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Free Ride Games
Free Games For Your PC!

Free Ride games site may be a bit more costly in the way a game runs than a gamer is willing to pay. No, you’re not paying any money but Free Ride games are played with an internet connection and ads bombarding the players to the left of the screen and also along the bottom. Not in a small strip but an obnoxious good quarter of screen. This it seems is how they deliver some free gaming your way, by selling ads. It’s an interesting concept and unless the gamer has some computing power in the graphics department, the ads some of which are animated at times themselves in constant changing to new ads, can slow a game down to a slide show crawl. This is best defeated by going to options within the game and tweaking a few things. The first game we tested was Zoo Empire, until we tweaked the mouse sensitivity, turned off the music and changed the scroll speed, the game was unplayable on an older Pentium 4 system until we made these changes. On A dell laptop XPS system it was not too bad, and of course on the Quad Core Alienware area 51 7500 it ran just fine with just the occasional graphic stutter due to the ad bombardment. This service offers full version PC games for free. No payment or registration. They say there is no catch, other than the ads of course. The whole Ad concept it rather interesting and for those who don’t mind the advertisements in your face while gaming, Free Ride games is a good little deal.

The site shows as a BETA service and in order to play any of the wide variety of games, you have to download the Free Ride Games Beta Player. Think of it sort of like a music service, only for games. The theory of how it works is that the Beta Player Caches data that is stored on your PC so it does not have to be cached again. Each of the offered games requires a certain amount of cached data before the game is playable. Once cached though, the game starts up.

Are there some possible downsides to this? In some respects yes, In order to use the Free Ride Games Beta subscription service you have to be connected to the Internet. The games will not play without being connected to the internet. To even launch any of the games you have to use the play button on the Free Ride Games Beta Site. As you play the game additional components of the game download in the background. Depending on your connection this can possibly be a problem, with a fast connection you should have no issues, we experienced a mix of slow playing graphics to internet hiccups. These can perhaps be attributed to the connection itself. Either way some settings and connections have to be tweaked for the optimum gaming experiences. We will be doing some full game reviews on various Free Ride Games from the site, till then you can check them out at http://www.freeridegames.com/do/index

As always,
Have fun, play games
Edwin Millheim

Edwin’s Interview with Ray Lederer, game artist.

EDWIN: I understand that other than computer game art and animation, you have worked on comic books and strips as well. Such titles as Dare Devil, The Incredible Hulk, from the more well known comic publishers, all the way to the far lesser known comic strips with a small fan base such as Bright Future. (Bright Future went on to be a role playing game and is currently about to be republished with expanded role playing game material, the new publisher is Hamster Press, Engle Matrix Games)

Tell us a bit about how it was to work on those Comic Book titles, how much freedom do you have from the large publisher to the small publisher?

RAY: Well all of the stuff I worked on for major comic publishers was really subcontract work I did for some inkers before I went to Ringling. Basically I inked backgrounds or anything else that required straight edged line work and filled in blacks. It was amazing and somewhat terrifying to ink over some of the best talent in the industry at the time.

It was great fun and a really confidence boosting time early in my career. As for creative freedom to work with larger houses - I honestly don't know. I had no real freedom when working on a sub contract basis - and that's ok. As for working independently I think It's always more creatively rewarding. It's just not always financially rewarding. That said, some of the best times I had working in comics was when I was working on Bright Future with you and Roland.

EDWIN : You have done some incredible eye catching work in both comics and in role playing game art. Even some of the static art seems to have some dynamic elements to them, or even a glance or expression the subject is displaying, or the angle on which your
presenting the scene to the reader. Do those ideas come to you easily?

RAY: Uh it's never easy:)

EDWIN: Can you name a few of the gaming projects you have worked on?

RAY: My first game project was a sequel to the Amiga title Hired Guns using the Unreal engine. That got canceled when Psygnosis went under. Afterwards was Nightcaster and Nightcaster2, Goblin Commander, NeoPets, and Auto Assault. Today I'm working on some thing we cant really talk about.

EDWIN: Do you have a any games that you have worked on that where more challenging to work on, and why?

RAY: That's tough to say. I'll say this though, I'm amazed that games even reach the shelves at all. I think all game reviewers should add a point to any game they review on that basis alone!

EDWIN: What's your latest project? Can you tell us a bit about it?

RAY: Well, like I said, I can't really talk about anything at this time...I get to conceive and drive many of the creative elements of a project which is really what I've been seeking for many years in this industry. That's all I can really say.

EDWIN: I have worked with several artists over the years and have always had the utmost respect for their abilities, researching a bit more there are massive amounts of information and technique that has to be learned and it seems rather daunting. Way back when working in art class in schools like Ringling School of Art and Design...did you ever have any doubts about if you where going to make it?

RAY: I still have those doubts however I know that creativity is the key to my vitality and art is the vehicle for it. My goals have changed over the years as I've matured too. I actually am getting closer to my roots again as part of my creative evolution. After years of learning advanced 3D animation Texture Mapping, Modeling, Terrain Building I've come back to the realization that the thing I enjoy the most is putting pencil and paint to paper. Go figure.

EDWIN : Looking at some of the games you have done, you ever look back now and go..gee I should have done it this way or designed it this way instead?

RAY: I've learned to accept what I can do within the time I'm allowed. Ultimately I can only take what I've done in the past and use the knowledge towards the next thing. That said I'd like another crack at designing the main character for Nightcaster.

EDWIN: When doing the concept art for who ever is lead on a gaming project, are there massive amounts of concept sketching before they see something they like?Or do you go in with several design concepts for them to choose from and make requests on? How does that work?

RAY: Usually we meet for a few minutes discuss the needs - I go back and do a few thumbnails - I call the lead(s) over and get an approval and then do the final. Usually that's enough but sometimes it take more iterations if it's something important like a major character or an important setting etc.

EDWIN : I know you have said in past interviews about trying to surround yourself with people who knew a lot or had some skills you could learn from. Can you name a couple of people you have worked with that you have learned from? What was it you learned?

RAY: Good smart people, travel, books, and good music are the keys to growing and inspiration. Variety's the spice of life eh? Well certainly working with you was a cool collaborative process that taught me allot about working with a writer. Roland Paris is another one. He's inking at Marvel now after a long hiatus from Comics. Go Roland! My good friend Adam Adamowicz who's working over at Bethesda doing concepts for Fallout3 and is an absolute genius. Mike Gieger who's like a master renderer and a machine when it comes to art. I don't know how he keeps up his stamina.

There are too many to list... As for learning experiences - some were more harsh than others - One time I got a page handed down to me by one of my Inker clients.One of the panels had a bunch of characters holding guns. The problem was the penciler didn't bother drawing the guns in any of the scenes so it was up to the inker to invent one. That task was handed down to me by the inker and I thought "Wow! This is my big chance to really shine and show these guys just how creative I am. So I spent like 30-40 minutes drawing this really detailed weird looking gun. Boy did I feel proud of myself. Yessiree they're gonna love this sweet baby. I handed it back to the inker the next day and he slaps his forehead and say 'You son of a BLEEP! now I have to draw that damn thing 20 more times!'

EDWIN: That’s great to hear about Roland. (To our Impulse Gamer readers, Ray and I worked with Roland Paris on Bright Future) Tell me, How different is what you need to know to be a gaming artist now as apposed to say ten years ago?

RAY: Nowadays the emphasis is no longer on low resolution, low poly count models. What AD's look for now is film quality models, textures etc.

EDWIN : Donna (Mt Wife, Who you know) and I have done an article for Funk & Wagnalls® New Encyclopedia. © 2006 World Almanac Education Group.
(www.history.com/encyclopedia.do?articleId=210072) about electronic gaming and spoke about game publishers out sourcing work such as art to other design houses. That trend has come into being even more so with the so called Next generation of Gaming and high resolution graphics. With more and more companies out sourcing..do you feel that makes it easier for a really good gaming artist or design house, or is it even more competitive than before?

RAY: So far it's not really a problem for our domestic workforce. In fact it's almost the opposite. We have a glut of unqualified candidates that are either inexperienced or simply lack the core traditional art skills. No, the real problem is finding experienced and qualified candidates in the states. The good ones already have jobs and are well taken care of. Even with all the training these kids are getting with game dev programs cropping up today it's still rare to find a really good candidate. There are many kids who go through these programs to be an artist that don't have a lick of real art training. They grow up playing games instead of drawing or reading or going outdoors and it shows in their work. As Brad Bird asks 'How can you create the illusion of life if you have no life?'

EDWIN : Today's next-gen games can cost $15-20 million each, up from $5-7 million just a few years ago, the cost sounds really surprising for those that do not realize how much work actually goes into one of these games. How many hours do you think counting every department working on a game?

RAY: uh... You'd have to talk with my producer about that. I don't carry around those kinds of numbers in my head. I just make the pictures.

EDWIN: You are a happily married artist now! (yes I feel like crap for missing the wedding actually) How in the world do you manage to balance the work load with home life? Do you bring your work home? Or can you shut that part off for a bit?

RAY : Sometimes I work from home. It's what I love to do so it's sometimes hard to leave it at the office. The real challenge is finding the time to work on personal projects like landscape paintings or comics etc...

EDWIN : For our readers that are thinking of getting into being a game artist, can you give them some advice?

RAY: Love art for art's sake. Get yourself grounded in traditional art training before you start wedding yourself to a particular tool.

EDWIN: Open floor, what do you want the readers to know?

RAY: Being a game artist is a lot more fun than it was even a few years ago. There is so much more flexibility in what you can get away with now than before. Poly counts aren't as much of an obstacle anymore. It's a great time to be an artist!

EDWIN: Ray, thank you very much for taking time to do this interview.

RAY: Thanks Edwin!

Edwin and Shael
perform an Autopsy on Alienware

In this electronic market, there are a dizzying amount of choices for the computer gamer. From low end systems that are just enough to get the job done, all the way to those dream systems that will take any game you throw at it.  There are plenty of companies out there ready to sell you a computer rig for what ever your needs are. One such company that has been around for a modest amount of time is Alienware.

Alienware's claim to fame is that the company manufactures a wide variety of customizable computer systems. Not only do they offer high performance desktop systems, but media centers, notebook computers, professional workstations and even servers. Throw in various peripherals and gadgets such as flash drives, headphones, batteries and adapters, and all other forms of computer goodies and you have a one stop computer aficionados shopping experience.  

Alienware target markets to a diverse customer base, from the average home user to the gamers, businesses. While known for its gaming and multimedia systems, Alienware also has a significant government business. Its customers include the Defense Department, Army, Air Force, Navy, NASA and the National Geo-Spatial Intelligence Agency.

The Alienware marketing department states the company uses cutting edge components, and innovative engineering. This is fairly evident if the saying is true that you get what you pay for. If nothing else the Alienware case designs definitely set it apart from the crowd. Looking more like a sci-fi fans ultimate dream, the designs are eye catching and a definite conversation starter. Shael and I wanted to delve a bit deeper and do our own Alien autopsy so to speak.  CEO Nelson Gonzalez who turned out to be pretty open about the company and the product, took some time out to answer these interview questions.

1: The company is based in Miami, Florida and was founded in 1996 by its current CEO, Nelson Gonzalez, and COO, Alex Aguila. Tell me a little about the beginning. Was it really in a garage?

If you want to go back even farther, you might even say the company had its beginnings on the playground where Alex and I met when we were just kids. We kind of grew up in the same neighborhood, and we just sparked up a friendship that's lasted more than 30 years at this point.

In the beginning days of Alienware, if we had an "office," it was probably in the garage or a bedroom, wherever there was spare room to lay out parts and build the machines. The downside was there wasn't a lot of space. The upside, of course, was that there was no commute.

It really did begin with a dream and a few maxed out credit cards. But that initial investment of a few thousand dollars really paid off. I know when we were 13 years old and always playing video games, our parents weren't too happy about that, but that paid off, too.

It all comes back to gaming for us. We loved flight simulator games, but, back in the day, most PCs just weren't good enough to offer much realism when you're trying to run a flight sim. I just started building my own machines so I could run the flight sims the way I wanted. All of my friends who were also into games saw what I was doing and asked if I'd build them machines, too. I did, and, at some point, the light just went on, and Alex and I realized that if our friends wanted these high-performance machines, maybe there were a lot of other people out there with the same interest. As it turns out, we were right. 

2: What do you want most for yourself and Alienware?

For myself, I think I just want the same things I've always wanted - to wake up every day with a big smile and the knowledge that I'm doing something I love and helping to make a few people happy. For Alienware, I obviously want the company to keep growing and becoming more successful. I suppose the ultimate goal would be an Alienware in every home! The more people gaming and using high performance computers, the better that's going to make the entire computing experience - whether that's for gaming or for someone learning to perform surgery with virtual reality applications. High-performance computing makes a lot of really amazing options available, and I'm glad Alienware is part of that.

3: Do industry/competitors still keep you on your toes?

We have a lot of great industry partners that really help us get access to the best technology out there to build our machines, and of course we know what other PC makers are doing. However, if you're asking whether I think there's anyone that comes close to providing the overall user experience that an Alienware customer receives, then the answer is "No."

I do think that technology is always changing, and the advances in technology mean that PCs are going to keep getting better and faster and, hopefully, more fun.

4: What are your future expectations for Alienware?

I think Alienware is going to keep growing, but we're going to do it in a smart way. We're not looking to become a huge PC powerhouse overnight. Like any company, we want to continue to grow our market share. For us, that means further dominating the high-performance PC space. We've done it for the past several years, and we're going to continue to be a leader.

5: Alienware has been pretty successful in the industry. What qualities of the company do you think have attributed to the companies success?

We know our customers really well - because we ARE our own customers. We design our machines for the toughest users out there, and we know what they want, because we're not easy on machines. We've always kept our focus on performance and style. Over the years, you haven't seen us diversify our offerings and sell a $400 machine. That's not who we are, and we're not going to be that company. I think that focus on the demanding customer has been the source of our success. It's what drives our people to create more powerful machines, sexier cases and a better overall user experience. We're dedicated to producing the best computer you can buy, and we're not going to back away from that.

6: The next generation of gaming has been a phrase used a great deal in the media, with Vista and DirectX 10 coming along, how is Alienware meeting the next wave of gaming technology?

I think it's important to recognize that Microsoft Vista brings some great benefits with DirectX 10, but if you don't have a PC that is powerful enough, you won't really be able to take full advantage of those benefits. Alienware started shipping Vista on the majority of our systems on the day Vista went live. We really feel like the best way for gamers to take full advantage of Vista is with an Alienware.

7: Every company has its bumps along the road. Is there anything that stands out in your mind that was a challenge to yourself or the company?

Those first couple of years were really make-or-break for us. I think it's probably like that for a lot of new businesses, but it was even more so for us. We didn't have a bunch of investors or the backing of some powerful company. It was just us and our credit cards, but we made it work, and we really are living the dream now.

8: Back on March 22, 2006, Dell purchased Alienware. Alienware continued to operate under its own brand name, now being a Wholly-Owned Subsidiary. That must have sent more than a few ripples through employees in the beginning? How well embraced was the change, and what where the benefits?

Any major change like that is going to make people ask a lot of questions, but, since the time of the acquisition, employees and customers have seen that Alienware is still Alienware. We're still committed to the same things - unparalleled performance and style - and our connection to Dell gives us even more avenues to provide our customers with the hottest PCs out there.

10: How important is customer service, from point of speaking to a sales person, on to after the consumer has made a purchase?

Customer service is one of the essential elements to Alienware's success. We've won several third-party awards from some key publications and other organizations, and our commitment to providing excellent customer service and overall ownership experience keeps getting stronger. Alienware customers are special, and we're committed to treating them that way.

11: There have been a smattering of grumbles and complaints here and there on customer service response and sometimes on length of time on delivery of a system purchase. How extensive is the building of the system and then quality assurance testing of the system?

We refuse to sacrifice quality and customization for the sake of pushing more systems out the door. Our policy on building systems has always been, "build it as if it were your own", and we take that very seriously. That's why we give customers such an extensive offering of customization options that we then diligently integrate into their specific system. Afterward, each system goes through a meticulous 200-point quality control process to ensure that everything is just right. Now, all of that is not going to happen overnight. Most of our customers understand this, and they find that their patience is richly rewarded with a highly reliable and personalized system that exceeds their expectations.

12: How seriously does the company take customer concerns and or complaints?

We take all customer concerns very seriously, and we work to resolve any issues quickly and to the ultimate satisfaction of our customers. We're constantly polling our customers to gauge what we're doing right and what we could be doing better. It's an impossible task to make everybody happy, but that won't stop us from trying.

13: That aspect of the business must be difficult to balance customer service with common sense and company growth.

I don't think it's a difficult balance at all. To me, it's just common sense to offer excellent customer service. That's what makes the company grow. When a customer is satisfied, everybody wins. That customer will recommend us to their friends and family, and will likely return to us in the future for their next PC. So, really, you can't have the growth without the commitment to your customers.

14: How would you rate Alienware's customer service?

Again, I think we do a great job, but you don't have to take my word for it. We've been recognized by publications like PC World and Smart Computing for our excellent customer service, plus we consistently receive praise emails and letters from a multitude of customers whose #1 compliment is the outstanding service they have received.

15: Most companies have some form of quality assurance in place for customer service representatives, in the form of quality coaches, some level of accountability. How are Alienware customer service representatives evaluated?

Each customer service representative that a customer encounters can ultimately be the difference between that customer having a very positive experience and a very negative experience, so we fully realize the importance of having the very best people in place. We closely evaluate the effectiveness of our customer service representatives through a number of methods internally and, once again, we also listen closely to the feedback we receive from the customers themselves.

16: Jumping around a bit here, Alienware has over the years been awarded some rather impressive Government and Military contracts. Is that a whole other division of the company?

It's not an entirely separate division, per se, but we do have people dedicated to working with government, military and enterprise customers. When you think about the type of high-performance computers Alienware produces, it makes total sense that certain key branches of the government and military, as well as some enterprises, would look to us to address their computing needs.

17: What are some of the most important things happening in the computer industry right now?

I think the PC industry is finally starting to come around to the idea that gamers are the ones driving forward the real progress. Take a look at how powerful PCs are becoming, and we have gamers and other power users to thank for that. The multi-core processors, the GPUs that keep getting better, the multimedia processing capabilities - these are all, in some way, related to the kind of demands that gamers and other power users make of their PCs. The major players in the industry are beginning to take their cues from what's going on in these more advanced PC sectors. As a gamer myself, it's exciting to know that I'm part of that and that Alienware is a key player in all of this.

18: What do you see as future trends in the industry?

I see increasing importance placed on gaming and high-performance computing. People are now using their PCs for a lot more than just running spreadsheets and checking e-mail. As they increasingly watch movies and play games, that interest in the PC as a hub for work and play is only going to grow. I think we're going to see the PC as a conduit to increasingly "real" virtual worlds where human beings can interact in new and better ways - be it for gaming purposes or other uses like remote surgery. The possibilities of virtual reality really are endless, and the growing power of PCs is going to give us better and more productive access to those virtual worlds. There may be a time - I think in our lifetimes - when the line between what is real and what is virtual is blurred to the point where it's no longer distinguishable.

In the more immediate future, I think the PC also has the potential to finally become the true center point of the home. I think it will go beyond just becoming an entertainment center and will act as a single point from which the habitants of a home can control entertainment, home appliances, security systems and a host of other things. This exists in a much more elaborate format now for very high-end home automation systems, but what I'm talking about is the "common" household PC being this powerful hub that allows control and management of a multitude of applications.

19: Open floor, What would you like Readers, customers, and future customers to know about Alienware?

I'll keep this simple. I want everyone to know that they should expect Alienware to keep pushing the envelope of performance and style. The demands of our customers match the demands we place on ourselves to keep staying ahead of the industry and producing PCs that put everyone else on notice. We're going to keep revolutionizing the PC industry, and we're going to stay focused on keeping our customers happy.

20: Thank you very much for taking the time for this interview.

You're welcome. It's been a good experience.

There you have it Impulse Gamer readers. While I have to admit for a moment there it felt like the Spanish inquisition.and no one expects the Spanish inquisition, Mr. Nelson Gonzalez answered all the questions, even the ones that where on the difficult side with a gamers passion.  Alienware is in good hands and where ever the course is charted, Alienware will be there making those wicked cool gaming and multimedia computers. Direct your browser on over to www.alienware.com to see what they have to offer.

Have fun, play games
Edwin Millheim

Kick back,  relax, let's play.
Shael Millheim

Auran's Joseph Hewitt interview
by Edwin Millheim
(January 2007)

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