Post your gaming setups and some of your favorite games... (Warning! Large Pics)

[Commonmind]

Let's liven this place up. Most of us Sci-Fi/Fantasy geeks tend to be avid gamers as well. Yes, I know, an assumption, but I'm sure it's close to being spot on. So here goes mine, let's see yours

These are large pics and I can't be bothered to resize them











Since taking these I've invested in a Wii and PS3 and have been loving the Wii most by far.

The PC -

Asus P5WD2 - Premium
P4D 805 @ 3.8ghz
EVGA 7800GTX
2gb Geil DDR2

Some of my favorite games include -

1701 A.D.
God of War 1/2
Gears of War
Anything Zelda
Company of Heroes
Moterstorm
Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz
The entire Impresions line
PGR 3
and many, many others

[Lenny]

Excuse my French... but holy sheet!

Beautiful TV (I'd guess at something like 50"? Oooh! Here's a question I always ask people - what's the resolution? Sorry, I can't help it!)!!

Beautiful Computer, too!

Give me, oooh, 5 minutes and I'll snap a few photos of my current set ups. And then I'll post another one on Friday when my PS3 comes.

[Commonmind]

Thanks. That particular display is a 61 inch RCA and it's natively 720p. I've actually recently replaced quite a bit of my setup, including the TV (going to a nice 1080p 60" SXRD), I was just too lazy to get all the lighting conditions right to take another pic; my living room is the poster-child of the contemporary Floridian Condo, it has a brick wall, an entire portion of wall painted in a Merlot red, and another wall which is made up entirely of glass, it takes a lighting engineer to take a photograph that isn't one huge blur of contrasting color and shadow

Wait till you get your PS3, you'll be fretting over where to put the damned thing. I knew it was going to be big, but when I took it out of the box most of the small animals in my house ran for cover and could be heard whimpering from dark corners. In fact, two of my cats, who had been pretty quiet for the last three years, actually verbally suggested I remove said monolith from the residence, and that a small Volkswagen would have been less obtrusive and a more welcome addition to the decor.

Of course, you'll forget about its massiveness (or better yet, more greatly appreciate it) after you play some Resistance or Moterstorm

[Lenny]

I'll have to make a new post for it.

First the TV and PS2.
Second the TV being used as a monitor (bad photo, I moved the camera)
Third is the computer area.
Fourth is the computer.
Fifth as my old Computer setup.







The TV is a Samsung 32" HDTV 720p. I got it just over a week ago, especially for the PS3.

The computer:

AMD Athlon 64 X2 4600 - dual core @ 2.4Ghz
320gb (x2 160gb) Hard Disk space
1gb Corsair RAM (x2 512mb)
nVidia 7600GT 256mb (x2 - SLi)

The old computer (an Olivetti 486, for you computer nuts):

800mhz Pentium I
600mb HDD
16mb RAM
4mb on-board graphics
Not a single USB port in sight!

Gameswise:

PC - Guild Wars!! And that's about it.
PS2 - KH, KH2, GTA series, FFX
PS1 (hidden away in my drawers) - Spyro 1, 2 and 3.

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It's a great setup you have there. I can't wait until I have my own place, just so I can go as mad! I'd love to see how the new TV looks. Though why you felt the need to swap the current one, I don't know. Why not have two? :P

Wait till you get your PS3, you'll be fretting over where to put the damned thing. I knew it was going to be big, but when I took it out of the box most of the small animals in my house ran for cover and could be heard whimpering from dark corners. In fact, two of my cats, who had been pretty quiet for the last three years, actually verbally suggested I remove said monolith from the residence, and that a small Volkswagen would have been less obtrusive and a more welcome addition to the decor.

Of course, you'll forget about its massiveness (or better yet, more greatly appreciate it) after you play some Resistance or Moterstorm

Haha! I'm hoping to put it in front of or next to the TV. Even if it means I have to put the PS2 on top of my DVD player.

And I suppose I won't even notice it when playing R:FoM or Motorstorm (I would say Oblivion as well, but there've been reports that it's being delayed... AGAIN), especially with the thing being deathly quiet.

[Commonmind]

Originally Posted by Lenny

The old computer (an Olivetti 486, for you computer nuts):

800mhz Pentium I
600mb HDD
16mb RAM
4mb on-board graphics
Not a single USB port in sight!

Gameswise:

PC - Guild Wars!! And that's about it.
PS2 - KH, KH2, GTA series, FFX
PS1 (hidden away in my drawers) - Spyro 1, 2 and 3.

Hey, nothing's better for playing those old fidgety games than a good P1/II Pro. I don't know what I would do without my yearly fix of the classics.

And, might I add, the fact that you admitted you loved Spyro makes you a friend in my book. I have a pretty extensive and diverse collection, and I don't know how many times someone's come over my house, looked at the wall-o-games I have and said, "Eww, you like Spyro?" Yes, yes I like Spyro; who cares if he's cute, purple, and likes pretty, sparkling gems. I AM NOT AMASCULATING MYSELF BECAUSE I LOVE A CUDDLY WITTLE DRAGON! And that's all I have to say about that.

I also played GW, but put it down to pick up the Lineage II beta, which I then played extensively for 3 years and had to quit in order to live a healthy existence and get some writing and other business projects done. Btw, I also love those Samsung Displays, if it hadn't been for BestBuyPlasma having a sale on the Sony that I wanted, I would've went for a Samsung LCD or DLP, great products.

[Lenny]

And it's shiny black! Matches the PS3! Gotta keep everything looking good. It'll be interesting to see which attracts the most dust.

Whatcha think of the PS2 Spyro games? Personally, I think that a Spyro game that isn't made by Insomniac shouldn't hold the name "Spyro the Dragon".

[Commonmind]

Originally Posted by Lenny

It's a great setup you have there. I can't wait until I have my own place, just so I can go as mad! I'd love to see how the new TV looks. Though why you felt the need to swap the current one, I don't know. Why not have two? :P

Thanks again. The RCA was a great display, and it served me well, but the main reason I switched is that I wanted a 1080p capable display for the PS3, for Blu-ray playback as well as for my HD-DVD player, which also outputs at 1080p. Also, I've had a few issues with the RCA, including it having a horrendous overscan problem and being so large that I have had to move back the top of my media center to get it to fit.

And if I would've kept both, my wife wouldn't have given me a lesson in eunuchism (that's not actually a word, but I think the prefix should suffice to get my point across)

Haha! I'm hoping to put it in front of or next to the TV. Even if it means I have to put the PS2 on top of my DVD player.

And I suppose I won't even notice it when playing R:FoM or Motorstorm (I would say Oblivion as well, but there've been reports that it's being delayed... AGAIN), especially with the thing being deathly quiet.

I wouldn't suggest putting it on top of the DVD player, else you want a full scale electronic rebellion on your hands. In other words, you could effectively use the PS3 to weigh down small children who are acting out of hand. lol.

(the oblivion delay is also ticking me off, I bought the PC version, but wanted a console version and passed on the 360 iteration due to the fact that I had assumed Bethesda would have more time to optimize it for the PS3 - the 360 version caused some system instability)

[Commonmind]

Originally Posted by Lenny

And it's shiny black! Matches the PS3! Gotta keep everything looking good. It'll be interesting to see which attracts the most dust.

Whatcha think of the PS2 Spyro games? Personally, I think that a Spyro game that isn't made by Insomniac shouldn't hold the name "Spyro the Dragon".

I agree, they just didn't have the same flare. I did enjoy the last one a little, but couldn't get over David Spade doing a voiceover - everytime he popped up on screen I was utterly distracted.

[Lenny]

At least you get it on, what is it, 20th? It's supposed to be ready for the launch over here... I've even ordered it from HMV with a couple of other things. If I don't get at least half of my HMV order because Oblivion has been delayed then I am going to be extremely annoyed.

Anyway, yeah, the PS3 version is apparently on a whole new level compared to PC and 360 - simply because Bethesda have had that extra year and then some to work on it. I don't know if you came across "LOADING" being spalshed across the screen in some areas, or the really shiny objects in the distance, because they've been fixed (PS3 version loads a lot quicker, and they're been working on a brand new script for textures and what not, which makes objects in the distance look like objects in the distance). There's also the greatly tweaked graphics.

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On the Spyro front, I bought Enter the Dragonfly when it came out thinking "Hot diggity! Spyro, PS2... graphics for the win!!"... I tried to trade it in to GAME a few days later - they offered me 50p for it. Such a shame, really.

At least we've got Ratchet. Ad the new one to look forward to! Have you seen the trailers yet? It looks like a Pixar animation... and the actual game is supposed to look better!! *drools*

EDIT: Hot off the presses! Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion ships across North America | PlayStation Universe (PSU)

[Commonmind]

Yeah, the LOD was one of the greatest factors with the 360 version looking inferior, at least on the PC there were mods available to replace the textures, giving it a more realistic look. There's nothing like feeling completely immersed in a game, looking across the landscape, and seeing muddy, dull textures staring you back in the face.

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Yes, it looks amazing, and I really want a new Jak game to go right along with it (and a Sly Cooper game couldn't hurt as well, it seems those three series have sort of come back to back on the PS2, and were some of my favorites)

[Lenny]

That's the problem with PC games - you can practically build your own from one you've bought.

Can't say I've ever played a Jak and Daxter or Sly Cooper game. Are they on the same sort of lines as Ratchet and Clank?

[Commonmind]

Very much so... Well, in the respect that they are similar action-adventure platformers. If you've liked R & C, there's a good chance you'll like Jak and Sly.

[Lenny]

I've never actually played a full R&C game, either.

I've got a couple of demo discs for the PS2, though, with a couple of R&C levels on. From what I've seen, it's something like Spyro with guns and a robot... in fact, completely different!

[Commonmind]

lol. Guns and Robots or Dragons spitting fire, you can't go wrong either way.

[Lenny]

Definitely not.

I found it quite surprising when I first saw the trailer for Resistance however long ago it was. Insomniac? Making an alien FPS?! Whatever happened to the dragons and cuddly foxy things?!

Can't wait to try it, though. Anything by Insomniac is an instant classic in my book.