Hardware
OMD!2 Fire & Water Playthrough, Gameplay, and Thoughts
By Steve BurkeWhen paired up with DrGong and given a new game to play, I never know what sort of off-the-wall commentary we'll hear from our eccentric Chilean friend. Well, in this playthrough of Orcs Must Die! 2's Fire & Water expansion/DLC -- apart from being asked about my life as "a children" -- we had about an hour of fun with some of the new traps and mobs. And in that hour, we learned many new life skills, for instance: Jumping off of cliffs before the round starts is bad.
You can view each of the levels below to get a feel for the game -- I've included some of my thoughts pertaining to the expansion after these clips.
nVidia's GeForce GTX 660 Ti: An Affordable Gaming Video Card
By Steve BurkeKepler's initial GTX 670 and GTX 680 may have been prohibitively expensive for some gamers, but the GTX 660 Ti is now here, and we've got the specs comparison of the GTX 660 Ti, GTX 670, and GTX 680.
The 660 Ti is nVidia's new mid-range GPU, planned to ship at $300, and nVidia has a lot to live up to -- the company said at its announcement that the GTX 660 Ti is the "best card per watt ever made," and at 150W, the 28nm CUDA microarchitecture with similar core structure to the GTX 670 may mean that's true.
Two Idiots Play: Orcs Must Die! 2 Co-Op - Gameplay Video
By Steve BurkeWith Orcs Must Die! 2 now fully-released, and after our cheerful review of its sequel, we decided to get together and play Orcs Must Die! 2 for our first time with no prior experience -- hilarity and stupidity ensues. Watch as GN-DrGong and GN-Steve fall off cliffs, stumble into portals full of orcs, and turn trolls into chickens.
Clearing the Cobwebs: Company of Heroes Maps & Mods
By Steve BurkeModding communities have the astounding power to extend the life of a game past the developer's capabilities (or desires, for that matter), and when modders want a game to stay alive, they'll make it so.
Company of Heroes is one of those games. Its powerful mapping interface makes map-making effortless, and now that the game's been out for a few years -- and with the upcoming Company of Heroes II launch -- we've had a chance to put together a list of some of the best CoH multiplayer maps out there, going back to the game's hayday, in some instances.
While browsing Skyrim Nexus for more awesome mods -- a time-consuming habit of mine, to be sure; I swear, it's not an addiction -- I saw the below "Ultimate Skyrim Quests Overview and Checklist" pop-up.
It's incredible.
There's nothing that speaks to the class of the modding community like Twiggy's "Animated Shout Farting" mod for Skyrim. Ah, yes -- with hundreds of hours of gameplay behind us, it's now time to put those shouts to use. The dragonborn in the below video has, evidently, consumed nearly every cheese roll in the game. He's a bit flatulent, you see. Jump down to take a look at the mod's high-octane functionality.
Our Skyrim hardcore overhaul we published earlier left -- deep down -- a bit of an empty spot: We wanted more lighting and graphics. The ENB series of environmental and atmospheric lighting effects has always been one of the most powerful tools (as exhibited in GTA4) in modding, but some of its interpretations are over-exposed or otherwise a bit "off."
Dorian G over at Skyrim Nexus has launched his new ENB Customizer, which features a GUI and sliders (insert visual basic jokes here) for ENB optimization and user-customizable lighting.
It doesn't get much easier than this, here's a preview:
New nVidia Drivers "Boost Skyrim Performance by 20%"
By Steve BurkeSkyrim hasn't been known to be the most optimized game for PC gamers, but it is quite flexible in its requirements; after installing our graphics mod overhaul, though, even those of us with powerful PCs could use an extra FPS and performance kick.
Image courtesy of Rendermaxx from Skyrim Nexus.
Duel Builds: Diablo 3 Themed Gaming PCs
By Steve BurkeIt's here. Well, almost. It will be tomorrow. To commemorate the launch of Diablo 3, we've put together another Duel Builds gaming PC set -- similar to our Sith vs. Jedi builds of a few months ago for SWTOR.
In this thematic combat, we have a $558 Evil Diablo AMD build vs. a $2000 Enthusiast Tyrael Intel build embattled for greatness and glory; both systems are incredibly powerful for their prices, and both will have no problem playing Diablo 3 on high/maxed settings.
Don't question if you can play Diablo 3 on your computer again -- we have you covered with these configurations. That said, if you are unsure of whether you can play it on your current rig, post below.
Blood Bowl: Chaos Edition Promises Lots of Spiky Things
By Steve BurkeBlood Bowl's like football, except it's bloody, has fantasy races, legalizes curb-stomping the quarterback, and is actually interesting. It's been a while since our Blood Bowl: Legendary Edition review, where we looked into the franchise that throws cold-blooded murder, deceit, dark elves, dwarves, treants, and more into an arena with a spiked, deadly football (likely made of halfing skin), but now we have a new game to look out for: Blood Bowl: Chaos Edition. That's a lot of colons.
Below are several Blood Bowl: Chaos Edition screenshots for your viewing pleasure.
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