I recorded this match a few weeks ago, and I finally got around to uploading it.

Nothing epic really (although I do have something like this waiting to be processed), but it was a very enjoyable match. One of my first matches on this map, so I was driving around a lot exploring the map.

I spawned as a recon by mistake, which lead to a small fuck-up after destroying the first enemy vehicle.

I wanted to repair my destroyer (01:40), but I deployed the spawn beacon instead. This forced my to drive around in a quad for a while.

My friend was unable to spawn on me because of the beacon, so I decided to pick it up (07:40). I knew that the moment I did it, I would be blown to pieces by something, and I was. Although I have no idea how the driver managed to kill me, as he supposedly did not have the guided missile unlock.
That is Battlefield for you.



Anyway, I managed to get the LAV-AD from our base, and that was when the real fun started.
You cannot really say that this vehicle is overpowered anymore. Yes, it is very powerful against aircraft, but that is its purpose. It can be easily destroyed by a capable soldier, whether in another vehicle or on foot.
I rarely have a chance to stay alive in mobile anti-air for so long.

You can see that I was getting out of my vehicle from time to time, it was to allow my friend to spawn on me.

The rest of the gameplay pretty much speaks for itself. Instead of commenting on it, I will focus on the expansion itself.

To be honest, I really hope this is the last big Battlefield game for consoles (I would not mind an XBLA title, though). Current consoles are so obsolete, that it is simply ridiculous sometimes. Armored Kill was created for PC, and that is where it shines. The maps are way to big for 24 players, and the graphics are bad, especially on the PS3. Terrible aliasing, even more terrible pop-up, plus constant frame-drops and tearing (which is even more noticeable in recorded video). If someone still believes we do not need the next generation of consoles after seeing this expansion, they are out of their mind. Come on. There are many cases where developers can squeeze out all they can from that hardware, but that is mostly the case with singleplayer games. Multiplayer suffers horribly from all those restrictions, and I really hope that is it.
They have already announced the BF4 beta for next fall, which has me worried. Do they know something we do not? Will BF4 be a launch title for next-gen consoles? Because I sure as hell will not buy another Battlefield game for Xbox 360. After seeing what the PC version offers in terms of gameplay (graphics, destruction, the number of players and vehicles), it makes me sad that M$ and Sony still believe their consoles are enough. They are not, not at all.

Armored Kill is a great expansion, and I would love to fully experience all it can offer. It is still enjoyable on consoles, but I thought I would be playing it all the time, and frankly, I prefer going back to the old maps, which are packed with intense action. We shall see what Aftermath brings.


As for my video, I am still trying to work out the technical difficulties I am having with voice recording on my PC. I would like to comment on some of my videos, but I get lots of buzzing and other noise in the background when I record my voice, which would be really annoying. I hope I can figure something out, because watching long gameplay without commentary is not that enjoyable. On the other hand, my voice could make it even worse, but hopefully not.

I am a huge fan of all kinds of gadgets related to games, so I could not simply walk by the collector's edition of Borderlands 2.

The Ultimate Loot Chest Edition was immediately sold out via pre-orders in the US (people are now selling them for 500-1000 $, that was the only reason they bought it), it was not available in the UK, and it was way too expensive here in Poland. That is why I decided to get the Vault Hunter's Edition from Amazon UK.


It has pretty much everything I love seeing in a collector's edition. Everything is tightly packed in a relatively small cardboard box. Inside you will find the following:


A Marcus bobblehead inside a cardboard ammo-shop-styled packaging, and a pretty big map of Pandora.


An artbook, with pictures and descriptions of pretty much everything you will find in the game - all the characters (including NPCs), all the enemies, many weapons, locations and various concept art. It really is a great collection of artwork, in my opinion. Below are a few photos of random pages.






A total of 158 pages of Borderlands eye-candy.


Four stickers, 12.7x12.7 cm (5x5 in).


And of course the game box in a nice slip-cover, with two codes for both the pre-order and collector's edition DLC.

For me it is nearly a perfect edition. It was a bit expensive (41 GBP, which is around 65 USD), but it was still worth it. If you are a Borderlands fan (I became one just two months ago), and you manage to find this edition somewhere, do not think twice about buying it, or someone will beat you to it.

F1 2012 is here. Is it worth the purchase? That is a tough one.

First of all, what in God's name have they done to Singapore??? It was absolutely mind-blowing in 2011, and this time it looks even worse than it did in 2010. The lighting is simply awful, I cannot comprehend why they would decide to make it similar to their first version. Huge disappointment.

In case of most other tracks, the changes are cosmetic. They are slightly more polished versions of the 2011 tracks, but yes, we can call it improvement. I still believe 2010 is the best looking F1 game from Codemasters. Why? Because that is what I love about their games. I love that even though they do not look realistic, they offer a beautiful, colorful presentation. This made the DiRT series the best looking racing games ever, in my opinion.
Codemasters should decide on which road they want to take with F1. Either make it unrealistic and colorful like DiRT and F1 2010, or make it realistic and natural like Forza Motorsport, Gran Turismo and other simulators. Right now it is somewhere in between, and I am not too fond of it.



What I do like about F1 2012, is that the game finally sounds good. It is still far from what it should sound like, but it is a huge step forward. I especially like the sound design during races, all the cars' engines mix together very nicely.

The handling has not changed much. I still do not feel the car at all, I never know what to expect.
In Forza Motorsport, and even DiRT, I feel the cars perfectly. After only a few minutes with every car I know their limits and behavior. Maybe it has to do with a total of hundreds of hours I spent in those games.
In case of F1, I always play them for a few hours and then forget about them until the next one comes out. Maybe you have to put in the hours to understand the handling, but to be honest, I do not feel like it at all.
I would rather go back to Forza.

What else can you say about this game? Not much. Even though we got some new features and game modes, it is basically F1 2011 on steroids. To be honest, I think even FIFA offers more changes every year, but they are both in the same bag right now. They are both part of the hunt for money, which I am sad to see Codemasters participate in.

In my opinion, if you own F1 2011, the game is not worth the purchase, at least not right now. When the price drops to 20-30 $, you might want to pick it up if you are an F1 fan. I for some reason cannot seem to get excited about F1 games, even though I watch every Grand Prix weekend passionately.

HQ 1080p download:
part 1 - DOWNLOAD
part 2 - DOWNLOAD

Milestone have released the demo of their upcoming WRC 3 rally game.

The game looks to be a huge step forward, especially in terms of graphics. It is still far from Codemasters' DiRT series (best-looking racing games in my opinion), but it looks very nice.



If you are used to DiRT's handling, you will find WRC 3 rather tricky at first. Even the slightest touch of the brakes introduces oversteer, so you have to be really careful when braking, or you will spin out. Steering feels very intuitive in my opinion, although I would like to see some advanced settings for the controller (gamepad), like sensitivity and deadzones.

The Road to Glory career mode should be a fun experience. We will be getting various game modes this time around, just like in DiRT. Pure rally fans will probably not like that very much, but I definitely do.
You can try the Crash & Run event in the demo, which is just like DiRT's Gatecrasher.

The replays are also looking very nice, finally. I hope to see some cool montages from the community.

Hardcore gamers will be disappointed with the difficulty level. I played the demo using the highest setting, without braking assists, but with stability help turned on, and I had no problems winning. This means it will be a real cakewalk for those with proper driving skills, although turning off stability help will probably make it a bit more challenging.

All in all, I really enjoyed the demo, and I am looking forward to playing the full game.

The quality of YouTube videos seems to be getting worse with every passing day. I apologize. HQ download:
part 1 - DOWNLOAD
part 2 - DOWNLOAD

I have to say, I will be really disappointed if this is not the official GTA V theme.
That composition has blown my mind, it does have a true Michael Hunter feel to it.



Plus, we are finally getting some screenshots. I was stunned by what I saw in the picture below.
If that is not epic, then what is?



We should be getting three more screenshots soon.

I have been using Paint Shop Pro 9 as my primary graphics editor for many many years.

I was really used to it, and it offered pretty much everything I wanted.

One thing I really liked was creating text as a vector. I could then easily replace the text, and all the attributes (font, size, kerning, etc.) would be automatically applied. For example, I used it to quickly create the headers for my website, as I am using a font that is not available in Windows by default.

All good things tend to come to an end, and that is the case with PSP9. It has simply stopped working.
I start it up, I can see the process in the Task Manager, but nothing else happens. This strangely coincided with the upgrade of my graphics card. I tried to google the problem, but I have not found anything that could help me.
I had not reinstalled Windows in over a year, so I decided to give it a shot. Unfortunately for the first time ever it did not help. This method has always solved any problems I might have had, but not this time, which leads me to believe that it might actually be a compatibility issue with my graphics card (HD 7770).
A pity, as I was forced to look for an alternative application.

Seizing the opportunity, I wanted to find a freeware alternative. Unfortunately there are not many, at least not good ones. The closest I came to finding some decent text editing capabilities was with GIMP. I do not really like its UI, but at least it allows me to edit the text without having to set the font, size, position and other properties every single time. The font I had been using did not really look good with this app, so I had to switch to another font, albeit a relatively similar one.

I am satisfied with the result, for the moment, but I would still like to find a better application, freeware preferred, with capabilities similar to Paint Shop Pro. I would appreciate some help with that.

Family Barn is a simple social browser game about farming and stuff.

My family has been playing it for a few months, and I actually liked it when I first saw it, so I decided to start playing it two months ago.

It is actually a very nice game. All you have to do is click on stuff - planting and harvesting, processing your crops into other products, etc.

This is my current farm as of today:



I have always been a fan of the countryside. When I was a kid I used to go on vacation to my aunt every year for 2-3 weeks, and I loved it. Some people love the beach, some people love the mountains, but give me a rural environment and I am all set.

I was never really interested in games like the Farming Simulator, I do not really know why. But this game really appeals to me. It is simple, straightforward, and you do not really have to spend that much time with it. You just plant whatever seeds you want, and it all just grows without the game even being loaded. You go back after some time, harvest your crops and click on your machines while you are browsing the net or something. You can also enable automatic operations and leave your game on in the background, but first you have to accumulate enough op credits.

I like the variety in this game. There are tons of seeds and tress, as well as animals and machines. You can also decorate your farm with loads of nice items. What your farm will look like is totally up to you.

The social aspect of the game is also very nice. You can gift items to your neighbours, you can also create a wishlist of your own. And you can help your friends by fertilizing their farms.

I also like the special missions we are getting every week or two. It gives you something else to do, so you do not get bored, plus you can get some really nice unique stuff for them, which you cannot buy for neither coins nor ranch cash.

This is pretty much a casual game, and some people laugh when I tell them about it, but I think a game like this is a really good break from typical core shooters or racers you play every day. For me it is just like any other indie game many people love to play, but it actually is about something I find very interesting.
Give it a try if you want to relax one day.

The game is available in many languages at their respective websites. For example, the English version can be found here.

EA have shown us the first gameplay trailer for Armored Kill. I am sure you have all seen the E3 footage before, but it does not do this trailer justice.



Frostbite without a winter map seems a little weird. Fortunately this will not be the case in September anymore.
The first winter map for BF3 simply looks mindblowing. The entire expansion has to be epic, it just has to.
Huge maps, tons of vehicles, total and complete mayhem. Add the Tank Superiority mode to the equation, and what do you get? Definitely something you will not be able to get enough of. I cannot imagine what this will do to my free time.

September seems so far away...

The guys from inXile entertainment have shown us the first screenshot from Wasteland 2.

It is of course very early work in progress, but it shows us what we can expect the game to look like.
The textures are not really that detailed, I would like to see a lot more objects lying around (junk and all kinds of crap). They said there were no particle effects or post-processing present, which should also make all this look better.



Anyway, you have to realize that this is a low-budget game. 3 million dollars is not that much when it comes to developing a game these days. Brian said they wanted to focus primarily on the story, and making the world an enormous place for us to explore.

Personally, with an isometric game like this, I am fine even with Fallout Tactics' level of graphics. After seeing that screenshot I am rather optimistic, and I cannot wait to see more. I am sure they will polish the game as well as they can.

I just hope they think about us modern PC gamers too, us who play on a TV, not a small computer monitor sitting 50 cm from it. What do I mean exactly? The interface. Most PC strategy or RPG games have a very small interface, and I usually have to skip those games because I simply cannot see anything, and I do not want to play with binoculars mounted on my head. That is why I hope they at least make a scalable interface, which you can resize and customize to match your needs. That is the one thing I am worried about.

Thanks to a friend of mine, who has family in the US, I finally got the RDR Collector's Pack I had wanted for nearly two years.

When I ordered some t-shirts from the Rockstar Warehouse back in 2010, I wanted to get this too, but it was out of stock, with no estimate on when it would become available. Then they drastically raised the shipping cost to Europe for some reason. I paid 20 $ for shipping in June 2010, then by the end of the year they raised it to over 50 $. Now it is 66 $, which is simply insane.
Even though they have opened the European Warehouse, this item is not available. Fortunately my friend's family was sending him a package, so I took the opportunity and asked him to order this pack for me.



I have always loved collector's editions and all kinds of gadgets. As I am a huge fan of Rockstar, and Red Read Redemption is definitely the best game of this generation of consoles (so far, where are you GTA V?), I really wanted to have this pack in my collection. And it is a great one. It consists of a black soap, playing cards in a deluxe packaging, and a set of dice.
I also got a nearly complete set of Rockstar stickers. The only one missing is Rockstar Vienna, but it is a closed studio, so it is understandable. I only had a few stickers before, so now I am really happy to have them all.

There is a lot more stuff I would like to buy from the Rockstar Warehouse, but it is all really expensive. I hope I will come across some more money in the future, so that I can order at least some of it.