My iBuyPower Gaming Rig Experience - Part 2

In my last post, I was wondering when iBuyPower was planning on at least starting to collect the materials for my custom-built computer system. Less than 24 hours after I posted that entry, I received an email from iBP. It reads:

Parts Gathering (Beginning)

Your order is now with our inventory department and they have begun gathering the parts needed for your build. Please note that those orders with a rush option selected will receive expedited processing, but it is not uncommon for regular orders to take some days before this parts gathering process is completed. Your status will be updated online and you will receive an email update when the parts process is completed.

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The Next Step: Parts Gathering Completion.
The next email you will receive will be notification that we've gathered your system parts. 

Just to be thorough (and to include it on this blog), I went to their website to check if they had updated their order status there.

Status Date	Status	Notes/Tracking#
3/7/2012 4:50:45 PM	Processing	Materials are now being gathered to complete the order.
3/1/2012 4:00:49 PM	Processing	Payment has been successfully received/approved.
2/29/2012 4:46:00 PM	Processing	The order has been received and will be reviewed/processed by a sales rep.
2/29/2012 2:39:02 PM	Submitted	Order Submitted by Customer

They took my money, yet decided to wait six days (okay, four business days) to start looking for the parts. Like I said before, the main complaint that people have about iBuyPower is that they are slow in getting the systems together and shipped out. Anyway, I'm excited, yet I feel that I'm being rather patient thus far. I have a bunch of other things to attend to in the meantime. Such as this desk, or workstation:

I tried to keep the desk at a low price (hence, WalMart), since I'd already paid so much for the system. This desk doesn't appear to be made out of pressed woodchips, or whatever their cheaper desks are made out of. I want the tower up off the floor, to help avoid cat hair and kids' feet, and improve ventilation. And besides, that case is made for showing off. With that shade of pink, I'm sure it'll catch the eye of anyone walking in the room, and I don't mind that. Anyway, this desk seems a bit stronger. I'm hoping it will easily support the weight of the tower, but I am going to be putting that on the left-hand side of the desk, so the legs should help support the weight. The tower is 24 pounds when empty! 

I also wanted to make sure that the keyboard tray is high enough to slide over my legs. I like to sit in a cross-legged style when sitting at the computer, and the tray we have on this desk now (as I'm typing this) is just too low to slide over my legs when sitting that way. I don't want to sit too far away from the computer, so I end up sliding the tray just partly out, and placing the keyboard diagonally. I'd like to type like I used to. The desk is 30 inches high, and the tray is pretty close to the top, so I should make it. We'll see. If not, I'll just have to get an office chair with a pneumatic lift and no arms.

I had the tower shipped to a nearby store (free shipping, gotta love that!), but we're waiting on the repair of our truck. It's a Ford Bronco, and it needs a bit of work to pass emissions. Once it's fixed and registered, we can easily pick up that sucker (a 50" long box) and bring it home. Then we get to put it together, and hopefully correctly. I can't wait. /sarcasm off

Here's a link to that desk on walmart.com if anyone is really that interested: http://www.walmart.com/ip/Mixed-Media-Workstation-Black-w-Silver-Frame/10927258

In my last post, I failed to mention all the games I got. These are games that I'm unable to even play on our older computer, much less record. The first three games listed here will really show off the graphics capability of this system.

• S K Y R I M (`Nuff said.)

• Crysis 2 (Yes, I do like FPS games. The jury is still out on whether I'm any good at them, though.)

• Battlefield 3 (Ditto. I want to see how it runs at max settings across the board. I'm sure the FPS will drop drastically when recording, though.)

• Ghostbusters: The Video Game (Cheesy title, and you'd think it would be bad, but look at this video review here! There's an original story, though somewhat a rehashing of the first movie, and the original actors came back to do voice acting! Bill Murray is the man!)

• Planescape: Torment (Yes, I'm finally going to be playing this!)

• Orange Box (Containing Half-Life 2, Half-Life 2: Episodes 1 and 2 (all of which I'll get around to playing at some point), Team Fortress 2 (which I probably won't play at all), and Portal (which is my main reason for getting this))

• Portal 2 (I'm going to be playing Portal 1 and 2 with my daughters, as Let's Plays. I got a desk mic just for this little experiment. This should be interesting.)

• Grand Theft Auto: Vice City (Yes! I love this game. I played it quite a bit on my friend/roommate's PlayStation 2. I never owned the game or the system, and I never really followed the main quest/story. I would just fulfill a task to open up more of the city, so that I could run over more people, and drive cars off of more rooftops. Mwah ha ha ha! In the PC version, you can drop MP3 files into a certain folder, and they'll play when you turn on the car radio. That'll be so much fun for a Let's Play, to subject viewers to some of my crazy tastes in music. I just so happen to love 80's songs, which are featured in the game, but there's so much more I could throw in there, hehe!)

So I think those should keep me busy for awhile.

Speaking of games and Let's Plays... since I can now play more modern games, I'm going to be changing the format/schedule of my channel a bit. I'm going to be focusing on RPG games more extensively than before, while also playing Adventure Games, and adding in First-Person Shooters. My schedule right now is:

• 1 RPG upload a day.
• 1 Adventure Game upload a day.

Now `twill be:

• 2 RPG uploads a day, one a classic/older game, and one a newer game (Example: Skyrim and Planescape: Torment).
• 1 Adventure Game upload, or FPS upload, or Horror/Survival, or possibly another genre, 3 to 4 times a week. This could be an older or newer game.

The RPGs are usually lengthy games, and Adventures and FPSs usually are not, so they should break up any tedium, and allow me to keep adding games to my list. As for other genres, they'll show up from time to time. I'm very selective, though, as far as anything not fitting into RPG, Adventure, Horror, or FPS. The only one I can think of right now is Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee. I love that game. "Hello!" "Hello." "Follow me." "Okay."

More to come as things develop!