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  • Power Supply Problems

    I’ve been having odd trouble for a while with my gaming PC. It’s a 2.67 GHz Core2Quad with 4GB RAM and an NVIDIA GTX 280. The odd thing was that sometimes, when I would turn it on, the power supply would make an extremely loud and scary BANG noise, usually followed by the machine’s power going off. Then the power would come back on and all would be well. This happened about once a month and didn’t seem to do any harm, but made me very nervous when turning the machine on. The power supply in question was a 650W model made by Antec, so it should have been great and never failed. I figured it was perhaps just a dust bunny arcing or something, but in any case, I knew that something eventually had to be done.

    I had another power supply in a machine I never use, so I thought I would liberate that and replace the Antec one. The replacement is a shiny chrome-plated blue LED 750 watt unit from some apparently off brand called HEC (I bought it because it was relatively inexpensive and seemed like a good deal). After unravelling a lot of spaghetti wiring, I got the old PS out and the new one in, and the machine booted up fine (I also took this opportunity to replace my old Sony DVD writer that grows rather attached to disks and won’t eject them if they’ve been in for more than a few minutes).

    I though all was well, but I was wrong. I started up Lord of the Rings Online and played for a bit when suddenly the screen went black. I saw the formerly green “got enough power” light on my GTX 280 was now red, so the video card shut down. I tried switching PCIe connectors and other things, but the PSU starts making noises when GPU-intensive programs run and the graphics card shuts down after a few minutes.

    So I guess that machine is out of commission for games until the new Corsair PSU I just ordered from Newegg arrives next week. Darn…

  • Enjoying Lord of the Rings Online

    I’ve been playing LOTRO when I get a little while between being busy with other things, and I’m enjoying it (mostly).

    The crafting system is pretty nifty and I’m working my way up as a prospector, cook, and jeweler.

    I also finally managed to buy a horse. In order to get said horse, I had to buy the riding skill for Turbine Points (real money) and then use 500 silver (in-game money). Once I raised the money, I went to the horse farm north of Bree to get my horse, bought it, then couldn’t find the action to use it. Instead of putting the horse icon in your inventory, like all the FAQs and guides say, it hides it away in a tab on the character sheet. Once I found the thing and dragged it to my action bar, I’ve been riding like crazy.

    I also got invited into a kinship. Seems like a nice bunch of folks who are helpful and reasonable, unlike the fleet I was recruited into for Star Trek Online. So far I haven’t seen any of them in-game, not even the one that recruited me, but I’m sure I’ll need their help with a few quests shortly.

    Anyone who isn’t playing LOTRO, get it. The cost is nothing, so even if you don’t like it, you’re not out more than a few GB on your hard drive.

  • Lord of the Rings Online Character Page

    Like Star Trek Online, Lord of the Rings Online has a personal character page that shows your characters and progress. Mine is here. It looks like the LOTRO one is even more capable than STO’s one, as it shows details about completed achievements and seems to allow users to add their own commentary. Not that I will likely use those features, as I’ll put pictures and commentary here.

  • More LOTRO pictures

    More LOTRO pictures

    I have been playing a bit more Lord of the Rings Online and am mostly enjoying it. I started a hobbit hunter, but after a quick meetup with Frodo and Sam, he ended up in the same introductory quests as the human character. So then I started an elf lore-master, and that had a completely different intro quest that (I think) was a lot more fun.

    Now for some pictures: The water looks very nice, as does the night sky.

    The elf starts out in the snow.

    Finally, sunrise in The Shire looks really good (and my elf looks a bit effeminate in his hat).

  • Thoughts on Mass Effect 2

    Though Mass Effect 2 is old news, I am reminded of it because I recently managed to pry the DVD out of my drive, so it is sitting on a pile of other games on my desk. I don’t mean that it was in my drive because I loved it so much, but that I literally had to pry it from my Sony DVD drive which refuses to open if something has been in there more than a few minutes. Luckily I also have a Samsung DVD drive that works reliably for short-term disks. Anyway, on to the game.

    I quite enjoyed Mass Effect 2, probably even more than Mass Effect 1. The problem with Mass Effect 1 was that the writers went to so much trouble putting together encyclopedia entries for every thing or concept in the game and I felt guilty for not bothering to read many of them. I think Bioware has learned its lesson, so Mass Effect 2, while still having a large amount of information, doesn’t do as much to shove it down your throat.

    I liked the combat, and the team members were pretty good. In general, the missions varied from good to great and featured lots of cover-based shooting against various nasty enemies. The boss fights were pretty awesome, as well.

    I also liked the new Normandy, with its captain’s cabin to store trophies and fish and such, Overall, the important parts of the game were better than those on ME1.

    So what was bad? Well, scanning planets in order to mine them was the most tedious, carpal tunnel syndrome inducing activity ever. Essentially, you have to hold down the mouse button while sweeping over swaths of a planet from orbit. It is a horrible interface. It probably would be better on a console with a game pad, but I played on a PC, so it was awful! Curses on developer that thought it was a good idea!

    The other thing I didn’t like was that some of the missions to help your companions can’t be “won.” In other words, if you do the right thing, you piss off the companion, who then won’t be as fully capable in later fights. If you make the companion happy, people die or other bad things happen. Even in conversations with some crew members, the conflict is manufactured so that you will have to choose one over another, making one dislike you. While this isn’t a show stopper, it is an artificial way to add drama that the writers could have done better.

    Finally, there is a point towards the end of the game where half your crew is captured. If you delay too long in rescuing them (as part of the final sequence), half or almost all will die (depending on your actions). And, as you rescue them, you have to choose team members to escort them back to the Normandy. If you make a bad choice, those companions, and perhaps some crew, will be killed. I only prevented these bad things by looking at some wiki or another for hints.

    But overall, Mass Effect 2 is an excellent game and a lot of fun.

  • Finished Halo Reach

    Well, I finished Halo Reach, which both ends the series and brings everything full circle. I thought I had a long battle sequence left that would take a while, but really I just had to kill a couple of Elites and a Zealot and then a Covenant cruiser, and that was it. I won’t spoil the ending, but it certainly wasn’t a fun ending, as you would expect from the opening scene of the game.

    Perhaps I can convince my wife to try co-op with me sometime, but otherwise, this one goes in the drawer. Now, time to finish Star Ocean, play Lord of the Rings Online and Star Trek Online, and maybe even check out some of the Dragon Age and Mass Effect 2 DLCs. And the Fallout New Vegas comes out… Can hardly wait!

  • Lord of the Rings Online

    This weekend, I signed up for the newly free-to-play Lord of the Rings Online. It is a fairly generic sword and sorcery massively multiplayer online role playing game (MMORPG). Its hook is that it is set in the Tolkien Lord of the Rings universe (okay, Middle Earth) and you play a role (insignificant for the moment) in the upcoming war to destroy the ring. You get to visit places from the book (or movie for those that don’t read), like Bree. As a human player, I am near the Shire, but unsure if I’ll get to go there or not. If you start as an elf or dwarf, you start in Thorin’s Halls to the west of the Shire, which should be cool, so I may have to start another character sometime. You also get to ride horses, which could be nice.

    The game looks pretty good, though the textures are not up to the standards of my 2560×1440 monitor. The water effects look very good, however, as you can see from the following screenshots.

    The combat is quite standard, with swords and shields and occasional class abilities. I’ve seen people using magic, so I’ll have to try that sometime. So far, I’ve been killing spiders (why do all these games love spiders?), wolves, boar, and some bad guys.

    The quests are simple, so far, and I’ve been able to do them alone without dying. On the other hand, some of the higher level quests will probably need a group (called a “Fellowship” in this game). Unfortunately, LOTRO doesn’t seem to have henchmen, like Guild Wars does, so I’ll probably have to join with actual people. I know that’s the point of MMORPGs, but I don’t particularly like joining with other people, though I’ve done so a number of times in Guild Wars, Eve Online, and Star Trek Online.

    The game seems pretty good and is free to play, so everyone with a reasonable PC should check it out. The download was 10GB and took hours, which is a bummer. I will probably put it on hold while I try to finish Halo Reach and Star Ocean, but I’ll be back in Middle Earth soon!

  • Myst for iPhone

    I bought Myst for iPhone because it was only $2 and it was one of my favorite games back in prehistoric times.

    Myst is a beautiful puzzle/adventure game that was beautifully rendered (at the time) and filled with luscious sounds and mystery.

    While the scenes are mostly static, the world is interesting. These images are of Myst Island, but there are other islands that the nameless player needs to explore to unlock the mysteries of Myst. There are lots of mechanical puzzles and much more.

  • ElementZ HD iPad game

    Elementz is a fun iPad match the objects game. I got it for free, but I don’t know if it is still free. As with all of these games, match 3 objects in a row and they disappear. When these balls disappear, they make a particularly satisfying crashing noise and have a nice falling away animation, a frame of which is shown below.

    This one is special, because if you match 4 balls in a row, one remains, but is powered up. If you can match the powered up one, you get a special elemental burst that takes out a lot of nearby balls. The “elementZ” are fire, water, wind, electricity, earth (yes, a clod of dirt is this elemental burst), and plants. You can see a frame from a flower burst below and a fire burst below that. The music is pleasant and relaxing. Overall, a fun, easy, and compelling game. In fact, the worst thing I can say about it is that I hate the stupid name with the “Z” at the end.

  • Halo Reach Turning Ugly

    Things are getting pretty ugly in Halo Reach, and I don’t mean the graphics, which are pretty good.

    ***Spoiler Alert*** Do not read if you don’t want spoilers

    One of the unique features of Halo Reach (at least compared to the other Halo games I’ve played) is the presence of your Noble Team comrades. They were helpful in keeping the enemy’s attention off you for a bit so you could kill some baddies and even the odds. Well, now all my Noble Team mates have been killed off, so I am left to face the hordes alone. Cortana has been taken to the Pillar of Autumn, yet I’m left behind, so I’m guessing my character will die by the end. Fighting alone as the world is coming to an end is somewhat depressing.

    *** End Spoilers ***

    Unlike other games where you get more powerful weapons towards the end to help against large numbers of enemies, Halo Reach has always had all (or at least most) of the weapons available. Some of the more powerful weapons, like the Spartan Laser and the Sniper Rifle, take sufficiently long enough to aim and fire that they’re not too useful. A very annoying thing about Halo Reach (and all the other Halos, if I remember) is that if someone even farts in your general direction while you’re zoomed in, you get zoomed back out and lose your precise aim. That really makes it hard to use the sniper rifle when things are hot and heavy. Tough Spartans should be able to maintain zoom even when shot (perhaps not being blown up, however).