be a nice feature, too. But games like these are pretty rare nowadays and I recommend it to everyone who just feels like playing something different. You’ll feel entertained.

Happy, lazy days

Posted on August 15, 2011 by InV4d3r

It’s been quite a while since my last post and the reason for this is simple, I’m on my free and enormous lazy days. Actually, I had several of what to on days like these but I finally decided to do whatever comes up on my mind. I have to admit, once you’re into this vicious circle of laziness you probably don’t have much you actually want to do. I prefer waking up late, watching some stuff on my HTPC, play some games I always wanted to complete and so on.

This week is a little different because I suffer from some things broken. Most importantly, the hard drive storing all my TV stuff on my HTPC alerted me with a SMART error. The drive is still functional in some kind of way but it will completely break down in the very nigh future. As far as I found out does this drive have some spinning problems and several bad sectors appeared during the last couple of days. Till now I’m able to do the backup, which takes some time, approximately around 32 hours due to the spinning problems. Normally this drive runs around 60MB/s but currently it gains around 8 – 24MB/s on average. Anyhow, I’m able to backup and the exchange drive is already on it’s way.

Another weird thing happened the day before, my office chair broke. By leaning back I totally fell backwards because the top of the vertical axis ripped off the attachment beyond the seat. I cannot deny that I have a massive overweight right now and that this was predictable, but it’s pissing me off because it finally happened during my lazy days where I use to sit a LOT on this particular chair. Whatsoever, I’ll replace this broken chair as soon as possible.

I’ve finally made to finish a lot of games that I always wanted to have completed. “Limbo” got released on Steam I completed it. A fine noir-esque indie title that totally deserves a try. Another game on my list was the awesome “Batman Arkham Asylum”. I completed the main plot and now I only have got some Riddler trophies left to gain the 100 per cent. Besides this I revisited Liberty City in “GTA IV” and I would say I am at 90 per cent of the main plot, almost finished per say. Most importantly “Mirror’s Edge” gained back my attention and I’m already in chapter 7. It’s a pretty tough and sometimes frustrating game but it’s still a very awesome game. The whole graphic style is unique and beautiful and the parcour gameplay is just great.

Besides these games I started playing the new Alice game “Alice: Madness Returns” which a little disappointing under some circumstances but on the other hand pretty intriguing. The levels are a pleasure to look at but at the end of the day you’re always doing the same and it’s pretty linear. It feels pretty much like jumping section, fighting section, jumping section, fighting section and so on. Anyhow, I guess I’m going to complete this game, too though.

I wanted to do some sports during my free time, but I actually haven’t found the will to do so. Maybe, within the next, let us say, in the nigh future.

What’s happening…?

Posted on July 19, 2011 by InV4d3r

A short update of what happened and is actually happening right now. First of, I was off to the countryside, the forest to be exact and got a little rest. I’ve been there with my parents and my grand-mother and it was a weekend with simply doing nothing. I took the time to take some pictures of some flowers and the nearby lake. And I also tried to clean my tent, with tiny success.

On the next weekend I’ll be off for a small festival that is going on pretty nearby and I’m going to see bands like Sodom, Vader and the Excrementory Grindfuckers. I haven’t been to a festival for years now and I’m totally longing for that. It’s a very small festival, but my experience tells, this is going to be one hell of a show. Maybe, but just maybe, I’ll do some headbanging. It also depends on my level of alcohol consumption.

Games, I play Tropico 3 and some Crysis 1+2. More Crysis 1 because of the summer I feel more like jungle jungle than city jungle. One side effect of Tropico 3 is, that the music in this game is very intriguing and as soon as my girl-friend enters the room it affects me to dance some merenge or salsa or whatever these latin american dances are called like. Embarrassing, but hey… I’m also a little ashamed that the three year old Crysis 1 still manages it, to bring my system down on its knees. Kudos for that Crytek.

There’ll be some bigger changes in my life coming in September, approved subscribers will get some details on this particular situation in another private post.

The game of the week is off and missing, I know. As soon as I got little bit more into indie gaming again, I’ll give another recommendation.

PS: I’m looking for some nice headphones at the moment and I focused several models made by AKG, anything you would recommend? Or maybe a totally different manufacturer?

The games, the jobs, the moves

Posted on July 6, 2011 by InV4d3r

Haven’t wrote a while for quite some reasons. First of all nothing special actually happened. Secondly, too much happened that I haven’t found time for writing.

For those of you interested in my impressions according several games I have to apologize, I seriously have such a lack of time over last days that there wasn’t any gaming worth writing about. I can tell you that I played a lot DiRT 3 and I started playing Crysis 2, since the release of patch 1.9, including DX11 and HiRes textures and all this kind of stuff. These are AAA titles and I’m still not sure if I should write about games that get reviewed on every other single website.

I also started playing Duke Nukem Forever and all I can say till now, it’s a giant disappointment. I will, yes, I promise, I will give an impressions review on this particular title because the Duke is a phenomenon that simply deserves a review or just a gaming field report.

Another important thing that was going on, I’m still stuck between enemy lines. I’ve recently got an offer for a company that looks pretty promising according that point potential and development. As far as I know, it’s a network infrastructure that is pretty basic right now, that wants to grow to something, I actually do not know. Anyhow, it should get bigger and better and I shall be the man for it.

On the other side, there’s this job in this advanced technical college that wasn’t approved till now, but I also was not rejected till now. It’s another job that is very promising, also differs from what I’m doing at the moment and simply interests me very much. It’s more an operator job in some multimedia stuff, things I’ve recently done a lot, because I did some internet streaming and had to do some video editing, too (even though I hate this creative things).

The third candidate is my current company. It’s for sure that I’m not leaving without asking for a price to keep me in. And you can bet your mother that I’m going to be expensive, I mean, reeeaally expensive. I’ve taught myself so much during the last 5-6 years and I got skills in so many different areas that I want to get paid for this and receive the graditute I deserve. I decided to stay in my company, if none of the current opportunities fits my requirements in any way. I waited for such a long time to get a new job opportunity, I still have some breath left to wait a little bit more in the case that nothing gets rolling.

That’s the status for now. Plan for the weekend is to help out on a move of some friends of mine. I’m not uber excited about that, but hey, sometimes you help friends, you know?

A prig with the rig

Posted on June 15, 2011 by InV4d3r

In a rush and packed with a lot of experience from the previous installation I went on by the day before and re-installed my new gaming rig. It’s now a setup I actually like and what fits my quality standards. I hate PCs that include a driver farm or orphans from previous and malfunctioning drivers, like I had on the setup before. What I did before was to install everything automated from the DVD that came with the motherboard and a lot of drivers and software has been beta. Updating and upgrading was a real pain in the ass. After this whole procedure I had more failures than before.

Whatsoever, this first installment was for testing purposes only and it wasn’t intended to be for eternity. I’m now having the system with all the drivers I actually needed. The version numbers I wanted. And the hardware tools are functional. The only bug I actually had, was to be found in the Windows Game Explorer. I have to add, that I use the Vista Game Explorer Editor to get all my games correctly listed in the Windows Game Explorer. First games that I install, besides Steam, is the Blizzard bundle, like StarCraft, WarCraft, Diablo etc.

After installing these games I opened the WGE to scan for new games. The only game that got updated was StarCraft, WarCraft and Diablo II was abandoned with an ugly icon. I then tried to use the VGEE, it found StarCraft and was set up correctly. I restarted VGEE and when I tried to edit some more games I was welcomed by an error message and all the previously added games were deleted from list.

I’ll make it short, the only way to fix this very issue was to uninstall them. Check out the WGE for errors. Additionally did I go to the registry entry of the WGE and assured that there is nothing left from previous game installations. I also deleted the link files that were left in my user profile. I then re-installed the games that were causing these errors. I opened the WGE to let him scan for new games. After that I went to the registry entries of WGE and deleted the entries that were added for the new games. I also found one empty entry that was removed, too. Link files in the WGE section created in my user profile were deleted again. Et voilá, I was able to open VGEE and getting update information on games without errors our devastating my WGE list.

I’m pretty sure that there are more games out there causing errors like these and most likely they will be caused due to this empty entry key in the registry. It sure will be a good decision to backup WGE’s registry keys AND soft links before actually editing the WGE with VGEE. I first found this issue after having installed around 60 games and this made me more than just angry.

Game of the week #9/2011 – Beat Hazard

Posted on May 25, 2011 by InV4d3r

It’s been a while since writing the last “Game of the week” report and the reason for this is simple. I was playing lots of AAA titles during the last weeks and I just don’t wanted to give reviews on games thousands of websites also report about. So, this week I’ll introduce you to a title that uses the classic gameplay schema of the good old “Asteroids” combined with a little touch of modern music games. Well, actually, it is an “Asteroids” game but it differs from its predecessor. The name of the game is “Beat Hazard” and its ingeniousness comes from a very simple component, the level design, or better said, the way how you experience the level depends on the music you chose.

It’s pretty similar to a game like “Audiosurf”, you chose the music. The game calculates the level design depending on your currently chosen title. If you chose a quiet song the level is going to be a relaxed one. If you chose a thrash metal song or some techno music with a fast beat the whole things turns out a little bit more hectic. A pretty cool feature is that the fire rate of your space ship you’re controlling also depends on the current mood of the song. So if you enter a boss battle for example and the music is getting slower your fire rate will be low, too.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ob8b3hSswu4[/youtube]

In this case the game also gets a little tactical and claims some planning. The easiest way to survive things like this are mainly kiting, but in the matter of a boss battle you can only try to “hide” as good as you can. It was also curious to see that pretty normal songs like Top 40 stuff turns out to be much harder than the fast and brutal metal songs I’ve tried. Classical music is an absolute no-no because you’ll die of boredom by playing with this kind of music. Everything up tempo is fine but as soon as the beat rate drops the game also gets some kind of lame.

“Beat Hazard” is a blast to your eyes. I can’t remember any game being that full of colours and flashes and explosions and things appearing on the screen. It’s weird during the first ten to fifteen minutes, but if you’ve managed to finally get into it and if you’re not suffering of epilepsy you sure can handle this game. I always find it a good thing when you are able to put something of your own into a game and “playing” your own music is definitely a lot of fun.

Links: Official website

Wanted! Companion

Posted on May 24, 2011 by InV4d3r

Once again, it was 4:00am, the alarm clock was ringing and I kept there lying. There’s no other way than going to gym right after work this week. Actually, I don’t feel that much like losing time of the day and I’m not that tired. The big disadvantage of going to gym in the afternoons is very simple, the building is packed. I’m used to switch freely between different machines and no one’s there occupying. This makes my training in the morning more individualized and I simply don’t have to care about others. Whatsoever, going to gym, even if it’s packed, is way better than just staying at home and doing nothing. The schedule for this week says, training on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday afternoon and the fourth day comes up randomly this week.

I’ve recently (2 days ago) finished the single player campaign of “Portal 2” and switched to “DeathSpank: Thongs of Virtue” till I’ve found a mate for the coop campaign. If you’re also looking for someone to play “Portal 2” coop mode with you, feel free to add me on Steam (n3G.!nV4d3r). I’m also looking for someone who wants to play “Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light” with me. Actually, there are so many games that need a companion, so hook up and join.

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…and it's going to happed again and again

Category Archives: Videogames