Grey Guard Clan

Crysis Review

Posted by =GG= Mr Moe on Sunday, May 04 @ 07:33:21 CDT
I recently finished playing the game Crysis and would like to offer my opinion/review on the game. Graphically, Crysis is simply spectacular in almost every way. Indoors and outdoors look almost realistic. From the water to the trees and grass, to indoor areas, the whole area in which the game is based is very believable. I was playing it on high settings in Windows XP and DX9 (highest are only available for VISTA and DX10) and I can only imagine that they would be better. Halfway thru the game I did download a "Natural Mod" which allows you to get DX10 graphics to a certain extent (don't know how), and the outdoor atmosphere improved slightly more over strictly DX9. The aircraft carrier portrayed in the game is incredible inside and out. Character models looked very good as well, although only a few of them were extraordinary and as good as the preview screenshots you may have seen prior to the games release. Still, those few looked very human (as you can currently get in a game) up close and the others were definately nothing to sneeze at. The environment is probably this games strongest point. You can pickup, move, shoot almost anything in the game. Many (not all) things are destructable to a point. You can pick up rocks, sticks, frogs, sand crabs, chickens, canned food, etc etc. Many buildings (except concrete sections) are destructable, individual vehicle parts, and thinner trees as well. That flock of seagulls flying overhead?...yeah, you can shoot them. Gas cans, oil drums, etc can all be used to effect in the game and during combat. Weapons and armor are very well done. The Nano suit you wear is believable with its armor, speed augmentation etc and it helps make it believable you can take fire and survive. The cloaking feature it temporarily provides can come in very handy when infiltrating enemy positions. Good selection of weapons that are believable as well, with attachments such as flashlight, grenade launchers available for some as well other futuristic weapons. (some exceptions...see gameplay/combat).
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Announcement: Hosting Service Move

Posted by Staff on Thursday, March 27 @ 00:00:00 CDT
	Well, it appears our web hosting company is moving servers to a new location in Columbus, Ohio. With that our server will be down from midnight friday night for appx 24-48 hours. Here is part of the email they sent to me: "The good news is, the first batch of machines have already been relocated and brought online. We've made backups of all our servers and they've been moved to our new data center ahead of time as an extra precaution. All our preparations are being finalized and we're on schedule to begin the move at Midnight on Friday, March 28^th2008 (ie. early Saturday morning). For a period of 24-48 hours, services will be down." So please bear with us on the down time. Dameon
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Call of Duty 4: COD4 Patches Available Here

Posted by =GG= PingaHead on Thursday, March 13 @ 14:28:49 CDT
All 5 of the Patches required to play Call of Duty 4 Online are now available in our Downloads Section.
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Gaming News: Red Faction: Guerrilla?

Posted by =GG= PingaHead on Friday, February 22 @ 07:28:02 CST
	The following is from a Press release from THQ: PRESS RELEASE AGOURA HILLS, Calif. February 20, 2008 - THQ Inc. today announced that Volition, Inc.’s critically acclaimed Red Faction® franchise will make its open-world, next-generation debut with Red Faction®: Guerrilla™. Set 50 years after the climactic events of the original Red Faction, this third-person open-world action-shooter will return to Mars and once again re-define the limits of destruction-based game-play. Red Faction: Guerrilla is currently in development for Microsoft Xbox 360® video game and entertainment system from Microsoft, Sony PLAYSTATION® 3 computer entertainment system, and Windows-based PC, and is scheduled to ship in THQ’s fiscal year 2009. "Red Faction is one THQ’s most successful and critically acclaimed original franchises to date, with a huge global base of loyal fans waiting to join the new revolution," said Brad Carraway, director of global brand management, THQ. "With the game’s unique pairing of true physics-based destruction, fast-paced guerrilla warfare style combat, and a massive world to explore – Red Faction: Guerrilla will redefine the limits of open-world gaming.” “Red Faction: Guerrilla expands the signature destruction elements of the series and pushes the boundaries of next-gen gaming on a massive, terra-formed Mars where gamers can literally tear down the enemy EDF presence brick by brick,” said Mike Kulas, president of Volition, Inc. ”
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Gaming News: Brain Powered Gaming!

Posted by =GG= EuTh on Friday, February 22 @ 07:25:49 CST

Saw this and thought of us. One can only hope they develope it so that it stimulates the pain receptors...muahahaha!

Brain control headset for gamers

By Darren Waters
Technology editor, BBC News website, San Francisco

Gamers will soon be able to interact with the virtual world using their thoughts and emotions alone.

A neuro-headset which interprets the interaction of neurons in the brain will go on sale later this year.

"It picks up electrical activity from the brain and sends wireless signals to a computer," said Tan Le, president of US/Australian firm Emotiv.

"It allows the user to manipulate a game or virtual environment naturally and intuitively," she added.

The brain is made up of about 100 billion nerve cells, or neurons, which emit an electrical impulse when interacting. The headset implements a technology known as non-invasive electroencephalography (EEG) to read the neural activity.

Ms Le said: "Emotiv is a neuro-engineering company and we've created a brain computer interface that reads electrical impulses in the brain and translates them into commands that a video game can accept and control the game dynamically."

Headsets which read neural activity are not new, but Ms Le said the Epoc was the first consumer device that can be used for gaming.

"This is the first headset that doesn't require a large net of electrodes, or a technician to calibrate or operate it and does require gel on the scalp," she said. "It also doesn't cost tens of thousands of dollars."

The use of Electroencephalography in medical practice dates back almost 100 years but it is only since the 1970s that the procedure has been used to explore brain computer interfaces.

The headset could be used to improve the realism of emotional responses of AI characters in games
Tan Le, Emotiv

The Epoc technology can be used to give authentic facial expressions to avatars of gamers in virtual worlds. For example, if the player smiles, winks, grimaces the headset can detect the expression and translate it to the avatar in game.

>>> (Read More... | 6229 bytes more | 1 comment | Gaming News | Score: 3.5)

74 reads

SOLDIER OF FORTUNE (3) PAYBACK

Posted by =GG= Lionman on Sunday, January 13 @ 16:25:21 CST
	Lion here chaps. Another review of a new FPS that I am very much enjoying. It is called "Soldier of Fortune: Payback" and is in effect SOF 3 as this is a game that has been around for a while and this is it's third version. Instead of WW2 or Modern warfare, although it uses modern weapons its subject is mercenary fighters and as some of you will know "Soldier of Fortune" Magazine is the most famous publication catering to that community and even on occasion recruiting mercenarys. This FPS is very similar in look and feel to COD 4 except that it has even better and much much gorier physics. Body damage from grenades or heavy gunfire is horrifyingly realistic, limbs and even heads come off, blood gouts everywhere, screams are gruesome and death is generally grizzly. Also the "last 6 shots from your pistoil before death" perk is built in if your wound is only near fatal, followed by bleeding to death rapidly. One of its best features is the very large range of weapons available, all excellently modelled and in general much louder and more dramatic than those in COD 4. Although this may not be that accurate it certainly adds to the immersion and drama. SOF Payback is vicous and adrenalating and the single player (on maximum difficulty setting) very hard indeed. IN many ways this is a mercenary version of COD 4 and it suffers many of the same problems as there are way too few maps and all of them would be better of they were far bigger. However, as this is being sold as a budget game, it is unliekly to attract enough community interest to get the MOD crowd making new independent maps for it, which is a pity. The positive side of that is that it is accordingly very cheap.
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KNIGHTS OF THE SKY in WW1

Posted by =GG= Lionman on Sunday, January 13 @ 16:22:44 CST
Ok guys, pin your ears back! Another Lionman enthusiastic rant about a coming game due to be published at some unspecified date later in 2008 coming up! THIS one will be for any and all flight simulator buffs amongst our ranks, especially anyone with a taste for the challenging realm of air combat in the First World War. Maverick, if you have been toying with the idea of some "wingman action" alongside GG buddies such as myself in the virtual skies THIS will be one of two awesome air combat simulators (NOT mere games) due to be published in 2008 that will get you not just hooked on air combat but keep a smile on your face every time you fly! Since the now defunct SIERRA brought out the redoubtable RB3D (Red Baron 3D) back in the dim distant gaming mists of 1998, it has remained the only worthy WW1 air combat flight simulator available, as its flight models have always seemed fairly realistic, its graphics were adequate and its air battles of wheeling multicoloured French, British and German biplanes extremely immersive. Indeed this air combat simulator proved so good that it bred a very large online community of over 100 online virtual WW1 squadrons back in the day, all of whom had their own colour schemes and insignia, much as the real French Escradilles, British Squadrons and German Jastas did back in the real WW1. In parallel with my involvement in WW2 FPS gaming and GG, I have also been a pilot officer with one of those RB3D WW1 combat squadrons called the RAC or Royal Air Corps (http://www.citigraph.com/rac/) since 2002, and have become life-long friends with some of my fellow virtual WW1 pilots and their families as a consequence. Although a great many of those squadrons faded away, a few dozen remain, and in latter years we in the RAC have also often flown WW2 aircraft together in Oleg Maddox IL2 series of simulators, as we have all gradually become bored by the age, graphics and limitations of RB3D as a simulator. RB3D held and still holds a similar position in the WW1 virtual air combat realm as Grand Prix Legends does in the virtual historical motor racing arena and has similar virtues and weaknesses, but, like GPL it is an all time classic simulator of its genre. There was no serious competition for RB3D in spite of several companies producing poor WW1 arcade games, until a group of WW1 enthusiasts produced a graphically quite good total MOD for Microsoft's (IMO very poor) WW2 CFS3 (Combat Flight Simulator 3), called "Over Flanders Fields". But basically it was still just the same old lack-luster CFS3 underneath but with new skins and so none of the "real" WW1 virtual pilots used to RB3D could be bothered with it for long. Then around 2004 rumours circulated about a new and far better WW1 air combat simulator called "Knights of the Sky" reprising a once famous title from the early days of gaming in a totally unrelated new program based on Oleg Maddox supremely succeassful IL2 Forgotten Battles combat flight simulator game engine in the same way that OFF had been a re-skinned CFS3. Gradually however, like so much WW1 "vapourware" before it, to our dissapointment, "KOTS" faded from view and comment until it was rumoured to be dead. But this Gaming News story is to apraise you all of its phoenix-like resurection from the ashes in a whole new incarnation that already (incorporating the many years of work and research already done) looks well on the way to being the all time bench mark for WW1 air combat simulation that is going to be worth the wait.
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Gaming News: COD 4 Demo

Posted by =GG= Lionman on Friday, October 19 @ 11:00:36 CDT
	Well chaps da Lion has been playing through the Demo mission of COD 4 all this week and loves it. In fact I have found it (and AIRBORNE) so compulsive that even though I am surrounded by piles of books and papers, half-built book shelving, filing cabinets and DIY tools, I have been getting VERY little done and even forgetting to cook my meals sometimes! It's 12.30 now and I haven't even showered or made lunch yet! DOH I may even have to join GA (Gamer's Anonymous) and WWI (weight watchers international) as compulsive gaming, lack of exercise and a preference for Guinness are making it impossible to lose weight too! Simply put, IMO COD 4 has the best combination of smooth game-play, super-slick graphics, ultra-realistic avatars and avatar movements and motion, immersive realism and involving game play of any realistic infantry combat FPS to date.
193 reads	>>> (Read More... \| 6814 bytes more \| 2 comments \| Gaming News \| Score: 5)

COH Opposing Fronts: Company of Heroes: Opposing Fronts

Posted by Maverick on Monday, September 03 @ 07:53:52 CDT

Company of Heroes: Opposing Fronts

The British and the Panzer Elite get their chance at glory in Relic's highly acclaimed World War II strategy series.

A thrilling and revolutionary RTS game, Company of Heroes actually made it feel like World War II was erupting on your screen. Now Relic is reloading with a stand-alone expansion that actually has more content than the original game.

Like Company of Heroes, Opposing Fronts will introduce two distinct factions. There's the British Army, which is described as defensive specialists, and the Panzer Elite, which represents the fast-moving and hard-hitting units that were responsible for Nazi Germany's famed blitzkrieg style of warfare. Each faction has its own unique campaign, and combined, the single-player experience will offer more missions than the two campaigns in Company of Heroes.

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192 reads

MOH: Airborne

Posted by =GG= PingaHead on Sunday, September 02 @ 09:34:14 CDT
	I just played through the DEMO. Here are my initial thoughts: The map was almost entirely non-constrictive, meaning: that you were not made to attack the objectives as the game makers designed as in most FPS where the map is made so you have to take a specific route to go through all obstacles placed in your way. So you can choose your route to objectives, flank the enemy, etc...... I liked parachuting in, having some control over the decent and landing. The gameplay was very high pitch and exciting. I think this will be the Gem in the crown of the MOH series.
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