OverClockers UK Review

About a month ago, my current gaming set-up just stopped doing it for me. My laptop, as loyal and trusty as it was, had begun to really show its age. It became clear when even smaller scale games were starting to take real performance hits on some of the newer titles. The fan was making a horrible noise and it was clear that my favoured gaming machine was just not going to bear the load of my gaming needs for much longer.

So I decided that between my new job that offers me much better financial stability and my hobby of writing blog posts for gaming, I needed a proper gaming machine that could offer me the ability to continue to experience the latest and greatest gaming content. It was finally time for me to buy a real, true gaming PC. 

My experience with really powerful gaming PCs is sparse. About the most I knew was that I needed a real graphics card, not just Intel HD Graphics, to be able to play anything of any real merit. This was from my previous experience in buying laptops and was a lesson that was expensive for me to learn, as I had gone through multiple different machines to find out that PC gaming is not as simple as buying a machine that looks good.

So, I set out on researching what I needed to know. But the world of PC gaming is a rabbit hole; once you start to scratch the surface it’s information overload. There are so many layers to this segment of gaming that it felt like a mountain of information. Suddenly my vocabulary expanded to include bottlenecking, overclocking, multi-threading, motherboards, and much more. It seemed impossible that I would ever conquer this mass of information because what information out there was contradictory and over-loaded.

Go into any PC build forum and you can see that the gulf of knowledge between the serious gamers and the newbies is huge. There are many builds posted that are picked apart because of the tiniest detail such as whether to go for an Intel 7500 or a 7600k, a difference that at first glance appears to be just numbers and letters, but apparently means something significant (it’s to do with the generation of the processor, ‘k’ apparently stands for the latest ‘Kabylake’ processors that have come out).

This was where I hit the point of intimidation; I didn’t have the time or patience to really get into the nitty gritty of building a PC; a process where I buy each modular part for my machine individually and put them together myself. I was worried about the problem of liability; where if I built this machine and some tiny thing went wrong in the compatibility, or if I made a tiny miscalculation, there could be a costly disaster on the scale of the hundreds of pounds, a price that as a value-conscious consumer I was not willing to risk.

So I decided, I was going to pay for someone to custom-build my PC. It would be an easier option, as an expert would be taking on any liability if the build went wrong, and most of the sites I looked at had options to examine the compatibility of each part. This was where Overclockers UK came in.

I will qualify this by saying that I am not sponsored in any way and currently make nothing in terms of advertising revenue, so quite simply, this is just a blog post detailing my experience out of a passion project and nothing more.

Overclockers UK is at first an intimidating site. There are a number of options available and it is confusing to navigate. They offer a huge range of PC gaming parts so the sheer amount of what is available makes it difficult to actually feel like you’re navigating to the ‘right’ custom-build PC option. That said, this tempted me toward the special offers part of the page, which led me to my current build.

I had done plenty of research up until this point, so I knew ball-park figures of parts and performances I was expecting. This was where the interface of OCUK took over and guided me through the parts. Thankfully, the buying process itself is relatively painless; each part you can buy has a nifty red/green button stating its compatibility and how much more/less it will cost if you customise to that part. This made it very easy to tailor the experience to what I want.

In the end, I settled on a gaming PC that suited me well; NVIDIA 1070 graphics with an i7 Intel processor. While I could have gone with a better value option at the i5, which also came over-clocked, I felt that for the price I was paying I could afford to pay a little extra to have the luxury of a bigger number next to my processor. Payment was taken easily and a variety of options makes it easy to come to an arrangement that suits you.

Delivery was the most difficult part of the order. The PC itself would take 7 days to build and another couple of days to deliver. As I live in a remote part of the UK, I thought that I would have to closely monitor the build and shipping times. This was because I was aware that other people that took significant deliveries in my area (not with OCUK) had problems due to issues with the postcode. That being said, the support I was offered was exemplary and I was given satisfactory information about what was happening with my build at any point I requested.

The final delivery was made promptly, actually a day earlier than expected and exactly to the instructions that I had given. Excitedly, I took my PC and connected it up, with the advice and support of my more hands-on fiancée (okay, she actually did the work). Everything worked well, but I soon found that my PC was not performing as I was expecting on certain games.

The next day, I called up the customer support line, and this was the only problem that I had with OCUK as a customer. Unfortunately, I found that the man on the other end on the phone just did not seem friendly or happy to help me. But the advice he gave me was spot-on. It wound up that I had, in my excitement, forgotten to install the appropriate drivers for my graphics card! This quickly fixed any issues I had with the PC, as the drivers allowed me to customize my experiences to the level I needed.

Overall, I would say that OCUK is a good company to order your PC with. While nothing they did totally exceeded expectations, everything was done promptly and professionally, and at no point was there a totally ‘bad’ situation that occurred. I was very satisfied with the order, and especially liked the touch of free Haribo sweets with the order, and on top of that, the geeky part of me found the shipment packaging so interesting in the way they use expanding foam to secure the parts. It’s extremely cool to look at!

So, to anybody out there that is like me and is interested in trying to get their new custom-build PC, and considering Overclockers UK as a company, I would say that they are totally legitimate and do everything they say they’ll do, and offer a good service. While I wouldn’t say they totally blew my mind, they didn’t need to; they just did everything right, and that is the most important thing of all.

Do consoles have a place in a world with PC gaming?

Every gamer knows the old meme of the PC gaming master race. For years, PC Gaming’s most vocal defenders have shouted to all who would listen about the seemingly endless benefits of gaming’s most powerful platform. Those gamers that still squabbled over their preference of Playstation or Xbox were regarded as lowly console peasants. This argument is one of the many controversial issues debated among the gaming community, spawning many debates of its own surrounding framerates, resolutions and the relevance of plug and play convenience.

My personal view is that yes, playing on the PC is the most premier experience available to gamers today. If you want the very, very best way to play a videogame, chances are that outside of console exclusives, you will want to play it on the PC. This issue sums up to basic logic; simply put, playing on a PC lets you play at the highest resolutions and framerates with the highest graphics settings possible, if your computer can handle it.

However, that last qualifier is the sticker in this debate; for many gamers the sheer level of cost and research needed to play the latest games at such a great level is a prohibitive point. Many PC builds can range into the thousands of pounds and there are many pitfalls with compatibilities that can brick such machines. Imagine buying a thousand-pound machine only to inadvertently make one fatal mistake, and break the machine rendering all that cash a waste. It’s intimidating, to say the least.

The value proposition is handily debated about between PC and console gamers; the former insist that affordable builds can match, if not exceed the performance of the latest consoles at a lower price, while many console gamers have found that the small outlay for their black boxes offers the best possible value. It seems quite obvious at first; £250 for a PS4 today vs £1200 for a good, future-proof PC. From the level of investment, it looks like consoles come out winning.

However, PC gamers are quick to counter here; a PS4 costs £250, which gives you a machine that can do nothing but game (and some multimedia features). On the other hand, a PC gives you access to basically everything; fully-featured internet browsers, productivity software and an indispensable level of general functionality combine with best-in-class gaming performance for those with big enough wallets.

In addition, there are the infamous Steam sales, many of which represent huge savings that can more than decimate the cost of a game. Then there are other avenues; from the resurgent indie scene that offers a glut of excellent experimental games at tiny price points, to the widespread and much-championed modding community. PC gaming offers something for just about everyone.

In my opinion, on the value level there is a purpose for consoles. Quite simply, consoles remain the most accessible way to get into gaming at a moderate-to-hardcore level. To play the latest, most important games, the average person can just pick up a black box for £250, plug it in, download a patch or two and they’re away.

With a PC there are many differing and intimidating levels of access. To get into PC gaming there is a lot of research required from graphics cards to processor clocks. It’s hard to gauge the right amount of investment required to give you the best experience. But again, for the customisability and range the PC remains triumphant; if a gamer is so aligned, they can still play even on a low-budget machine with no graphics capability to speak of. There are a massive amount of Indie and Flash games that can cater for these exact needs. What is still up for debate, however, is how much value this actually offers. Sure, playing Flash games is one thing, but they’re a far cry from the latest and greatest AAA experiences out there. There may be many levels at which a player can game on a low-budget PC, but how much of this is worth playing when at around the same cost for a PC with such low-capability one can buy a PS4 and open themselves up to playing the latest Doom, or Resident Evil 7? This may be a controversial point, but who can honestly say they can find a £250 PC that will reasonably run those titles?

As a gamer that has recently bought a gaming PC, simply because I want to experience the very best way to play games for once, I have to say that I am not as devout a follower of the PC Master Race doctrine as many others are. The main conclusion here is that PCs are great value if you want to experience the very best way to play, but there is a place in the market for consoles. Like them or loathe them, the world will not be a better place if the consoles just failed. As I have stated before, more competition is, in general, usually a better thing for both consumers and for companies in the gaming space. As a proud owner of a new, proper gaming PC, I want to make clear that I love gaming in all its forms, and this includes consoles. This whole argument that pitches consoles and PCs against one another is just one way in which the gaming community is breeding toxicity, and I hope that this article has gone some way in showing why that makes little sense. Quite simply, there is a place in the market for the consoles and for the PCs and if the gaming economy is going to continue to grow we need to be more accepting of people’s purchasing choices.

The Opening Hour of Outlast is a Lesson in Horror Pacing

In the wake of the release of Outlast 2, I thought it would be a good time to make a start on one of the games that has been languishing in my Steam backlog, the original Outlast, released in 2013. Having played for the first hour or so, I thought that the opening was a great example of pacing in modern horror games.

Entering Mount Massive Asylum was one of the most nerve-wracking, tension building experiences I’ve had in a horror game. 

From the first moment, the tension builds as I drove up an abandoned-looking road at night, the radio playing ominous news announcements as I drew in closer. The signpost to Mount Massive Asylum passes by on your left and I arrived at the edge of an empty courtyard.

It is here I was able to first control my character. After reading a note detailing my reasoning for entering the asylum (to expose some kind of inhumane experimentation by a big evil corporation), the first thing I noted was the sense of atmosphere. As I have previously stated in blog posts, the sense of place is one of the most important aspects of a horror game, as it gives you the backdrop and the context for the horror. 

A mental asylum may be a cliché place to set a horror title, but here, it definitely works. The setting and environment looks ominous, the choice of night-time for the story obviously a deliberate choice. Shadows dance in a sinister way in the dark, and I am already on edge as I am looking for any movement, which, thanks to poor visibility because of the darkness, could sneak up on me any second.

Another thing I noted was how vulnerable my character was. Being told that I could not fight, only run and hide to survive, this was another deliberate choice by the designers. An important element of fear is the feeling of vulnerability, of fearing what could happen. I then learn that my mission as a journalist is to capture everything on tape, meaning I have to spend most of the game with a camera glued to my face, further reducing visibility. 

Experimentation with the controls reveals the game’s night-vision mode, which overlays the grim scenery with a green-tint, and, as I found later on, a creepy glow in the empty, lifeless eyes of the dead corpses I walk past. On top of this, when night-vision is active, while you can see somewhat in the dark, my vision of anything long-distance is drastically-reduced, and the overall blurry quality of the camera makes it harder to see. 

Given the inability to fight, the player’s only option being to run or hide, the fact that an enemy can so easily sneak up on me, given how limited my vision is, only makes that feeling of vulnerability worse.

The tension only continues to build, the music proving a dramatic masterstroke as I slowly make my way into the facility, every footstep an echoing boom as my over-sensitive ears desperately listen to the surroundings for anything that could be out of place. 

As I climb some scaffolding to get into the asylum through an open window upstairs (my character, Miles Upshur, seems oddly determined given how terrifying the game’s atmosphere is), the tension is at risk of swallowing me whole, thanks to a buildup of nerve-wracking noise from the music; that familiar building screech of any good horror film as the sound engineers give you a sense that something horrible is about to jump at any minute.

Then, as I enter the asylum proper, a horrible loud burst of static from the nearby TV, sounding like the shrill scream of an unspoken horror, startles me into alertness. I am not normally for jumpscares, but here, the jump serves only to terrify me more and build up that sense of foreboding, that overwhelming feeling in my gut that I shouldn’t be here, as I reluctantly gather my wits and continue.

As I delve deeper into the asylum, the horror in my surroundings notches the terror back up to a peak, thanks to the grim atmosphere of a broken-down facility, my imagination is wild wondering just what happened here, and seeing bodies moving just in the corner of my vision only serves to ratchet up that paranoia again.

Following this, I stumble through a dark room full of disembodied heads staring at me with pained, terrified expressions, and I’m jumpscared again, this time by a man impaled on a spike sticking out of the ground. He warns me of the horrible creatures I am due to encounter before he dies in agonising pain. 

This jumpscare was enough to scare the wits out of me and put my every sense on high alert, as I continue onward, squeezing myself through a gap until I hear a gruff voice mutter ‘Little pig’ at me from behind. 

Miles Upshur is just as horrified as I am, as he is thrown through a wall and onto the ground floor of the asylum below, as this nerve-wracking introduction draws to a close.

What I think makes this introduction so effective is the atmosphere. The developers of Outlast may have been aware that the setting for their iconic horror game, a broken-down mental asylum, is among the most cliché of locations. However, this doesn’t matter, as here the scares are done so effectively. Your surroundings all serve to build up the tension. Abandoned military vehicles and a locked front door hint at something sinister going on, but what exactly is happening here? 

The messy interior of the asylum itself, complete with nightmare inducing scenery and messages, hints at something horrible coming for you, allowing your imagination to dream up all kinds of horrific fates to befall the character. The sound is perfectly-paced, the intensity ramping up and down with expert pace as the game develops and you slowly unravel, and the fake-out jumpscares are well-timed, enough to let you build up that fear just enough to let the scares feel more real and visceral.

It is clear that many lessons can be learned from Outlast as to the pacing of an introduction section. So much has to be done in the introduction of a horror game; setting up the sense of place, leaving enough breadcrumbs of mystery behind for the player to be drawn in by the plot, and setting up the atmosphere so that the player feels horror in their surroundings. 

In just one hour, Outlast has done all of those things so expertly well, and it is clear how this title has influenced later survival horrors - with one sideways glance at Resident Evil 7, I can clearly see the lessons learned by the latter on how to introduce a horror story to the audience.

So far, my impression of Outlast as a horror game has been good; I do find issue with the part immediately after the introduction, however, as I found the enemies themselves somewhat lacking in effectiveness. The expert pacing of the introduction seems to have died down as the game has gone on. However, from the introduction alone, Outlast has been a terrifying treat that has gotten my adrenaline pumping and I am eager to delve back in for more.

I’m just going to wait until daylight before I play again.