Project Lore

It's Possible, But Not Fun In mid-May I finally broke down.  With E3 approaching, BlizzCon tickets in hand and PAX just two weeks after that, I realized that I couldn't delay a new laptop any longer.  After scrutinizing numerous netbook or netbook-style PCs I went with my gut and purchased the Asus EEE PC 1000HE. From a basic user's standpoint, the machine is a glorious meld of metal, wiring and plastic.   Sure, the thing attracts smudges like stink on a monkey, but the battery lasts an eternity.   I was able to fly from Philadelphia, land in Denver for a layover, and then continue on to Los Angeles without being tethered to the archaic power grid.  The 1000he's impressive wireless capabilities comes from Intel's Atom architecture, Asus' Super Hybrid Engine that allows throttling of the processor, and a low power profile in Windows XP.  Of course, there's power, and then there is power. My bit of QQ over Netbooks revolved around their lack of GPU power.  Just because my hand was forced into the purchase of a lackluster model, for me, doesn't mean that I wouldn't try to push it.  After spending a few hours downloading WoW, TBC, WotLK and patches (there's no CD/DVD-ROM drive) to the slow harddrive, I fired up the MMORPG and waited.  To my surprise, the game got to load screen in a fashionable time.  Of course that's just the load screen, not a big accomplishment. An excruciatingly long wait later (Tommy Tallarico suggested I upgrade the machine with a solid state drive.  A good suggestion, but that would make the machine seep an extra 50% from my moth-ridden pockets.), and I am loaded into Icecrown.  With everything at the bare minimum (shadows, textures, color depth, no add-ons) the game is playable in only the loosest sense of the term.  With framerates that fail to count with toes I won't be making a habit of entering Azeroth from Asus's slim gateway, but it is suitable for housekeeping activities and certain daily quests. The little machine is impressive visually and technologically, but it falls flat when it comes to pushing polygons.  All things considered the purchase was a good one.  That doesn't mean I won't be watching for the second generation of Netbooks to make non- raiding and PvPing a possibility.  Come on ION. In E3 news, The Grinder (shown behind closed doors) looks and plays as described, Left 4 Dead on the Wii.  Batman Arkham Asylum is the dark Batman I have been looking for, but I can see the seemingly awesome combat system becoming repetitive.  The scale of Just Cause 2's (closed doors again, aren't I special!) open world and the amount of ways to dispatch enemies are a pair of features to get excited about.

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