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Introduction
Round three is almost done! All the entries are in and it's time to vote. Just lookthe scores! The quality of writing has shot up fantastically and there's plenty to learn and enjoy in all the articles submitted for this round of our FiringSquad Editors Challenge sponsored by the Intel Core 2 Duo processor!
Old School Gaming: Geforce 6600GT still falls short
OldFriend goes over his GeForce 6600GT in a median rig, comparing how it performs in some older and newer games. Though the results are somewhat predictable, we're judging OldFriend's prose and syntax as much as his judgment. Then there's the added benefit of humor – check out the Pros and Cons.
Power666 looks into upgrading his ancient G4 system with a GeForce FX 5200. The problem? It's a PC card. The solution? Well, he flashes it – and he tells you how to do it. He then overclocks it, tests it, explains options for Mac Pro owners, and issues with other GeForce cards being run on Macs. Definitely worth checking out just for the different flavor alone!
Darrellwu provides a very in-depth review of the Venice-core Athlon 64 3200+. Complete with screenshots, graphs, and overclocking results. For added benefit, Darrell has overclocked the CPU and the GPU separately, to show where the bottleneck lies. To make things even better, Darrell isn't the only one to test the 3200+! Read his article so you can compare against the other entry.
KevinSpiess combines a fun rant about Moore's Law (something to do with Doritos and a screwdriver set, apparently), along with a painful review of this half-decade old processor. How painful? How about trying to run Company of Heroes and Half-Life 2! Ouch. Even more ouch was on the way, as Kevin tried to overclock the CPU by 1GHz! That's a bigger percentage overclock than the legendary Celeron 300A@450. Can he do it? Find out!
Deja vu? Or is this a mortal showdown between two authors with the same subject? Like Derek Perez and Brian Burke going at each other with knives, Droniac and Darrellwu circle around the Athlon 64 3200+ and try to produce the most interesting, insightful, professional article? Who will win (if either makes it at all)?! You decide!
CanadaDave commits assault by benchmark, a class 3 felony in at least six of the G7 countries, as he tests the Pentium D 805. The only thing his benchmark suite is missing is the amount of hamsters that need to power this Pentium with their spinning wheels. On the serious side, CanadaDave provides a historical context for the processor and explains its importance in the Intel-AMD war, as well as doing the tests and overclocking it.
The processor reviews continue, this time with OgreFade's analysis of the Athlon 64 X2 4200+. Not only does OgreFade test the processor in a variety of benchmarks, he also goes over some of the more esoteric features like Cool'n'Quiet. I'm pretty sure that's not how you'd contract “Cool and Quiet”, but hey, AMD's marketing department has millions of dollars and I only have Strunk & White. Though OgreFade fails to excuse AMD's horrible grammar, we still think his article is worth reading.
Jacob (hey, I like this guy already -ed.) reviews the fastest of the processors in our competition. He does so with the help of the most colorful and, well, bizarre graphs we've ever laid eyes on. It's like someone took a Wiimote and started drawing images behind the charts... Interestingly enough, jacob tests on Vista, rather than XP, while providing a full Core 2 Duo family tree.
DaugWok rescues us from the CPU assault with a graphics card review. Taking the venerable Radeon X800XL under the microscope, he puts it through its paces in a variety of games. And really, isn't that the prettiest graph you've seen in a while? Sure, it's a bit crowded, but the kid's got style!
What happens when a man ingests a white paper, chews it up, and spits it out? A big spitball, unless his name is BucNews (or Alan Dang). BucNews breaks down the NVIDIA 8800GTX and speculates where all of its power could be used.
Elemental: Fallen Enchantress Preview Elemental: Fallen Enchantress is a standalone expansion pack and follow-up to developer Stardock's previous game in the series, subtitled War of Magic. That 4X strategy game was highly-anticipated and slated to compete with games such as Sid Meier's Civilization V for your turn-based strategy play-time, but was released in an incredibly broken and unfinished state that it never fully recovered from. Lead designer Brad Wardell apologized profusely to fans and set out with his team to go back to the drawing board and try again.
Almost two years later, the result of that proverbial mulligan is currently undergoing closed beta testing. In today's article, Will reports his thoughts on how Fallen Enchantress is shaping up, and will tell you whether or not you should be keeping an eye on it as it nears release later this year.
The Elder Scrolls Online Details Leak - Should Fans Be Excited? The Elder Scrolls Online, long rumored to be in development, was officially announced yesterday. Still in development at Zenimax Online Studios, this MMO aims to combine traditional genre mechanics with the spirit and sensibilities, not to mention setting and lore, of the immensely popular series of single-player RPGs. Though the game is set for a full unveiling in the next issue of Game Informer magazine, what appears to be the entire cover story article has been leaked to the interwebs already. In today's article, you'll find summary and analysis of all the alleged details, as well as feast your eyes on the very first screenshots and concept art from the game. Of course, the burning question now is, should you be excited?
ANNO 2070 Review
The year is 2070. The majority of life on Earth was devastated when global sea levels surged after the melting of the polar ice caps. Swaths of previously habitable land are now deep underwater, and sovereign nations are a relic of the past. But there is still hope...
This city-building RTS/simulation game from Ubisoft tasks you with re-colonizing what little land areas are left on the planet following a global warming apocalypse. Does it have what it takes to be worthy of your time and money, or should it be cast out to sea with the rest of civilization? Find out in today's review!
Hear that? It's the sound of the largest computer chip manufacturer in the world churning out new processors to power your gaming rig. This week, Intel is launching their next generation of Core CPUs, code-named Ivy Bridge. Like last year's Sandy Bridge chips, they're low-power, quad-core powerhouses that also feature integrated graphics processors. Want to find out more? Maybe check out a whole bunch of performance benchmarks on both the CPU and graphics sides of things? Well you can, in today's review!
Intel Z77 Chipset & DZ77GA-70K Motherboard Overview
Looking forward to those new Ivy Bridge CPUs? In anticipation of their release later this month, Intel has already unveiled the new Series 7 chipsets designed especially to take advantage of what will be the 3rd-generation of Core processors. In today's article, we take a look at the architecture of the enthusiast variant, the Z77, and how it's used in the Intel Desktop Extreme DZ77GA-70K motherboard. Even if you're not particularly interested in the motherboard itself, you'll probably want to see some of the new features that come along with it, so read on!
Mass Effect 3 PC Review
This latest release from EA/BioWare is the final entry in their trilogy of sci-fi action RPGs, putting you in a dire situation: rally the troops to save Earth at all costs. There was a lot of hype surrounding the final act of what has been a vast and highly-customizable story-telling experience, and the reception among many hardcore fans has been less than stellar. Even people that haven't played the game have probably heard about all the nerd rage going on over Mass Effect 3's ending...
If you want to cut through all the crap and find out whether or not the rest of ME3 is worth playing, come check out Will's spoiler-free take on the first blockbuster game release of 2012.
Batman: Arkham City PC Review Batman: Arkham City is the sequel to 2009’s smash-hit action game Batman: Arkham Asylum. As the name suggests, you will be reprising your role as the Caped Crusader and going against an even larger 'prison' filled with Gotham's criminals and villains. A textbook example on how to do a proper sequel, Arkham City takes what worked in the original, excised or improved upon what didn’t, and elevated everything to an even greater scope. The PC version suffered from a few months of delay, but in that time, Rocksteady worked closely to NVIDIA to implement some familiar technologies from the last game, such as PhysX and 3D Vision, along with new DirectX 11 optimizations. But how well was the whole package executed? Read on to find out!
Saints Row: The Third PC Review Saints Row is one of most unique series of games to build upon the open-world action template forged by Grand Theft Auto, and has met with plenty of critical and commercial success since it began on consoles back in 2006. This latest iteration, titled Saints Row: The Third promises the most outlandish fun and freedom of customization of them all, and in a much more PC-friendly package than its predecessor. Does it live up to those expectations and, more importantly, is it worth the price of admission? Find out in Will's latest review!
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim PC Review The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is Bethesda Softworks’ latest offering in their series of epic fantasy RPGs, as well as one of the most highly-anticipated PC titles of 2011. As the Dovahkiin, or Dragonborn, prepare to take the fight to the mythical beasts that have returned to the realm after centuries of slumber, all the while exploring a huge and highly-detailed open world.
The PC version of the game promises enhanced graphical fidelity, standard RPG trimmings such as hotkeys and quick-save, as well as unbridled mod support, something we’ll all be thankful for once they release that SDK. Skyrim has already sold millions of copies and set records for play-time on Steam... Find out why in today's review, which happens to be one of the biggest and most in-depth articles on the subject out there!
L.A. Noire Complete Edition PC Review L.A. Noire, as the name clearly states, is a video game built on the tropes of one of the greatest periods of American cinema: film noir. Developed by the now defunct Australian developer Team Bondi and published by Rockstar Games, this title has been out on consoles for a full six months before finally making its way to the PC. This “Complete Edition” of the game features improved graphics, keyboard/mouse controls, and every bit of previously-released DLC for free. But was it truly worth the wait? Read on and find out!
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