Who's the man?

SO - Whatever happened?

Whatever happened indeed. To the PC that is. Here's the story you've all been waiting for :p

Just a refresher in case you've forgotten: I ordered a few bits and bobs, with the purpose of watercooling both my GPUs (2xHD5870) and my NorthBridge. The watercooling solution is an external all-in-one by Zalman, called the Reserator XT.

After getting everything I needed, I sat down to do something VERY scary: remove the stock fan from the HD5870s and change it to a waterblock. This, though easy, has to be done precisely because you don't want to get it wrong and risk components overheating.

It took ages, but eventually I managed to get everything set up and connected. I had to "degas" the Reserator and then run the whole system while the PC is off to make sure it's leak free. And it was.

The computer was running beautifully, a lot quieter (A LOT), and most importantly the GPU temps were fantastic:

NorthBridge: before watercooling 60 degrees; after watercooling 50.

GPUs (both): before watercooling idle at 35-40, active at 90-95 (with very loud fan!). After watercooling, the idle temp is around 20, but most importantly the active temp is only 45! (and by active, I mean a prolonged gaming session of mainly new stuff, like Shattered Horizon, Borderlands, etc etc).

SO - all was fine and dandy. BUT, before I go to the big BUT, here are some pics:

A scene ALL OF YOU are familiar with :)

Waterblock installed on VGA

NorthBridge waterblock installed

Complete "loop": water enters NorthBridge loop, then exits to first VGA, then from there to the second one, then from there back to the Reserator. Hopefully :|

Everything attached to the Reserator

Water flowing - no leaks. Yet.

BUT - DISASTER STRUCK!!!

The 3rd day in to the project, and the computer was humming away fine and everything was OK, I felt like a spot of Shattered Horizon. I ran the game, and after the intro videos it crashed. I didn't think much of it, but tried again and that crashed, then I rebooted and it crashed again.

My initial thought was that I'd broken the PC by recently removing both IE and WMP (something Windows 7 let's you do). Nevermind, a quick system restore, or, at worst, a complete C:\ drive restore (I backup weekly) would solve things.

I had to work a long day following day, so didn't have a chance to play around till the day after. I turned the PC on, and 10 minutes later was staring at a black screen. I tried again and again, and the damn thing just won't boot. The BIOS performed all the POST fine, and Windows was attempting to load, and then... nothing. NOT GOOD.

Stupidly, I still thought it was a software problem - so I decided to do a system restore. Nothing. So then I thought I'd restore my backed up C:\ drive from the network backup. I ran the Windows 7 "emergency" CD, and chose to restore from backup. Though I had specified only C:\ to be backed up, Windows had decided that my E:\ drive (a seperate drive that contained ONLY game installs. Nothing else) should be backed up too. So, I had to restore both drives.

I clicked OK and thought this is going to take at least 6 hours (restoring about 1tb of data over LAN). I came back about 2 hours later, to find a dreaded "THERE'S BEEN AN ERROR - YOU'RE FUCKED" screen. Not exactly those words, but you read it like that because you know full well your drives are now unusable.

And indeed they weren't.

SO - back to the good old let's reinstall windows plan. I did it, and luckily I use another seperate drive for the really important stuff (pics, mp3s, vids, downloads etc etc) and as such my software disaster only lost me a couple of saved games (torchlight among them!) and windows. BUT at least the PC was working.

I went about installing the ATI drivers first, rebooted, and BLAM! BLACK SCREEN OF DEATH.

OH SHIT.

It's around this time I thought that this is probably much, MUCH more than a software problem. I stumbled in to safemode again, and eventually found out that one of the HD5870s wasn't initialising. The problem was, when the ATI drivers came on, it automatically enabled CrossfireX (ATI's name for SLI) and as such the system was breaking because one card was dead. DEAD I TELLS YA.

I tried, and tried, and tried in vain to try and resurrect the broken card. You've all been there, and you know what I'm talking about: take the card out and put it in again, change it's slot, attach the DVI cable to all it's slots, change the power connectors, even BLOW on the damn thing. NOTHING. This process was made much worse by the fact that both VGAs were handcuffed together by the waterloop, as you see in the pictures above.

After a desperate day of struggling, I resigned to the fact that I had probably broken a card with my watercooling experiments. Why it had decided to break after 3 days is beyond me, and I still believe it's just a coincidental failure. I will RMA the card soon so we'll see.

With a semifunctioning PC (it was hilarious cos I needed the broken card in the PC to keep the waterloop flowing, but it had to be detached, so I had it just hanging there for a few days :|) I thought I'd order a new card. It was then when I thought I'd take the opportunity to do a minor upgrade - to a HD5970.

A little background here: The HD5970 is ATI's dual-gpu-on-one-card solution (akin the the 4870x2 before it, or nVidia's GTX295). It's made out of 2x5870 boards together, with internal CrossfireX magic. The only problem is, the cards are actually underclocked as compared to a single HD5870. The reason for this is to save on heat generation, and power consumption presumably. It also explains why one HD5970 performs worse than 2x5870 standalones.

To mix a 5870 and 5970 successfully, they all both have to run at similar clocks. While you can't downclock a 5870 (and that'll be stupid anyway), but you CAN overclock the 5970. This involves increasing it's voltages, and then overclocking it to at least the stand alone HD5870 speeds. This way, when the system enables CrossFireX, all 3 GPUs will run at the correct speed, hence improving performance AND stability).

Of course, to overclock the 5970, you really should have 2 things: a watercooling solution, and a PSU that can take the increased voltages. Luckily, a good PSU investment in the past (Toughpower 1500w with 3 12v rails) and my Reserator can cover these requirements.

I ordered the 5970 (XFX black, because it comes with it's own overvoltage tool) and also a waterblock for the new card.

Again, I was at that point of installing a waterblock on an expensive piece of VGA. I checked and doublechecked everything was fine, and then put the new 5970 instead of the broken 5870.

With my breath held and my heart pounding, I ran the PC for the first time and it all booted fine! All cards identified fine, and a quick test of any game showed that it was working OK. Phew!

I followed the excellent HD5970 overclocking guide on guru3d, and made sure the 5970 was running at the 5870 speeds. It's then that things started going wrong.

I was getting random hard-crashes (even out of game), and games were crashing as well. FUCK.

A bit of investigation and I found out that Everest Ultimate was a bit messy with 5970s, and caused crashes. So I uninstalled that, and hoped for the best. This time, out of games crashing stopped, but games still crashed.

It's at this stage, that looking back at it, I think I was at the bottom of a very deep pit of despair. You see, for about three hours, I had broken the "working" 5870 AND the new 5970. Let me explain:

I was trying to work out why the PC was crashing when any game loaded. I then stumbled upon the XFX support and download page and found that they had released a BIOS for the 5970, to make overclocking more stable. AHA.

I downloaded the BIOS and the flashing utility, and made sure I follow the instructions TO THE LETTER.

Rebooting, I went in to DOS (as the utility wants), and ran the flash.bat file. It backed up the BIOS images first, then flashed the cards with the new BIOS. All OK.

I removed the USB stick, and rebooted. BLACK SCREEN. BLACK FUCKING SCREEN.

This time, the black screen was at the VERY beginning. I was seeing NOTHING. No POST screen, nothing. My mobo (Asus Rampage II Extreme) has a small LCD that shows you POST details, and it was locking at "VGA BIOS". OH FUCK.

What could have gone wrong? Perhaps I'd bad flashed the 5970? I removed it and found out that I still couldn't boot. I removed the 5870 and inserted just the 5970 - same. Right.......

I got my old 4870x2 (Lesson: never sell anything old, ever. You never know when you'll need it) and inserted it. Voila - PC boots. I had a look inside the flash.bat file, and noticed that it was flashing card 0 and card 1 in the PC with the 5970 BIOS.

It was at this moment that a sudden feeling of dread descended on me. My card 0 is my standalone 5870, my card 1 is the master 5870 (within the 5970) and my card 2 would be the slave 5870 (within the 5970). What had happened is the flash file had flash the standalone 5870 with a 5970 BIOS, and the master 5970 with the SLAVE 5970 BIOS.

ie I had bricked, within 10 seconds more or less, 2 VGA cards. Bricked them.

At this point, I genuinely wanted to quit the whole PC thing, and live on consoles for my gaming fix.

After dinner, and a bit of rational thinking, I had an idea: I remember the flash utility saved the BIOS images before flashing. So, if I booted the PC via the 4870x2, and then ran the flash utility (making sure it flashed the correct card), then I should fix the VGAs.

Again, I read and read the ATIFLASH.EXE commands, and very gingerly I booted to DOS and flashed my 5870 with it's original BIOS. I then flashed the 5970 with the new BIOS. Of course, I didn't use the silly flash.bat file, but manually flashed everything myself.

AND IT WORKED.

Amazingly, everything worked. After about 3 hours, I fixed everything. I kicked myself for not paying more attention before running that dreaded flash.bat file, but at least we got there in the end.

The question is - will this new BIOS fix the in-game crashes? Of course it didn't - don't be silly. Nothing is easy in the world of PC gaming.

For the second time, I resorted to the let's-reinstall-windows plan. I reinstalled, and installed all drivers etc, and I installed MSI afterburner (as recommended by guru3d) to check on the cards. It's then that I realised that the silly XFX overvolt utility FORGETS IT'S SETTINGS after each reboot!

For the 5970 to overclock stable, it's needs more power. With each reboot, the card was resetting it's volts to default, but the clocks were overclocked and as such it crashed instantly, crashing the PC. MSI afterburner retains it's settings, so I use that now to monitor and overvolt/clock the card. This solved the whole crashing business.

THERE IS A HAPPY ENDING - PROMISE. That being, that now everything is fine. As in, I have a watercooled PC, the temps are perfect, I have Tri-CrossfireX enabled (3x5870, split over 1x5870 and 1x5970) and running at 5870 clock speeds. Games are running perfect, and all in all it was worth it. Just.

This latest PC has really ben an experiment for me. From overclocking a CPU, to watercooling VGAs, to overclocking VGAs, to bricking and then unbricking VGAs.

I sometimes think, nay BELIEVE, that it's a curse, not a hobby.

Good delicious!

The Known Universe

Prepare to be amazed, and very, very humbled.

As usual, fullscreen HD recommended.

Alma - an amazing short animation

Enjoy, and watch in HD if you can

Alma from Rodrigo Blaas on Vimeo.

Best Advert Ever

It's long, at just under four minutes, but please watch it. It's about the power of music :D

Happy 2010!

Sarsariya.

Error!

I just noticed that I haven't mentioned my amazing hardware/software
failure.

I'll post much more details later, but just one day after finishing
the watercooling, the PC suffered a hardware and software catastrophy!

I lost tons of game installs (and some saves!) but nothing major. I
had to reinstall windows, and I've had to order some new hardware ;)

More details, including pics of the water cooler and new stuff, very
soon.

Stay tuned!

Pizza, solved:

(from http://jaytest.posterous.com/solve-for-pizza)

We have water!

I'm cut, bruised, and tired. As usual.

After a lot of heartache, waiting for the delivery driver, finding out the CPU block that comes with the Reserator isn't 1366 compatible, etc etc.. I finally have the PC running with 2 watercooled VGAs and a watercooled NorthBridge. The CPU is aircooled with the Noctua because of the above, but that might change.

Anyway - am too scared to touch the damn thing.. it's scary knowing that water is spinning around in there now... saying that, the GPUs are both idle at 21 (GASP!), the PC is super quiet, and the northbridge is at 41.

It's all good. Now let's try to blow it up with some games.

Keep your fingers crossed, and if all's OK I'll post some pics soon ;)

Let's Watercool a PC!

Yes, as Tron correctly predicted, the "coming soon" project was my very first foray in to the murky, dark, depths of watercooling.

I had it all planned for Saturday just gone. I read, and read and read some more on lots of not very friendly forums (the world of PC watercooling is filled with very snobby people!), and I eventually ordered the following kit:

Zalman Reserator XT - This is an all-in-one external single box solution. See, it turns out to watercool a PC, you need a reservoir (for the water), a radiator (or rad), and a pump to circulate everything. You also need lots of room to shove all that in your PC. The Reserator XT is an external box (about as big as the good old mini-towers we all loved/hated back in the 90s!) that contains all 3 elements.

The kit also includes a CPU waterblock, and I purchased a NorthBridge one. My NorthBridge runs at 50-60 degrees (nothing dramatic, within normal), because I've overclocked the CPU to 4.2ghz by increasing the BCLK to 200 and multiplying that by 21.

EK HD5870 Waterblocks: These are used to cool the VGAs. Installing them involves disassembling the factory fan/heatsinks, and replacing them with the blocks. It's scary!

But, I couldn't carry on doing anything on Saturday! See, in my ignorance, I failed to order some VERY basic couplings which didn't come as standard with my VGA blocks, hence I had to delay everything. I placed another order for everything (I hope!) and that should arrive tomorrow!

SO - why all this? See, my HD5870s are both 2 slot cards. When sat together in the motherboard, their fans have virtually no room for airflow. This leads to the cards getting stupidly hot when active (90 degrees), which in turn makes the fans loud. More importantly, when the cards reach these temperatures they throttle their performance, leading to a palpable dip in performance.

Keep your eyes fixed on the blog tomorrow, hopefully I'll manage to get everything installed, and most importantly, NOT LEAKING!

Some piccies

Of the snow that is :)

Coming soon...

... a radical design change in my PC.

And I mean RADICAL. Something entirely new to me (and I presume most of you), the thought of which is terrifying me.

Stay tuned....

Snow!

Yes it's snowing in this neck of the woods, but more importantly it's so thick (about 10 cm here) that the roads are closed! As in, chocablock closed, packed, no one can move.

This is gonna carry on till Sunday morning. So, obviously, I am at home today with no work!

It's all very pretty too, it's nice and warm inside with a postcard-like view out of the window. Behind us is a school field you see, and there are loads of kids playing around. Very christmassy too!

Modern Warfare 2

I have to mention that Modern Warfare 2 has one hell of a single player campaign. ONE HELL OF A CAMPAIGN.

The criticism that it's too short is not fair. That's like criticising a really good film or book for being too short. Who cares about the quantity, when the quality is outstanding.

And the multiplayer, despite what all those "let's boycott MW2 cos there's no dedicated servers ZOMG" people warned us about, works WAY BETTER than having a dedicated server, and is fantastic fun.

Get it if you can.

The Tetris God

:D

See more funny videos and funny pictures at CollegeHumor.

Twitterfeed test

..and a bit of news

1\ Nights are finished! YAY!

2\ Bayonetta, is one hell of an awesome, awesome, AWESOME! game. Stylish, sexy, and super fun! Demo out now, full thing January!

3\ If I've set things right, this blog post should be tweeted :D

4\ Salam

Night 7

There must be some sort of mistake, but everyone who has a heart
problem has decided to come in on my shift.

Sigh.

At least it'll all be over in just over 6 hours.

Battle of Branchage

Battle of Branchage is THE MOST AMAZING light show you will ever, EVER see. Seriously. It is beyond cool how creative this thing is.

In the words of Wired UK:

Evan Grant brings buildings to life. As part of Jersey’s recent Branchage Festival, the 29-year-old founder of Shoreditch-based arts and technology collective Seeper projected ultra-bright video on to the walls of the third-century Gorey Castle. This “3D projection mapping” made polychrome blocks appear to slide out of the fortifications and the structure twist and collapse against the night sky.

Prepare to be amazed (watch it in HD if you can):

Battle of Branchage from seeper on Vimeo.

Night 6

I genuinely, honestly, can't feel anything beneath my knees.

That's how much I ache.

Night 5

Tonight is the night that I discovered that the awesome Pinball
Fantasies is out on the iPhone!

Couldn't play it though :(

Night 4

For some reason, tonight the hospital corridors smell of a very
pleasant apple shampoo.

Sadly, that's the most exciting thing.

Night 3

I just realised I've forgotten to blog about night 3.

Here it is.

Night 2

Work is okish. More importantly, I've now finished 3 worlds out of 5
in Demon's Souls!!!

Night 1

It's raining and it's pouring, and I wish I was snoring!

Here we go again

Yes, again!

It's nights!!

I LOVE nights!!!

I HEART nights!!!

I can't wait to go back on nights again!

Seven of the damn things in one, big, massive shot of exhaustion!

Starting tonight at 22:00. Don't miss it!

Will blog nightly, as usual.

The Muppets perform Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody

'nuff said

BioShock Cosplay = AWESOME

You do know what cosplay is, right?

Volpin Props (a dude and his fiancée that like to recreate famous game/movie props) have created, what has to be, THE best cosplay photoshoot of any game - not just BioShock.

I can talk till the cows go home - you won't get the picture until you've, well, seen the pictures :p

Enjoy

Demon's Souls - or How I've Turned In To A School Kid Again

Ah Demon's Souls.
AH DEMON'S SOULS.

I write this at work. I'm 10 hours in to a 13 hour shift, and I really should be elsewhere. Instead, I'm thinking about Demon's Souls, I'm reading about it (on twitter, on blogs, on forums, on amazon) and thinking about my next steps in it, and also about my victory last night against the demon at the end of The Tower of Latria.

Demon's Souls is a game that you really shouldn't play at all. It's one of those games that just about ruins everything that's come before it, everything that's come with it, and probably everything that'll come after it.

I really do want to play Brutal Legend, and the "amazing" Uncharted 2, but both disks are sat there begging to be ran, but the Demon's Souls disk is firmly planted in my PS3's drive. And it's not going anywhere for a very, very long time.

I generally don't like RPGs, I get bored if a game is longer than, say, 15 hours. I also get very annoyed if a game forces me to replay sections I've played before. I also get really, REALLY annoyed at games that are too difficult, perhaps unfair.
Demon's Souls is all the above, multiplied by 10. It is, without exaggeration, probably THE most difficult game you'll ever play.

Yet, I'm 40 hours in to my first play through - I've finished one and a half worlds (there's five worlds in total), and I have no intention of stopping. I want to play it, then replay it (on the more difficult NG+ mode!). If that isn't testament to how great this game is, then nothing is.

Demon's Souls pits you, the lone hero, in Boletaria - a world overrun by bad souls, and demons. You'll have to hack and slash and magic your way through the worlds, each broken down into smaller areas. Essentially you're dungeon crawling.

But oh what dungeons! Each and every step you take in a level, you hold your breath. Is there a trap? Is there an enemy that can kill me with one blow? Am I going to fall down a cleverly hidden pit? And trust me, you will. You will fall, break, burn, paralyse, and die more than you've ever done before.

Die, and you lose all the souls you carried. Souls? They're one of the genius designs of this game - each enemy you kill gives you souls. Souls are the ONE and ONLY currency in the game. You use souls for EVERYTHING! To buy weapons, to repair your kit, to buy health, to learn spells, to upgrade your weapons, to upgrade your stats. EVERYTHING.
So, to die and lose them all is one kick in the teeth.

You'll resurrect, in soul form. As if the game wasn't hard enough, soul form makes you more vulnerable - your health bar is halved. The enemies, on the other hand, also all resurrect BUT they're intact. Health and all.You can't just switch off and on again. The game turns the popular autosave in to your worst enemy. It autosaves feverishly every time you do ANYTHING, hence stopping you from any kind of cheating. Use some health? saved. Use an arrow? saved. Kill
an enemy? saved. Die and lose all your souls? saved. You can't just load an autosave either, you can only load once when you start, and that's it. To make things a bit worse? you can't even pause the game!

Make it back to where you died, and you'll find a blood stain - and you can pick up your fallen souls! Great, if you can make it back without dying - die en route, and your souls have gone forever. Vanished. Just like that.

And there's design genius again. Each time you die and lose souls, you'll want to go back. You'll want to get to where you fell, and pick up your souls. And slowly, ever so slowly, you start knowing where the traps are, where the enemies hide and ambush, and where the ledges are narrow. You'll gradually navigate these areas like a professional - timing your leaps and attacks with pinpoint precision, until you get to your blood stain. There, you'll learn what killed you, and how to avoid it.

And that's why death in Demon's Souls isn't losing. Dying is part of playing the game, it must be accepted. Embraced even. By killing you repeatedly, the game teaches you how to navigate each level with ease, how to kill the monsters that inhabit it, and how to navigate its dungeons. It also teaches you patience, and observation, and not to just button mash in an attempt to kill everything you see. You have to learn the level, learn the enemy, understand their attacks, and strike them down.

It also teaches you to explore. Tempting messages, shining items far away, things that make you want to venture further. And venture you will, and more often than not you'll end up falling for another trap. But the more you explore, the more you die, and the more you learn; and, eventually, you'll discover a shortcut. Some lever or door or bridge that opens up and suddenly you've cut the dungeon in half, making it possible to run from start to end in a matter of minutes, having spent hours upon hours navigating it, and dying in it.

Design genius strikes again. Unlocking a shortcut is associated with one of those rare gaming feelings - that of utter and total bliss. And sense of pride and achievement. YOU DID IT! Now, the level that once killed you over and over again is nothing but an oyster in your hand, you can navigate it blind folded. You'll know every nook and cranny, every enemy, every trap, and every short cut.

But, this is after all Demon's Souls. Simplicity isn't in it's nature. At the end of each level is a demon. Demon's tend to be very, VERY powerful. They are large, have massive attacks, and lots of health. The sensation of elation after finding a
shortcut is rapidly replaced with a sensation of dread: "OH SHIT, I'm about to fight the Demon". And they'll kill you. Many times.

And again, dying teaches you. You'll resurrect, you'll get to the end of the level within minutes (and feel really happy doing so), and you'll also go straight back and spend your souls before you get killed and lose them all again. Sooner or
later, you'll learn what the Demon's weakness is, and how to conquer it.

Conquer it in soul form, and you regain your body back, regaining all your health and power. And, trust me, there is NOTHING to compare to the feeling of beating a Knight that's ten times your height and power! Watching him fall to his death, die and leave behind his Soul is one of those moments where you get up and pump your fist in the air, jump up and down, and smile for the rest of the day!

Killing a demon not only gives you your body back, it gives you plenty of souls to spend on whatever you like. And spend you will, there's no "soul bank" as such, you either carry souls (and lose them when you die), or spend them on stuff. It also, crucially, places an all-important check point in the world, letting you start from there each time you want to play.

You'll venture on, more powerful than before, better armor and better weapons and better stats, and a human body at last. And, again, another raw emotion comes with this process. Starting new, undiscovered territory, especially in human form, is probably the most fearful thing you'll experience in any game.
The sense of paranoia is huge - you don't know what's lurking behind each corner, what traps there are, and what the game's going to do to take away your precious body (and health and souls!). You'll literally inch down narrow corridors, jumping at every sound or light flicker, shield up in guard and sweat poring down your face. Despite all this, you'll still die, and lose your body, a sensation of overwhelming sadness and defeat as you realise that all the hard work beating the Demon earlier has just gone down the drain.

Again, this will spur you on and on, making you learn about the level that made you feel so sad. And again, eventually, you'll conquer it and make it your own and show off to yourself how you can run through it with hardly a scratch.

But there's still more. The game is constantly online. As you play, you'll see ghostly apparitions of other players, playing the same level as you. Sometimes, you're comforted by their presence. Other times, you'll be so paranoid you'll start
slashing at them when they suddenly appear.

You'll also see phantom blood stains. Other players dying is useful to you as well, just like your death is useful to them. Activate a phantom blood stain, and you'll see the last living moments of another player. If they fell for a nasty trap just ahead, or if they got killed by a nasty enemy around the corner, the phantom serves to warn you that there's something harmful up ahead.
Again, death is turned in to a means to teach you - even the death of other players.

You can leave messages too. Premade messages (like: Beware drop ahead) can be left, and rated, by you and other players. Most messages are useful, but the game has a habit of dropping fake messages, as well as other players do, so you'll learn to be just as paranoid about the messages as everything else.
In another example of design genius, if you leave a helpful message that someone rates positively, you'll instantly receive a full health bar. This once saved me from a horrible death, and I was grinning like a maniac for ages!

Better still, as a human you can summon other players that are in soul form. These will help you in your quest, and more importantly help you take down the demon. You'll learn from them, and, when you inevitably become a soul yourself, you'll help other human players conquer the game. Beat the demon, and you're resurrected. Something that proves invaluable.

Last, and perhaps the worst, later on in the game you gain the ability to "invade" other players' worlds. As a soul, you can use a special stone that turns you into a black soul and finds a human player to invade. That player will receive a chilling
"you have been invaded" message, and a very tense game of cat and mouse emerges, with the invader hunting down the invaded human. Kill them, and you get their souls, and get your body back. Die, and you lose a soul (experience) level.

This adds to the tension of being human. As you traverse unknown territory, you are constantly worried that the dreaded "you have been invaded" message appears. The first time it happened to me I panicked and fell down a trap, dying ungracefully and cursing the minute I bought the game. The next time though, I was well prepared and managed to strike down the invader with brute force.

And, I must confess, I've killed a human or two as an invader. It's a funny sensation, that of betrayal, of treachery, of pity, on this other player who, just like you, has struggled to resurrect and is now trying to keep his human form, only for another player to strike him down.

SO - you've probably guessed it by now, but I am in love with Demon's Souls. It is a game of pure genius, one that throws away the rule book, and presents you with it's unforgiving, dark, imaginative world. A game that's more retro than new, yet fresher than you'll ever experience.

Not since the old 8 bit days has a game caused so much frustration yet generated such sensations of dread, despair, elation, and strength! Conquering a level, finding it's shortcuts and secrets, finding a hidden weapon, reaching the Demon and then striking them down, all of these things remind me of a time when games had to be finished in one sitting. Where you'd learn a level inside out, die at the next one, and eventually learn that one, until you manage to finish the game in one, glorious, sitting. And feel proud about it.

You won't finish Demon Souls in one sitting. In fact, 80 hour first playthroughs are common.

You will, however, experience the same feelings you had as an 8 year-old, sat in front a TV, in both awe and anticipation of what's coming next, hoping that this time round you'll get a little bit further than before. You will hear others brag about their achievements, you will brag to others about your achievements, discuss with them how to get passed tricky scenarios, learn tricks and tips from anywhere you can get it, and hear fabled stories of the strong and the bold, some who conquer the difficult levels easily, those that strike down a Demon without a scratch, and those that find items and secrets beyond anyone else's reach. It, essentially, turns you in to a school kid again, in the school yard, exchanging tales about your favourite game.

And, if this last paragraph has made you misty eyed with memories of years, games, and feelings so far away, then Demon's Souls is for you.

Get it, it's worth buying a PS3 for.

I have no soul

My life, my time, my soul, my blog has been sapped by the CRACK addiction that is Demon's Souls.

Can't stop any longer. I have Demons to slay, Souls to collect.

RPG addictions

I don't know why, but for some reason, all I seem to be playing these days is some form or another of Role Playing Games. RPG that is. For those that might not know :p

RPGs aren't a genre I'm attracted to usually - particularly the classical D&D/Tolkienesque stuff, with it's hidden dice-rolling and the stats and random encounters and so on. I'm much more of a "here's a gun/axe/whip/Blades of Athena, now go get there while kicking as much arse as possible!" kinda of player.

BUT, it seems that in recent years the RPG has changed. Matured, or moved on if you like. Whether things have become simpler, or less-nerdy-more-fun, or whatever, it seems that the RPG, just like the Point and Click Adventure, is experiencing a bit of a renaissance, or coming of age.

At this current moment, I am playing no less than 5 RPGs! Some, I've been playing for ages (and will carry on playing so!), some I'm addicted to and can't stop playing.

Whether it's the awesome FPS/RPG hybrid Borderlands (great for coop!), the platform/RPG antics of Mario and Luigi 3, or the mind-boggling wastelands of Fallout 3. It's also the Diablo-esque, cartoony, click-your-life-away action RPG goodness of Torchlight, and also the utterly unique, compelling, hard as hell, you-will-die-100s-of-times Demon's Souls.

That last one warrants it's own, gushing entry later on.

For now, I've got Skagzilla's to kill, Mushrooms to collect, Father's to find, Cities to save, and one messed up Boletaria to try and sort out.

It's hard work!

D&A

I have work-acquired diarrhoea. Not very pleasant, my tummy rumbles a lot.

I also have had Adam all last night. So, it's either him keeping me up, or my tummy keeping me up. All in all, I've slept about 3 hours. In between that time, I've either had to keep Adam entertained or had to go to the toilet.

As for when both things had to be done at the same time - DON'T ASK.

Has it been that long?

I just realised that my last blog post was 15th of October. That long!!

It's really because I've been kept very busy by a slew of AAA titles, gaming and movies etc, that require immediate and complete attention!

Of course last month I saw DrD again after 9 years, and it was great catching up and seeing Verona at the same time!

Gaming wise, I've been kept busy by a ton of stuff. The utterly fantastic Batman Arkham Asylum (a must for ANY gamer out there, play it play it!), the sadistic dungeon running of Demon's Souls, the Diablo-esque cartoony madness of Torchlight, and of course the coop antics of Borderlands, a game we've been looking forward to for ages.

Of course, I haven't even touched on Uncharted 2, the upcoming Left4Dead 2, and Brutal Legend. It's just too much!

We recently watched UP, a beautiful, heart-rendering story of a man's quest to fulfil his late wive's dreams. Pixar animated films are really reaching a stride here, both visually and in story telling. We were also VERY spooked out by Paranormal Activity, the film that's taking the states (and soon the world) by storm!

Reportedly costing $15,000 to make (it was filmed with a handheld cam in the director's home), the film was made in 2007 and didn't really find a publisher until it luckily landed in Steven Spielberg's hands, who couldn't finish watching it because of how scary it was!

Watch it.

The new PC is behaving itself beautifully. That's a story for another post, as it's my first foray into the world of ATI crossfire AND overclocking. More on that later - promise!

Look who I'm with

The one and only!

I'm alive

Quick one.

In the last five days, I've worked 56 hours; ie I'm f***ed

More about the PC later :)

Let's Build A PC™ - Part Deux

Welcome back.

FINAL UPDATE: 22:49

17:55 - my hands have been aching all day today. Plus am really, really tired (slept at 4am, can't remember much of the Brütal Legend demo tbh). Also, received the PSP Go today (more on that later!).

Currently - PSU, hard drives, VGAs, and sound card installed. Need to install DVD/BluRay drives and then wire everything up.

19:42 - I "think" everything is connected. The case has 6 (!!) fans to power, and being a bit obsessive I've given each one it's own seperate molex. There are 3 HDDs and 2 Optical Drives, giving a total of 11 molex/sata power cables. Luckily, almost all of them I managed to tuck behind the cable management tray.

20:23 - The moment every PC builder dreads - the first power on......

20:24 - The moment every PC builder dreads even more - the power on that makes a horrible noise, like a fan is hitting a loose cable. Must investigate

20:44 - a cable was hitting one of the VGA fans. According to the BIOS, all drives are detected and the CPU fans/temps are fine (27 degree idle?!). No idea Re: timing/voltages/overclocking, something I've never done before.

Time to connect all the USBs and try to install Win 7.

In other words, let the software war begin!!!

21:54 - WE ARE LIVE!! This is a Windows 7 x64 blog, from the new PC!

I did the brave (foolish) thing of closing everything up and assuming it's all ok. Till now, all the hardware is there but no drivers.

Will go now for an hour or so to watch Peep Show and talk to the missus. Last few updates and a couple of pics later.

PS - it's FUCKING FAST.

22:48 - Installing VGA/Sound drivers. Not sure I can keep this up any longer, am tired, and am working 13 hour shifts both days this weekend. I might hit the sack with the PSP - Pinball Fantasies is out on it today!!!!

SO - Good night for now. Pics and more tomorrow!

Let's Build A PC™

Yes, yes hello!!!

First of all, before we start building the damn machine, I have some AMAZING news!

Our great, great, and totally awesome friend DrD, aka Chalabione, aka Yazen The Great has been sent on a super secret double-0 mission to Verona, Italy. He landed there last night, and will be staying there for 3 weeks.

BUT - here's the awesome news: I begged the bosses that I can have two days off, and they agreed! SO, on Thursday the 15th I'll be flying off to Italy to meet DrD and catch up on nine years' worth of news. Man oh man I CANNOT WAIT!!!!

And now.........

Let's Build A PC™

This, in true good delicious tradition, is a blog in progress, aka I'll update it regularly as I proceed, so keep refreshing for the latest!

FINAL UPDATE 03:15

21:00 - My brother has been on the phone for the last 30 minutes or so. Once he's done, we'll get going!

21:35 - He's finished! Now just need to move a few save games and make sure the steamapps folder is backed up (wouldn't wanna loose any game progress eh?) and then it's upgrade time.

21:48 - WHERE THE HELL DOES RIDDICK STORE IT'S SAVE GAMES ON WINDOWS 7?!!! And don't say in the appdata folder, I've looked. grrrrrrrrrrrrr!

21:59 - found it, it's in Appdata\Roaming .. damn you Atari/Starbreeze!!

22:00 - leave me alone Twitterati! I need to build!

22:13 - some specs (and a pic) - Mobo: Asus Rampage II Extreme. CPU: Intel i7 920. RAM: 6x2gb Corsair DDR3 XMP + fan. VGA: 2xATI HD 5870 in crossfire. CPU cooler: Noctua NH-U12P (thanks @anmarmansur)

22:43 - This Antec 1200 case is one sexy mofo. It's huge as well!

22:52 - OMG, Asus I heart you! The ROG mobo is extremely slick and beautifully packaged and with a great manual and a CD full of fully licensed software!

23:04 - just installed the 6 memory sticks. I say sticks, they're more like blocks :p

And from now on pics will be crappy, macbook webcam snaps - sorry!

23:27 - Turns out the RAM has an "airflow fan". Installed, it looks like this (techpower picture, not mine!)

00:10 - Struggling to assemble the Noctua fan. Yes, assemble, not even install :|

01:10 - OK so I assembled the Noctua, but I'm sure it's defective. No matter what I try, it just doesn't install securely over the CPU and is loose and not in contact.

01:32 - Of course it was ME that is defective :p I was attaching some pieces the wrong way round, hence preventing the fan from proper installation. I figured it out in the end, and now I'm going to email Noctua an apology ;)

01:45 - and here it is folks, one hell of a huge fan. If I install the RAM fan I'll just end up obstructing the CPU airflow, so I'll give it a miss

02:24 - Crappy picture aside, both GPUs and the Soundblaster (PCI-ex XFI) are installed. Time to rip the PSU out and install it here.

03:15 - My back aches. My bum aches. My hands are sore. I have two cuts. To get the PSU out (Thermaltake 1500w) I had to gut the entire old PC. PSU now in new case, and so are the hard drives.

Will call it a day/night/morning now, and will hit the sack to wake up in 4 hours time... but only after I check out the Brütal Legend demo :D

More on the build tomorrow. Thanks for listening!

Upgrade Update 2

Got an email from scan.co.uk just now - stuff despatched, arriving tomorrow before 12pm.

Dammit, just one day after my holiday finishes - am back at work tomorrow, and working all damn weekend :(

At least I know what I'll be doing tomorrow evening - see you then!

Bats is having a bad day

Upgrade Update

Due to silliness, I now have the VGA card(s? :p) but nothing else. Probably won't get everything else till Thursday.

If I'm really, really, REALLY lucky (and the retailer is even more efficient), I'll get the stuff tomorrow so I can build on my last day off. Otherwise, it's Thursday.

More when we have it ;)

Upgrades

This one's for you, DrD - you're always asking me to keep the blog up to date with hardware upgrades ;)

Hopefully this Wednesday I'll have all the components for an upgrade. I'll also be moving to a full-tower case, having used minis/midis for the last 9 years.

Funnily enough, this isn't my first full tower. My very first AT machine (a PS/2 286) was a full tower with a big massive red on/off switch. Bless.

Details, specs, and maybe even build photos later. Stay tuned!

The Artful Dodger

Honest guv, I'll sell you 2 for the price of 3.....

Off The Grid

First of all, HELLLLLLLLLLOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!

I probably haven't sat down and blogged properly for AGES. By the way, ever noticed that AGES is the reverse of SEGA? just a thought ;)

Anyhow, tomorrow we're off on a week-long break up to our favourite place, The Lake District. Specifically, The Swan Hotel, where we got engaged and married. It's a lovely 4 star hotel in the country that's just great fun to stay in.

Will be off the grid for the majority of time up there - will probably tweet/check twitter via iPhone but that's about it :)

We'll also pass by Manchester to see my brother, his new son (who's a few weeks older than Adam), and my mum who's up there now. Also, I wanna show my nephews who's king at Guitar Hero!!

So, till we meet again, adios amigos!!

Level 10

I just found out about the Thermaltake Level 10, perhaps the sexiest full tower case you will ever see.

Designed by BMW USA with Thermaltake to celebrate their 10th anniversary, the Level 10 is one hell of a revolution.

It's not easy to describe, so the best thing is for you to just head on over to the official site.

It's also not cheap, at $650 retail, and may well be limited production.

Damn it do I really want one!

District 9

Just back from District 9

It probably is one of the best sci-fi movies I have seen in recent memory, perhaps ever.

Seriously. I can't hype this movie enough.

PLEASE watch it.

Super Mario - Arabic Style!

DeathSpank

DeathSpank is a new game, by the legendary dude that is Ron Gilbert.

You might not recognise the game, but the man is the grandfather of a lot of iconic Lucasarts games, like Zak McCracken, Indy, and a lesser known game that's called Monkey Island. Along with the other legendary dude, Tim Schafer, he kept us laughing and entertained for years.

And DeathSpank is his brandspanking (pun intended) new game. And it's a mix between an RPG (diablo-like) and an adventure game.

I'll leave it to this joystiq article here to pique your interest. Make sure you read it all, and watch the video.

My favourite quote:

"They call me Eubrick the Retired. Formerly Eubrick the Bitter. Formerly Eubrick the Undefeated. Formerly Eubrick the Bastard of Hillhaven. Formerly Sally the Stable Girl. And formerly Eubrick the Bedwetter."