Adam's Blog

November 5, 2014November 8, 2014

Grand Theft Auto V PC version is getting 4K + First Person

On January 27, 2015 Grand Theft Auto V will finally be released on the PC with sweet improvements proving once again that PC version of any game will most likely be the superior version.

While many of you already saw GTA First Person mod before, this time it will be totally different as Rockstar will be remodeling the vehicles and some other things to fit with the new FPM. Did I mention that the gloriouse graphics and beautiful city will be in 4K?

Now lets not get carried away with the above features just yet, in addition to the above along with other enhancements namely the draw distance there is one important feature unmarketed, can you guess it? Mods!

For the ones that don’t know, GTA’s online mode was started as a mod and even argued that it is better than the actual online made by Rockstar games. Lets not forget the downloadable cars and skins for the players. A community like not other, just look at GTA Vice City which is enjoyed to this day with custom content free by the loyal moders.

Even though the game is kinda old and over played on the last gen consoles, I for one am happy that I will be picking this up and enjoying it the way it meant to be played. My only concern is optimization. I just hope that Rockstar will deliver a better job than GTA4 which was poorly optimized with problems despite coming out late. Other than that I feel great that this game got the announced features and most importantly coming to PC where it all started.

This is a smart move on Rockstar’s part; Remaster a great last gen game while working on the proper next one. I understand that some will argue that it is too soon to remaster GTA5 and instead we should have got a truly next gen version. You are correct and I agree on remastering last gen games but this one gets a free pass. Not only was this one of the greatest GTA games, some of us -like me- did not get the chance to play it so why not pick the enhanced version on the next gen consoles and PC? Im impressed that they added official 4k support as 4k is yet to be mainstream but for the dedicated hardcore PC gamers this is a great feature.

Looking forward to playing this for the first time in its ultimate version soon.

November 4, 2014November 4, 2014

Xbox One bundle is now $349

For those of you still waiting to jump on the next Gen -Technically this Gen- now is your chance. Microsoft now lowered the Xbox One’s price to $349 with free game(s) and that is an amazing offer.

You can even get two full games should you go with the assassins creed bundle. True both of them are also available on Xbox 360 but with such a low price and free games it is getting harder not to take advantage. and with the saving you just made, you can go ahead and get more games like the Evil Within or even preorder Mortal Kombat 9 or Batman Arkham Knight.

This price is as low as it can get so don’t expect anything lower in the short term. Now of course if your not interested in the next Gen yet you can care less but sooner or later you will need to reconsidre to continue playing new games. More and more developers are starting to develop games for next gen only with Dying Light being a fine example. You can also get some of the pre gen games like Rayman Legends with better resolution and shorter load time not to mention The Evil Within.

Another thing I would like to point out that apart from the assassins creed bundle you will be getting the latest AAA tittles such as Sunset Overdrive and the next COD so your scoring big games for free and if for any reason you don’t like them you can trade them for something else among your friends. Not a bad deal at all.

Xbox One had a slow start but make no mistake; a stable online services aka Xbox Live + Next Gen console is never a bad thing and as more and more developers starts jumping aboard the console will soon be over populated with AAA games.

Just a reminder: Offer ends January 3rd 2015.

November 3, 2014

Bethesda cancel Prey 2 and it is good!

Bethesda finally came forward and announced that Prey 2 is officially canceled as it was not meeting the set expectations. Normally I would get sad as a game gets canceled, but in this case I’m not and for a good reason may I add.

Prey 1 or should I say the Original Prey was about Alinies abduction and you had to find a way to escape while killing everything in your path. Good enough for a generic shooter with a few great add-ions like walking on walls and sprite stuff. Nothing unusual but the story was straight forward with the bad guys came, kill em to save the world and it was good enough for most of us at that time.

Prey 2 took us to a totally different setting and it was bad. I’m all up for innovation and new stuff but just because its new doesn’t mean its good. The new story takes place years later with you as a bounty hunter capturing aliens for money. You see how ridiculous that sounded?

Prey was about aliens coming to kill us and it was up to you to stop them. Now that they are everywhere and you hunting them for money took away the fear and excitement found in the first one. Not to mention the probably horrible ending. In the original Prey you wondered about how all this will end, you had a goal and a purpose.

Once again I’m all up for new ideas and what not, its just I find it stupid. Even Bethesda found the game to be boring and not up to the first part standards. Should they decide to continue working on Prey 2, I really hope thy scrap the whole thing and start fresh with a story like you are fighting for your life on an alien planet after you got abducted or something else. As long as you have a purpose I’m all for it.

Any way, I’m sorry that some of you were looking forward to this game but it is for the best that this mess gets canceled and hopefully we will get a proper Prey 2 at some point and the not so far future.

November 2, 2014November 2, 2014

BBM is coming out with great features, but

So Blackberry is finally rolling out some very useful features after a long lack of updates. Things like retract sent messages and timed chat much like snapchat. Problem is; they are premiere features that will require paid subscription. There are two ways to run a business: Good and Stupid. Sadly, this one is pure stupidity. Imagine me charging you as a reader a paid subscription in order to view 100% of each blog post as opposite of the free 60%? The BBM while a great chatting app is no where near the user base of whatsapp.

In order to attract consumers from the competition, you sell your app by providing features and better expirance NOT a paid plan. Now I understand, Blackberry as any other company need to make money, I have nothing against that. what I am against is the way they are trying to make money. Selling stickers and other non necessary stuff is fine. Some will argue that the new features are not needed and to that I answer with: while it is true that the new features are not needed to use BBM but are required to fully enjoy it.

I love BBM and will pick up the 9720 OS 7.1 Blackberry as a backup and chat device but paying for BBM updates is stupid. Dont get me wrong, I pay for apps across Windows, IOS and Mac so spending money is no problem, it is how and why I am spending this and that, that matters.

Now the reason is that I am picking this up as opposite to the Q10 is that I simply love OS 7 more than BB10. Thats right, I have used a Q5 and old school devices and let me tell you; the legacy devices are way faster than BB10. That is the reason I will be picking BlackBerry 9720. Of course nostalgia plays a huge part but the device is simply a communication beast. If only OS7 continued to revice apps and updates I and many would have been loyal user.

Anyway, I really hope that BlackBerry reconsider the premium plan, at least until they gain back some market share. Not sure if the upcoming BlackBerry Passport will be the savor of BB but I hope they get back into the game. Do you agree that it is not the time for a paid subscription? Or you support BB on this?

October 31, 2014October 31, 2014

Windows 8.1 issues and how I fixed them

Ok so after upgrading to Windows 8.1 64 bit version with 8GB of ram I noticed a strange thing; I’m out of space with 400 MB remaining. I forgot that 64 bit version takes about 20 GB of space while formatting my 29 GB windows directory partition. Adding space from my programs and games partition requires partition magic and that’s something I’m yet experiment with.

After searching for about an hour I came across a small tip that nobody seems to mention; Paging file. After examining the file I found out it was using above the recommended space, I lowered it down and got about 2 GB extra which is kinda enough for a few important windows updates as I install everything else in another directory as mentioned earlier.I know its not much but anything is better than nothing.

Another thing I managed to fix is the blurry display problem. The display dose not look sharp enough when connected to an HD TV like in my case. To correct the issue, open the resolution window, make text smaller or bigger, and check the box that says Let me choose one scaling level for all my displays. Doing so made everything look better as it used to be.

There is another issue which I’m yet to run into that supposedly breaks the mouse movement in games. So far I tested Counter Strike GO and everything controlled well. I heard Metro is having this issue so lets see what happens when I re install that.

The final and most annoying issue I had was the auto download feature of OneDrive. Trust me, I was this close from deleting everything and closing my OneDrive. After searching everywhere I decided to log into the web interface and unlink my PC manually. They say that OneDrive turns itself on after every windows update so I will have to wait and see what happens.

The above may not seem very important or deal break but can and will be annoying so be careful and hopefully I managed to help even a few with this post.

Meet me on Twitter @Adam3k3

October 30, 2014

The Evil Within PC version patch is out

The first Steam patch for The Evil Within is live. The patch includes the frame lock setting allowing you to go 30 or 60 FPS along with other little things like removing the black bars thus filling the entire screen and stability.

While Im all for updates, some of the things like FPS lock and bars remover should have been there from the start. I hate it how developers are handling PC versions while pretending that PC gaming is a closed console like environment. At any rate, the patch is the first step in the right direction and hopefully we will see further improvements and optimizations.

October 30, 2014

Whats next for Gears of War?

Gears of War is my favorite shooter and adventure of all time, followed by Resident Evil, there I said it! XBOX FANBOY EXPOSED! Any way, I enjoyed and still do the horde mode in Gears of War 3 and play it online with friends and while the ending was disappointing and the whole queen and the live fuel thing made little to zero sense the game play and graphics made up for its short comings.

Now that the story is over and Microsoft bought the franchise, whats next? Well, Microsoft said very little about the future but unconfirmed reports say that the next gears is already in development. Seeing as how the story ended Microsoft should plan very carefully or this could become the next Resident Evil. Going forward with “But not all the monster died” is lazy but at the same time I don’t want it to be a prequel as I hate prequels more than stepping on a LEGO.

What can be done is make it both a sequel and a prequel at the same time. What do I mean? The first few missions show us the events before Emergency Day explaining how Marcus ended up in jail. Next we have missions set during ?Gears of War 1,2 and 3 but with different characters and stories. And finally missions after Gears of War 3. This in my opinion will satisfy most of the fans assuming they pull a great story.

I enjoyed Judgment especially the missions thing where the game jumps to another location after each mission as opposite to just walk forward in the same settings. Same thing can be applied to the new game with better horde and possible a new mode altogether. Speaking of horde mode, please add a great multiplayer. Gears of War is a rare game where story and multiplayer are both equally fun, something many games failed to capture.

I don’t know what the future will bring but I’m excited for the next Gears tittle, and lets not forget that it will most probably lead to more Xbox One seals something Microsoft desperately needs. The next Gen is here and this is the perfect time and game to take advantage of the technology. Cant wait.

October 27, 2014

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas Xbox 360 release

Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas is released on Xbox 360 for only $3.74 and that’s a good thing. Fans of GTA and retro nostalgia gamers can now revisit an updated version of the best PS2 GTA game. I for one own the original Xbox version and I am yet to play it. The 360 version offers updated resolution and achievements so I might just give it a go considering the low price.

We are yet to hear any news on the PS3 port but I believe it will eventually come. Anyway, great news and hope to see more of old school games ported AND optimized with a great low price. I already am in the process of completing my Sega arcade collection Xbox 360 and looks like I will be adding this to my non Sega to buy list.

October 26, 2014

PlayStation 4 firmware 2.0 brings game share

PlayStation Firmware update 2.0 is out and comes with an important yet kinda useless feature at the same time. Important and useless at the same time? Yes, continue reading.

Along with a few normal update features comes one important and unexpected to honest; Game Share. Basically, you share your game over the internet with a friend who is not necessary an owner of the same game. Meaning streaming the option for someone to play on your console while your away or watching. Now in theory this is a revolutionary idea which bring us to the days when friends gathered together. Problem is, you will need a really fast and stable internet and that is a problem for many.

Now while allot of you may have a good net, streaming requires allot of power and internet speed if I can call it that. Any slight disturbance or disconnection will effect your gameplay. The way I see it; this feature while important will be useless to many and eventually ignored. Sadly, we are just aren’t there yet. Maybe in 5 – 10 years but not now.

Cloud and streaming is becoming bigger each year and some may say will be the default way of gaming and application running in the near future and that’s something I don’t like. Yeah its cool that I can play a game I don’t own on someone else PS4 and run Photoshop in the could but physical media has a special place in my heart. Maybe I’m old fashioned but that’s the way I and many feel.

Let me know what you guys think.

October 25, 2014

IGN Convention 2014

It is that time of the year again, IGN Convention 2014. I must say I had allot of fun even though I did not sleep the night before and my time spent at the convention was kinda short. Never the less, had fun and bought HDPVR 2 for my YouTube channel meaning more videos and gameplay. I managed to snap a few pics; beautiful day, beautiful weather.

Walking toward the convention

So once again, had fun good times. Will go next year for sure.