Tomb Raider 2013

Almost everybody knows Lara Croft, even those people that don’t really play games. At least they have heard that name before, probably through the movies with Angelina Jolie. In 2013 Square Enix rebooted the whole series and created a game that is so immersive beyond just the exploring of dungeons and ruins. It depicts how the Lara Croft of old, the tough archeologist, came to be. I know the old games, I played a few, but they never really hooked me. If it had not been for a promo code that came with an AMD video card I probably wouldn’t even own Tomb Raider.

YouTube Video Quality - Resolution Dependance

If you’re one of those guys or girls that share their video gameplay on YouTube as a Let’s Play then you are probably very interested in how good the video looks once uploaded to and processed by YouTube. YouTube encodes every video you throw at it, every single one, in order to have it in all the available resolutions and, more importantly, in a format that can be streamed and displayed by their web video player. With another step of encoding being done, a step where you have no control over, a lot of quality is getting lost because of the rather low bitrates YouTube chooses, especially for modern games that are visually very complex. How can you get around that?

Dragon Age Origins: What an Awesome Game

The last time that I’ve written about a computer game dates quite a while back. To be exact, it was the 29th of September 2013 and I discussed the Borderlands franchise (of which I’m currently doing a co-op Let’s Play). Before that I wrote about Torchlight and before that Diablo 3 (several times). I don’t know what took me so long, but I guess I was simply busy playing the games rather than writing about them. Dragon Age Origins, however, made me feel about a game like no other did before and I just have to tell you about this.

Borderlands

The last post about games dates back a while as I’ve ramped up the “Metalhead” part of Typical Nerd. Having visited Gamescom this summer I’m currently very keen on playing (thanks to two weeks of vacation there was also plenty of time for that). This field report is about a shooter with some RPG elements, namely Borderlands. Shortly after Gamescom I finished the second version of this program in co-op, after playing through the first one a few months earlier. Read on to find out whether I liked it or not.

Well, I guess I spoiled that teaser by already admitting to having finished Borderlands 1 and 2. Anyway, here’s the story…

Torchlight 2

When I first wrote about Diablo 3 I subtitled the article with: “Or how to lose track of time”. If I wanted to do the same for Torchlight 2 it would probably be: “Or how to lose track of what’s going on on the screen”.

Diablo 3 Still Rocks!

If you’ve read my last post about Diablo 3 you may remember that I kinda liked it. Well, I still do. In fact, I like it so much that this ugly red bastard has already come to die three times at my sisters and mine combined hands. And for the record: her character finally died, too. Lot’s of times! Mine also, of course, so there’s no reason for me to gloat, but I’m amused still.

Diablo 3 rocks!

Or: How to loose track of time

I have played the very first Diablo with a friend connected in a network (unfortunately we didn't finish it), its successor including the add-on, once again with friends and this time finished it - multiple times - and now Diablo 3 hit the shelves. And guess what; it made me buy a new computer much earlier than actually planned - but have no fear, it wasn't a Windows PC.