Photos by Banjarconverto on Buzznet

Monday, December 18, 2006

Call of Juarez

Besides digging Carbon almost every night, I put myself in a situation as a gunner from the West in Call of Juarez which I installed recently. Actually not a real gunner, just a young blood named Billy Candle, a loner who ran away from his town suspected of being the killer of his parent. Currently, I'm still at the BlackRiver mine episode, trying to escape from...guess what, another me,a character named Reverend Ray, which is also playable or should I say, must be played. Yes, in this game, a player has to play both opposing characters, which is a nice addition to this FPS genre game.
GPU, PC Game Call of Juarez
Graphics are good, sorry....great. One must choose the game with SM3.0 switched on to enjoy the experiences meant for the game. HDR is here, as well as other SM3.0 goodies. Oh yeah, Depth of Field is implemented in a very efficient way to enhance the gameplay. Oh wait, the fact is that DoF is so everywhere in this game!

GPU, PC Game Call of Juarez

Call of Juarez, nevertheless, is also a very taxing game graphically. Using FRAPS, I noticed an average of 30 (range between 25-35) fps, and things get worse when you're in a town area. I heard a lot of complaints about this in some forums. One more gripe is the loading time which is quite long.

GPU, PC Game Call of Juarez

My GeForce 7800 GT has to be overclocked to 490/1.18 GHz in order to gain some more framerates for this game. For an average gamer like me, I can stand the not-so-severe stuttering but hey, this is HDR without AA on. Yes, 7800 GT cannot perform HDR with AA, which is indicated by the in-game setting (under SM3.0, AA option is disabled). I wonder how things are when at least 4X AA is turned on.

GPU, PC Game Call of Juarez
GPU, PC Game Call of Juarez

Using Forceware 91.47, I did notice some graphical glitch while playing the game. I think it's time to use a newer driver.

GPU, PC Game Call of Juarez
GPU, PC Game Call of Juarez

Can't say much about this game, because I'm still playing it. I'll posted more on CoJ later.

Tuesday, December 12, 2006

NFS Carbon cars Part II

Using some tricks and cheats perhaps, I managed to include BMW M3 GTR into Car Lot in Career Mode. This was achieved by writing some values into NFSC.exe while it was running using a hex editor program. There are certain rules of course, to allow this to happen. Thanks for the tips from all forumers in NFSUnlimited forum!

Unlike NFS Most Wanted, Carbon allows certain customisations to be applied to M3 GTR except for the AutoSculpt. I can apply paint, custom wheels, wheel paint and modify the ride height. I think it's just a matter of time before someone out there can hack into the game and open up a total customisation opportunities to all items in the game. So here's M3 GTR with a little pimpin' on it (custom wheels).









NFSC 2006-12-12 01-26-42-43NFSC 2006-12-12 01-26-58-50NFSC 2006-12-12 01-26-10-42
NFSC 2006-12-12 01-24-48-42NFSC 2006-12-12 01-24-43-75
On to one of the most exotic cars around, Lamborghini Gallardo. The one that sounds like ...hmm, how should I say it. Well, it doesn't sound like a revving car at all. I don't even know if Lamborghini does sound like that in real life. I'm sorry but I couldn't describe it.

I applied an iridescent black paint with yellow pigmentation or tint to the car (does my method of explaining the paint sound ridiculous?) . Simply said, during customisation, choose iridescent paint, select yellow colour region and then choose the blackest square in the pallet. Applied the custom body and front bumper, wheels and ride height modification, this is my 'done up' Gallardo.










NFSC 2006-12-12 01-44-38-78NFSC 2006-12-12 01-44-51-75NFSC 2006-12-12 01-45-12-67
NFSC 2006-12-12 01-47-34-06NFSC 2006-12-12 01-46-26-45NFSC 2006-12-12 01-47-03-93
Then I applied some vynils on the hood, making it look 'meaner'. I have to say that it's a welcome improvement if EA could make the vynils also available in metallic, chrome, pearl, iridescent etc. type of paint.





NFSC 2006-12-12 01-56-56-26NFSC 2006-12-12 01-58-15-76NFSC 2006-12-12 01-56-31-89


I'm satisfied with my 7800 GT in handling the graphics for Carbon. Although stuttering in some place while playing, well..there are many factors that contribute to that. I think overclocking it could raise the performance a bit more..or perhaps, a Conroe.

NFS Carbon cars

Again, I have to make an entry regarding NFS Carbon. Seems that this game has quite a decent replay value, isn't it? The truth is, I just want to play around with the customisations and Autosculpture more. By the way, I managed to beat the Career Mode once again, in half a day. That's right, about 12 hours and that's fast.

I have seen some pretty customisations of the cars in the showroom of sites such as NFSUnlimited.net and NFS-Planet.de, so it drives me to make some of my own. Actually, they are not that pretty, as I'm not one of those who are called 'ricer'. I don't rice cars, but I do eat rice for living! Just a little bit of pimpin' here and there, while trying to make the cars a pleasant to view.

Subaru Impreza WRX STi











NFSC 2006-12-12 01-15-04-79NFSC 2006-12-12 01-16-09-82NFSC 2006-12-12 01-18-31-76
NFSC 2006-12-12 01-19-10-17NFSC 2006-12-12 01-19-21-26NFSC 2006-12-12 01-20-03-60

I like how Subaru Impreza sounds in this game; fierce and very throttling at low RPM. At high RPM, I think I prefer Evo IX MR Edition better.

Mitsubishi Evolution IX MR Edition











NFSC 2006-12-12 01-23-28-28 NFSC 2006-12-12 01-22-15-12 NFSC 2006-12-12 01-21-42-48
NFSC 2006-12-12 01-22-08-01 NFSC 2006-12-12 01-22-42-23 NFSC 2006-12-12 01-22-47-62