Welcome back to Wednesday. It has been a couple of trying weeks in the auto racing industry. But onto good news, Battlefield 3 is out, I have been having a load of fun with Orcs Must Die, there are two Midweek Madness games on sale, Serious Sam: The Random Encounter is out, and Left Field is becoming a regular edition to Gaming News. Grab your favorite energy drink and some LN2. It’s Gaming News time.
Battlefield 3 came down the intertubes last night. I played the Alpha and also the Beta and I did have fun with it. Still I am not sold on the whole “Origin” idea. It seems as if EA just wants to control everything ala Apple. I am more of a Steam fan as everyone knows. But beyond that the game is out. Go now and download it now. The team over at [H]ardOCP has done a quick performance review of the game that you should take a look at to see where your PC is going to perform. Also, be sure and watch this thread, thanks Dreyvas, for LanOC'ers to add on Battlelog. Thanks to the team over at [H]ardOCP for the link.
Orcs Must Die:
I think I may have found my new crack. Defense Grid has been my go-to-game for the last year now. It’s so easy to play but so hard to master. If you like Tower Defense games and Third Person shooters then this your game. Picking off headshots on enemies that are halfway across the map is more rewarding than in other games. A massive “Headshot” icon comes across your screen letting you know that you are the king of crossbow.
The game runs great with awesome frame rates. On the LanBox it easily pulls over 100fps on max settings. The graphical detail is also top notch. The way Orcs die in packs in great. From flying through the air, getting impaled on spikes or getting shot from arrows all of the animations are funny and have a fluid motion to them.
I really can’t say enough good things about Orcs Must Die. From great strategy sections to awesome shooting elements to upgrading your skills I can see myself playing this game for months to come. Not to bad for $15! Also released today was the Artifacts of Power DLC. This adds two more weapons and two more traps for you to punish those naughty Orcs. The DLC is on sale right now for $1.99 until Novemeber 1st.
Midweek Madness 1:
Who doesn’t like the 80’s? The Back To The Future Trilogy has always been one of my favorites as movies go. With the release of the video game you can continue your adventure of Marty and Doc. Pick it up this week for 60% off for $10.
Midweek Madness 2:
In need of a El Cheapo racing game this week? Check out GRID for 75% off. From the same studio that brought you Dirt, GRID is an easy pick up and play game. Even better is the price! Can you say $3.74 for a full fledged racing sim? That is a no-brainer. Remember though all Midweek Madness sales end on Thursdays at 7pm EST.
Serious Sam: The Random Encounter:
Looking for a tie over until BFE? Check out the newest Serious Sam. With a side scrolling perspective this one is just begging for your $4.49. There is no demo but for only $5 its not that big of a risk. Check it out today before the price goes back up.
Left Field:
If you haven’t noticed by now I like to post some strange/weird stuff in Left Field. It’s supposed to be a rant/off the wall news section. From now on I am going to include it in every Gaming News.
Samsung and Google had their big event last week about the Galaxy Nexus and Ice Cream Sandwich. If you are an Android user, this is what we have been waiting for. A new font, Face Unlock and new resizable widgets. What really grinds my gears is that most Android phones have to have carrier approval before your handset gets the newest OS. Most phones don’t even get updated. For the last ten months I have been using the Nexus S. I will not be going to back to any other phone again. With the Nexus phones you get the latest OS and the fastest updates. The carriers don’t play a role in the OS approval process. Everything is controlled by Google. What that means is your Nexus phone is always going to be up to date and that is what you want. Not having to deal with the carriers messing around with bloatware on phones is the big reason that I changed from an HTC EVO 4g to the Nexus S.
Picked up a SteelSeries Sensei mouse this weekend and I have been getting used to it all week. Mice are very finicky for me. Either I love them at first touch or I hate them. I can say after reading Wes’s review that I am really coming around on this one. The grip is right and it weighs nothing. Gonna give it a couple more weeks to see if it really will replace my Logitech G500 but so far it seems that it will.
Anyone else a fan of the NFL this season? My Colts are embarrassing but the streak couldn’t last forever. It seems that every Sunday at least four of the games come down to the wire. Couldn’t be a better time to be a fan of the NFL.
In some very sad news we lost another racer. For those of you that don’t know what MotoGP is you need to look it up. The racing is very close and the bikes are on the verge of insanity. On Sunday rider Marco Simoncelli lost his life in a terrible crash. No matter what type of racing it is we always have heavy hearts at work when something like this happens. It’s just so sad to lose two great people in a short amount of time. Thoughts go out to his family. We are thinking about you in the USA.
New AMD and Nvidia drivers are out now for your downloading pleasure. Make sure to update these ASAP as they improve Battlefield 3.
It looks like my Galaxy Tab 8.9 is going back. I really do like the device but for me a laptop just works better. Flash is still a big problem as it doesn’t work like it does on a PC. Sucks too, I enjoyed what the device had to offer but with the Galaxy Nexus coming out in a few weeks I would rather have a new phone than something that I use every once in awhile. If you are in the market for a tablet I would take a look at the 8.9. The device feels good in the hands and the performance is top notch.
Is anyone else excited about the X79 platform? The screenshots of the newest board offerings look crazy. If you are a true multi-tasker say goodbye to low amounts of RAM. With some of the new boards 8 DIMM slots will make your workload cry. Can’t wait to see how much upgrading will be and if it will even be worth it.
The newest FRAPS is out now. Version 3.4.7 is the newest build and has some hotfixes the biggest one being “Increased video capture performance at high resolutions”. I know not everyone plays on three monitors but not everyone plays on CRT’s either. Go ahead and download it today and check it out. I know that our staff uses it all the time and so should you.
The new Steve Jobs book released on Monday. If you where a Jobs fan then I encourage you to give it a read.
GTA V was announced yesterday. Look for the reveal trailer here on November 2nd. I miss running over hookers and pimps. Maybe, just maybe i’ll pick this one up. I just can’t seem to get into these games I always get distracted and end up just screwing around for hours on end. Then get mad because I have done nothing with progressing the story.
For those of you still on XP WTF is wrong with you? Windows 7 is what you should be running, but just for today you can say happy birthday to your XP machine. Just remember to give that old dog of a machine a cake. XP is 10 years old!
Nokia World is this week also. Hats off to L0rdG1gabyt3 for the scoop. For everyone that likes Windows Phone make sure and check in on this. Gotta love that Nokia 800, slick looking phone if I do say so myself.
Have a great rest of the week everyone.
Wingless is out!
