Activation limits have been removed from BioShock.
Unfortunately, the DRM is still there. However, as I have said many times before, I am willing to put up with DRM as long as it isn't too draconian or too intrusive. With the activation limits removed, BioShock has just wandered into the "willing to put up with" category.
To be fair, at this point, I don't know if I will buy BioShock. This is a decision I will make when I finish with GTA IV and are looking out for my next game. Unfortunately for 2k, my eagerness for this game has long passed and it is entirely possible that by the time I buy a new game, there will be something newer which is getting all the press. However, the removal of the activation limits means that at the very least, I will consider buying it.
Friday, June 20, 2008
Sunday, June 1, 2008
GTA IV - single player impressions
At last - I've finally played enough of the game that I'm now willing to give my impressions of the single player game. The short version is that the game is bloody good. If you have played and enjoyed any of the previous GTA games, then you will definitely like Rockstar's newest baby.
But where should I start for the long version? Rockstar have managed to pack so much into this game that at times, its ridiculous.
I guess the big highlight, and one of the GTA series biggest strengths, is the living breathing world that Rockstar have managed to create. As you probably already know, GTA IV is effectively set in New York. And the developers have really gone to a lot of trouble to create as much of New York in as realistic a detail as possible. Granted, I've never been to New York, but its amazing how familiar the architecture looks (bear in mind, my impression of New York comes from various movies and other video games!).
Of course, simply recreating the layout of New York isn't going to be enough. What Rockstar have managed to do is fill the city full of people. As you wander around, you hear people talking to each other (then exclaiming in anger as I push them aside - hehe). Dotted around the city are various street preachers, hot dog vendors, drunks, beggars and even the occasional junkie.
In addition to the people are all the things you can do. You can go for drinks, go to restaurants (either a nice fancy one or a quick burger at the local Burger Shot), go bowling, play darts or pool etc etc etc. And they all come into play at some time or another as one of the big themes in GTA IV is hanging out with friends.
Hanging out with friends has various benefits depending on the friend. If you get chummy enough with the friends, then you can unlock various special abilities. For example, you could get free taxi or helicopter rides around the city or buy guns for cheap. Hanging out with girlfriends is another example where you can get a nice payoff if you get popular enough with her.
The second big highlight for this game is the humour. Although you get the normal humour (for example, you can go to a comedy club and watch various comedians - including cameos by famous comedians such as Ricky Gervais), you also get a healthy does of satire. Littered throughout the game are various digs at real life which are great if you know what the developers are taking the piss out of. As a quick spoiler free example, if you get friendly enough with your girlfriend, you can get invited into her apartment which unlocks the "Warm coffee" achievement (an obvious dig at the hot coffee scandal).
The third big highlight is the story. Bear in mind that the last GTA game I played was GTA III which didn't have a voiced protagonist. I know that the GTA games have had a voiced protagonist since GTA III: Vice City and playing this game, its easy to see why. Having a voiced protagonist means that the main character actually has character! In GTA IV, the protagonist is an Eastern European called Niko Bellic and as the game progresses, you learn a lot about him through the various cut scenes and conversations he has with his friends. Admittedly, I'm probably biased on the topic of stories in games as the main reason I like playing video games is to take part in an interactive story (hence my preponderance for RPGs).
All in all, this game is packed full of stuff to do. At the moment, I'm making my way through the game very slowly as each night, I only play 1 or 2 missions. The rest of the time, I'm either going out on dates, hanging out with friends, hunting NYs most wanted criminals using a stolen cop car, going on helicopter tours (or stealing the chopper and devising my own tour) etc etc.
Is the game perfect? No - its not. And I don't just mean that in the "you never get a perfect game" sense. There are some obvious flaws which, for me, prevents GTA IV from getting the elusive 100% which so many websites have given it. The biggest one is still the on foot combat.
On foot combat has never been one of GTAs strengths. To be fair, Rockstar have made big improvements to the game engine in terms of how on foot combat works - despite this the combat is still not particularly great. The problem is that its hard to spot other enemies considering the distance most gunfights take place at. Luckily, the game sports an autolock feature so you can rely on that to spot bad guys for you. However, when on foot combat basically turns out to be shooting at far away blobs, it doesn't get particularly exciting.
The problem of spotting enemies is particularly bad at night. One mission in particular has you trying to shoot your way out of an old burnt out building at night. Because its a burnt out building, there aren't any lights so its pretty dark. The combat is all short range as you are wandering around the inside of the building. Sounds exciting right?
In practice, because its so dark, you can't actually see any enemies unless they are right in front of you (ie point blank range). This means that the gameplay revolves around shooting whenever the autolock locks onto something. This is less effective than you might think as the autolock will lock onto enemies hiding behind a wall (ie I'm shooting at a wall but don't know this as its pitch black).
The alternative to shooting at walls was to get closer so that you can actually see what you are shooting at. Of course, this strategy doesn't really work very well as all the cops are armed with shotguns. One on one, this isn't an issue as I can normally kill the blighter before he kills me. The problem is that there are loads of cops and after killing the first wave, I'm pretty low on health and an easy target for the second wave.
Don't get me wrong though, despite one or two flaws, this is still a great game and very easy to get yourself lost in.
But where should I start for the long version? Rockstar have managed to pack so much into this game that at times, its ridiculous.
I guess the big highlight, and one of the GTA series biggest strengths, is the living breathing world that Rockstar have managed to create. As you probably already know, GTA IV is effectively set in New York. And the developers have really gone to a lot of trouble to create as much of New York in as realistic a detail as possible. Granted, I've never been to New York, but its amazing how familiar the architecture looks (bear in mind, my impression of New York comes from various movies and other video games!).
Of course, simply recreating the layout of New York isn't going to be enough. What Rockstar have managed to do is fill the city full of people. As you wander around, you hear people talking to each other (then exclaiming in anger as I push them aside - hehe). Dotted around the city are various street preachers, hot dog vendors, drunks, beggars and even the occasional junkie.
In addition to the people are all the things you can do. You can go for drinks, go to restaurants (either a nice fancy one or a quick burger at the local Burger Shot), go bowling, play darts or pool etc etc etc. And they all come into play at some time or another as one of the big themes in GTA IV is hanging out with friends.
Hanging out with friends has various benefits depending on the friend. If you get chummy enough with the friends, then you can unlock various special abilities. For example, you could get free taxi or helicopter rides around the city or buy guns for cheap. Hanging out with girlfriends is another example where you can get a nice payoff if you get popular enough with her.
The second big highlight for this game is the humour. Although you get the normal humour (for example, you can go to a comedy club and watch various comedians - including cameos by famous comedians such as Ricky Gervais), you also get a healthy does of satire. Littered throughout the game are various digs at real life which are great if you know what the developers are taking the piss out of. As a quick spoiler free example, if you get friendly enough with your girlfriend, you can get invited into her apartment which unlocks the "Warm coffee" achievement (an obvious dig at the hot coffee scandal).
The third big highlight is the story. Bear in mind that the last GTA game I played was GTA III which didn't have a voiced protagonist. I know that the GTA games have had a voiced protagonist since GTA III: Vice City and playing this game, its easy to see why. Having a voiced protagonist means that the main character actually has character! In GTA IV, the protagonist is an Eastern European called Niko Bellic and as the game progresses, you learn a lot about him through the various cut scenes and conversations he has with his friends. Admittedly, I'm probably biased on the topic of stories in games as the main reason I like playing video games is to take part in an interactive story (hence my preponderance for RPGs).
All in all, this game is packed full of stuff to do. At the moment, I'm making my way through the game very slowly as each night, I only play 1 or 2 missions. The rest of the time, I'm either going out on dates, hanging out with friends, hunting NYs most wanted criminals using a stolen cop car, going on helicopter tours (or stealing the chopper and devising my own tour) etc etc.
Is the game perfect? No - its not. And I don't just mean that in the "you never get a perfect game" sense. There are some obvious flaws which, for me, prevents GTA IV from getting the elusive 100% which so many websites have given it. The biggest one is still the on foot combat.
On foot combat has never been one of GTAs strengths. To be fair, Rockstar have made big improvements to the game engine in terms of how on foot combat works - despite this the combat is still not particularly great. The problem is that its hard to spot other enemies considering the distance most gunfights take place at. Luckily, the game sports an autolock feature so you can rely on that to spot bad guys for you. However, when on foot combat basically turns out to be shooting at far away blobs, it doesn't get particularly exciting.
The problem of spotting enemies is particularly bad at night. One mission in particular has you trying to shoot your way out of an old burnt out building at night. Because its a burnt out building, there aren't any lights so its pretty dark. The combat is all short range as you are wandering around the inside of the building. Sounds exciting right?
In practice, because its so dark, you can't actually see any enemies unless they are right in front of you (ie point blank range). This means that the gameplay revolves around shooting whenever the autolock locks onto something. This is less effective than you might think as the autolock will lock onto enemies hiding behind a wall (ie I'm shooting at a wall but don't know this as its pitch black).
The alternative to shooting at walls was to get closer so that you can actually see what you are shooting at. Of course, this strategy doesn't really work very well as all the cops are armed with shotguns. One on one, this isn't an issue as I can normally kill the blighter before he kills me. The problem is that there are loads of cops and after killing the first wave, I'm pretty low on health and an easy target for the second wave.
Don't get me wrong though, despite one or two flaws, this is still a great game and very easy to get yourself lost in.
Sunday, May 18, 2008
Inventory management
After last weeks brief intermission on DRM, its now time for another intermission before we return to our regular scheduled program. Just in case you've forgotten, I was going to give my impressions of GTA IV. However, GTA IV is the kind of game which you really need to play for a while before being able to give any useful response so instead, I'll talk about inventory management in RPGs.
As I mentioned before, I have been playing through the original Baldurs Gate (plus expansion pack) using the BG2 engine (courtesy of mods). In the game, I was just about to enter the city of Baldurs Gate when I went on a slight detour and started to play the expansion pack instead (Tales of the Sword Coast). More specifically, I'm currently inside Durlags Tower and boy, is there a ton of treasure! In fact, there is so much treasure that my gem bag, potion case and bag of holding are all full (I installed a mod which allowed me to buy those).
Which is a real bummer because inventory management is not one of my favourite aspects of BG. I play RPGs for the characterisation, the story and the choices which I'm forced to make during the game. And when I say choices, I mean stuff like choosing between whether to save the hostages or sacrifice them in order to kill the terrorist.
Choosing between which piece of phat loot to leave behind because I'm already carrying too much other loot is not my idea of fun.
As I mentioned before, I have been playing through the original Baldurs Gate (plus expansion pack) using the BG2 engine (courtesy of mods). In the game, I was just about to enter the city of Baldurs Gate when I went on a slight detour and started to play the expansion pack instead (Tales of the Sword Coast). More specifically, I'm currently inside Durlags Tower and boy, is there a ton of treasure! In fact, there is so much treasure that my gem bag, potion case and bag of holding are all full (I installed a mod which allowed me to buy those).
Which is a real bummer because inventory management is not one of my favourite aspects of BG. I play RPGs for the characterisation, the story and the choices which I'm forced to make during the game. And when I say choices, I mean stuff like choosing between whether to save the hostages or sacrifice them in order to kill the terrorist.
Choosing between which piece of phat loot to leave behind because I'm already carrying too much other loot is not my idea of fun.
Saturday, May 10, 2008
Mass Effect PC
I've posted before how much I enjoyed Mass Effect for the Xbox 360. This meant that I was very excited when it was announced that it would be released for the PC in May 2008 - finally, a chance for my non-console gamer friends to play this great action RPG.
And then this happens (more specifically, the second post in the forum).
I blogged several times in the past about how I hate DRM and think that it doesn't work. As I have said before, I realise that many companies won't agree and that they will implement some form of copy protection. I'm okay with this provided the DRM does not become intrusive. Unfortunately, the SecuRom system being implemented for Mass Effect PC just stepped over the line into being too obtrusive for me. Admittedly, it is a small step - but unfortunately, it was just enough to marginally push this title over the DRM line (for me, anyway).
For ME, the game will require you to register the CD key with EA's SecuRom servers in order to play. Thereafter, you will need to reauthorise the game every 10 days otherwise the game will not work (although the game will do this automatically if you have an internet connection). In other words, if you want to play Mass Effect, a single player action RPG with NO multiplayer component whatsoever, you will need an internet connection. WTF?!?!?
Considering the recent awareness and anti-DRM bias in the community, I'm sure it will come as no surprise when I tell you that the forums are in an uproar with loads of people posting that they will not buy the game. Loads of people are understandably pissed off that they need to check back with EA if it is okay for them to play their legally purchased game every 10 days.
I've been a fan of BioWare for many years (since the original Baldur's Gate a decade ago!). I love their RPGs and I love the fact that BioWare, as a company, seem to really listen to their fans. For example, their forums are a great place to go to because the developers also spend a lot of time there and you can interact with them (not many companies can make such a claim).
Because of this history, I'm not ready to renounce BioWare and all its future games yet (I already have Mass Effect on my X360 so I wouldn't have purchased the PC version in any event). As I said, this particular step over the DRM line is relatively small and I'm willing to wait and see how the end results play out before I condemn them. However, I really hope this works out well and that the DRM doesn't get any worse.
I guess what really disappoints me is that BioWare is one of the extremely rare examples of a company that produces games that I would be willing to buy at launch without first checking reviews - that is a measure of how much goodwill they had built up with me. However, any future purchases will only be after a period of waiting to see if there are any DRM problems.
UPDATE: woot woot! The 10 day re-authentication has now been scrapped. Obviously, I would prefer no DRM whatsoever - however, this is definitely a step in the right direction.
And then this happens (more specifically, the second post in the forum).
I blogged several times in the past about how I hate DRM and think that it doesn't work. As I have said before, I realise that many companies won't agree and that they will implement some form of copy protection. I'm okay with this provided the DRM does not become intrusive. Unfortunately, the SecuRom system being implemented for Mass Effect PC just stepped over the line into being too obtrusive for me. Admittedly, it is a small step - but unfortunately, it was just enough to marginally push this title over the DRM line (for me, anyway).
For ME, the game will require you to register the CD key with EA's SecuRom servers in order to play. Thereafter, you will need to reauthorise the game every 10 days otherwise the game will not work (although the game will do this automatically if you have an internet connection). In other words, if you want to play Mass Effect, a single player action RPG with NO multiplayer component whatsoever, you will need an internet connection. WTF?!?!?
Considering the recent awareness and anti-DRM bias in the community, I'm sure it will come as no surprise when I tell you that the forums are in an uproar with loads of people posting that they will not buy the game. Loads of people are understandably pissed off that they need to check back with EA if it is okay for them to play their legally purchased game every 10 days.
I've been a fan of BioWare for many years (since the original Baldur's Gate a decade ago!). I love their RPGs and I love the fact that BioWare, as a company, seem to really listen to their fans. For example, their forums are a great place to go to because the developers also spend a lot of time there and you can interact with them (not many companies can make such a claim).
Because of this history, I'm not ready to renounce BioWare and all its future games yet (I already have Mass Effect on my X360 so I wouldn't have purchased the PC version in any event). As I said, this particular step over the DRM line is relatively small and I'm willing to wait and see how the end results play out before I condemn them. However, I really hope this works out well and that the DRM doesn't get any worse.
I guess what really disappoints me is that BioWare is one of the extremely rare examples of a company that produces games that I would be willing to buy at launch without first checking reviews - that is a measure of how much goodwill they had built up with me. However, any future purchases will only be after a period of waiting to see if there are any DRM problems.
UPDATE: woot woot! The 10 day re-authentication has now been scrapped. Obviously, I would prefer no DRM whatsoever - however, this is definitely a step in the right direction.
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