I use Avira and Sunbelt Kerio Firewall on my W2k partition and Avast and Comomdo on my XP.

Avira nags a bit but has good performance if that matters to you.

I used to use AVG for several years but it ended up getting bloated.

Check out Gizmos Techsupport Newsletter. I've more or less agreed with much of what he thinks over the years:

http://www.techsupportalert.com/pc/security-tools.html

Of course, he thinks we should all use a Sandbox (like sandboxie) which can be a pain if you save a lot of stuff and don't pay attention.

I want to freakin' play it. And by the way, you didn't answer my question.

True. As I have a similar system I'd download the demo and fire it up and let you know what happened, besides chuckles. But apparently there is no demo except for the torrent and I'm too lazy to pirate anything these days. Maybe I'll buy it in a bargain bin next year. Plus I only have 93 days left to find the Water Chip and my time is better spent doing that. Sorry I couldn't help you.

those stupid nvida beta drivers would not instal on my computer because it couldnt find nay driver available.

When installing stupid beta nvida drivers, always click the 'Yea' button after being asked to continue, not the 'Nay' button.

P4HT 3.4GHZ
GeFORCE 7600GS 512 MEG AGP video card

Based on your specs I wouldn't even bother to attempt getting it to run. If you're a good tech and have your system uberly optimized and know what you're doing then it might be a good laugh to see the graphics at some kind of pathetic framerate.

Generally, I find that it's not worth running a game like this at super slow frame rates with utterly compromised graphics as in many of these games you'll find that without the graphics the game is rather dull. Immersion is the point when the gameplay is shallow.

You're better off to wait a few months or years after you've upgraded and play it as it was meant to me played.

Do I need a console to play this or is it available on PC?

I just see 13432 Xbox downloads and no PC reviews anywhere. Is it Shite?

Or is it MemorXbox?

I'm halfway through the first Fallout.

It's passing the time.

The lack of people commenting here probably reflects how much stock some people put into daily top ten 'Games of All Time' lists.

I played it quite a bit on the Atari ST. I'm pretty sure that's around the time PC's didn't quite exist yet.

The mouthy guy and the racist dude both make half-assed intelligent remarks in one sitting. Very impressive. Keep up the good work.

Cheers!

Personally I find the mouse to work fine, but to each his own.

Well that sounds good.

Sometimes a game can get flight mouse control great or good enough, like in Freespace 2 or Battlefield 1942 respectively.

Other times they can miss it horribly. For example, GTA: San Andreas. In an overall great game, while overarching in places and doing an excellent job, the Console to PC flight controls just pooched it for me. The flight controls for airplanes really didn't work.

I eventually got good at flying with reconfigured keys but it was a frustrating experience.

Ignoring the flight experience in San Andreas, you have to admit that despite their valient and extremely customizable control page options, some of the translation from console to PC design really creeped through and made some general interface issues kind of awkward from a PC point of view.

I think I'll tackle an older patched up version of X before diving into this new morass of activated/invade your home and household type of DRM stuff.

I'm so tired of hearing the term 'monetize' when applied to talking about games.

How about, "Here's my cash, now give me a game and fuck off."

Is that enough 'monetizing' for you? No, of course not. What the hell is wrong with the brick and mortar approach? You produce a product, I buy it, transaction ended. Finito.

I've never played any of the X games but am thinking of trying one. I realize it's not Freespace 2, but my question is:

Does the flight control work well with a mouse and keyboard? Freespace 2 worked great for me and I'm wondering if this form of input performs favorably or if I'll have to dig out an old joystick.

I don't understand the point of porting a console game to the PC if it needs a console controller to play.

If they are unable to create an acceptable gaming experience with the PCs native controls then why not leave it on a console?

If I were interested in console games and their (to me) frustrating controls, I'd buy one. But I'm not interested in getting a console or making my PC play like one.

I suppose others are into turning their PC into a console and I guess it could be a nice option to some people, but if PC gaming is so dead, why limit your audience to the few PC gamers that actually have a console controller.

I mean, if you can't make your game work on a PC then why bother porting it? Seems like a waste of time to me.

I remember when the first console ports started coming out and I found them basically unplayable and vowed never to buy a port again. Since then we've had many cross-platform games that worked just fine with a keyboard and mouse.

If, in the Year 2008, you can't make it work on a PC, then why bother porting. There's nothing worse than pissing off people with a potentially good game that goes down the tubes because of idiotic and frustrating input controls.

I reckon it's pretty fucking safe to scratch "intelligent" and "science" from that sentence.

Or scratch the whole sentence. I think I meant 'intelligent design', but I forget which new religion that one belongs to. It's not Scientology. It's so hard to keep up these days. I believe the ID people believe in evolution, but that God put a hand in it, so they conflict with the creation fundamentalists. Like I said, it's too confusing. Glad I'm not a part of it, I wouldn't know which religions to battle with.

I bet you think that the earth is less then 5000 years old too.

Actually I think that current faith based intelligent science put's it closer to six thousand years.

EQ2 and Vanguard are the only ones, and frankly the amount of change they allowed characters I thought was stupid; it never made any sense. How on earth can you change your skin tone, height, entire facial structure and so on at a whim?

Although I don't actually play any of these new-fangled MMOG's, my guess would be that in something like Second Life, EVE or Anarchy online, they would use 'science' performed by a plastic surgeon, bio-mechanic, genetic specialist, etc.

In the fantasy games, such as World of Warcraft, Lord of the Rings or Age of Conan I suspect they would use 'magic' as used by wizards, magic-users, necromancers, shamans, Stygian priests, etc.

But I could be wrong. Perhaps the idea of changing your looks for cash is a really far fetched idea.

I'm not a big Starcraft fan nor am I concerned about the content of this 'article', but doesn't an 'interview' normally follow a different format?

I generally think of an 'interview' as consisting of a person asking questions (the interviewer) with someone answering those questions (the interviewee).

This seemed more like a condensed article with a great deal of paraphrasing and a few choice quotes thrown in. Is this type of writing style really considered an interview?

Oh God. No.

Please add an option in 'User Admin - Message Board Settings' to disable the Smileys. Thanks.

I thought that Infogrammes had already been using the Atari name for several years now and that this was just 'finalizing' what has already been a done deal.

Corny... and ridiculously cliched.

I agree, almost all of that dialogue is incredibly brutal. I makes you wonder how hard it is to find even a half-assed writer these days.

Of course many action movies are just as bad but there must be a least a few starving, mediocre writers on the planet that could do a better job.