I saw the word Troika somewhere

You guys are slow to the uptake, this should already be big news.

 

This sounds pretty awesome.

 

That looks like it was really well thought out. It's to be expected, due to the team, but this game will be a gem.

 

The FAQ is interesting as well.

One thing that I think is great is that it's only going to be available through digital distribution, though their not adverse to the idea of a boxed release. Can't wait for this game to be released. I will definitely be getting a new computer when it comes out.

 

Interesting to say the least. I'll stay optimistic for now, though I'll admit I've heard this kind of fanfare before. Freedom, survivalism, human instinct, decision making, "allies" reacting to your decision making...
What, every prereleased PC RPG these days makes these same boasts. How they're executed will be the true litmus test.

 

Wow, Troika and X-Com as applied to a game in development. This sounds really good!

 

And just like that, zombies are interesting again. It's always neat to see what good creative talent can do with a genre that seemed pretty well used up.

 

The nice thing about this is that the zombies are just your average shamblers, nothing crazy or contrived. The people, what few gaming developers consider, are the real threat. I played a game called Survival Crisis Z, all about trying to make allies (or enemies) and get resources to keep you and your party going in an infected city (and eventually get airlifted to safety). There were three factions (well, one was neutral). You could storm other bases to gain more territory in the city and make resting to regain health free, plus there were stores to buy chemicals to make stimulants or potions, even stuff to put together good food and explosives. When your allies got sick and you didn't have any health packs to fix them up, chances were they'd turn on you in a few minutes. Dialogue wasn't that great, but the action was there, and gameplay is fantastic. Wait. This new game is going to be like Survival Crisis? That's awesome! Dammit, now I need a good computer. Or, might it come out on a console? That'd be ideal. I'm not about to splurge another 2k just to play an awesome, mouth watering zombie rpg.

 

Gross, I'll be the first to admit I'm no hardware expert, but I don't think you need to drop 2k to get a good computer strong enough to play most games on the market today. Just go to your local Wal-Mart or Target, buy the cheapest computer they have (probably around $300-$400). Basically all your paying for at the store is a cabinet, motherboard, and OS. Go home, get on ebay or newegg or wherever, and upgrade piece by piece as cheap as possible. I bought a brand new Compaq Presario SR5050NX that came with a 250gb hdd, 1024mb ram, Vista Home Premium, dual core Intel Pentium D 925 processor, light scribe CD/DVD burner...blah blah, all for $350 at Circuit City 3 years ago. I went home, ordered 2 more 1024 sticks of ram from ebay for under $100, bought a new ATI Radeon 2600 graphics card for $150 and new Audigy Sound Blaster sound card for $20 from Best Buy. To this day I still have no problems running newer games on high settings, and what did I spend? About $650?

I mean, don't get me wrong. I don't keep up to date on all the latest releases, but I was running games like Oblivion, Fallout 3, NWN 2, Clive Barker's Jerico, Dragon Age, etc on maxed out settings. I think this thing could handle a top-down, turn based, isometric RPG.

Just a thought.

 

You are right, you don't keep up to date with the releases.

 

You don't need to spend anywhere near $2K.

Reuse your old case/screen/input peripherals/storage & optical drives (if you're happy them) and just grab the bare basics.

Think I've said this before, but I bought a new system earlier this year:

AMD Athlon II 240 2.4GHz dual core CPU - $60
Cheapo Gigabyte AM3 motherboard - $70
2x2GB DDR3 G.Skill Ripjaws Low Latency - $170 (there's cheaper ram around...)
ATI Radeon 4870 1GB - $100 (around the same as a $180 5770, just a little louder and draws more power)
485W Enermax NoiseTaker (used) - $50.

Total: $450 and I've been able to play quite a few new titles at max settings without a hitch. I didn't enjoy the games so much, but hey.

Oh, and throw in a little extra for a Windows 7 system builder license if you're particular about buying that sort of shit.

 

I need a new gaming laptop anyways so I plan on buying one. This one is about 5 yrs old and the most recent game I can play is Dragon Age on the lowest of settings and from the Landsmeet to the end of the game it's all very laggy.

 

The best game I can currently play on my pc is Neverwinter Nights 2, at the lowest settings, and still with horrendous lag. Now, I say best as a figurative term, because the game in no way compares to Neverwinter Nights.
My current rig is as follows;
Nvidia 6500
AMD Athlon 2.2 gigahertz
1 gig of ram
170 gig hard drive

At least I still have Half Life 2. That game looks fantastic on my computer.
I guess I should check out Newegg then, get a new graphics card, some ram, maybe a new processor, and definitely a new sound card.

 

You should go out and buy a computer for $10 on the street so you can play better games than you can now.

 

I'm running Crysis at no less than 40 fps on 'very high' settings with 2x AA. No big deal.

 

Practically anything currently on the market will be 12x faster than what you've got now, I wouldn't be keeping anything you've listed there except maybe the HDD if it's large enough for you (1TB is around $100AU these days) - keep in mind that modern games can take up to 20GB of space (largest I've seen is Age of Conan which is 50GB without updates).

Be sure to get a good PSU if/when you upgrade, generic units display peak wattage (which cannot be maintained for long, particularly on cheap units) and not a stable average, typically you'll want a good brandname such as Enermax, Antec, Corsair, Seasonic, XFX or Scythe (who are little cheaper but still good enough) with ~500W and -atleast- 32A (which is borderline for an old 8800 Ultra, IIRC) on the combined 12V rails.

Don't let anyone tell you a single 12V rail is better than dual or more, it's not, infact dual rails were implemented to prevent overloading one rail and potentially starting a fire. That's not such a big deal these days, but 90% of the PSU's on the market have atleast two rails anyway so it doesn't hurt.

Video card, anything less than a 4870 1GB or 5770 is IMO a waste of money; the 5770 will handle everything currently on the market (bar Metro 2033, but frankly who cares) at 1920x1080 which is pretty damn decent. I believe the mobile equivalent is a 5870M, though a 5850M in a laptop would probably do as well (being equivalent to a 5750/nvidia 250). I can't tell you much about nvidia cards except that a GTX 260 performs a little worse than a 5770 but better than a 5750 which is the same as an nvidia 250 or 8800/9800.

CPU isn't as important as you might thing (heck, even a cheap ol' Q6600 overclocked will be more than enough). A Quad Core would be a nice investment - an Intel i5 would be close to ideal if you can put up with their overpricing, but otherwise a Phenom II quad core would work as well. If you're on a tight budget you can get a quad core Athlon II for around the same price as a dual core Phenom which is (marginally) faster in older games. I'd go for the quad simple because it's already starting to outperform the phenom in modern games that properly utilise four cores.

RAM is fairly easy, just get 4GB of whatever fits in your motherboard; most likely this'll be DDR3 unless you're using an older board in which case DDR2 is what you want. Don't worry about CAS latencies too much, they're only really important if you plan on overclocking. An important thing to remember though is to get two matching sticks so they can run in dual channel which effectively doubles the bandwidth. Intel i7's support tripple channel but that's sort of going beyond the budget market.

Regarding the sound card, don't even bother if you're using shitty speakers/headphones (yes Creative are classed as shit) - just use onboard sound which has come a long way in the last few years. If you want a good card, both Auzentech and Asus make a range of good sound cards; some cheap, some not. The Asus Essence STX is probably the best card on the market for headphones at the moment too.

I still maintain that a good set of headphones are far superior than an equivalent set of speakers. Don't bother with "surround sound" headphones (you end up with four-five shitty drivers instead of two brilliant ones), pick up something decent (yes Sennheiser are classed as crap) - I've had both Alessandro MS-1's and Audio Technica AD700s and I personally prefer the 700's for their comfort and larger soundstage, but the MS-1's were a heck of a lot more bassy (I'm not using an amplified source so that may have something to do with why the 700's are a little flat) - but they're pretty uncomfortable and their external design is pretty flawed as well. Either of these can be had for far less than $200AU

I guess you can figure out the rest on your own; just keep in mind when looking at monitors that some refresh rates are measured in pixel gray to gray time (g2g) and others measure just one cycle (I think it's black to white). Of course gtg is slower, but don't pay too much attention to refresh rates as on a modern monitor as it really doesn't mean all that much; ghosting disappeared on LCD screens years ago.

I realise that's a lot of crap you may or may not want to read though, but hey if it saves you a little money in the future then why the fuck not.

 

I'm not worried about the monitor; I just bought a new samsung with 1080p and 70,000 contrast ratio. The monitor is currently the best part of my computer.

 

Turn-based zombie game? Why, God, WHY?!

 

This game sounds really shit to be honest. Why do other people think it looks good? It's a fucking Zombie game.