DRM insanity: The lifetime limit

The DRM nightmare is just starting. You just can't buy games anymore: you rent them. Last week I was going to buy the nice downloadable Final Fight port, but I found a disturbing message in the game description offered through the Spanish Playstation Store: You are limited to download this game in 5 PS3 systems. WHAAAT?!! So there's a limit imposed on me. I call that "renting", not buying, folks. So I had to buy the game using my USA PSN account, because they didn't show any message saying that (or I hope I haven't missed it). But then I found out: it's crippled anyway. (UPDATE: Since I bought the game, they updated the description to let you know that the same stupid limitations apply in the good old USA. Just be amazed at how complicated it is: "One time fee for download or use solely by the purchasing PSN account on up to five PS3 units, with no more than one activated PS3 unit within a 24 hour period. Content may not be used by any other account. If you do not wish to accept all those terms, do not purchase this item.")

And with the same really stupid DRM that made a lot of people hate Ubisoft, no less! So you thought you were safe because you owned a console? Think again! At this point in history, April 2010, no internet connection is constant . Is it that difficult to understand?

So, OK, let's say that I go with that stupidity. As you say, I'll "buy" my games for 5 consoles or computers. Let's say I buy now another console and I start buying games with a 5 system limit, I don't care. What would happen if Sony decided that I'm not allowed to buy any additional PS3 consoles? That would be absurd, right?

Well, think again. Apple is doing exactly that.

You probably are wondering, "why would anyone want to buy six iPads, or even just one?". Well, consumers are free to do whatever they want. Or, I should say, they were. Do you realize that paying customers are being manhandled in a way never seen before? We are going down a road that ends with us getting screwed.

Someone has to put a stop to that. So, I say, please stop buying anything with any form of DRM. There are alternatives to everything. If you want to play Assassin's Creed II, buy the console version. If you want to buy Final Fight... Well, why would Capcom even want to protect Final Fight from pirates now? Just everybody has been playing it for free using MAME for years!!!

Seriously, companies putting DRM in their products are just screwing everybody, themselves included. Please stop that. Please.

No More Manuals

Ubisoft has decided to eliminate printed manual from their releases. They are selling this as an "eco-friendly" gesture, but this is just a cynical, penny-pinching maneuver.

I don't read printed manuals anymore. I used to read them carefully on the way back from the store, or while I was waiting for the game tape to load in my Amstrad CPC (yes, I'm that old). But later the quality of the manuals started to drop. Redundant information compiled by people who hadn't created the game, black & white stills of the game that looked like bad xerox copies... and the death blow for manuals: tutorials. In the current generation the game always holds the player's hand, and if you stand still for a while, some games will even yell at you: "Go that way! Press that button!!". So manuals are not needed anymore, right?

Well, that's not true. Old-fashioned players prefer to have the reference in their hands. If I only have a digital PDF manual, do I have to exit the game to check it? And where do I make my notes about the game? Some people just need the manual. Also, what about the people who buy their games as "collector's items"? Digital downloads are the way to play games now, but some people just enjoy having the game boxes lining up in their shelves, all complete with great cover art... and manuals. All those elements are part of the ritual for this type of gamers, just like LPs with folded double covers and lyric sheets are for some music fans. What about them?

And finally, does this mean that Ubisoft is going to sell their games cheaper because of this? Of course not. They are lying. They are not making our life easier, and they certainly don't care about the environment. They are just saving a lot of money for themselves and looking good.

Pest Patrol - Shellshock 2: Blood Trails

So I had a weekend to spare and I decided to play this fine mess of a game. I had bought Shellshock 2: Blood Trails dirt-cheap, and I wanted to be sure that it was as bad as they say.

Well, it's not as bad, but almost. I get that old feeling you get from some cheap games, when you feel "oh, this would be a decent game... five years ago". So this is not exactly bottom-of-the-barrel stuff, but "it used to be fun when we didn't know better" material.

This is also one of those "in name only" sequels, like Far Cry 2. The original title was a third-person shooter made by the Killzone developers which tried hard to be disturbing by showing the toughness of the Vietnam war (even if many think they failed). Rebellion, your go-to guys for cheap shooters (ask Sega or Bethesda), said to Eidos, "OK, we'll do a sequel", they started developing a Vietnam-themed FPS, and then they filled it... with zombies.

So this is just an excuse to create a Resident Evil rip-off. Of course, they don't come even close to the great original, but still, the best part in Shellshock 2 is the part when you are in a mansion (in the middle of the Vietnamese jungle?!) and the realization sinks in... "This is just like the first Resident Evil game!". And later I saw a hooded guy with machetes, and you remember the scary chainsaw guys from the recent RE games. The game is then not a complete waste, just as the mediocre Wii reality-based FPS Red Steel, which included a truly great level in which you had to fight your way through an insane amusement park-like maze where weird stuff happened. It was worth to play that game just to experience that.

Apart from that, there's not much to recommend. Lots of scripted scares that aren't scary anymore after the third repeat. A worthless, cliched story. The old-fashioned "all the people you meet die almost immediately", which seems a left-over from the old "we don't know how to program decent squad AI" times.

Still, the mansion level is fun to play, if you don't mind suffering horrible graphics with too few character models and ugly textures. You don't have much ammo and you suddenly realize that those slow (but deadly) zombies won't go down unless you shoot them in the right place (not just the head: you can stop them blowing off one of their legs with a well-placed shotgun blast). That is a good "survival horror" feeling, but sadly it doesn't last too long because of the repetition and overall lack of quality. So I guess the game is acceptable, but not much more, if you are a horror fan and you are not sick of zombie games yet.

Don't be fooled, though. It still is a bad game.

The first day we die

Today is an important day. Online support for the original Xbox ends forever.

You may think this is not too important. Who would want to play those old games when you can have bigger and better new games? Well, many people. Most people won't care, but just think about the future repercussions of this new age of gaming. If I wanted to do so, I could get a old computer or console (Amstrad CPC, Spectrum, C-64, NES...), plug it in, and start playing my old collection of games. I could do that now, just as I could in 1988, and I will be able to do the same in 2018.

Now think about the current generation of games. The Modern Warfare online matches that you love so much. World of Warcraft. Anything with online features. Just think of the future.

2016: Microsoft issues an statement: "Xbox Live is no longer supported. Additionally, we assume that gaming with controllers is a thing of the past, so hand-held controlling devices are no longer supported either. We know what today's gamers want and we'll continue offering the best service for our Natal 2015 gaming interface."

2021: Steam is bought out by Microsoft. All non-Games For Windows Live and Mac games stop being supported. Also, all games released before 2012 stop being offered for download. A 30-day period is offered for users to backup all their games, because they won't be able to access them anymore afterwards.

This is not a paranoid fantasy. If you think about the current gaming landscape, you know it's true. We know rely on the online functionality not only to get the essential patches to avoid those annoying game-breaking bugs, but to even activate the game. But now we are starting to see that online is not forever. Servers are shut down, companies go under, and we have literally no guarantees that the games we buy now will still work in five years.

Just think about it.


...

Breaking news! Those two guys...

Well, it's not really news, is it? Zampella & West have formed a new company. Yes, with some help from EA. Anybody surprised? No? OK.

Nothing about this is surprising. We knew the guys actually making the Modern Warfare games would leave the rotting carcass of Infinity Ward as soon as possible, and of course that has already started.

Well, maybe I'm too harsh. Infinity Ward it's not dead yet after all. They are pumping out those expensive new maps! Well, not really new, but you know. They may become another Treyarch. But then Activision will realize that they can't afford to have the same developer twice, so they will close down one of them.

Come on! It's not easy to have talented people on your team. And if you have them, you don't force them away. See what happened to now-in-name-only Guns'n Roses. Did Axl Rose really think that he was going to replace Slash and the other guys just like that?

...


UPDATE: From now on, I hope we can forget about this whole mess until Respawn releases their first game (or maybe if there's something really big happening). If you are really interested, I recommend you to follow Kotaku's great coverage.

Modern Warfare 3? "Too soon!!!"

Atomic Horizons, the recently-formed company created by former Infinity Ward heads Zampella & West, has just announced their first game, which will be published by EA in 2012. Code of Valor: The Future of War is a FPS title which will allow players to control a rogue team of three soldiers, from England, Scotland and Russia, who have been betrayed by an evil general so they have to lose their names and go underground, performing mercenary jobs to survive. More details will be announced soon, but Zampella has already advanced: "this time the PC version will have dedicated servers". Let's keep our fingers crossed!

(OK, guys, this is our April Fools' joke! Sorry!)