Ignites This Engine

An engine block needs to be kept on running to maintain its performance.
Therefore, this entry just to keep this engine running, nothing more.
Past weeks I worked some paper for two subjects and also some assignment. In the spare time I did not spend it for browsing the internet much, and this engine-blog was inoperative for some time.
Now let's ignite it, let the engine on fire again.
No massive update and nothing important to share. I just played some game in my spare time.
I installed 3 games to test my new VGA, but actually just 2 of them really test them.
They're Black & White 2—a kind of RPG-Strategy-Hybrid game, GTR 2—the best racing sim today, and the last but not least (as I craved to it last month) is Civilization IV—a turn-based strategy game which allows you build a civilization of an empire from stone age to information age.
It was Black & White 2 and GTR 2 which really force my VGA (and inevitably, RAM space) to the limit.


Okay, just let me review them (this is a personal review, very subjective):

~Civilization IV is quite light to be played but when it comes to the very end of game, it begins to burden RAM space as well as CPU performance.
Since I played Civilization series for the first time, I found some difficulties to understand the game overall. Yes there’s a tutorial and it quite helps but in the end, you need some deep knowledge of the game which, until now, still holds me.
I like it though, the game is interesting and you can imagine how a civilization grows from time to time.

~Black & White 2 is a torture of hell for the whole computer. You need every best stuff installed on your computer. It says you need only 64 MB of VGA memory and 512MB of RAM space. Just don’t believe it.
When I looked at the process viewer while the game’s running, it consumes almost 1GB of RAM (while mine’s just 512MB). And some lag occurs when I turn all video settings to the high level (if you wonder what’s my VGA, you should scroll down the page to my previous entry). The game is very interesting. Here, you become god. You can do everything to your world (only a little part of world actually), and everything on it.
The concept is simple, are you gonna play the game like RTS and put everything to war, or play it like Sim City or other Tycoon games—build and grow your world.
I’m not continuing the game for now because it’s quite boring after three or four mission (one mission could keep you 6-10 hours in front of computer). In addition, the game needs a lot of time when it’s loading something, especially when you go to a new map. You can make a cup of coffee, stir it gently, drink it calm while reading newspaper, wash the cup when you finish... and guess what... you’ll find the loading screen’s still there!
My suggestion, don’t wait when the game’s loading new map.

~GTR 2 is a heaven for someone who loves racing simulator. The tagline of this game reveals it: Get Real.
This game is an official game of FIA GT Racing Championship.
The GTR first was sold limitedly so everybody was dissatisfied with it. And now it’s being sold worldwide. The game come with much updates eventhough the season to be played only season 2003 and 2004.
It’s quite tough for VGA and RAM because it’s shows much detail in the graphics and played more sophisticated AI’s than common racing games. I think you’ll need 1 GB of RAM to play it with full features as my 512MB RAM didn’t make it.
This is a game for someone who really addicted to real autoracing—not indiscipline racing on the street. If you used to play arcade racing game like Need For Speed series, you’ll find this game—no, sorry, sim—a bunch of hell.
If you’re a rookie for racing sims, don’t worry, all you need’s just a constant patience as it provides you a Driving School session which will teach you everything from big nil to great number of skill. But if you have no such patience, just uninstall it and go play Need For Speed Carbon (How good is it? I’ve stopped playing NFS since the awful NFSU2).
And because it’s a sim, please, have a racing wheel. You won’t drive Ferrari’s with your poor keyboard, will you?
I think we’ll never have a better racing sim like this for next 2 years, so if you really Need For Real, buy it! (The original one if you could... I don’t like promoting piracy ;p)

— p.s. I’ll update some best screenshot from those games...