Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness, Episode 1 Review

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Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness, Episode 1

Review by SteerpikeJune 2008

Offended by Vulgarity? Stop Now

I know it’s in vogue to dislike Penny Arcade these days, but I just can’t toe that particular line. Mike Krahulik and Jerry Holkins—better known as their comic alter-egos Gabe and Tycho—have managed to coax plenty of laughs from me over the years. Penny Arcade is, to me, something that this industry needs: something as seriously important as it is absurdly amusing; video gaming’s satirical conscience. It is to games what Doonesbury is to politics. It proves something about games as a whole. Having a figurehead industry comic makes the medium more …  real, somehow. More focal, more imperative and undismissable.

And though it began as a humble webcomic, Penny Arcade has grown into a media empire. In 2007 alone, its Child’s Play charity drive raised over a million dollars in money and toys donated to children’s hospitals around the world, making those dreary places a little brighter, a little more hopeful. The annual Penny Arcade Expo—PAX to the cool kids—rivals the mighty E3 in attendance. And through it all, through all of the charity and event management, despite their many hundreds of thousands of dollars in branded marketing, contract work, and guest appearances, Holkins and Krahulik have churned out a new full color strip, like clockwork, every other weekday.

And every other weekday, the world of gaming includes that strip in its morning routine, alongside coffee and toothbrushing. People in the business listen to what Penny Arcade says. The comic’s legendary ability to ridicule has made it famous and, at times, feared. If there were Commandments in this industry, one of them would surely be Thou Shalt Not Get on Penny Arcade’s Bad Side, for Lo, They Shall Destroy Thee. Penny Arcade wields true power in the industry, though I’ve never gotten the sense that the company’s employees are drunk upon it. They’re still just shlubs who love games, who know the secret hearts of gamers, and who happen to be able to make a living telling jokes about them.

And they typically use their power for good. These guys know the games industry; heck, they influence it. Decisions and reversals alike have occurred due to Penny Arcade’s mockery. Still, when the company announced its intention to get into the game development business itself, there were some eyebrows raised. Not only was it a risky endeavor for a duo who’ve made their share of enemies amongst the enthusiast press, but for two guys who love playing games so much, suddenly making them seemed almost like changing sides.

But make one they have; On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness is a planned four-episode series developed by Hothead Games, with original art from Krahulik and a script penned by Holkins. It is a straight-up turn-based adventure, not too dissimilar from an action-oriented JRPG, but with a distinct style and voice, plus a couple of very clever original ideas, all its own.

Still, both sides of the quality coin show their face here. Precipice is fun but also painfully linear, far too short, and lacking in any replay value. The real selling point is that it’s a Penny Arcade cartoon made interactive, from the trademark artistic style and four-letter humor straight through to the inside jokes. If you’re a fan, you’ll like Precipice for the same reason you like the comic. If you’re not a fan, steer clear; because only fans can overlook the game’s single, suffocating issue: it’s fun, but it ain’t $20 of fun. It’s about $13 of fun. For $12.95, this game would be a Gold Star, because at that price you overlook or forgive much that you wouldn’t in a premium-priced title. At twenty clams, the Get out of Jail Free card isn’t quite as potent.

Steerpike Uses the F Word

The year is 1922, and the pattering of raindrops from a late-autumn storm are the harbingers of doom in the burg of New Arcadia, a scum-rotten dive of a city infested with all manner of evil. Yeah, it’s the kind of place even the hooligans avoid, where the air is black with the fetid breath of forgotten gods and every doorway cries of despair. New Arcadia ain’t for the timid, that’s for sure—and powers are stirring that have long slumbered beneath its foundations. That’s where the Startling Developments Detective Agency earns its bread and butter: founders John Gabriel and Tycho Brahe fight toe-to-toe with evil so wretched it’d curl the devil’s toenails. These are your go-to guys for supernatural investigation and elimination. Gabe’s flying fists of fury can bloody the nose of whatever Lovecraftian dreckbeast your unholy spells can conjure up; Tycho’s as mean with a tommy gun as he is with a textbook.

And they’re gonna need everything in the arsenal, because today something big—something really big, we’re talking something that makes the Stay Puft Marshmallow man feel inferior—has turned its lambent red eyes and stainless steel juicing apparatus toward the huddling city. Penny Arcade fans know the vicious machine monster to which I refer. Everyone else: I refer to … ah … ahem.  Oh, screw it: I speak of the Fruit Fucker™ Brand Home Juicing System, a minor if recurring character in the comic, and one of the key villains in Precipice.

Actually, one of the greatest things about this game is the fact that it allows Penny Arcade fans to place themselves inside the duo’s big adventure, with all of the little secondary characters and fan-service asides.  Those who read the comic know its little world very well: Gabe and Tycho’s apartment is full of home appliances with consciousness and personality; and their neighbors, relations, and enemies play no small role in this game. It’s fun to go through the character creation system, which (despite sharply limited options, especially for female characters) allows you to create a reasonable facsimile of yourself in Krahulik-ified cartoon form. You’re an average sort, living an average life, out peacefully raking leaves one average afternoon … when your house gets crushed under the galvanized metal foot of Fruit Fucker Prime, the Juicer to Rule Them All, as it strolls through New Arcadia, carving a swath of destruction—and leaving behind hundreds of tiny, deadly juicing minions—in its wake.

Tycho and Gabe are already hot on the beast’s stainless heels, and thus is your lot thrown in with theirs. All of this happens within the first ten minutes of play, which serve also as a convenient tutorial. But chthonic juicing mechanisms are just the beginning—evil mimes, the homeless, and Tycho’s niece also figure prominently. So does urine.

Interestingly, little actual plot is revealed in this, the first of Precipice’s four episodes. Basically, the mimes are trying to resurrect an ancient Mime God, as mimes are wont to do; and the juicers are running amok through the city, but beyond that there’s not too much really meaty here, story-wise. It has all of the trademark goofiness and scatological largesse of a Penny Arcade cartoon, and there’s just something about finding yourself living one that makes it really delightful.

Yardwork Leads to Mayhem Every Time

Adventure fans such as those who compose a large portion of the FFC readership will find themselves right at home in Precipice’s left-mouse-button-and-spacebar world. The game, which is also available over Xbox Live, is pretty simple, focusing largely on exploration, box smashing, and turn-based combat.

That latter is spiced up by the inclusion of some mechanics that add to the depth of strategy in combat, should you choose to take advantage of them. The entire system is basically a rock-paper-scissors stats setup in which your trio’s speed, attack, and defense attributes are compared against those of the various enemies you encounter. When one of your characters is attacked, however, you have a split-second opportunity to mash the spacebar and perform a block, reducing damage or—in some cases—allowing for a devastating counterattack. It’s a very simple mechanism that nonetheless puts you in a position where you have to pay attention throughout every encounter, because the difficulty ratchets up in the middle and stays that way until you max out your characters about an hour before the game wraps up. Indeed, timing is everything in all walks of Precipice’s combat system; not only must you time your blocks, but all actions are managed through an ever-ticking pool of action points allotted to each character. Different actions take different amounts of points, calculated in real time, so there is a good deal of strategy in determining when to hold back from attacking to score special hits, deciding when it’s wise to spend time using items from your inventory, and so forth. The result is a combat system that merges turn-based with real-time in such a way as to keep you heavily engaged without becoming so reflex-intensive that slow or arthritic gamers will be put off.

Hothead was wise to invest so much development effort into the combat, because Precipice has a lot of it. The minigames tied to each of the three protagonists’ special attacks are also well-implemented, neither annoyingly simple nor frustratingly intricate.  Similarly, boss encounters show a marked but not excessive increase in challenge over regular foes and are spaced nicely through the game’s approximately four-hour runtime. All in all, Precipice is a game that uses time well, from the micromanagement of your characters in combat to its overall pacing.

This is, unfortunately, also the only serious flaw. I don’t mind that it’s short; Portal was shorter and is the best game of the past five years. I do mind that it feels short, not only in a chronological sense but in terms of progress and setting. The game feels squashed, constricted, with the general air of having been dehydrated and squeezed into an uncomfortably narrow experience. There are only four major locations—of which only two contain significant play elements; only four or five different types of enemy, only five or six major characters, and very little challenge to your progression. Precipice is very much a Point A to Point B to Point C kind of game, and you’re never going to be unsure where to go or what to do next.

Is this a problem? Not exactly, and certainly not in the sense that bad combat or controls would be. Overall, it feels like Precipice wanted to be a bigger game but just … isn’t. You reach a point when walking the same streets and smashing the same crates for the same powerups used when fighting the same enemies against the same backdrops with the same attacks to achieve the same goals becomes kind of same-y. The interesting thing is that the game ended exactly as that sensation began to grate on me, so, despite the cramped conditions, I never quite got to the point of being irritated by it.

Juicing for Fun and Profit

And that’s why it’s a perfect game for fans of Penny Arcade.  The hilarious animated Flash cutscenes and droll, italic- and big-word-intensive narration show that Krahulik and Holkins, even after all these years together, still don’t miss a trick. If you find the comic funny, you will laugh out loud at Precipice’s dialogue and cutscenes, because despite its faults, there are some things about it that are just so … so perfectly, classically Penny Arcade. And it was with that perspective that its creators approached the development of world and characters.

There is, for example, no voice acting in Precipice, aside from a narrator at the beginning. This was a very conscious and wise decision. Penny Arcade fans have got their own mental voices for Gabe and Tycho, so hiring actors to play them, no matter how good the talent was, would have been simply disorienting. Plus, since the whole point of Precipice is to make you feel like you’re playing a cartoon, the speech bubbles and block narration just fit in.

The world of New Arcadia is similarly well-conceived. This is a silly city, part Dashiell Hammett hard-boiled and part theatrical meloabsurdity. Precipice never deviates from its flight plan of being a shamelessly goofy romp—it never tries to be anything but what it is, and the result is an experience that, despite the brevity, feels extremely well–put together and polished. Krahulik’s art style has in my mind become so irretrievably associated with Penny Arcade that I really have difficulty looking at his work in any other setting. Perhaps sensing that, the developers didn’t try to challenge the boundaries of what we’d likely expect the adventure world to be. Rather than constraining the possible experience, it was the smartest thing they could have done. I expected—wanted—a constrained experience, and I got one.

Hothead Games is a pretty new player on the scene. As far as I can tell, the Vancouver-based company exists astride the fuzzy barrier between casual game developer (PopCap) and episodic game developer (TellTale).  All in all, they’re kind of an interesting choice to develop Precipice, because the company doesn’t have a long list of credits and isn’t really well known. While On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness isn’t going to win any awards, its triumph is really its ability to effectively engage us in the dark silliness of the strange world Krahulik and Holkins have built over the years. For those who delightedly visit that world every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, there are worse ways to spend your money. For those strapped for cash or ambivalent about the comic, though … wait for the inevitable boxed compilation. The End

The Verdict

The Lowdown

Developer: Hothead Games Publisher: Hothead Games Release Date: May 2008

Available for: Windows Xbox Linux Xbox 360

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Screenshots

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System Requirements

Windows Windows 2000/XP/Vista Pentium III, AMDAthlon 1.0 GHz 64 MB video memory (shared or dedicated) with OpenGL support 512 MB RAM Keyboard and mouse Sound card 350 MB free hard drive space One-time Internet connection required to activate

Mac Mac OS X 10.4/10.5 with latest updates PowerPC G4, G5, or Intel-based Mac 1.0 GHz 64 MB video memory 512 MB RAM Keyboard and mouse Sound card 350 MB free hard drive space One-time Internet connection required to activate

Linux Linux 32-bit x86 Pentium III, AMDAthlon 1.0 GHz 64 MB video memory (shared or dedicated) with OpenGL support 512 MB RAM Keyboard and mouse Sound card 350 MB free hard drive space One-time Internet connection required to activate

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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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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