PC Upgrade: It's Time

The last time I made a major revision to my Personal Computer gaming rig was sometime in mid-2008. After more than 4 years with a couple of tweaks in between in the form of power supply and graphics card updates, I have decided to really jazz up my setup. This time around though, I am going to make things a little more convenient for myself and just get a pre-built rig. Yeah, it's not necessary but I want to skip the individual labor part and just get to the goods. I did my calculations and the difference between building my own and actually getting this sucker pre-built was rather small and after assembling them for the last 3 times on my own, I think I deserve a little spoiling. My rig of choice? It's the Acer Predator AG3620-UR20P. The most attractive part of this package is its Intel 3.4 GHz i7-3770 quad processor. You can check out the detailed specs by clicking here. When this baby arrives, of course the first thing I am going to do is yank out that nasty NVIDIA GeForce GT 630 and replace it with my beautiful GTX 460, the card that should last me another good year or two.

Arriving to my Game Room very soon. Such a handsome devil.

Who Watches You When You Game?

Is it really that important to have someone in the room with me when I'm gaming? Yes, it has always been the case for me but that is unfortunately something that has been missing in my life. Why is it so important to me? Well, in that moment when my own reality ceases to exist as I am being enraptured into a continuous stream of gaming consciousness, I always long for someone to be there to share that experience. It's a fanciful desire that is mostly a fantasy, especially if the person watching both the gamer and the unfolding gaming occurrence does not have the same commitment to the hobby. Still, as infrequent as the number of times the spouse would actually sit in the Game Room to check out what I am playing and as awkward instead of fulfilling those occasions ended up being, it's still something that I long for.

 

So the spouse has been away for more than a week now and even outside of gaming, things are getting a little too quiet in the house. I am beginning to realize that things haven't been that bad however because... I have my girl Yoshi with me. Yoshi pretty much follows me wherever I go when I'm home and the fact that my constant daily interaction with her is such a natural extension of my being these days, I am beginning to take it for granted. Before we adopted Yoshi, when the spouse is away, I would hardly utter a word to myself while I'm in the house. These days, I actually do get to talk to someone. Granted it's mostly a one way conversation but the sweet way Yoshi looks back at me is all the validation I needed that she's listening. I mean, that can't be any worse that having text conversations with my Internet gaming friends. Yeah, I'm a lonely guy. One thing that I am noticing more and more though is that Yoshi likes to stare at me when I'm gaming. Perhaps she's trying to figure out what exactly it is that I'm doing. I have never taken a video of myself gaming - I think it would be scary to watch that - but perhaps Yoshi notices changes in my facial expression or that she is intrigued by me being absolutely wooden and still for a long period of time. But whatever the reason behind it may be, I am just so glad that Yoshi is actually there for me when I'm gaming and that includes when the spouse is here or not. So in actuality, gaming isn't that lonely of an experience with Yoshi around because she is in the room with me. Ah, the little things in life...

 

Yoshi, thank you for being such a sweetheart.

August 2012 Gaming Analysis

The results shown below are of course based on the combined data from the Daily Game Log which should provide a clear indication of a game's usage frequency. Bear in mind that even if a game is played twice or more during a particular day, it would still register as 1 in the Day Count column below. In a sense, "merits" are given based on how often a particular game can make me play it again throughout the entire period of the month on a daily basis. A game that makes a gamer play it over and over again or at least spend a lot of time with it... Isn't that what we mostly want from a great game? I don't think it's really fair to count all the way down to the number of hours played since some games only require a short amount of time to properly serve their purposes.

 

OVERALL BREAKDOWN:

 

 

Total Games Played: 40

 

Diablo III was only able to stay at the top of the list for two months and now, League of Legends is back to reclaim that spot. Even with the recent major revision involving the Paragon levels, I have found it difficult to go back to DIII because I have made it a habit to play LoL rather extensively yet again. DIII is not over for me however because I still want to at least get through to the end of the Inferno difficulty. That may not be anytime soon however because of the arrival of Guild Wars 2, the second most played game last month.

 

I do want to make a special mention of Divinity II: The Dragon Knight Saga, a role playing game that managed to hold my attention for several days. It is a rather good game, especially with its implementation of mind reading where you can actually opt to use your accumulated experience points to peer into people's minds. I had incurred such a massive experience debt because I was so addicted to stealing people's intimate thoughts. Was it worth it? Maybe...

 

 

This Month's Inductees:

 

 

Total Inductions: 25

Steam Big Picture: Sneaky Release!

The Steam innovation continues. Total domination to follow.

 

So apparently I missed the whole announcement that the beta for Steam Big Picture mode for the Steam client has been released yesterday. I was about ready to go to bed and call it a night when I saw the announcement and I was like..."Must... Try... Now!". Though I don't buy the whole overwrought claim that bringing your Personal Computer gaming experience into the living room was not possible before - you ALWAYS have the option to connect your PC to modern high definition displays and I have been doing it for a long time - the Steam Big Picture does bring with it a sleek new game controller-inspired interface that will raise the awareness of the connection between big screen and PC gaming. You can still use this interface if you are just playing PC games on your computer monitor and it helps that switching between modes is an instantaneous process.

It's the Steam you love. Only more delicious if that is even possible.

The new interface is tons better than those you find on the consoles because it is wicked fast and responsive. Though things are easier with just the keyboard and mouse, using the controller with both browsing the Steam client and the internal Internet browser is preferable in this mode. Everything also looks bigger in this mode to accommodate staring at everything from a distance, something that can be quite a struggle for me when I use my PC on a day to day basis in my Game Room. Perhaps Steam should just adopt this new interface as a default because it's very attractive and fast. That wouldn't happen anytime soon however because the new Steam Community content didn't get a proper implementation into this mode and there are still very many web-based pages found here. In the meantime, this new release is another indication that Steam is truly the future of gaming. Steam is my number one priority in gaming these days and it should be yours as well. PC gaming is not dying. Not even close because as a matter of fact, it's at the top of the food chain.

  

What a genius way to input text using the controller.

Watch as Microsoft and Sony rush to adopt this for their consoles shortly.

Games Played 09/03/2012 - 09/09/2012

- 09/03/2012 -

Guild Wars 2 - PC

 

- 09/04/2012 -

Guild Wars 2 - PC

Tera - PC

 

- 09/05/2012 -

Guild Wars 2 - PC

League of Legends - PC

 

- 09/06/2012 -

Deus Ex: Human Revolution - PC

Guild Wars 2 - PC

League of Legends - PC

Sonic Generations - PC

 

- 09/07/2012 -

From Dust - PC

Guild Wars 2 - PC

League of Legends - PC

 

- 09/08/2012 -

Guild Wars 2 - PC

League of Legends - PC

 

- 09/09/2012 -

Guild Wars 2 - PC

League of Legends - PC

 

 

Screenshot of the Week:

 

That Gun Truck is more agile than Sonic himself.

Sonic Generations (Personal Computer)