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The PC bucket...


Sly Reflex
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So, you might have noticed that I decided to stop hating on the PC games. Due to Popcap giving Peggle Nights away, I've spent a fair bit of time playing that on and off, and it got me thinking about all the stuff I have missed. I'm not talking about all those games that will break Deep Blue trying to run, but those other games, you know, the ones that play better on a mouse and keyboard. Except FPS, everyone with half a brain would tell you those are better on a control pad. http://www.mfgamers.com/public/style_emoticons/#EMO_DIR#/tongue.gif

So with that in mind, the first game I decide to run on my decrepit rig is Civilizations IV. Now I liked Civilizations Revolutions on the 360, it was rather good, it reminded me of playing a version of Colonization that I had on my old Amiga 1200, but more modern, you know because we had moved on 15 years and you would expect that. So that's what I was expecting, a more complicated Civilization Revolution. People had told me that Civ IV was way more complicated than Civ Rev, but I didn't really believe them until I actually got a hands on with this bastard. Yesterday I played through the tutorial, and while picking up the thick end of it there were bits that went completely over my head. Seriously, I f I were to compare these two games I would say imagine playing Snakes and Ladders, then moving on to Monopoly with ruthless players. It possibly has one of the biggest learning curves I have ever witnessed. Saying that, after cracking on with the tutorial again and this time completing the first scenario taking more in than I did the first time, I got into it. I must have done, because the tutorial and the first win took me over 4 HOURS which seemed to fly past in an instance. Seriously, I can see some rounds of this going over days, it's OK now, because I have a few days off, but otherwise this is a long term game. Gone are the days of Civ Rev when you could finish a game in just over an hour, It's going to take that long to get a couple of cities up and running and protected. Saying that, I am having fun with it and I can see myself playing for a few weeks until I have taken each empire to the top via various means. Once I have done this I'll be ready to go on to onw of the next old PC games I missed out on. Hell, if I really get into it, I might upgrade my PC so I can play stuff that was released less than 2 years ago.

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So, any of you PC people, I need help. Civ IV runs in a full window and I can't seem to find any option to minimize it so I can check my desktop. Am I stuck with having to come right back out of the game, or is there a way to flit between windows?

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Does Alt+Tab not work? How about Alt+Esc?

I shall try those next time I am playing. I know the desktop is still there because an updater knocked me out of my game and I could check on chrome and msn and all the other stuff, just seems a bit odd not to put a minimize option within the game that you can click. Thanks for the suggestions though, I shall be on them.

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Shatter came out on the PC on Monday. It's £7 on Steam, that seems pretty resonable to me.

The simple graphical style looks very clear and clean at 1680x1050 with 8x Antialiasing. Maybe too clean, the first chapter looked a little sterile. The effects were very nice though.

If playing alone using the mouse and keyboard, you'll probably want to redefine the keys, since it tries to fit controls for player 2 on the left hand side of the keyboard. This means player 1 is left with Right Shift, Right Ctrl and / to trigger your shield, shard storm etc. it's rather awkward. It works really well with a wired 360 controller though.

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So, I started Simcity 4. The music is lovely, sounds Danny Elfman inspired. It still looks pretty nice as well, I know it's not pushing silly amount of polygons around, if any at all, but there is something about the hand drawn villages that I really like, the amount of detail on them is pretty cool, down to dog kennels and washing out on the line in the suburbs to wheely bins and dirt up the walls of the industrial buildings.

Does Alt+Tab not work? How about Alt+Esc?

Tried this on Simcity 4 and ended up looking at a blank screen. Even Ctrl+Alt+Del didn't do anything, I had to shut down the computer by turning it off at the front and hoping for the best. It was a bit annoying to say the least. Worth a try I guess though.

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Yeah ALT + Tab will work for most games, but there are a few that don't like it at all.

What games are you into mate? If you're into the RTS stuff, I'd suggest one of the new Command & Conquer games, or Supreme Commander 1 or 2. A really good one to get your hands on would be Company Of Heroes. You'd really enjoy that one.

If your pc is a bit weak, a game I loved back along was Mech Commander, the RTS version of Mech Warrior.

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I have C&C: The First Decade yet to be installed. That should be fun inputting all those codes for every bloody game. DRM can FRO. <_<

Company of Heroes might be on my 'to do' list. When I look at the games available on the PC shelves it feels like I am looking through a certain achievement whore games list, there is so much dross that it feels a bit of a lottery of what I'll enjoy and what I'll hate. Mixed that into stuff that wont run and you kind of have a bad choice just waiting to happen.

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When I look at the games available on the PC shelves it feels like I am looking through a certain achievement whore games list, there is so much dross that it feels a bit of a lottery of what I'll enjoy and what I'll hate. Mixed that into stuff that wont run and you kind of have a bad choice just waiting to happen.

I would just stick to recommendations, and stuff with decent reviews. I would recommend Crysis and Crysis Warhead, if your machine could run it. It's one of the best PC only shooters around.

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SimCity keeps booting me out to desktop, no idea why either. Don't get this with console gaming.

Got the equivalent of that in Bad Company 2 last week, just as the game is about to load the match you find yourself looking at the dashboard. :P It's true though, there are so many potential conflicts. or driver problems etc. It's a bit of a minefield.

Some older games run better on a single processor core, try doing something like this: http://www.vistax64.com/gaming/197915-setting-processor-affinity-made-easy.html

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i used to play pc games all the time, mainly racing sims, here are some good ones if anyones interested, they're a bit old mind so probably don't need a good pc to run:

GT legends, GTR 1/2, GP legends, F1 2001/2002, GP2/3/4, richard burns rally, live for speed.

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SimCity keeps booting me out to desktop, no idea why either. Don't get this with console gaming.

Got the equivalent of that in Bad Company 2 last week, just as the game is about to load the match you find yourself looking at the dashboard. :P It's true though, there are so many potential conflicts. or driver problems etc. It's a bit of a minefield.

Some older games run better on a single processor core, try doing something like this: http://www.vistax64.com/gaming/197915-setting-processor-affinity-made-easy.html

I think it might have been because I was using msn to voice chat to someone which was causing the conflict. I just played now uninterrupted for nearly an hour with no problems. Still no idea why it changed my windows though, I know peggle did it but it reset it back to what it was meant to be on, now it's stuck and I can't find where to put it back.

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I fired up my PC today and the windows look different, like in vista they normally look glassy, not they just look like solid blocks of colour. What has caused this?

Sounds like something changed the colour scheme.

Right-click on your desktop, and click 'Personalize'.

In the next window choose Window Color and Appearance.

You'll probably find the colour scheme is set to Windows Vista Basic, or Windows Standard. The glassy one is Windows Aero. Either that or your still in Aero and it just turned off the transparency.

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