New Computer, Old Game

I have my new computer, and wow almighty! Computer tech has come a long way since my last computer purchase.

For my previous computer, I specifically looked for something that could play the then latest hot new game: Half-Life 2 (November 2004 — almost exactly 5 years ago). This time, my game benchmark is Modern Warfare 2. So I now have:

Intel Core-2 Duo 3.0 GHz
1333 MHz Front-Side Buss, 6MB Cache
4GB RAM
Video card: NVIDIA GT 220 1G

These numbers amaze me — they’re all around 3-4 times the specs of my previous computer.

I haven’t picked up MW2, yet, (I will this week), so I pulled out my old HL2 game disks and installed them on this slick new hotness. With my old setup, I could run the game with the graphics set to a medium-high level. It looked great, then, but now . . .

I set all the graphics levels to the maximum, even the resolution to 1920×1080. With the 16:9 ratio on my new 21.5″ monitor, the visual quality is magnificent! And framerates are plenty high. I’m amazed at how nice this old game looks with everything cranked up to their max. I can only imagine what something new, like Modern Warfare 2, will look like.

Calfgrit8 was with me on my last computer shopping trip, and he heard me tell the tech that I wanted a system that could run MW2. Afterward, he asked me if he could watch me play the game (like he’s seen World of Warcraft and Portal).

“Um, I don’t know,” I said, “it’s an adult game. I’ll have to look at it first and see. It’s probably pretty violent.” (I know it’s pretty violent.)

“Yeah, I’d like to see it,” he repeated. “It could give me some good ideas.”

“Wh-what?” I stammered. “What kind of ideas?”

“For playing army,” he answered.

Hmm. I don’t think I’m going to even let him find out when I’ve bought the game.

Last night, I did let both boys watch me play through the opening sequence of Half-Life 2. In the opening, there’s no weapons in hand, and there’s no real violence or scary stuff, so they can watch it. All I did was run from the bad guy aliens through an urban landscape while exciting music played. It was thrilling and fun, but once the unarmed opening was done (and I came to the first gun in the game) we stopped.

Afterward, while the boys were in the bathroom (one in the tub, the other on the pot), I overheard them telling how they would deal with the bad guy aliens chasing them.

Calfgrit8: “I’d set up a trap for the aliens chasing me, so when they came after me they’d hit it and fall off the building. Or something would hit them on the head.”

Calfgrit5: “I’d get a gun that shot poop and pee at them.”

Their plans and plots and tricks and traps got weirder — so weird I can’t really think of how to write out the conversations. I’ll just say that if the Half-Life 2 scenario ever plays out for real, (aliens take over world, enslave humanity), my Calfgrits will have a unique place with the Earth resistance. A unique, and probably lonely place.

Bullgrit