King Graham murdered by Activision.
Posted on March 2, 2010 at 2:20 pm.
The Silver Lining, a fan-made sequel to Sierra's classic King's Quest saga, has been shut down by Activision/Blizzard the new owners if this IP. There was a similar setback in 2005, when Vivendi Universal sent a Cease & Desist letter to the developers. At that time, however, thousands of people wrote to Vivendy asking to grant a fan-license to the game, and after a while the company agreed. The game was not allowed to call itself King's Quest anymore, but the development was permitted to go on. It took the team a while to recover from this loss of stride, but as of late it looked like the first episode was about to be released.
Meanwhile, Activision/Blizzard came to own the rights to King's Quest. Instead of allowing development to continue, they decided that the project is to be killed. Not only did they force The Silver Lining's site to be taken down along with all artwork, information, demo, etc. they also insisted that all of the forums are killed as well. Nearly ten years of discussions (some non KQ-related) are now gone.
Good-bye King Graham. Who would have known that one of the most beloved gaming characters of all time would end his life at the tip of some greedy corporate suit's pen.
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Boycott Ubisoft article published.
Posted on March 2, 2010 at 9:53 am.
My earlier blog post about the ridiculousness of Ubisoft's newest DRM scheme is published by the Adrenaline Vault today. They toned it down a bit, but it still gets the point across. Go take a look there.
The original version is just a few posts down.
Update:
This article was also published by the Examiner on 3/03/2010. You can see it here.
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Supreme Commander 2 preview published.
Posted on March 1, 2010 at 7:25 pm.
My preview of the upcoming strategy game Supreme Commander 2 is published by the Adrenaline Vault today. Go take a look!
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Wings of Prey review published.
Posted on February 25, 2010 at 11:41 am.
This morning my review of Wings of Prey, another WWII flight simulator, is published. It's a pretty crummy game, but the funny thing is that I start off ridiculing the insane number of WWII games, and it just so happens that the two reviews right below mine are actually WWII games.
Go read it over at the Adrenaline Vault.
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Starcraft II Diaries (Part 1) published.
Posted on February 24, 2010 at 9:23 pm.
Tonight the first installment of my series on Starcraft II beta is published by the Adrenaline Vault. In this episode I cover the new battle.net.
Go read it at over at the Adrenaline Vault.
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I'm in StarCraft II beta test!
Posted on February 23, 2010 at 1:15 am.
I got into StarCraft II beta test!!!
Just now I played my first game. It lasted an hour and a half, and after a long struggle I ended up having my ass handed to me because I suck. No matter, I'm just glad I got to play StarCraft II for the first time since 2007, when I had a chance to take a look at an early build.
It is a lot like the original, except obviously better looking. It also has many different units, of which I only got to see the Terran ones so far. Tomorrow I should be able to take a look at Protoss and Zerg.
In all this excitement I must not forget to thank the man who made it possible! He is a reader of Adrenaline Vault (a gaming site I write for) and a regular on its forums. He is the one, the only, OmegaBob!
Bob had a guaranteed place in the beta because he went to BlizzCon last year, and he offered it to me instead. Yes, that's right, he willingly passed on a chance to play StarCraft II so that I could play it and share my impressions with my readers. That, ladies and gentlemen, deserves some serious appreciation!
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Boycott Ubisoft.
Posted on February 21, 2010 at 1:45 am.
This week Ubisoft Entertainment, a French company known for withholding games from publications that give negative reviews, has once again decided to spit in the face of every gamer in the world. They announced that in order to play their games one will be required to be connected to the Internet. Should a connection be dropped for any reason, progress will be lost. This applies to at least three of their upcoming titles.
What this means to you, is that you will not be able to play these games on a plane, without paying for an in-flight connection (assuming one is offered.) You will not be able to play them if a squirrel chews through your cable. You will not be able to play them while you are waiting for the phone company to install your connection after you move to a new house. You will not be able to play them if your wireless is spotty. Of course you will not be able to play them anywhere where there is no wireless. Should your Windows have a networking hiccup, should your kid pull a cable, should there be a power surge... yea, you will lose your progress.
Very soon, you will not be able to play at all, after the authenticating server is taken down. If you think that won't happen, take a hard look at EA, which has taken down servers for a couple of games that are not even two years old. Moreover, should anyone ever carry out something as simple as a DDOS attack against the server, you will be out of luck. With the amount of tech-savvy enemies that Ubisoft is making, this can be a very real possibility.
Oh, in case you are wondering, this is not the first time Ubisoft has been in the middle of a nasty DRM controversy. In 2005 they began shipping StarForce copy protection scheme along with their games. It resulted in an untold amounts of issues, including hardware damage. Yours truly had a DVD-RW drive murdered by StarForce. The outcry was so enormous that a year later Ubisoft backed down and announced that they will no longer use StarForce. Apparently, however, they are incapable of learning from their mistakes.
Some say that this is meant to fight piracy. I say this argument is as pathetic as it is fallacious. We all know that the pirates will simply crack the game and play all they want without having to be connected to anything. An honest paying customer, on the other hand, is going to get shafted for no good reason whatsoever. So far this only affects PC gamers, but if not stopped, this sort of militant cretinism will come to affect those of you who play on consoles as well.
Those of you who know me are well aware of how much I detest piracy. About a month ago I even had an article published in which I implored pirates to change their ways. To me, stealing any of Ubisoft's games is not an option, although I have heard plenty of people say that this is exactly what they will do. What is an option, however, is to not buy any of their games until this idiotic policy is done away with. Do not just boycott it though. Let other people know what's going on. Tell your friends. Post on forums you frequent. If you see someone pick up a Ubisoft title at a store - let them know what they are getting into.
You can also tell Ubisoft directly. There is no e-mail address on their site, but you can call them up and tell them how upset you are over their ridiculous and insulting policy. Tell them you were going to buy their games but have not intention of doing it anymore. This worked five years ago and it will work again today. You have to do it though. All of us do. Personally I own a number of Ubisoft's games, and I hate to see it come to this, but since we are faced with this reality, we must take action to protect our interests.
Ubisoft's phone number in the United States is (415) 547 4000. For numbers and addresses in other countries go to this page.
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Of Mortal and Allods published.
Posted on February 19, 2010 at 10:55 am.
The Adrenaline Vault has published a modified version of my previous blog entry called Of Mortal and Allods, under the name Of Mortal and Astral.
Here it is over at Avault.
Update:
This article was also published by the Examiner on 3/03/2010. You can see it here.
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Of Mortal and Allods.
Posted on February 17, 2010 at 11:19 pm.
After quitting World of Warcraft about a year ago I haven't played much in terms of MMORPGs. Sure I did dabble in Aion for a short while, but found it ultimately uninteresting and did not renew the subscription when my complimentary review period ran out. The lack of such long-term gaming commitments was not altogether a bad thing. For one it allowed me to spend more time playing other games, and 2009 was my most productive gaming year ever, with 19 games beaten. On the other hand, I did miss a persistent never-ending world. I also missed all the good times I enjoyed with my last WoW guild. BloodBonded was full of amazing people and we shared some really great gaming moments together.
Surely, it comes as no surprise that I was keeping an eye out for a new MMORPG that I could give a shot. I've tried Free Realms , which is geared towards children and so wasn't very appealing to me. I also gave another shot to the newly free D&D Online, but wasn't too impressed by it much like the first time I tried it. Lastly, since I'm not a Star Trek fan, I wasn't really interested that one either.
I must say I am marginally interested in Bioware's Old Republic MMO, as well as whatever Blizzard is still keeping under veils. One game that I am really curious about is Funcom's Secret World, but from what I've heard it won't be out anytime soon. Overall things looked as though I had only two choices, either go back to WoW or just ignore the MMO genre for the time being. Recently, however, two games entered open beta stages, and both sounded interesting enough to warrant taking a look. One is called Mortal Online, and the other Allods Online.
The former (MO) has some interesting game mechanics and is worth a mention if only for its non-standard (that means un-WoW-like) approach to the genre. There is no leveling for one. Instead your attributes rise as you use various skills that involve them. Chopping wood raised my strength for example. Aside form a ten-slot quick bar, there are no buttons to press. Everything but simple attacks is done via slash commands. For instance when I found a bunch of weasels, I was able to tame one of them by typing /tame. I couldn't figure out how to make it follow me though.
Then I decided that running is for losers and figured I should get a horse to ride around. When I tried to tame a horse, however, it found my actions disagreeable and killed me. Instead of getting a mount, I was forced to find a shrine to get resurrected. The world seems very large and a shrine could be ways off, but they are easy to identify from afar, because of the pillars of light they project in the spirit world. I suspect I should cut a whole lot of wood before I can try fighting, because the ease with which a horse killed me was somewhat disturbing.
The game uses Unreal-3 engine and looks plausible, except for the player models which all look almost scary for some reason. This is just a beta though, so chances are a lot of things are going to be worked out before the game is released. Generally it seems interesting, with all its skills, abilities and different ways of playing it. Time will tell whether it's a game I'd be willing to subscribe to, but for now I will continue exploring the beta.
The second game (AO) is being developed by Nival, a Russian company that made Etherlords, Heroes of Might and Magic V, and Blitzkrieg. This game is set in the world of Allods, another Nival IP. If you remember Rage of Mages I and II as well as Evil Islands, you are familiar with the setting. Unlke MO, AO is very WoW-like in terms of mechanics and interface. Everything is bright and pretty, from interiors, to characters. Even the monsters I've seen so far are original and well designed.
There are six races which comprise two factions the League and the Empire. The League has Humans, Elves with fairy wings, and funny short furries called Giberlings. The Empire has a different nation of Humans, some sort of undead called Arisen (not the rotting zombie sort,) and Orcs. There are also eight classes, from your standard Warrior, Healer, Scout, Paladin, and Mage to unusual ones such as Warden, Summoner and Psyonicist. Oh, did I mention that players can build humongous Astral Ships and fly or fight in the astral itself?
I've only been able to put about an hour into AO so far. That was enough to familiarize myself with the interface and the quest system, as well as complete the instanced introduction and arrive at the first public hub. So far I am pretty impressed though. It is too early to pass any judgment, but I'm definitely up for giving this game a chance. Later this week, I will dedicate a few more hours to it and explore other gameplay aspects. Particularly I am interested in the grouping mechanic, instancing, grind (if any) and so forth.
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Skiing.
Posted on February 14, 2010 at 3:54 pm.
I went cross country skiing for the first time in 18 years. It lasted about an hour and a half and was a lot of fun.
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To Err is Human, To Arr is Pirate.
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