It's been a long time since i played a game, my vga card was giving me some trouble with games with the infamous 9600 gt blackscreen problem, the last game i played was call of duty 4 mp and that end wrong when i formatted my HDD to install Windows XP (i had Vista), i forgot to backup my Call of Duty 4 profile, that was a pain in the ass and gave me the idea to retire gaming for a while.
Last friday i figured out the 9600 gt problem was a design issue of MSI, which deliverated overclocked the stock gpu and didn't test it enough to see if it was really stable with all games or engines, when i bought it early this year i only played CoD 4, Mass Effect and Lost Planet, but that must have been just luck because then i tried some WoW, World in Conflict and Bioshock and things seem to be not working very well.

The thing is that i started playing Gears of War pc edition last week and i had to fix this problem because to make matters worse, the pc edition is well known to have choppyness problems with any hardware (high end, mid end, etc) as well as saves-autodeliting problems (which i have been lucky and it didn't happen... yet). Investigating, i read that with RivaTuner decreasing a little the shader and memory clock the problem was solved, and YES, it did solve the problem, no more Blackscreens so far but i am very angry because the overall VGA performance decreased, i haven't notice it while i play yet but i know it's there, my card is not as powerful as it should be.

Maybe something that could have modified the fact that it was initially working well and then it sucked is that i bought a brand new Dell 19'' widescreen LCD  which forced me to use 1400x900 resolution instead of the old and charming 1024x768 that i have been using for ages, that could mean that it was a heating problem in the card or something like that, but well.... i don't want to change ANYTHING, i will keep every piece of hardware till i buy a whole new rig, so fixing it with RIvaTuner should work till that happens... some day.

Speaking about Gears of War pc edition, the game that i am currently playing, i must say that i am a bit dissapointed, i tought my head would explode about that over-hyped game but it's just another game, ok the cover system, with the blind firing and the greety graphics are well done, but it is repetitive, the lack of weapon variety, the lack of enemy variety, i am in Act 4 where you defend the Fenix mansion of the Locust assault and i am a bit bored of killing the same enemies i have been fighting since act 1, two kinds of regular Locust (which are the same with another model indeed), the Theron Guards that appeared in Act 3, the boomer and the wretches, and THAT's it. Maybe this is not a game for me, i have enjoyed FPS, RTS and RPG's all my life, more than TPS but i think that this could be an awesomer game with more weapons and more kind of enemies with different mechanics, not the same stupid locust that appear over and over of their emergency holes. When i hear that sound of the whole on the ground being dig, it's like "oh shit, not again" instead of being "oh, let's kick some locust ass", i don't know, by this time it's like i am finishing this game because I HAVE TO, not because i am having fun with it.

Next week we will start playing Left 4 Dead with 3 other friends, i know that some zombie killing will make me happy, blowing up some zombie heads and screaming over the mic stupid phrases, that's the nonsense fun i need, killing people (or dead peolple) and commenting it with a friend.

Well my play list right now for the next month is:

• Gears of War (end the campaign)
• Left 4 Dead coop with friends
• Fallout 3
• Farcry 2 or The WItcher Enhanced Edition
• Company of Heroes: Opposing Fronts

Yeah, PC gaming can be a hassle sometimes.