You may have wondered where I’ve been lately. Maybe you
haven’t. In either case, I can tell you it’s been enjoying the hell out of Star
Wars: The Old Republic (as evidenced by my Ratpr page). But before that, during
beta, it was a different story.
After receiving my beta key in late October and downloading
the client, I fired up the game to see how well it would work on my system. The
game promptly greeted me with a critical error. It confirmed my fears; the
computer I built in 2005 would not run this game I planned on playing for the
next several years.
Yes, 2005. There was a reason, however, why I had not upgraded.
When I build a system I always go for a step down from top-of-the-line. To me,
this is the best way to ensure you buy quality components that will last for several
years at non-extravagant prices. However, when I built my last system it was
right before major components switched chipsets, sockets, and slots. I bought a
top quality single-core CPU before dual and quad core CPUs were the norm. I
bought a nice motherboard and AGP video card before PCI-E became the best card
slot. I bought a big 19-inch CRT monitor when LCDs were still in their infancy.
Trying to upgrade any one of these components meant upgrading the other, and at
that point, it’s almost easier to go for a new system entirely.
I could still get life out of my system, though. Games like
Team Fortress 2, Mass Effect 2, Dead Space 2, and Portal 2 all ran well (with
the exception of long load times) and looked great. They worked because they all
were optimized extremely well, and finding a well-optimized game is hit and
miss.
Knowing Star Wars: The Old Republic would not run on my
system, I took advantage of Black Friday and picked up components for a
computer of the future (or what actually is the present). I won’t bore you with
the exact details (if you want to know exactly what I picked up, feel free to
ask me on Twitter), but the main highlights are a Quad-Core i5 2500k CPU, GeForce
GTX 570 video card, 120GB SSD, and 8GB of 1600Hz RAM. Simply said, the new
system runs like a shark swimming through the ocean; fast and streamlined.
The best-looking game out right now, Battlefield 3, runs
flawlessly, and with a SSD load times are never longer than a few seconds. But,
like a true PC gamer, I’m dying to see what the first Crysis looks like on max
settings.
With a new system means new games, or rather all the older
games I’ve missed out on playing over the years through a combination of not
running on my computer, or not having time due to World of Warcraft. This
includes things like the entirety of the Assassin’s Creed franchise, both
Crysis games, both Dragon Age games, the Modern Warfare series, the last two
Need for Speed games, The Witcher 1 and 2, Deus Ex: Human Revolution, Fallout
New Vegas, and lots more.
My plan is to post a small critique on each game after
finishing them. I’m not considering these a review in an official capacity, but
instead just a write-up of what I thought worked or didn’t work.
That also brings me to my excitement for 2012. There have
been several impactful years for gaming, especially PC gaming, in the last
decade or so. In 1999 we saw the release of things like Everquest, Counter-Strike,
and Unreal Tournament. In 2004, games like Half-Life 2 and World of Warcraft
became a reality. BioShock, The Orange Box, Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare,
Crysis, and Mass Effect all took gaming to a new height in terms of
story-telling and technology in 2007. I feel like with the release games like Mass
Effect 3 and BioShock Infinite, 2012 is going to be one of these watershed
years.
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