think-free ~ Need for Games

Screenshots of Games in Windows 7

2010-01-26T02:37:00.000-08:00

It has been quite a while since last post. I upgraded to Windows 7, even since beta, and henceforth I couldn't capture any screenshots from DirectX games via the Prt Scr (Print Screen) button. All I used to get was a screenshot of the desktop instead. Tried quite a bunch of DirectX screen capture tools as well, but in vain.

Recently, I had to tweak program settings to get the latest 'Need for Speed - Shift' working on Windows 7 (upgraded to Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit finally). One of the changes I had to do was to change the program settings to "Disable desktop composition" and "Disable display scaling on high DPI settings". I got my NFS working fine and now I can take game screenshots using my print screen button too... voila!!! I found that if you select/mark the "Disable desktop composition" option in the settings of the exe (game launcher) you can take screenshots while the gaming is running. Take print screen, ALT + TAB to come to desktop and paste the clipboard content into some image editor (for eg: IrfanView/Paint).

All the best, hope it helps you as well!

Need for Speed Undercover Uncovered

2008-12-07T01:58:00.000-08:00

Need for Speed: Undercover is the 12th installment of the popular racing video game series Need for Speed, developed by EA Black Box and published by Electronic Arts. It was released on PlayStation 2, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, Nintendo DS, Wii, Microsoft Windows, PlayStation Portable, iPod Touch, iPhone, N-Gage 2.0 and mobile phone in November 2008.

Undercover features a new "open-world" map consisting of 80 miles of road and a large highway system making it the largest Need for Speed "open-world" environment EA has ever created. The city is called Tri-City, and consists of four boroughs called Palm Harbor, Port Crescent, Gold Coast Mountains, and Sunset Hills. There is also a return of the Speedbreaker, rechargeable nitrous, Pursuit Breakers, and heat levels. The police are much tougher this time around, they will now perform PIT maneuvers.

The game's story mode sets the player in the story as a police officer going undercover into the criminal underground of Tri-City, a fictional city where the game is set. Players take on dangerous 'jobs' and compete in races in order to infiltrate and take down a ruthless international crime smuggling syndicate of street racers and car thieves. The player's only contacts to the police are federal handler Chase Linh, played by Maggie Q, and later Lt. Jack M. Keller played by Paul Pape.

Even though the game didn't get much appreciation from critics (~70/100), I felt the game is different and interesting. Graphics has improved but is less realistic. System requirements seems to be same or lower. I am running the game at 1440x900, that too on my custom made Dell laptop which is around an year old (Inspiron 1520, Core2 Duo T7500@2.2 Ghz, 2GB RAM, GeForce 8600M GT (256MB dedicated + 256MB shared)) and it runs smoothly even at the highest resolution. I would suggest to get your hands on it at the earliest, seems to be worth the time. But again I just installed today and hope it won't disappoint me later, so far so good. I started playing NFS from version 2, back in late 90s, and has completed every release of NFS since then.

New Features:
Style points (burnout, close call, near miss, drift, paint trade, in air, 180, 360, 720 etc)
Get $ out of bounty, get out there and destroy everything ;)
Around 11 Game modes (Circuit, Sprint, Highway Battle, Cost to State, Escape, Checkpoint, Jobs, Cops 'n' Robbers, The Heist, Criminal Scramble and Chasedown)
Sweet and sexy Maggie Q (what more inspiration you need to win the races)

See some screen shots below:

For more info, see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Need_for_Speed_Undercover
http://undercover.needforspeed.com

Need for Speed Carbon

2006-11-14T06:30:00.000-08:00

It has been a while since I blogged here. And now I am back, back with a bang! Ya, it is NFS season again, this time the new nfs carbon! I am yet to get my hands all over it, it just got released in Nov 06. Now it is available in the stores (and you know where else too!). Even though I am a bit busy these days, I might go any extend to just pump up the gas... lol. So till I start and come with more game updates, why don't you enjoy these preview screen shots ...

Wish you all a safe n happy driving!

For more info see: NFS Carbon Home, NFS Carbon Wiki, IGN, NFSCars, NFS Unlimited

Attention units: Razor down!!!

2006-02-19T06:12:00.000-08:00

Ya babe... you heard it rite... Finally I am on top... and Razor had to gimme back my gal and my ride. Even though Mia turned out to be a cop, she lemme escape! Well how could she resist the charm of the best driver... lol

But Cross was really mad to know that I escaped (even though he arrested the whole Razor's team). He sent all the available units in the city. I had to keep them busy for whole 5 minutes.. phew! Finally Mia baby came to the help of her hero.. she told me about a broken bridge, over which only my muscle car can jump thru. I trusted her.. and wow... I reached safe on the other end.. but all the police dived in for fishing... lol

Find me?

2006-02-08T06:23:00.000-08:00

What occurs...

twice in a lifetime,
once in every year,
twice in a week,
but never in a day?

NFS MW - Razor, watch your step!

2006-02-04T03:46:00.000-08:00

I am there, jus getting ready to beat up this guy... I mean beat this guy ;) You heard me right, I am gonna be challenging 'the Razor' now. Wish me best, pray for me... I might need it...

See Razor's profile. Also I present you Merc McLaren, which belonged to blacklist #2. But unfortunately I didn't get his pink slip...

But Mr. Razor, be ready gimme back my gal and my ride... woohooooo....

NFS MW - Who is on blacklist #2

2006-02-02T14:20:00.000-08:00

So getting closer to the end... working on blacklist #2. Next is Razor, the sweet villain who took my gal and car. See the blacklist #2 rival and the car I got from blacklist #3. I love this car; it is a pretty good one. By the way, I must tell you, try tuning your car and it will make big differences, especially in handling. This car was tough to drive first, but now it corners like it is on rails ;)

NFS MW - Where am I

2006-01-31T11:33:00.000-08:00

Wondering where I reached in NFS Most Wanted? Well, of-late been a little busy. But managed to play once in a while. And here are the results, all set to challenge Blacklist #3 and managed to get a pink slip for Blacklist #4. So how is his Dodge Viper? Pretty impressive, ain't it?!

Puzzle: Who Am I?

2006-01-24T02:17:00.000-08:00

I am a word of 5 letters, people eat me.
If you remove one letter, I will be a form of energy.
If you remove two letters, I will be needed for living.
If you remove three letters, I will be near you.
If you remove four letters, I will be a drink for you.

Who am I?

Want more puzzles?!!

2006-01-20T10:26:00.000-08:00

You think that was too easy? Then try this... this is supposed to be "The hardest riddle available on the internet". It has 138 levels and only 0.0011% of all who attempted could solve it. Wanna give a try? Best wishes...

http://deathball.net/notpron/notpron.htm

Be puzzled!

2006-01-20T01:15:00.000-08:00

Came across another interesting series of puzzles. Had cracked head on another one found from orkut (google community, http://orkut.com/) some time back. That was a pretty tough one.. phew! So here goes another one... on same lines -

http://www.iimi-iris.com/iris/irising/klueLESS.

It was created by a couple of guys from IIM Indore, India. Make your brains sweat... best wishes. I think the first 10 are kinda easy. It seems there are 30 ones in this. A clue, don’t crack your head on first ones... just click!

For more clues, drop a note...

Note: Some can be clicked, but for some you have to change the url(link) with the answer. And don’t forget to see the source of the page, it has lotsa hints!

NFS MW - Status update

2006-01-16T10:57:00.000-08:00

Everyone is asking where I have reached in NFS MW. So here comes the current status. I just finished the blacklist #6 Ming and now on the way to bust the #5 Webster. By the by, I got a pink slip to Ming's Lamborghini Gallardo. Man... whatta car!!

Railroad Tycoon 3 - Demo

2006-01-12T11:10:00.000-08:00

I have always been a Tycoon fan, especially the Railroad Tycoon. I played the Railroad Tycoon 2 at least 3 times fully, with varying difficulty levels. Just as the version 3 was released, I downloaded the Demo and finished it. See the screenshots from the Demo version... and don’t forget to start soon! It is an amazing game, great strategy and awesome graphics. The Demo version has two scenarios. Go... go for Gold!

Note: Just got the full version, have to finish NFS MW and start it soon ;-)

http://www.railroadtycoon3.com/

http://www.railroadtycoon3.com/rt3/us/main.htm

Installing NFS Most Wanted

2006-01-08T12:47:00.000-08:00

NFS Most Wanted was released in Nov 16, 2005. It was a hit within a few weeks, becoming the #1 game of winter 05. Installing NFS MW is a little tricky, unless you bought a legitimate one (highly advised!). But me being a pauper, finally had to settle with a pirated copy. Due to requests from many friends, I am sharing my little installation secret ;-)

The installation comes in 4 CDs. Don't know why, the installer process asks for 3 CDs only. I think the 4th CD is mainly the hacked launcher etc. But for me, it didn’t work, even though I put the first CD and tried to run through the cracked launcher. Finally after an intensive research in net, I managed to make things work (hope you have already seen the screenshots in previous posts).

The games works only by using a virtual disk. For this, I had to download the image of CD1 (I used BitComet and a torrent site). Most of the images in net are of 'Alcohol' format (a CD burner and imaging software). I downloaded a free tool called 'DAEMON' Tools to load the image and to create the virtual drive. This alone won’t work as the game will complain you to put the valid NFS disk in the drive. To skip this original disc validation, you have to use a tool called 'SafeDisc Hider'. Install SafeDisc hider, load the image in Daemon Tools, run SafeDisc hider and click 'Hide' and just double click the desktop shortcut to have hours of non-stop, exhilarating game play.

Need help? Leave a comment.

http://www.ea.com/official/nfs/mostwanted/us/home.jsp

NFSMW - Challenging Earl #9

2006-01-06T14:37:00.000-08:00

Guess who drives Earl's car now?!

Many friends of mine told me that they are stuck with Earl (blacklist #9). Earl seems to be giving them a tough time in the sprint. I didn’t believe them; I thought I would be too good for him. But, honestly… he did sweat me a little. The speedtrap was a piece of cake, but the sprint I had to try with all my cars... and finally my first and the best Volkswagen Golf GTI (modified) did the trick. It was a marginal win… a pretty tough one, I admit! Best Wishes!

Some tips to kick the shit out of Earl:

Try to be in the front always (or at least close by)
Be careful at the turns, especially during end
Save some NOS for the end
Try to slow him down; whenever, wherever n however possible

Tips for getting blacklisted - NFSMW

2006-01-02T21:02:00.000-08:00

You need to perfect three things: driving, timing and tuning. With these three, most of the races are a piece of cake. Try to get as much cash as possible on the way to top of blacklist. Even if you need to win only say 5/8 races, try completing all 8. Being rich always pays off. Use the extra cash you have to buy performance upgrades. Don't bother much about visual appeal in this NFS. When you beat an opponent (blacklist member) you get to choose two markers. I would highly recommend choosing one performance upgrade and a random marker. Thus you get latest performance upgrades and if lucky, pink slip to your opponent's car too. Visit the parts shop once a while, and don’t forget the backroom to use up your performance markers.

NFS - Most Wanted

2005-12-23T06:02:00.000-08:00

These are some screenshots from NFS MW, the latest version released in Nov 18th, 05. The game is a little big (4 CDs/1 DVD) and takes almost 3 GB disk space on installation. To play the game smoothly you need a 1.5 GHz processor, 1 GB RAM and a 128 MB 3D card. It is simply awesome, and has got stunning graphics, with cool videos and great songs. So... what are you waiting for?!!

The Games Arena

2005-12-23T00:23:00.000-08:00

I love games. They help me relax, think and enjoy! My friends even say I perfected driving by playing games. I am looking forward to have this as a place to share info on games I have played and playing. I mostly like racing and strategy games. My favorite racing game is NFS (Need For Speed) and my favorite strategy games are Commandoes, Railroad Tycoon, Caesar etc..

So... letz start!