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Brandon A.

Brandon A.

Joined on 12/29/06

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Product Reviews
product reviews
  • 14
Most Favorable Review

Fight beyond your last breath.

Dark Souls PlayStation 3
Dark Souls PlayStation 3

Pros: Gameplay: This is where the game really shines. Fairly deep RPG mechanics course through what is otherwise a tight and refined Action-Adventure experience. Combat is responsive and always tense, with every parry, block, dodge, and attack weighing heavily. Different character builds truly feel and handle combat differently. Also, the sheer uncompromising, yet fair, challenge this game offers must be noted. Visuals: Extremely well done, very rich in detail. The designs of the creatures and environments all work very well together. Audio: Equally pleasing, the sounds are all convincing and clear, lending a great sense of immersion. The often quiet music lends itself well to the game's theme of loneliness, despair, and hope.

Cons: Visuals: There are occasional dips in framerate. Never to unplayable levels, and rarely for longer than a few moments, generally few and far between.

Overall Review: Please do keep in mind, this game is VERY difficult. In fact, it will be exactly as difficult as you make it. I've seen others comment on the "lack of story". There isn't a lack of story if you properly explore, and pay heed to what is around you. The game very clearly sets itself up as YOUR story. You will get as much or as little out of it as you put in.

10/15/2011
Most Critical Review

2nd defective unit

ASUS Laptop G74 Series Intel Core i7-2630QM 12GB Memory 500GB HDD NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560M 17.3" Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit G74SX-XN1
ASUS Laptop G74 Series Intel Core i7-2630QM 12GB Memory 500GB HDD NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560M 17.3" Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit G74SX-XN1

Pros: +First RMA went very well. Quick and easy. Thank you very much Newegg. +Great gaming performance. +Very good display. (Excluding the faulty backlight. More on that in Cons). +Nice overall design and feel. +Reasonable price.

Cons: -Awful trackpad, like quite a few others have noted. -SECOND unit with a faulty backlight. Causes an infuriatingly noticeable flicker/shimmer across the screen. When viewed with peripheral vision, it simply seems to shimmer, when viewed directly, it appears as rapidly scrolling alternating horizontal bars moving upward across the screen, highly visible in dark scenes while playing games or watching movies, and VERY visible on static dark images.

Overall Review: I have narrowed it down to a screen/backlight issue for sure. Not able to reproduce the issue on an external, and drivers/factory reset haven't corrected the issue. This is the second new unit with the defect. There are a large number of users on the Asus forums that have noticed the defect with their own units, and several professional reviewers have also commented on the issue. I am currently awaiting a response from Newegg as to what can be done. Very frustrating to have such a large investment cause so many issues so early, and possibly be without a computer for at least another week if I am to receive a replacement, much less 4-6 weeks if forced to use Asus' repair service, though I am confident that Newegg can assist me instead. ~Asus email support was decent. Not great, but not bad, either. Their first response was very canned, and completely useless, but the communication got better from there.

11/19/2011

Pleasantly surprised.

Razer Naga MMO Gaming Mouse
Razer Naga MMO Gaming Mouse

Pros: +Superb tracking +Very distinct, tactile feel to thumb button grid +Rather comfortable +Attractive design +Very easy yet complex customization options (macros etc) +Thumb buttons do not interfere with lift-off* +Build feels quite solid *They require enough force to actuate that it is very difficult to accidently press them even when lifting the mouse by just a pinky and thumb on the grid.

Cons: -Thumb grid is distracting sometimes

Overall Review: I stayed away from the previous Naga due to hearing of squishy, iffy thumb grid buttons, and its shape. When I decided to get a new mouse, I tested out quite a few (G600, Ouroboros, G700, Taipan). In the end I settled on the Naga due to its highly tactile thumb grid buttons, well rounded grip characteristics, and great tracking.

Six years old and still kicking!

Antec Nine Hundred Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case with Upgraded USB 3.0
Antec Nine Hundred Black Steel ATX Mid Tower Computer Case with Upgraded USB 3.0

Pros: +Massive airflow +Good HDD and DVD drive bays +Excellent build quality +Attractive

Cons: -Cable management can get out of hand -Longer graphics cards can reach into the HDD bays, requiring careful management of component placement

Overall Review: I have had this case for six years now, and have never regretted it. It's still rock solid, with excellent airflow, and overall an intelligent design. My only real gripe is the difficulty with cable management. *I own the original USB 2.0 Antec Nine Hundred.

Works great almost a year later.

OCZ Vertex 3 2.5" 90GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) VTX3-25SAT3-90G
OCZ Vertex 3 2.5" 90GB SATA III MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD) VTX3-25SAT3-90G

Pros: Still a lightning quick performer. Every time I've bothered to test it (once every few months) I've seen the advertised speeds, give or take less than 10Mbps (so ~550Mbps write and ~500Mbps read). While it appears some others are having issues, I have not experienced any problems since day one. I have it installed as my boot drive in my Asus G74, and it has worked great straight out of the box and into my ninth month of ownership.

Cons: I haven't encountered any problems.

Overall Review: I had a fresh install of Windows 7 running on it very shortly after popping it out of the box. I was pleasantly surprised by how smooth everything went after reading about how common problems were with SSD's at the time.

5 Years Later

Logitech G15 2-Tone 104 Normal Keys 34 Function Keys USB Wired Standard Keyboard
Logitech G15 2-Tone 104 Normal Keys 34 Function Keys USB Wired Standard Keyboard

Pros: After five years of VERY heavy use, this keyboard still works flawlessly. Very responsive, comfortable, and reliable.

Cons: Paint has chipped some, I guess. That's about all the "cons" I can muster have half a decade.

Overall Review: I have since given it to my younger brother to use since he tended to tear through other keyboards in a matter of months. He's had it for about a year out of the five, and it is still intact.