Windows Vista

My rating: 5/10

The reason I gave it 5/10 and not higher or lower is because it works perfectly for me, except when I connect my wireless N adapter to it, then it BSOD's me, but Vista can't take full blame for it.

Microsoft f*cked up when they released Vista. Back then, I wasn't a genius in pc's, so my father picked up a Vista (The one I'm currently on, however I modded it.) It was a Gateway GT5404. It was pretty damn fast for back then, 1gb of RAM, Pentium D 2.80Ghz,pc. 250gb sata harddrive, dvd writer, Intel 945G (Coreyville). It ran Vista with no problems, but Vista had a lot of problems.

First problem: My dad bought a Nvidia card (whom suck with Vista), and used it's cd drivers. Which were probably from 2006 (I had a 7300GS), and it crashed on me like heck when I played a game until I downloaded the new Vista 'safe' drivers.

Second Problem: Half of my programs didn't even run on Vista, which made me very angry. I had to download mods to make Microsoft Office 2000 run(I hate office 2007), and all my photo editing software wouldn't work. Bummer

Third problem: JESUS CHRIST VISTA IS A RAM WH*RE. Vista used 900mb of my 1gb for just doing the simplest things, and when it was doing nothing, it used about 700mb of it.

Well, the RAM problem was fixed when I got 4gb of it, but then my copy was 32bit, so I screwed the hell up there. And any gamers out there had to upgrade to Vista if they wanted to play using DX10.

Now, you're probably wondering why I gave it a 5/10. That's being generous also, but the reason I gave it a 5/10 is because it worked, and it ran games without much crashing much after Nvidia released some drivers that were actually compatible with Vista. Well, this is my first review, and if it seems unfinished, it's probably because I'm sick.

Spork adds: In my humble opinion, Chaplian was overly generous, but I'll forgive him, because he doesn't have a lot in the way of better Operating Systems to compare it to.

Windows 2000 and XP were the best two Windows so far. Vista ranks just above ME, which is the worst Windows ever.

Heres to hoping Windows 7 is to Vista what 2000 was to ME.

Crysis

My Rating: 3/10

Crysis must be one of the hardest and most mediocre games I have ever played. But before you play this game, here are the recommended system specs:
8 core 7.80Ghz Intel Core i70
44gb of DDR8 Ram
Nvidia GTX 595 SLI
DX17

You get my point right? If you don't, I'm implying Crysis will make your computer want to kill itself. It will, I swear to god.

If you however got your hands on a damned system that will run Crysis, I say give it a shot. I was running Crysis on my current and only pc, whose specs are the following:
4gb DDR2 800 RAM
Pentium D 2.80Ghz
XFX 9600GSO oc'ed to hell

My pc is not the best pc out their, but it gets me around 40fps in about almost every game out there. But you see here, I played Crysis on all High at 1024x768, and guess what, I only got 14 god damned fps. I cranked it down to all medium, got around 19 fps. So I warn you, you better have invested in a system that will run Crysis before you attempt to play it.

Crysis is mostly for graphics, really. The gameplay is okay, not really the addicting type, it's basically a benchmarking game for people who have $5000 pc's. I'm not really going to talk about the campaign because I only downloaded the demo, so wait for a full review for when I get a pc that will actually run it.

Spork adds: Crysis was one of few games I stopped playing midway through, because it sucked that hard.

During calmer moments of the game, I was able to drag about 10fps out of the game on max settings at a resolution of 1680x1050, but had to tone it down to medium to play reasonably, and it still lagged when I was getting Zerg rushed by Koreans.

The game is unfairly difficult, even after I got fed up and turned on Godmode. There are several neat gimmicks, but they fail to redeem the crummy gameplay.

On max graphics, I was willing to believe that it was actually a live action movie, albeit one where everyone spoke in slow motion, but looking amazing is not the same thing as having a good game.

Anyway, Crysis actually made Legendary look like a good game, so the bottom line is: avoid at all costs.

Call of Duty 2

My Rating: 8/10

Now, some of you might call Call of Duty 2 old, (Get it? call *Call* of Duty 2. Bah, forget you.) it might be old, but it is one of the most fun and most addicting games I have ever played.

Now, Call of Duty 2 is not demanding in pc specs or hardware, but if you want 40fps that won't fluctuate, you still have to have a good pc.

Well, when I first started playing this, I though it would be some crap game like most others, but I was wrong. Oh so wrong....This game got me playing for 8 hours straight with no breakfast or lunch. Yes, that's how addicted I got to it.

Well, to move on from me being addicted to this game like a baby to a shiny thing, the campaign is fun, unlike Crysis who's all about some damn scenery and you kicking some Korean ass with the whole US Government behind you while they make do with AK 47s. For those people who loves a challenge, you're gonna love this game. But for those easy goers, you're gonna have to stick with easy on this one. The thing that keeps you playing this game the most if that you die(in the game). No matter how good you are at shooters, you're gonna die at least once a campaign. And when you die, you get aggravated and want to beat the living potatoes out of the Nazi who killed you.

Though, if you keep dying at a certain point, you get angry to the point where you quit playing right? Well, leave it alone for a good 6 hours or a day, and then play ti again, and watch, you'll beat this part easy. How? Magic. Well, the bottom line is, if you have $20, and you somehow have nothing to spend it on, GET THIS GAME.

Spork adds: Call of Duty is an excellent series all the way through, with 5 main installments and 2 or 3 spin offs.

Call of Duty 2 remains the best one. I must have played through the campaign 30 times.

Fallout 3

Hey again, whoever reads this.

Today, we will be discussing a video game. Fallout 3, to be specific.

For starters, Fallout 3 is available on PC, Xbox360, and PlayStation3. I played the PC version, so you'll have to excuse me if I miss anything console specific.

The game begins with you realizing that the whole game is obviously going to be fucking epic, as you are born, being delivered by Liam Fucking Neeson. CLEARLY THIS IS AMAZING. Then it gets more amazing when you find out not only is Liam Neeson your doctor, he's also your dad. even though he's a doctor, he has to ask you if you're a boy or a girl, which kinda confused me for a minute, then he asks you your name, which caused me to seriously question him, then he drags a computer down and makes you decide what you're going to look like when you grow up. Excuse me, but isn't that a lot to ask of a newborn baby? Shortly after you decide what you want to look like as an adult, your mother goes into cardiac arrest or some such shit, and you get rolled out of there in a flash of bright light.

Gameplay resumes one year later, when Liam Neeson tricks you and locks you into a playpen, not realizing that as soon as he leaves you will open the playpen as easily as a gamer presses the E key. Wandering out, you are given the opportunity to play with some toys, and then read a book. HEY WAIT A MINUTE! Aren't you still only a year old at this point? How can you read? I didn't learn to read until I was... five, I think. Maybe four. Anyway, I was more than a year old. So not only do you read a book, it magically lets you distribute your stats. Once you finish that, Liam Neeson comes back and depresses you with stories about your dead mother, and there's another flash of light.

BAM! Now you're ten, and you get some gizmo that goes on your wrist and never comes off. And you get a BB Gun. Awesome. Someone takes a picture, and guess what? The flash of light propels you forward in time again. Now you're 16, and playing sick to avoid taking a test. But Liam Neeson is a doctor, remember. So you have to take the test anyway. But the test itself is mildly hilarious, so no worries.

A point I almost forgot to mention is that all of this takes place locked inside a "Vault," a hardcore bunker designed to withstand the Nuclear War, which as I understand it, occurred about two hundred years prior. Makes you wonder why the door is still locked. Two hundred years of living in cramped spaces has got to make the place smell.

So after another flash of light, you wake up and find out that the shit has officially hit the fan. Liam Neeson left, his friend Jonas got beaten to death by the Security Force, and they're all out to get you. Oh yeah, and there are some giant fucking cockroaches all over the place. So you have to run around and kick ass for a while before escaping, at which point, a window pops up asking if you want to change your character. What? Why? No! I just want to find out where Liam Neeson went!

Now to get into the actual gameplay. There are really a lot of different ways you can kit out your character, and as long as you make sure to put some focus into at least one of the weapon skills (Unarmed, Melee, Small Guns, Big Guns, Energy Weapons), you should be ok. The rest just change what kind of stuff you can do. If you crank sneak, you can surprise attack people or steal all their shit. If you crank speech, you can convince people to give you their stuff, or farm experience (every successful speech check nets you some experience points) by having redundant conversations with people.

The biggest issue I had with the game was perspective. The game was designed to play in first person. First person is for faced paced shooters, people. Not for RPGs. You can play the game in third person, but its so clunky you might as well stick to first person. Blarg. When you consider that was my biggest issue, its pretty damn good.

Onward. The game world is expansive, and just running around and exploring is actually quite fun, up until you get blocked by huge piles of rubble and flip your shit. Word of advice: when that happens, try using the subway tunnels. Fascinating places to visit in the game include the following:

Megaton: a town built in the crater created by a nuclear bomb. Best part? The bomb didn't explode! It's sitting in the middle of town, still live. (You can get a free house if you disarm it for the idiots.)

Republic of Dave: a small farm populated by President Dave, his two wives, and his children. Technically a sovereign nation. Also technically led by a crazy man.

Rivet City: An old battleship, and the biggest city in the Capitol Wasteland. You'll be visiting more than once.

Oh, I do seem to be rambling on. Let me leave you with one last issue I had, almost as big as the perspective problem. When you finish the game, whether you live or die, it doesn't let you keep playing and exploring. What the balls, Bethesda? You let us keep playing in Oblivion!

The Bottom Line: Interplay and Black Isle might not have made it, but it's still Fallout damnit, and it still rocks. Could have benefited from more Liam Neeson, but hey. Go buy it. Steel be with you.

Photoshop CS3 and CS4

Why hello there. I basically made this blog on a whim, to show someone I could do it better than he could. :P

Anyway, our first review is for Photoshop CS3, the first photoshop I have used in a long time. And to be honest, I love it.  My earliest Photoshop experience was with Photoshop Elements 2.0, a castrated version of Photoshop 6.0. I quickly grew quite adept with that, mostly with making things go from one background to another and scribbling effects together to make awesomeness. Or sometimes to see if I could induce nausea in internet users. (Hey, I was 13, what else was I supposed to do?)

Anyway, where was I going with this? Oh yes, after that, I had only brief experience with Photoshop 7.0 before I was plunged into a Photoshop drought, during which time I was limited to MSPaint, Paint.net, and GIMP. Hurk.

So when I got a chance to use Photoshop CS3, my initial reaction was something along the lines of "What the balls does CS3 mean? What happened to normal numbers?"

But my secondary reaction was more along the lines of "What an excellent and streamlined program!" Photoshop CS3 is by far the best graphics editing program I have used so far. I highly recommend it to anyone who has interest in such things.

And onward to CS4. Photoshop CS4 is the exact same thing as Photoshop CS3, with two major differences.

Difference 1: CS4 has the added ability to import a 3d model to use as a point of reference or some such shit. Beats me. Thats what I've been told. I'll probably never use that feature.

Difference 2: CS4 sucks so much resouces, that if you have less than 6 gigs of RAM and a fairly beefy video card, every time you paste something, it'll take several seconds to appear. Good shooping is done rapidly and fluidly. Lag prevents that.

The Bottom Line: Now that CS4 is out, the price of Photoshop CS3 is undoubedly drastically reduced. If you would use it, there is really no reason NOT to buy yourself a copy of Adobe Photoshop CS3, unless you're pinching pennies for the food budget or something. And if you are, get the fuck off the computer and go find a job or something.