Icy games: The Darkness 2 Review

During the six hours it takes to complete The Darkness II you rip men in half, pop off their heads like a child pulling the lid off a felt-tip, slash off their legs, rip their spines from their bodies, and tear out their hearts as they watch. And these are the tame executions. (There's one horrifying kill called 'Assecution' where your tentacles enter a man through his... look, it's one of the most disgusting things. Ever.)

And that's The Darkness II's thing. Violence. It revels in vicious, virtual gore like no other shooter of this console generation. The once-moody, character-led shooter Starbreeze created has gone to a new developer (the aptly named Digital Extremes) and been transformed into a stylish bloodbath. However, that's no bad thing. Although this sequel definitely lacks the nuanced storytelling of its predecessor, it swaps the gentle moments of the first game for relentless horror and grizzly action...Full review to computerandvideogames.com

Icy Dock: The 15 finest dungeon games

2011 may have been a dire year for everything else, but it was a corking one for dungeons. What better place to escape the woes of economic meltdown than somewhere dank, dark, foetid and virtual, populated by rats, bats, giant spiders, reanimated skeletons and copious demons, and studded with treasure chests? For dungeon-divers, it was a vintage year.

So, we thought it would be fun to share with you our favourite games for dungeon-trawling, starting with the most recent ones before working our way back through the annals of dungeon history.

1. Dark Souls

From Software's fearsomely hard opus, with its refusal to compromise in any manner whatsoever, has rightly been hailed as one of the finest RPGs ever. And more or less the whole game is one big dungeon - it begins with your character locked in a cell, and every building in the game is made from moss-encrusted, dripping grey virtual stone. If you're looking for the definition of a proper RPG, Dark Souls is it - any true aficionado of dungeons will tell you that. And that, when you're playing it, you die roughly as many times as in every game you've ever played before, all added together. Possibly the most enjoyable game ever - if you're a major-league masochist.

2. Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

It's hard to think of a meatier or more epic game than Skyrim, and with more than 150 dungeons in the game, Bethesda was really spoiling us. They weren't just generic, either, plonked down to break the monotony of traversing lush, fertile countryside and meticulously designed towns. Oh no: the vast majority of them had keenly observed storylines, and offered sufficient rewards for us to become obsessed with visiting them all. Indeed, given Skyrim's overarching scope, you could probably spend an entire virtual lifetime checking them all out.

3. Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword

Shigeru Miyamoto's latest opus may have only arrived in time for the Wii's death-throes, but by crikey, it was a mighty fine game. And most of the different areas of its game world had at least one dungeon to traverse. In true Zelda style, doing so mainly involved some wildly inventive puzzle-solving, coupled with taking out a vast array of enemies. But above all, mini-bosses and big bosses which really took some dispatching. Ambience-wise, Skyward Sword's dungeons may not be the most forbidding ones you'll come across. But take it from us: they're great fun to tramp around, and are deeply memorable...Full news to computerandvideogames.com

Icy News: A Look at Enterprise Performance of Intel SSDs

Case Study: SSDs in AnandTech's Server Environment

For the majority of the history of AnandTech we've hosted our own server infrastructure. A benefit of running our own infrastructure is that we're able to gain a lot of hands on experience with enterprise environments that we'd otherwise have to report on from a distance.

When I first started covering SSDs four years ago I became obsessed with the idea of migrating nearly every system over to something SSD based. The first to make the switch were our CPU testbeds. Moving away from mechanical drives ensured better benchmark consistency between runs as any variation in IO load was easily absorbed by the tremendous amount of headroom that an SSD offered. The holy grail of course was migrating all of the AnandTech servers over to SSDs. Over the years our servers seem to die in the following order: hard drives, power supplies, motherboards. We tend to stay on a hardware platform until the systems start showing the signs of their age (e.g. motherboards start dying), but that's usually long enough that we encounter an annoying number of hard drive failures. A well validated SSD should have a predictable failure rate, making it an ideal candidate for an enterprise environment where downtime is quite costly and in the case of a small business, very annoying...Full review to Anand Tech

Icy News: Intel SSD 520 Review: Cherryville Brings Reliability to SandForce

Intel was rumored to be working on a SandForce based drive for several months now, but even the rumors couldn't encapsulate just how long Intel and SF has worked on this drive. According to Intel, the relationship began 1.5 years ago. Still lacking a 6Gbps controller of their own and wanting to remain competitive with the rest of the market, Intel approached SandForce about building a drive based on the (at the time) unreleased SF-2281 controller. Roughly six months later, initial testing and validation began on the drive. That's right, around the time that OCZ was previewing the first Vertex 3 Pro, Intel was just beginning its extensive validation process.

Codenamed Cherryville, Intel's SSD 520 would go through a full year of validation before Intel would sign off on the drive for release. In fact, it was some unresolved issues that cropped up during Intel's validation that pushed Cherryville back from the late 2011 release to today...Full reviews at Anand Tech

Icy Dock review: MB994SP-4S

Just about two months ago, we have completed a review of Icy Dock MB662USEB-2S; an incredible dual-bay FireWire 400/800 eSATA & USB Raid 3.5" HDD enclosure and today we are going to bring you another existing product from Icy Dock; MB994SP-4S. Icy Dock MB994SP-4S is not an external HDD enclosure but an internal multi-bay HDD RAID cage; able to support up to four 2.5" SATA/SSD/SAS HDDs.

ICY DOCK is a privately held company with more than 10 years being devoted in design, manufacturing, branding and distribution of Storage enclosure peripherals. By keep improving its own new product release process from previous toil experiences, ICY DOCK has formed a standard yet efficient new product development procedures to satisfy timely requirement from the market.

As one of the leading peripheral enclosure solution provider, we will continue to commit ourselves in supplying our customers the best performance per dollar products. "Your demand is our command" is the key to ensure our success in the business world.

Features

* Fits 4 x 2.5" SATA I / II / III and SAS HDD/SSD.
* Accommodates Drives with up to 15mm Height.
* Fits 4 Drives into a Single 5.25" Device Bay.
* Status LED on Front for Each Drive.
* Full Metal EZ Slide Mini Tray System with Full Cage Design.
* Small Form Factor Perfect for IPC, Servers, and Small Form Factor Cases.
* Front, Rear, Top, and Bottom Ventilation Slots.
* Dual 40mm Fans with Active Power Technology.
* Heavy Duty Full Metal Construction.
* Support SATA 6Gbps.
* Top Cover for the Tray Adds Extra Drive Protection...  Full review to Hareware Bistro

ICY COMMENT: MB994SP-4S is 2.5" HDD/SSD/SAS for 4 bay enclosure in a 5.25" space, the size is efficiently save your PC case space and enlarge the capacity of your computer. Just no hesitate and contact our distributors right now to upgrade your computer!!