Dead Rising Review

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Dead Rising

Review by SteerpikeAugust 2007

Hi Mom!

I was on the phone with my mother not long ago, and though we rarely talk about games, the conversation somehow turned to that zombies-in-a-mall extravaganza Dead Rising.

For some minutes, I waxed poetic about the subtleties of the softly spattering viscera, the rewards hidden in the sharp crack of a baseball bat against a head or the swish of the hunting knife carving reanimated flesh, the tacky syrup-colored spray of gore onto gleaming tile. I spoke of the blood-drenched corridors, the severed heads in the fountains, their cobwebbed eyes staring blindly up at the Muzak-blaring speakers, the gobbets of brain, left over from a mating of sledgehammer and skull. I made mention of the industrial lawn mower, the enthusiastic nyargl-nyargl-nyargl of bones splitting under its whirling blades; the custardy arc of mulched entrails—until, of course, the mower becomes too gummy with the undead and must needs be abandoned in favor of a mannequin leg or a chainsaw or a clothes hanger or golf balls or a mop or a lead pipe or a paint bucket or a cash register or a frying pan or a 2×4 or a giant stuffed bear or etc. etc. etc.

“How do you sleep?!” she shrieked, having listened patiently, motherlike, to my recitation for what she determined to be an acceptable minimum interval.

Mom grew up in a kinder time, when the possibility of an armed struggle against the undead seemed distant, quirky. These days we have to think about things like that. We have to be prepared. And regardless of the cause—be it escaped virus, Earth passing through the tail of a comet, unnatural radiations, eldritch powers, or (in this case) angry honeybees—man, when the dead start to walk, you’d better be ready.

This is the world of Dead Rising, and though it may be a shameless ripoff of Dawn of the Dead, it achieves something the films didn’t. By making zombie apocalypse interactive, and by putting you in there with advanced graphics and gore physics and helpless people and, most crucially, the very real sense of overwhelmingly bad odds, it realizes the genre in a way that no film has.

Dead Rising is surely one of the most cruelly ambrosial games I have ever played. Something about the sound effects, the rumble in the controller, the ludicrous camp humor, not to mention the freedom to kill zombies in a whole rainbow of gruesome ways with a panoply of improvised weapons, make this game emotionally nourishing. It is that which exonerates the serious faults and failings that would otherwise trammel it in mediocrity. Dead Rising makes several important missteps in design. It’s also meanspirited and sick … in ways other than just gore. That isn’t serious if such things do not bother you, but the flaws are another matter.

The Day Colorado Stood Still

As sites for Armageddon go, sleepy Willamette, Colorado seems too blandly American, with its quiet streets, tidy play parks, and immense shopping mall. But the military has quarantined Willamette for reasons unknown, and photojournalist Frank West has chartered a helicopter to fly him there.

Seen from the chopper, it appears to be a riot, but one happening in slow motion. Only as you zoom closer do you see what’s really going on, the extent of the devastation. Through the viewfinder of Frank’s camera, you observe Willamette’s doom firsthand—and if you’re quick enough, you can snap some sexy shots sure to net you the front page of Time magazine. The use of photography to gain experience points for Frank carries throughout the game, and you must master it. In many cases, the really spectacular shots, the ones that net you tens of thousands of points, require nanosecond timing and a sense of confidence painstakingly learned through practice. The opening teaches you to be observant and even to predict what and where future photo ops might occur.

A military helicopter forces some evasive maneuvers, and Frank leaps out onto the roof of the Willamette Park View Mall. From that moment, he’s got 72 hours before his ride comes back, 72 hours to save as many lives as possible and figure out what the hell’s going on. But with thousands of zombies and more than 80 of the weirdest survivors imaginable hiding in the mall, Frank’s got his work cut out for him.

Top of the Mall, Ma! Top of the Mall!

Tasks are scattered throughout this consumerist nirvana, generally revolving around helping innocents to safety or dealing with some threat. The main storyline takes precedence over everything else, and the key to successfully playing Dead Rising is learning to juggle the overall case with the experience-giving tasks meted out by the mall janitor over Frank’s spectacularly annoying two-way radio. This game occurs in accelerated real time, and if you’re not in exactly the right place at exactly the right moment, you’ll break the main story. You can keep playing if this happens, but Frank will never discover the cause of the zombie plague.

The challenge is exacerbated by the hordes of undead. As you desperately calculate the time required to do this task or that one, you must account for how long it’ll take you to reach your destination through shopping plazas so teeming with reanimated corpses that at times you can literally walk on the heads of the zombies from one end of the mall to the other. Nearly every object in every shop is a potential weapon, helpful since they break all the time. Hand-to-hand combat is the way to go, as the abhorrent firearm aiming interface makes it nearly impossible to shoot straight no matter how much you practice. The whole everything’s-a-weapon, from potted plants to soda cans, is one of the most adorable aspects of this game.

You’ll soon learn three important things: first, you cannot complete every side task and still finish the main quest. You will sacrifice many lives through inaction to pursue the mystery. Second, zombies are an obstacle to be avoided, not a foe to be engaged. If you’re on a deadline (and you almost always are), the best way to miss it is to get bogged down in pointless, protracted combat with zombies. This game absolutely captures the clumsiness of the shuffling dead. Capable of short bursts of speed at best, bursts that usually end with them toppling into a fountain or down the stairs, they hardly seem dangerous, until dozens swarm you from all directions, biting, tearing, holding you down. Getting caught in a major zombie scrum can cost precious minutes … or your life.

That highlights the game’s appalling save system, which is Dead Rising’s most serious problem. You can only save in the mall’s Security Office (getting there is a ten-minute job, or about 30 minutes of game time) or the bathrooms, which are ill-placed and often overrun. With only one save slot to work with, there’s also a chance you’ll save yourself into a position where it’s impossible to reach your next objective in time. That means starting the game over, which you’ll do accidentally at least once anyway, since if Frank dies you’re offered the choice of restoring your save or “save status and quit.” That last, innocuous though it may sound, forces you to restart from scratch.

The third thing you learn about Dead Rising’s play mechanics is that it’s not meant to be completed as a single linear experience. Every time you restart, your level and skills transfer with you. You should plan on playing through the first two hours of the game a few times, just to get Frank to a point where he’s strong enough to handle what lies ahead. That’s not as bad as it sounds—gameplay is so enjoyable that repetition is okay.

The long and short of it is that you’re hesitant to save. Sometimes you just forget to save, because you’re having so much fun … then you die and you realize that the last three hours need to be replayed, which can be rather galling despite the fact that gameplay is a blast. A competent save system would have eliminated the issue altogether. This is especially significant given the extraordinary challenge of some bosses.

The astonishing variety of gameplay is one of the chief selling points. The mall is immense, detailed, and fun to explore, full of secrets and plenty of little unnecessary but welcome treats. You can, for example, change into any of several different outfits at assorted clothing shops (a fact that so delighted a friend of mine that he is forever banned from Dead Rising; upon discovering that he could outfit Frank with a giant yellow Lego person head from the toy store, he was unable to play without giggling). You can also download new duds from Xbox Live. Touches like the costumes and weaponry are where Dead Rising really shows its charm—like the campiest slasher films, there is a core of humor that truly makes the game sing.

Subtle, Like a Hand Grenade Is Subtle

Japanese games are usually for Japanese people first and foremost, and it shows. It is only after a bad localization job do we see them on this side of the pond, and American audiences are just used to the Nipponese influence in their games. This time, Capcom tried creating a game for Americans, and whether intentionally or not, the design does make one thing very clear:

They hate us.

Now, even more than other nations, Japan’s got a pretty good reason to feel that way. But I was still taken aback by the level of angry, sneering disdain you’ll find here. According to Dead Rising, Americans are ignorant, gluttonous, indolent, uncouth, bloodthirsty, dimwitted, sexually predatory, arrogant, brutal, chauvinistic, avaricious, prejudiced, consequence-blind thugs heedless of the rest of the world. The fact that this is actually true of a huge portion of the American populace doesn’t really help our case.

Dead Rising is intended to be campy and over the top—sometimes way over the top—so this ill-will is certainly dialed up … but it’s there. Take the inbred family that stakes out the mall’s entrance plaza with hunting rifles and drawls the right to bear arms as justification for killing everything they see, zombie or otherwise. Or the grossly overweight female security guard who captures a bunch of teenage girls, ties them up, and violates them with her nightstick because they are pretty. Or the psychotically fundamentalist cult that says the zombies are punishment for our varied sins. Consider the escaped convicts who terrorize the Leisure Park, ignoring the zombies completely but murderously pursuing any humans who pass through. Or the mad (and, peculiarly, Asian) butcher who, lacking shipments of cow and pig, turns to grinding up human for his imaginary customers. Or even the zombie plague itself, which, without giving away too much, is basically caused by the size of the American dinner plate. Aside from meaning that this game really deserves its “M” rating, there’s something … nasty, scornful about much of Dead Rising. It didn’t bother me too much, but it might make some players uncomfortable, so be warned.

Almost Like the Walking Dead

Dead Rising and Ninety-Nine Nights both chose to showcase the 360’s next-gen processing power by displaying thousands of complex moving objects onscreen at once. There is an indecent number of zombies in the mall, all controlled by their little zombie AI, and it looks great. The bright colors and handcrafted layout of each store is equally well-done. Even a year after release, Dead Rising is technologically impressive, though the multitude of load screens break up the action and the cinematics don’t compare to the gameplay.

Alas, that next-gen technology brings with it some new problems. The phrase “Uncanny Valley” doesn’t begin to describe the sepulchral hideousness of (living) character faces in Dead Rising’s cinematic sequences. This is the first time I found human representations genuinely creepy—disturbing, right on the brink of repellent. This is especially true for a female character who I think was supposed to be attractive. Instead the people are, as Masahiro Mori warned more than 30 years ago, so human-looking that they don’t look at all human: they look dead, or worse. Many games have already moved past the Uncanny Valley or have adopted a stylized look that allows them to skirt it, but Dead Rising is right down there in the chasm.

On the subject of AI, its dimness works for zombies because, well, they’re zombies. It’s a little less amusing when you’re trying to escort people back to the Security Room and they flat out refuse to come when you call them, or they charge into a pack of zombies despite life-threatening injuries. The escort missions can be exasperating for this reason, and some basic pathing and AI improvements would have fixed it.

Adjectives Aweigh

When I try to think of words to describe Dead Rising, “satisfying” is the one that keeps coming to the top of the list. There is something satisfying about it. Dead Rising is part of this complete breakfast of video games. And while there’s no one thing that makes it stand out—and several things that stand out as serious defects—at the end of the day, it comes back to the satisfaction quotient. It is a yummy game. My brother Marcus, who can find something wrong with every video game ever made, bought a 360 in part because of Dead Rising. It’s just fun to play, regardless of flaws.

Capcom, that oh-so Japanese company that’s given us Street Fighter, Mega Man, Resident Evil, Phoenix Wright, and Devil May Cry, is capitalizing strongly on the next generation of consoles. Between Dead Rising and Lost Planet, they have sold several dozen truckloads of 360s—not least because both of those million-plus sellers were designed explicitly for Western audiences. The fact is, the Xbox 360 isn’t doing well in Japan, and there’s little point in developing games aimed at that market to the detriment of others. They’re going where the money is. Dead Rising, Lost Planet, Crackdown, and Gears of War are the only games I’d consider required reading for the 360. The 2007 holiday release cycle is about to increase that library dramatically, but for now those four are the clinchers.

Part platformer, part pure action, part open-world adventure, there are a number of ways to enjoy Dead Rising. Indeed, if you don’t care why there are zombies in Colorado, you can easily get your money’s worth just running around the mall, doing side tasks and creating undead frappe with lawn mowers and assorted blades. Or you can follow the crisp, well-written, well-translated storyline and solve the mystery. And, best of all, once you finish—or at any time before that—you can start over again, retaining all of your skills and advancements.

I cannot bring myself to give Dead Rising a Gold Star, because it does have very serious flaws that even a neophyte game designer should have recognized and eliminated. But that won’t stop me from recommending it to anyone … provided you have the stomach, the good nature, and the speedy thumbs necessary to enjoy all the game has to offer. The End

 

The Verdict

The Lowdown

Developer: Capcom Publisher: Capcom Release Date: August 2006

Available for: Xbox 360

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29 Responses to The Long, Sordid Tail of DRM

  • Meho

    Good one.

    Of course, it will be very interesting to see the battle between crackers and UBI’s cryptographers. PC version of Assassin’s Creed II is already circulating the warez scene, although as yet uncracked. Everybody seems to think it will be cracked in a couple of weeks time at worst, which, admittedly is better for UBI than what usually happens (games cracked before release). Of course, I won’t be buying it because I find this practice unnacceptable (and I do have the console version anyway) but the success of this game and its DRM might mean quite a lot in the future. Of course, we ARE moving towards the age where you will be required to be connected to do any playing at all, whatwith the Gaikai and OnLive systems rearing their heads on the horizon. Doesn’t mean I have to like it, eh?

  • Spike

    I went to the Ubisoft website and looked at their list of published games.  It seems that the last of their games I played was the last Myst game in 2005.  In fact the only Ubisoft games I’ve played have been Myst games.  So I don’t see that their new DRM crime-against-my-privacy will have much of an effect on me.  But I hate the idea.  It’s an “Off with their heads!” kind of development.  Reminds me of the idea that people will put up with lost privacy in exchange for security.  In this case the security is only to benefit Ubisoft.  Yes, I allow my privacy to be violated every day – each time I visit Amazon, or read Google News -the list goes on and on.  BUT THOSE ARE MY CHOICES.  I also have a choice about where and how I spend my money, and I’d refrain from buying a game that allows so much intrusion into my computer/life.  A game that tells me how I must live my life even in the smallest of ways such as always being connected to the internet is a game I can forgo.

  • Jason O

    Consoles CAN be connected to the internet 100% of the time, but there are still many consoles that never go online. Modern Warfare 2 sold over 11 million copies, yet XBox Live only shows 840,000 users that have been on-line with it. That’s not played online, that means they played the game in any mode while connected to XBox Live.

    Games that have required an internet connection and were multiplayer only have a history of vanishing quickly from the console marketplace. Phantasy Star ONLINE did much better on the Gamecube then it did on the XBox. What was the difference? Oh yeah, you could play PSO without an internet connection on the Gamecube, the XBox version require a live account and an internet connection. That’s hardly the only example but one that is near and dear to my heart.

  • Bennet

    No, no, you don’t get it! Ubisoft’s “always connected” requirement isn’t DRM, it’s value-add for you, the beloved customer. Just like the Albertsons supermarket chain requires employees to plaster obnoxiously bright orange “Thank you for shopping with us!” stickers on your Coke and milk not because they think you’re stealing them but to express their sincere gratitude for your patronage.

    Maybe my memories of a time when consumers paid for a product and got the product, unadorned by FBI warnings and impossible to open wrappings and authentication servers that can vanish at any time without warning were planted by aliens. In the current cultural climate it’s certainly difficult to believe that time ever existed.

  • Meho

    But Steerpike makes a good point: business model, retail model is lagging behind the times. And developers, instead of researching ways to use the existing systems to sell more games rather research new ways to piss off their paying customers.

    Seriously, in my opinion, pirates pirate games because they are better value than retail games. Not just in the sense that they get to spend less money on them, but they get them faster, do not have to go through any hassle with DRM and have full control over the game. I think that Gabe Newell put it best saying that Valve sees pirates as customers who haven’t been served yet.

    I think UBI and their ilk should look for ways to make retail games more valuable to their customers than (free) warez copies. Yes, stuff like achievements/ trophies helps a little, sure. There are other ways too and one of them is resale value. But, oh, what a surprise, used games market pisses publishers off MORE than pirates do. In fact most of the current DRM schemes are only effective against resales. EA’s ten dollar project and all other free DLC on day one initiatives. So, honestly, I’m afraid that UBI’s online-all-the-time-or-no-service DRM is basically only going to affect sales of used games. The crackers are going to bring their games to pirates eventually. I believe that draconic DRM schemes such as this will only inspire people like GeoHot, Dark Alex and Yoshihiro to spend more of their time on circumvention. Their street cred is going to be huge after all…

    What Valve seem to understand is that playing games through Steam should make playing MORE valuable/ comfortable than not playing games through Steam (which is, at the end of the day a DRM system). Being able to instal a game on as many machines as you want and not having to have a disc in the drive is exactly what pirated games give us too, but with Steam you also retain all your stats, friends lists, achievements and everything. So it’s BETTER than playing pirated games. I only hope that UBI wake up and realise they have to ADD value, not just subtract freedoms.

  • Lewis B

    I’m not really sure I see their DRM as a huge problem.  If my PC is turned on, so is my internet.  I’m fully aware that my name is probably on a million data bases already, and although it might be annoying knowing that Ubisoft have implemented such a security feature, if you don’t physically notice it, I don’t particularly care.

    I’m currently playing Myst at the moment, having never before.  What an odd game…

  • Meho

    Well, you know, just from a philosophical standpoint: if the game is unplayable as soon as you don’t have Internet connection (which, I’m afraid, happens to me more regularly than I am comfortable with) for no other reason than making sure you have paid for it then to me this is pretty much unnacceptable. Requiring a connection for something that is a function of the game itself is OK, but enforcing it just for the sake of protection of the publisher, sorry, no sale.

  • Lewis B

    True Meho.  I had 40 minutes the other day before I went out and thought I would have a quick skirmish on Dawn of War II.  Steam (despite my love for it) wouldn’t launch the game because for some reason it kept freezing and refusing to connect or launch in offline mode.  I couldn’t actually locate the source directory either to boot the game up manually. So, I didn’t get to play and instead spent 40 minutes in a fit of rage cursing Valve and all who work under them. 

    Not exactly the same situation, but not hugely dissimilar.

  • Gregg B

    I’m really not concerned about the privacy issue simply because that illusion is just that, and doesn’t really comfort or unsettle me. My problem with this whole thing is that internet connections can be temperamental at the best of times and the idea that if the connection falters I will lose my progress (and thus my invested time which I’d argue is more valuable than my money) then quite frankly Ubi can fuck off. I’ve been pretty placid up to press with DRM simply because it’s not seemed that intrusive but this will affect the paying customers more than the pirates. It devalues the product and I fear it will push otherwise paying customers to download cracked versions that don’t suffer from this shit. Which, of course, will play into Ubi’s hands.

    Am I right in believing all this stems from the hideous retail model that just refuses to die? Physical retail creates pressuring deadlines, costs considerably more due to increased physical production (and overheads in staffing and floor space), it’s inflexible with stock limitations and shelf space dictating the range of titles available in any given store and by the sounds of things is the sole reason for this ‘tail’. If you look at Steam, it isn’t always the newest games that sell the most due in no small part to their sales and weekend deals.

    “I wonder if we’ll ever get to a point where a person would be just as likely to invest in a beloved classic as a hot new release.”

    From my experience there are a lot of people who simply can’t stomach old looking games, even some of my friends who’ve been playing games since they were young have turned into total graphics whores. Seriously you want to see the totally underwhelmed look on their faces when I show them XCOM for any period of time. We’re at a stage now where graphics are so advanced that for a lot of people going back so far to sample an allegedly classic title is simply too much. Thankfully GOG is doing a fantastic job of making these titles as accessible, and valuable, as possible.

    EDIT: Spot on Meho. My point exactly.
    See what I mean though Lew? Time. Valuable stuff. A quick skirmish on DoW turned into a 40 minute skirmish with Steam.

  • Mat

    This seems like an awful idea.. or at least one which sounds like a good idea to somebody somewhere, but in reality is unworkable.

    Since I’ve been a paying internet customer I have lived at 3 different addresses and used around 5 different ISP’s. I have ALWAYS had problems with my internet connection. With my current set up it tends to go down if a menacing looking cloud passes overhead..

  • xtal

    Some people may like to play a game offline now and then; this is especially easy with older ones before the dawn of activation codes and online authentication. While those aren’t that annoying, having to maintain a constant internet connection just to play a game that you paid for, which is not specifically a MMO, really bites.

    Gregg B said:
    “Am I right in believing all this stems from the hideous retail model that just refuses to die? Physical retail creates pressuring deadlines, costs considerably more due to increased physical production (and overheads in staffing and floor space), it’s inflexible with stock limitations and shelf space dictating the range of titles available in any given store and by the sounds of things is the sole reason for this ‘tail’. If you look at Steam, it isn’t always the newest games that sell the most due in no small part to their sales and weekend deals.”

    I agree with this. Just a few years ago I couldn’t see myself paying for intangible, digital goods. Fast forward to now and it’s really my preferred method of computer gaming, whether it’s GOG, Steam, or elsewhere, I find it’s the model that works best for the customer. If I’m not mistaken, I believe once upon a time that was who the industry was trying to serve, no? The customer?

  • Cesar

    You know, I’m from Brazil and there piracy is HUGE. Maybe for that reason I feel for the industry and understand the efforts to stop it. However, I suspect this crack delay would have a very minor impact in markets like Brazil. People can’t afford the games, so they wouldn’t pay full price anyway.

    It is a shame that we don’t have privacy anymore. The other day a friend of mine on XBox Live sent me a message to congratulate me on a goal I scored in Fifa 10. I didn’t know but apparently not only you can see I’m playing Fifa, but you also see when I score and my avatar cheers! While that sounds very cool, it is also very disturbing. But like Matt points very well, privacy is already gone. And since I don’t have it anymore, why not help stop piracy?

    On the other hand, the plurality of solutions is a different matter, it becomes a hassle. I think the solution should be platform dependent, not publisher dependent. In Brew phones, the control is embedded in the system and you cannot use an app if it cannot be verified, which means if you are not connected to the network you can’t play.

    Unfortunately that cannot be applied to consoles, there’s a considerable number of devices outside the internet umbrella. But if the game constantly checks if you are online and tries to authenticate the copy, online piracy will suffer a big hit and the technological move towards full connectivity will make the practice more and more efficient over time.

  • Andrew

    Not going to buy the game, long tail or not, it sucks to have that kind of persistent connection needed for offline play. Not even just startup authorisation either. I must admit any Game For Windows Live games can be similar (Dawn of War 2 being one of them necessitating it) although most of them allow offline profiles, and most of them allow the saves to be moved easily between any online or offline accounts.

    Oh, and if you’re disconnected it won’t kick you out of the game too, even Microsoft didn’t get that wrong.

    I don’t even understand how privacy comes into it, my main issue is twofold:
    – The above note about simple, offline play (and disconnects for blips in service)
    – The fact it isn’t just your connection that is necessary, it is THEIR connection and servers

    The second point as a partial game historian leads me to wonder how many years (not decades) the servers will be there. Publishers have removed much more necessary servers quickly if they are a cost liability (or they want to push people onto a newer game…). Downtime is also, considering some of the services require payment (Xbox Live for instance) devastatingly poor considering the user base sizes, especially on high load days (and I wonder if we’ll see “Assassins Creed 2 unplayable at launch due to server overload” at all, heh). Lucky it’s “just games” though, no worries if we only have 99% uptime right?! 😉

    (Also, frankly their Assassins Creed 1 port was poor until they patched it, where at least then it was playable (in full on 16:9…for some reason), which makes me wary of any PC release of a console game they do. I wonder also if they still have unskippable cutscenes, I’ve not checked it out on the consoles).

    The fact they’ll never have enough sales of this PC version due to the earlier console release to either say this is a roaring success or roaring failure. It’s the longest end of the tail in the first place. Or they’ll lie about whatever happens anyway. It’s utterly bizarre…I just don’t understand it.

  • Meho

    Cesar: I’m in Serbia and here piracy reigns supreme (much worse than Brazil, I imagine) but still, this is pure and simple bullshit. I purcahsed BioShock 2 today, for my PS3 even though I’d prefer to play it on my PC just because of the stupid DRM that won’t let me control the use of a game I pay for. They can fuck off with that. So, my purchase was influenced by DRM, depsite the game being more natural to play on a PC. Protection measures should not create this kind of bitterness in a human being.

  • Matt "Steerpike" Sakey

    The issue of server overload on release days is significant. Think about it – a game like Modern Warfare 2? Or any other hotly anticipated release? Of course the servers would go down. It’s not cost-effective to install a server infrastructure capable of handling Day Zero traffic. That would royally piss people off.

    Ubi and others who use draconian DRM typically insist that if they ever go out of business or shut servers down, they’ll issue patches so the games can be played offline.

    Around the holidays here, big stores like Best Buy station a guy at the exit. His job is to go through your bag and consult your receipt to make sure you haven’t stolen anything. That’s a very similar ideology to this one: treat all consumers like thieves in hopes of catching the few who are.

  • Lewis B

    Considering most MMOG servers cannot cope on launch day, I see it as a gaurentee that when the next Modern Warfare is released, if they do follow through with this, would see many unhappy players.

  • lakerz1

    This new DRM policy will totally be screwing me over because I have a wireless internet setup, but my signal is a bit weak so here and there it drops out for a 10-15 second period before it reconnects.  Plus my wireless router is a bit wonky and will just stop working once in awhile until I cycle power to it.  So, until my setup changes, I will be forced to avoid all Ubi PC games that use this.

  • Igor Hardy

    I seriously doubt a person which would normally pirate a game, will pay money for it just because she has to wait a short while longer for the cracked version. This can work only for very cheap games – like 1$ cheap.

  • Meho

    Just for those keeping tabs: the Russian version of Assassin’s Creed II has apparently been successfully cracked, with a fix for the saves too. Of course, I don’t KNOW this for sure but that’s the word circulating through the grapewine.

  • Cesar

    Brazil is a strong competitor in the piracy rates. 95%-97% if I am not mistaken.

    Anyway, I don’t have a problem with the privacy issue. Not even with the assumption that we are all thieves. If you extrapolate that idea, you will conclude we shouldn’t have patrol cars on the streets. They assume people will commit crimes and have to keep watch. Homo homini lupus. Society isn’t perfect and even though losses are part of the model, no one is ready to lose out of good faith alone. I don’t mean to say DRM and police watch are the same thing, I’m just saying it’s not that simple to draw a line where it becomes offensive to monitor society.

    That being said, it is not acceptable to have a DRM impact gameplay at all. I don’t mind it authenticating my copy. But if I am offline it has to work. And if I loose connection during the game I shouldn’t be kicked out.

    And while the efficacy of the solution might be questionable under these circumstances, like I said in the previous comment, it only tends to increase.

  • Andrew

    “Ubi and others who use draconian DRM typically insist that if they ever go out of business or shut servers down, they’ll issue patches so the games can be played offline.”

    I have seen this happen to absolutely zero games ever. The fact that it is nearly impossible to sanction any work on IP if a company is in administration is the key. That and it is non-trivial to get around your own disk DRM by producing an installer that will work with your disk copy to install it.

    I’d love to be proved wrong…this is by far the most worrying thing of the deal, just installed Bioshock 2 and it has online activation (sigh)…worried I might need to download cracked versions to install it in the future!

    Oh, did you see the patch notes of the first patch? It makes the DRM very very very slightly “better” (I mean, better as in “still shit”):

    http://www.fileshack.com/file.x/17456/Assassin%27s+Creed+2+Patch+1.01+-+US

    “Game can now be continued from the exact same point when connection is restored”

    Ho ho ho. Ho.

  • Gregg B

    I like this bit:

    “Only those who purchased a copy of ACII or SHV legally appear to be affected. Pirates playing illegally downloaded cracked versions of the game are able to play without a problem.”

    Is it apparent pirates are having no problems yet? If they’ve properly cracked it then what I feared (above) is true. Last I heard was that the DRM apparently downloads levels or important files as you play. I don’t know whether this is true or not though.

  • Spike

    Meho beat me to it.  I just read a similar article on The Register.  I don’t suppose that the DDoS attack will make Ubi rethink its evil ways, but this might (I can dream, can’t I?):

    “Meanwhile Ubisoft’s much criticised controls have been broken by software hackers. A hacker group called Skid-Row managed to bypass DRM restrictions on Silent Hunter 5 less than 24 hours after the game was published. Skid Row has releasing a crack for the game based on this work, Zdnet reports. ®”

    Full article here: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/03/08/ubisoft_anti_drm_hack_attack/

  • Littermate

    Spike.  RE: The Register article
    There is a comment to that article that claims the crack for SH5 is not a complete crack and would only allow an incomplete experience, because not only are save games stored online but some of the game data files are stored online too, implying that the boxed game you buy is incomplete.  This seems plausible and effective IMO, because if I was demanding an internet connection for my software this is how I would do it.  It demands not only that a games code be cracked but that missing data files be supplied too.

  • Spike

    Having just read this article – link below – I’m thinking that DRM will be fine and dandy AND hunky-dory with me as long as the packaging it comes in is “green”.  Yep.  That makes it more palatable.

    http://www.fastcompany.com/1620105/ubisoft-green-recycled-case-digital-manual-sustainable-packaging

  • Matt "Steerpike" Sakey

    I would kind of like to buy games in potato cases.

  • xtal

    I was thinking… and remembered one of the most creative instances of “DRM” if you can call it that: King’s Quest VI! I looked it up and sure enough it is mentioned on KQVI’s Wikipedia page:

    A booklet titled “Guidebook to the Land of the Green Isles” (written by Jane Jensen) is included in the KQVI package. Aside from providing additional background to the game’s setting, this booklet serves as part of the game’s copy-protection. The player will not be able to pass the puzzles on the Cliffs of Logic that guard the Isle of the Sacred Mountain without information from the booklet. The booklet also includes a poem encoding the solution to one of the puzzles in the labyrinth on the Isle of the Sacred Mountain.

    I guess that’s not very feasible today, what with widespread use of the internet around the world. I still think it’s more creative than the “thank you for your money, we intend to treat you like a criminal” method.

  • Bluebogle

    I played the KQVI game with the booklet. I was a kid at the time, and thought the booklet was so cool! It really added to the whole game’s experience.

    The quest for Glory games came with fun booklets as well, though I don’t remember if they had copy protection elements to ’em.

    Ahh, the good old days..

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