Half-Life 2
Review by SteerpikeNovember 2004
I Read Computer Gaming World
In one of the sorriest, most shamelessly pandering obsequies in the history of computer games, PC Gamer magazine decreed Half-Life 2 “the best game ever made” after their reviewer played through a release candidate in one frenzied, supervised, twenty-hour sitting at Valve offices in Washington. Such displays of cloying sycophancyand the tiki monkeyare why I don’t read PC Gamer. Half-Life 2 has gotten more unctuous, fawning press, more prostrate, worshipful liner quotes, more slobbering adulation than any game in history, and in most cases, it’s gotten it from journalists who haven’t yet played the full game or who have raced through it with a Valve stoolie lurking over their shoulder.
Which isn’t to say that Half-Life 2 is bad. It’s greatone of the best games of the year, and a paragon of design, technical innovation, writing, acting, style, and gameplay. But to call it “the best game ever,” or to make absurd remarks like “nothing will ever be the same,” smacks of plauditory ass-kissing the likes of which I thought the games industry had outgrown. Fact is, “ever” hasn’t happened yet, and while Half-Life 2 is a really stunning achievement, it has one serious (some would say dealbreaking) flaw, and there are better games in the universe. That said, it’s still a strong contender for Game of the Decade.
The long-awaited Half-Life 2 represents the pinnacle of great action shooters because it strictly adheres to the one rule that makes an FPS great, the one rule that so many developers ignore, or break due to ineptitude and then conceal behind a shroud of tacked-on complexity: in a first person shooter, level design is everything.
Valve had to fill its own enormous shoes when producing a sequel to Half-Life. With the bad marketing decisions, the deceptive announcements, the noninteractive demos that were outright fakes, not to mention the code thefts and lawsuits and delays, there was a lot of anger among the fanbase before this game hitfar more anger than was directed at DOOM 3 prior to that oft-delayed title’s release. I’ll spare you the sad story; read this if you’re interested. What it boils down to is that Half-Life was one of the best designed, highest regarded, most well-received, and most popular PC games in history. That’s a tough act to follow, but Valve hit this one out of the park. For my money, it is better in every regard than its own forebearand if it wasn’t for that one flaw, I might be calling it “best game ever” too. But that one flaw is a killer; we’ll get to it shortly.
Source Material
Half-Life 2 is powered by the proprietary Source engine, which we’re likely to see in a number of upcoming titles. Source is a beautiful engine, inferior to DOOM 3 in light and shadow but superior in draw distance, normal maps, reflectivity, and liquid effects. A Direct3D codebase, it seems more forgiving of mediocre systems and ATI cards as well, and it allows a little more low-level control over visual effects than DOOM 3 does. Source takes us another step closer to photorealism. Graphics and animations in this game are fluid and lifelikeone of the many reasons Half-Life was so revered was its use of skeletal animation to bring the Marine death squads to life; human figures look and move even more realistically in this sequel. Half-Life 2 looks so tasty you’re tempted to eat it, especially during the sweeping outdoor sequences.
One of the most impressive aspects of Source technology is its astoundingly realistic modeling of human faces and expressions. Valve leapt the Uncanny Valley in a single bound with Half-Life 2, because in this game the human characters look and emote like real people, eschewing the sepulchral death masks we’ve gotten used to in modern games. All of these computer-generated characters display an entire spectrum of facial responses, from the subtle to the obvious.
Valve employed the Havok physics engine for Half-Life 2 rather than building physics into Source, and I think the move was a good one. Havok has some rough edges, but it’s inexpensive and far easier to implement than a completely unique physical model. The nice thing about the physics engine here is that it represents “step two” of physics integration in games: ignoring Trespasser, Max Payne 2 was the first PC game we saw that had real physics. Half-Life 2 is the first game where you use the physics as part of gameplay. For the first time, realistic physics aren’t just special effectsyou must manipulate the physical world to your advantage.
I ordered and preloaded Half-Life 2 over the Steam network, which I’ll get to a little later, and I’m told that those who bought retail copies are having some stability problems that Steam users are not. My experience was almost entirely stable and problem-free; I had one crash during my play-through, and I think that one was my fault. Generally speaking, Half-Life 2 is more stable than most releases. There is an acknowledged bug that causes some of the dialogue to sound as though SHODAN from System Shock were delivering it, but Valve will be releasing a patch over Steam shortly. The only other problem with the sound is that sometimes ambient noises drown out important dialogue, and there aren’t separate volume sliders for voices and ambient audio.
The game will take between three and five gigabytes of your hard drive, and it does require that Steam be installed in order to authenticate itself. Once your game is authenticated, Steam is no longer required, though without it you will not be able to play Half-Life 2’s multiplayer component.
Narrative Plus
The Half-Life franchise has always represented the future of first-person gamingintensely cinematic, narrative experiences that draw you into the game as though you were playing your favorite movie. Recognizing the strengths of its paradigm, Valve doesn’t deviate significantly from it in this sequel. However, the game’s one devastating flaw is based in its fiction, so we’ll break it down into two parts: the good and the bad. Here’s the good.
Half-Life 2 puts you once again in the hazard suit of Dr. Gordon Freeman, a theoretical physicist who inadvertently triggeredthen thwartedan extradimensional alien invasion in the first installment. At the end of Half-Life, Gordon found himself forced into employment as a government stooge under the authority of a mysterious G-man who seems to transcend reality in general.
Gordon appears to have been in stasis since the Black Mesa disaster of Half-Lifehe awakens to the G-man calling him back to duty and finds himself in Eastern Europe, in an Orwellian nightmare of urbania called City-17, one of the few remaining human settlements on Earth. Though he hasn’t aged a day, it seems that years have passed since Gordon’s adventures at Black Mesa.
In the intervening period, a new alien horror called the Combine has assaulted the Earth and enslaved the species. A sort of anti-Viagra energy field bans reproduction, human beings themselves are treated as little more than an infestation, and the Combine has overrun the entire planet. Dr. Breen, the former chief administrator of the Black Mesa facility, has negotiated a losing peace with the Combine, in orderhe claimsto ensure the survival of humanity. His actual reasons are slightly more sinister.
The propaganda-state nightmare is brilliantly realized in the opening chapters of Half-Life 2, which are some of the best designed and most unsettling environments ever made interactive. The collapsing cityscape, with its crumbling buildings, blowing garbage, gas-masked, cattle prod-wielding riot police, and ubiquitous monitors blaring constant agitprop from Breen all represent the sort of visceral impact that many filmmakers wish they could achieve.
You’re marked as a fugitive almost immediately upon your arrival in City-17, and you must turn to the human resistance movement for help. Among those fighting the Combine are former Black Mesa alums Dr. Kleiner, Dr. Vance and his daughter Alyx, and Barney Calhoun, the security guard from Half-Life Opposing Force. These characters represent the core of the story, as they are the crux of the resistance and humanity’s last chance.
Half-Life 2 is without question the best-written, best-acted game I’ve ever played. The cast includes Robert Guillaume, Lou Gossett Jr., Michelle Forbes, Robert Culp, and Broadway star Merle Dandridge; all of these highly talented actors take their roles seriously and play their parts to the hilt. The dialogue is snappy, the human relationships well-evoked, and the story could have been very engaging.
Narrative Minus
The story could have been engaging, that is, if it didn’t display signs of massive cuts. It looks to me like at least 50% of Half-Life 2 was excised in order to make ship; yawning holes in the story stand as silent proof of this.
Absolutely no background is provided, nor is any effort ever made to explain some of the major plot points. We never find out how or when or why the Combine attacked, how Drs. Vance and Kleiner, Barney, and Alyx managed to escape Black Mesa, or how they wound up in City-17. Everyone in the resistance seems to know who Gordon is, but no one asks him where he’s beenat least fifteen years have passed since Black Mesa, as Alyx was apparently a little girl back then and is definitely a grownup now.
You’re never told what the Combine is or what it wants (indeed, you never actually see a Combine alien; combat is all with Combine war machines or human collaborators). Further, some of the Xen aliensthe invaders from the original Half-Lifeare working with the resistance against the Combine, but their sudden willingness to ally with humanity is never explained. Other Xen aliens, like the headcrabs, now seem to be part of the Combinedespite the fact that it is ostensibly unrelated to Xenand the Xen Vortigaunts have thrown their lot in with the humans. It makes no sense.
As in the first game, Gordon Freeman doesn’t have a single word of dialogue in Half-Life 2. It was okay in the original, because all dialogue was kept to a minimum. In this game, however, the silent protagonist is strangely off-putting. Characters ask Gordon questions or make remarks that clearly call for a response, and they get silence in return. Rather than making Gordon seem mysterious or cipher-like, it actually just makes him seem rude. It worked in System Shock 2 because your character is being talked at. In this game, he’s being talked to, and his failure to respond is very jarring.
Then there is the issue of the Combine Wall, which for some reason touched a nerve with me. I was first introduced to the Combine Wall at a Half-Life 2 prerelease demonstration last spring, when they went on and on about it, but if I hadn’t attended that event I would have had no idea what it was or why it was there. Here’s the sitch: late in the game, the Combine apparently decides that Gordon must be eliminated regardless of the cost and unleashes its most devastating weapona big metal wall that rings the city. Not very scary. Thing is, though, the wall movesand it’s encroaching, step by step, crushing everything in its path. Allowed to continue unchecked, it would eventually destroy City-17, along with everything and everyone in it.
The Combine Wall is one of the most chilling representations of malevolent automation I’ve ever seen. It’s the sort of thing that KY-fueled dystopian sci-fi nuts dream about: a faceless, inexorable horror that cannot be stopped, cannot be slowed, cannot be reasoned with, and cannot be escaped. But in the game, no one even mentions the Combine Wall. It’s just there, slowly squishing the city, and no explanation of what it is or what it means is ever offered. To throw away such a thrummingly powerful image of mechafascist horror is just … wasteful. Writers dream of coming up with something as menacing as the Combine Wall, and Valve just tossed it aside like a piece of narrative flotsam.
The ending is so anticlimactic and nonsensical that I can only assume it was not originally intended to be the ending. There is literally no warning that the game is about to end, not even the whisper of a suggestion that you’re facing the final encounter. Indeed, the “final encounter” isn’t really an encounter at allthere is no opponent in the classic sense, and you’re given a weapon of such devastating power that you barely even realize you’re fighting before what passes for your final adversary is defeated. Once that occurs, you’re treated to a brief and puzzling finale that actually manages to create a closure deficit. I was flabbergasted when the credits rolled; I had no idea that I was at the end of the game, because it feels like it ends in the middle.
For a game that places such weight on story, there’s little excuse for this. Half-Life 2 had the opportunity to be one of the most stirring narrative statements about techno-despotism ever, and the designers blew it. I can only assume that the story comes across as so bizarre because they cut the bejesus out of this game; if it was actually intended to be that way, then the people who wrote it should turn in their Writers Guild cards right now.
In the end, it’s obvious that the story of Half-Life 2 is the middle chapter of a three-part saga, and like all middle chapters, it’s highly unsatisfying.
Where’s the Beef?
From a gameplay perspective, though, Half-Life 2 is impeccable. It sports fabulous level design, good action, and excellent pacing. The gameplay is refocused slightly; where Half-Life was riddled with jumping puzzles and “miniboss” battle/puzzle sequences, here the concentration is more combat-oriented, with fewer boss-like encounters and far fewer jumping puzzles. On one hand that’s nice; jumping puzzles belong in Prince of Persia and nowhere else as far as I’m concerned. I did miss the large-opponent facets, though; there are no encounters along the lines of the sound-sensitive clanking monster in Half-Life’s Blast Pit level. Interestingly, Half-Life 2 is also more progress-driven, where its predecessor was objective-driven. In most cases, your goal is to get from point A to point B, not to turn on the power or launch a satellite or get help or what have you. You also almost never return to areas you have already visited. It doesn’t really affect the tenor of the game, but it surprised me, given that Half-Life was one of the pioneers of seamless, objective-driven play.
Game structure is the same, short loading screens separating sections of each titled chapter. The action is carefully tuned to keep you busy and on your toes without becoming ho-hum or irritating, as each mission and game section calls for a different play style and evokes different emotional responses: levels range from creepy as hell to intense and adrenaline-packed, from claustrophobic to crushingly open. I could have done with more variety among the enemies, and I certainly felt that the AI in this game wasn’t on par with the award-winning intelligence of the Half-Life death squads. Still, it was far from weak, and the game remains challenging and fun throughout. I only found myself frustrated once, during a way-too-long sequence in which I had to set up sentry guns to defend a specific areathe section was far too difficult, and the game’s “pick up objects with your hands” controls leave a lot to be desired.
Many of the favorite weapons from Half-Life make a return: Gordon’s crowbar, the Magnum, crossbow, and others. The big conversation piece will be the Gravity Gun, a tool that allows you to manipulate objects, pull and push them, and fling them with great force at your enemies. The Gravity Gun is where the physics of the game really come into play: you use it to clear rubble, stop machines, stack things, and alter the landscape to your advantage. There’s something quite satisfying about using the Gravity Gun to hold a washing machine before you as a shield, then hurling said washing machine into a horde of oncoming foes. Indeed, physics play such a prominent role in this game that it can be confusing to long-time gamers; we’re so used to such options simply not being available in video games that we don’t try them. It took me ages to realize that I could wedge a 2×4 into a ventilator fan to stop it, or use a crane to drop a shipping crate on a squad of enemies. It just didn’t occur to me, because it wouldn’t have been possible in most game technologies up to this point. But it’s very neat.
Two breathless vehicle sequences are included, one in the world’s sturdiest dune buggy and the other in a fan-powered airboat. You also have multiple opportunities to do battle with Combine vehicles, from their heavy troop dropships to the holy-crap-what-is-that-thing Strider battletanks, to which screenshots do not do justice; you have to see them in motion. Like everything else in the game, the vehicle missions were tuned with an eye toward pacing and funmany games assume that simply having a vehicle sequence is worth extra credit even if that sequence sucks; here, that you’re driving a vehicle isn’t the end all and be all of the experience.
Late in the game, you also have the opportunity to control squads of support troops, who will generally obey your simple commands and fight alongside you. They’re essentially expendable cannon fodder, sadly, since their AI walks them right into a sniper’s path or right under a Strider’s clawed foot. They never get stuck on things or block your way, though, and their pathing is stellar. It’s also nice to have a medic in the field who can patch you up during an extended encounter with those Striders.
I was surprised by one review that described the game as easy; I’m pretty good at first-person shooters and found it plenty challenging. Even so, this game is a 15- or 20-hour experience, which is increasingly becoming the norm in major releases. Like it or not, games are now too complicated and too expensive to make; it’s no longer realistic to produce a 75-hour epic in a reasonable amount of time.
Steamy Scenes
Valve’s Steam network now controls all online play related to Half-Life and its offspring and represents the future of game distribution, whether you like it or not (I don’t). A gamer can download the Steam client, buy a copy of Half-Life 2, load it over Steam, and be playing immediately. Steam manages all of your files and keeps games organized within its own directory. Nicely, Valve did include a feature that allows you to write any purchased game’s source files to disk in case you’re worried about having continued access to the game in the long term.
Half-Life 2’s multiplayer component is currently limited to Counterstrike Source, a total conversion of that popular Half-Life mod to the Source engine. There are only a handful of CS:Source maps available right now, but Steam does have a number of features that help rein in the rampant cheating that so ruined the 1.x versions of the game. I got over my addiction to Counterstrike some years ago, and while I found this update fun, it still contains most of the flaws that the original did, and it is still played largely by dorks and losers who can’t be older than eleven and act like they’re four. CS:Source comes free with all versions of Half-Life 2, but you have to buy the Silver (or Gold) package if you want access to the rest of the Steam library, including other multiplayer games such as the ever-popular Day of Defeat. Other popular Half-Life mods, such as the underappreciated Natural Selection, have not yet been ported to Source but probably will be soon.
The Silver and Gold packages also include Half-Life Source, which is what it sounds like: a complete version of the original Half-Life on the Source engine. I realize that this is just gravy, but it might have been wiser for Valve to put a little more effort into this conversion. Half-Life is still a hugely popular game, and I was looking forward to playing through it again with fancy Source graphics. Unfortunately, all of the textures and models from the original Half-Lifewhich now looks pretty datedare used in this update. Indeed, aside from the water and a few minor physics effects, it looks and plays exactly like the Quake 2-powered original.
Goodbye, Dr. Freeman
It may seem in this review that I harbor some ambivalence toward Half-Life 2, but that’s really not the case. This is a really, really impressive game, a triumph for Valve and a validation of the cinematic style of gameplay that the company has always espoused. There are a few minuscule play issues that I wish were different, and of course I wish it had been longer, but otherwise any action shooter fan should be very impressed by this game.
Obviously I have strong feelings about the nonsensical story thread, and I’m really pretty angry at Valve for allowing the game out the door with such gaping holes in the plot. I also wish more time had been devoted to fleshing out some of the characters. Still, the story is just one part of a larger whole, and the story of Half-Life 2 makes me mad not so much for what it is or is not, but for what it could have been. Another ten hours of play and a narrative that didn’t show signs of such massive tinkering would have produced a far better game.
2004 has been an odd year. In my opinion, it’s been rather disappointing as far as PC game releases are concerned; a lot of expected games didn’t ship, and some highly anticipated titles turned out to be worthless. And yet 2004 has also borne witness to some of the most significant releases in PC gaming history. More importantly, it has turned the PC around once againthere are fewer console ports, more PC-only titles, and a general feeling in the industry that the PC may not be as dead as everyone thought.
Half-Life 2 is part of that major release cycle. The inevitable comparisons to DOOM 3 are already filtering in; frankly I’d say the two games are so different that there really is no way to correlate them. DOOM 3 was what it was, and was what it claimed to be: fun, scary, violent, and pretty. They never promised us anything more than that, so I didn’t hold it to a standard to which it never aspired. Half-Life 2, meanwhile, did aspire to greatness, promising a level of immersiveness, a level of control over the environment, and a level of technology that claimed would turn the gaming world on its ear. And it will turn it on its earnot so much for what Half-Life 2 does, though that’s impressive enough, but for what it will inspire in the next generation of games.
The Verdict
The Lowdown
Developer: Valve Software Publisher: Vivendi Universal Release Date: November 2004
Available for:
Four Fat Chicks Links
Screenshots
System Requirements
1.2 GHz Processor (2.4 GHz preferred) 256 MB RAM (512 MB preferred) DirectX 7 capable graphics card (DirectX 9 preferred) Windows 2000/XP/ME/98 Mouse Keyboard Internet Connection CD or DVD rom drive (retail version only)
Where to Find It
Where to Find It
Links provided for informational purposes only. FFC makes no warranty with regard to any transaction entered into by any party(ies).
Copyright © Electric Eye Productions. All rights reserved. No reproduction in whole or in part without express written permission.
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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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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…
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.
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.
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.
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..
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
“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.
Oh:
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/ubi-under-fire-as-drm-servers-go-down
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.
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/
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.
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
I would kind of like to buy games in potato cases.
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.
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..