Lots of medics with lots of ubers on high-damage-dealing classes.

Demomen, if they are any good, usually work best against a sentry farm — stickies are perfect for this job, the usual problem is living long enough to deploy and detonate enough of them.

Heavies or pyros can also be effective, if they can get close enough (short range for a heavy, point-blank for a pyro) without being overwhelmed by the knockback before they can do damage.

The medic should lead the uber combo in (particularly if the partner is a heavy) — he's faster, so he can absorb the knockback better.

If at all possible, back the uber team(s) up with as much raw firepower as you can muster — the aim is to either overwhelm the engies' ability to repair stuff, take out the engies directly, or take out dispensers.

Soldiers are good for this support role, as they can place well-aimed damage from behind the uber.

Demos can support well, too — their indirect fire can damage engies and dispensers without having to kill the sentry first.

Sending a spy in to sap just before or during the uber(s) can be a good idea, too.

Unfortunately, twiddling your thumbs behind your own base isn't going to win your team the round.

If there are that many Engies, Spies will probably be ineffective.

Grab yourself some medics and frontline (or take 'em from behind) forces like Heavies, Soldiers, or Demomen, uber, and advance.

Side tip : as you advance, have your progress reinforced by your own engineers setting up on newly-won terrain behind you.

This will help your new ground to hold out longer.

Class updates will always create all-of-a-sudden influlxes of the respective classes, but just remember their strengths and weaknesses, and don't feel too overwhelmed.

A lot of engineers usually involves a lot of teleports.

As a spy, alert your team about your intentions and go to sap the teleports entrances.

These will cause the engineers move the focus out of the sentries and your team should be able to put them down.

1 uber or 2 could help. ;)

As a long-time engineer player, I'd say my sentry has been killed by a soldier or demo more than anything else.

Spies are useful in hectic situations but not when there are multiple alert engineers, and ubers are useful but require careful coordination and are very limited.

I say, go with corner-edging soldiers and sneaky demos.

A big enough concentration of them can just cause so much damage the engineers can't keep up.

Also, any source of crits (buff banner, krit medic) can be a great help.

It doesn't do extra damage to the sentry but it can definitely do some serious damage to the engineer healing it.

For pre-update senties, they will always shoot at the closest enemy.

Run an uber up front to take all the sentry fire, and let the rest of your team stand behind and focus fire on the sentries without getting shot (By the sentries at least).

Soldiers work well for this, as they can straight-shoot the sentries from a distance.

Direct-hit especially so.

Just remember you need at least two soldiers per sentry or the engineer can out-repair the damage.

Watch out for pyros air-blasting you with this method.

Kill them first if you can.

Whenever ubers attack sentries, the medic should run ahead of their buddy.

This allows the medic to take the brunt of the knockback and allows both players to get closer.

This is especially important when there are multiple sentries, because the accumulated knockback can push a demo or heavy back beyond their effective range.

It's not just the job of spies, medics, and heavy-hitting classes, everyone can pitch in to help take down a sentry!

Scout

As a scout, you can Bonk!

in and draw the fire of the Sentry.

As long as you're the first thing it sees, un-Wrangled sentries will target you and not the rest of your team.

Even if they DO wrangle, you can still act as a distraction to the rest of the team (Spies especially love a wrangled sentry nest).

Might even get in the Engine's face and force him to accidentally shoot himself.

Sniper

Yes, you too can help take out a Sentry nest!

In fact you have the most important job of all - Taking out the Engineer!

Assuming you can get a good line of sight, one shot to his head is all it takes.

And when he's dead, there's nothing to stop you from charging a shot and picking off his unguarded sentry either.

The Machina can help damage Engies that hide behind their sentry, but for unattended sentries, the Sydney Sleeper charges up VERY fast.

For a full breakdown, go here.

If all else fails, you can always throw a Jarate grenade to soften the Engie & his pals.

Engineer

You have the pistol, which like a Scout's pistol can take down minis and level 1s at a distance.

But you've also got a Wrangler, which if you can get your sentry into position can tear through another Engie's sentry, assuming he doesn't catch on.

The best way you can help your team though is by building up a teleporter, so that they can get to and take down the other team's Sentry.

Of coures, this is only if you insist on playing these classes...otherwise switching to a higher damage-output class, a medic, or even a spy might be more useful.

As a soldier, a Direct Hit is great vs any Engineers nest, particularly in large open areas where you can outrange them.

The low splash damage of the Direct Hit is negated by the fact that sentries don't move, but most importantly firing 4 Direct Hit rockets without delay will destroy a sentry even if 1 engineer is repairing it (though 2 will likely repair through the damage).

The only trick is making sure no one kills you while you are firing.

gaming.stackexchange.com/users/86844/David says Reinstate Monica

Question: Now that the Engineer update has come, there will be lots of Engineers building up everywhere.  How should this best be handled?

What is a good strategy to deal with lots of engineers turtling on the other team?

Demomen usually work best against a sentry farm. Heavies or pyros can also be effective. Medics should be in the frontline to absorb the shock. Build a teleporter to help your team through.

Demomen are best against a sentry farm. Heavies or pyros can also be effective. The medic should lead the uber combo. If possible, back the uber team(s) up with as much raw firepower as you can muster. Go with corner-edging soldiers and sneaky demos.  The Machina can help damage Engies that hide behind their sentry, but for unattended sentries, the Sydney Sleeper charges up very fast.  The best way you can help your team is by building up a teleporter, so that they can get to and take down the other team's Sentry.


It voids your warranty if you open up the console.

I've tried fixing an Xbox 360 myself by doing the X-Clamp replacement but that fix only lasted about 8 months before it red ringed again.

Since Microsoft paid 1.5 billion dollars for you to have a 3 year warranty for your Xbox 360, you should just have them fix it for you for free.

That is, assuming you've had this Xbox 360 less than 3 years.

You may hear of something called the towel trick if you have googled this.

Whatever you do, do not try this.

Your 360 might run for about 10 minutes, and you've just voided any warranty you may have had.

Other than that, I don't know of any solutions that work.

I would not advise opening your Xbox 360 to fix the RRoD. Unless a lot has changed in a few years, the fixes I found for RRoD only made the problem worse.

Let alone it voids your warranty.

I was personally never able to get my RRoD console fixed with solutions found on the internet.

And then I found that once I had opened it, Microsoft would not even touch the console for any amount of money.

This my blog about the experience

, it's mostly about the customer support and UPS experience, but you get the picture: STAY AWAY http://www.greyhats.com/gaming/why-my-xbox-360-support-has-sucked-40

I don't have any experience with the kits you're looking at, but try unplugging your AC adaptor, dusting it out, moving it to a spot with more ventilation, and plugging it back in.

Worked for me when I got the RRoD

- apparently it's just a generic error indicator for a number of problems.

As an owner of a video games repair shop, the kits do work only for certain fixes, but they definitely won't last as long as a reflow of the board.

Consider the kits as temporary fixes for some red ring of death related issues.

Any board that has the dreaded red ring of death just means the board is prone to heat and gives it a higher chance of it overheating again.

If you just apply the kit fix and it overheats again, it just means it would require a reflow of the chip instead.

Keep in mind

it's the heat that's causing the issue, so its always best to mod the 360 internal fan to keep it cooler.

You will need to know how to solder and have a soldering iron.

Here's a very good article on the RROD subject on the differences of a reflow and reball .

I know many people do their own research and find forums regarding this RROD repair topic, but I must honestly say there is a lot of false and misleading information from others that have fixed their own systems or only a handful of them.

Most RROD occurrence's is different, which is why you will need to find the error code to find the culprit chip.

Question: I've heard of kits that can fix your Xbox 360 if you happen to get the  Red Ring of Death . Do any of these work, and do they void your warranty? Are there any other noteworthy tips or tricks?

Can I fix the Xbox 360 “Red Ring of Death” myself?

It voids the warranty if you open up the console. The fixes that are out there only make the problem worse.

It voids your warranty if you open up the console. Microsoft give a 3 year warranty with Xbox 360, you should just have them fix it for you for free. I would not advise opening your Xbox 360 to fix the RRoD. Unless a lot has changed in a few years, the fixes for RRoD only make the problem worse.


The advantage on buying a horse is that you will be able to call that -kind- of horse back even when it dies.

Thus, if you buy a nice horse such the Kentucky Saddler, American Standardbred or Hungarian Half-bred you won't need to break them again to use them.

By the way, once you buy a horse it won't automatically come to you ..

you must open your inventory and use the item you bought representing the horse...

then, the horse you were using will go away and the 'item' horse will come to you.

This item representing the horse has unlimited uses.

When you purchase the deed to a horse, and "Use" the deed you will have that horse when you whistle for it (and the deed never goes away and you can use it as many times as you like).

So purchasing the deeds to horses are the only way to switch to new horses without losing your old ones.

I would suggest you purchase the deeds to the Kentucky Saddler, Hungarian Half-Bred and American Standardbred (but make sure you get them at stores where you have the discounted rate - $750 each)

Some horses are better than others, for instance the bright white Hungarian Half-Bred and solid black American Standardbred.

These horses are among the best in the game, but can't be purchased unless you've broken at lest one of the same type in the wild.

After that, a horse is a horse.

For a given breed, the only difference is in the wild they're free, but if you purchase a deed it looks like you can re-use one over and over to respawn a horse of the same type if your current one dies.

its better to buy a horse because if you look up cheats you can get 500 dollars and keep on turning it on and you will have enough to buy the best horses

hope this helped good luck

Buying a horse is expensive, not to mention wild horses are free.

But the most beautiful horse in the game is the Kentucky Saddler.

I would recommend you buying the horse because you also have cheats of 500 dollars in the game.

Personally, I would catch a horse because buying them is really expensive, also when you catch a horse it gives you a trusty steed bonus ( I don't really know what that means)

Question: So far I caught my current horse early on in the game and now I can buy them at the merchant. Are there any advantages of buying a horse?

Buying vs catching a horse in Red Dead Redemption

Catching a horse is free and gives you a bonus. Buying a horse means you will be able to call that horse back when it dies.

One school of thought is that it is better to buy a horse, because if you look up cheats you can get 500 dollars and purchasing the deeds to horses are the only way to switch to new horses without losing your old ones.  Anothe advantage of buying a horse is that you will be able to call that -kind- of horse back even when it dies. But buying a horse is expensive, not to mention wild horses are free. So others argue that catching a horse is better, because buying them is really expensive. In addition, when you catch a horse it gives you a trusty steed bonus.


Several of the Guitar Hero games have been released for Windows and Mac, including Guitar Hero III, Guitar Hero:

World Tour and Guitar Hero: Aerosmith, and USB-based instruments should work natively with them.

None of the Rock Band games have been released for PC, however, and intercompatibility is generally bad.

Try Frets on Fire for a free and open source Guitar Hero-style game which works with all the console instruments.

For full details, drivers, and the like, see the Frets on Fire Wiki page on using Guitar Hero and Rock Band controllers.

Many of the Guitar Hero and Rock Band series songs have been converted for use with Frets on Fire, and there is an enormous base of user-created content: see the wiki for details on available song packs.

Performous is a nice alternative for Guitar Hero/Rock Band on the PC.

Open source, compatible with GH and RB instruments, most of console games' songs are available as packs on the net, some game features are already implemented better than the console games.

Frets On Fire - a free, open-source clone that uses your keyboard.

The Xbox controllers may work on the PC - never tried it, but I saw a video and some software a while back that used the Rock Band drum set on PC.

Guitar Hero III was available on PC.

However, it was apparently far inferior to the console versions.

I agree with Ignis Umbrae because Guitar Hero has 3 versions released for PC.

However, Rock Band for the moment not available for PC.

But there is good news about this

, if you reach the goal, ie.

There is a project of the same group of creators and Rock Band, that after his last throw me RB4 for PS4 and XBOXone, launch RB4 PC.

Here is the link for more info: RB4 FOR PC

On the other hand, Frets on Fire (FoF) has strong competition that is similar to this program is called Phase Shift (PS), I personally love this program.

It is absolutely equal to the FoF, the exception does not have the vocal instrument and

graphics PS is well above

the FoF.It is also configurable on changing 'Themes' fof like, here I leave the link of the program: PHASE SHIFT (last version v1.7)

And here a variety of 'Themes' you can choose for the PS.

(These topics are updated occasionally depending on your designer, so I suggest that you subscribe to their own channels to be more aware of them): THEMES FOR PHASE SHIFT:

(GH / RB ): GUITAR HERO II- GUITAR HERO III- GUITAR HERO

METALLICA- GUITAR HERO 5

(IN PROGRESS - DEMO)- GUITAR HERO WARRIORS OF ROCK ROCK BAND 2- ROCK BAND GREEN DAY- ROCK BAND THE BEATLES- ROCK BAND 3- ROCK BAND 4 Greetings.

Update 10 years later: Now you can play Rock Band, Rock Band 2, Rock Band 3, Green Day Rock Band,The Beatles Rock Band, and LEGO Rock Band using the RPCS3 PS3 emulator.

You can also play any Rock Band / Guitar Hero game using the Dolphin emulator (the downside is the graphical and sound quality), and any Guitar Hero game on RPCS3 with the sound desynchronised, but if your computer is strong enough, desynchronisation might be even not noticeable.

Question: Is there any way to play Guitar Hero or Rock Band on my PC?  I also wonder if there's a way to get the instruments working on a PC.  Any suggestions?

Can I play Guitar Hero or Rock Band on my PC?

There are versions released for PC. Many of the songs are definitely available on PC.

Several of the Guitar Hero games have been released for Windows and Mac, including Guitar Hero III, Guitar Hero, but none of the Rock Band games have been released for PC. However, many of the Guitar Hero and Rock Band series songs have been converted for use with Frets on Fire.

Several of the Guitar Hero games have been released for Windows and Mac, including Guitar Hero III, Guitar Hero:

S2: None of the Rock Band games have been released for PC.

Many of the Guitar Hero and Rock Band series songs have been converted for use with Frets on Fire.


Unfortunatly there is some speculation as to whether there will be a sequel.

The head writer Ragnar Tørnquist seems to be very involved in getting Funcom's latest offering The Secret World MMO developed and launched.

He has however indicated that an episodic format of Dreamfall Chapters is floating around at Funcom.

I enclose an excerpt of what he said as his blog seems to be down to link to: Nothing major is currently happening on Dreamfall Chapters.

The people who will be involved when it does happen – myself included – are tied up in other projects, primarily The Secret World.

TSW will continue to be my (and their) primary focus for a while longer…but that doesn’t mean nothing at all is happening with Chapters.

It just means that it’s not (at least not officially) in production – for now.

Yes, there's at least one hint to the fate of April in The Longest Journey.

While it's never explicitly stated, but Lady Alvane , (the mysterious old woman who tells the story) appears to be April herself.

At least if you take into account that she knows the story of April very detailed and that Crow is with her, and as it seems he was for a longer time as he asks "You don't plan to go on an adventure again, do you?"

(or similar) at the end of The Longest Journey.

Lady Alvane could also be Zoe:

Remember how she says at the very end of TLJ that it had been a long time since she remembered "April Ryan"?

Unless she is refering go herself in third person, it could be that it's someone else, talking about april.

Remember how Crow tells Zoe "From now on, I'll be your sidekick" after both of them are mad at april for not wanted to help them out?

In that last scene from TLJ

we see him in Lady Alvanes house.

It's a cliffhanger.

They're planning to do a sequel, so the characters can't all be dead/incapacitated.

I'm guessing at least Zoe is going to come out of the coma somehow and April might not be completely dead after all.

According to wikipedia work on the sequel has not (yet?)

begun, so there's nothing definitive on the fate of the characters.

As of the 21st of October a sequel has been published named 'Dreamfall Chapters', in which it is clear from the first minutes what happened to Zoe and April.

April died.

Her body burned in a burial ritual reminiscing that of a viking burial ritual, yet more magical.

Zoe has been in a comatose state ever since the incident and you join her side again after 12 months has passed.

Technically the following count as out of game hints, but they do clarify the in game occurances at the end of Dreamfall.

I also include this info here because some of the other answers are now out of date.

Dreamfall: Chapters , the sequel to Dreamfall, has been funded via Kickstarter and is in development.

The Kickstarter description indicates that while it focuses on wrapping up Zoe's story, it is also a continuation of April's story wherein we learn her destiny.

It also notes that April was "fatally wounded" at the end of Dreamfall, which presumably means she will not be dead at the start of Chapters.

As a further OOC hint, Red Thread tried unsuccessfully to raise enough extra money to start work on The Longest Journey home which concludes April's story.

This also strongly implies April will survive Dreamfall and Chapters.

So, Zoe is definitely in a coma, and April is fatally wounded but not dead yet.

However, both their stories will continue in Dreamfall:

Chapters and possibly The Longest Journey Home.

So things are either not as they seem, or more plausibly, likely to change quickly within Dreamfall: Chapters.

Question: At the end of Dreamfall, April Ryan  (spoilers hidden)    appears to have been killed, and Zoe is in a coma.   Are there any hints throughout the game that their fate is really different than what it appears to be on the surface?

At the end of Dreamfall, what is the fate of April Ryan and Zoe Castillo?

Lady Alvane could be April or Zoe. They are planning a sequel so the characters can't all be dead.

It's a cliffhanger. Although it has never explicitly stated, there is speculation that Lady Alvane may be April herself. Lady Alvane could also be Zoe. A sequel has been published named 'Dreamfall Chapters', in which it is clear from the first few minutes what has happened to Zoe and April.  It seems that Zoe is definitely in a coma, and April is fatally wounded but not dead yet.

It's a cliffhanger. A sequel is planned, so the characters can't all be dead or incapacitated.


Aperture Science (which is the firm that developed the Portal gun) is in direct competition with Black Mesa (which is the firm for which Gordon Freeman worked) for military contracts

See the section Other facts on this link Aperture Science and Black Mesa were bitter rivals.

As seen in the Portal maps "testchmb_a_15" and "escape_02", Aperture Science employees were briefed on Black Mesa through slideshow presentations, such as one titled "Dollar$ and Sense: Competing with Black Mesa for DoD and Government-wide Acquisition Contracts" EDIT : Here's an excellent guide on Half Life: http://members.shaw.ca/halflifestory/ Check out the timeline for an awesome detail of all events in the Half Life saga, and in the bottom a little speculation to its relation to Portal: The date that the events of Portal take place aren't certain.

We do know that GLaDOS says to Chell: "Are you trying to escape?

[chuckle]

Things have changed since the last time you left the building.

What's going on out will make you wish you were back in here.

I have an infinite capacity for knowledge, and even I'm not sure what is going on outside.

All I know is I'm the only thing standing between us and them.

Well, I was.

Unless you have a plan for building some supercomputer parts in a big hurry, this place isn't going to be safe much longer."

This implies that the game takes place during the Portal Storms or afterwards.

This site is not official but it's a great analysis IMO.

In the original Portal, just before the chamber containing GlaDOS, there is a projector with some slides detailing that Black Mesa and Aperture Science are in direct competition.

In the song at the end of Portal , GlaDOS mentions Black Mesa: "Maybe you'll find someone else to help you.

Maybe Black Mesa...

that was a joke, ha-ha, fat chance" In HL2:Ep2, there are references to the Borealis, an Aperture Science research boat that went missing.

In Portal 2 (which takes place in an Aperture facility) , they mention a boat-yard where some sort of "time-travel experiment" went wrong.

Later, you find an empty ship-port , with life-savers scattered around that say "Borealis."

This concept art for HL2:Ep3 contains the Borealis.

In Portal 2, Cave Johnson (CEO of Aperture Science) states his hate towards Black Mesa in a recording , claiming they "stole their technology" from Aperture Science.

In Portal 2, (just before you are first introduced to the goo)

there is a room in Aperture Science with a bunch of trophies and awards for "#2 Applied-Science company of the year," implying (along with the projector slides from Portal 1) that the #1 company is Black Mesa.

gaming.stackexchange.com/users/2578/BlueRaja - Danny Pflughoeft

This page has a timeline of the rivalry between Black Mesa and Aperture Science

In HL2 Ep 2, You are told about an aperture ship called Borealis , it is suggested that this ship will appear in episode 3.

So both games take place in the same universe, and Valve seem to be intertwining the two stories.

There has also been rumour of a portal gun appearing in episode 3

In Portal 2, when Chell gets out at the end, it shows the outside for a brief moment and it almost looks like this must take place after the Half Life saga and after the Apocalypse.

There is nothing but the Aperture Science lab, so i think Aperture Science must be the Combine's; if it wasn't, they would have destroyed it, right?

At the end of Half-Life ep 2

the borialis has a cargo contaner thith th aperture logo on it

I replayed the game and saw it again also near the end they reply to go to th borialis

I found something extremly cool!

One day i went on the internet and then went on YouTube

, i wached a videa about Cell and the fan made theres about her and

even though i have played Portal 2 it was the first time i saw the picture of caroline.

The next day i bought Half Life 2 Ep 1 and 2 and saw the video clip of the ship that was apertures ship

and i was stunned that and looked for news for Ep 3

adn

then i hade a brainstorm... Search for "Family Picture half Life 2" and "Caroline portal 2"

See anything alike?

Question: I heard a lot of rumors about Portal series and Half-Life series plots relation but I didn't found any link.   Can you describe which relations exists between this two stories?

What are the connections between Portal series plot and Half-Life series plot?

Both games take place in the same universe.

In the original Portal, just before the chamber containing GlaDOS, there is a  projector with some slides  detailing that Black Mesa and Aperture Science are in direct competition.  In Portal 2, when Chell gets out at the end, it shows the outside for a brief moment and it almost looks like this must take place after the Half Life saga and after the Apocalypse. Both games therefore take place in the same universe, and Valve seem to be intertwining the two stories.


There are two mechanisms the Xbox provides for you to do this.

It lists the most downloaded games

It lists the highest rated games

Now you have to take both of these metrics with a grain of salt.

People will rate games high

they have only played once, or download games they hear about a lot.

So keep that in mind.

As for the actual steps to do this.

Open your 360 dashboard Scroll up to game marketplace

Once inside scroll right to see highest rated and most downloaded If you're looking for good games

I might suggest:

Castle Crashers Shadow Complex Trials HD Puzzle Quest 2

Every game on Xbox Live Arcade has a trial mode.

I suggest you take advantage of this excellent feature.

Don't bother looking through what games are most popular or most highly rated.

The best possible advice I can give you is to download as many games as you can in the genres

you're interested in, and play through their trials.

If you can't trust your own opinion of the game after having played the trial version, there is little help to be found elsewhere.

Metacritic tags Xbox

Live Arcade games.

Try this search .

It's not perfect - it misses Braid!

- but seems to cover most the good ones I know.

The dashboard also supports community-based star rating of games.

There is a new Destination Arcade coming soon.

Looks interesting.

Check out Major Nelson's blog , particularly the "LIVE Activity" reports that he publishes weekly to find out what XBL Arcade games people are actively playing.

It changes from week to week, but gems like Trials HD will hang around in the top ten for quite some time.

I've been looking through http://www.xblaratings.com lately.

It has user submitted ratings and reviews for XBLA games.

Granted since it requires and account there isn't MUCH info there sometimes, but it's one resource available.

Question: With so many games on Xbox Live Marketplace (XBLM), how can I identify the better games or more popular games from the market?

How to find the better games on Xbox Live Marketplace?

Every game has a trial mode. You can look at Mjor Nelson's blog to find the most popular games.

S2: Don't bother looking through what games are most popular or most highly rated. Every game on Xbox Live Arcade has a trial mode you can use and try out yourself. You could check out  Major Nelson's blog , particularly the "LIVE Activity" reports that he publishes weekly to find out what XBL Arcade games people are actively playing or take a look at  http://www.xblaratings.com.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xbox_360#Retail_configurations Right now, only the "S, 250BG" is in production.

The "Elite" version came in two sizes "120 GB and 250 GB" but were mostly similar otherwise.

Every version offered after 2007 supported HDMI

Every Xbox 360 ever made will work with Kinect.

Hardware-compatibility wise, the systems we all very similar.

Microsoft has stated that the "S" series contains almost identical hardware to the "Elite, 250GB" because no game is pushing the limits of the hardware yet, even at 1080p.

In 2013, there are just two versions of the 360 sold - both are classed as the "Xbox 360 S".

Both models are identical in appearance, one has 250GB internal storage and the other 4GB.

There are also other variants avalible as promontional packs such as a "Halo: 4" edition with a different colour scheme and start-up sound, or a "Gears of War" one with a special red print.

Both these versions come with 320GB storage.

Both 4GB and 250GB models appear to have the model number of 1439.

I just had a look at the rear of mine and there was no way to distingish if it was a 250GB or 4GB model.

All consoles sold now have HDMI ports, Wireless inbuilt, and a connection for the Kinect.

I would expect they would stay like this until the next generation "

Xbox 720" comes out.

Right now there are 3 Editions on the market: 360

Arcade 360

Elite 360

Slim

Now the Slim is replacing the Elite, so that one will be phased out.

There is also plans for a slim arcade version which will phase out the arcade.

As a result neither the Arcade nor the Elite are currently in production.

The major difference between the Elite and the Arcade is the presence of a Hard drive.

While the Arcade does have a small amount of on board memory, it isn't much.

Additionally, the Elite comes with a Headset and Ethernet cable.

The new Slim also comes with hard drive, headset, but lacks the Ethernet cable in favor of built in wifi (which must be purchased separately for Arcade and Elite).

You can still find the standard Elite with 120GB HD or 250GB HD and 1 or 2 Controllers (all others come with just 1 controller).

It is worth noting that the Slim is branded as Elite, even though it is different than the current Elite you can find on the market.

The noticeable difference is the slim being smaller and having a less rounded exterior.

Current Versions: The XBox 360 S

Most other editions are getting phased out, but the new Kinect-ready edition is the only one that they're planning on keeping around.

It's got a 250 gb HD, and built in Wi-Fi.

Other previous editions don't have both of those features.

As per the above image, there are only 7 different Xbox 360s out there.

Note that the real differences between the XBox 360s are only memory size and color schemes.

Having more memory allows you to buy more games from the marketplace, etc.

What it comes down to is that the only thing separating today's Xbox 360s from the first Xbox 360s are the memory size and color .

For me, I never bought the newer XBox's out on the market.

I stuck wit the XBox 360 Core, one of the very first to come out.

The various versions (Arcade, Pro, Elite, 'Slim') are mainly packaging differences (apart from the new Slim hardware).

There are actually multiple hardware revisions starting with the original Xenon which was the loudest, most power sucking version.

When the Elite first debuted, it had the newer 'Falcon' hardware which had a smaller cpu and ran on slightly less power and later all Pro/Arcade versions were released with this same hardware.

Subsequent revisions reduced the gpu size and overall power consumption leading up to the 'Slim'.

The 'Slim' is really the first major revision of the console, I would say (obvious by the new form factor, multiple usb ports, built-in wi-fi, etc), and running the smallest cpu & gpu and lowest power consumption by far.

Question: How many versions of Xbox 360 consoles exist, and what are the differences between them?

What are the differences between XBOX 360 Consoles?

The main difference is colour and memory size. Every version after 2007 offered HDMI. The hard drive is the main difference between Elite and Arcade.

The major difference between the Elite and the Arcade is the presence of a Hard drive.  The Elite comes with a Headset and Ethernet cable.  The new Slim also comes with hard drive, headset, but lacks the Ethernet cable in favor of built in wifi (which must be purchased separately for Arcade and Elite).  Also, every version offered after 2007 supported HDMI. One noticeable difference is the slim being smaller and having a less rounded exterior. The real differences between the XBox 360s are only memory size and colour schemes.  When the Elite first debuted, it had the newer 'Falcon' hardware which had a smaller cpu and ran on slightly less power.

Every version offered after 2007 supported HDMI

The various versions (Arcade, Pro, Elite, 'Slim') have mainly only packaging differences (apart from the new Slim hardware).


The primary answer here is speed , but there's more to it than that.

Keep your speed up, making matches, so you'll continue to receive an ever increasing speed bonus.

Your goal here is to get to the x1000 speed bonus where every match creates an explosion (and the gems flash) - but any speed is better than no speed at all.

Make matches from the bottom up, there's more chance of a cascade Be aware of the multiplier gems - a match has to cause a cascade that removes 12 tiles (and more than 10s apart from the previous multiplier gem).

So, make those cascades and grab the multiplier gems early.

Don't plan out your next move too much.

This is Blitz, remember?

60s is not enough time to ponder the inner-workings of cascades.

Do look for more matches ASAP.

That is, as soon as you locate a match and begin to drag it, start to look for the next.

Remember that you have a Hint button - but that it takes a few seconds to locate, move to it, and click.

Do purchase power-ups.

With one of the latest updates, you can purchase powerups like multipliers in the field as you start, gem-swappers, and extra time.

In my personal experience, the gem-swapping and extra-time are the most valuable to my score.

If/when you do create a 5-in-a-row match and obtain a HyperCube, you should use it ASAP, on the color that you see the most of.

This should create many cascades, up your speed bonus, and with fewer colors on the map, it should be easier to create your next match.

(Remember that 5-in-a-row is the most valuable, so don't waste the opportunity on anything else).

Don't forget that if you really want to be a bejeweled-blitz-master, you'll need to do the following: Practice practice practice Watch

YouTube Videos Read up other guides

I've played on facebook and my high score is ~1.2 million.

Besides speed, the major factor contributing to super high score is the multiplier.

A 8X multiplier at end game means you'll get 8X more score, which is more feasible physically than playing 8X as fast.

Luck plays a big part too, I could play a perfect game with a couple blazing speeds runs but end up with low score because I didn't get many multipliers.

However speed is the one thing you have almost complete control over.

So go for very fast speed and make sure you clear those multiplier when you see them.

Speed it is mate.

Try to go faster then the diamonds are destroyed and of course look out for 4 or 5 in a row which you give you bonuses where you can rest your eyes for a few seconds.

I Played on iPhone and my highest score is 698K.

There is no tactics but your speed, you need to look all across the screen to get the possible either 3, 4 or 5 of a same kind.

Enjoy playing guys!!!

I've played Bejeweled Blitz on Facebook and my highest score is ~230k.

I've only gotten above 200k a handful of times and notice a definite trend for most games to just not add up.

I think I have about 170 games in the 25k bar –

this version of the game tracks these stats for you.

The strategy that has worked the best for me is working from the bottom up, switching from left to right.

Working bottom up allows for cascades without disrupting your flow, and similarly for left-right letting you plan in advance and then move while blocks are falling elsewhere.

The cascades are important because you need to destroy 12 tiles at once to drop a multiplier, and those are key to a high score.

The speed bonus does help, but let it come instead of forcing it, as it doesn't compare to multipliers.

Many rounds just won't pan out, and you'll have to be patient to get the exact right factors for a high score (this appears generally true from all my friends' scores too, where their totals in 25k, 50k, 75k, etc.

categories match my distribution).

If you're not enjoying each game much, it probably isn't for you (it's not for me), because high scoring games are going to be relatively rare for some time.

Question: I average a score of ~60,000 on Bejeweled Blitz for iPhone, yet I see a lot of my friends posting scores of over 250,000.  Are there any tactics for achieving such a high score, or is it really just down to finger speed, and/or luck?

Are there any tactics for Bejeweled Blitz?

The primary answer is speed. Working bottom up allows cascades that won't disrupt your speed.

Keep your speed up, making matches, so you'll continue to receive an ever increasing speed bonus and make sure you clear those multiplier when you see them. Try to go faster then the diamonds are destroyed and of course look out for 4 or 5 in a row which you give you bonuses where you can rest your eyes for a few seconds. Besides speed, the major factor contributing to super high score is the multiplier. Working bottom up allows for cascades without disrupting your flow, and similarly for left-right letting you plan in advance and then move while blocks are falling elsewhere.  Remember that you have a Hint button, but that it takes a few seconds to locate, move to it, and click.  Gem-swapping and extra-time really valuable.  The cascades are also important because you need to destroy 12 tiles at once to drop a multiplier, and those are key to a high score.

The cascades are important because you need to destroy 12 tiles at once to drop a multiplier, and those are key to a high score.


This is due to a poor connection between the cartridge's contacts and the pin connectors.

There are a few fixes for the problem: Use rubbing alcohol with a cotton swab on the cartridge's contacts.

Try turning on the system without pushing the cart down into the NES.

Just insert the cart so it connects into the slot, but leave the door open and don't push it downwards.

Lastly, you can replace your pin connector.

It requires opening the system up, but it is a relatively painless process, and you can get replacement 72 pin connectors dirt cheap on ebay.

There is a good tutorial for it here: http://www.jandar.net/nes72pin/

The trick I always used was to fully insert the cartridge, then try to power up.

If you get the blinking, turn the power back off, pull the cartridge out slighty (1/8 inch or less), then try powering up again.

Repeat this process until the game works, or until you're frustrated enough to go buy a Rumblepad 2 and download FCEUX .

If you're not able to repair it and don't want to go the emulator route, you can buy new Nintendo-compatible hardware such as the FC Super Loader or this one from ThinkGeek .

The FC in particular takes NES controllers as well as games; a couple of my family members have it and have been happy with it.

It could be that the console itself is dusty.

Try blowing into the cartridge slot, maybe that will help.

Or you could open it up and clean it, but

if you do, be careful so you don't damage anything inside it.

It is likely a bad connection between the cartridge's edge connector and the slot connector inside the console.

Start by using a cotton swab with a bit of rubbing alcohol to wipe off any patina that has accrued on the edge connector of the cartridge.

If that doesn't help, try doing the same thing with the console's connector (if it's not a top-loading console, you'll need an extra long swab).

Standard pencil erasers are usually great for wiping off patinas from electronic connectors, but they are extremely hard to use on the connectors involved here (they are better for things like computer RAM).

If all else fails, I have had some success by using an emery board (one of the cheap cardboard nail files that come in packs of a dozen) to scrape off the patina from the connector of the console. HTH

Another option (though it takes some skill) is to disable the NES10 lockout chip, as that is the component that actually causes this problem.

See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_Entertainment_System#Lockout

(3rd paragraph) and And

Try to press the reset button multiple times fairly quickly while the light is flashing and see if you can get the light to stay on / a picture on your TV.

Question: Every game I try in my Nintendo Entertainment System just flashes the red power LED on and off and never sends a signal to the TV.  I've tried inserting several different games.  I've tried inserting them in all the way or just barely enough to push down.  I've cleaned the cartridges as best as I can (mostly blowing really hard).  Can I fix this problem or should I retire the trusty old friend?

My Nintendo has a blinking light and no video; is it fixable?

This is due to the poor connection between the cartridge and the pin connector. Try using rubbing alcohol on the contacts. It could also just be dusty.

This is due to a poor connection between the cartridge contacts and pin connectors. Fix by using rubbing alcohol with a cotton swab on the cartridge's contacts.  Try to fully insert the cartridge, then try to power up. Or it could be that the console itself is dusty. Try blowing into the cartridge slot, maybe that will help.

It could be that the console itself is dusty. Try blowing into the cartridge slot, maybe that will help.

Try to press the reset button multiple times fairly quickly while the light is flashing and see if you can get the light to stay on or a picture on your TV.


Attach FMJ to the weapon you are trying to complete the challenge with.

Then follow an enemy with your fire as they run for cover.

Or otherwise try to get them behind cover once they are hiding.

Often, you can easily spot someone behind a window or a wall when the barrel of their weapon is sticking out.

Easiest to shoot through is sheet metal like the most walls on Scrapyard.

An extremely easy and fast way to get Bullet Penetration kills is to play 3rd person team tactical.

When you aim down your sights, you look over your right shoulder, so if you are on the left side of a door and you aim down your sights, you can see down the hallway and not be seen by anyone in that hallway.

Let your guns go and fire through the wall for the easiest Bullet Penetration kills.

Just what the name implies really.

It's counted as a bullet penetration kill when you kill someone who's behind a wall (even shooting through a railing can count), all while using the FMJ attachment.

It's probably the trickiest challenge to complete with any gun (certainly with sniper rifles).

Tip: When you see someone who's trying to run for cover, you've got a choice whether to for the chase or to shoot.

In this case, shoot them through the wall.

Doing this however will give your position away to your enemy.

You have to shoot and kill people that are behind something, like a thin wall.

Also make sure you have the FMJ attachment active on the weapon you are using, or it won't count as a kill in the challenge.

An easy way to obtain FMJ kills is by shooting through glass at your enemies.

Some good levels for FMJ kills are Highrise, Terminal, Trailer Park (new map), Scrapyard.

Equip FMJ and the heartbeat sensor using Bling.

This won't work for sub machine guns obviously.

Stopping power is important as well.

Play hardcore game modes.

Objective ones are sometimes better.

Basically stalk around the outside of buildings.

When you see a red blip, line up your shot and start firing.

If you don't immediately get hit markers then start making small sweeps.

If you are playing an objective game then your best bet is to assume they are prone next to the objective.

Some kills through fences will count as BP kills.

I think it depends on whether or not you catch part of the fence (though I could be wrong).

I usually do pretty well racking up BP kills on Scrapyard (there's a good fence in where the B flag is in domination) or Sub Base (in the room with the fenced in generator).

Shooting through fences or glass is nice in that it eliminates some of the guess work.

Fences are nice in that you get to shoot through them more than once (even though it doesn't always work).

Another option is to shoot through the mattresses in Skid Row from either end of the long hallway.

In domination this is where the B flag is.

This is nice as the enemy is in a fairly predictable location on the other side of a pretty thin obstacle.

I've also gotten a fair amount by hiding behind a barricade.

The ideal situation is where you can stand and shoot the enemy directly.

When you see them you just duck behind the barricade and shoot through it.

If you're still having trouble, try using Bling with a heartbeat sensor as well.

That helps a fair amount with the ARs in knowing where to shoot in a lot more cases.

As the others have posted you need to kill someone using FMJ whilst shooting through a wall.

The point I was going to make is that the reward is not Unlimited mags but Extended mags.

Question: What do you have to do to get a bullet penetration kill in MW2?  I've been stuck trying to complete the extended mags challenges because I'm not getting the penetration kills required.

How to get bullet penetration kills in MW2?

Attach FMJ to the weapon or play 3rd person team tactical. It counts when you get a kill by shooting through something, like a glass wall.

It's counted as a bullet penetration kill when you kill someone who's behind something, like a wall or glass, while using the FMJ attachment.  Some kills through fences will count as BP kills.  You need to make sure you have the FMJ attachment active on the weapon you are using, or it won't count as a kill in the challenge. An extremely easy and fast way to get Bullet Penetration kills is to play 3rd person team tactical.

Attach FMJ to the weapon you are trying to complete the challenge with.


There are a lot of good points brought up on EpicAdvice.com - Tools for lowering latency lowerping and smoothping both seem to get decent reviews, as well as a blog on elitistjerks that talks about some registry hacks, addon issues, and many other tips for reducing disconnects (which may also help with pings).

I personally use Leatrix Latency Fix .

It dropped my latency from ~250ms to ~60ms on all European realms I tried (currently on Draenor).

1) Are you on wireless?

If yes, plug it in and get an instant boost.

Do you have other things using your connection?

My wife and I both play (different computers) and we're at 200 ping.

She turns on internet radio, bam we're up to 400 ping.

Run a netstat to check for existing connections.

Well latency is primarly based on your distance to the WoW server and the network connection you have.

Are you in US playing on EU servers or vice-versa?

Is your Internet connection shared?

Are you uploading / downloading or your neighbours sharing your connection while you play?

All this can affect latency.

You can use a SSH tunneling service, such as http://lowerping.com , these can help if you are physically far away from the WoW server.

They have a free trial to see if it helps in your situation.

Addons are unlikely to affect network latency that much.

This thread explains how and why the proxy trick works.

"This is going to get technical in places; skip the bits you don't understand."

It follows that the non-proxy registry trick (see the answer about leatrix) is going to wreak havoc on non-gaming stuff, like downloads filling your upload capacity.

And I certainly concur about not using wireless

- I don't use anything wireless except for my laptops and mobile.

Thus I've never had mouse nor keyboard run out of batteries in the middle of a boss fight.

If you're playing over a wireless connection, make sure you have a strong signal to your wireless access point.

Also make sure your computer and access point are both configured to use the most recent wireless specification available (802.11n is newer than 802.11g is newer than 802.11b).

If you're playing over Ethernet, make sure your network adapter is configured to use full duplex on the highest possible speed (10/100/1000 Mbps).

Close any programs on your computer that might be using a lot of bandwidth.

Common culprits are streaming music and file-sharing (torrents, FTP, etc.).

A change of DNS server is unlikely to make any difference to your latency, all DNS does is tell your computer the address of the WoW servers, it should only need to do this once per server (per session) at login or zone change, so you really won't notice DNS resolution speed differences.

Sometimes it helps to turn error correction of Your internet connection off.

That is, if the high latency is caused by high traffic, rather than long distance to the server.

Look into the settings possibilities of Your router.

However, You don't have the guarantee that the provider is going to respect the router's query to turn error correction off.

Some providers offer the possibility to do this explicitly, either for free or a small fee.

Recently I've went from Brazil to New Zealand and tried playing on same realm...

I was amazed at first, my ping in NZ went up from 200 to 1k, but it was understandable due to distance...

But I was even more stunned when it actually dropped, in less than 1 hour, back to 200.

When I came back to Brazil, the ping took just few minutes to adjust.

Now, that proves to me WoW itself already do a lot of ping optimization.

So, I wouldn't bother trying too much other things as you can most likely disrupt its own system than help your ping.

The best thing to do is definitely tweaking your own machine for optimizations.

Things like what people already suggested here, such as the Leatrix (thought it really didn't work in my case, on wifi) and getting a cable if you are on wifi.

Also give a try to wtfast.com , i personally use it.

With wtfast i get ~100ms while without it i'm over 250ms.

Question: I can often have a latency of over 600ms when raiding and I have heard people in-game say that latency can be reduced by using a custom proxy or DNS server (I don't remember which).  Are there any good strategies to reduce latency in WoW, in addition to loading the minimum of addons?

How can I reduce latency while playing World of Warcraft?

You can use a SSH tunneling service like Leatrix Latency Fix. Make sure you have a strong wireless connection and close any programs that might be using bandwidth.

You can use a SSH tunneling service, such as  http://lowerping.com , whih can help if you are physically far away from the WoW server. You can also use  Leatrix Latency Fix or wtfast.com. If you're playing over a wireless connection, make sure you have a strong signal to your wireless access point as latency is primarly based on your distance to the WoW server and the network connection you have. Check whether your neighbours are sharing your connection while you play. Also make sure your computer and access point are both configured to use the most recent wireless specification available. If you're playing over Ethernet, make sure your network adapter is configured to use full duplex on the highest possible speed and cose any programs on your computer that might be using a lot of bandwidth.

Sometimes it helps to turn error correction of Your internet connection off.


One of the benefits would be that your disc will get less wear and tear.

You still need to put the disc in, but after verifying it, it shouldn't be read again (though that will depend on the game).

This should minimize the danger of scratching it if the console gets knocked.

There should also be less noise as it doesn't need to keep the optical disk spinning.

You might also get faster loading times - but that would depend on the game.

An obvious downside is that you are going to fill your hard drive if you do this for all your games.

In general, you will get faster loading times reading from the hard drive than the disc.

However, this is not always the case, especially with some of the older games.

One example is Halo 3.

Don't install Halo 3 to your hard drive.

It will actually perform worse than if it read off the disc (because the game was already made with caching from disc to hard drive).

The reason for this behavior is because Halo 3 was released before installing games to the hard drive feature existed and therefore they programmed their own caching to the hard drive as a part of the game.

Looks like installing might allow you to play discs that are too damaged to play directly, which is a huge advantage in the right circumstances.

Can I verify an Xbox 360 game isn't damaged by installing it?

Playing on the "con" side of things, remember that while playing from the hard drive will reduce the wear and tear on your Xbox Disk, it will increase the wear and tear on your hard drive .

If you play all your games from the hard drive, this will absolutely reduce the life span of it.

If you have your game saves on your hard drive, then imagine what would happen if your hard drive crashed.

Yea, start over on everything not saved in the cloud by Xbox Live.

A way around this is to keep game saves on a memory card, but that's not a lot of room.

So, not necessarily a deal-breaker, but definitely something to keep in mind.

Your hard drive will likely die long before your optical disk/drive will.

Another benefit that hasn't been mentioned yet is that in some games, you may be able to see/hear more things .

This is because some games only load mandatory/necessary video and audio from disc while loading all available content from a hard drive, as hard drive reading speeds are considerably faster than disc reading speeds.

I'm not quite sure how many games do this.

However, I saw a mention of this recently by Bungie , the awesome company behind the Halo series.

This means that Halo: Reach might employ such a strategy for balancing read/load speeds.

For a good list of load time improvements look at this post on the Cheap Ass Gamer Forums .

The first post, click the "show spoilers" button.

Looking at the post again, it refers to GameInstalls.com where the install size and speed increases are reported by users.

EDIT:

Looks like the Cheap Ass Gamer post has some better data for a few games than the GameInstalls site.

Also installing games to your HDD saves your optical disk drives lifespan for about 3 years!

And the laser won't burn out as fast!

For most games, I find the answer is yes.

Others have already noted the lessened wear and tear on the disc, as well as the slowdown for Halo 3.

I find most games load faster, I don't have to listen to the drive whirring, and level load times are decreased.

For some games it's pretty much critical --

The Last Remnant was one where the load times were unbearable unless you installed it to the hard drive.

Mostly I use it to cut down on optical drive noise.

I say no because I have the 4 GB SSD Xbox 360.

The 4 GB SSD has the fastest read/write speeds: Halo 3 and Halo: Reach used to take 90 minutes, but now it only takes me 30 minutes to finish Halo Reach.

gaming.stackexchange.com/users/11722/james   braselton

Question: Are there any benefits/downsides to installing an Xbox 360 game to my hard drive before playing it?

Should I install Xbox 360 games to my hard drive?

Your disk will get less wear and tear but it will increase it on your hard drive and reduce its life span.

In general, you will get faster loading times reading from the hard drive than the disc.  One of the benefits would be that your disc will get less wear and tear, but it will  increase the wear and tear on your hard drive. An obvious downside is that you are going to fill your hard drive if you do this for all your games. Also you should not install Halo 3 to your hard drive.

Don't install Halo 3 to your hard drive.

Installing games to your HDD saves your optical disk drives lifespan for about 3 years!. I find most games load faster, I don't have to listen to the drive whirring, and level load times are decreased.

installing games to HDD  helps to load the games faster


Trilobyte has re-released the 7th guest for the iPad and the iPhone at the end of 2010.

The second in the series "11th hour" will be released "summer 2011".

In November 2010 Trilobyte was resurrected, so that means they still have the copyright for the games.

In general, if nobody official has said that the game – or any of the materials associated with it – is Public Domain, it is not .

Copyright simply does not work like that; someone will own it as it is an asset of either the developer or the publisher (or, these days, their creditors or people that the creditors sold it on to).

Some quick research learns that since The 7th Guest was published by Virgin Interactive, the rights to the game should still lie with them.

Additionally, Amazon is still selling the game, so it's probably not in PD.

I believe that works owned by a corporation automatically enter public domain 95 years after release or 120 years after creation, whichever is first.

It used to be 28 years with a chance for one time 28 year renewal.

They changed it in the 70s and added 20 years to it in the late 90s.

The only way a game is in the public domain at this point is if the company releases it themselves.

Abandonware, however, is a concept which extends from the lack of enforcement of copyright by game companies which are no longer making money from the software.

Since other answerers have said that it was just re-released, I somehow doubt they'll fail to go after you.

It should be noted that abandonware has no legal standing in the US right now.

It is currently officially illegal to distribute games commonly considered to be abandonware.

A few years ago, the Library of Congress issued an exception for software only on media which is obsolete, but only as far as cracking DRM to archive the software with no allowance for distribution.

This exception was for a period of two years with the chance for renewal, but was

three years ago I believe Note

: I am not a lawyer Source: Wikipedia

Trilobyte Games, and specifically founder Rob Landeros, have scrupulously maintained rights to all Trilobyte properties, with the exception of Clandestiny (the subject of a side agreement with Graeme Devine), over the years.

Before the company was reorganized last year, the newly constituted organization headed by original founder Landeros & new partners

Charlie McHenry & John Fricker retained the intellectual property practice of Northwest legal powerhouse Lane Powell Spears & Lubersky to ensure all intellectual property was properly assigned, ownership was clear, and no obstacles existed to the re-issue of 7th Guest and other properties.

With that due diligence out complete, the titles entered the queue for re-release.

Any inquiries regarding these matters are properly directed to Trilobyte Games, LLC in Medford, Oregon.

The publisher at the time was Virgin Interactive, they probably own the copyright for 7th guest.

Virgin Interactive doesn't do much these days, but they are owned by the Virgin Group

Question: I know that Trilobyte, the creators of  The 7th Guest , went out of business some time ago.  Has their work entered the public domain in some way?  If not, who owns the copyright for their works?

Has The 7th Guest entered the public domain?

Trilobyte re-released the 7th guest for iPad and iPhone. The rights to the game are still with Virgin Interactive. The game would only become public domain if the company released it.

Trilobyte re-released the 7th guest for the iPad and the iPhone at the end of 2010. Usually if nobody official has  said  that the game or any of the materials associated with it are Public Domain, they are not. The 7th Guest was published by Virgin Interactive, the rights to the game should still lie with them. Additionally, Amazon is still selling the game, so it's probably not in PD. Works owned by a corporation automatically enter public domain 95 years after release or 120 years after creation, whichever is first.  The only way a game is in the public domain at this point is if the company releases it themselves.


I really think you shouldn't.

I know that sounds kind of weird

but all of the joy you will every obtain out of that game derives from the fact that its Hard.

That's hard with a capital 'H.' Man hard .

After playing Dwarf Fortress for a year and a half now Hard is a four letter word to me.

Now, as much as I don't think you should change the game to make it easier (and there are sites that will help you hack it).

I will provide you with some resources; an instruction manual, so to speak.

The Utter Newby Tutorial .

Gives you much of the basic controls and layout for your fortress.

Cpt.

Duck's Video Tutorial .

I literally learned DF by watching these videos and copying them perfectly.

It took me close to 10 fortresses to get to the end of his first fortress.

Well worth it.

DF wiki .

Students have textbooks, Priest's have the bible, you have the Dwarf Fortress Wiki.

Commit it to memory.

Perhaps the most important article found here is this one: Fun .

Finally, there is the story of Boatmurdered .

It is what is called a legacy fortress, where a different person played each year.

Its incredibly entertaining, even though parts of it read like a "what not to do."

I found one of the easiest ways to simplify the game without hacking or removing many sources of Fun is to lower the population cap.

I found that once my fortress grew to 100 dwarves or beyond, I couldn't figure out how to manage all of them and keep them working productive jobs.

So instead they all just sat around throwing parties and pestering my productive dwarves.

Until you get enough experience to handle a fortress that size, try lowering the cap to 40 or 50 dwarves.

To do this in v0.31.08, edit data/init/d_init.txt and change the value of this line: [POPULATION_CAP:200]

Note: your actual population may still go above the cap you set

, you just stop getting new immigrant waves after you reach or surpass that cap.

And apparently births don't respect caps.

Also I think (but I haven't tested) that you can change this mid-game if you save and quit first.

You can try editing the game's raw creature sources directly.

Search the game's directory for a file (probably called creature_standard.txt )

that contains the following line:

[CREATURE:

DWARF] Add the following tags after that line: [NOPAIN][EXTRAVISION][NOBREATHE][NOSTUN][NONAUSEA][NOBLEED][NOEXERT][NO_DIZZINESS][NO_FEVERS][NO_DRINK][NO_EAT][NO_SLEEP][NOFEAR][FIREIMMUNE]

This will make your dwarves immune to most status conditions.

Now find these lines: [BODY_SIZE:0:0:3000]

[BODY_SIZE:12:0:60000] Add one or two zeroes to the last numbers of each line.

This will make your dwarves gigantic and unlikely to be killed by anything.

Delete the creature_standard.raw (not .txt ) file, run DF and create a new world.

Have fun!

If building mega structures is your aim, my advice is to start on an Island.

Press tab to check nearby civilizations, and if only dwarves show then embark somewhere around that area.

You won't get any goblin snatchers/ambushes/sieges ever.

I'm at 181 dwarves and

the only thing that ever came was a titan which was easily dispatched by my militia (equipped with training weapons funnily enough).

One thing I like to do, although it at a certain point it may not be "easier" (depending on your play style), is lower the population cap VERY low.

i.e. 10, 15 or 20.

Just make sure you build a trade depot, I think a caravan needs to visit & leave once before migrants stop.

The easiest thing (without even needing to change an ini file) is to get Masterwork Dwarf Fortress and turn invaders off in the settings...

this may be a little too easy, but I think you can re-enable once you have a nice big fortress with lots of fun prepared for your friendly visitors.

Also, Masterwork has a lot of other settings you can use to make things easier or harder.

Necromancy!

(for the sake of the 2018 Dwarf Fortress learner) Use a pack that makes it easier to configure the game.

See http://dwarffortresswiki.org/Utility:Lazy_Newb_Pack

I really like

the PeridexisErrant's Starter Pack Some of the pack features are things like tile sets that make it easier to see what's going on in the game, easily turning on and off game features like auto save, aquifer generation, whether or not invaders will invade, population cap, etc.

It also includes handy 3rd party utilities like Dwarf Therapist (which makes it much easier to see what labors dwarfs have and to change them).

I'm not one who likes playing with exploits or cheats/hacks.

I do like using a few "quality of life" enhancements, and the ability to enable or disable or adjust settings when the guide I'm using encourages it.

Packs are a great way to get those quality of life features and configuration editors into dwarf fortress.

Question: What configuration options can I change to make Dwarf Fortress easier to play?

How can I make Dwarf Fortress easier?

Use the Dwarf Fortress wiki for tips. Try lowering the population cap and start building on an island.

You can use the Dwarf Fortress Wiki.  One of the easiest ways to simplify the game without hacking or removing many sources of Fun is to lower the population cap or you can try editing the game's raw creature sources directly. And if building mega structures is your aim, one piece of advice is to start on an Island.

One of the easiest ways to simplify the game without hacking or removing many sources of Fun is to lower the population cap.

You can try editing the game's raw creature sources directly.

If building mega structures is your aim, one piece of advice is to start on an Island.

You can get Masterwork Dwarf Fortress and turn invaders off in the settings. You can then re-enable once you have a nice big fortress with lots of fun prepared for your friendly visitors.


Turn them into rock blocks (since a lot of blocks will go into a single bin in a storage room and that's much neater).

Clearing every stone takes a long time, but you can clear certain areas using burrows: Designating a burrow over the areayou want to clear. Select a lowly mason who will be your exclusive stone block maker andassign him to the burrow.

Build a mason's workshop inside the burrow.

Use the profiles screen on the workshop to restrict the dwarvesthat can work there to your chosenmason.

(You'll need to have amanager for this.)

Set make rock blocks to repeat!

Your lowly mason will dutifully go about their business selecting only stone from the burrow and will automatically take breaks to sleep and eat, so this is a pretty low-maintenance method.

another method is using the quantum storage trick/bug/cheat first, create a 1x1 refuse zone

( i , move to were you want it, Enter , Enter ) and designate it as g arbage zone.

Now, you can select the area (any size) to dump in that zone ( d , b , d )

All items selected in the area will be hauled into that zone.

now, if you want to reclaim all the items in this zone, you can do it by using d , b , c , Enter , Enter

right on that zone

Yet another option is to just hide the stones via d -> b -> h .

This only doesn't display the stones anymore, but they're still there!

Best used if you want your fortress to look nice quickly, without generating any jobs.

Designate a stone stockpile ( p , s ).

Your dwarves will automatically move any available stone to those.

Usually I use the quantum storage method, with an atom smasher to clean up the mess, but there are some other tricks: To clean out a storage room, build a catapult and have it hurl rocks at the wall.

That way you're also training your siege operator.

They can be a bit silly about where they get the rocks, but usually they'll take the closest one.

Build floors where your rocks are, out of the same kind of rocks.

Unfortunately this needs a little bit of micromanagement, as dwarves will suspend a job as blocked if the spot has a stone on top of it which is earmarked for a different floor square.

But they'll still do most of them, and you can go back and clean up the suspended jobs later.

If you're willing to waste some Z-space, build your rooms or tunnels by channeling, then build floors, The rocks will fall to the level below, and you'll have a nice clean area.

(You've now got a space below with 2 rocks in it, but it's out of the way.)

Remember that if you have stones marked for dumping, they won't be moved by dwarves trying to construct on the site.

Similar to the quantum stock pile, I placed a refuse zone over a pond and it seams the items dumped there fall to the bottom.

Question: How do I collect rocks etc that are laying about in tunnels I've dug in Dwarf Fortress?

How do I collect rocks in Dwarf Fortress?

Turn them into road blocks, build a workshop inside the burrow or designate a stone stockpile. You can also try building your rooms by tunneling.

You can turn them into rock blocks or build a mason's workshop inside the burrow.  Another option is to just hide the stones via  d  ->  b ->  h  or designate a stone  stockpile  ( p , s ).  You can also use the quantum storage trick/bug/cheat with an atom smasher to clean up the mess. There are also some other tricks: To clean out a storage room, build a catapult and have it hurl rocks at the wall.  Similar to the quantum stock pile, you can place a refuse zone over a pond and the items dumped there fall to the bottom.

Build a mason's workshop inside the burrow.


Note that this has been edited to reflect the changes in Cataclysm / The Shattering, so the stat weighing is not final and a proper raid-balance of stats is not concrete.

Int provides you with spellpower and a larger mana pool, so it is naturally a strong stat.

Haste is also important, as it allows you to cast your spells faster, and to an extent, reduces the GCD (which makes a difference for instant cast spells).

You get a good amount of haste passively through talents though (9% through Judgements of the Pure, 3% through Blazing Light, plus flat cast reductions on certain spells).

Crit is always nice to have, and it synnergizes nicely with some talents (Crit Holy Shocks reduce cast time on HL / DL, for example).

Mastery (at 80 and beyond) gives your heals a bonus shield equal to a % of the heal amount on your target.

Shield effects have always been quite effective, and this more or less gives you a permanent Valan'yr effect to work with.

I can see this being a very popular mastery, however we'll have to see how well it scales further on.

Spirit is now the go-to stat for mana regen as of The Shattering, and will continue to be so throughout Cataclysm.

There may be a FEW items / enchants out there that provide MP5, but for the most part you're looking for spirit for your regen needs.

It still remains to be seen just how much spirit is going to be needed to sustain throughout hardmode fights (especially with the ability to Judge Seal of Insight AND Divine Plea as decent mana regen abilities), but regardless, Spirit is the new regen stat.

As for leveling, just worry about Int, Crit, and to a lesser degree, Haste.

Early on and leveling, a lot of healing will be done with Holy Shock and Word of Glory, which are both instant.

Haste wont play a big role until later when you need to utilize your Flash of Light/Holy Light/Divine Light spells a bit more.

Some people have been very busy since 4.0.1 has gone live, and I ran across some information today that I thought was really helpful.

In priority order: Intellect is your all in one stat as it since 4.0.1 gives Spellpower, Spell Critical Hit and Mana.

You will no longer be able to obtain Spellpower in items (with the exception of your main hand), and you will therefore have to get intellect in PvP as well to obtain the needed Spellpower.

Haste is a fantastic stat for holy paladins as it allows you to great increase the speed of your heals.

It will be needed in many encounters where a slow 2,5 second Divine Light can easily result in a dead tank.

Haste is only beneficial to a certain point for holy paladins though, as the latency sets a softcap on the effectiveness of haste.

If you have ~50ms you should be aiming to get around 750 haste.

0ms softcap is at ~1000 haste.

Spirit is the new Mana per 5 second in WoW, and almost all the plate healing gear you will meet will have spirit on it.

It's a very good stat for holy paladins now, since many of the mana regeneration spell we had in the previous patch have been nerfed such as Divine Plea, Seal of Wisdom (Seal of Insight), and Judgement of Wisdom (Judgement).

Crit is the same as always, and is still one of the least sought after stats.

You will get plenty of crit from the items you obtain, which means it isn't a stat you should be going for directly like in the above cases.

This is mostly because your healing spell already are quite powerful and a critical hit will in most cases lead to overhealing.

Mastery is the newly implemented stat which for Holy Paladins creates a shield on the target you're healing for 8 % of the amount healed.

When you obtain mastery the percentage of absorbed damage increases.

This is not yet a good enough stat to overthrow any of the others.

The shield is very weak and it is definantly not a stat you should be aiming for though reforging at the moment.

Yes Intellect is the biggest, then spell power, then crit, then haste.

During hard raids, you want a constant stream of heals going out, so sometimes it's better to have haste than spell power....

Heals per second (HPS) should be around 5k+ at level 80 ICC raids.

MP5 ratings

(Mana per 5 seconds) are going to be superseded soon (if not already).

Healbot is a good addon as it lets you point and click players to heal in a nice little box and shows you who needs heals.

Intellect by far is the best stat.

Haste and Spell Crit are good secondary stats to stack.

I have a Holy Paladin and I am lvl 85.

The best way to stack your stats are as followsINT>SPIRIT>

HASTE>

CRIT>MASTERY Intellect is more that just mana pool now

its a do

it all caster stat so it is number one.

Spirit helps you keep a lot more mana for the tight spots and helps refill faster after one of these, this is your second most important stat overall.

Haste is the third most important stat because it decreases cooldown and increase cast time.

Makes you way better healer if its your #3 stat.

Lastly Crit for procs like holy shock, and mastery.

Gems to use are the 20+INT 20+ Spirit purple gem, 40

+ Int red gem, and 20+INT 20+ Haste orange gem.

This is what most people I play with agree with.

My pally has been healing great since I started stacking the right stats.

I've recently swapped my paladin (lvl 80, 3.7k gs) from ret to holy, and the advice I've been given by guildies is to stack int, and then haste.

I've started gemming and enchanting for int and seen a significant improvement.

Elitist Jerks says Intellect is by far the best stat.

Question: What are the primary stats for a holy paladin in World of Warcraft? Do the stats for leveling differ from those used for end-game?

What are the primary stats for a holy paladin in World of Warcraft?

Intellect is the all in one stat, as well as Haste that lets you cast your spells faster. Crit and Mastery are also good ones to have.

Intellect  is your all in one stat as since 4.0.1 it gives Spellpower, Spell Critical Hit and Mana. Haste is also important, as it allows you to cast your spells faster, and to an extent, reduces the GCD. Haste  is a fantastic stat for holy paladins as it allows you to great increase the speed of your heals. Crit  is the same as always, and is still one of the least sought after stats, but it is always nice to have, and it synergizes nicely with some talents. Mastery (at 80 and beyond) gives your heals a bonus shield equal to a % of the heal amount on your target. When you obtain mastery the percentage of absorbed damage increases. Spirit helps you keep a lot more mana for the tight spots and helps refill faster after one of these, this is your second most important stat overall. You will no longer be able to obtain Spellpower in items and you will therefore have to get intellect in PvP as well to obtain the needed Spellpower.

Int provides you with spellpower and a larger mana pool, so it is naturally a strong stat.   Intellect by far is the best stat.

If you have ~50ms you should be aiming to get around 750 haste. Heals per second (HPS)  should be around 5k+ at level 80 ICC raids.


The term "Cheese" comes from the adjective "Cheesy".

The not-so-subtle innuendo there is that a victory via so-called "cheese" did not come from the players own skill, but was merely because the loser was unprepared for the "cheesy" tactics that lead to their loss.

What qualifies as "cheese" will undoubtedly vary from player to player, but generally the term refers to exploiting system mechanics in a way unanticipated by your opponent, or otherwise not balanced around.

Many people dislike cheese because it is hard to predict and counter if you are not prepared for it.

Several Examples: Thor Rush -- build a factory near your opponent, attack with Thor + repair SCV's around 7 minute mark.

Photon-Cannon Push -- rushing a forge and placing photon cannons around your opponents base.

Banshee / Void Ray rush vs. Zerg -- takes adavantage of the fact that Zerg has little viable anti-air at T1 other than mass queens.

Proxy Rush --

Building a unit production facility much closer to your opponents base than your own so that you can reinforce your troops faster.

Worker Rush -- in 2v2 (or more), making no units, and instead attacking another player with your workers alone.

I would have to strongly argue against those who say that "cheese" is an exploit in the game.

A cheese strategy is usually an all-in strategy.

Reaper rushes, zergling rushes, roach spam, proxy gate rushes are something lots of people consider cheese strategies.

If a cheese strategy is countered, then the game is usually easily won.

Cheese builds in SC2 have very distinct openings and you should learn to scout them and be prepared.

In short, cheese does not work against competent opponents.

The only reason they work is because the opponent was not expecting it.

However, being a competent SC2 player means that you should always know what your opponent is doing.

It's more about taking advantage of a flaw in the system to get a cheap win.

Kicking someone's butt with a reaper-rush, which takes advantage of the fact that the defensive buildings are weak, is cheap.

You're not showing skill, you're just exploiting a weakness in the game.

Edit: Reaper rushing is a dated example now, since they've done a good job of making that unit balanced.

While the first answer has some good points, most cheesy tactics are not "exploiting system mechanics.

" To call it that would imply it needs to be fixed.

The simplest definition of cheese is any tactic that is considered to require more luck than skill.

The example of early proxy rush is a good one.

The reason is, you can do proper scouting of the enemy base and the area around your base, but if the enemy got lucky and you just happen to miss his proxy either because your search path just missed his building, or missed him timing-wise (you search a place just moments before his worker gets there).

Same goes for something like Void Ray rush.

It's very early in the game and the player will try to build it off in a place where they don't expect you to scout.

If you don't see that starport early enough, that first void ray may be enough to end the game for you.

Cheese involves an attacker employing high-risk, high-reward tactics in order to win.

Such tactics are typically difficult to detect by the victim and often leave the attacker extremely vulnerable.

Thus, if the victim is able to preemptively detect that their opponent will be using cheese, the victim is typically able to formulate a strong counterattack.

Cheese receives its negative connotation from those who believe that the cost of preemptively detecting cheese is too high.

However, in the case of Starcraft 2, this cost is typically very minimal, usually requiring the use of 1-2 workers and chaining scouting commands.

My feeling about Cheese is that is just as legitimate as camping in other types of games, and irritates other players for much of the same reason.

I like Daryl's explanation that it incorporates luck more strongly than the more stable builds many players prefer, but I'd like to extend that it works principally by exploiting to maximum advantage the asymmetries between the opposing forces.

A particular feature of cheese is that it works well before the opponent is able to get a reasonable sized, balanced and stable army, because it exploits the compromises players have to make in the early part of their builds.

By mid-game, those weaknesses will be covered by the composition of the opponents army.

For this reason, you see cheese play mostly in non mirror matchups.

There are more chances for asymmetric advantages in a TvP, PvZ or ZvT matchup than in TvT, PvP, and ZvZ.

That said, there are still some interesting things that can happen in mirror matchups that would typically count as cheese.

As a particular example, I'll compare TvT where the defending player is using a 1/1/1 build.

A cheesy terran player might bank on the opponent making marines out of their barracks until the factory is up in order to defend against early aggression.

Unfortunately for the defender, marines aren't very good against reapers.

If the cheesing player arranges for a handful of reapers to arrive before any addons are down on a factory or barracks, it will be very hard for the defending player to hold it off.

On the other hand, the cheesing player could be very unlucky and the defending player got a tech lab on his barracks immediately.

A very small number of marauders can hold off many reapers because reapers do so little damage to armored units.

How about this: A simplistic tactic designed to get an quick win that unreasonably demands the opponent to adopt very specific and unbalanced countermeasures to survive.

Consequently, it is not usually very fun to play against (unless one is expecting it, perhaps)

A little bit of trivia: The Korean term for a cheesy strategy is 'strategic play' (as versus standard play).

I would say cheese would be proxy anything, or cannon rush.

2 gate proxy in their base, 2 rax proxy, cannon rush, etc.

These are all strats that dont take much micro nor macro, and are hard to defend against early game and don't really get scouted either.

Question: I seem to see commentators mention "cheese" with regards to Starcraft 2, but I'm not quite sure what they mean.  If a particular build/tactic is called a "cheese", does that mean it is a considered to be uncounterable?   Or does it just mean that it is considered to be a tactic that is "too easy" with regard to its effectiveness?   Or is there some other more subtle meaning that I am missing?

What exactly is a "cheese" in Starcraft 2?

Generally the term refers to exploiting system mechanics. It is a simplistic tactic to get a quick win. It involves an attacker using a high-risk, high-reward tactic.

While the community is split regarding this issue, it seems that there are two schools of thought here. First that this is an exploitation of of the game's inherent flaws or balance problems or second that this is more or less a legitimate strategy that however requires more luck than skill to carry out and is therefore looked down on.

A play-style that focuses on exploiting inherent balance issues with the game.

A tactic that uses high risk and high reward strategies that requires more luck than skill in order to work.


You should be willing to transfer but I don't think it's good to blindly transfer.

There are many ways to look for a guild and your process has to change based on what you want out of a guild.

Here are some methods from least involved to most involved.

1) trade chat: lots of guild advertise there.

Pick one and try it.. if you don't like them try another.

2) PUG:

Jump in random groups.

If you like some one ask them about their guild.

You can learn about tons of guilds that way.

3) apply: Lots of the top raiding guilds have an application process.

These guilds are more serious about the content they play and PUG random people less so you might not meet them while trying to find random groups.

Important things to consider when looking for a guild are times of the day you are free and if that is when your new guild plans on runing guild events like raids and pvp.

Some guilds focus more on results and less on the social side of the game.

Knowing what you want out of a guild can go a long way to finding a good guild.

It depends on the guild you want to find.

If you're looking for a serious raider guild, there's pugs, trade chat, recruitment ads on popular forums, etc.

However, if you value intelligent chat over we kild LK lol , look for people who write complete and grammatically correct sentences, wherever you may find them.

Also, girls: a guild with lots of girls has a much better probability of sane chat and members, simply because they'd leave if they were harassed by their own guildies.

I think the best way is to join a lot of groups and find people that you like playing with, then ask them for an invite to their guild.

If you enjoy playing with someone and they take you under their wing for a guild invite you'll already have a leg up by knowing someone.

There's a very good tool on WoW Progress : Go to Recruitment tab and just fill everything to fit your needs.

I found a suitable guild literally in an hour or something.

Only downside with this tool is that not every guild keep their info up to date all the time.

The easiest way to find a good guild is to get to know people in real life who play WoW and find out what guilds they are in.

I found my favorite guild since release through people at work.

As far as server transfers, I would only do so if you knew people beforehand who can vouch for the quality of the guild.

Preferably people outside the game.

Transfers are just too expensive to waste on a guild that might be a poor fit.

Mainly however, you have to decide what you really want out of a guild.

If you are just looking for people to chat with while leveling, then your best bet might just be to join random guilds until you find a good fit, or run dungeons with random people and find some that you enjoy playing with.

If you are finding yourself more concerned with things like raiding it gets a little trickier.

You will want to find a fairly organized guild, which pretty much rules out just about every guild that doesn't have some form of application process.

If they advertise in trade and accept you on the spot, don't expect to be running many successful 25-mans in the near future.

One easy first place to check is the server forums for whichever server you are focusing on.

Find posts from guilds looking for members that have a solid guild site for you to peruse.

Check out the application process for any red flags such as incapable or unreasonable raiding schedules.

In the end, a lot of it is just choosing one and seeing how things go.

My best piece of advice after joining a guild is keep an eye on the leadership.

While the non-officers of the guild will have a big impact on your experience of the guild, the officers will signal the overall direction the guild is heading.

WoWProgress has always been my first stop for groups, guilds, etc.

The recruitment tab is probably the best place to begin, but there are lots of places to poke around within WoWProgress.

This article digs into some of the things you can do there: https://www.whatswithtech.com/wowprogress-best-wow-rankings-powerhouse/

Question: What strategies do you use to find the right guild for you in World of Warcraft? Forums? Trade chat? Should I be willing to realm transfer?

How should I go about finding a guild in WoW?

Try joining random guilds until you find the right fit. Don't transfer unless you know people beforehand and can vouch for the quality of the group. Check the server forums and find posts from guilds looking for members with a solid guild site for you to peruse.

A vairety of suggestions have been put forward for finding a guild, among them are joining random groups, joining already known groups or friends' groups, looking on forums and websites, using WoWProgress and using the trade chat. As for switching servers, it should not be done blindly before getting to know the guild you are doing it for.

Users give information on server transfers.

Users suggest joining already known groups or groups of friends.

Users suggest looking on forums and websites


In the Store page of every Steam Game you can check if one of these symbols is available. or Usually in all recent games (2-3 years), if a controller is enabled, there are high possibility that Microsoft Xbox 360 works and is well supported.

But to be sure I always suggest to take a look to that game specific forum.

Most of times there are users that already asked for Xbox 360 compatibility.

An xbox controller can be used on a PC, but it really depends on the game whether it's supported or not.

Unfortunally, Bioshock 2 does not support it.

See here :

I talked to the dev team about controller support for BioShock 2, and I want to let you know that we won’t be adding this into the game in a patch.

The decision not to support the controller was not made lightly, and to add it now

would take a complete re-envisioning of the UI that the team worked so hard to create.

I’m sorry for those of you who are disappointed, and I want you to know that your comments and concerns have been heard and will be taken in to account when we are planning in the future.

You can use ANY controller that works on a PC to play ANY game you want.

Just get yourself a key mapping program.

Xbox 360 controller, PS3 dualshock, any 3rd party gamepad, etc.

If your computer recognizes input from it, you can use it in games.

I do it all the time

bc

I'm disabled and not physically able to use a mouse and keyboard at the same time.

There are a couple of decent keymappers out there, but imo the best by FAR is Xpadder:

http://xpadder.com/ which uses an intuitive GUI to walk you through setting up the controller to mimic any combination of keys

\ mouse that you like.

It's a shareware prog that costs $10, but it's worth every penny.

It'll let you create complicated macros that include mouse movements, clicks, wait periods, key presses, holding down keys, etc.

-- and then assign that macro to a single button on the controller.

You can even assign different macros depending on how far you tilt the stick on your controller.

For example, you can set it up so that tilting the controller's left stick to less than 50% of its total range will mimic "move the mouse forwards while holding down Shift and then press the R key," but tilting the same stick to more than 50% of its range will be the same as "click the left mouse button, wait two seconds, then quickly press the Y key three times in a row".

In short, you can make the controller do anything that can BE done with a mouse and keyboard, and it includes support for "rumble" and for multiple controllers at the same time (for multiplayer games).

You can even have it so that a single button or stick on the controller will mimic up to 10 different key\mouse actions, so that you're not limited by the number of buttons on the controller, because it's possible to set a button to shift the whole controller over to config #2 where config #2 is an entirely different set of key\mouse combos for each button.

And no, I'm not affiliated with Xpadder in any way...

just a gamer who is incredibly thankful this program exists so that I'm able to enjoy PC games that would otherwise be off limits for someone with my limitations.

There is no correlation between Steam and the ability to play with an Xbox 360 controller.

This is depending on the game you want to play only.

Usually, if a game is available for both PC and XBox 360, it will accept the controller.

But again, no guarantee.

Some games are listed on their product page as supporting controllers.

For most modern games, this includes the Xbox 360 controller.

For games that don't, you can use controller mapping software to translate your controller to keyboard/mouse commands.

For example: http://pinnaclegameprofiler.com/

On the Steam store it will actually tell you whether or not the game will be compatible

For games that support the Xbox 360 controller (which is certainly not all of them -- and Bioshock 2

I believe does not), you can simply plug a wired Xbox 360 controller in via a USB port.

Depends on the game.

For example, I have set up Borderlands, Defense Grid and Half-Life 2 (and TF2/L4D) to work with my 360 controller.

It depends on the game and its support for gamepads.

I used a Wired XBOX 360 Controller and it wouldnt work, but yes some games do support it

but Bioshock is not one of them

Question: I bought  BioShock 2  on Steam in the sale a couple of weeks ago, but I'm better at playing FPSs with an Xbox 360 controller than with mouse and keyboard.  Is there any way for me to use an Xbox 360 controller to play Steam games?

How can I use an Xbox 360 controller to play Steam games?

On the Steam store it will tell you if the game is compatible. An xbox controller can be used on a PC, but it depends on the game. You'll need to get yourself a key mapping program.

It seems to depend on the game, checking the game forums may help, and that particular game may not support it. Other alternatives are key mapping programs.

Negative reply to say that that particular game does not support it.

Running a key mapping program is suggested.

A user suggest looking at the game forums.


Have you taken a look at Steam ?

There are quite a few games for OS X and they seem to be adding more and more.

They have a nice community forum.

Steam has started supporting and distributing Mac games a couple of months ago.

You can use the Advanced Search to filter by OS.

At the time I am writing there a 138 games and 18 DLC for Mac listed there.

On 19 June 2010, Appstorm.net wrote an article about 50 Games for Mac .

Wikipedia has a long list as well.

Pay attention that not all games run on all Mac models.

Check the requirements before buying them.

GiantBomb's games list, filtered for the Mac platform might be a good place to start.

Since it's a wiki, everything stays pretty nicely updated even if it's an old game that's been ported through Steam or some other intermediate platform.

This question was quite a while back

but there's also the Mac App Store now, which has a game category of it's own.

To be fair, there are lots more mini-games (think iPhone game turned desktop) than full-size games, but a couple high-profile games like Call of Duty 4 made it in for the launch and surely there will be more soon.

I'm not sure if there is one "end all" site for all known OS X games, but an additional source to consider is Steam Mac section .

There isn't a huge selection yet, and it's mostly Valve's own games, but the list is growing each week.

One nice thing about Steam is that if you buy a game, you can play it on all supported platforms without buying an additional copy.

If you are looking for a place to buy older PC games that may or may not run on the Mac I would checkout gog.com .

They seem to some how get publishers to port most of their games to OSX Reasons why I love gog.com: You buy it.

You own it.

100% DRM-free.

You get awesome content (soundtracks, wallpapers, manuals, videos, etc)

Extra compatibility (Window XP or later, Max OSX 10.6.8 or later)

Now if they could get ATARI to port Roller Coaster tycoon already.

Question: I'm looking for something like  http://gamerankings.com/  where I can find comprehensive information about current (and past) games, but for Mac OS X. Not necessarily just a site linking to other reviews, but it shouldn't be a time sink like normal gaming sites, either.  http://apple.com/games/  and  http://insidemacgames.com/reviews/  come to mind, but the former seems to be either incomplete or outdated, the latter very puzzle- and casual-heavy.

How can I find out about current Mac OS X games?

You can try Steam, wikipedia and the Mac App store.

Steam now supports Mac games, and there is of course the Mac App Store too. However there are some lists out there too, one on Wikipedia and one on GiantBomb's games list.

There are a variety of ways with which to find games on Mac.