5/17/2005

Is it just me?

Filed under: — Dan @ 9:44 am

Either my interest level in the web as a source of interesting recreational reading and interactivity has dropped dramatically, or the web has become a somewhat more boring place. (Sorry for the lack of posts over the past 3 weeks.)

Gaming still provides some news worth posting about, though (if not very much). First the downloads:

Act of War Multiplayer Demo (RTS)
Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines v1.4 patch (listed as “unofficial” since Troika doesn’t really exist anymore)

Gaming news that’s worth reprinting:
Ghost Recon 3 will be released for PC before the end of the year
X-Men: Legends 2 will be released for PC in addition to game consoles, making for a much better co-op environment (in my opinion, anyway)
•A little company in Redmond unveiled their plans for an obscure piece of gaming hardware called the Xbox 360. You can check out the official site, and Boomtown’s Q&A with MS’ “Chief Xbox Officer”, Robbie Bach, is a good read for understanding where MS wants to take the whole Xbox thing.

Regarding the Xbox 360 - it’s got some great features and the minor improvements to Xbox Live are nice, but the extent to which it will be backwards compatible will determine whether or not I’m an early adopter or a wait-and-see pessimist.

4/5/2005

Gaming (if you’re into that)

Filed under: — Dan @ 10:59 am

Between the unseasonably pleasant weather here in the Chicago suburbs (70-ish° F) and, of course, World of Warcraft, my desire to try out new games is at a pretty low point. However, I’ll provide links to a couple of demos which popped up while we were gone in case you all might enjoy them… and hey, I suppose I might change my mind at some point.

Empire Earth 2 single/multiplayer demo for RTS fans
Dungeon Lords single/multiplayer demo for multiplayer RPG fun from the creator of the Wizardry series

3/4/2005

Friday grab-bag

Filed under: — Dan @ 7:57 am

Alright party people… here are some demos to check out this weekend:

The Empire Earth 2 single player-demo should be fun if you like RTS games - the original EE was a great game and the computer opponent difficulty went up to 11 (if you know what I mean).

Speaking of single-player demos, I’m not sure how I missed it - it’s almost 2 weeks old - but the SWAT 4 demo is up for grabs. If you like tactical FPS games (and you know you do), then go ahead and give it a look-see.

Finally, a story that got some press on both Blue’s News and Evil Avatar (both are daily reads for me and generally good sites if you stay away from the comments): The Great Scam. It’s an entertaining (if not always well-written) story about one person’s descent from MMORPG player to elaborate, con-artist level griefer. It’s one of those stories that may be partially or completely untrue, but it’s almost beside the point since it’s utterly believable. Not recommended for Desiree or anyone else who is likely to get highly upset at people completely screwing other people over.

That last story is one of what the Guardian’s game blog calls “10 unmissable examples of new games journalism”. They seem to define “new” games journalism as people writing more about their experience playing games and less about formulaic reviews (e.g. “ok, we covered gameplay, graphics, and sound, so now we have to comment on…”) and x/10 ratings. It’s a little more personal, but if you can sort through the author’s idiosyncracies, then it can provide a lot more insight into whether or not you want to invest your time and money into a game, which is always a good thing.

2/22/2005

Freedom Force 2

Filed under: — Dan @ 11:27 am

Freedom Force was a great tactical superhero game - the reasons it didn’t get a lot more playing time on my computer were a couple of flaws that I felt were unforgivable; despite a FANTASTIC system for creating your own custom superheroes, you could not use those custom heroes as the main characters throughout the single-player campaign. As much as I loved the kitchy Golden Age plot, I just didn’t have fun with the game’s pre-fab heroes. The other thing that killed replayability for me was that multiplayer was very weak, consisting of a single, basic head-to-head mode.

I don’t know about using custom heroes as main characters in the single-player campaign yet, but multiplayer is reportedly an area of focus for the Freedom Force sequel, Freedom Force vs. The Third Reich - including a co-op mode which should be enormous fun.

Want to get an advance look at the game? Download the demo of Freedom Force vs. The Third Reich.

(No, seriously, go download it.)

Not that Sony wants to enable your addiction…

Filed under: — Dan @ 11:02 am

Something about the ability to order pizza from within a massively multiplayer online role-playing game is just… wrong. However, that didn’t stop Sony’s marketing minds from hammering out a deal with Pizza Hut; when you’re playing a little EverQuest 2 and feeling hungry - for god’s sake, don’t stop playing, just type “/pizza” and order up a pie without logging off! (The picture alone is worth following the link.)

Maybe I’d feel better about it if it was actually good pizza…

2/17/2005

News and a demo

Filed under: — Dan @ 8:41 am

A demo of Stalingrad, a WWII RTS, is now available for download. I haven’t even heard about the game, but the description seeming interesting enough to merit a look.

In gaming news, Brothers in Arms - my first “must have” PC game of 2005 - has been pushed a couple of weeks to March 8th. First Ghost Recon 2 for PC, then Raven Shield: Lockdown for PC, now this… Ubisoft, come on guys, it’s not like you’re fighting off a hostile takeover from a company that lost its soul 10 years ago! (Oh, wait…)

And for those of you who aren’t interested in your Xbox power cable from bursting into flames, go check to see if your Xbox power cable is covered by the recall/free replacement program. (There have only been 30 reported cases of fire worldwide, but hey - you never know.)

2/11/2005

Game news

Filed under: — Dan @ 9:15 am

Well, it’s been a while since we’ve done a gaming round-up… it’s a slow time of year (plus the fact that PC gaming is being dominated by World of Warcraft). I had to chuckle when I saw that WoW’s chief competitor, Everquest II, is already giving away free trials in an attempt to boost subscription rates while Blizzard had to stop selling WoW for a while in order to build up enough infrastructure to handle the demand. (WoW is still in the top 10 on PC gaming sales charts as recently as last week.)

Anyway, those of you who are not MMORPG-inclined (and you know who you are) can check out the following:

Half-Life 2 demo (ok, who am I kidding - if you’re interested enough to download the demo, then you probably already own this game)
Prince of Persia: Warrior Within demo (if you didn’t catch it on a console)
The Punisher demo (yes, it has the triple-curse of being a comic book license AND a movie license AND the movie was awful, but I hear it’s pretty entertaining anyway)

In sadder news, it seems like the Windows versions of both Ghost Recon 2 and Rainbow Six: Lockdown have been indefinitely delayed (although online retailers at least have a June release date for GR2). Where’s the PC love, Red Storm/Ubisoft?

Also note that for those of us who are fortunate enough to have ATI video cards, there are new Catalyst drivers.

1/27/2005

Favorite Games (2004)

Filed under: — Dan @ 11:20 am

Rounding it out, as always, are our individual lists for favorite games of the year. A banner year for gaming by all accounts, Desiree focused on quality over quantity this year. A testament to how good the games were, she spent so much time with the games on her list that she couldn’t come up with a full 12. I dabbled a bit more, but believe me when I say my top 6 (at least) are juggernauts when it comes to entertaining, addictive, time-consuming gametasticness.

Favorite Games (2004) | 2003 | 2002

Desiree
09. Fable (xbox)
08. Zoo Tycoon 2 (pc)
07. The Sims 2 (pc)
06. Pokemon FireRed/LeafGreen (gba)
05. X-Men Legends (xbox)
04. Final Fantasy: Crystal Chronicles (cube)
03. Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines (pc)
02. City of Heroes (pc)
01. World of Warcraft (pc)

Dan
12. Full Spectrum Warrior (xbox)
11. Doom 3 (pc)
10. Tales of Symphonia (cube)
09. X-Men Legends (xbox)
08. Star Wars: Battlefront (pc)
07. Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines (pc)
06. Unreal Tournament 2004 (pc)
05. Halo 2 (xbox)
04. City of Heroes (pc)
03. Half-Life 2 (pc)
02. Joint Operations: Typhoon Rising (pc)
01. World of Warcraft (pc)

1/12/2005

Gaming grab-bag

Filed under: — Dan @ 10:06 am

Well, it wouldn’t be rash a posts from me without at least one post dropping all of the interesting gaming links on you, so here goes:

Make sure to patch your installations of Zoo Tycoon 2 and Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines up to the latest levels. Both patches have some important bug fixes.

If you prefer to anticipate new games instead of patch old ones, then I’m happy to tell you that the class of 2005 is already shaping up nicely. Tom Clancy fans will enjoy the February 2 release of Ghost Recon 2 for PC and can look forward to the sequel to Rainbow Six 3: Raven Shield, now officially titled Rainbow Six 4: Lockdown. Gaming isn’t all about the shooter genre, though, so you might want to jump up and down about Age of Empires III, the next game in a great RTS series, or you can wonder how you too missed the memo that the creator of Wizardry was making a co-op multiplayer 3D action RPG called Dungeon Lords.

Finally, it’s time to fess up to the new addiction. Blizzard may well have created the most perfect MMORPG to date in its stunning World of Warcraft, and you don’t have to take our word for it. Blizzard has sold 600,000 copies of the game in less than a month, and exceeded 200,000 simultaneous players over the holidays, so Desiree and I aren’t the only ones caught up in the frenzy. If you played during closed beta and were underwhelmed (as I was), then trust me that the released game is a whole new experience. A must-have for anyone who has played MUDs or MMORPGs (or even thought that the idea of massively multiplayer fantasy gaming might be cool). Make an Alliance character on the Hyjal realm if you want to say hi.

11/23/2004

Half-Life 2 and Steam

Filed under: — Dan @ 10:30 am

There’s not much I can say about Half-Life 2 that hasn’t already been said.

It is true that it is visually stunning. It is true that the level design is nearly genius. It is true that the weapons feel satisfying. It is true that even though the physics engine is severely over-exploited, dismembering enemies with flying sawblades and creating makeshift ladders/bridges never fails to amuse. It is true that the game is so immersive that you’ll find yourself yelling “why can’t Gordon Freeman climb a god-damned fence or flip a table back to its proper position?!” It is true that even with a minimum of dialogue (or, indeed, perhaps because of it), the plot development is more intriguing than most you’re likely to find in any game, shooter or not.

So what’s the problem? In a word, Steam. Half-Life 2 brought my first exposure to Valve’s content distribution system. My experience thus far is that Steam is clumsy, obtrusive, and an incredible detriment to the way that I want to play.

You’re required to install Steam in order to play HL2. No connection to the Internet or the Steam infrastructure’s too busy/not available? You can’t launch HL2 for the first time. You’re planning on playing HL2/Counterstrike: Source at a LAN party with no Internet connectivity present? Make sure you have backup games, since despite what Valve tells you (specifically, that if you tell Steam to remember your username and password, then you can play offline) you’ll still ocassionally get “Steam ticket expired” errors and won’t be able to launch any of Valve’s games. To add insult to injury, don’t forget your CD - even if you launch your game through Steam, enter your username and password, let Steam validate that your credentials are good and you have a good CD-key via the Internet, you STILL NEED THE HL2 CD IN THE DRIVE TO LAUNCH THE GAME. Complete and utter idiocy.

I’m a gamer, so I have a vested interest in rewarding good game developers by purchasing their games instead of pirating them. I also believe that some anti-piracy measures are tolerable. In the end, though, when I buy a software product, I expect to be able to use it how and when I choose. UbiSoft’s Rainbow Six 3 patches which disabled the ability to play the game off of virtual CD drives were understandable, but annoying. Yes, launching the game from a virtual CD image instead of a physical CD made piracy easier, but it also made legitimate gameplay easier - if I have the hard disk space and I want the added performance of playing from HD instead of CD (not to mention the ability to stow my physical CD away and not have to fish it out every time I want to play), then I should be able to. However, that measure pales in comparison to a software package that requires me to check with the manufacturer every single time I want to use it to make sure I still have the right to do so. This is simply the case of a software company presuming that all of their customers are guilty until proven otherwise. Valve has decided that breaking their software for legitimate customers who can’t (e.g. on an airplane, on a trip, at a LAN party, etc.) or don’t want to use Steam is an acceptable loss in order to weed out potential pirates.

Once I finish the single-player game, Half-Life 2 is going to be relegated to a shelf and I will be as thrilled to eradicate Steam from my system as I would any other piece of spyware. No multiplayer (not that there’s much to speak of anyway), no expansions, and no mods. Much like I wouldn’t go to a restaurant that punches me in the face, takes my wallet, and checks for sufficient funds before seating me, I simply have no use for a company that treats me as a potential criminal first and, after rigorous and intrusive examination, delcares, “oh, sorry, my mistake, we have already made money off of you after all…”

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