Year of the Code Monkey

I completed Crysis yesterday, so I thought I would post a few quick thoughts on my experience:

What I Liked

• As can be expected, the graphics in this game are insane. The jungle atmosphere is spot-on, physics are incredible, lighting is superb, and character modeling is excellent. Visually, this game is a real treat to play.
• The nano-suit which the player wears is an interesting game play mechanic. ‘Health’ is handled via the nano-suit, and the abilities which the suit provides (speed, strength, armor, and cloak) are fun to play with.
• Level design is excellent. All of the locations feel incredibly realistic, and there’s a ton to explore. I’ll probably play through the game once more just to fully explore each map, because I know there’s a ton of stuff I missed.

What I Didn’t Like

• Crysis isn’t near as long as Far Cry, which really disappointed me. Likewise, the maps in Crysis aren’t as large either.
• Crysis has an incredibly weak story line, much like Far Cry did. This comes as no surprise, especially in the FPS genre, but I was hoping for a little more meat than what I was given.
• Again, just like Far Cry, the game turns into a battle against alien forces. I really enjoyed battling the human forces in the early parts of this game, and I wish Crytek had stuck to that theme. The later alien-based levels are, for the most part, not very fun. Why can’t we get a game that uses this style engine and doesn’t devolve into a ’save-the-world-from-alien-attack’ kind of story? Perhaps Far Cry 2 will provide the kind of experience I’m looking for.
• Difficulty is really uneven. I played through on the ‘Normal’ difficulty, and found myself stuck at a few places (though I never got stuck permanently). Some battles are surprisingly easy, while others are incredibly hard to survive.
• Some of the vehicles the player gets to drive are woefully difficult to maneuver, which is frustrating. I’m not entirely sure why this is, because the vehicles in Far Cry were a pleasure to drive.
• This game is a system hog. I played at 1280×1024 on the High setting (no anti-aliasing or anything fancy), and there were still a few moments where things really chugged (entering and exiting buildings especially). Overall my experience was smooth, but these moments of stuttering killed some of the immersion factor.

I’m not sure if I can recommend this game or not. It’s worth playing through for the eye candy, but some of the game’s frustrations cancel out that fun. My final verdict for Crysis? C+

I just finished Half-Life 2: Episode Two again. Playing it through on my new computer was a real treat, and the ending of this episode still brings a tear to my eye. One thing jumped out at me for the first time on this play-through: the end credits. Valve has chosen to present the end credits in a short, yet elegant way. Every contributor is listed in alphabetical order by last name, with only a few notable exceptions (all the voice talent is singled out, for example). The result is a short, concise credits sequence that isn’t a bore to sit through. Compare this with the end credits for Call of Duty 4, which go on for so long that a rap song is performed to break the monotony (I believe the end credits are on the order of 3 or 4 minutes long in that particular title).

I’d really like to see more end credit sequences patterned after Valve’s design. Others may disagree, but knowing who did what on a project isn’t very important. Listing each contributor in a single group levels the playing field and gives everyone an equal measure of thanks.

I have added support for category-specific RSS feeds (actually, they were there all along; I’ve just ‘turned them on’). Each category listed in the site sidebar now has a corresponding feed icon. Simply click the icon and you’re set to subscribe to that category’s feed. I’m not entirely happy using the RSS icon here, and I may switch to using a purely text link (removing the category post count in the process).

I’m a big fan of The Office, the comedy television show on NBC (hopefully everyone else is too). Last night’s episode was great, and it provided a glimpse of what might be coming down the pipeline (there are only 2 episodes left this season). Here are a few predictions I have for where this series is headed; note the possible spoilers ahead:

Read the rest of this entry »

The long-awaited update to Team Fortress 2 was released Tuesday evening, so I’ve only had a brief amount of time to play around with Gold Rush, the map showcasing the new payload game type. In a word, the new game play theme is awesome. Gold Rush is much more enjoyable than Dustbowl (which I love, by the way), and I really hope more maps of this type are released over time.

Here’s how Gold Rush works. A mine cart, carrying a Fat Man style bomb, must be moved from point A to point B through 3 different stages. The attacking team (BLU) moves the cart simply by standing near it; the more team members surround the cart, the faster it moves. If the cart is left unattended for 30 seconds, it begins to move backwards towards the starting point. The map is played just like Dustbowl; there are a total of 3 stages in which BLU attacks and RED defends. Once either BLU successfully attacks all stages, or RED successfully defends a stage, the teams swap sides and the stages are played again.

Gold Rush is definitely a tough map. The defending team almost always has a height advantage, making it difficult to make quick progress. A number of choke points slow things down even more. But like every other map in Team Fortress 2, things are very well balanced.

The other major change to the game comes through the new unlockable weapons and achievements. Medic is the only player class that currently supports these new features, so everyone is inevitably playing as a Medic. A total of 36 new achievements are available, and for every 12 that you unlock, a new weapon option becomes available. First up is “The Blutsauger,” a syringe gun mod that leeches health from each enemy you hit. Next is “The Kritzkrieg,” a medi-gun mod that gives the person you use it on a 100% chance of firing critical damage (instead of the standard Ubercharge). Finally, “The Ubersaw” bone-saw mod provides a 25% charge to your Ubercharge meter for every hit you make on an enemy. I’ve only gotten 4 out of the 36 achievements so far (Surgical Prep, Trauma Queen, Intern, and Group Health), so I’ve got quite a ways to go. Some of the achievements look impossible to get, so I doubt I’ll make it all the way.

If you’d like to try out Team Fortress 2, along with the new updates, Valve is offering a free weekend this weekend (May 5-6). I can’t recommend this game highly enough, and the Steam service is great, so check it out. If you do check it out, look for me; my username is jgbCodeMonkey.

Last week, I rebuilt my computer again (making this the third machine I’ve run on since this site opened up). Here’s the list of what I upgraded in the system:

ABit IP35 Pro Motherboard

A great motherboard with passive coolers on the MCH, ICH, and PWM component areas. A very handy digital readout is available on the board to troubleshoot boot-up issues (no more beep codes), and the overall layout is excellent. However, I have a few minor problems with the board. The SATA connectors are angled at 90 degrees, making it very difficult to attach the cables from my drives. I’m currently using SATA ports 5 and 6, because ports 1 through 4 are physically inaccessible. Also, my wireless network card wasn’t happy with the board, and I had to switch back to my old one, which has lousy reception. I’m going to fix this problem in a novel way; stay tuned for further details.

Intel Core 2 Duo E8400 Wolfdale CPU @ 3.0 GHz

After much thought, I decided to go back to an Intel CPU (after using an AMD X2 4400+ for a while). The Intel chips are just faster right now, and they use less power, allowing them to run a little cooler. I had a difficult time getting the stock heat sink to snap into the mounting holes on the motherboard, causing the motherboard to bend around the CPU socket (which concerns me). I’ll probably spring for an after-market cooler at some point to remedy this situation.

2 GB of Geil DDR2 800 (PC2 6400) SDRAM

I’ve never used the Geil brand of memory before, but Anandtech recommended it on their last holiday buying guide, so I picked some up. The chips run at a default 5-5-5-15 timing, but they support 4-4-4-12. I made one attempt at overclocking the chips, but Windows wouldn’t boot, so I reverted back to the defaults. Changes in the default memory voltage is probably warranted here, which is something I failed to do on my first try. The copper-orange heat spreaders are very sexy.

BFG Tech GeForce 8800 GTS (G92) 512 MB

The 8800 GTS-512 line of graphics cards is based on the new nVidia G92 chipset (using a 65nm die). It’s notably faster than the 8800 GT, which is the card I had my eye on for a long time. The 8800 GTS has a larger cooler that’s not as loud, and it’s a beast of a graphics card. This is the first card I’ve had that takes up two slots on the motherboard, leaving me with only 2 out of the 3 available PCI slots. It runs a little warm (70 degrees Celsius at load), but I’m willing to live with that for now.

Corsair CMPSU-620HX 620W Power Supply

I was concerned that my old 500 W power supply wouldn’t have the juice required for this new build, so I bought this highly recommended Corsair model. It’s modular, which allows me to use as few cables as I need, and it’s incredibly quiet.

2 Seagate Barracuda SATA 250 GB Hard Drives

These Seagate drives are a little faster than my old ones, they’re 90 GB larger, and they have double the cache (16 MB).

I have been test driving this new setup with a few games. Call of Duty 4 looks amazing in high resolution with all the eye candy turned on, and it has elevated my opinion of the game. The Crysis demo ran great at 1280 x 1024 at the ‘High’ graphics setting, and I may be able to push it a little farther (I’ve ordered the full game, by the way; I’m very excited). Team Fortress 2 is thrilling at 1600 x 1200, and even Half-Life 2, which will be four years old later this year, looks great running at 1600 x 1200 with 4x FSAA. Half-Life 2: Episode 2 should be equally as nice.

The last few Firefox 3 nightly builds have changed the way SSL URI’s are displayed to the user. In Firefox 2, accessing a secure site results in a yellow background for the address bar (which I think is a particularly elegant solution). For reasons I don’t fully understand, Mozilla is getting rid of this implementation. In new Firefox 3 builds, the background of the ‘favicon’ will change depending on the security of the site. A blue background indicates an SSL secured site, while a green background indicates an EV SSL secured site. Moving the color to the favicon, in my opinion, makes things a little harder to understand. A heated debate about this inevitably appeared in the corresponding bug, and there will likely be more confusion over this in the future, as more public users begin to explore the Firefox 3 world. I fully expect an extension to ‘fix’ this feature, so all may not be lost. This is a very strange decision on Mozilla’s part, and it should be interesting to see what the end result is.