Phantasmagoria Carnovasch Estate for The Sims 3

I built an Estate mansion from the game Phantasmagoria for The Sims 3, also included are Adrienne Delaney and Donald "Don" Gordon"

You can download it from:

http://clancas.net/peteroy/downloads.htm

Online Racing games idea

All the racing games I play online always use the concept of joining a lobby, you wait for it to fill up with players, you choose a car of the same class as the other players and then the race begins and ends and you return to the lobby. Playing this over and over again can get boring and old.

I have a new idea, have a server that can hold 8 players for example, have a track like the Nurburgring and just allow players to come in and out of the track, there will be no start or finish, the track will always be open, just like the real Nurburgring where you can come with your car and just ride the track while seeing other people with their cars on the track but there would be no official race between them and you are not worried about your car being underpowered compared to other players because your not actually racing them, it's more of a test of the car you used compared to whatever cars are being driven at the moment, it also helps you "showoff" the car you use and what upgrades you made to it.

This kind of racing online will allow more interesting experimenting with car modifications, for example, I just upgraded my Corvette Z06 with a new turbo and I want to check it out casually on an online server, so I join this server that's always open with the the Nurburgring and I drive around the track while other players drive with their cars and I get to see how it matches to a random car that I encounter in the straights in corners without actually racing them to the finish line, more of a on the spot little race on the straights and corners giving you the ability to see how powerful or weak your car is compared to the one you driving near you at the moment.

This idea came to me while playing Need for Speed Shift on my PC, I find myself spend most of the time in the game Lobby waiting for the race to begin while I would wish I could just come in and out of the track while players already on the track and I can just join them, maybe even add the possibility of the car park where you can tell a buddy of yours to meet you and then have the ability to initiate a countdown to begin your own private race on the track even while other players are racing in it, this will be a 1v1 race while you also encounter other cars doing their own rounds not related to you but still make a challenge because you have to over take them and they make your race interesting.

This idea should just be added to the game possibilities, I still enjoy the races where everyone begin together and there are number of laps you have to finish. Having more options to play online in racing games can make racing games last longer.

I have posted this topic in forums:
EA UK NFS SHIFT
Steam
Xfire

Video games I'd like to see Remade

In the entertainment industry we see a lot of remade movies and music covers of old songs, but we never see an old video game being remade, I have a few games that I love which are old and I think would be a lot of fun playing them again but in a new version using the most recent technologies available and I believe if done right they would sell again.

I have come up with a few games I personally would like to see remade, these are old quest/advanture games I played that have good story and beautiful scenary which would look amazing using modern technology, the games are:

Phantasmagoria, Sanitarium and Atlantis The Lost Tale, I will exaime what I think can be done with each game.

Let's begin with Phantasmagoria
Phantasmagoria is a 1995 Sierra quest thirller game which has a story about an old mansion called "Carnovasch Estate" which have 3 or more floors, many unique rooms, big gearden outside and deep past. The game was made using live actors embedded into 3D model background of the home itself and other places you visit in the game.

Above is a picture of how the original game looks like, I would love to see this game in 3D engine being able to freely walk around and look at everything from first person point of view, I think the original game used a pre rendered 3D model of the mansion and all the rooms so maybe this model exists somewhere and can be used and updated to help remake the game and to keep it as close to the original in terms of unique rooms and the details in them.

I'd like to see Phantasmagoria game remade using todays latest and greatest grpahic engine to make it look as real as possible, and in the remade game I'd like to be able to walk around using first person view, the game will have the same plot, characters, everything the same only using the most modern technology in graphics and audio.
I think this way if done right, Phantasmagoria will be ever more thirlling than the original game and more fun to play. Sanitarium, the game was released in 1998 and it's about a man who lost his memory and through the course of the game is trying to understand who he is, what happened to him and why, the game has a beautiful story and a lot of amazing sets which the character is going through, from a mental tower to a abandoned town, circus and more interesting locations which would be astonishing if brought to a state of the art graphics engine.

This is a screenshot of the first level of Sanitarium, I imagine how this level woud look like in first person view in a high detailed 3D graphics engine.

Atlantis The Lost Tales game from 1997 about the mystic city of Atlantis before it has disappeared, the game takes place at amazing locations such as the city itself, beautiful forest, beaches and more the game has a lot of interesting details and concepts such as the device airplane like called "Flyer" which the people of Atlantis use to fly and fight, the story itself is very good.

This is an ingame screenshot of Atlantis The Lost Tale which still looks beautiful today but could be a lot more beautiful today, also the original game never let you freely walk around to every bit of place you wanted to go so I would love to have this possibility in a remade game of Atlantis.

Atlantis itself had good visuals for the year 1997 and I think it deserves to even get more detailed with todays high definition graphics.

To sum up, I would like to see these games remade into a new game which is exactly based on the old but using todays latest technologies to remake it, which means state of the art graphics and sound and possibily adding new gameplay options such as first person view for games like Sanitarium and Phantasmagoria but keeping the option for the classic gameplay style the original game had. I am sure there are many more old games that are worth remaking with the same principles, the games I wrote about here are my personal favorites that I played many times over.

By the way, if you haven't played one or all of these games consider this my recommendation for you to try them, they are good game if you are interested in story based adventure quest game.

I have posted this idea in gaming forums that I visit.

Battle.net

Steam

EA UK

Anandtech , Anandtech 2

Games for Windows

3dGameMan

Need for Speed Shift Review

I read a lot of people complain about Need for Speed Shift and I will agree it has many problems, but most of them are small enough compared to the whole game which in my opinion is very good.

I played many racing games in my life, you can look at my xfire profile and even that doesn't show everything I played and I can say that Need for Speed Shift is the best racing game I ever played.

I hope EA updates and fixes Shift small problems and even add more cars like Ferrari if they can that license.

Here are a few annoyances I can point out, this is for the PC version.

- When starting the game, I have to hit Enter 7 times before getting to the menu, it's really annoying and it's not like I can do it fast, I have to wait between each enter a few seconds, it takes more than a minute maybe to just get to the menu:

1. Selecting language > English > Enter
2. Skip intro > Enter
3. Press Enter at title screen > Enter
4. Select saved game. > Enter
5. Load complete message requires > Enter
6. Select online persona > Enter
7. Sign in successful requires > Enter

- After Lobby is locked you can't leave the online game even if you didn't get a chance to select the car you wanted because sometimes you join the lobby just before the race about to begin, this is really annoying because I end up leaving the race after it starts because I would lose anyway with the lalalala car I got as default.

- Cheaters are starting to plague the online games on the PC version at least, if this isn't dealt with online gameplay will be impossible.

- Changing resolutions to low after you played on high is impossible, the game will crash before it reaches the menu, you have to change it manually in the documents graphics files.

- It's a bit annoying that the Spec V GTR is the best 14 rating car, I mean even my 700+ Lambo LP560 can't beat it, I have to use the Spec V GTR like everyone else or you lose.

- Same is annoying with the Zonda R, nothing can beat it, nothing, Koenigsegg can't, Mclaren F1 can't, nothing, annoying.

All these annoyances are small and the game overall is good.

I also posted this review on EA UK NFS Shift forums

List of games that require a CD or not require

As my ongoing war against the need to have a CD in the drive while you play a PC game I decided to create a list of games that do not require a CD or a DVD in the drive and a list of games that do require a CD in the drive.

Reason is to help people know what games do not require CDs and what do require.

Also, you may help me expand this list by telling me what popular games you know that do not require or do require that I have not listed in that list and you think should be added, you can do this by making a post in my forum or by commenting to this blog article.

To view the list I made of what games do or don't require a CD or DVD click here

How some products are so good and others so bad

I have a theory about how some products turn out really good and some not. I think that products being made by people who plan to use them themselves turn out really good because the people who make them and want to use them will not let them be released until they are completely pleased about how they turned out.

Take for example the iPhone, this product success and quality comes directly because Steve Jobs himself is the user, he made this product in intention of using it himself everyday, he didn't make this product to fill a gap in the market, he personally cares about it because he uses it and because he uses this product it is has better hardware and software than it's competition phones.

Same is true for television channels and music, for this I can take an example of Simon Cowell, this man only approves of music he himself can enjoy listening to, he doesn't sign an artist who he wouldn't like to hear himself.

Tv stations are sometimes being made by people who don't really watch their own channels and therefore the result is a tv station that shows nothing but a lot of commercials, news and really bad and boring shows and the reason for that is because the people who control that tv station simply don't watch that station themselves, they only care about high ratings and the lowest common attraction factor that can pull the most possible of people to watch their channel.

So my point is that when an idea is being lead by a man or a woman that personally have the uncompromisable enthusiasm to make a product perfect because they know they too will use it, only then you truly see an amazing product. And when you have a product made by a committee who only think of how to make a product that will sell the best even though they personally don't really like it, then you get third grade products and this happens in everything, in food, in cars, in computers, in tv shows, in video games, everything.

Windows Vista update restart reminder "feature" is actually flawed

I was in a middle of a Xfire instant messenger conversation and while I was typing a message the Restart reminder window popped up and then my computer restarted without me intending to restart.

This is a stupid idea to make this window restart your computer if you press the keyboard because I was in the middle of a fast typing a message and I guess it restarted because I hit a key to confirm the restart when I was writing the message.

Microsoft fix this