Caught by surprise

Another Halo 3 gameplay example. This time, for a change of pace, I am going to show me getting creamed. :)

In the first screenshot, you can see me in the middle. This is at the tail-end of a hard and strenous fight. One which I won!

In fact, you can see me drill the guy in front of me. The strange pose is because the guy has just died (if you look closely, you can see the blood splatter). Unfortunately, all my attention was on the guy I was shooting and I didn't notice the other guy in white armor jumping in behind me.


Just after I drill the guy in front of me (and even before I can feel elation that I killed him), the guy in white armor gets in close and whacks me up the back of the head. :(

The next screenshot shows me dropping my gun just after he has caved my head in.


The two deaths (ie mine and the guy I killed) were so close together that you can actually see us fall to the ground together in the next screenshot. I'm the guy on the left - slumping onto the ground after bouncing off the wall.


Our final resting place. Looks almost peaceful doesn't it. :)

Leaping grenade tag!

Another gameplay example for you. This was taken from a free for all Slayer match (this is your basic deathmatch).

In the first picture, you can see me (thats me in the foreground) running towards an alcove. I had just managed to pick up an overshield which is why I'm sparkling like a Christmas tree. Just in front of me is a large gap and in the alcove, you can just see someone coming up the grav chute.



As I get to the hole in the floor, I bunch my legs and leap high over the gaping chasm. Meanwhile, the pleb in front of me has now exited the grav chute and has turned to attack a guy to his right. The next screenshot is from the point of view of the pleb who's about to get a nasty surprise. :)

You can see that he has already turned away (there is a guy to his right which you can't see). Meanwhile, in the background, you can see me with the hot potato in hand.


Check out that throw! The grenade draws a beautiful arc as it homes in on the pleb - who is probably thinking that he is about to get a kill. Look at the concentration as he's firing his assault rifle!


The next screenshot is a closeup of the grenade attached to his head. :)


Followed by a bright explosion as the grenade goes off (and takes his head with it!).

Results of my first Halo 3 match

I acquired Halo 3 yesterday and played a couple of games online last night. One of the cool features of Halo 3 is that the game automatically records the whole game session so that you can replay it at a later date. Unfortunately, I don't have a capture card and don't know how else to get the video of the game out into a video format that I can post to this blog.

Luckily, the game also lets you take screenshots of the action and download them. Anyway, for your viewing pleasure, I enclose a couple of screenshots from my first Halo match. If you like them, keep an eye on this blog as I will update this with stories and screenshots of Halo 3 games that I play. :)

Anyway, as I was new to Halo 3, I started off in Training Camp. This is basically a 4 player deathmatch game which only noobs will partake in (ie people like me!).


This picture is a screenshot of my very first kill in Halo 3!! Thats me in the background drilling the guy with gunfire! It was also the first kill of the match (yay me!).

Actually, although this is registered as my first kill, its probably more apt to describe it as my first suicide. What actually happened was that the guy threw a grenade at me. The grenade bounced off a wall and rebounded next to him. Basically, he blew himself up. Still, the game counted it as my kill (a forced error!) so I'm taking it! :)

Unfortunately, despite the good start, my first death followed shortly after. In the next screenshot, you can see me in the foreground chasing after another guy as we faceoff. Unfotunately, he got the better of me. :(

You can clearly see a bullet bouncing off my head (check out the blood splatter!) in the screenshot.



Anyway, the match kinda went downhill from there. Hey, its been a while since I played Halo 2 (well over a year now - possibly over 2 years) and I never played Halo 2 online either! However, after a couple of deaths, I started to get a better handle on the controls and managed to do a lot better.

I even managed to grenade tag someone with an alien grenade (which is an instant kill). For all you sadists out there, I took a close up of the grenade tag. The grenade is the big round thing on the face of the guys helmet. :)


Anyway, despite the poor start, I managed to catch up and do well. In fact, I won the match!


This is me with proof that I won the match. Strike the pose!

Finish the Fight

Just 2 more days till I can finish the fight. The anticipation is killing me!

Anyway, while I'm waiting for Halo 3 to come out, I've been mucking around with some other games. As you know from last weeks post, I've been replaying Gears of War. On a side note, I really hope that Halo 3 doesn't suffer from the same lag issues that GoW has - in case you weren't aware, the host in GoW has a pretty big advantage as he suffers no lag. And this isn't the case of a shitty player bitching as the lag and resulting host advantage in GoW is well documented.

Anyway, what you probably didn't know is that I have also been mucking around with Command & Conquer. Not C&C3 but the original C&C that was released 12 years ago and which kick-started the whole RTS genre. Basically, if you were a PC gamer 12 years ago, you would have known about this game (thats how famous it is!). Maybe its nostalgia, but its incredible how much fun I still have playing this game - especially as I got it for free by downloading it off the internet.

Shock! Did I say download for free? Have I turned into a pirate (avast ye!)?

Well - not quite. You see, as part of the birthday celebrations for C&C, EA (who now own the franchise) released the game for free on their website. In fact, you can download it here. So go on - download this classic of RTS gaming and relive your youth!

Gears of War redux

Halo 3 comes out on 25 September. And I am sooo looking forward to this game.

Or maybe I'm just a victim of the Microsoft marketing machine. As you can imagine, with a game like this, the PR team at Microsoft have gone into overdrive. This marketing blitz has placed Master Chief on every conceivable and in some cases inconceivable locations!

Anyway, while I'm waiting for Halo 3, I've been replaying GoW on Xbox Live. After several months not playing this game, I'm very happy to report that statistically, my skills haven't really deteriorated. In the past, out of 8 players, I would regularly challenge for 7th place. I am still challenging for 7th place now - so now change!

What can I say - them damn 13 year old kids are good at this game.

I need to find a group of old guys who have shitty reflexes like me!
:)

Adios Bioshock

Last week, I posted about some of my dislike for DRM. Just when I think things can't get any worse, this happens.

So what happened? Basically, one of the buyers of Bioshock installed it on his PC. This guy has several users on the same PC and so, in accordance with PC best practice, he installed it as an admin. The problem arose when another user on the same PC tried to run the game. At this point, the game asked for the serial number again. Before proceeding, the guy went back to the forums and asked if this would count as 2 of his 5 activations.

Just in case that last statement wasn't clear, 2K games has put an install limit of 5 on this game (actually, it was 2 but the outcry on the forums was so bad that they upped it to 5). What this means is that you can install the game 5 times - if you want to install more, you have to properly uninstall once and get a reinstallation key.

So in summary, the question was whether 2 guys using the same PC, but under a different profile, would count as having installed the game twice. Reasonable question.

This was the answer from 2K Tech JT:
The other way to view this, is one USER has purchased the game. Not the whole family. So why should your brother play for free?

So in other words, if you want your entire family of say 5 people to play the game, you should buy 5 copies. Even if they are all using the same PC. This is so fucked up it defies belief (and if you can't understand why, please jump in front of a bus so that we can remove you from the gene pool).

2K have since said that he wasn't actually an employee of 2K - he was just a tech guy they outsourced technical support to. Furthermore, the guy has been suspended pending the results of an investigation (I have no idea what they are investigating - this is just what they said).

First off, if 2K Tech JT honestly believes in his above statement, then he fully deserves to be fired and publicly pilloried.

However, another point to consider is whether 2K Tech JT was simply toeing the company line. Although his comment was indelicate (and stupid), it seems to be a fair summary of the way that 2K are implementing DRM for Bioshock. Importantly, I note that although 2K are distancing themselves from 2K Tech JT, no one has actually said that the above situation does not count as 2 installs (although admittedly, the thread is soooo long that I might just have missed it).

Indelicate as his statements may have been, has 2K Tech JT nailed down in a nutshell the view taken by 2K based on how they are actually implementing DRM? Is 2K Tech JT being made a scapegoat?

Possibly. Either way, unless 2K do something drastic and soon, they are going to be joining Starforce on my boycott list.

DRM is BAD

DRM (Digital Rights Management) is bad. Very bad.

For those of you who don't know, DRM is basically copy protection. DRM is used in a lot of applications, but as this is a gaming blog, I'm only going to talk about DRM in a game context. More specifically, in the context of Bioshock.

Bioshock came out for the PC and X360 recently. Based on the reviews, this is one hell of a kickass game! And I feel very comfortable saying that as I have also played the demo on the X360. In fact, after playing the demo, I had resolved to buy the game!

And then this happened. It turns out that Bioshock uses SecuRom copy protection which means that you only get to install the game twice (you can install more if you uninstall properly thereby getting an installation key - however, lots of users reported problems uninstalling the game properly). SecuRom also has other problems (eg other users have reported that they had to remove all virtual drives on their machine before allowing them to install the game). And this really really annoys me.

You see, I am hugely against DRM in games. In my opinion, having DRM in games is worthless. No matter how good your DRM is, within a couple of weeks, a pirated version of the game usually becomes available. In other words, people who don't intend to buy the original can very easily get a pirate copy.

It seems that the biggest argument in favour of DRM is piracy and the resulting lost sales revenue. However, in my opinion, this is a hugely overstated loss. In most cases, people who download pirate copies of the game probably would never have bought your game in the first place. In other words, you really aren't losing out that much. Having said that, I am also a realist and I know that most games will have some form of copy protection. So in most cases, I ignore the copy protection and get on with life.

However, I draw the line when people who do buy the original get screwed up the ass (as beautifully illustrated in the link above). If you are going to implement copy protection in your game, at least make it unobtrusive and ensure it doesn't contain any malware. Bioshock was unable to do this.

I doubt any of the developers of Bioshock or anyone at 2K Games is reading this. However, if there are, I just want you to know that I will not be buying Bioshock even though it wouldn't have effected me on the X360.

It is your prerogative to screw your customers. It is my prerogative to not become your customer.