Welcome to Wednesday, it's been two weeks since our last update but I wanted to take time with Black Ops

Call Of Duty: Black Ops



So we all know about the Call Of Duty series. We have been playing them for awhile now. The are the games that we all have fun with at LanOC LAN's and we play them online together. Black Ops is no different, we are back to dedicated servers which were missing in COD: MW2. Gamerserver's is the hosting company for the servers and you can join the LanOC community on our 18 slot Ranked server at LanOC Reviews. That is the name you need to search for in the server browser.

So with the launch of Black Ops last Tuesday we started hearing reports of massive problems on the PC version. First off, there was a lag issue that seems to be fixed somewhat. Here is a video that I shot while in-game the first day. The game was unplayable at this time. The forums around the internet went up in flames. People were ready to throw the towel in and call it a day.

There was also a problem with the server browser. Servers weren't showing up and and trying to add the server to your favorites list didn't work either. Gameservers.com came out and said that they back end was getting hammered with all the new players. They upgraded their servers and all seems to be running fine, NOT!

As the last week wore on more and more of our community started playing online and keep running into the same problems. Getting into our server after we added it to our favorites list most of the time doesn't work. Another problem that I have been having is when I click on Ranked Match and takes me a couple of try's to get into a match. Why in the world would the game try and connect me to a game that is already full? When I click on Ranked Match I want to transported to a game that is ready to go, not one that is already full. There is still a problem with the server browser not showing all of the servers that are live. Over the weekend I was at a LAN and was having a terrible time trying to join any server that was listed. Also, searching for the LanOC server didn't come up with any results. Whatever is happening over at Gameservers.com they need to get it figured out and fast. The game has been out for a week and the issue's with the server browser and ranked matches are still not resolved.

The issue with the lag has been better but the game is not where it should be. The system I play on is an i7 920, 6gb RAM and two GTX 480's in SLi. This setup should max out the 91 framerate cap that the developers put in the Call Of Duty games. For some reason, the framerate likes to drop every once in awhile. I know that other members of our community are having similar issues with the game. This of should of never happened. It's almost as if their Q&A department didn't even test the game. Atleast they patched the game a couple of days later but it didn't solve all of the problems that we are having. Hopefully Treyarch will keep supporting us PC gamers and make the right decisions. No one wants to play a game with loads of bugs and issues with performance.

I would like to talk about the single player aspect of the game but I am three missions in and just haven't put the time in yet. I was running into the same framerate/lag issues in the single player. I don't want to play the game until it's "Finished". I will be reporting on this game more over the coming weeks as patches are released and I can actually play the campaign with no issues.

Moving on

I am still getting through the Goldeneye single player on Wii. I am not sure why, but I am having some great experiences with this game. I guess that the games nostalgia really appeals to me. I will report my final thoughts on this game next week when I finish it. I still haven't put a significant amount of time playing the multiplayer. I really don't see myself going back to it. Sure, it is fun but with no voice chat, I bought the game more for local co-op and single player. I will let you know how the game turns out, don't worry no spoilers here.

Midweek Madness Sale



Zombie Driver is Steam's Midweek Madness game for this week. Who doesn't like mowing down zombies in cars with crazy guns and flamethrowers? If you want to check it out head over to your Steam client or click this link and queue it up for download. Don't be late either on this deal. Like all Midweek Madness sale's it ends on Thursday at 7pm EST. Get your zombie killing on with Zombie Driver!

Another LanOC Gaming News week is in the bag. Hopefully I didn't crush your expectations on Call Of Duty: Black Ops. For those of you still on the fence, I would wait a couple more weeks to let more patches come out. Then again, if you want to play with our Staff, Black Ops is what we are all playing. Until next week, this is Wingless92, your weekly Gaming News writer signing off.

Welcome to Wednesday, it's been two weeks since our last update but I wanted to take time with Black Ops

Call Of Duty: Black Ops



So we all know about the Call Of Duty series. We have been playing them for awhile now. The are the games that we all have fun with at LanOC LAN's and we play them online together. Black Ops is no different, we are back to dedicated servers which were missing in COD: MW2. Gamerserver's is the hosting company for the servers and you can join the LanOC community on our 18 slot Ranked server at LanOC Reviews. That is the name you need to search for in the server browser.

So with the launch of Black Ops last Tuesday we started hearing reports of massive problems on the PC version. First off, there was a lag issue that seems to be fixed somewhat. Here is a video that I shot while in-game the first day. The game was unplayable at this time. The forums around the internet went up in flames. People were ready to throw the towel in and call it a day.

There was also a problem with the server browser. Servers weren't showing up and and trying to add the server to your favorites list didn't work either. Gameservers.com came out and said that they back end was getting hammered with all the new players. They upgraded their servers and all seems to be running fine, NOT!

As the last week wore on more and more of our community started playing online and keep running into the same problems. Getting into our server after we added it to our favorites list most of the time doesn't work. Another problem that I have been having is when I click on Ranked Match and takes me a couple of try's to get into a match. Why in the world would the game try and connect me to a game that is already full? When I click on Ranked Match I want to transported to a game that is ready to go, not one that is already full. There is still a problem with the server browser not showing all of the servers that are live. Over the weekend I was at a LAN and was having a terrible time trying to join any server that was listed. Also, searching for the LanOC server didn't come up with any results. Whatever is happening over at Gameservers.com they need to get it figured out and fast. The game has been out for a week and the issue's with the server browser and ranked matches are still not resolved.


The issue with the lag has been better but the game is not where it should be. The system I play on is an i7 920, 6gb RAM and two GTX 480's in SLi. This setup should max out the 91 framerate cap that the developers put in the Call Of Duty games. For some reason, the framerate likes to drop every once in awhile. I know that other members of our community are having similar issues with the game.  Hopefully Treyarch will keep patching the game for us PC gamers. This of should of never happened. It's almost as if their Q&A department didn't even test the game. Atleast they patched the game a couple of days later but it didn't solve all of the problems that we are having. Hopefully Treyarch will keep supporting us PC gamers and make the right decisions. No one wants to play a game with loads of bugs and issues with performance

Hey everybody, Wednesday is here and it's time for more gaming news. I have been pretty busy this week but I managed to come up with a couple of stories worth talking about. The LanOC community came up with the new name of LanOC Gaming News for my weekly article. Thanks everyone. Read on to find out what they are!



Goldeneye 007 Wii

I remember when the original Goldeneye came out. That was my first time that I had played an FPS. From the moment I started playing, I was in love. For some reason, when I was in the world running around and sniping people from the other side of the map, I knew it was something special. I would spend the next year playing Goldeneye for countless hours, whether it be messing around blowing stuff up or playing multiplayer with some friends. On Tuesday the reboot of Goldeneye shipped. I knew this was going to be a day one purchase for me. Remembering how much fun I had with the first one and how it opened the doors for FPS's to me, this is one game that I wasn't going to miss. I want to say this from the beginning so everyone has a clear understanding. I use my Wii only sparingly. I am not a fan of standing up in front of my TV, waving my arms around. That is not how I want to play games, I want to sit down, relax and play the game. Playing Goldeneye I used the Classic Controller allowing me to relax in my chair and play the game how I want to play it.

Moving on, the first thing that I noticed was the graphics. For some reason this game reminds me of Counter Strike. It's not impressive in the graphics department but that's not what makes these games fun. It's all of the elements combined. The sound of the game is impressive. If you are a fan of Ian Flemings 007 series then it will feel like a reunion of voices in your head. Daniel Craig and Judy Dench are just some of the familiar voices that you will hear. People like sound and graphics of games but we all know that these aren't the rise and fall of a game, it's gameplay. For starters, all of the guns in the game feel great. When you fire a weapon you feel like you are actually using a gun. There is an appropriate amount of feedback with all the guns. The one problem that I do have is that the guns are "HUGE". Especially the sniper rifles, the scopes take up a large amount of screen real estate. It's like your holding the largest sniper rifle ever to grace the planet. Maybe Eurocom wanted us to really see the details of the guns.

Other aspects of the game include allowing the player to use the Wiimote and Nunchuck, Classic Controller, Gamecube controller and the Wii Zapper. So there is a controller option for almost anyone. Worth noting, if you pick up the $70 edition of the game it comes with a gold Classic Controller for those players that don't have that controller yet. As for the Multi-player aspect of the game I have played about two hours worth of multi-player. I was throughly impressed. The game ran smooth with tad bits of lag thrown in but overall it was perfect. It's actually nice not to hear screaming kids and people saying "Tubers", then again it would be nice to be able to talk in game. Overall, i'm going to be playing this game for the next couple of months. Hopefully I will remember it just like I did the original Goldeneye.



Theatre Of War

So as our readers may have noticed I am always excited to see what the Midweek Madness sale is on Steam. It's a chance to add a game/s to our collection and maybe find a game that we may have missed. This weeks sale is Theatre Of War. You can pick up four games for $11.25 for a total savings of 75%! I have never played these games but I am looking forward to seeing what they are all about. You can click on the this link to add them to your Steam account.



Trine

We also have Trine as a Midweek Madness game. This link  will tell you all you need about Trine. If you are a side scrolling fan then this is a great little game. I have put about an hour into this game but I need to go back and finish it. This game is easily worth the $5 asking price.

Call of Duty: Black Ops Server

Our community has stepped up and fronted the entire cost of our Black Ops server for a whole year! We will be launching more news about the server in the coming week. Stay tuned to the forums. For an up to date account of whats going on with our server check out this forum post that our editor Adam/Lesar made.

Well that is all for this week. I am trying to broaden our horizons, that is why you will see a big mix of gaming news. We have a weekly gaming news thread up for our community to jump into and tell us what you want us to talk about. I encourage everyone to take advantage of this. We want to hear from you! Until next week, stay frosty!

Welcome to Wednesday, your weekly gaming news update.

THQ Week on Steam



This week THQ is having a THQ week on Steam. Please make sure that you are checking Steam to see if there are any games that you want to pick up. If Metro 2033 hits this week, do yourself a favor and pick that up. It's a great game and it will really tax your system. The lighting in the game is unbelievable along with the sound. If you like dark and scary FPS's then this is the game for you. If you have a DX11 GPU remember to turn Tessellation on. 

3DMark 11



In benchmarking news, Futuremark's 3DMark Vantage has released new trailers for their upcoming 2011 benchmarking tool. If you head on over to Futuremark's homepage you can watch the new trailer. As for a release date, the dev's are saying "Coming in 2010", that doesn't leave much time. I know that not everyone will buy the newest version but we are hearing that they will have a free version that will let you run unlimited test on your system. With a new motherboard that I recently bought came with 3DMark. What I didn't realize is how much the Pro version is. For $1,000.00 you can buy the Pro version. Not sure if people like us need it but it's nice to know that they are hitting all sorts of consumers.

Dogfighter



Not sure why Dark Water Studios didn't do this earlier, but for a limited time you can pick up Dogfighter for $1.50. For that kinda price, just go ahead and buy it. I can see the LanOC community making this a staple game for our LAN's. If you don't like to play your flight games with a mouse and keyboard you'll be glad to hear that there is controller support.

Asphalt 5



On the mobile front this week i'm talking about Asphalt 5. This is a game from developer Gameloft. If you have an iOS device that you should be familiar with them. I love racing games and i'm looking forward to Gran Turismo 5 for Playstation 3 but I was lacking a racing game for my Android device. Looking around the Android Marketplace I came upon Asphalt 5. After playing around with it for about 3 hours this is the game that I will keep on coming back to for a long time.

Nvidia Driver Update



For those people using a Nvidia GPU there is a new driver update available. The latest driver will update your system to 260.99. With the release of driver 260 Nvidia has an option under "Custom Install" for the update package to do a clean install. I for one hate having to all the work arounds with updating video card drivers. With this newest driver package this negates the fact of using a program to clean out the old files. With AMD having Steam check for your newest drivers Nvidia is doing their own thing. I would like to see AMD have this clean install option and Nvidia have a update checker on Steam. No real reason to hurt the customer for having one or the other GPU brand.

Steam


On October 18th Steam announced that it has passed the 30 million account mark. Remember when people said that PC gaming was dead? I don't think that people are saying that anymore. If you have a fat pipe at your house then you'll know that downloads of games that are on the Steam service are fast. If a new game comes out and i'm at work i'll remote in to my PC from work and start the download before I leave work, by the time I get home the game is done and ready to go. Quote from the Steam blog, "the Steam  infrastructure has been increased and now has the ability to run at 400Gps, enough bandwith to ship a digitized version of the Oxford English Dictionary 92.6 times per second." Hopefully someday we will have this kind of bandwidth in our house.

New Title for Game Center

The staff is looking for a new title for the game center, we have thread going for our members to voice their opinion on this. Please take a min and post up your thoughts. The new title will be used next week. Right now "Wingless's Gaming News" and "A Gaming Week In Review". Here is the link to the forum post, please make your voice heard, I write these articles for the readers. Thanks again LanOC.

Well that is another week of news in the barrel. See everyone next week. We will have a new title next week so make sure and vote, see everyone on the flip side.

So here we are, another week of gaming news to round up.



NBA JAM launched on the Wii this week. For a fifty dollar bill you will get a BOOM-SHAKA-LAKA of a gaming experience. I have put about 5 hours into the game and it's what everyone wanted. The same game with new players, updated graphics and better sound. I know for me I wanted to play with the Pro Controller but I wasn't sure if the game supported it, good thing it does. The moves that you have to do to play NBA JAM are pretty intensive that I wasn't about to be jumping around my bedroom. Still love the game but I am playing with the Pro Controller.



If you own the Steam version of Borderlands check your game CD Keys. There should be a key for the Duke Nukem Forever Demo! You don't need to own the DLC to get the key and you don't need the GOTY edition to get it either. I checked my CD Key today and low and behold I had a new CD Key there. Once you have your key head on over to www.Dukenukemforever.com and sign up. Do it soon, DUKE IS COMING!!!



The MIDWEEK MADNESS sale on Steam this week is the MEN OF WAR games. They are all 75% off.  You can pick up both of the game in the Gold Edition for $8.74. A quick jump over to Metacritic.com shows that the score is 80/100. I know sometimes Valve puts games in the Midweek Madness sale up there that aren't any good. This week it seems like a good duel of games for a cheap price, what's not to like?



I have noticed more people playing Left 4 Dead and Left 4 Dead 2 this past week after the newest DLC came out. If you have the game or games there is no reason not to pick it up, it's free! It should already be downloaded if you have Steam Cloud enabled in Steam. For some reason I have always loved the Left 4 Dead games. There is just something so satisfying about blowing a zombies head off. The way that the zombies move and how they charge you is just awsome. I think the LanOC community needs to have a L4D night.



On the FPS front Medal Of Honor came out on Tuesday this week. This is the newest Medal of Honor in the long running series. Last time it was Airborne, this time it's in modern times. You can pick it up at your local retailer or Steam for $60. I was invited to play the Beta and from my impressions the Multiplayer is where most people will sink their time into. First you'll notice that it plays alot like most FPS's. There seems to be some graphic issues with the game but in my play time I didn't run into any problems with those. There is one point that is nice is when you load into the game you can choose three loadouts. After using these three loadouts the player can customize it to their liking. The more you play with one class the more you unlock. I have not played the single player since I did not pick up the game so I can't offer my review of it. I think for the time being, i'll wait and see what Call of Duty:Black Ops has to offer. Hopefully by now you can see that my favorite genre is First Person Shooters. It's always good to have options. That's why we the customers have it so good. There is so many games out there that we have so many options on what to drop our hard earned money on.



How could I forget Team Fortress 2, I can't! Valve launched the Mann-conomy update recently. Now those of us who haven't put time into this game like others have can buy upgrades instead of working for them. Players can also craft new items by combining items together. This game really sets the standard for online class based FPS's. It seems like the long time goes on Valve keeps on coming up with new ideas to keep the community coming back for more.

I am still waiting on some new games to hit the Android Marketplace but until then Tetris is keeping me busy. Why is it I never get the piece that I need when I need it. It's always seems like its three or four bricks to late. I love to hate you Tetris.

That is all for this weeks round up. Hope everyone enjoyed it. I am trying to do this every Wednesday barring nuclear disaster. If there is something that you think I should take a look at or what me to review send me a private message or start a topic in our forums. I am here for the community. Thanks y'all and i'll see you next week.

http://torrentfreak.com/steam-gamers-are-avid-bittorrent-users-100823/



Adding up the clients listed

Utorrent 29.41%
BitTorrent 5.28%
Vuze 4.37%
Bitcomet 2.44%

for a total of 41.50% of steam users using bit torrent programs. What does that mean? It means that even though you have people who have access to free, illegal copys of software, videos, ect. They are still buying games using the steam client. Is this because of the ease of use? Increased piracy protection? Steam sales and sometimes better pricing? Its hard to say, but I would like to think that most people will buy a game if its the right price and easy to get. Steam does both of these things!  What do you guys think?

Click here to let us know what you think