March 2010 Archives

It's not a big secret that efforts are being made by companies such as EA to limit the appeal of buying used copies or pirating their games by including one-time DLC codes, a bonus for players that buy a new copy of a game. So if someone sells a used copy of say, Dragon Age or Mass Effect 2 to Gamestop, odds are very, very good that the next person won't get the freebies from it because who can resist free stuff, right?

It's a shrewd way of handling the used market from the publisher's perspective, but the core game is still intact. You can still play the game all the way through to its ending, but if you want that fancy new Dragon Armor, you'll need to pay a little extra for the privilege.

But according to IGN, it seems that one player wasn't very happy about it.

Did you lose out when you were disconnected from Ubisoft's DRM servers? Ubisoft has come up with an apology for those affected by the downtime with an offer of free stuff.

According to Kotaku, it seems that PC players of Assassin's Creed II who were affected will either get the extra map content for AC2 (like the Arsenal Shipyard) or their choice of one of four games: Tom Clancy's H.A.W.X, Heroes Over Europe, Endwar, or Prince of Persia.

It's not quite clear on who got what offer, but as the article points out, it might depend on whether you have the Special Edition or the normal release.

Personally, I'd go with Prince of Persia.

Is publishing going to die out with the rise of the iPad and every other mobile screen that allows for books to be stored as 1s and 0s? Not by a longshot if Dorling Kindersley Books has anything to say about it.

Created by the UK branch of DK, this is a clever presentation that was made for a sales conference but had proven to be so popular, it was posted in the wild for the world to see. It clocks in at roughly two and a half minutes, but it's worth watching for a clever difference in perspective.

So far, Amazon is showing EA's Command & Conquer 4 at a one-star rating by its users. Granted, not all of the "reviews" may be from those that had actually played the game, but the ones that appear to be point out some solid reasons why it has probably killed the series.

Looking through the posts, there aren't many people that were happy with the direction that the game had taken, the threadbare story that doesn't quite answer everything, low unit caps, or the draconian DRM that will haunt your PC.

It's pretty ugly, especially coming in on the heels that EA has let most if not all of the team go. Even former CGW/GFW editor, Jeff Green, had tweeted a little of his own frustrations over the game, and he works for EA.

Ubisoft's Silent Hunter V has also suffered the same fate along with the PC version of Assassin's Creed II. There's some kind of shared theme here, I think.

It looks like Wikipedia has gone down. I was doing a little research when Firefox suddenly told me that it can't be reached. Uh, oh.

Hitting the site gets me to to the intro page, but the text looks...off...and doing a search from it or clicking on any of the language links takes me to the above. Doing a trace route shows that the hardware is pinging back, but getting into Wikipedia is still a no-go as of this initial writing.

Social media site, Mashable, also reports the same thing happening to many other users and have a link to tweets reporting the issue.

A more detailed post on Huffington has a quote from Wikipedia's technical gurus on what actually happened:

"Due to an overheating problem in our European data center many of our servers turned off to protect themselves. As this impacted all Wikipedia and other projects access from European users, we were forced to move all user traffic to our Florida cluster, for which we have a standard quick failover procedure in place, that changes our DNS entries.

However, shortly after we did this failover switch, it turned out that this failover mechanism was now broken, causing the DNS resolution of Wikimedia sites to stop working globally. This problem was quickly resolved, but unfortunately it may take up to an hour before access is restored for everyone, due to caching effects."

In plain English, it'll be back in about an hour.

From Australia comes a news story where an assistant professor has motivated his class by throwing out the grading scale by using experience points instead. From the article, Lee Sheldon of the Indiana University has been quoted as saying:

"As the gamer generation moves into the mainstream workforce, they are willing and eager to apply the culture and learning-techniques they bring with them from games," said Sheldon, a gamer, game designer and assistant professor at the university's department of telecommunications.

"It will be up to management, often of pre-gamer generations, to figure out how to educate themselves to the gamer culture, and how to speak to it most effectively," he told iTnews.

You can read the rest of the article here. Apparently, according to the article, his students have taken to this unorthodox approach with "greater enthusiasm". I know I would have for certain classes back in the day.

That's not to say that every cup of joe you drink at the office will restore your health (although it can seem that way) or that every copy you make will earn points towards a new desk, though. Instead, he's trying to make the point that "providing defined goals, incremental rewards, and balancing effort and reward" are key to happy employees.

As others may tell you, though, that's a lot easier said than done, but it's definitely a noble effort in engaging his particular audience. In this case, his students. Other employers do the same thing in other ways, such as Google which provides a vast number of perks and rewards for its employees to keep them happy, not the least of which is allowing them to work on projects that don't have to do with Google at all to prepare for the possibility that they might want to head out and start their own business with what they have learned. Try doing that at a few other jobs, and it could get you fired.

Still, as one of the comments to the article have jokingly mentioned, using a literal interpretation of Lee's approach would probably make for interesting Boss fights. But the grind would probably still be there to deal with.

Final Fantasy's reputation for reinventing itself with every major release as well as spreading its brand name into other genres has made it a powerhouse series since it had saved a struggling Square in the early eighties. While some developers may choose to standardize on a set of systems for their own games, Square Enix's ongoing efforts in designing a new battle system, set of characters, and an entire world to put them in with every title say as much for their imaginative talents as it does for their efforts in keeping the franchise fresh.

FF13, the latest in the franchise's long line of major RPG entries, raises the same stakes and is part of a huge celebration of Final Fantasy that Square-Enix has termed Fabula Nova Crystalis. FF13 is only the first "13" title to emerge in this series, but it is considered the flagship title of the new compilation. It's a huge game that easily clocks in at sixty or more hours of fantastic adventure.

Whether they've also fit in enough actual gameplay, however, depends on how much tunnel vision you want to endure for the story that it wants to tell.

The success of Activision's Modern Warfare franchise has made it the 400lb gorilla to beat on the battlefield for many developers. The record-smashing success of its sequel has also given many of its competitors pause, but EA DICE has been tweeting its own horn in positioning their own war machine as a convincing contender for the camoflauged crown. Whether it's the lure of its vast maps and pedestrian-unfriendly vehicles, or in actually providing PC players with a basic online GUI, Bad Company 2's action packed followup easily brings in plenty of reasons in kicking kill streaks to the curb.

God of War 3 is a revenge tale, and not the kind with the happy ending that leaves you feeling fuzzy about everything that happened. This is dirty, nasty payback, fueled by the kind of single-minded rage that can take even the noblest of heroes to a dark place.

Sony Computer Entertainment's latest (and presumably last) installment of its famed franchise is also its most ambitious, exploring the powers of the PS3 as much as the mental and physical odyssey of its hero, Kratos.

It accomplishes both tasks in impressive fashion, giving players an grand action-fest with bloody fun, guilty pleasures and even some brains -- as in smarts, not what ends up smeared on the wall.

Having trouble playing the PC version of Assassin's Creed 2 or Silent Hunter 5 today? You're not the only one. Joystiq notes that the Assassin's Creed 2 forum has a thread filled with angry users that suddenly find they can't get into the game, either. There's even a post in there about someone who bought the game as a gift over the weekend and now can't play it. The forum for the WW2 sub-sim, Silent Hunter 5, also has a similar, vitriol filled thread.

An Ubisoft representative in the Assassin's Creed 2 forum has posted the following:

"Due to exceptional demand, we are currently experiencing difficulties with the Online Service Platform. This does not affect customers who are currently playing, but customers attempting to start a game may experience difficulty in accessing our servers. We are currently working to resolve this issue and apologize for any inconvenience."

This is actually covered in their FAQ as to what would happen if this occurred. As for when it will be resolved, the same representative had replied to the thread noted above by saying:

"I don't have any clear information on what the issue is since I'm not in the office, but clearly the extended downtime and lengthy login issues are unacceptable, particularly as I've been told these servers are constantly monitored.

I'll do what I can to get more information on what the issue is here first thing tomorrow and push for a resolution and assurance this won't happen in the future. I realise that's not ideal but there's only so much I can do on a weekend as I'm not directly involved with the server side of this system."

In the meantime, PC fans will simply have to wait.

UPDATE (3.8.2010): According to Blue's News, it seems that the problems experienced yesterday were the result of an attack against their servers according to this Tweet from Ubisoft. In this one, they claim that 95% of their players weren't affected. So it sounds like it's happy gaming for PC gamers once again. At least for today.

...on Xbox Live Arcade and PSN this spring according to Tecmo, and will be called Tecmo Bowl Throwback.

It will be based off of the SNES release, Tecmo Super Bowl, and will feature "old school" and "new school" graphics. On top of being a visual remake of the game, it will also come with a number of newfangled features such as online leaderboards and online multiplayer.

In addition to Mega Man and Sonic going retro, it's just as fitting for this classic to hit the pixels in the same way. It'll be interesting, though, to see whether the AI has also undergone a few tweaks.

Here are a few screens showing both modes that the game will have to help show off your HD TV

The Cold War, aside from hanging the threat of nuclear annihilation over everyone's heads, had also given birth to James bond, chilling thrills for Tom Clancy's fans, Tetris, and plenty of tactical fodder for armchair generals to duke it out in the Fulda Gap between the former East and West halves of Germany.

During that time, a wealth of PC titles dedicated to military scenarios built around WW3 filled store shelves from shops such as SSI with their "When Superpowers Collide" series to shoot 'em ups such as Access Software's "Raid Over Moscow". Although it's no longer around, its indelible presence on history continues to provide developers ideas on where to take their own stories and answer several "what-ifs" of their own, even if it means fighting Russian ultranationalists as the new bad guys with Infinity Ward's Modern Warfare.

One particular title had asked the question of what would have happened if the Soviet Union hadn't fallen, if the Kremlin had decided that war was the only way to survive inevitable collapse. Massive Entertainment's "World in Conflict" was an incredible RTS released in '07 focusing on an invasion of the United States in 1989 and which had an expanded re-release in '09 which included the Soviet perspective. It's an RTS with a good story, too, focusing on the soldiers and even the letters written to their families.

It was slated to come out for consoles, but the plans were scrapped last year. It could have made a great compliment to other RTS-type titles on the Xbox 360 alongside Halo Wars or the PS3 but whether Ubisoft, the new owners of Massive Entertainment, will ever revisit the IP is hard to say. I wish they would, though. The game ends on something of a cliffhanger.

Trailer: World in Conflict - Soviet Assault (WARNING: Some graphic violence)

According to this, one can now express their sexual orientation via their gamertag or Xbox Live profile. Stephen Toulouse, the director of Live's policy and enforcement, announced the changes. The new regs state you can use the words lesbian, gay, bi, transgender or straight in your profile or gamertag.

On one hand, it would be easy to see this as a progressive and commendable step for the Xbox Live community -- a chance for people to know more about you and, as a friend of mine put it, a chance for someone to at least stick his or her toes out of the closet.

However, while there are certainly regular, level-headed people on Live, there's also a staggering amount of duncery coupled with idiotic, racist and sexist drivel that populates a lot of online gaming sessions. I'm not sure what the incentive would be for some to post that kind of information and give the dregs of the online community more bullets in the chamber. A femaIe co-worker of mine can't get through one Modern Warfare session without some spoiled, brain-damaged 12-year-old telling her to go make a sandwich.

At the same time, there's no progress without pain. We'll see how this unfolds.

Whenever gaming fans decide to create something off of a popular property, the odds are usually good that the company that actually owns it might want them to stop. Even if the game is being made for free, it doesn't matter as it "might dilute" the brand or whatever else that company may have planned...even if they sit on the name forever.

When several fans got together to create their own King's Quest tribute game, The Silver Lining, they opened themselves up to this kind of request. Vivendi Universal had owned the rights to the King's Quest series at the time and at first, sent a cease and desist letter to the makers after they had already put in four years of hard work.

But an outpouring of incredible support from fans eventually managed to impress upon Vivendi to change their request and allow them to continue making the game, which they did, by granting the makers a "Fan License". The only requirement was the removal of the name "King's Quest", but the rest of the game remained intact. It was a surprisingly positive gesture on the part of a company like Vivendi when several others, such as Square or Fox, had simply chosen to shut down similar projects with threats of litigation.

However, as time went on, the IP (intellectual property) of the King's Quest series changed hands...this time ending up in Activision's who sent another cease and desist letter which ultimately killed the project. By that time, eight years had already passed, a demo had been released, and the game was on the verge of completion. The details of the request even go so far as to include shutting down the forums that they use to keep in contact with fans and team members around the world.

Why did this game take eight years to make? This was largely a volunteer operation by a group of dedicated fans sharing their time on a project that they loved, but to keep it going for eight years also says a lot about their professionalism. As an unofficial close to the King's Quest series written and created by many of those that found themselves whisked away by Roberta Willliams' world, it could have been great. I was looking forward to playing it being a fan of the series and having watched this project grow in recent years. It's the fan story that would have stepped in as an ending that only they could write for their favorite series.

And now, we'll probably never know.

Revenge is a dish best served cold, and there are few chefs better at preparing it than Kratos, the protagonist of the God of War series. Roughly a year ago, I talked about how his blend of bravado, skill-tempered power and pure rage helped him stand alone as Sony's Computer Entertainment's alpha dog and helped craft a franchise that aimed to reshape the concept of scale in game design. With the full power of the PS3 behind God of War 3, Kratos' debut (and possibly lone appearance) on the system needed to be something special.

A few days ago, Sony gave us and others a big taste of Kratos' vengeance ... and it was good. WARNING: I talk a lot about the first 30 minutes of the game, especially some but not all highlights of what I saw ... if you find that to be spoiler-worthy, be careful if you choose to read on.

Waking up this morning, I was surprised to see my PS3 tell me that I could party as if it were 1999, but apparently its version of the millennium bug has been going on since Sunday. According to updates on Kotaku and Slashdot, there's some kind of calendar issue that's affecting PS3s worldwide. Many of those, they say, are the original phat units. Even developers are being affected by this with debug consoles caught in reboot loops.

On my end (I have a launch 60GB PS3), I couldn't even sign onto the PSN network and the date on my unit was already set to 12/31/1999. I couldn't even update the time from the internet, but it allowed me to download patches for games such as MW2...which I couldn't play anyway. See the screen above? That's all I get from MW2. At least it's patched to 1.90, though, not that it helps.

Funny thing is that it doesn't seem that every game is affected in the same way. I started up Valkyria Chronicles and was able to play the game, albeit it's a single-player only title but it does have trophies. With MW2, it didn't matter whether or not I wanted to just play the campaign. It booted me out regardless of what I wanted to do and it isn't the only game affected. Manually changing the date doesn't do much except make it look correct, but whenever MW2 checks back with PSN for trophy info, I'm sent right back into the Black Void of Error.

The 'net is filled with plenty of speculation at this point on what the cause might be, running from it being a problem with leap year interpretation (it's not due yet) to a possibility that it stems from upgrades to the PSN (which doesn't explain why offline systems like mine were affected, or why it was able to download patches for titles).

Sony has acknowledged that they are working on the problem. Hopefully we'll get some kind of fix sooner than later, but it's more than a little disconcerting to see something like this cripple so many systems at once.

UPDATE(1) 3.1.2010: Some PS3 owners in Europe have even gone so far as to try and trade in their affected units for the slims at retailer GAME. GAME, however, is reportedly refusing to do so at this time.

UPDATE(2) 3.1.2010: Kotaku reports that Sony has contacted them with news that it has narrowed the problem to the clock the PS3 uses. They go on to say that a fix should be on the way in 24 hours, but "if you have a fat PS3, do not use it for 24 hours". Aside from coming off as if it should be quarantined, I'm surprised that they actually had to say that.

It defies belief that something like this actually slipped past Sony's Q&A. The PS3, for me at least, has performed flawlessly until now and I have no doubt that it will again after this fix. But still, it's incredibly eerie to see Sony with this much egg on their face over what seems like such an innocuous feature.

UPDATE(3) 3.1.2010: Kotaku has good news that it looks like the problem with the internal clock for fat PS3s has been fixed and no patch was even needed. I was able to sync my PS3's clock with the 'net and start up MW2 without any problems. It looks like today's craziness might be over.