One of the great things about owning a PC is being able to update it without replacing the whole thing. Need more storage? Add a new hard drive. Graphics slowing down? Drop in a new video card. Last year I decided to replace my PC that went through several upgrade cycles with a gaming laptop. Whereas you can only really update the harddrive and RAM on an ASUS ROG laptop I felt it the upgraded cycles of my PC were complete and it was time to go with entirely new hardware. Plus a laptop is portable and the ASUS ROG is quite a speedy machine for the form factor and price. Plus if i'm being honest about the games I play on PC, I really don't play games that push the...
Lessons From the Screenplay has a new video out that compares Rogue One to the Force Awakens. Spoiler alert, they think Force Awakens is a better movie with better developed characters and after recently watching them both I agree. In our Roundtable episode of Rogue One I said that my thoughts on Rogue One were mixed and I still stand by that but they have evolved some. Rogue One has one of the most incredibly well executed endings to a Star Wars movie that feels a bit muddled in the first half. It's not a bad movie to watch at all, but the reshoots are felt and I think the first half suffers partly because it seems that Disney may have wanted to change the tone of...
I watched an interesting video on Kotaku the other day about questioned certain kinds of brand loyalty i've linked above. It's an interesting thing to consider and after watching it caused me to think a bit about how I approach brands and if the biggest ones really need my loyalty at all. I certainly love video games and that passion drove me to create this website and post regularly about them but that doesn't mean I need to have a blind devotion to brands. The modern reality of the Internet allows us to be connected to our favorite things all day long and I think some, perhaps, see this as a stave for actual human relationships. Not to say I haven't made friends by...
If you are interested in checking out the new super fast iD Software online shooter Quake Champions I have 3 beta codes to hand out. If you drop a comment on this post i'll give them out first come first served.
I've played a bit of Quake Champions and wereas I can't say much about it due to NDA it seems to live up to all the trailers i've seen of it so far!
I've played a bit of Quake Champions and wereas I can't say much about it due to NDA it seems to live up to all the trailers i've seen of it so far!
2D sidescrolling MOBA Awesomenauts has had a very long life and looks like it's getting a shot in the arm as it's going entirely free to play this coming May 24th! If you have the base game and all expansions you will get the new "unlock all nauts" pack which gives you access to all current and future Awesomenauts. They are also adding a new currency Awesomepoints you get by gaining experience you can use to unlock new Nauts, customized droppods or portraits.
Nearly every MOBA is free to play and this update makes sense with the kind of game Awesomenauts is and I hope the community is open to the change.
https://www.awesomenauts.com/upcoming-content/
In 2013 we...
Nearly every MOBA is free to play and this update makes sense with the kind of game Awesomenauts is and I hope the community is open to the change.
https://www.awesomenauts.com/upcoming-content/
In 2013 we...
The huge revamp to Heroes of the Storm is out and Blizzard is handing out 20 free heroes to everyone for logging in and selecting the pack you want. I went with the brawlers pack as I've enjoyed playing with Stitches and have wanted to try Muradin Bronzebeard for a bit now. Heroes of the Storm 2.0 added loot chests that unlock for you when you level your character so when you log in if you have any levels unlocked you will get some loot chests! Ultimately the Heroes 2.0 update makes unlocking skins, taunts and mounts a bit more accessible to free to play players and adopts an Overwatch and Hearthstone like loot system.
Heroes of the Storm is a free to play Blizzard...
Heroes of the Storm is a free to play Blizzard...
As part of the upcoming StarCraft remastered release Blizzard dropped an updated version of Classic StarCraft with revamped Battle.net classic support, LAN play and a modern build that works on newer systems. Recently I downloaded StarCraft on my PC and Mac and tried it out and put simply, Blizzard did an amazing job porting this classic game to modern systems.
If you are looking for a version of StarCraft with updated visuals you might want to wait for StarCraft Remastered that is coming this summer. If you are looking for a modern build of the classic game with a streamlined interface that works incredibly well on modern systems for free you should check this out....
If you are looking for a version of StarCraft with updated visuals you might want to wait for StarCraft Remastered that is coming this summer. If you are looking for a modern build of the classic game with a streamlined interface that works incredibly well on modern systems for free you should check this out....
Shovel Knight: Plague of Shadows is an add-on campaign to Shovel Knight. You play the role of Plague Knight as he goes through the Shovel Knight world collecting ingredients for a potion that will make him powerful. It takes place at the same time as the original Shovel Knight.
Plague of Shadows is an add on that uses all the same levels from the original Shovel Knight, while adding some new areas within those levels. Since it is pretty much the same game, it is Plague Knight's gameplay mechanics and his story that makes it stand apart from the original.
I think you will get the most enjoyment out of the story if you have already finished the original Shovel Knight. It...
Plague of Shadows is an add on that uses all the same levels from the original Shovel Knight, while adding some new areas within those levels. Since it is pretty much the same game, it is Plague Knight's gameplay mechanics and his story that makes it stand apart from the original.
I think you will get the most enjoyment out of the story if you have already finished the original Shovel Knight. It...
Rapper extraordinaire Mega Ran released this new video which mixes chip-tunes, hip-hop, and old school Gameboy graphics. If you haven't checked out Mega Ran before I highly recommend you look into his back catalog.
You can find more of his music on Spotify or on his website: http://megaran.com/
You can find more of his music on Spotify or on his website: http://megaran.com/
The mouthful that is the New Nintendo 2DS XL, will be released on July 28 for $149.99.
If you've been waiting to get into the 3DS/2DS scene, now might be the time!
This is the first new product in the 3DS family since 2014/2015's release of the New Nintento 3DS and the XL version. The NN2DSXL (which is totally not an official initialization, but I'm going to make it a thing) comes on the heels of the Switch launch, the news of the NES Classic being canceled, and rumors of the SNES Classic coming later in the year.
If you've been waiting to get into the 3DS/2DS scene, now might be the time!
This is the first new product in the 3DS family since 2014/2015's release of the New Nintento 3DS and the XL version. The NN2DSXL (which is totally not an official initialization, but I'm going to make it a thing) comes on the heels of the Switch launch, the news of the NES Classic being canceled, and rumors of the SNES Classic coming later in the year.
I used to build my own PCs and the time to upgrade came when I could afford to and whenever I felt the need. I stopped building my own PC when I bought this Alienware years ago. I had the money and needed a better computer. I got everything I wanted, for a hefty price, and I've loved it. Unfortunately, the GTX 690 I selected for its GPU is a dual GPU card and unfortunately not all games are able to harness the power of that setup. So, some games were only able to use half of the 690. It was Ark that made this issue apparent. I wanted to play Ark like it should be played and so I decided to upgrade the GPU to a GTX 980Ti Classified and I love it.
I think this PC is about 5 years old, I've had it for a few years at least. I still see no reason at all to replace it, it's going strong and I love it. Right now the only thing I'd like to change is the hard drive. I'd like to get an SSD, to help speed things up a bit.
That's what I love about having a "full blown gaming tower," because whenever there's a part I want to upgrade, I can do it quite easily.
Oh and I fully agree with graphic in this post, PC is the master race!
Yeah, your Alienware PC is capable of many more years if you update the video card. The SSD would be great too but would require you to reinstall Windows on the SSD as your primary and then you could use your normal HD to have your games on. All in all that would make things load WAY faster as on my laptop I have a boot drive SSD and then spinning drive for installing games and it's wicked fast to boot.
Honestly there's no reason to replace your PC until the CPU can't handle what you want anymore, or if you want more ram than your motherboard can handle.
That was my reasoning this last time-- the CPU couldn't cut it anymore.
But even then, if you focus on upgradeable hardware, you could even replace the mobo/cpu without replacing all the other parts and eventually get into a philosophical conundrum. If you've replaced all the parts of your PC over time, have you replaced the PC?
If you build a house, and then over the span of 20 years take a board out occasionally and replace it until there's nothing left of the original, is it the same house? What if you simultaneously use those replaced boards to build an identical house. Which house is the original?
Perhaps I should go to bed. :D
TL;DR: If you consider the motherboard to be THE PC then the only time you need to upgrade is when you need a new cpu generation that your motherboard can handle or more ram than your motherboard can handle. And something about houses.
Katie helpfully points out that there's already a famous thought experiment for this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ship_of_Theseus
I probably read that at some point and was unknowingly channeling it in my previous comment.
Jon, I thought the SSD would help games load faster, too. For me, Ark takes a few minutes to load, so I think putting it on an SSD would make it load much quicker. It doesn't take forever though. My PC runs fine, so I'm not in a hurry to upgrade, but right now an SSD upgrade is the only thing I can think of that I'd change. I have 16 gigs of RAM and that seems to be enough. I could look into upgrading my monitor, so I could get better resolutions, but again I still don't feel a strong need to do that.
Travis, interesting paradox! I wouldn't consider it a new PC unless all or most of the parts were different. Usually, I'd build one and over the course of a few years, I'd end up upgrading it. I've been through a few of them, in fact I think they're all still in my room. It's interesting to think about my PC history and how it evolved over time. But, the primary reason I buy or build tower PCs, because parts are more easily interchangeable.
That is an interesting thought experiement Travis and because of it, I consider replacing the whole thing at intervals. I mean if you don't replace the case and motheboard then it's arguably the same PC but for those reasons I replace it every 5 years or so. Because at that point I have replaced many parts and I like having the old hardware around for historical reasons. For instance my last Desktop is dual booting between Linux and Windows and I use the Linux part as file storage and the Windows part if friends come over so I can play network games with them if they don't have a computer. Still a good machine but not my top notch go to PC anymore.
Yeah, at the point of replacing the motherboard/cpu you might as well. Honestly at that point it isn't much more money to just upgrade it all, if you take out a beefy video card from the price. I tend to get the midrange current-gen video card so it's never the big $400 purchases.
I always by ROG. Have my 4rth gen now
My ASUS ROG is a great laptop. Lots of power and the price was fantastic.
My only quip about it is the size. I'd like something a bit less bulky and when I do it again I won't get a DVD drive. It opens at odd times and it's just not as nice as i'd have thought it would be to have one in a laptop anymore.
I actually have an ASUS motherboard to my left. I'm pretty sure it was the last motherboard I bought.