Gaming Backlog

Wanted to write a little about my Steam backlog just to kind of put in writing which games I am intending to continue.  I will also rank them based on how much I enjoy them.  Hopefully you will find it useful if you are thinking of trying any of the games I have already tried. 

Will be playing again for sure:

1) Sid Meier's Civilization V - (66 hours sounds a little low) I played this quite a bit when I first got it.  I think I won starting on the low levels but have had trouble winning on King setting I believe.  This is my first time playing the Civilization series and feel that I have been really missing out.  Great game if you don't have it I definitely recommend it.

2) The Witcher: Enhanced Edition - (19 hours) I have been really enjoying this game.  The story is very good and I enjoy the fighting style.  I am playing on Easy (I think) and once and awhile I still die so I would imagine it is really challenging on the higher levels.  (Plan to play again)  

3) Dota 2 - (2 hours)Downloaded this during Beta but didn't have time to play.  The last couple of Wednesday nights (my game night) I have been getting through the tutorial missions and have been really enjoying it.  (Plan to play again)  

4) Counter-Strike - Play this a lot during my time at RIT 2002-2007.  I was introduced to it by my floor mates on Gleason 6.  Our floor pretty much always had the sounds of gunfire and screaming from room to room about kills and near kills.  (Plan to play again)

5) The Lord of the Rings Online(TM) - (13 hours via Steam but I played before Steam integration as well) I started playing this maybe in 2011 I think at the insistence of a friend of mine.  I really enjoyed it for awhile and plan to play again but am a little stuck currently as the guy who invited me to play quit.  So I'm currently in a state where without help I am having trouble staying alive where my quest are telling me to go :(.  I play on the  X server as X.

6 )DiRT Showdown - Played this briefly after I got it free when I purchased my Ibuypower computer.  Issue I currently have is my Xbox controller I use for my pc doesn't stay calibrated making it very difficult to drive.  

7) Total War: SHOGUN 2 - (10 hours) Came free with my PC I am finding that I like this I'm not addicted to it like I can get with other games.  I think it has something to do with the fact that I seem to stink at it.

8) Half-Life (I don't have remastered version) - I got this so that I could play Counter-Strike online.  I did try playing the single player games but I think I ended up having issues and giving up.  As this is considered one of the better games for PC I really should give it a try again.  

9) Age of Conan: Unchained - US version -(51 minutes) Downloaded this one day not really sure why as I have invested quite a bit of time into Lord of the Rings Online(TM).  I played it for maybe ten minutes and haven't touched it since.  I might try it again at some point but probably not anytime soon. 


 Probably won't try again:

1. Uncharted Waters Online - (80 minutes) For some reason around the same time I downloaded Conan I tried this one as well.  The game is interesting but I really am thinking of staying away as I have enough other games to get through without trying to take on another MMORPG.  It was fun to set sail across the ocean though.  
2. Day of Defeat - Haven't tried this but don't feel bad as it came with my copy of Half life.
3. Deathmath Classic - Haven't tried this but don't feel bad as it came with my copy of Half life.
4. Half-Life: Blue Shift - Haven't tried this but don't feel bad as it came with my copy of Half life.
5. Half-Life: Opposing Force - Haven't tried this but don't feel bad as it came with my copy of Half life
6. Ricochet - I played this one or twice.  
7. Team Fortress Classic -  Haven't tried this but don't feel bad as it came with my copy of Half life. I did try Team Fortress 2 it didn't really pull me in maybe I'll try it again.

Beware Ibuypower Warranty

This is a warning to anyone who buys an iBuyPower computer.  It turns out that there warranty is pretty crappy ie if you need to ship the Desktop computer back after the initial 30 days you have to pay for it.  Compared to my experience with Dell this just seems quite terrible.

I really feel pretty dumb about this as well.  I originally ordered a computer from them in May of 2012 it arrive in June but the hard drives had fallen out during shipping so it didn't work at all.  Sent it back and got it back on around July 10th.  I was pretty excited to actually get to use it which was my big mistake.  Instead of trying to enjoy the computer I should have sent it back to get fixed right away or maybe just got a refund.  When I got it back the second time again the hard drives had fallen out during shipping and one of them doesn't always start when I boot the system.  At first I didn't mind this terribly but after a few months it gets pretty old to have to boo the computer on average probably like five times.
     

Review of my Ibuypower machine after around 5 months.

I purchased a computer from Ibuypower in May of 2012.  I think it took until July to arrive I was pretty excited having never really owned a computer that was actually ready to play newish type games.  I was pretty disappointed when I first opened the box and realized that the video card had fallen out during shipping and so had the hard drives.  After hooking everything back up and trying it, I soon discovered that the hard drives were toast.  I blame the company for that as I don't believe they were installed in a way that had any chance of surviving being flown across the country (they are in California and I'm in PA).

So after much excitement the next day I had to send it back :(.  When it arrived the second time I noticed this time they actually put some packaging material inside the case that they had not the first time.  This resulted in the Video remaining installed this time.  They also tried to install the hard drives more securely but they still fell out.  But this time I was in luck they still "worked".  One of the hard drives sometimes takes 2 to 5 attempts to detect on power up which is pretty annoying.

For awhile I have been able to use the computer I have played quite a bit of Civ 5 on it.  I was also finally able to turn some of the setting up for the game Lotro game looks awesome on a computer with a real video card.  My old Dell laptop had some kind of Intel on board thing which meant I had to play Lotro on min settings. 

I tried installing Visual Studio on it around September the install seemed to go fine but soon after that it seemed like it would freeze every time I tried to make a system restore point.  At least I was able to back up my data though.  Not really sure if these are related.   

Now just recently I starting having more issues like I rebooted and it would no longer load any video drivers.  I tried doing a System restore and crap blue screen of death.  I contacted Ibuypower and they were willing to have me ship back the system but I would have to pay for it!  Never had to pay to ship back any of my Dells.  Money is pretty tight right now so decided to reinstall Windows myself which got my networking components back up and running!  Still having some issues that I am trying at this time to work through by myself including:

• Tried to check my backup drive caused a blue screen.  (I plan to try this again)
• Just tried running a backup and that seems to have failed for some reason as well.  
• Could be a Microsoft Issue.

 I would rank this computer a 2.5 out of 5 at this time.  When working its pretty nice but has really been a head ache.

Update 2/1/2013
I have contacted tech support and they initially wanted me to send the computer to them.  I would have if I didn't have to pay for shipping.  I am also not convinced that it would come back in better shape as FEDEX seems to be trying to destroy it as it travels across the country.  So I emailed them back and they seem willing to work with me to try to figure out what isn't working.  The latest is they had me download Seagate's SeaTools and run the long generic test which I ran earlier and found that my backup drive failed the check.  This might explain why I got a blue screen of death when I ran chkdsk on it.  I am somewhat surprised that the drive that always starts when I turn on my computer is the one with the issue.  Hopefully I can get this thing working 100%.

IBuypower Tech Support Rating 3/5 (Right in the middle as they seem to be trying to help but so far we haven't fixed anything)