When Nali City was at PlanetUnreal, I wrote approx 100 Unreal and UT SP reviews for them. NC has moved to BeyondUnreal.com, rennovated the site, and removed support for Unreal and therefore all my reviews. I`ve emailed QAPete about this and he has little intention of adding Unreal support to the site. Thus I`m left with 100 now-unused reviews.

I want to do something with these - at least the ones of good maps anyway. Firstly because I think older games should have good information and support available for them (although I understand NC`s decision it`s not something I agree with). Secondly because I put a lot of effort into doing those reviews and don`t like to see it wasted just because Unreal is `old` now. But I`m not sure what to do, and I would really appreciate some advice/ideas/feedback. I`ve had a few thoughts:

Post them at teamshambler.telefragged.com
Pros: Reviews are completely in my control then, no pressure nor need to update them with recent maps.
Cons: Not sure what Telefragged would think, very hard for Unreal players to find and use them as a resource.

Make an Unreal SP review site for PU or BU
Pros: Makes the reviews most useful to Unreal players, probably easier to deal with GSN or BU.
Cons: Much more pressure to update site, unsure if just an archive would be acceptable.

See if Hellscrag @ UnrealSP.org would want them as an archive.
Pros: Makes the reviews very useful to Unreal players, probably quite acceptable as an archive.
Cons: If Hellscrag was really interested in my contributions he`d have asked for them ages ago when I was still reviewing.

Others??? 

Ask Hellscrag. Worst case scenario is he says no: no big loss. 

could be wrong, but dont think the site was open when you were still reviewing unreal. 

I wouldn`t mind posting them at my site if you can`t find anywhere to store them. I could just add them to the review page http://www.telefragged.com/gmc/reviews.shtml 

You could ask Metl nicely to put them here as an extention to the board. We`d then have a message board, news, and reviews.

Or you could tie him up and poke him until he says yes. Or fix the apostrophe bug. :)

Course, having reviews here would monopolize the business to you, leaving some other people with review sites in the cold. 

Im looking into getting a new machine for playing games. I dont know anything about hardware, but with the help of my brother I was able to pick out some stuff. Hes not a gamer, though, so I wanted to run some things by you guys. Im not looking for a newest and greatest machine, but I want something that will be able to run new games today pretty well and will be able to handle games for a couple years now. Im going for cheap, so can you guys tell me if this stuff will be good enough?

-Pentium� 4 Processor at 2.66GHz w/533MHz front side bus/ 512K L2 Cache
-512MB Dual Channel 333MHz DDR SDRAM
-128MB DDR ATI RADEON� 9800 Graphics Card with TV-Out and DVI

The Radeon is going to cost me $100 more than a 64MB DDR NVIDIA� GeForce4 MX� Graphics Card with TV-Out. It seemed like it was worth it, as the 64MB GF4 looked like it might not handle games in the future very well.

So, does this setup look like it will handle games for a few years? Thanks for your advice. 

it was a while since i kept ajour on the latest hardware, but rest assured that if you want a machine that will handle next generation technology, you might want to buy the bleeding edge stuff. 

so does that mean im just out of luck? I dont need the best performance in the world, but i cant afford to have to buy a new computer every year just to play the games that are popular. 

I hear CS is pretty popular... 

ok, so popular was a bad word choice. 

You should be right for now, don't know about "a few years" though. But if you are willing to turn options down/off, you should be right. There are alot of people playing etc now, with systems far worse than that, and they seem to be surviving :) 

in few years any tech will be outdated.

bleeding edge is not worth the money it costs, cause software is always behind the hardware (that is for average user, not dev/enterprise).

just think what computer you need now and might need in about half a year (by that time new video/cpu models will come and current hi-end will become budget stuff thus you`ll be able to upgrade if needed)
In theory spending 200$ on upgrade each year lets u stay more up to the current standards than spending 500$ every 2 years. If you know what you are buying.

And final words : dont buy gf4 mx, it sucks. 

Thx so far...

Nitin - any suggestions what to do with them as resident Unreal guru?

Gib - thanks for the offer but that wouldn`t make them very accessible to Unreal players.

Wazat - interesting idea but no - I wouldn`t want to impose on Metl and besides an archive of old material is not really worth it here. 

for your input on the hardware, guys. it was very helpful. 

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<Dranz|away> woah!
<Dranz|away> there`s some freaky shit going on

Discuss the possibility that something crazy (like an alien invasion, or some kind of localised apocalypse) caused this.

...yes, I know. 

shambler was probably about to come on. 

i`m too bored to discuss...

about sham`s reviews, just bombard all the Unreal sites you know and see who wants them. you dont have to expect THEM to ask you (they are probably busy with all sorts of stuff). if you make a site you can maybe collect old reviews (also from other good reviewers and make a collection/archive).

pretty vague solution but i`m rushing to revise for a big test 2moro so...

h-hour: consider making/learning to make your own pc. it pays back. you can bolt on bits when you want. and spend time cursing when they dont work but if you like tinkering it`s nice to maybe sell off your 9-month old vid card to a friend and buy a new one and so on. just so you don`t have to worry now about technology in 2 yrs.

metl: your site had made me now more aware of the importance of apostrophes. i`m becoming really fast at spotting them :-)
my old grammar teacher would be proud... 

Hey! GeForce 4 MX is a kick ass card, there`s just more kick ass cards. If you don`t believe me, I have an old TNT I could sentence you to, practically software rendering that.

What`s this with Doom 3 and DirectX 9? Required? Certainly none of the other minimum specs are anything unusual. 

Don`t buy it, you`ll regret it. I made that mistake...

Various games have display problems, and run much more poorly than they should considering the quality of the computer. And the drivers are b0rked so Warcraft III would reset every 5-20 minutes or so, back when I cared about WCIII.

Hopefully I`ll be able to afford a computer worthy of DoomIII`s touch...
Hopefully DoomIII will be worthy of my time. :) 

Im currently a GForce owner... and am just craving the opportunity to spill my beans into a radeon... probably at 9700 tho` as my wallet concerns are of course the ever present issue...

Im also a sound geek, and would spurge on a juicy audigy card. 

I'm waiting until my current speakers give out so I can justify buying a set of these:

http://www.logitech.com/index.cfm?page=products/details&CRID=2&CONTENTID=5044&countryid=19&languageid=1 

Don`t get one, loadsa probs get a cheap Ti 4200 maybe, its nice enough for me. 

in case anyone cares

http://www.worms3d.com

they sport a nifty FULLY destructible 3d engine...and supports overhangs and tunnel structures... tho it may not be as detailed as alot of newer engines, I think if they continue to work with this technology alot of interesting things could be done.

Also delving into the topic of not mapping for newer FPS games. It really does boil down to the tools available. sure new engines reguire alot of more work to be put into maps to create something equal to or better than the games release, but if versatile and stable tools were available doing so would be a hell of alot easier... but what do I know 

I`ve had a chance to play UT now - just DM botmatch but I`ve given it a good go. I`m not very impressed. As a game in it`s own right it would be really good BUT as a direct sequel to an already great game I find it lacking. Basically the same game with better graphics (albeit not always used where they will be noticable in MP), the same weapons, some extra tricks (that are too complex to bother with while fighting), silly pills and the replacement of one of the coolest MP gamemodes with bloody football. I`m not sure WHY I would play this instead of UT??

And the maps...I`ve only walked through the DD, BR, and CTF maps - THEY at least seem consistently good and often make much better use of the new engine. CTF-Lavagiant2 seemed particularly stunning. But for DM....there seems to be an obvious bi-polar theme. Either they are boring indoor arena maps or sprawling outdoor theme maps, with very little inbetween. Overall not as good - and not nearly as many - as the original UT. Plus the new engine only works well in a few...although those few are quite inspiring.

DM-Antalus - very nice, this is what they should be doing with the engine - where it looks great, plays well, and the terrain features actually make a gameplay impact. One of the best IMHO.

DM-Asbestos - yawn boring. Okay theme but entirely forgettable.

DM-Curse3 - Ugh, cramped and confusing. Okay theme though, if patchy design aesthetics.

DM-Compressed - good, solid gameplay via the obvious but very effective design. Again more theme would have been good.

DM-Flux2 - hmmm almost there. Reasonable theme and interestingly play but needs more interaction between in and out.

DM-Gael - A rocket arena map. Wow. Next. Quick. It`s boring me already.

DM-Inferno - dramatic and exciting design, not so convinced about the gameplay but still a very worthy map for it`s distinct style.

DM-Insidious - Another arena. Nice atmosphere in this even if it only reaches it`s full potential at those vats. Once again forgettably symmetrical gameplay.

DM-Leviathan - Yet another arena...at least the theme`s a bit better. Not at all memorable though.

DM-Oceanic - okay for this sort of map, decent design, could have done with a stronger theme.

DM-Phobos2 - good and well detailed but lacks the purity and directness of Phobos due to the complex bloated nature.

DM-Plunge - not a patch on Morbias. Garish lighting, too many jump pads, too sprawling and bloated. Okay but again lacks the essence of it`s predecessor.

DM-Serpentine - hahaha what the fuck? A box map with a maze in the bottom? What is this Q1 DM newbie map time or something. Maybe it`s supposed to be a concept map or something but surely loathsome to any self-respecting player.

DM-TotoraForest - ahhhh yes. Utterly brilliant in every way except the underuse of the upper levels in botmatch. The map of UT DM as far as I`m concerned.

DM-TrainingDay - more boring and not as well themed as the UT intro maps. 

...why not delve into it in the actual topic?