ACT SMILEY

actually the new record is 146 connected, 145 in game, as we had to boot off RedDeviln to get it started. By the end of the five minutes it was down to 141, but still a pretty good improvement. Still a good laugh - videos and images at some point very soon.

Proper design of an engine should make it scalable - the first game's engine did a very good job of that, actually. If the second can be just as scalable but with higher detail we should be very happy little gamers. The areas in which I feel that the graphics could be improved are: Environmental Detail - Yeah, performance hits, but just look at some of the new islands to see how much even the first game can be improved. Hopefully the second game can be designed from the ground up to have environment details as good as games like Stalker. Object details - a big issue with the first game's were the poor textures. Hopefully these can be improved in detail by the team's experiences on ofp1 and on a technical level by the higher resolution textures and larger polygon counts they can use on a Radeon 9800. Weather effects. Yeah, a bit of changing weather and fog and such could case a little trouble for performance but nothing too bad. I'm not really too sure as to how stuff such as pixel shaders etc could be used in OFP2 - unlike games such as Doom3 it doesn't seem suitable to have a pixel shaded lighting system, although for some little effects like nightvision and water might use it? Of course, huge view distance is always a plus

Marek Spanel is not Harvey Smith, therefore I'm still hopeful for OFP2. If OFP2 is trashy, "streamlined" game where the features have been removed completely to make it more "intuitive" for someone with no brain cells and the slight interface troubles (actually, OFP has one of my favourite interfaces ever, but squad control is a tad clumsy) make the whole interface replaced with something worse etc etc. I'll probably go insane. Proper console versions can be done (eg, Morrowind), as long as the PC game ain't changed or limited by the console. Its when they pander to the lowest-common-denominator that the trouble comes and well, BIS are people who I trust to get it right. As to OFP:Xbox... can't say if its gonna be a hit, but if its the same game as on the PC but with a gamepad, those console players ain't gonna know what hit em in terms of quality, style and gameplay.

I can definately see a return of Blake, Gastovski and Troksa, but probably not the others.A bit of the old, a bit of the new - to be honest I can't think of a better way of doing it. bah, stop making me want a soap cutscene-mission with all these ridiculous ideas about family ties between the characters :|

It'll be a great feature as long as it can be turned off on the server and/or in the maps.

Loads of detail and the ability to turn it off is clearly the best choice. Of course, if its either detail or speed, detail all the way ;)

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">You feel my pain. The funniest thing is that most of the 'modded' cars are usually small engined. I remember being sat at the lights when a white Metro (!, pulled up along side me. He has alloys, a body kit with spoilers, intakes, and skirts(How the hell do you get body kits for metro's?), blacked out windows, and a neon tube underneath. Topped off with an original (Wrong colour), boot and left door. The guy tried to race me at the lights and failed.... (My cars a 1.1! ), then I realised. He'd only gone and modded a 1 litre metro that now weighed over a ton. 1 litre! The mind boggles.<span id='postcolor'> a dodgy-condition G-reg ('90) 990cc camper (not my pic, but its the same model) vs. a Nova off the lights. Nova driver is the stereotypical one, clearly, and along with his mate in the passenger seat, is taking the piss outta the people in the camper (me and my dad a couple of years ago) Revs at the lights and... by the time we were near the end of the small dual carriageway section doing 60 fairly easily, they were about half way along and going somewhere near 50 at a guess... flat out. The look on his face was classic, but I didn't get a good look, as it was so far back Some people.

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE"> Athlon XP 1.7GHz <span id='postcolor'> 1700 or 1.7ghz? there's a fairly large difference, the 1.7ghz is the 2100 or so. </span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE"> GeForce 4 Ti 4600 128MbDDR <span id='postcolor'> Not bad, the ATi Radeon 9700 and 9700Pro are better for both performance and image quality if you've an extra seventy five or hundred quid, but the Ti4600 is a perfectly good card. </span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote </td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE"> 3) I'm getting a CD writer, should I buy a separate CD "player" Why? <span id='postcolor'> Nah, a waste of twenty quid. The writer will do the job of reading them fine, unless its one of the really old ones, which judging by the other specs it isn't likely to be. Never heard of ASrock... I'd reccommend Gigabyte boards as a brand, though, I've always found em good. For the chipset, the VIA KT400 and nVidia nForce2 are the ways to go. For your version of Windows, go with 98SE if there are any old programs you want to run, if not then XP isn't so bad. My personal preference is for 98SE, though. ME is basically 98SE, but trashed. I'd also have to agree with the bloke who said get 512mb or memory if you can. that PC's value is about what, the Å700 mark? edit: Samsung are a good monitor brand from what I hear, but I've never used their stuff. edit2: Those motherboards are both KT266 based and are well out of date. Get it with a good KT400 based one, such as the Gigabyte GA7VAX.

</span><table border="0" align="center" width="95%" cellpadding="3" cellspacing="1"><tr><td>Quote (Badgerboy @ Mar. 20 2003,20:20)</td></tr><tr><td id="QUOTE">Warning. Cheap Mini's are rust buckets. If you wish to get a cheap, nice running motor, don't get a mini. A old style mini in good nick will cost a few quid. The cheap mini's are usually always rustbuckets, that haven't been cared for. A good first car would be a Fiesta, Metro ( ! ), Corsa, or a old style Micra. They are cheap to buy, usually in good condition for the price, and cheap to insure. Oh, and don't buy a Nova, not unless you want to be labelled a complete bastard. (Complete with baseball cap, 'On a mission' sticker in the back window, and 14 yr old pregnant Gf's. Vermin, all of them...) BTW, if your not from the UK, ignore all the above, except the Mini stuff.<span id='postcolor'> Thanks for the advice, mate In vaguely related stuff, does anyone have any RPGs or similar weapons to sell, there are a few bodykitted Novas going around here... Those things are nasty. In fact, there are waaay to many disgustingly bodykitted cars round here, most of which are so low they ground themselves on the speedbumps on a hill which they rev up and down (which is probably why the speedbumps were put there). Lets see: A white '91 Vauxhall Cavelier with massive bodykits, stupidly large soundsystem, huge exhaust designed only to make noise, and lowered so much it needs to go at 3mph to clear bumps. 3 or 4 Novas of various colours and states of bodykitting. A black early 90s Fiesta thats got blacked out windows, fog lights and is lowered and with the obligatory huge exhaust. A blue 80s Fiesta with stripes, alloys, foglights, exhaust. A purple Polo with stickers and a couple of new bumpers and bright yellow seats. A bright orange, lowered, bodykitted Renault Clio, with obligatory exhaust and soundsystem alterations. And a Vauxhall Corsa with huge stripes along it, but no external other changes. And finally, probably the most laughable ones... A white early 90s Fiesta with large unsprayed bodykits and a replacement door thats silver. Completed with stickers, non-matching alloys and a large exhaust. an '86/'87 Ford Sierra 2.0 in black, with red stripes, stickers, blackened windows, lowered, huge bumpers, non-matching alloys, 4 foglights, a massive exhaust and loads of rust down the side (couldnt have made that up if I'd tried! Anyone got a dozen or so RPGs to spare?

Currently owned vehicles: A mountain bike. Would anyone mind helping me out with this dilema - I can either get a reasonably new 50cc scooter and a liscence, or wait for next year and get an old Skoda or Mini or something and a liscence, or have money but be stuck in this hell hole. An old Landrover would be nice, but they're what, Å2000? I need a job

mmm. Loadouts. East Long range: SVD+7, Tokarev, RPGnh75+1. Normal: AK74+3, Binos, Tokarev, RPGnh75+3. Close range: Bizon+7, Tokarev, RPGnh75+1. West Long range M21+5, Beretta, LAW+2 Normal G36+3, Beretta, LAW+3 Close range G36+9, Scorpion. Sure, its not the most realistic approach to equipment. But it works. The RPGs depend on if there's vehicles around. If there isn't I'll just take one in case I need to just flatten an area.

My dad almost got one of those back in '94 for about Å700, the 126bis I think it was. Looked pretty cute but driving it up a fairly steep hill with 3 adults and a child in it was a 20mph experience with it going flat out - we ended up with a mini instead Great model so far, I look forward to thrashing it around Nogova

Most of its pretty obvious - better graphics, better sound effects and sound physics, better collision detection, better vehicle physics, bigger islands (Come on, lets have the whole UK ), bigger towns, more indoor areas , more guns, more background world detail (lets have cats in the towns and more civilians etc.), but there's also the big thing - how much multiplayer... should it go all the way to online simulation of war from the Generals to the guy whos sitting in a muddy field with an M16, keep the current multiplayer, or somewhere in between?

Most of its pretty obvious - better graphics, better sound effects and sound physics, better collision detection, better vehicle physics, bigger islands (Come on, lets have the whole UK ), bigger towns, more indoor areas , more guns, more background world detail (lets have cats in the towns and more civilians etc.), but there's also the big thing - how much multiplayer... should it go all the way to online simulation of war from the Generals to the guy whos sitting in a muddy field with an M16, keep the current multiplayer, or somewhere in between?

Try Somalia '93, by Blake ( http://kyllikki.tiimipeli.net/missions.php , half way down ) Its not exactly game-of-the-film, but kinda similar. Great co-op.