Need Another Reason to Beat Up on Star Wars? Try Installing Knights of the Old Republic On A PC That SHOULD Play It…

With few exceptions, I haven’t had any major issues installing and running older games on my PC, but every once in a while, I get hit with a problem child. While I’m still using Windows XP, I have more than enough memory, an external HDD and a pretty decent nVidia video card (that runs almost everything I’ve thrown at it  just fine). Overall, I’m pleased with the results (especially as I don’t play many modern shooters or games that demand an annual or biannual update to a new card just to show off nice and shiny stuff but deliver nothing new in terms of gameplay).  Anyway, I finally got stymied big time by of all things, one of my favorite console games I just picked up in its PC incarnation. Worse still, it seems that a lot of other people are having the same (or even more extreme) problems once they manage to install this classic.

Since it was released on the original Xbox back in 2002, I’ve replayed Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic at least once a year because it’s a damn good game and like a good book, it deserves a fresh read every so often. After a few years of ignoring the PC port (I was perfectly pleased with digging out the console version), I finally decided to pick up a copy of the PC version mostly to see how it would look at a higher resolution and with whatever improvements any patches added. Turns out, it was Darth Glitchy working the production droids to death in some sweatbox on Dantooine and giving Jabba the Hutt his 70% cut of the profits, as I can’t even get the damned game to install, let alone play…

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Resident Evil 6 “No Hope” TV Spot: Running And Screaming Might Help…

 

Well, that’s what I’d do in this situation (or ANY situation involving the undead trying to chomp on my scalp), but I’d make a pretty lousy video game character. Capcom’s got this one all wrapped up tightly and I can see plenty of RE fans getting a good deal of replay value out of what’s going to be a pretty lengthy campaign. I’m still trying to decide whether to play during the day when I feel a lot more invincible, or wait until dark when I’ll be halfway behind a chair in the living room. I guess I’ll just flip a coin and enjoy the ride no matter how I decide to have at it. And before you even ask – yes, there’s actually still time to pre-order the game if you’re interested in doing so.

Malevolence Update: A Little Art Showcase (With A Side of Music)…

Slowly but surely, Malevolence: The Sword of Ahkranox is shaping up to be an indie RPG well worth tracking down when it’s completed, no matter how it ends up being released. If I’m not mistaken, if you happen to have a Steam account (or want one) you can still vote for the game to get onto Valve’s download service as part of the Steam Greenlight project, and I’d say go for it if you like supporting indie games, 30+ hard working folks from all over the world and classic first-person PC RPGs of a super high quality for such a smallish team. I say they should be up there with the best of them, as the game is looking better and better each time I see a new video or set of screen shots.

Random Unfinished Indie Game of the Week: fracture

Being a huge fan of the Shin Megami Tensei series, i got a huge smile on my face when I saw screens of Rhyme’s wonderful work in progress (with KreadEX and Karsuman doing the dev work), fracture over at RPGmaker.net. Even if you’re not a SMT fan (and why not?) the game is worth a look, especially if you just so happen to love old-school first person dungeon crawling in the Wizardry vein (but with a more modern twist).

In the tried and true MegaTen tradition, things are a bit cryptic in the beginning as your high school age party is introduced one by one as you walk though a series of brightly lit hallways, but once you get down to that first basement and the random battles begin, things get nice and hard for the unprepared. Try and rush too much through this one and you’ll be chewing on your keyboard, especially if you chose one of the harder difficulty settings.

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Free Music Alert Plus: Download Dishonored’s Tune, Win Big By Making Your Own Remix

Hey! Free stuff is ALWAYS great, right? Right!  But, add in a chance to be creative with that free stuff in order to get MORE free stuff and we’re in mind expanding territory here. Well, not really – I just have a word count to meet and this sort of cheery banter fills that up quite nicely. Er, anyway… this IS a really cool contest for you creative types out there who like to tinker with tunes.  Go check out the Drunken Whaler MP3 over at the Bethesda Blog, download it and get with the remixing, mateys. Come up with a suitably stunning slice of DJ delivery, enter the contest and guess what? If you win, you walk away smiling with a copy of Dishonored for your efforts. Get cracking fast, Cap’n Hook (or is it Cap’n Crunch?), as you all need to submit your shanties by September 28. YES, 2012. Geez, some people…

Dishonored is in stores October 9 for PS3, Xbox 360 and PC. Yes, you need to buy it. There’s a very deadly assassin on the cover who just may find time for some extracurricular field work if you don’t.

(Disclaimer: Bethesda makes no endorsements about thinly veiled threats from fictional video game characters towards readers of this blog about the non-existent potential  for bodily harm if they don’t buy their upcoming Arkane Studios-developed game. That’s my job.)

Dishonored Developer Documentary Part 3: Experience And Choice Make A Big Game Bigger…

As I’ve been saying for months now, DIshonored is going to blow you away on many fronts from the stylized visuals to the great gameplay to the amount of choice you have while playing. This latest video shows how to kill with skill and in quite a few ways. Amusingly enough, my two favorite upcoming titles that use player choice as key to the experience are this game and Disney Epic Mickey 2: The Power of 2 – you can’t get more opposite ends of the gaming spectrum than that, I’d say!

Resident Evil 6 “Cries for Help” TV Spot: Capcom Brings The Horror Home…

Speaking of kids and perilous situations, I love this TV spot, as it’s not only well shot and acted, it really makes me want to dive into the game and play more than the demo sections I had so much fun with. Granted, Capcom’s kitchen sink approach to creating Resident Evil 6 might not please some gamers who want ONE type of gameplay and the same old stuff as in the first four numbered games. Fortunately, I’m one of those people who got what the dev team was working at right away and saw that each segment of the game will be its own mini-epic rushing to collide with the other parts to create the biggest and possibly best new RE game this console cycle. I’ve been holding back impressions on the game because I want to dive into the entire disc and experience the stories as they’re meant to be played, so like many of you, I’m eager to see how it all meshes by the end credits. If anything, I’m betting it’s the most talked about game in the franchise’s history for all the content it’s bringing players new and old…

Sigma Team’s I Am Weapon: Send in the Clowns (And Towers To Defend Against Them)…

 

Once again, I thought I was all done with tower defense games but here we go again. First it was Orcs Must Die! that got me interested again (Hey, Robot Entertainment? Where’s the Vita version?) and now, the folks over at Sigma Team are making me want to dive in again with their offbeat take on the familiar genre. Granted, if you’re freaked out by clowns, blood, oddball game descriptions an/or indie games in general, just break out a deck of cards or something. On the other hand, heading to their website will hook you up with some free games from Sigma Team’s back catalog as well as allow you to check out demos of their other titles in the Alien Shooter and Zombie Shooter series. I’m a fan of both because they’re two non-stop isometric action games with light RPG elements and hundreds of enemies onscreen simultaneously.  It would be cool to see these guys get more respect for their work, but hey – that’s partially up to you, you know.

Pro Pinball Kickstarter: Bringing Back The Digital Silver Ball Classics Once More

While the goal of $400,000 may seem high to non-pinball fans out there, here’s another case where a healthy combo of nostalgia and pure common sense can win big for fans of classic video gaming across the globe. Granted, the Pro Pinball series is originally a 90’s creation, but the excellently designed tables whipped up back then were pretty solid and quite memorable, recalling the days of amazingly creative tables popping up in arcades on a regular basis.

Anyway, check out the pledge page here, as there’s a VERY nice freebie on the page in the form of a download of Big Race USA just for visiting the page. Even better, a mere two dollar pledge will net you two more free tables should the project make its target. Drop a few more quarters into that coins slot and score some really awesome bonuses such as boxed copies of the games for PC and the opportunity to have lunch in Chicago with some of the folks behind the project. Nice! OK, you know what to do – make this thing a reality!

F1 2012 Demo Gameplay: Coming Up Fast, Hoping To Take The Lead…

Codemasters is finally dropping that demo of their latest racer this week, so definitely give it a go if you’re a F1 fan or want to try something completely different from other racers on the market. From what I’m seeing so far, this might be one of the best console F1 games to date, but we’ll see when the final drops, as sometimes even the best demo builds aren’t exactly showing off the quality of the final product. A little more salt to the soup or too many cooks spoiling the broth? As always, we shall see, we shall see…