peteer01

Rats. They probably do, but they don't carry either game... How do places like that work? (I've only used Steam to purchase digital only PC games so far) Are you only able to download and redownload the game through the specific site you buy it from?

Gah. I was watching Steam and a fwe other places pretty regularly hoping to see New Vegas or Skyrim go on sale, and then I got too busy to game or even web surf at all, and that was when Skyrim dropped to $39.99. Does anyone know of a way to get e-mail or mobile updates when a specific game or a game on your wish list goes on sale? That'd be a nice thing to have. Any suggestions? (I'm looking for something automated so that even when I'm too busy with work, family and life to use the PC over a weekend, I won't miss out.)

I definitely agree with this. Fat fingers. My reputation might not be much, but I did like seeing that I was friendly. How will I know if I'm friendly now?

Portal 2 Very good. Not surprised, but impressed that they managed to make it a worthy successor to the original.

Not yet. Just downloaded 3DMark2011, which I'll run this evening, but I am on my way back to work. I own DX:HR, Portal 2 and L.A. Noire...any of those a particularly good choice? How would I benchmark a game? I've got the 2500K set to 4.5GHz (x45). Intel Burn Test standard run (x10), maxed out at 68C, which is acceptable, with 4.5GHz. No problems whatsoever. My computer is chillin' like a...well, like a computer that's below it's 72.8 recommended level, and should be stable at 4.5GHz for all my purposes. The 7970 also works like a charm. I've tried overclocking that too, but I don't even know how to turn on FPS output, and maxing out everything, including 3x AA (max) and 4x Anisotropic Filtering with Ambient Occlusion (max) doesn't slow it down any without overclocking. Since I can't slow the frame rate at stock settings, and I don't know how to benchmark or measure FPS, I don't know what the best way to benchmark things would be. Any suggestions? Edit: http://3dmark.com/3dm11/2535268 P8998 3DMarks 3DMark Score P8998 Graphics Score 9304 Physics Score 8178 Combined Score 8215 GraphicsTest1 40.69 FPS GraphicsTest2 46.83 FPS GraphicsTest3 57.07 FPS GraphicsTest4 28.23 FPS PhysicsTest 25.96 FPS CombinedTest 38.21 FPS Is that good? Double Edit: Super ghetto (three monitors of different resolutions and two different sized) Eyefinity in Deus Ex was surprisingly fun! Super trippy. Not sure how much I'll want to play that way regularly, but enough that I'm considering picking up another two monitors of the same make as my 23" if they go on sale again. :-P http://3dmark.com/3dm11/2591443 (P9046 3DMarks)

Alright, that'll be my last post in this thread unless someone else wants to talk about my PC or something else relevant to this thread. (Edit: Updated images)

So I celebrated destroying my Cisco exam by destroying my computer budget. I went home and ordered this: With that, I should be completely good to go. In addition to the first two orders in the initial post, I got a G13, web cam, 72-in-1 (or whatever crazy number they're using these days) card readers for the 2.5" bay and a SL231DPB 23" 1920x1080 monitor. With the 7970 being powerful enough for single card eyefinity, who knows, maybe I'll pick up another two monitors after we move into a house with room. For now, I'm just super excited about putting this final piece of the puzzle in my PC and playing some games with beautiful graphics!

I apologize for misreading this thread then. If you're buying the vast majority of your games, I understand how you could consider pirating Witcher 2 as a form of boycotting it. The impression I got from the thread was that you pirated a lot of games, and that you felt that pirating was better for the developer than not playing at all. Sorry if I'm mistaken and misread things.

Not trying to fan the flames, but if you're pirating games, you're not supporting the companies that are doing what you approve of either. I understand boycotting a company, and I understand people, who for whatever variety of reasons, choose to pirate the majority of their software, but I don't think you can have your cake and eat it too if you pirate games the vast majority of your games before you disapprove of what a specific company is doing.

Or, as Japan seems fond of doing, making it so that they intentionally restrict themselves to a single region. Perfect example. Illusion games. What? Don't judge me. (I spent a long time living there, OK.)

Anyone have a coupon that's good for Fallout: New Vegas? I have interest in trying to successfully move the save file from my 360 to PC, and game on PC, if I can get that working.

Believe it or not, your feedback will likely influence my current house hunting. I'm trying to decide how important it is to get a big TV in the same room as the gaming computer, and your feedback will help.

Hehe. Glad to help! Wow. My 3-year-old to the three planes like a duck to water. Also, this game makes down, down, Y, down, down, Y more fun than it should be. However, with all of the story branches, I suppose someone could argue that there's replayability...although I'm pretty sure I played it enough to see all the levels and endings...

Forgive me if I'm telling you something you already know, but there was an updated version released for XBLA, I believe. I did not know that! And I just so happen to be sitting on more MS points than I know what to do with. I am going to have to purchase that. That'll be a great game to play with my son! EDIT: Downloading now! Thanks!

Or bots that will crack jokes with me and talk with me about life, work, family, games and stuff like that while we play. I'm cool with either.

Actually, now that I think about it, I'd argue that Call of Duty: Black Ops is the one recent 360 I did consistantly play with as little replayability value as possible. After I finished 15th prestige and bought gold guns for all the guns I liked, I kept playing without any need for money, XP, daily challenges, and I'd pretty much completed all the challenges I was going to accomplish. I just liked to play it. (Which is not something I'd claim for MW2 or MW3, where it's the social aspect that has me pop the game in, and all the XP and other "rank up" tricks help keep it interesting... But yeah, I can see why even then people say that the replayability is inherently in multiplayer, which is why I didn't put any multiplayer games in my list. I think DDR falls under "puzzle" enough to be ruled out, and shmups, at least shmups like Ikaruga that reward memorization as highly as they do, fall under similar umbrella of inherent replayability... So, that leaves: Streets of Rage II Guardian Heroes (back when I could access a working copy)

Probably true! (And yes, it is really important.) I'm pretty sure that before we moved from Japan (when I decided to sell my Japanese 360 and games), my game collection was a hodgepodge mix of Japanese, Asian and US games. Actually, If anyone wants to do the math, my 2010 game collection is here, and my 2011 game collection is here. When I took that photo in 2010, I had 25% Japanese games, less than 50% US games and a mix for the rest. The games that are missing in the 2011 image (wanted to take a photo, no time/space, game boxes are still in a yet-to-be-unpacked moving box ) are missing because I had to sell them or keep unplayable games. With the importance of getting Japanese language games for my kids (and to help keep up my Japanese for those games that launch in Japan first/only), that's not going to become any less important in the future. (And if we move back to Japan, we'll be equally interested in buying/importing English language games in Japan.) I have no clue which country my family and I'll be living in five years from now, but either way, region locking and gamertag issues like I listed here really are very important for me. (So important that even when Japan and America are in the same region [blu-ray], I bought an HD-DVD player specifically because it was the region free option of the two competing standards. No regrets, 100+ HD-DVDs and still haven't bought a Blu-ray player.)

True. But they're also games that bring nothing new to the table between play 100 and play 200...especially Pac-Man, where the AI is not random. That said, I definitely see your point.

Tetris Pac-Man Streets of Rage II Guardian Heroes (back when I could access a working copy) Ikaruga Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved Dance Dance Revolution games I'm not listing games like Street Fighter or Borderlands. Any V.S. games are a different experience when you have a new opponent or a new match up, so I think a human opponent adds replayability. I didn't list Borderlands because despite putting more time into the game with maxed out characters than reaching max level, the fact that there's always a better item (pretty much, it's statistically improbable anyone would ever have all the best items legitimately) means that everytime you play, there's items left to obtain that add to your character's progression. I don't think it's that older games were necessarily better, but rather that the vast majority of good games are designed with some level or replayability in mind. Just look at achievements. Unless you've gotten all the achievements/trophies for a game, you can argue that there's replayability value. Trying to pick a retail 360 game that I played with no interest whatsoever in the replayability value, I'd have to say taht the only true answer I can see in my game collection is Portal, which I loaded back up to play through again a few weeks ago.