As you sit in your booth, you call people to show their papers. You check whether the names, serial numbers, dates and data match. If all is good, [...]]]>

Dealing with immigration: the best way to understand the word "bureaucracy"

Papers, Please puts you in the hotseat of an immigration officer in a fictional country of Arstotzka where you get to decide who gets in, and who doesn’t.

As you sit in your booth, you call people to show their papers. You check whether the names, serial numbers, dates and data match. If all is good, you can approve this person. If it isn’t, you deny or detain him or her, depending on the severity of the issue.

Detecting a discrepancy of wrong issuing city by cross-referencing your official handbook and a person's passport

There is a backstory to the game. It goes like this: a border has just open and you have been given the job as the one and only immigration officer in this border. For thirty days, you will go to work and every person you correctly approve or deny will reward you with money, along with bribes, bonuses and other one-time events.

You have a family to take care of, which will cost you money to upkeep due to rent, heat and food. Your efficacy at work will determine if they flourish or perish.

The game gets increasingly complicated. You start of dealing with two or three documents, but because of different world events such as terrorism, deteoriating relations between nations, and disease, you will increasingly need to deal with more paperwork, weapons and dilemmas.

A dilemma you will encounter: do you help your government or assist a clandestine anti-government group? Do you take bribes? Each choice you make will lead to a different ending, of which there are 20.

A miserable ending awaits if you make the wrong choices

The game runs very well on a netbook and you can probably play it with a trackpad should you wish. It is certainly advantageous to play with a mouse since speed is of the essence in this game.

The only issue is that you must play fullscreen, because windowed mode is way too big for a netbook’s display of 1024×600. Fullscreen resizes it down, but oddly, it will scale it down such that Papers, Please will only take up half the screen, leaving a substantial perimeter of black bars on all four sides as evident on the first two screenshots.

Papers, Please offers some of the best value for money and an addicting factor that is up there with highly rated regular games. You can play it through once to get the story, or you can play it again and again to experience the different endings. It’s fantastic.

Like

A unique game with a good replay value

Great storyline, thrilling endings

Fun because of the constantly changing environment

Dislike

Suboptimal fullscreen scaling

Verdict

Great fun, great value, good replay value.

Gameplay: Great!

Graphics smoothness: Excellent

Work needed to get game to play: None

Do note that you will have to sign up and these three games are extremely popular. This might result in GOG’s website going down, or disallowing you to login because they are being overwhelmed.

In the first Skyrim on a netbook post, I mentioned how the game is barely playable on a netbook even after all the tweaking. Well, apparently, that’s not the end of the [...]]]>

Are you willing to give it all up to play Skyrim on a netbook?

Note: this applies to netbooks with a Nvidia ION/ATI Radeon discrete graphics. No luck here, Intel Integrated Graphics…

In the first Skyrim on a netbook post, I mentioned how the game is barely playable on a netbook even after all the tweaking. Well, apparently, that’s not the end of the modding that would allow us to play Skyrim on a netbook.

This ain't no kids' game despite how cute that guard you're killing looks.

A commenter on the original post, LARZ, mentioned that it is possible to actually further mod Skyrim such that you can further reduce graphics quality beyond what is possible through the menus. In fact, in order to totally remove the textures from the game, you’ll have to go down and dirty. However, the corollary is that Skyrim is much more playable, at a high cost of losing a lot of graphics eye candy. By doing this, my FPS almost doubled – and doubling means going from a poor single-digit FPS to at least 15fps.

However, in my experience, even though it might seem that you have eased the load on the graphics processor by a lot, it turns out that I am still forced to play the game at the lowest res – 800×450 windowed, lowest draw distance, no special effects and low graphics quality.

HOW?

For people with ION cards, the hack is moderately easy, follow these steps:

1. Go to your Nvidia Control Panel
2. Click Manage 3D Settings on the left
3. Click the “Program Settings” tab, then add the path to your TESV.exe file, if it’s not already there. Make sure you don’t confuse the launcher “skyrimlauncher.exe” with the game TESV.exe as both use the same icons.
4. Click Apply.
5. Download the GeForce SLI Profile Editor here
6. Run it, click Export SLI profiles, save the text file on your desktop. You should get a file called “Nvidia Profiles.txt”
7. Make a backup of this file by copying and pasting it somewhere, in case you want to revert to texturized skyrim.
8. Open the text file in Notepad, do a search for “skyrim”. If there are two entries, search for the one where there is a line “ProfileType Application“. Now, you need to add the line Setting ID_0x00738e8f = 0×00000050 UserSpecified=true. Write it somewhere after the last Setting, but before EndProfile.

Note: if you see this line: Setting ID_0x00738e8f = 0×00000000 UserSpecified=true, delete it and replace it with the line above.

10. Import the text file you saved with the GeForce SLI Profile Editor

After this, your FPS should go up significantly, as long as you keep your graphics on lowest, the game should be playable, or at least, a bit better than it used to be. Unfortunately, we’re still on the edge when it comes to playing games such as Skyrim on a $300 device that was never meant to play it.

Lego Skyrim. Trololol.

If you happen to be one of the lucky/smart/prudent guys who got a AMD C/E-series netbook, and if the Radeons in it don’t have enough beef to play Skyrim, a YouTube video from AtomicGamer has these instructions for you in order to get rid of the textures.

1. Download and install ATI Tray Tools from http://www.guru3d.com/article/ati-tray-tools-/
2. Right click on ATI Tray Tools
3. Go to 3D, then to 3D Settings
4. Find the tab called Additional
5. Change “Texture LOD adjustment” to 10 and apply
6. Skyrim in 1995 mode!
7. To change it back, just change the same setting in ATI Tray Tools back to 0.

Where are the Save Games?

I would assume you play Skyrim on a more beefy computer, like I do, and only bother with Skyrim on your netbook when you are on-the-go, or when you accidentally destroy your laptop in rage (as I did… shhhh). In that case, you can transfer your save games to and fro each computer. The location of the save games are:

C:\Users\[Username]\Documents\My Games\Skyrim\Saves

Perhaps you could set up a sync so that your saves are placed in the cloud and you won’t need to do it manually. I generally use Sugarsync to do this. AWWWW YEAAA.

EDIT: Optimus Issues

I noticed a little problem with this game on my 1015PN, and I’d like to poll users if you experience the same problems. Here’s the deal: when I run the game in Optimus mode, while my game runs, it will not have the same frames per second as it would if I ran it in Nvidia ION-only mode. The game is pretty unplayable in Optimus, but runs a lot better in ION-only mode. Something to note if you have the same system as I do.

I’m not even joking, it is possible to play Skyrim on a netbook… if you really want to. Recently, my ASUS laptop died a terrible death when the hard drive suddenly started making clicking noises. In a sense, I used to play Skyrim on a real computer, until it [...]]]>

Dragons need to take an arrow to the knee, too.

NB: Tested on an ION2 netbook.

I’m not even joking, it is possible to play Skyrim on a netbook… if you really want to. Recently, my ASUS laptop died a terrible death when the hard drive suddenly started making clicking noises. In a sense, I used to play Skyrim on a real computer, until it took an arrow to the knee.

Playing Skyrim on a netbook is possible, although you really have to be patient and be prepared to not have the quality you’re used to when you play it on a higher end computer. The compromises are basically the same – low-res textures, low draw distance and low resolution. Even with these compromises, you’ll still have to prepare yourself for a low frame rate. At its best, I managed to achieve 20fps, averaging 15fps in most situations. It can get as slow as 5fps in the worst of times.

It’s definitely workable if you manually tweaked your settings as follows,

No arrows here!

• Low graphics settings
• Windowed mode, 16:9 widescreen and 800x450px resolution

With these, you will realize that you will get Skyrim up to a playable, although struggling, speed. Obviously, if you have a C-50 or C-60 netbook, things will be much easier for you. Alas, not everyone has the foresight to see that AMD netbooks are probably a better choice than a ION 2 netbook (a.k.a. yours truly).

EDIT: If you want to know the ultimate hack to get max FPS out of the game, click here.

Legend has it that when someone prays, a god is created. Well, you were created in that way anyway – to save a drowning [...]]]>

The Temple of You

Like god games? Then Black & White is the definite god game aside from The Sims. A unique experience never seen in other games which plays extremely well on a netbook.

Legend has it that when someone prays, a god is created. Well, you were created in that way anyway – to save a drowning boy who decided to run into a shark infested ocean. By doing that, you inspired a whole tribe to build a temple for you, although you’ll have to help them do it.

Gameplay

The player takes on the role of a god ruling over an island populated by various tribes. The player’s control over the island is manifested in the Hand, an animated on-screen hand which can move or throw people and objects, tap houses to wake their occupants, cast miracles, and do many other things. Use of the keyboard and buttons in the game is deliberately low; to add to the sense of realism, the (usually) mouse-controlled hand can perform every function in the game.

Generally speaking, the goal of a level is to gain control over every village on the island. This is accomplished through the performance of impressive acts that will cause the villagers to believe in the player. Villagers can be swayed by everything from helping them with day-to-day tasks to terrorising them with fireballs and lightning storms.

Another important element of the gameplay is the player’s Creature — a pet of sorts that can be trained to do almost anything, thanks to the game’s complex AI, developed by Richard Evans. This Creature is trained by being placed on a leash while the player demonstrates the action the Creature is to learn using the Hand. With time and repetition, it can perform complex functions that will allow it to serve as the player’s avatar in the world.

Like a boss!

The principle behind the game’s name is the conflict between good and evil. Nearly every action (or lack thereof) will count towards the player’s image in the people’s eyes. As such, the player may be seen as a heart wrenchingly good god or an utterly evil one. The land andinterface will shift according to the player’s alignment. A good god will have a white marble temple, a shining white hand, and a peaceful village filled with light. Conversely, an evil god will have a charred, clawed hand, a black temple sprouting venomous red spikes, and thoroughly terrified villagers. Good players try to win over villages through constant help. Common tactics are to donate food and wood, construct buildings, protect the village from other gods, send missionaries, and use the Creature to entertain the villagers. However, villagers become bored with the same attempt to impress them being repeated. In other words if boulders flying overhead become too frequent, they will lose their effect. This forces the player to mix up the methods he uses to convert a village. One can use a balance of good and evil, trying to stay in the gray area. The game presents so many different ways to please a village, however, that the player is never forced to use evil or forced to use good.

And so the open-endedness is a great thing to this game. You can decide what quests you want to do, and how to nurture your creature, and how to convert people into believing. Once this is done, you can progress into different levels of the game and  enjoy hours of gameplay.

Command your creature and conquer the island

Tweaks

There isn’t much tweaking to be done on this game, except for ensuring that your graphics card does not stretch 4:3 resolution, as B&W can’t be played in a widescreen format. The game runs extremely well even if you decide to play it in maximum – mostly because the game looks quite dated graphically and therefore isn’t a strain at all on even a measly powered netbook.

Like

Unique gameplay concept

Open-endedness

Dislike

Slow pace at the start

Mouse-only control takes a bit of learning

Verdict

If you happen to have patience and like the idea of god games and open-ended gameplay, then B&W is for you. It might take a while to get to grips with the game, and therefore you might get turned off just an hour into it.

Gameplay:  You might or might not like it

Graphics: Good (15 fps on maximum settings)

Work needed to get game to play: Minimal (5-minute)

Description: Wikipedia

World of Warcraft has been around for quite a while – seven years to be exact, and in that time it has gotten a bunch of upgrades and updates. In the past, WoW was quite playable on a netbook, but as time has passed, Blizzard has constantly upgraded WoW to the extent [...]]]>

Obviously, not a screenshot from the Starter Edition

World of Warcraft has been around for quite a while – seven years to be exact, and in that time it has gotten a bunch of upgrades and updates. In the past, WoW was quite playable on a netbook, but as time has passed, Blizzard has constantly upgraded WoW to the extent that it pushes a netbook’s hardware to the limits.

Graphical performance varies a lot. If you are in an area with a lof of NPCs and fellow players of WoW, you’ll get really poor FPS. However, once you go out into the wild, your FPS will go up. However, don’t expect anything too good, at best I have got 20fps, but that was only momentarily. Conversely, at the other end of the spectrum, I have been getting 6-fps for about a quarter of the game. Usually FPS averages out at 12.

Now, this isn’t too big of a problem since this game isn’t quite as intense as a first-person shooter, and in fact, WoW is actually quite playable if you can forgo the luxury of smooth frame rates. Once you conquer that, you’ll realise that the game is actually quite playable, just don’t go into areas chock-full of NPCs, enemies and players.

A silver lining in all of this – WoW installs perfectly and doesn’t require you to do anything to get it going. No tweaks, no mods, nothing. Pretty much expected for a game that is constantly updated.

Starter Edition

Blizzard has replaced its 14-day unlimited trial with the World of Warcraft Starter Edition. WoW Starter Edition limits you to a 20-level cap. Most pertinently, it does give you a taste of what WoW can offer, both in the name of playability on a netbook and interaction with characters in the world.

However, critics have argued that the Starter Edition doesn’t allow you to really enjoy what WoW has to offer. Forums echo with the argument that WoW starts at level 40-60, something that would be unachievable in the Starter Edition. Unfortunately, the game has grown in such a way that beginners to WoW have a lot of catching up to do, or suffer from a game that isn’t optimal in experience. Whether or not you agree with my opinion, you can download the game here and try it out for yourself.

To see what restrictions are placed upon a Starter Edition player, visit this page.

Like

The most addictive, widely subscribed MMORPG

Lots of things to do

Lots of people to meet

Dislike

Very mundane at the start

Graphics is quite dated

Seems like you’ll either need to spend money or do hard time to get up to speed with the year-old WoW crowd

Verdict

WoW is an excellent game to while away your life, assuming you really get into the game. Unfortunately, it is best enjoyed on a fast connection and faster computer. You can probably play it on a netbook once in a while, but you’ll not really enjoy it because of the frequent slowdowns and generally slow frame rates.

gameplay.

Gameplay: Varies (are you of high enough level?)

Graphics: Barely (6 – 12fps)

Work needed to get game to play: None

Screenshots: wowscreenshots

After three iterations of The Sims, which gets increasingly interesting and varied, revisiting the original game that started it all is a bit of a difficult task to take up. Unfortunately, if you have played through The Sims 2 and 3, you’ll [...]]]>

True Story

READ: Review for The Sims 3

After three iterations of The Sims, which gets increasingly interesting and varied, revisiting the original game that started it all is a bit of a difficult task to take up. Unfortunately, if you have played through The Sims 2 and 3, you’ll find the original version to be not as fun, not as varied and not as interesting.

Yes, there’s still the censored showers, censored defecating and WooHoos, but the effects are less pronounced, the stages in life is less pronounced, you can go by your whole Sim life uneducated because there’s no university. There are no shops either. You can’t set up your own business either. You might as well forget this game, in other words.

Unless you want a simple game that plays well on a netbook… or if you haven’t played the Sims 2 and 3, which you’ll have no idea whatsoever of what I’m talking about above.

Credit is due to the deserving and it is The Sims that got many ladies into gaming, as it was a game that piqued the interest of many men. The game is basically a sandbox game where you’ll have to construct your own house, get into a relationship and do your biological duty of producing a child. The cycle repeats. At the same time, you’ll have to go out looking for dough by doing jobs in the security line or living the life of crime, and in order to climb up the ladder of success and start raking in the Simoleons, you’ll need to upgrade your skills by working on the various machines.

Of course, you could just be an irresponsible person who sets the kitchen on fire and kills your spouse. Or you can drown her. And your baby. Single life never has been so easy to re-achieve.

Though the expansions have given it a lot of life, the original Sims cannot do what its newer siblings can, and therefore, you’ll need to be steadfast that you can forgive these lackings when you decide to install the game.

Performance

The game runs excellently on a netbook, with no graphical issues. FPS is high and the game is smooth and responsive, as you would expect from a game from Y2K. Unfortunately, you’ll have to play it at a resolution of 800×600, which will mean you’ll see letterboxing on the two edges of the screen.

Like

Still the original game that started it all

The little Sims world with the Goths, Newbies and other noobs.

Still fun…

Interesting god-game concept

Dislike

Still fun, just don’t dread that it’s lacks what you’re used to in The Sims 2 and 3.

Y2K graphics… nothing like The Sims 3

Inevitably, you’ll compare it to The Sims 2, or worse, The Sims 3.

Verdict

While The Sims still possess everything that you like from the series, it lacks everything that comes with The Sims 2 and The Sims 3. The severe limitations might inspire you to try The Sims 2, or play with fire by installing The Sims 3 on your netbook. Let me know how it goes, if you do.

Gameplay: I’m ambivalent

Graphics: Excellent (25 fps)

Work needed to get game to play: Minimal

Screenshots: Wikipedia

Baldur’s Gate II: Shadows of Amn, developed by BioWare and released September 26, 2000, is the second computer role-playing game in the Baldur’s Gate series, taking place just a few months after the events of Baldur’s Gate. It is based on the 2nd edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons role-playing system. The story is [...]]]>

Baldur’s Gate II: Shadows of Amn, developed by BioWare and released September 26, 2000, is the second computer role-playing game in the Baldur’s Gate series, taking place just a few months after the events of Baldur’s Gate. It is based on the 2nd edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons role-playing system. The story is set in the Forgotten Realms, the most popular D&D story setting. It has sold over 2 million units.

Baldur’s Gate II, like its predecessor, is played from an isometric perspective. The player creates a main character through a series of configuration panels, or the character from the original Baldur’s Gate can be imported. Additional characters can then be recruited from within the game world, although the total party size is limited to six. Each of these recruited NPCs have programmed behavior that can lead to cut-scene discussion with the main character or the other members of the party. Players can, by exploiting the game’s multi-player function, create more than one character for a party. However, these additional characters will only perform a superficial level of interaction.

During the course of the game, the decisions made by the player will have an impact on the development of the character and the remainder of the party. For example, early in the game, the player must decide whether to ally with the guild of Shadow Thieves led by Aran Linvail at the reins, or with the vampires and their leader, Bodhi. Potential duels, bickering, romance and quests can all result depending on who is allowed to join the party and who is turned away.

Rather than requiring an exclusive focus on combat, Shadows of Amn, much like the first installment, focuses on interaction with the world. Thus, at a point in the game, the player can acquire and “manage” a stronghold, the form of which depends on the selection of their character class at the beginning of the game. For example, as a fighter class, the player may successfully complete the quest at the de’Arnise Hold and begin to take over the stronghold. Similarly, a mage may take over a magical Planar Sphere, whereas a thief character may choose to manage the other branch of the thieves’ guild in the Docks district. Nonetheless, a player may still choose to progress through the game mainly through combat; the game permits attacking townsfolk, merchants and guards.

The player character awakens in a cage being experimented upon by an elven mage, Jon Irenicus. Imprisoned in the same underground complex are Imoen, Minsc and Jaheira from the original Baldur’s Gate game. Upon escaping, they find themselves in the city of Athkatla, where they confront Irenicus. Several Cowled Wizards arrive to detain both Imoen and Irenicus for unlicensed use of magic, and the two are teleported away to be imprisoned.

The party meets a man who offers an opportunity to rescue Imoen, for a hefty payment. This sum is far above the party’s current means, so the money must be raised by adventuring through Athkatla and the surrounding lands. Meanwhile, after being detained in a prison called Spellhold, Irenicus manages to escape captivity, killing his captors. Within his new base, he continues his experiments on Imoen.

With the help of captain Saemon Havarian, the party gains passage to the small island on which Spellhold is located, where they infiltrate the asylum. However, they are betrayed and taken prisoner by Irenicus. During the next rest, another of a series of troubling dreams follows. This time, Imoen asks the player to summon and slay a demon called Bhaal. Upon defeating this demon, the main character finds his soul has been removed. Imoen has suffered a similar fate; their souls were claimed by Irenicus and a vampire called Bodhi, respectively.

The party are released, only to be hunted down by Bodhi. Because his soul was lost, the player character involuntarily transforms into an avatar of Bhaal, the Slayer. In this form, the player becomes a mindless killer, scaring off Bodhi and killing several party members. However, he will later learn to control this form and use it to his advantage.

Upon returning to normal, the player joins Imoen to battle Irenicus until the wizard flees into the Underdark. The party follows, returning to the surface at a location where they encounter an army from the elven city of Suldanessellar. Jon Irenicus has managed to sneak into the city and magically seal the entrance. After obtaining a means to enter, the party find Irenicus beginning a ritual intended to grant him immortality. They attempt to slay Irenicus, but the party is dragged with him into hell. There they finally confront and defeat the elven mage.

Tweaks

Fixing Baldur’s Gate is a bit tougher than most games of this age, but nonetheless, once fixed the game will run very well.

First off, BG2 doesn’t like dual-core processors, and will run extremely choppily if you don’t disable one processor. What you need to do is to load the game, CTRL+ALT+DEL and open the Task Manager. Go to the Processes tab and find BGMain.exe. Right-click it and click on Set Affinity, and leave only one CPU checked.

Next, you’ll need a user-made mod to get the widescreen resolution of 1024×600 for Baldur’s Gate to look great. The Gibberlings 3: Widescreen Mod is what you need and can be downloaded here.

Like

Great RPG elements

Graphics still looks good

Sounds complement the environment extremely well

Dislike

Some work needed to get it to run well

Verdict

This game might be eleven years, but it still has one of the best concepts ever introduced in RPGs. It will entertain you for long time, for sure.

Source: Wikipedia (description), Bioware (screenshots)

Gameplay: Excellent

Graphics: Great (25 fps)

Work needed to get game to play: Moderate, recurrent (5 minute)