World of Warcraft: Cataclysm

I could give a point by point review of cata, but there's plenty of people out there doing this...

I'll keep it short, it's WoW, but better; if you ever liked WoW, now's the time to pick it up again... you don't even need to buy cata in order to enjoy a lot of the changes! (the new "old" world)

More stuff about games in a bit, been busy. :D

Fallout New Vegas...

Sooo... it's late October, the time of Halloween for you crazy Americans, and something strange is definitely happening around here.

Fallout New Vegas came out... and it doesn't suck!

Oh, there are problems with it, problems aplenty... but unlike Fallout3, it's fun, the RPG system isn't broken and it actually feels like they hired a writer for it!

And that's the main reason it's better, yeah it's got problems, but there's a good game here so you can ignore the problems or gloss over them... for example...

Fallout 3: There were few children in the game, and they were invulnerable... I HATED this...
Fallout NewVegas: I haven't seen any children at all... and I don't care.

Fallout 3: Weird uncanny valley thing where the world stops when you talked to people really took you out of the game.
Fallout New Vegas: Weird uncanny valley thing still, but the voice acting is better and what's being said isn't totally out of place or stupid.

Fallout 3: The game engine sucks; bad path finding, weird behaviours and annoying bugs.
Fallout New Vegas: Engine still sucks, but a lot of the problems are reduced and many of the worst issues seem to have been avoided...

The game is the evidence to my latest theory about Fallout 3 (and Morrowind... and Oblivion...), that Bethesda should just make engines for games, spend more time on 'em an make 'em less buggy, and let people who can actually write worth a damn make the actual games.

New Vegas is my only piece of evidence... and in my opinion, a very strong piece of evidence.

The few things about New Vegas I do not like...

• The radio stations are boring, with very few songs and not a lot of news items the stations repeat themselves a lot, this is the one thing that's worse than in FO3.
• Invisible walls are used to stop you climbing in some areas... but this is just a pet-peeve.
• Hardcore mode should be called "weak realism mode"... I like the changes, but they could go further; at the moment it's just a vague annoyance.

There's also bugs and a few other issues, but these are being fixed and the aforementioned quality of the game overall dulls the impact...

My review of New Vegas in one line: If you liked Fallout 3, you'll like New Vegas; if you thought FO3 was alright but spoilt by bugs and poor writing (ie ME), you'll like New Vegas; if you hated FO3... New Vegas won't appeal.

Now go get yourself a big iron on yur hip and shoot up all 'em varmints around the corral! YEEEE HA!!!

Zombie games!

Recently, I've been playing zombie games... mostly Left for Dead and Killing floor, two very similar FPS games where a team of people are attempting to survive against waves of zombies including various elite zombies that wreck your shit if you're not careful...

The main difference between these two games are the production values, and a few of the details.

Left for Dead has a huge production value advantage over Killing floor, but both are good, simple zombie mashing fun.

In left for dead you're trying to escape some location with a few other survivors, there's a sense of desperation and the reason behind the zombie plague is unknown. The only explanation of anything I've heard in game is that the player characters are "immune" to zombification apparently, which suggests this is a standard zombie virus scenario. The main goal of players is to "not die" and reach some escape point; with various traps and secondary objectives along the way each scenario feels different, although not different enough to prevent stagnation after repeated plays, LFDs only weakness.

Killing floor is a similar game, but it's story is different, instead of a standard viral outbreak or whatnot, the "zombies" are actually biological constructs called "Zeds", cloned biorobots created for war by crazed scientists... it's an interesting twist on the zombie story. The player characters are very different too, being mostly military types sent in to find survivors, search and destroy or block the Zed advance. In this game the only real goal is to kill everything without dying yourselves, every game ends with the Patriach, a Zed with a combi-missile launcher/minigun for an arm and a melee attacking chest arms thing... and he can stealth.

Despite the crazyness of the patriach, I never feel scared or horrified by Killing floor, it's just too out there and over the top, despite that it is a fun game especially on harder difficulties with good teammates. Left for Dead on the other hand actually feels creepy; the musical score, realistic environments, sudden ambushes, eerily realistic zombies and the good voice acting of the various characters in the game, including player characters, make a much more engaging game.

In short, buy both of these games if you love zombie killin' and enjoy multiplayer shooters...

A caveat: If you're Australian, avoid LFD2, it's been butchered at the request of the Australian ratings people; I won't review because it's not fair to the developers.

Consoles, and why I don't like 'em

I don't like consoles... that is, the gaming consoles. I don't like any of 'em; Wii, Xbox, Playstation, Atari, whatever. I don't like 'em. I have respect for the older consoles in the sense that those were the foundations for modern gaming, but for me consoles have always been something less than what I already have, a fully functional Personal Computer. Not necessarily an IBM PC, but others such as the Commodore 64, Apple 2e (I hate Mac's and iPhones with a passion, but this is a story for another time) and Z80s.

Why don't I like Consoles? Well... there are a few reasons...

1. Console ports of PC games are bad
2. PC ports of Console games are worse
3. Console controls are bad for no good reason
4. Consoles are the home of stupid gimmicks (Wii, Project Natal, PS move... Virtual Boy)
5. Consoles allow companies too much control over your gaming (Fallout 3 for example, I can mod it on the PC so it sucks less, try that on XBox!)
6. Consoles suddenly become obsolete, got a working Dreamcast? TOO BAD MOFO!!! It's time to buy a newer console! YAY
   

For these reasons, I've never gotten a console. Perhaps once my career improves, I'll have enough disposable income to get a console and not care... but even now I could afford one and a bunch of games... instead I'm thinking of getting a new PC. Strange that... Heck, I'd rather buy myself a copy of Windows 7 (I'm still on WinXP, definitely skipping Vista!) than get a console.

Does that mean that gaming consoles suck?

Well... that Wii is pretty lacklustre... and the other two don't exactly wow me. Then again, PC gaming is kinda "meh" of late, with dozens of samey "realistic" shooters and repetitive sequel-age being spat out...

Despite my anti console position, it's more about the games than the platform... it's why I almost bought an XBox so I could play Red Dead Redemption (gonna wait for PC version... it will come!)... because the game attracted me.

...but I still don't like consoles. :P

Quick updates

In my Starcraft 2 Rant I stated mods might be awesome, I was correct. The sheer level of creativity from these "custom maps" is staggering and lots of fun. Even if you despise the idea of starcraft multiplayer, the custom maps are enough to keep you coming back.

In my MMO rant I mentioned DDO, I've stopped playing DDO and I'm on LOTRO now, which is better but eh. I'll be doing a post on this one soon. Oh, and Cataclysm is coming in December... yay?

Fallout New Vegas is coming soon, I can't wait to rip that game a new one... though a small naive and trusting part of me is hoping it will be better than fallout 3.

I'm playing Dawn of War 2 atm, it's good. I likes it, but it's not really a sequel to the original game, the mechanics are too different. I can see why fans didn't like it. More on this later.

Metro2033 still sucks hardcore... and is still full price.

Goldeneye - best FPS ever (canned laughter)

Recently, I've come across some articles gushing over the re-release of Goldeneye64 on the Wii... calling it the "Best First Person Shooter Ever!"

Best orly Evar.

Before I run into a long spiel about what I think about this claim, let me say this. Goldeneye for the N64 was a good shooter, definitely the best you could get for the N64 from my experience and worth a look if you like FPS games and have access to a N64.

But "BEST EVAR SHOOTER!!!11!1!eleven"? I wish I had been drinking something when I first saw this, I would have definitely done a spit-take before roaring with laughter, which I did anyway before saying "that is good joke!" in a poor Heavy Weapons Guy style accent.

The controls are horrible, it's on a console... Need I say more?
The pace of the game is slooooooow... compare it to quake and you'll see what I mean.
The graphics were "ok", mostly flat colours with minimal textures.
Enemies were just soldiers most of the time "yawn"
Single player was repeditive, see above
Multiplayer was repeditive, see above as well as local only

Awesome graphics! *cough*

I've played this game, unusual for me due to my anti-console stance but a cousin of mine had it way back in the 90's once when I visited; so I gave it a shot. My immediate reaction was "man, I'm glad this game is slower than a roadkill turtle, because these controls are making me act like I'm as slow as a roadkill turtle!". And what was really funny is when I played split-screen multiplayer with my cuz... I ripped him a new one so hard, he refused to play against me after about a half-hour claiming that I "cheated". :)

You know why people think this is the best shooter ever? It's what I call fanboi syndrome, it's the late 90's, you haven't seen any good shooters because you're a Nintendo fanboi, you play goldeneye and then you declare it the "BEST EVAR SHOOTER!!!11!1!eleven", satisfied that your declaration is truth, you tell your friends and the interwebs. But once it's on the interwebs, bastards like myself call you out on your narrow view of the genre and casually point to a dozen or so better games than your "BEST EVAR SHOOTER!!!11!1!eleven" with an arrogant smile on their face... kinda like I do now.

Half Life: Better graphics, better game.

Thank you, btw, I haven't laughed this hard since someone told me that WoW takes skill about 8 months back.

You want a shooter that's better? Try Quake, Half life, Unreal Tournament or Duke3D. These are all better games from the same period and each one is better on almost every score and Half Life is definately better in every way. Some would say the story of Goldeneye is better than Half Lifes strange Sci-Fi mixed with myth... I'd respond by saying that Valve actually worked for their story, and managed to make gameplay that fit with it instead of making a movie tie in game that changed 007 from a super spy into a mass murdering stock standard FPS protagonist. Heck, you want a shooter where you're more like a spy? Try Thief and Thief 2 or Deus Ex!

Goldeneye for the N64 is not the best FPS ever, it's not even the best of it's time, it's not even all that special. It's popularity is powered by the mystical energy of fanboiz, nothing more. When the remake comes out I predict that the fanboiz will split into two groups, the one that feels the new Goldeneye sucks ass, and one where the new one is sooo good they want to give it a tounge bath.... and the rest of us will say "it looks mediocre" and move on.

Fanboiz - 'nuff said.

I find it hilarious that Nintendo aren't even hiding their incapacity to come up with new ideas, I thought this Wii version of golden was just going to be a cheap port, but it's a full priced "new" game... but with the same levels, story, etc; but that's a rant for another time.

Goldeneye, for the Wii or the N64, is not the best of anything... Give it up fanboiz.

Metro 2033 - Most unoriginal First Person shooter ever or just trying too hard?

Metro2033 is a fairly lacklustre FPS that rips its story verbatim from a book of the same name. The story is the best part of Metro2033, and even that is kinda boring stock standard Post Apocalyptic dire future schlock ala' Fallout 3.

And we all know what I think of Fallout 3.

The environments are repetitive, mostly train tunnels or above ground bombed out ruins. Some of the enemies are interesting, such as these little electro-dudes that kill anything that moves. But most are just amorphous monsters that want to eat you or random humans. One of the better parts of the game is a section where you have to get past a group of Fascists fighting a group of Communists and neither like you. But it all goes downhill from there...

Especially when you meet the librarians; I hate these fucking things. The game throws you a string of forced stealth sections with these librarians, invincible ugly Ape like mofos that seem to be able to spot you no matter what anyway... When this happened, I went from "Metro 2033 is OK" to "RARGH!!! HAT YOU METRO2033!!! HAT YOU 4A GAMES!!!!". Heck, I didn't bother stealthing, it didn't work! I just ran through and died repeatedly until I got through... And I love stealth games done right... like Thief 2. Man that game rocked, I'd play that over Metro 2033 anyday.

Ultimately, what sets this game apart from any random FPS?

...it's Russian? No wait, there's STALKER.

...it's got train tunnels? ROFL! Like every FPS made in the last 10 years!

...it uses bullets as currency? Who cares, it's annoying anyway.

It's sad, because a game with it's setting all done on a silver platter should be able to present the setting well, and encourage us to pick up the book it's based on. Maybe what they should have done, was not make us the protagonist of the book, but a supporting character doing our own thing but in the same setting. That might have been better... give us a game where we can just explore and do quests and kill stuff (like fallout 3 except hopefully better) instead of dragged along like a puppy through more and more kilometers of boring arse train tunnels! What makes an enjoyable story in a book and an engaging story in a game are two different things!

Metro 2033 is still full priced ($79.99 USD) at time of writing... and it's not even a budget title.

Stay away from this boring PoS!

ps the russian sounding voice actors were kinda cool.... not 80 bucks cool, but they're something.

MMO's; WoW, DDO, others and why I'm burnt out.

I like to reflect on MMO's a lot lately... more than I like to play them recently anyways. What is it that makes them compelling? Why do I want that next level so bad? How is WoW still going so strong when the dev team seems to be intellectually on par with retarded monkeys?!?

*cough*

Anyway, what are the essential ingredients that make an MMO good or bad? How did WoW get to be so big while seemingly better games (from a certain PoV) lag far behind? I think there's several reasons...

1. WoW was made by Blizzard
Let's not ignore this Elephant in the room, I may have overstated this in my Starcraft rant but Blizzard has a rather massive reputation from their early games that may only now be starting to tarnish slightly for those on the fringe only just waking up from their fanboy(girl?)ish haze. Blizzard cashes in on this reputation every time they put look over function, fan service over real innovation in new releases.

But only a little, like a rain slowly eroding a mountain range.

2. WoW was made by Blizzard
I'm not cheating here, WoW was essentially the beginning of the end of my belief in Blizzard as an amazing company in terms of innovation in gaming, but WoW in of itself was a great example of it in some forms. No one can claim a better MMO around that time, and that I place other games over it now could be considered opinion... or attributed to burnout. We had the practically trademarked Blizzard cut scenes, (initially) great story & lore and a fairly friendly support staff (not so much now).

3. WoW is easy to understand
...almost pick up and play, and when the next expansion, Cataclysm, comes out... it'll be even easier. This is something I don't like now, but when I got into WoW it was my first MMO and I'll admit I was noobsauce; this is perhapes the most important thing. Most other games have a steep learning curve, and often the veteren players of these other games; often ex-wow players themselves, can be very negative to WoW players that join their game.

4. Warcraft strategy games
The awesomeness and story of these games built the world for WoW to exist in, while I believe the story has been modified slightly(read: raped) to suit the game mechanics and encounters Blizzard brought in over time, it's still fairly good overall and often the big bosses are compelling threats that you can feel need to die. Sometimes this feeling was dulled after killing a boss a hundred times... sometimes this feeling was amplified when a boss wouldn't drop your loot after said 100 kills.

So... I'm burnt out; why?

I guess the formula is no longer all that engaging, not all that interesting. I'm enjoying DDO though; I think that it's not WoW and has a lot more thought and freedom in defining my character.

Then again; I'm hoping to have a legendary soon, so mebbe I'll stick with WoW long enough to swing it at something! :D

P.S. I apologise to any retarded monkeys that may be reading this blog.

Starcraft (2) Sucks

It's been a while, but I can't allow myself to miss the opportunity to rag on starcraft and the recent sequel: Starcraft 2; Wind of the Fanboys.

Before I really start to lay it in, let me say that both starcraft games are good strategy games and both have pretty good storylines with SC2 giving us the practically trademarked amazing cutscenes that we expect of Blizzard...

But here's the question: is it fun?

And I came out of playing the single player with this answer "meh".

I was driven to finish the campaign because of the cutscenes and the story... but I'll never touch it again for several reasons...

1. Achievements blow
   
2. The strategy for every mission is "Here's a new unit for your arsenal, build crap tons of it and WIN!" with few exceptions
3. The "branching storylines" claim is, as always, a plate of bullshit and chips.

Hey, games industry, you want to give us a true "branching" storyline? That means a story that can have remarkably different endings. Having one or two facets of the story slightly different does not count! Oh look, I chose mission B instead of mission A, I HAS GREEN BOOTS INSTEAD OF BLUE!!! GO ME!!!

*sigh*

A lot of people have been drooling over this game, and the reason they invariably give me is "SC was the best strategy game ever", when I ask why that is I get this response "It's perfectly balanced". All I have to say to that is zerg rush; and SC2 appears to have taken the safe route when it comes to sequels and pretty well transplanted the units and game system from it's predecessor almost unchanged, although they did throw in a few new units and the system has been tweaked within an inch of it's life...

I'm not interested.

Of course, you might have heard of the stupid rearrangement of battle net that apparently Activision has pushed on players, I have no comment because I'm not playing this online. If playing the original taught me anything it's that some korean kid will be my first challenger and he'll be sporting top end units while I'm still building my first barracks. Fuck no!

(and yes, I know about the ranking system and I don't care :P)

However, there is a glimmer of hope: mods. Apparently you can do quite a lot with user made content, this is something I haven't even looked at but a friend told me that you can get complete mods that will turn your SC2 into Warcraft 3, american football and all sorts.

Might be worth a look... but Blizzard, next time take a bloody risk and shake it up a little, eh?

Oh, and anyone looking for a GOOD strategy game, I point towards the amusing Dawn Of War... which reminds me, I should pick up DoW2 sometime.

DRM is a virus

No one likes DRM, copy protection, CD keys, manual questionnaires... These things range from mildly annoying to game breaking, where some unfortunate users either lose the manual, cdkey or just can't get the game working because the DRM crashes their computer (very common with Securom protection apparently) or simply refuses to work.

So why do we even have this DRM junk? Does it work?

Yes, it certainly does... for about a week or so before the keygens, cracks, question-answer sheets and so forth come out and break the protection forever.

Wait, wait... you mean to say there are people out there that don't like this DRM stuff?

I'm SHOCKED!

Being a legitimate user, I despise the majority of DRM methods. Often, the first thing I do after I install a game is find the crack so I can put the CD away and not have to find CDs every bloody time I play a game. Technically, this is illegal but I doubt the industry really wants to test the law here, I mean... can you imagine what a judge might say...

"Your honour, this user took his software and cracked it, which breaks the arbitrary clause #43254 in his EULA licence agreement!"
"Yes, but he does legitimately own this copy of the software, yes?"
"Well, yes... but he broke the agree-"
"And he didn't develop this... 'crack' or distribute it. So his crime was to use something someone else allegedly made for pirating software to make it easier for him to use. To get past something that was merely an irritant to him..."
"Erm... he... he broke the agreement?"
"Get out of my court!"

...somehow I doubt it would go like that, but that's how it seems to me. If I don't want to deal with something that annoys me and isn't targeted at me... I should be able to remove it and get on with my life.

There are methods of DRM that are less annoying... but more disturbing. Like the 'Always online' styles of protection used for years for online FPS games... which makes sense and doesn't hurt players of those games. But recently the same protection has been applied to single player only games like Assassin's Creed 2. I don't like this, it's leading us down the path of the corporate corrupted idea of 'trusted computing' and simply not being able to do anything without an online 'handshake' with some company.

Privacy issues anyone?

And now, let me link this back to my thread title... DRM is a virus. Let's look at modern DRM and the average computer virus.

Viruses spread via downloads, CDs, emails and various other methods...

DRM spreads via downloads (via Steam), CDs and other digital formats.

Many viruses restrict the usage of software and prevent legitimate use of the machine which may require a radical shift in the configuration of the computer to beat it...

DRM often restricts the usage of the software it's 'protecting' even by legitimate users and may demand you change the configuration of the machine to suit it.

A virus may, as part of it's payload, communicate over the Internet for various purposes...

DRM now communicates over the Internet as part of it's 'protection' of the software in question, and potentially for other unknown purposes.

HOLY CRAP!!!! DRM is a virus!!!

HEAD FOR THE HILLS!!!

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh....

Fallout 3 sucks

I think this horse has been beaten to death... but I enjoy fruitless grinding (IE, I play World of Warcraft) so here's my turn!

For those not into rpgs and PC gaming, the fallout series of games has been an interesting if rather unpredictable ride from the awesome cult classic CRPG games Fallout 1 & 2 to the mediocre tactical squad action of Fallout Tactics to the insipid and utterly forgettable 3rd person shooter that is Fallout: Brotherhood of steel... Now we have Fallout 3, a spiritual successor to the original FO 1 & 2 games in the same way that the Doom movie took Doom 3 as it's inspiration.

...and it SUCKS.

Why? Why does it suck?

Well, first... it was made by Bethesda; which means it's in an buggy engine that crashes regularly, it isn't finished and it has a story that is uninspired.

BUT WAIT!!! THERE'S MORE!!!

The story is worse than uninspired! It rips off both of the earlier RPGs, water is the focus of FO3 and FO1, the GECK comes up in FO2 and many of the factions are ripped straight out of both of these stories, particularly the enclave from FO2 and the Brotherhood of Steel. The presence of these factions MAKES NO SENSE in this new setting! It's almost as bad as the writing for the star wars prequels! ugh... what were they thinking?!?

The Karma system is a joke; "all actions have a consequence"... that statement means nothing. If I eat baked beans, there is a consequence... People suffer from methane poisoning. If I walk forward 10 paces there is a consequence; I'm 10 paces closer to the garbage bin with this bloody game in hand! If I do something bad in FO3, people don't like me... then I do something good and they like me again. Um... yay? Consequences! It's an insult to the interesting and diverse Karma system from FO1 & 2 which could cause you to be labeled for many of your actions irrespective of your overall evil or good leanings. "Child killer" "Grave robber" "Sex god(ess)"... just a few of the amusing titles you could earn from Fallout 2. The Karma system in FO3 is so shallow as to be non-existent... more like a shiny decal on a rust bucket of a burned out car.

The ending to the basic game is keyboard snappingly stupid. I won't go into the specifics, but the writing for this part of the game is SO retarded it makes you want to go back to a previous save to soak up the relatively less horrible parts of the story... or, you know, delete the bloody game and write a rant about it 6 months later.

The difficulty curve is the worst one to have, hard at first... then easy street. This puts off RPG newbs and bores the leet rpg players... like me. :3

...and on the matter of the RPG system... there isn't one. Anyone willing to put in a bit of time can become a Fallout GOD in Fallout 3... all stats maxxed out, almost all skills maxxed out. I can do anything I want, I can melee Super Mutants 4 times my height and own them, I can turn trash into makeshift weapons Macgyver would be proud of, I can hack any computer, pick any lock, talk my way out of anything, I can be Rambo with a huge chain gun or I can be a Predator or I can just be a nutter with a knife and kill anything I want.

In short, I don't have to make any choice I'm not forced to... and even then I can choose to not choose. There's no challenge left in the system... and it's not hard to get to this point.

So: is there anything good about fallout 3?

It looks OK?

It's kinda fun for a little while before it gets boring...

There's a lot of potential in a 3D Fallout (Look at the mods and Fallout New Vegas!).

Final word: Bethesda; take some time to fix your useless engine and spend some money on some decent writers before you rape another franchise, 'k?

Anyone else have an opinion on this ABOMINATION against good gaming?

X3: Reunion and X3: Terran Conflict... Just what I needed.

Sooo... after my first two bilious posts on a pompous old man denigrating my favorite pastime and a developer torturing it's own customers... I decided to have a "nice" post about a game I discovered, strangely enough, via Steam.

Yes... I hate Steam, but it's not all bad.

Anyway, X3... what can I say about this game?

It's both amusingly simple... yet outrageously complex. It's a space trading and combat game in the vein of Elite, Privateer (the one based in the Wing Commander Universe) and Freelancer... just to name a few (try google-ing "Elite like games"); and it incorporates some RTS elements and large scale economics...

"Hang on, 'economics'?" you inquire with a hint of disdain...

Yes, economics; but nothing more tedious than supply and demand... the main thing being that this is a living, breathing universe where a glut of some resource in sector A, could mean obscene profits in sector B where the same resource is scarce...

Supply and demand... Easy, right?

There's also significant facility to automate much of the trading and industry. Leaving you to add more ships and buildings to your empire while you simultaneously command your more combative ships to various ends. This is where the game shines... You can purchase various ships from the races in the universe and send these ships to do your bidding... Anything from simple scouting and mapping, to patrols, interceptions and all out war.

If you so desire, you could decide you didn't like a particular race and attempt to wipe them out... It's not recommended but you could try. :D

There seems to be roughly three stages to the game:
1. Scrape together money to start your trade empire...
2. Feed profits from your young trade empire into more ships for trading and start building your industry.
3. Finish building your industrial complexes with some structures specifically to supply your own ships with weapons and such; build up your combat fleets.
3a. Kill everything you don't like the look of with LAZARZ!!!

I'm just starting to move into stage 2... Been messing around with a ship called a "Corvette" which is something between a heavy fighter and a "capital ship" or Destroyer. I've been blowing up lots of pirate fighters and a few pirate bases while my trade ships have been making me Millions; good fun.

At one point I tried to start building bases too early and found I didn't have the cash to really get it going, I had to revert to an old savegame or face going further into the game with an albatross around my neck...

And that is the main problem with this game, it lacks the pick up and play aspect of most games today... If you were to pick this up, I must insist you read up on it before you load it up so you can plan a little and avoid the easy stuff ups. The site below is run by an enthusiast of the game series with his own forum, guides and discussions of the game (I think this may be one of those cult followings).
http://apricotmappingservice.com/

X3:Gold (X3: Reunion and X3: Terran Conflict together) is on steam for $30 US, a price I honestly see as being a STEAL seeing as I've already played just X3: Reunion alone for around 20 hours and I only got it a week or so ago. You may also be able to pick it up in stores but I'm not sure of that.

Anyways, I've had enough typing about X3, I'm going to play some more and maybe buy me a destroyer!

I'll see ya in space...

I hate steam

For my 2^nd post, I'm going to cast your minds back to the dark days of late 2003, when a well known though still somewhat new software development company used it's flagship game as a vehicle to test their brand new Content Delivery software... Steam.

I hate steam, as the title suggests. Specifically the software, though sometimes the rather hot H₂0 as gas has burned me almost as bad as Valve's little experiment.

"But hang on;" you interject, "I love steam... I can get games easily and quickly, sometimes cheap too! I can talk to my friends..." blah blah blah. Yes, Steam now is a very good piece of software. Heck, it's been very solid for years now. But I still hate it, you know why?

The way they introduced it.

"Psssh, you're just being bitter;" you snidely reply "What possible reason would you have to rant on this now?"

Well my friends, two reasons. First, just because it's good now doesn't erase the bad PR, lies, frustration and lost time when Steam was a horrible failure; and second the recent release of a 'new and improved steam' made me very nervous. It has since passed with only cosmetic changes... but it still brought back those memories.

The fact I reacted with nerves suggests the introduction of steam had a lasting impression, one worth discussing.

Let me end my introduction with a disclaimer: I love the Steam of 2010, it's very good for a number of reasons... everything following is about the Steam of 2003-2006.

With that out of the way, let's get into why it was so bad...

First: It didn't work for years

It simply failed to work. Even now, Steam crashes often for no apparent reason; though it's not as bad as it was back then. But on top of that, downloads would be slow, corrupted and lost... and the Valve Anti Cheat system was a joke. In short...

BASIC OPERATION FAILED; repeatedly and abysmally.

Animated! Open in a new tab/window and watch the fun...

Second: Steam was used as a tool to eliminate the old WON net servers.

Before steam, we authenticated via the WON net servers. It worked well enough and the users were happy. Valve however, was not. I personally wouldn't have minded switching from WON net to Steam, if it didn't increase the system requirements for Half Life by 400%!!! All of a sudden, a bunch of players at the low end of the spectrum couldn't play the game they had paid for years ago and played fine until that point... It was a slap in the face and was unnecessary.



Third and finally: Valve lied about the features that would be available.

Several carrots were used to entice people to use Steam. One being able to chat to your friends through a friends list and the all new Steam community! These sounded cool, and players couldn't wait. They didn't include it in the initial release but we were assured it would come soon.

Yeah... in 2008, 5 years after Steam was released.

FAIL



As I said above, Steam is great now and it's awesome how it seems to be promoting and aiding small independent publishers. But the way users were dragged into beta testing... no, wait... that's far too kind; Alpha testing their horrendous 'Content Delivery' system is a stain on the company and one I'll never forgive or forget.

And I'm perfectly fine being a minority on that score, if that is indeed the case.

Now... anyone for some Team Fortress 2?

first post! LOL - intro and gaming as art

I apologise for the title, but I am of the "interweb" generation... While I don't participate in this juvenile behaviour the humor of opening with it was too much to ignore.

For this first post, I want to start by introducing this blog and myself, I call it "Keeper3's Blathering Blog" primarily because I shall be blathering about stuff... and one of my interweb names is Keeper3. In fact, it was my first name online, and it has an amusing backstory... One day I may go into it, suffice to say it was inspired by my near worship of a game called "Dungeon Keeper" back in late 90's.

I'll be focusing on gaming; the games I like, the peripherals that are interesting, issues of censorship and anything else in gaming that catches my fancy. And now I shall segue into my first topic... Gaming as art, or my alternate title...

In response to Roger Ebert;

I make no assumptions that Mr Ebert will ever read this or that I'm on his level intellectually, but his sweeping comments on gaming as art disturbed me even though I found myself agreeing with parts of a recent article I found re-posted on one of my favorite World of Warcraft blogs.

Essentially, the post appears to be in response to some video that attempted to push some recent games as art which sounded to be too corporate to be taken seriously, at least from what Ebert wrote.

Instead of countering his points against the video, which I see as a worthless endeavour anyway, I will focus on my opinion and back it up with a few examples.

First; what is art? Ask anyone and you will get a unique answer... unless they don't care. For me, art means something, anything that is human created that provokes thought or emotion; but even then, that's vague, can I include games that infuriate me through bad controls? How about games that are so boring that I fall asleep playing them?

Clearly, calling something art is almost a pointless exercise, as almost anything can be art to someone. Even murder, to some people, can be seen to be art and just the thought of that is disturbing to me... an emotional response you say? Shocking.

So can games be art? For me, a game to be art has to provoke intelligent thought, consideration for the issues in the story that supports the game and how the playing of the game affects the story with an appropriate aesthetic(graphics and sound) that suits the setting. A good example is Deus Ex, summarised it is a story about the folly of putting too much power into the hands of a few... The old story of power causing corruption, absolute power corrupting absolutely... And the rebellion of a few that cannot accept this. The name itself makes it sound presumptuous, arrogant... Perhaps. But it was an amazing game that few have been able to replicate.

A bad example, and there are many but I love and hate this game... love it because it's a great example and hate it because it's hardly a game (nor is it art!). Heavy rain... touted as some great storytelling masterpiece with multiple endings and paths, something Deus Ex did not need to move me, ended up being an insipid game where player interactions were effectively predefined and the "multi" path and ending rubbish boiled down to merely a good ending, a bad ending and shades of grey. I mean, who ever heard of a murder mystery where the killer is always the same?!?

*ahem*

Perhaps I digressed there a little, but my point is that Dues Ex remains in my mind like a good book, just as classics like Romeo and Juliet it's part of my memories and I can recall some of the emotions I felt as I played the game... Where as the only emotion I got from Heavy rain was annoyance.

Can games be art? Wrong question, it should be "Why can't games be art?"; who declares what is art and what isn't? Are we to accept the talking down by Ebert? A smart man to be sure, but he's not of the gaming generation, he didn't grow up with it like I did, like many of us did... it's in my blood! I played computer games with my Dad just as much as he would read to me when I was a child, if not more so... Were the stories art and the games not?

Supposedly we now spend the majority of our time in games... Some of them bloody well better provoke deeper thoughts than "I wonder when I'll hit the next level"... And I think denigrating games by declaring them as never being art gives gaming companies a free ticket to release insipid games (all too common), to ignore writing and creativity in favour of more pretty CG or explosions (like a lot of recent movies, eh Ebert?)... we should acknowledge that games can indeed affect how we think and feel, and ensure that more art and thought enters into our games and ignore those, who from on high, feel the need to disregard gaming as simply incapable of being considered art.

I mean, in the end, beauty, or art, is in the eye of the beholder, is it not?

"The object of art is not to reproduce reality, but to create a reality of the same intensity." - Alberto Giacometti

Sounds like a good computer game to me!

Keeper3