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7:52 PM on 05.30.2009

My Entry for the Sacred 2 Competition

My fellow gamers, for too long I have held my tongue, for too long I have watched from the sidelines as our beloved Destructoid community has slowly become corrupted from within. Such crimes against humanity have been brought on by the one we have all come to known as Jim Sterling. Since the inclusion of Jim "The Rapist" Sterling, our once peaceful gaming community has slowly fallen into chaos.

Jim "Yahtzee" Sterling was born in England, the same England that ruled over the entire world for decades. It is the same nation which gave the world plague and Amy Winehouse. Jim "Karl Marx" Sterling does not only review games for Destructoid, in his spare time he likes to write lies about American made games like Halo Wars, while lauding more European games like Killzone 2. You see my friends, his bias knows no bounds.

Every week Jim "Hitler" Sterling appears on Podtoid, a podcast hosted by a Mahmoud Ahmedinejad look-alike. Every week this vile man mocks the only Native American in the staff whose ancestors helped build this glorious nation. This is not the Eighteenth Century Mr. Jim "Stalin" Sterling, we Americans do not discriminate the Native people of this country. My friends, I wish that was the only problem with this man-beast, but it isn’t. Not only does he regularly conspire to have forced intercourse with one American Nicole Wiebe, but he also has no respect for the American values, and refuses to acknowledge our Declaration of Independence.

Jim "Charles Manson" Sterling hosts another podcast, one called The Podcastle. The Podcastle is a podcast which is directed to the less patriotic and more uncouth members of the community. Every other week Jim "No Talent" Sterling and his co-hosts Wardrox and Atheistium try to brainwash the pure men and women of our world with their filth. Just from their fake names, you can deduce that these people are not good honest people. They are godless, jobless warmongers, who would like nothing better than to corrupt you with their impartiality.

Now I know what you are thinking, how can these monsters are employed by our fearless leader Mr. Destructoid? I have wondered the same thing, and with my ingenious internet sleuthing skills, I have found the dirty little secret that they conveniently “forgot” to tell you.



Yes what you see is true my friends; our cherished, well developed and girthy website is being managed by a bunch of communist invaders. These are people who are not born American, and might as well be sleeper agents for all we know.

These people are taking our American jobs, bedding our American Women, eating our American food; and yet they still have the nerve to complain about our American High Fructose Corn Syrup.

The United States Customs have failed us, and clearly the CEO Cat has no idea what is going on. I know this is a lot to take in and I know you are scared, but we still have an option. Join our resistance; together we shall purge this place of all contamination. Now that the Destructoid headquarters is empty of the traitors, we can overthrow the CEO Cat and finally claim what is rightly ours. With the help of our Beta Clan, we can restore power to the only legitimate owner, a true American, one who truly understands the video games journalism business, one who has been handpicked by the brightest minds in the country. One who is so baller that he will blow your mind.

My fellow Destructoiders, join us and finally we can rid this place of the smut that has been building up since the departure of our one true leader. These Brooker-lovin Mexican Liberal Nazis should go back to where they came from, only then our community and our entire lives can be sacred once again.   read


4:06 PM on 02.13.2009

White aint always right...

Well, you knew people would find out someday. Apparently Japanese Company Capcom hates black people. How else can you explain the reason behind the latest Resident Evil game taking place in Africa? Sure they give you the Marketing Bullshit like "They are Zombies, we here at Capcom are not racist", but we know in our gut, that they might as well just call this game "Redneck Heaven" because that is just what this game is.

Even the inclusion of a second character who is "multicultural", does not stop this game from being a Murder Killing Simulator, Capcom is systematically trying to brainwash the entire world, by turning us against "them" one game at a time. You think you are not affected? But I assure you, you are; did you not feel like punching Spanish people after playing Resident Evil 4? Did you not want to Kill "Mecha Hitler" after playing Bionic Commando? Didn't you feel like killing the developer after playing Lair and Too Human? I rest my case.



I know we as a community are very vocal, when compared to the fans of Films, Music or even new Gadgets, we are the most active. In the midst of all of this arguments, we sometimes lose perspective on what is important. This does raise interesting questions, if you are being mugged, and you fight back, are you racist if the mugger is Black or White? If you are in a state where zombies are trying to eat your brains -and its obvious that they are zombies because no sane person wants to eat someone else's brain- and they are black, are you racist if you put a bullet in their head?

We may make silly jokes here and there about being racist, or about someone we know who makes racist comments, but once you open that door, when you accuse one video game of being racist, should you not research other games to see if they are also racist?. What about the promotion of Afro Samurai and Church's Chicken, is that not racist? or GTA San Andreas, where gangs are stereotyped according to race?



I know I can't properly argue about race, I certainly would understand if someone feels offended by these games, but since I have never faced discrimination of that kind, I have nothing to bring to this argument. I do believe that we should have a proper discussion about this, away from the Video Game websites, away from any sort of News program or blog. It should be a couple of guys, locked in a room, who can come to a conclusion in an eloquent manner. To the media -whether it be blogs or journalists- this is just another story, one they never bother to follow up anymore because it stops being interesting. And the minute this gets onto Fox News, you can bet your ass the sales of this game will go through the roof, more than the usual anyway.


Another gem from SarcasticGamer.
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4:44 PM on 02.12.2009

Thank you for the $60... now piss off

Ah the good old days, when developers couldn't release a half ass game and fix it later with a patch. Yes with the inclusion of internet connectivity on our consoles, developers and publishers have found a new way to screw us over. Sure PC gamers have been getting patches and bug fixes and even new content for free for years, but since our overlords cant get away with charging money for the PC gamers, they have turned to the console.

Its great when a developer supports their game throughout its lifetime, when they bring out new content, or fix bugs or even create a community from their followers. Problem is other publishers and developers don't always follow in the footsteps of Bungie and Valve, why would they when they know there are always suckers to be had.

Let me make this clear, I am not opposed to DLC. What does scare me is when they force me to unlock features or levels in a game that I should not have to pay for. Its obvious that many game creators already have ideas about what to release as DLC later on the line, they just don't start thinking of new content if they see that their game is a hit. This is why I don't bitch about the Downloadable Content for Fallout 3 or GTA 4, because they already have the full game on the disk, their DLC provides new content, and I would happily pay $15-$20 to play another storyline in Liberty City.



Games like Burnout Paradise and GTA 4 gives me hope for the video game industry. I remember how quickly Rockstar had released a patch for GTA 4 as soon as people found the glitches. Metal Gear Solid 4 has no trophies, but Burnout Paradise, a game more than a year old has updated their game to include free content and trophies. But, that's not the point, because I don't expect everyone to give out free content, but when I pay full price for a game, I expect you to support it thoroughly. This is why I would wait to buy Valve games on the console, I know Valve not making games on the Playstation has more to do with their lack of Playstation programmers and not their "bias", which is why I would be fine with Left 4 Dead on the PC instead of a bad port to the Playstation.

The virtual store has opened up new possibilities, more and more I see new smaller game developers popping up, creating small and innovative games. I would like to see the bigger developers take this to the next level, these smaller games can be used as a big marketing push for the larger games. I wouldn't have even thought of buying Street Fighter 4 had I not played Street Fighter 2 HD, and being a "born again" Street Fighter player, I would gladly buy The Collectors Edition and the Tournament Sticks if I had the money. Its not just Street Fighter, games like Bionic Commando Rearmed encourages me to stay hyped for the new Bionic Commando and Mega Man 9 gives me a chance to play the old games I never got to play.

Just give me a good game, make sure its the actual "full" game, don't just shovel DLC on my face just so I wont sell my copy to Gamestop. Otherwise I wont buy your game, I'll just Gamefly it, its as simple as that.




Podcast You MUST listen to this week -- The Bugle Episode 63
You MUST listen to it, otherwise you're a wanker.



Cheers to Sarcastic Gamer for this little gem.
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12:47 AM on 02.05.2009

Leave me alone... I wanna play with myself...

Its the new hotness, the new "Special Feature" listed on the back of the box, its Co-operative Multiplayer. Granted the "Co-op" feature is as old as the 8 Bit games, and like Mega Man they have suddenly become relevant in this generation. But does the inclusion of Co-op make the game more fun to play? How many games can actually pull it off? and should we be criticizing games for not having Co-op?

Now I have not had a lot of time with Co-op games. The first Co-op game I played was Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in a pirated console that had no name (and came with 50 inbuilt NES games). I remember that game was fun, actually it was way more fun to play a level with my friend rather than play against him. I have not played the Gears of War games thoroughly, so I cannot comment on whether they are good or not. I have been playing Call of Duty World at War, and I did try out the Resident Evil 5 demo, and I am more than happy to go on and on about them.



Lets try the RE 5 first, since my PS3 hates me, it took me a LONG time to connect with another person online -I kept getting disconnected-. While I am not a fan of the control scheme, it was nice to be able to depend on another person, actually I was fiddling with the controls while he was taking care of the zombie/infected. Now this is a game that would probably be more fun to play with another person, relying on another person while Mr. Big Axe Man swings his big manly man-axe at my head.

Now Call of Duty World at War, on of their "biggest improvement" from the previous Call of Duty game was the addition of Multiplayer -because the story sure wasn't "gritty" or "mature"-. Finally we could play with our friends if we were getting "pwnd" online, we could finish the entire game and experience it as a group. Problem was, they didn't put their money where there mouth was. Ill be honest for a second, I rented "WaW" to practice for Killzone 2 and rack up the trophies, I believe many other people out there like getting those trophies. Imagine my surprise when I saw that the majority of the trophies cannot be accessed in Co-op mode. So even if I finish the entire game with my friends, I "technically" did not finish the game. Why would I spend all those hours playing the story mode? Definitely not for the story, competitive Multiplayer (meaning Deathmatch and Team Deathmatch) is a lot more involving and a lot more fun, and I only get one lousy trophy for going through all the trouble of finding four other people who wont disconnect in the middle of the game.



Now lets imagine for a moment that you are not a trophy whore, is Co-op any more enjoyable for you? It doesn't give you simple option playing through the story mode one mission after another, its just mishmashed and throws you one random level after another. The Co-op experience isn't just four of my friends playing as a squad, its four of us playing as Private Miller or Dmitri, so while I am shooting Nazis and planting bombs, my compatriots trigger the next portion of the "in-game" cutscene which instantly teleports me to wherever I needed to go -this is a problem that a certain Gears of War developer warned about when he was explaining his reason to keep Co-op between two players-.

I believe Co-op is difficult to pull off, you can be unique and create a whole 'nother Co-op experience like Resistance 2, but if people wanted originality, we wouldn't have had World at War in the first place. Now reviewers are complaining that Killzone 2 doesn't have Co-op, which makes me happier than ever. But the exclusion of something -which does not break the game in any way- shouldn't be criticized. Should we then start criticizing video games for not having features we want to see? Is there a checklist somewhere that says that an FPS or a Third Person Action Adventure game MUST have Co-op?

Give me a decent single player game, that is all I ask. I will gladly spend $60 on a great Single Player experience, specially if the Story and the Gameplay is good. Either build your game around Co-op, don't just include it in the game so you can list it in bullet points on the back of the box. There are so many things that can go wrong with Co-op -internet connection is on the top of my list-, and I have been reading about a rumor that God of War III is going to have Co-op, which terrifies me. If you have a good story, keep it in single player because the minute you give others the option to play with me, I don't feel as immersed in the game, instead I talk to them about random things like PSN logging me off on purpose.


P.S. I haven't played Left 4 Dead, but I know enough to never criticize Valve, those guys will hunt you down and kill you.
Also, just as I finished this, my newly downloaded Rebel FM (Episode 5) started talking about Co-op. So any similarities means they stole it from me :)



Some Random Awesomeness
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6:24 PM on 02.03.2009

Bitch and whine and scream and bite...

Gears of War 2 was recently patched, and being a fan of the first Gears of War game -even though I played very little of it- I was surprised to find that Gears of War 2 had a lot of bugs and glitches. Now bugs and glitches are common in a game, some are minor annoyances while others make playing the game a chore. Being a famous developer and creator of Video Game Engines, I expect better from Epic, actually I expect a LOT from Epic. Developers like Epic Games and Bungie has set the standards in the past, with their unique style of Gameplay or their solid Multiplayer modes. So as a gamer, it is heartbreaking to find that the final product they shipped needed a lot of patches. I am sure that Epic didn't slack off, I know that they worked hard on this game -I cant understand why they didn't have a beta- and I'm sure that in the end, it hurts them more than it hurts me.

While I may sound like I'm bashing Xbox 360 games, I assure you I am not. I criticize because I care, I have high expectations from these developers, -having only a Playstation 3 at the moment- when I hear about a new shooter-action game announced for the Playstation 3, I hope and pray that they can reach the amount of polish and the level that Epic, Bungie and Infinity Ward has set in the industry. This does raise some interesting questions, we know that the list of bugs on Gears of War 2 is long, then how is it that all the reviewers missed them, and how can a game with so many glitches get near perfect scores from gaming web sites. It is statistically impossible for all of them to have missed these bugs and glitches, I hear many reviewers and critics say how they have "journalistic integrity" and only review the final build of a game, the final build that the customer themselves buy from the store, where was their journalistic integrity when people were waiting 20 minutes to connect to a game?

Now lets pretend that the 85 Video Game reviewers listed on Metacritic missed all the glitches, perhaps they were not paying attention, what do they do when they find out that a game has bugs after it is released? What is their responsibility as video game journalists -that many claim to be-, should they review the entire game again, or do they just add or subtract the scores based on the bugs and glitches? What about the responsibilities of the gamers? What should they do when they find out about these things? Now I don't check the Xbox forums, so I don't know what was going inside there, but in other forums I was surprised to find that people were apathetic to this whole thing, when they found out about the matchmaking problems, they just played Horde Mode and didn't bother with the other Multiplayer modes. I think as gamers and as consumers, we should bitch about games more. By that I don't mean trolling the forums and flaming posts, I mean bitch to the developers, the people whose job is to give you complete product. Sometimes I see people whining about the smallest things, -like Braid being "overpriced"- and other times, they are apathetic. If you don't criticize the developers for messing up, they wont be bothered to improve or support their products, and I'm not talking about random bitching and whining, give constructive criticism. No game is ever "perfect" or "complete", it is our job to make sure the developers don't get too comfortable with our $60 and continue to support their game, whether its Gears of War 2 or Saints Row 2.

This brings us to the next part of this post, the online services provided by Sony and Microsoft for their respective consoles. Now it is common practice to compare the two services, praising PSN for providing a free service and chastising Microsoft for charging people for playing online with their friends. The problem is, you can't objectively compare the two services, they have different goals and different expectations from their service. Let me make this easier for people to understand, if Xbox Live was a Classy and Expensive Restaurant, then the PSN would be a soup kitchen. Both serve food and both are there to satisfy your hunger, but you cant compare the two without looking like an idiot. Xbox Live is a premium service, meaning it is not for everyone, it is an exclusive club and therefore I expect it to set the industry standards and when you compare it to PSN, you actually bring Xbox Live down to a lower level.



I may sound very bitter, but I have my reasons, a couple of days ago I tried to play Super Street Fighter 2 HD with my friend over PSN. Now this was 4 o clock in the morning -and therefore not during peak hours- and we were in the same country and the same time zone. We tried more than twenty times to create a lobby, every time we would get disconnected from the PSN, I was getting annoyed but I still wanted to play Street Fighter, so we shut off our consoles, waited a few seconds and started the game (without voice chat), after one or two games, we would get kicked from the same lobby we were hosting. This isn't something that only happens to me in Street Fighter Turbo HD, this happens in Call of Duty World at War, Grand Theft Auto 4, and also Socom Confrontation. The only thing that stopped me from throwing the controller at the TV that night was the fact that I was pulling off some stylish moves with Vega on my Dualshock 3 D-pad, a small consolation.

Things like this make me look towards Xbox Live in envy, PSN is in no way perfect, I do hope the service gets better and I would gladly pay to play. The only way I can peacefully sleep at night is by bitching and whining in the Playstation forums.


P.S. If I encounter the same problems in Xbox Live I swear I'm going to fucking kill someone, seriously, more than twenty times I tried to create a lobby, every time getting kicked out by PSN, worst half an hour of my life.

I hope the Gears of War 2 becomes more enjoyable for people, I love the fact that it looks muddy and gritty and has "macho" generic manly men characters, that makes it unique and an enjoyable experience, the same as a summer action blockbuster movie. So enjoy it doubly for me.   read


10:37 PM on 01.17.2009

Keep your hands off my Wii

I remember a year ago, people all over the forums were screaming death of the Wii. Many said that the Nintendo Wii was a fad, that it was a dust collector and would soon be forgotten. Twelve months have come and gone, so far the hype has not died down, could the prophecies have been wrong?

When I first heard about the Wii, I was very excited. I think in a game, we should focus more on gameplay rather than graphics, and the Wii had wonderfully innovative way of playing games. I put my faith on them, even when I found out that Red Steel was not the revolution that I had hoped it would be, and even thought Twilight Princess was a good game, it tacked on unnecessary motion controls. While Wii Sports was a nice preview for how motion controls could be used, eventually every single game started implementing random waggling instead of implementing proper motion controls.

I don't try to understand why people like the Wii, but I have always believed that most consumers are idiots. How else can we explain Paris Hilton becoming a celebrity and Carnival Games selling more than 1 million copies on the Wii. I certainly can't blame Nintendo for going after the casual gaming market, no one even thought there was a casual gaming market untill a couple of years ago. If they had simply made another generic upgrade of the Gamecube, not as many people would have bought it, hardcore gamers will go for the Xbox and the Playstation because they find the familiar games there, whereas Mario and Zelda are perceived as childish games.



Moments like this -when Wii music sells more copies in a month than LittleBigPlanet- questions my faith on humanity. Nintendo wont come up with better games than their age old franchises because that is what sells, because people are perfectly happy with their sub-par mini game collections, just like people are perfectly fine with selling their new games to Gamestop for a quarter of their price and then buying second hand games at twice their market price. I do worry about the fact that if the Wii owners don't demand better games, then the first or the third party developers wont be encouraged to innovate.

However having said all that, I would still buy a Wii. Even though it has only a handful of good games, the backwards compatibility with the Gamecube and the Virtual Console means that I can enjoy the old games I never got to play. So in a way, for newcomers, the Wii is a very good investment. The problem is people don't buy the good games, they don't buy games like No More Heroes. I know a particularly intelligent gamer who buys an Xbox 360 for Halo and will buy Naruto: Clash of Ninja and Lost in Blue for his Wii because he thinks Mario's story of saving the princess is childish.

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At the end of the day, things like the Wii motion plus and Madworld gives me hope, hope that people can find new ways to bring us better games. I do hope that the people who are starting to enjoy video games buy an Xbox or a Playstation and that they demand better online services from Nintendo. But then again, I am perfectly happy with my Playstation, and I wont have to worry about the Wii till after I get an Xbox, Im keeping my fingers crossed for a Wii with a hard disk.   read


8:25 PM on 01.16.2009

RAWR YOU'RE SO BIASED... RAWR!!!

What would we ever do without video game reviewers. Seriously, have you ever thought about what we would do if there were no reviewers? While normal people would say "We would never know which games were good and which were bad", we the real "internet people" know what would really happen, console wars would be a lot less bloody on the forums.


Lets face it, one of the main reasons we hunt down reviews of new games is so that we can compare it against games we love or hate. While these reviewers work hard to find a way to put ten hours of a video game experience into just a couple of paragraphs, we just look at the score and quickly post the link on the forums and claim victory. I have turned into such a terrible person that I don't even bother to read the reviews, I simply check if they have a video review or not, if they don't, then I just look at the score and tuck it away into my mind, waiting for an unsuspecting forum troll.



Some of the most eloquent members of our community always accuse reviewers of being biased, whether towards a particular franchise or a console. Whether they give a good or a bad review, reviewers just cant seem to win these days. The funny thing is, a single video game review does not make or break a game. There is not yet a video game website or magazine, that has so much influence in the world, that their reviews can sell a million copies. That power, still rests with the almighty advertising industry. Therefore, it is asinine to think that a video game publisher is paying off someone to write a good review.


What you call "bias", I call "point of view". While many judge games very harshly, others may be more forgiving. When I look at a game and try to say whether it was good or bad, I look at what it was trying to achieve. I try to look at how the creators wanted me the experience this game. Nowadays games have become to complex that it is impossible to classify them in just one genre, because many try to add elements of a different genre into the game.



Try to look at how the developers wanted you to experience the game. Did they want to tell you a more grounded and deep story? or did they try to give you different tools so you can have fun on your own? Did they want to make you feel like a indestructible bionic man? or did they want you to make you feel like a helpless man who must survive against the odds? These different experiences has made it hard to even compare games withing the same genre. Games like Thief, Splinter Cell and Metal Gear Solid may be similar in theory, but practically they are very different. Of course we must not forget that the game must be fun, and be without game-breaking glitches or bugs.


Reviews tend to be subjective, it does not mean that the reviewer has been paid off or is bad at what he does. Lets take GTA 4 as an example, while many people have loved the game, others were not fond of the serious tone of this iteration. Even the reviewers themselves were divided, and many have said that if it were up to them, GTA 4 would not have gotten a near-perfect score. So we can see that while one reviewer was impressed by the story and the relationship with the different characters, others felt alienated by the fact that you didn't have more wacky things to do in the sandbox. While both points are valid, its up to you to decide which one you will heed.



Whether through a podcast or an older review, you can get to know the reviewers, you can tell whether he is highly critical or tries to look at the bright side of games, whether he is content with the game if it has cute characters, or bitches about level design if two levels have the same shade of brown. No one can or should tell you what you must enjoy, if you enjoyed Killzone, Haze or Too Human, then I am happy for you, just don't expect me to like them as well. I have seen many people enjoy games which I hated, games which are filled with bugs and a bland storyline, but I have also seen many ignore and hate good games, just because it didn't give them the same experience they are used to from a game.


I can appreciate the long cut-scenes in Metal Gear Solid 4, while also have fun with the cliched characters and over-the-top violence of Gears of War, but I wont stand for buggy or stupid AI. At the end of the day, if you enjoy your game, then you shouldn't have to justify it to anyone, whether he is a 12 year old in the forums, or a 10 year video game industry veteran.










**In other news;
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4:39 PM on 01.14.2009

Arrrr Matey!!!

Video game makers and their customers have always had a special relationship. The kind of relationship that makes you go all fuzzy inside after having a hot chocolate beside a fireplace in a cold winter night. Let me start this again, the first game I ever played was Aladdin for the Sega console, the interesting part is that I played it on my computer. For as long as I can remember, I have bought games for the PC with as little as $1 a disk. I lived in a third world country and was 10 years old, and therefore quite naive.


For a long time I excused my behavior by telling myself that the game developers had plenty of money, they would survive in their pools of cash. Just six months ago, I had over 100 PC games and 52 PS2 games. Not one of them original, and the total cost was less than $200.

Only recently have I learned about how piracy is hurting the market. Making developers like Crytek think about branching out to develop for console because their games are illegally downloaded more than a million times on torrents.

I understand that developers go through a lot of trouble to create an IP, they should be entitled to earn money off of it, and so they put in ridiculous amounts of DRM software to restrict people from pirating it. Problem is, the DRM only affects the people who legally paid money to buy the game, it doesn't do anything to stop piracy.

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I remember when Half Life 2 was released, my friends were so excited to play the game, I wasn't so hyped because I wasn't familiar with the Half Life games. While the paid customers had to jump through some hoops, all they had to do was copy a crack file and play it without the CD. However, the crack itself wasn't properly done, after 24 hours of installation, all the AI characters would freeze. That was it, they would simply freeze, no moving, no shooting, no talking. Fortunately for my friends, all they had to do was change the date on their PCs to the day the game was installed, they had to do this every single time they wanted to play the game.

The second time I noticed a hitch in the crack files, was when I tried to play Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory on the PC. Prior to this game, we had to copy the entire image and a tiny software from the CD. The software "hid" the emulation software and let us play the game, this worked with games like Path of Neo and Advent Rising, two game I still remember being fun.

After Chaos Theory was released, all hell broke lose in our tiny little world. Starforce was a software which no emulation can "hide" from, our disks wouldn't run and we were pretty angry and sad that we couldn't play this game that we were waiting for. A couple of weeks later, the new Prince of Persia (The Two Thrones) was released, same copy protection, same problems. It took us only days to find out how to finally play the damn things.





We had to keep only one emulated disk drive on our PC, we had to keep the CD image on our hard disk, and in order to run the game, we would have to disconnect the cable which connected the CD ROM with the Motherboard. It was pretty risky to regularly connect and disconnect that cable, but I still did it, the games were worth it. We were willing to go to desperate lengths or wait months, to play this game.Now its simply a copy and paste of the crack file, we no longer need to connect and disconnect the CD ROM in order to play a game with Starforce.

If these experiences have taught me anything, it is that no matter how hard publishers and developers try, it is very hard to make any game "Uncrackable". Sooner or later, someone is going to find a way to get around your DRM software and release it in the torrents, its a shame but currently there is no solid way to combat that. Even the current generation of consoles aren't safe. Games like GTA 4 and Gears of War 2 were released on the torrents weeks before they were released on the store shelves.

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I am not a software pirate, I don't know how to code and if I did, I would probably make "Puzzle! Puzzle! Puzzle!" instead of trying to screw over developers. I am just a consumer, and as much as I want developers to get the money that is due to them, I cant help but think how many people are forced to jump through some unnecessary hoops just to play the game that they paid for.

I am at a point in my life that I can pay full price for a game, whether its on the console or on the PC. Even though I could download Spore in less than a couple of hours, I would be glad to pay for a retail copy (if my damn computer could run it). Sure DRM isn't a big factor for me, worst comes to worst I could just buy the game and then download a cracked one, but many people are frustrated with DRM. Frustrated to the point where they would illegally download the game just to stick it to the publisher, and I somewhat sympathize with them. When I buy a game, I should be able to install it as many times as I want, not five times, not seven times, but as much as I want, I should be able to play the game without being logged on to the internet, its as simple as that.




THE RESULTS OF PIRACY




Publishers need to understand, that releasing a game with heavy DRM generates more outcry from the consumers than releasing a game with no DRM. Your rock solid mammoth DRM software may be able to keep pirates at bay for a couple of days, but with time, people will find a way to get around it, and all that negative goodwill, all the time spent on trying to justify your DRM would have been for nothing. Which is why I salute all those publishers and developers who release games with no DRM software, they have faith that the quality of their game would encourage people to buy the original, and I know that if I could, I would buy original copies of all the games I had enjoyed before. I know the good one are worth every penny I spend on them.

Still there are some "heroes" among the gaming community, who have been able to piss off the software pirates with their weird solution for DRM. Assassins Creed was on sale for the PC in my country before it was legally released, problem was at a crucial point in the game, the game would just simple freeze and return to the desktop. It pissed off several of my friends who thought the problem was their PCs instead of the buggy version of the game. It was wonderful to laugh at all of them, because I knew Ubisoft was laughing as well. I could get behind these weird solutions to battle piracy, just don't punish your customer for following all the rules.



**The author has been piracy free since July 2008, he currently lives in one of the Best Cities in the world and has a healthy collection of PS3 games. He bought Warhammer Online legitimately and was proud of his purchase. The rest he gets from Gamefly.   read


6:58 PM on 01.13.2009

ALL ABOARD THE HYPE TRAIN!!!

Killzone 2 is coming out in a couple of weeks, and I am very excited for it. Lets get the obvious out of the way. I remember the E3 2005 cut scenes, I remember watching those cut scenes and saying to myself "There's no way this is real". I was proved right and was forced to be banished to the corner, waiting till the day when we see the real "in game" footage of Killzone 2.

[embed]117951:16967[/embed]

So far, it looks great. Whether its on the various podcasts or "The 1up Show", I keep hearing about the great graphics of Killzone 2 and I gotta say, I am hyped to the max for this game. I would probably go to the 12 o'clock midnight launch if I could but, I am trying to stay grounded. Guerrilla Games doesn't exactly have the best legacy. I believe "cautiously optimistic" is the word I am looking for.

[embed]117951:16968[/embed]

I don't expect Killzone 2 to reinvent the FPS genre. I don't expect it to have a broad and engaging story or revolutionize online multiplayer experience. I expect it to be fun, I expect to put it on and have a blast whether I'm playing the Single Player campaign, or "PWNING N00BS" online. If Killzone 2 can keep me happy in those areas, my $60 would not have been spent in vain.

People expect it to be a "Halo Killer", giving it a label and try to make it something its not. Perhaps it wont sell as much as Halo 3 did, would that make it a bad game? It probably wont sell millions of Playstation consoles, would that make it a bad console? I boggles me how people judge a quality of a game, or of a future game, by the number of units they sell. But thats going off topic, I dont expect Killzone 2 to be the "killer app" and I dont expect it to sell 2-3 million units in the first month. That is a feat best achieved by Wii Fit and Halo 3 and Gears of War.

So, lets stay a little grounded, and if this is a good game, I hope people buy a Playstation 3 to enjoy it. A good game deserves to be shared with as much people as possible. If it is a bad game though, I would be one of the first guy to write angry letter to Guerrilla and start an internet petition. We all know how effective those are.   read


4:38 PM on 12.21.2008

The VGAs took my innocence

I feel so happy for those children who, along with their parents sat down to watch the Spike Video Game Awards together. What a wonderful way for families to bond together, watching Jack Black perform sexual acts on the Xbox 360 AND the Playstation 3, he isn't into JUST ONE console, because he is no fanboy, just really really weird. Not to be outdone, the man came back dressed in an underwear, because what says "TEH AWESOMEZ" better than a man in an underwear.

As the night went on, I was aware of how all of this spectacle in no way properly honored the games and the video game makers that have worked so hard to make our little community more mainstream. Throughout the show, I was laughing, mainly AT them and crying on the inside. I wondered what people like Kim Kardashian and super models and other "celebrities" had anything to do with video games. Where was Michael Hollick? or Jason Zumwalt, I wanted to see some more Niko and Roman Bellic. But alas, all I would get is Kevin James skit. I also wanted to see Miyamoto play Wii Music onstage and being boo-ed off, but that's just a silly dream. If you can have a "Best Shooter" and a "Best RPG" catagory and nominate Wii Music for best Music game, why is there no "Best Survival Horror Game" or "Best New Retro Game"?

I couldn't help but think how these guys

[embed]115515:16542[/embed]

have more talent than most of the "artists" onstage, and how they could have been more relevant. But I don't plan TV shows, no one wants to watch an award show where people just get up on stage and thank "the fans" and "the people back home" who made their dreams possible. That wouldn't have gotten as many viewers as it did, but it probably wouldn't have given me nightmares about Jack Black fornicating with my beloved consoles. Thank you writers for creating a small piece of video game history, now whenever someone talks about video games in the mainstream media, the "Jack Black Console Orgy" clip is just a click away.

I watched the "Awards" primarily for the Exclusive trailers, I wanted to see what Kratos and Nathan Drake were up to. Those trailers, Will Wright and Tim "Freakin" Schafer were probably the high point of the show. Perhaps we may never get a decent video game awards show, certainly not in Spike, where the best programs are "Manswers" and "Cheaters". But if ordinary people can create funny shows like "Mega 64" and "Hey Ash Watcha Playin" then why cant professional people create a decent award show? It was a slap in the face of Gametrailers TV, which actually is a pretty good TV show on video games.

Perhaps we can never have a decent Video Game Awards Show on TV, maybe we are forever banished on the internet, going from site to site, to look at their Video Game awards. But I do take away one good thing from this show, one positive experience. At least it wasn't as bad as the Emmys.   read


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