Whilst browsing the shelves of my local GAME store I came across the usual selection of slightly old, and therefore cheaper, PC games. I haven’t bought a PC game for ages, mainly because this machine can’t really do most games justice, but it’s the older ones that I can play no problem.

After sifting through the endless RTS and world building/sim games that abounded the available selection, I came across TOCA Race Driver 3 for the bargain sum of £9.99. Check back of box, yup, PC can just about take it, so being a long time fan of the series since it’s first edition way back when I paid my money.

On the way home again I realise I’ll have to use the keyboard to control it, which will make the game as fun as driving through an oil patch on an icy winters day with no brakes! Fortunately inspiration hits me as I remember that handy wired Xbox 360 controller I have at home can be used on the PC. At least that’s what the marketing stuff said.

Ok so this is probably nothing new to many of you, but it impressed me enough to blog about it. Thinking it would be a case of plug and play with the controller, once the game was installed (7 gig takes a good while) I ploughed into the front end menus.

Lovely, a controller setup wizard! Shame it didn’t pick up the 360 pad, so off to xbox.com for the help files. One search later brought up the relevant page to tell me how to get the driver which would run the controller on my PC. Download and install that, run the game again, and TOCA automatically asked me if I wanted to configure the various buttons and thumbsticks.

That done, and after a bit of playing with the game setup to stop this nasty lag I was getting (told you my PC wasn’t up to much gaming!), jumping into a quick race shows just how well the controller works. Everything that should be analouge, was; it rumbled in the right places, because I spent more time off-roading than being on the grey stuff; the buttons all did what I told them to; it was superb!

So, on the off chance you’re a petrolhead and haven’t played TOCA 3, go grab it now, especially for a tenner on PC! Plus it’s nice to see some decent cross platform functiionality actually working.

And you all thought I was a 360 whore!

Last night I decided to have a bit of a session on Call of Duty 3 over Xbox Live after realising it had been a while since I picked the game up.

Aside from reminding me how much I enjoyed this title online with a good bunch of players, during a few deathmatch games I was also reminded how much the sniper is hated in online shooters.

One particular match of note took place on the Les Ormes map, a small town layout with a central crossroads, and by it’s nature, not a map that lends normally well to snipers because of it’s often twisty nature. About half way through I began taking note of one particular player.

Now usually, when you get killed in deathmatch it is a bit annoying. Some people chunter to themselves, others swear loudly for all to hear, and everything in between. As I as in it for a bit of fun, and it was a lazy Sunday night, I was unusually just playing for the fun of it.

Yet this guy didn’t whine everytime he got killed, only when it was a sniper that took him out. Each time it happened he got a bit louder, and swore a bit more, and each time it just got funnier. So I decided to pick up a sniper rifle too. Not once did I say anything, preferring just to listen to the game chat from other players; after all it was every man, woman or child for themselves, I didn’t have time to talk!

The match ends as I sit chuckling to myself still, thinking this poor sod has been struggling all match to score decent kills. Until the score appears. Low and behold, the same guy who was getting so wound up was actually the clear winner by a good ten or so kills. Now I’m not gonna reveal the guys tag on here because I can’t remember it properly, but neither would I if I could.

It left me asking a question of FPS players, and shooters in general, that include a sniper and/or a boomstick (shotgun) in the selectable weapons line up. Why get so peeved about it? It’s there for a reason, and it just so happens that somebody else is good at it and can snipe the breath out of your lungs from the other side of the map.

Here’s a tip to anybody that hates snipers; pick up a sniper and take some practice. Then you’ll find out just why it’s so popular with those who know how to use one properly. Yeah sure, some guys pick it because it’s an almost guaranteed one shot kill, especially at close quarters, but it’s the kind of weapon that if used effectively in matches with players of high skill levels that can make a severe difference.

Another example. First game I played last night, picked to be a rifleman as it’s my normal weapon of choice. As the game kicks off I realise that the other five players were all snipers, two guys on my team, and three on the other. Then how the hell did we come away with teh win? That’s because I’m decent enough with the rifle and can use the map and cover, but I’m by no means a top player, I just practice with it alot. Trust me, I started out completely shite with it. The enemy could stand still for 10 seconds and I’d still miss!

Luck is one thing in shooters like CoD3, but get past a certain point and start facing players who have many hours under their belts, and skill really shows up. So if you hate snipers, tough, they’re part of the fabric of shooters. It’s not like the various generals through time would have all said ‘You know what, these sharpshooter chappies are a bit unfair. Let’s just make a huge bloody mess on the battlefield where we can see the whites of each others eyes!’

Now rocket whores, that’s a whole different frickin’ ball game!

Thought I’d share with you a funky little flash game site I found a few hous ago.

http://crazymonkeygames.com

My personal recommendations would be Boxhead: The Rooms where you have a myriad of weapons to take on a never ending stream of zombies.  Think Dead Rising, in top down form, with a plethora of guns, and characters that have boxes for heads.  Sounds stupid I know but it’s loads of fun.

Take a look at Dead Tree Defender as well, which is a neat little arrow shooting game. Again simple premise here; if it moves towards your Tree House and looks slightly nasty, shoot it. With arrows.

The other place to try out, which I meant to drop on here ages ago, is Wiicade.  As the name suggest it’s built to be used not only via PC but also through your Wii.  As with any site like this, including the one above, there are some duds amongst the gems.  One that peaked my interest was Punk-O-Matic, a by numbers Punk music maker.  Admittedly it is limited with only so many samples to use for drums and the two guitar tracks, but you can make some pretty funky tracks with it.

However, if you don’t like Punk music or are even slightly offended by naughty words or an OTT use of the word ‘dude’ (or ‘duuuuuuuuud’ as they spell it), avoid it.

There’s plenty more I could mention but it’s best to just let you go play with what’s available.

Have a great weekend all!

Damn you to hell! You and your “lets get this product activated before you can use it properly”.

As you all know, I’m a geek. So much so, that I saw fit to buy a copy of Microsoft’s Flight Simulator X. Ah, but not any old version. The Deluxe version! Woo! Major geekdom, here I come! I bought this on it’s day of release and was quite excited to get home and try it out. I even upgraded the graphics card and RAM beforehand (which, by the way, still runs like crap).

After installation, which took like an hour or so, I had to activate the product by connecting to the net and giving them an activation code. Done! I can now start flying! Yay! *makes flying noises*

But here’s my problem. The game came out in the middle of October and I’ve had no problem using the software. Unitl now. The games just decides completely out the blue, that my copy of FSX is validated no more. Yeah, what an absolute load of bollocks.

So now I have to remove the program from my PC, then re-install the bloody thing to see if that works. If it does, bonus. If not…

Well, I’m sure we’ll find out in about an hour or so…

—UPDATE—

It just ended up getting worse and worse. I tried to re-install FSX and it just messed up. Big time. As did everyother program I tried to run. So drastic measures were taken upon. Format the HDD and reinstall XP from scratch. Took all bloody night. And the number of updates? About 80! Seriously! 80 bloody updates for that bag of crap piece of software!

The good news is that FSX now works. For the moment.

Now all I need to do is find the drivers for the on-board sound card and DVD drive…

Thank God for the Mac!