Could be an overheating issue perhaps, with sudden degradation of performance could be a symptom of a hardware piece throttling itself to avoid exploding :) Could explain the system hangs etc also. 

Lots of screaming. However, the game could be good. It's... novel.

TR's gameplay mechanics are solid gold at the core (no pun intended), but it doesn't always shine :-/

The only "new" TR game I'd totally recommend is Anniversary. But then that's a remake.

Lose the quicktime events though, Crystal. And I fucking hope I can BIND JUMP TO A MOUSE BUTTON THIS TIME. YOU KNOW THAT THING THEY HAVE ON PCs. 

Also, fuck publishers that wreck games. Ahem. 

seems like the whole trend of bigger teams for fancier graphics and such just means publishers get more weight when it comes to design decisions. :( 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fIWLT0QVPzw 

so how does one play Lost Coast? Finished HL2, but that doesnt seem to unlock anything. 

You add it form your steam Library tab. Half-Life 2: Lost Coast. 

It's its own seperate game on steam. 

download Mission Improbable from Planetphillip.com 

started amnesia -the dark descent, so far its impressive 

Comes out on june 14 (in north america)! Not sure if i want it in the pc or 360. 

I must be an idiot, can find the page etc but nowhere can I see a link do download/purchase/add.

Drew, thanks for the tip. 

I mean torrent :p. I was just informed by a friend that alice: madness returns comes with a code to download the first game on whatever platform you buy it for. Nifty. I'm getting it for thw 360, i don't have the hd space for the game. 

HL2 custom map recommendations?

Minerva and the one drew mentioned are in the queue. 

http://store.steampowered.com/app/340/

Minerva series is by far my favourite hl2 sp release.

Research & Development is also fantastic but is far more puzzle and environment themed. 

yeah I can get to that page but how do I add it??

Downloaded a heap of HL2, Doom 3, Quake 4 and Crysis custom stuff. Will see how they turn out. 

it's quite short, and while it's a nice little coffee break sized map, it's not nearly as fun/impressive as you might think. 

let me know what D3 stuff you play and what's good 

nitin: lost coast isn't just showing up in your 'all games' list? it's free and comes with hl2, so it should already be on the list and you should just be able to click and install it.
for me, it's right under ep2.
i don't think you can download it outside of steam. 

there've been at least a couple of good doom3 releases here on func. check the news archive for them. 

no it's not. I just have HL2, Ep 1 and Ep2 showing. 

GB reccomened some as well. still haven't finished - I just have hoarder tendencies. 

You could try the stuff in this list as a reference;
http://www.runthinkshootlive.com/ 

i haven't seen some of those and they look great! 

Pretty good so far. Very nice set pieces, lots of secrets, but almost completely linear.