1Up.com is right now featuring 101 Free Video Games over their site. I'll try downloading a few and see how they fare.

Ever had the urge to play an old, old game such as the original Wing Commander or Syndicate game you have found in your room one day? (I know I did) Yet our only PC around at the moment has a Windows XP installed, and since we can't do anything much in the way of replacing the current OS with something much older, here's an alternative: Virtual PC 2004 (as for 2007, it will be discussed at the bottom).

 

Virtual PC 2004 is a Operating System emulator that basically mimics a PC, and now we can install any old OS of our choice to play the games. I have Windows 98 SE in stock so I use for installing and playing old games.

 

Now once the OS has been installed and configured (sharing 200MB of RAM is nice for speed increases), installing the game takes some time and soon enough you have an OS for playing games!

 

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Microsoft's next Virtual PC release will be known as Virtual PC 2007. What can we expect here?

Right now, I'm beta testing it under the Virtual PC 2007 Beta Program at Microsoft Connect. I can't say as much since I have a critical task to do at the moment.

 

Also though, another thing to look at is the Virtual PC Guy's Blog. He's the one who started it all!

When I got my Need for Speed: Carbon game and installed installed it, little did I know of a small surprise to pop up to me in the game. Somewhere in Palmont's Downtown area, specifically a hotel, has a Philippine Flag draped over its facade.

 

Now this strikes me as a Filipino, several things:

1) Is it a feature that checks my location and sets one of the flags there as the Philippine Flag

2) Somewhere in the design team is a Filipino, trying to say "hey there's a pinoy working in EA!"

3) The "magical dartboard" of the designers picking a country's flag to put in :-)

 

 For the longest time, I've been seeing traces of Filipino elements in games that I played. May it be characters, places, weapons, etc. Wether it be a console game or PC game, there'd be something in the game that notably stood out like a sore thumb to Pinoy gamers. Some of these include:

1.) In Front Mission 3, there are some Filipino Wanzer pilots and a notable one, "Jose Astrada"  and another notable things are that the Philippines owns a Space Shuttle and a mobile sea fortress called "Dagat Ahas". Also noted are the islands of Panay, the city of Batangas, the Taal region, and other places.

 

2.) In Soul Calibur series of weapon fighting games, one of the characters there is named "Talim" (Edge in Filipino) and fights with as movelist of Filipino martial arts.

 

3.) Of course, Need for Speed: Carbon has the Philippine Flag draped over the hotel.

 

4.) In the upcoming game Crysis (Games for Windows title) The setting will be in the Spratleys, a cluster of Islands off the shore of the Philippines.

 

Having said this, what other games out there have Pinoy stuff placed in it?

 

Right now in my posession is a boxed DVD of FIFA 07 for the PC, and frankly I am in awe of how great this game has become since the past couple of years since I last played it.

 

The game of soccer is actually enjoyed the world over, except maybe for this country, so I guess not much would be interested to get this stuff.

But hey, I'm here to give a chat as to how this game fares better than that of its former incarnation (*cough* FIFA 06 *cough*) and giving interest to gamers who're continually playing... NBA Live 07. Here's a sport that actually needs more coordination than basketball.

 

The objective of the game of soccer pits two teams to run after a ball, get it, and try to shoot the ball into the opposing team's net... using your feet. Sounds easy, but the opposing team's players aren't just there for show, they'll try to outrun, outwit, and outlast you into surrendering the ball to them. Of course, he who scores more within 90 minutes wins.

 

Ok, so that's it for the background on soccer, now for my review.

 

What makes FIFA 07 so different from the other games is that online multiplayer's been tweaked to the point of having a fantasy league all in itself. How? We create a winning team (on our preference), go online (connect to EA) and sign up for the fantasy league and win games against other people from around the world. If you've been playing NBA Fantasy games over at Yahoo!, you'll probably understand that there's a game scheduling built into the system, kind of like the real thing. Too bad my net's not working right and I have high ping rates for network games. (must get another hosting soon, sigh).

 

As for the graphics, the players simply look amazing, their motions are at its best. And the nice thing about this release, EA has fixed the oily features players had in the previous game. They kind of look like people who've been smothered with oil all over. I'm glad that was fixed. Another addition to the game's graphics is the added background motion blur during replays. Another would be the better lighting conditions, making the game seem natural (That's HDR Lighting for you!). Funny though, the design of the entire packaging of the interface reminded me of my Zune's box art and website :P. (Score: 5.0)

 

For sound, well, EA of course got some artists (most of them I don't actually know if they're famous or not, but I did see a track by Muse there) to do music for them. It's a mix of rock, electronic, samba, etc. more like "world music" since the game is international in nature. The commentary, however seems to be weak. (Score: 4.5)

 

Controls, it's best that gamers play it with a joypad attached to their PC. Logitech's Dual Analog controllers work nice, however my controller, a Media Tech dual analog stick controller suffers some problems with the right analog stick. It somewhat does not respond inside the game (though it works fine in MGS2:Substance). If you have an XBox 360 wired controller around, you can use it for playing on the PC, since it is a USB device. Controls in the game are tighter, I experience a tighter control as to where my player goes, and how strong my kicks are. (Score: 4.5)

 

Gameplay wise, there are many options to choose from. Ranging from Tournaments where we pick a team and its league, play through it for an entire season and earn points to "purchase at their store" additional items/teams/jerseys/balls/etc. Aside from actually playing the game, it also continues FIFA 06's Manager game where instead of playing, we play as the manager of a club (more for the business people/leader side). There are practice sessions, challanges, and of course quick play. Players can also create a custom team, or edit a team by trading/transferring/getting rid off players that don't seem fit for playing in the game. Of course, if one can create a team, there should also be a player creation system, which in fact it does. (Score: 5.0)

 

With the number of challenges to counquer, a very large roster of clubs and international teams, better handling, and nicer graphics, I rate FIFA 07: 4.75/5 Final Score.

 

Re-launched last year by Microsoft as a marketing effort on PC games, Games for Windows branding is similar to the Designed for Windows branding where in gamers are assured of (based on Games for Windows' statement at their site):

 

1) Quality. Games for Windows branded titles undergo extensive testing, and not just by the publisher. Microsoft also invests in quality checking each title to ensure they meet performance and reliability standards.

2) Compatibility. Games for Windows branded titles work on Windows XP and Windows Vista based PCs, including both 32 and 64 bit editions. Games for Windows titles that support controllers are also compatible with the Microsoft XBOX 360 controller for Windows, including the XBOX 360 Wireless Gaming Receiver for Windows. They even support widescreen resolutions and more.

3) Safety features. You can be confident that any title carrying the Games for Windows brand will support the new parental controls and family settings features in Windows Vista.

4) Easy to Play. Games for Windows branded titles are easy to install, find and remove, especially in Windows Vista. Every Games for Windows title appears in the new Windows Vista Games Explorer (no more hunting around the start menu for that game you just installed). And Games for Windows branded titles all offer some form of “easy install”, putting you in the game more quickly.

 

From the sound of this statement, at last now there's a standard being pursued so that people can enjoy their games as much as they can, by not limiting to their computer's capabilities (32 vs 64 bit, regular or widscreen monitor, or even next-generation OS compatibility). So if you happen to see the Games for Windows logo, we're assured that the game we'll be playing is going to run in Windows to the best it can.

 

Games for Windows Related sites:

In order to give you guys a background on what system I'm using, I'm posting my PC's specs, just so you can guage its performance on games that I'm playing/testing

 

Processor: Intel Pentium D 805 OC @ 2.8GHz

Motherboard: Asus P5LD2 LGA 775 Motherboard with support for Dual-Core processors and up to DR2 667-MHz RAM sticks

RAM: 2x 512MB DDR2 533 GEIL OC @ 576MHz

Video Card: GeCube Radeon X1600 PRO with 256MB of DDR2 RAM

Hard Disk: Seagate 160 GB SATA

Sound Card: Creative SB Live! Value Edition

Casing: GL-09A Mesh Type Casing

Power Supply: Stock 24-pin 400Watt Power Supply

DVD-ROM Drive: Asus DVD+/-RW 16x

CD-ROM Drive: Sony 52x OEM

Cables: Rounded Cables

Network: Gb Ethernet / D-Link Wifi USB adapter w/cradle

Gaming controller/s: Media Tech 2 analog stick joypad

Keyboard and Mouse: default

Operating System: Windows XP Professional SP2

 

As you can see I have a mixed set of parts ranging from expensive motherboards to cheap keyboards, but this is reality. I can't afford all of them at the same time, just the vitals. Choosing the correct part will be beneficial for gaming. Watch out soon for more topics relating to Computer Building!

Hello World and welcome to my latest creation, the Deadaim Gamer's Den; a blog specifically for gaming for the Philippines in general. Being/seeing the Philippine Video Gaming scene for quite a while, I've decided, why not make a blog at least. And to give a background on how it all started, I'll ask myself the question:

 

Why make a blog on gaming?

Aside from the obvious answer that I love gaming, video gaming has seen a rise in the country for the past several years. And I've been involved in some of the movement (somewhat) of the spread of video gaming, more specifically the growth of the games industry here through two events: Ugotgame? and Ugotgame? Pro. I got some airtime on it and discovered that the country has many gamers may it be on the console or on the PC. Another reason is that truth be told, video game piracy is rampant in the Philippines. Hopefully with this blog, I can educate the gaming public of why they should be buying original games, as well as the benefits they receive out of it. I recently got intereviewed by Microsoft Philippines for their Windows Vista release (I was one of the many beta testers here, and I've been testing some games from time to time on my test unit.) And I am influenced by an old senior of mine in college who's now a professional artist in the comics industry. He keeps a blog of his comic activities, though I keep my personal stuff in another blog also here.

 

What are we going to be expecting from this blog?

Right now I'm thinking of partitioning my month into several periods where each day I would be posting a topic. The topic would either be previews on upcoming games, some reviews on the games I've bought from stores, store reviews, random essays, upcoming game releases (PC for now), PC hardware guides, and much much more to come!