Here are the specs:

Intel® Core™2 Duo processor T6600 (2.2GHz, 800MHz FSB, 2MB SLC)
4096 MB (2 x 2048 MB DDR2 @ 800MHz)
500 GB SATA HDD (5400rpm)
Blu-ray Disc™ drive
5 in 1 card reader
Gbps LAN
Integrated Wireless 802.11b/g/pre-n
Bluetooth v2.1
16″ HD LED backlit, BrilliantView 16:9 aspect ratio Resolution: 1366 x 768
NVIDIA® GeForce® GT 240M with 1 GB DDR3 VRAM @ 800 MHz

It was a refurb with no OS, but I decided to take the risk and get it anyway. It paid off, there was some bad sectors on the HDD initially, which is the probable reason as to why no OS was installed, but I cleared them out by running a quick sweep of DBAN on it.

After that, the install of the OS went fine and it’s been running without issues for over a week now. I installed some games on it, to see how it handled them and I was blown away to be honest. I tried Crysis Warhead on it first, expecting it run fairly sluggishly, but I ended up getting it to run really smooth, with a custom config I got from Shadowdane.

Watch the videos below that I recorded and edited to showcase how well it runs the games: Crysis Warhead, Mirrors Edge, Need for Speed: Shift and Street Fighter IV

With Shattered Horizon, they have eventually done just that. What caught my eye with this was the price bracket, as I’d previously bought a Futuremark product I was able to pre-order this game directly from them for 25% off. What a great idea, rewarding customer loyalty with real world perks. If only other game publishers would adopt this strategy. So, with my discount I got the game for a mere ~€12. This price initially had me worried that I will be screwed by pay-for DLC. They are currently promising dedicated servers and free DLC but only time will tell I guess.

In game though, it loads super fast and the menu is minimal to say the least with only really 3 areas: Play, Options and Ranking, the last one I will have little interest in. So, like usual, I configure my controls and the first thing I notice is that the controls are also super minimal. You only have 1 weapon so of course you can’t pick any others, but still, I was surprised how quickly I had my controls set up (I’m a lefty so unlike you righties I can’t just jump into the game right away). After this, I configured my graphical settings and set everything to max to see if my PC could handle it. I’m using a 4870×2 and a fairly beefy PC so it should. It runs the hog Crysis fine.

After confirming my graphical settings I then noticed something else that I found odd. This companies bread and butter is benchmarks, yet there isn’t any benchmark in game to see if my PC can handle the graphical settings. There isn’t even a SP player mode so you have to jump right into a game and hope that you PC won’t start displaying a sideshow while you’re being shot at. Admittedly I haven’t really looked into the LAN options yet to see if I could host an offline game, which probably would be a better option.

Soooo…. finally, the game. I, pensively, like it. It’s different. Graphically it feels crisp and clean, what you’d expect from the sterile environment of space. It reminded me of Mirrors Edge tbh, with clean lines, blinding light from the Sun and solid blocks of colour on the space platforms and structures. The detailing is minimal though. The surface of the asteroids have fairly low resolution textures as far as I could see and there was minimal bump mapping on them. Overall it looks nice and runs well but it’s not groundbreaking in anyway. Given that it’s space it’s true to form, but even being able to enter a space station and move through a hydroponics bay for a brief bit of greenery would of been nice.

For audio, there is 2 modes you can toggle, Silent running and Sound Simulation. The Sound Simulation is the default setting. It basically is the games way of making up for the fact that sound doesn’t travel all that well in space, so playing a game where people can attack you from 360 degrees of angles in 3 dimensions and not being able to instantly hear where the bullets are coming from would of been a huge drawback and more of a gaming frustration than anything. Kindly, for space purists, there is another mode that you can enable, which makes the experience of floating through the void seem a little bit more authentic.

In this mode you mainly hear the noise of yourself breathing inside the suit and the muted sounds of your gun firing. At first I thought this mode was mainly just for a personal preference but I soon realized that it’s some form of stealth mode to move undetected. It disables the lights on your gun (which tell you which grenade is selected and how much ammo is in your clip) the booster on your backpack (leaving you with basic thrusters) and the majority of your HUD. I’ve yet to find a use for it in game, but I gather it must be so that you, when moving or trying to flank, don’t show up as a red blip on your enemies HUD.

For gameplay, it feels basic. The idea is simple, float around, get to locations, take out the enemy. You can stick to surfaces but your movement is so impaired that you largely are just making yourself a sitting duck. But then when in space you are wide out in the open and inertia plays such a big part of getting around that if you are getting shot at the chances are you will die (more so if your back is turned to the enemy as your thruster pack can be shot and explode). The booster pack is really your best friend as it can quickly make you change direction and get you to cover (which is why running in Stealth mode with it disabled is such a drawback). On top of your 1 machine gun, you have 3 grenade types. EMP (disables the enemies suit), an explosive one which basically pushes enemies out from behind cover and, my favourite, Ice. Ice basically creates a smoke screen to block the enemies line of sight. It saved me more than a few times when I was defenceless floating in the void of space.

Anyway, I only managed to get about an hour of gaming in with it. I’ll post back here with an update once I’ve some more time getting used to it and learning the levels and modes.

Update: Recorded a video yesterday to showcase the levels in Shattered Horizon.

However I let my misgivings lie, and installed the game (thankfully not encountering the known glitch that stops it from installing). Initial impression weren’t good, the voice acting is mediocre, the graphics are below the quality of its contemporaries and the controls feel clunky. There is an odd delay when you press jump that just doesn’t make it feel fluid. I understand why this is, as you are charging for a great jump height, but still, it took some getting used to.

If you’ve played the Hulk game on the PS2 or indeed the more recent “Spider Man: Web of Shadows” you’ll start to notice instant similarities. The gameplay is far from unique and in a lot of places feels like a blatant rip-off. Web of Shadows is pretty recent in my mind so I’ll stick with the comparisons to that.

Here are the qualities so far that the 2 games have in common: Set in New York, main story revolves around an infection breakout that turns the people into zombies but that gives the protagonist extra abilities, abilities include shooting tendrils from body, protagonist can climb and run up walls like a spider, there is a military presence in New York also that is unaffected by the infection, there a load of collectibles to get which allow you to purchase upgrades a lot of which can be found in and around Central Park and Times Square, protagonist can pick up and throw cars, during the course of the game and spread of the infection the city gets more and more chaotic… etc

On top of this, at a point about midway through the game you unlock an ability which makes you look almost identical to the protagonist at the end of Dark Sector. If this was a coincidence, it was a big one. I mean the outfit look, colour

What sets this game apart though is the ability to hijack Tanks and Helicopters. It’s a nice touch, but doesn’t really add a lot to it as they can be destroyed rather easily (and again this has been done before and better  in games like Just Cause or the more recent Mercenaries 2). The only really unique ability I’ve seen in this game is the ability to mimic and patsy people. You can walk up behind a soldier, consume them, then become them and point at another soldier to claim they are the target. It’s a nice way of creating a distraction so that you can slip into a base.

Other than that the story is rather basic, guy gets given a load of powers, wants to find out who did it to him, has amnesia… etc. Throughout all this his sister is helping him track people down, completely oblivious it would seem that  her brother, who you play, is out there killing thousands of people. To add to the mediocre plot, the voice acting is sub-par. Compared to even Mercenaries 2 it’s lacking. On top of all this the graphics and musical score aren’t a high point either. Graphically it looks below Web of Shadows in a lot of areas, and the score just isn’t memorable.

Overall, it’s a slightly above average game. It’s fun to play but won’t leave you with any lasting memories. If you are looking for a sandbox game to roam around in I’d recommend inFamous, same type of game but I’ve heard that in nearly every area it’s superior to [prototype]. I’ll give you a definite on that in the next while  though as I plan to also play inFamous to see if it really is that good. But for now I really can’t see why [prototype] could be considered any more than a rental.

TV:

Breaking Bad 2×13: Wow, what a season finale. That last scene was truly gripping. The change of emotions in Walters face was so realistic, the actor that plays him, Bryan Cranston, must get some form of award for it. Breaking Bad has skyrocketed in my books over the last few weeks. Previously it was playing second fiddle to LOST, but now it’s my #1 show.

This episode really solidified that opinion. Walters character has truly evolved this season, changing from the worried husband, trying to leave his family secure if he died from cancer to a man selfishly and pridefully only concerned with amassing money for himself, at all costs, regardless of who will get hurt or dies in the process. This episode starts with confirmation of this, as Walter chooses to sell his drugs over going to see his daughter born. The money and success are his priority. The episode also ends with another indicator of Walts transformation, he let’s Jesse’s new, blackmailing girlfriend die when he could of helped her, how this will all pan out hopefully will be revealed in the seasons finale next week.

Star Trek: The Next Generation S1x03, 04: My better half has never watched this show. Being somewhat of a Trekkie I set out to fix this. Now, I have to admit, I watched this show growing up, but as it was aired on numerous channels I’ve never been completely sure if I’ve seen every episode. Well it turns out I have no memory of either of these 2 episodes (if I did I’m sure I made my brain forget them)

The Naked Now (Ep 03) was a joke… what was that, it was cringe worthy. I actually have no memory of watching that episode on TV as a kid and rightly so, it would of killed ratings. I’ve seen clips from it on YouTube and always thought it was some joke filmed for Roddenberry’s birthday or something and Code of Honor (Ep 04), talk about your stereotypes. It was like someone watched a “Safari in Africa” video from the 1930′s then turned it into a planet of people for an episode of Star Trek.

Film:

Ôdishon: On recommendations online, I decided to watch this film. Its pegged as a thriller/horror/romance, and I guess it is. Overall it was good, if a little slow for the first 60% of it. The last scenes of it, while pegged as disturbing when this movie was released, I fear have lost their impact from gore-fanatics raising the bar in the last 10 years. However I do think the way Asami said “deeper, deeper” in Japanese will ring in my ears for years to come. Definitely an Iconic movie.

Falling Down: I have to say I’ve never watched this movie fully before. I’ve seen bits and pieces of it here and there but never from start to finish. It is a very good movie, following one mans complete mental breakdown and disconnection with society. This is offset by the rise again of a washed up cop about to retire with a muddied name. Overall definitely a film you should watch, if you have already, well it’s now been released in HD so a second viewing should be in order.

Also, being a bit of a PC gamer elitist, I really don’t like playing FPS games on the console with a controller instead of a keyboard and mouse. However, this game will never come to PC, so like Resistance 2, I swallowed my pride and decided to play it.

Update 1 – 29/04/09: How original! A grimy grey and brown war game!

Ok, sorry for setting off your sarcasm detectors. But seriously, the art style in this game could of done with some tweaking. Everything has this muted post-processing done to it, which makes all the buildings and environments just alternating shades of grey and brown. It reminds me a lot of Resistance: Fall of Man, but thankfully they mixed things up for the sequel and had green environments with blue skies. I really hope the further into this game I get that I will start to see more enviroments that aren’t A) sewers, B) crumbling war-torn concrete buildings or C) Dark corridors.

Other than the style of the game, the gameplay is actually quite enjoyable. It’s irritating aiming with the analogue stick, but thankfully there are some auto-aim features built in to aid the player. In saying that though, I’m a few levels in and my favourite weapon has become the knife. The frequent narrow corridors make it an excellent weapon to use, as it is pretty much one hit kill. I’ll see if this remains the case as I progress and the difficulty increases.

Update 2 – 01/05/09: The drearyness is getting to me

I haven’t played Killzone 2 in the last 2 days. I played a bit more after the last update and its just too… too… samey. The colour palette is worse than Gears of War. I mean at least in Gears of War there was some plants, and then there was the golden glow of the Imulsion, but Killzone 2, thus far, is all muted greys and browns. It just isn’t appealing. I’ve always held that to keep a game interesting you have to do at least  1 of 2 things. 1: Consistently change the environment or 2: Consistently change the gameplay. Killzone 2 is doing neither, the weapons and level format is staying the same, and the levels are all starting to look the same. I dunno. I’m going to give it another chance this May long weekend, but disappointed is an understatement.

Update 3 – 05/05/09: Good, but not worth going out and buying a PS3 for

**Spoiler Alert** Finished this game over the weekend. Was meaning to try out the MP aspect of the game, but after finishing it I just couldn’t be bothered (for some reason FPS VS on the console has never appealed to me, I’m a KB/M addict I guess). It was a good game, ramping up to a excellent crescendo with the last level and the attack on Visari’s palace. If you’ve played it you’ll have recognized that the format of the push into the palace was very similar to how Call of Duty sets its battles, in that the enemy will keep respawning unless you move forward. It’s a very good mechanism as it means you are constantly under fire, and can’t merely take up a nice protected camping spot and pick off all the enemies before sauntering across the battle field. The final boss battle against Radec was a bit of a let down, and needed really no strategy. He basically just lunged at you with his knife, then tries to shoot at you from cover and repeats this until you’ve finished him. After this I was really expecting a really good battle against the main opponent Visari. Something along the lines of the ending of Wolfenstein perhaps (i.e. Visari jumping into a huge mech that I need to take down.) Instead you have a little chat with Visari then your buddy, a la Se7en, gets prodded into shooting him out of anger, you then realise that everything you accomplished in the game was pointless as Visari had a hidden super fleet ready to attack you all along. Overall I found the game too short and aside from the good AI and body physics the environment was drab and the combat somewhat repetitive. I found the AI did not react well when I rushed them with my knife out (something I started to use frequently once I realized how overpowered it had been made) and would turn around confused as if wondering why I wasn’t ducking for cover. I have a feeling, much like CoD4, that the SP campaign was merely meant as a taster to the MP. But where CoD4 succeeded in wrapping a very good narrative into a relatively short time frame, Killzone 2 failed. By all means give it a go, but I’d recommend renting it as the extremely short SP campaign will leave you dissapointed if you don’t intend on playing the versus (or obsessively unlocking trophies)