Rollback Your NVidia Driver 196.75 ASAP

If you have an nVidia based graphics card and have recently installed the 196.75 version of the drivers, make sure you roll back to an earlier version as soon as you can.

Engadget is reporting that nVidia have pulled this version of the driver from their site due to reports that it is causing a fan malfunction causing performance issues and in some cases graphics card heat death.

If you have recently installed this version of the driver, it’s a good idea to rollback to an earlier version. Despite the inconvenience, remember that graphics cards ain’t cheap. At the very least it’s probably worth your time (if you own a card based on the nVidia chipset) …

The Allods Online Upcoming Financial Crisis

Allods Online did look like it was shaping up to be a pretty good MMORPG. While I haven’t spent any time in the game myself, for the last little while all I’ve been hearing about Allods has been positive.

Even Syncaine who despises all things WoW and Themepark in the MMO world has been looking forward to Allods Online. Although, I understand that’s mostly for love. (Oh, the things we do.)

Unfortunately it looks like gPotato has dropped the ball when it comes to the cash store and is charging some ten to twenty times for items for US/Western players than it is for Russian players. (Even though cost of living is  a lot lower in the former USSR, that’s a …

Gods and Heroes Re-Rising

Massively is reporting that Gods and Heroes: Rome Rising the previously defunct game being developed by the still defunct Perpertual Entertainment has been rezzed. Well, at least the development has been given the once over by a friendly shaman.

A company called Heatwave Interactive has purchased all the IP rights to the game, and what’s more they’ve also bought all the assets.

At the time Perpertual were pretty darn close to getting the game finished, or so they were saying. (In fact they were in beta testing at the time.) If that’s true, Gods and Heroes may not be all that far off, although there is no mention of a release date. Not that I’d expect one at this …

Ubisoft Clarifies DRM. Oh Yeah. That’s Better.

The folks over at Ars Technica managed to get an official explanation of Ubisoft’s new customer screwing DRM scheme. (Not just for Assassins Creed 2, but for all new Ubisoft PC games it seems.)

It seems that Ubisoft doesn’t kick a customer out of the game that they legally purchased, just dumps them back to their last checkpoint (in the case of AC2) and pauses the game until they get a connection again.

Oh yeah. That’s better. They still treat their customers like criminals, but at least they don’t have to reload the game.

My suggestion is that anyone who doesn’t want to be treated like a criminal, heads over to Amazon or any other …

Just Incredible. And Stupid.

The big news item in the gaming world this weeks, aside from the various expansions and stats related to MMORPGS, is the completely dumbarse move by Ubisoft to add a form of DRM to Assassins Creed 2 that is so evil, it kicks you out of the game if you suffer even a momentary disconnection to your internet connection.

In other words, if you’ve ever suffered lag, ISP disconnects, interference to your wireless connection, or a cat suddenly choosing to sit on the router and unplugging it, then Ubisoft will stop you playing Assassins Creed 2. In fact, it the disconnection won’t even give you time to save your progress.

Given this, I won’t be buying AC2. I wasn’t too impressed with Assassins Creed 1 since it …

The Future of Tabletop Games

The last post about the Apple iPad being the future of computing reminded me of something I tweeted about the other day.

You might have heard of a research project that Microsoft has been working on called Microsoft Surface. It’s essentially a touch screen that can recognise tagged objects. I get the impression that it was inspired by the vertical transparent user interfaces in that Tom Cruise movie, Minority Report. There’s a CrunchGear article about it here and the video embedded below.

D&D on the Microsoft Surface from CrunchGear on Vimeo.

Now how excellent …

The iPad Is A Step Backwards In Computing

I keep reading how the recently announced Apple iPad is a step forward in computing.

Sorry. It’s not. It’s a step backwards.

What it does push forwards is the ubiqiuity of computing devices as consumer electronics. It provides a propriety platform for users to access what was once solely the domain of computing devices.

Smartphones, the iPhone is just one of this class, have been doing this for some time. Ordinary people have been able to access the web, email, entertainment and productivity applications for some time. The iPad does take this a little further along. This is a good thing.

But as for computing. The iPad is a giant step backwards.

Computing has taken some giant leaps since the 1970’s mostly due to hardware …

Reuniting Meaning and Mentality

Evizaer at That’s a Terrible Idea has just written an article called Gameplay is not Grinding in which he explains that it’s not simply a set of repetitive actions in a game that constitutes a grind. Evizaer states that a grind is present when the mental process of play becomes separated from the game’s meaning.

It’s an interesting thought for me because when I was writing my Is It Time To Make Levelling Hard Again? article my primary concern was with the difficulty of keeping the grind out of a game while extending the time it took to get to the level cap. If we forget about non-levelling style games for the …