So, I decided to give the free-to-play Star Trek Online a try. I figured with no money to pay upfront, the worst that could happen is that I waste a day of my life and decide I don’t like it. As I’ve played for the past two months, though, I’ve been surprised by something I never thought I’d consider: the online store. See, for most of the time I’ve played MMOs, I’ve always been a paying subscriber right around the time they went free-to-play (LOTRO, SWTOR), so I had no real incentive to care much about the goodies in the store. I did a blog about how Turbine basically set their game up so that it could steal revenue back from the gold spammers, but as for using the service myself, I never really felt that excited about it. As for Star Wars, other people in the industry have already commented on how badly the game was monetized; I mean, honestly, who thought giving free players a bad interface, then charging for more quick bars, was a good idea? Needless to say, very little about SWTOR inspired me to make purchases from the store.

But coming to Star Trek Online, I was starting the game for free and figured I’d pony up a subscription if I liked it enough. It turns out that I don’t want a subscription, but that’s because I prefer the microtransactions Cryptic has put into the game. Basically, if there’s a right way to monetize a Star Trek video game, then Cryptic has found it. I want to discuss why it seems to work so well, and how it even got a miser like me to put up some money for microtransactions.

Note that I’m not discussing whether I like the game or not, so this isn’t a review. It’s just a discussion of how Cryptic set up a decent model for making money on their game.

You can’t buy end-game gear

This one is a no-brainer. You can’t just pay $200 and have a full set of Borg and Romulan gear. You still have to grind reputation with appropriate factions to get the really nice stuff. It would be stupid to just let players buy reputation with dollars, but it bears mentioning because some people will say that the game is pay-to-win. Well, not really. You can buy neat ships, special officers, and a whole host of cosmetic stuff, but you gotta earn certain gear sets from STFs.

Every possible Federation uniform is available

Players of Star Trek Online will no doubt tell you that the Klingons are kind of given the short end of the stick in the game. But for Federation characters, there are so many customization options for clothing that everyone can be happy. Regular uniforms from The Next Generation movies? Check. Original-series uniforms? Check. Weird alternate timeline/universe uniforms seen in only one episode? Check. Special uniforms for sexy cast members such as Troi and Seven of Nine? Check. Insignia and comm badges from every possible episode, series or movie? Check. Civilian clothing? Check. Armor and visible equipment for all you tactical officers who like to shoot first and follow the Prime Directive later? Check. And the cost for these options? In many cases, $5 gets you a particular uniform that you might like. In other cases, it might cost more, but you usually get some other customization stuff if you buy a more expensive bundle.

Why is this a good thing? Because a game such as Star Trek Online capitalizes on nostalgia to a certain extent. By letting people buy some classic uniforms at a reasonable price, they make it easy for you to get the look you want in the game. I wouldn’t pay $20 for a uniform, but $5 is less than the cost of a meal in many fast-food places in Houston. And it’s the kind of content new players will always be willing to buy, unlike weapons, ships or pets. It also doesn’t hurt that some of the default uniforms look like crap. Make the premium content nicer, and people will be encouraged to buy it.

© Jason Pitruzzello for The Adrenaline Vault, 2013. | Permalink | 4 comments

I know it’s been in gaming news all week, but I wanted to chime in on the release of Aliens: Colonial Marines. No, this isn’t going to be a game review; it’s just going to be an editorial rant. And yes, I’m going to vent some anger and frustration at Gearbox.

First of all, I have to say that I didn’t get a review copy, so I only started playing two days after it was out (and I pre-ordered, but more on that later). So, game sites that had reviews out on release day beat me to the punch. That’s not normally a big deal, but in this case, if you’re wondering why I’m only now saying anything, it’s because other reviewers got the jump on me in terms of time. And, in this case, I was just a normal, paying customer like the average gamer who bought it on Steam.

So what’s wrong with Aliens: Colonial Marines? I’m glad you asked, because I have an itemized list (major spoilers ahead).

Someone screwed up the game’s installation, and it wasn’t me

I pre-ordered the game because I’m a big fan of most things related to Aliens. In fact, the scariest FPS I’ve ever played was Rebellion’s Alien vs Predator from 1999 (not the 2010 version, which I bought during a Steam sale and hated with a passion). So, like an optimistic idiot, I pre-ordered so I could play it the day it came out, and even get the pre-order goodies.

Then it came out. I came home, double checked the files, and started the game. Crash to desktop. And so, instead of playing on the first day, I had to wander around two technical support forums until I found a solution to the problem: delete the app-cache folder in Steam’s directory. This is an easy fix (and I probably should’ve just done it without even checking tech support posts, but when something isn’t working, I like to get official solutions first). But the fact that Sega had to give this advice to a substantial number of gamers tells me that someone screwed up the download and installation files. Whether it was Steam or Sega or Gearbox is something I can’t answer, but I know that it was a bad start to the gaming experience for a number of paying customers.

The graphics are nothing like they appeared in early footage

To be clear, I’ve always said that graphics aren’t the most important part of a game. However, if you advertise them in a demo one way, and they look completely different in the release version, then you’ve engaged in unethical business practices.

Quality aside, the graphics lack something else that the demo had. In the demo the visibility was poorer, thanks to particles in the air and interesting lighting effects. In the game, visibility is just plain better because there’s less smoke and lighting reflecting off the shiny, glossy surfaces found in so many environments. So, even though the quality is less important, the real problem is that the actual game footage from Aliens: Colonial Marines is less atmospheric than that from the demo. The demo footage, which influenced me to buy the game, had a very Aliens-like quality to it. It was kind of scary. In the game itself, the entire feel of any level with xenomorph stuff (eggs, mucus, corpses and so on) feels wrong because they’re too well lit, there’s not enough smoke/particles/off-kilter lighting, and the glossy features of the alien stuff overwhelm the darkness.

The game is called a true sequel to Aliens, but Gearbox pointlessly adds stuff from Alien 3

If you were going to make either a movie or a game and call it a true sequel to Aliens, would it make any sense to include anything from Alien 3? I wouldn’t think so. And yet, the game pointlessly references the 1992 film. In the opening of the game, the dropship pilot even points out that the Sulaco was last seen in orbit around Fury 161, then she asks why the Sulaco is back in orbit around LV-426. Not only does it seem stupid that Weyland-Yutani would capture the Sulaco and then tow it back to LV-426, but it also makes the plot needlessly complicated. The simpler way to write that part of the story would be to not bother mentioning anything from Alien 3. You could then write a line somewhere that says, “And the Sulaco failed to leave LV-426 because of damage to the ship from the fight with the xenomorph queen. Acid got into some critical subsystems, and the computer failed to execute its automated commands to take the ship back to its base.” This way you have a reason for the ship to be in orbit around LV-426, it makes sense given what happened at the end of Aliens, and you don’t have to reference other movies and then give a convoluted explanation as to why the ship came back.

Did I also mention that Hicks is still alive? Colonial Marines opens with a transmission from him to Marine headquarters saying that all the Marines are dead, and that the Sulaco needs help. This opening scene makes no sense when the game references Alien 3, which opens with a scene that indicates both Hicks and Newt are dead. The game doesn’t really bother to explain this at all. But it wouldn’t need to be explained if you just ignored Alien 3.

© Jason Pitruzzello for The Adrenaline Vault, 2013. | Permalink | 13 comments

Today’s advanced technology can be a double-edged sword. It can provide us with tools and experiences unimagined in previous generations. But it can also deprive us of some of the things we’ve come to cherish. Technology has recently claimed another victim in games journalism, and we’re all the worse for it.

This week, UK-based publisher Future announced the closing of Playstation: The Official Magazine. The recently published Holiday 2012 issue is the magazine’s last, after more than five years serving the Sony gaming community. PTOM joins a lengthening list of print publications that have felt the deadly sting of the Internet, including Computer Games, Computer Gaming World (which rebranded itself Games for Windows: The Official Magazine before ending its run a year or so later), and most recently, the venerable Nintendo Power, which shut down a month or so ago. This leaves Future with only two significant print gaming products: Official Xbox Magazine and the Energizer bunny of games mags, PC Gamer, which continues to publish monthly after more than a decade.

This is the reality of the journalism game these days, but that doesn’t soften the blow for the dozens of talented people whose jobs have disappeared in a puff of virtual smoke. PTOM featured solid coverage of Sony’s various gaming platforms, a monthly roundup of the best available games for each device, select Blu-ray movie reviews (the PS3 is, after all, also a Blu-ray player), and news and letters sections that were worth the subscription price all by themselves. When other mags started to get thinner, PTOM almost always managed to be a meaty, substantial publication, which could be one of the reasons for its downfall.

We thank Playstation: The Official Magazine editor-in-chief Roger Burchill and his accomplished writing and editorial staff for five years of games journalism excellence. We’re sure that you all will hit the ground running at another outlet, and we look forward to reading more from you in the future (no pun intended).

© Michael Smith for The Adrenaline Vault, 2013. | Permalink | 5 comments

First of all, let me just say this: when talking about favorite games of the year, I can only talk about stuff I’ve played. I missed a number of titles that came out this year because of scheduling conflicts and budget considerations, so I don’t want anyone to look at me and say, “Why did you forget X?”, because I might not have had a chance to play it. People might claim that PC gaming is dying, but there’s still more than I have time to play floating around out there.

I can also only talk about things that came out this year. If we included stuff from previous years, I’d probably vote The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim because I like how it plays with the recently-released DLC. But we’re talking about a game I’ve been playing since last year, with a little bit of content from this year. So, I can’t vote for Skyrim, even though it was a late entry last time around. And if I suggest an MMO, someone might ask me how it compares to World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria, but I won’t have an answer because I have stayed far away from WoW. Not out of any hate; it’s just not my cup of tea.

I also have to consider that it’s becoming increasingly meaningless to talk about games as if they’re static titles that get patched, but never really change their content. We had a lively discussion about DLC earlier this year, but the upshot is that half the games I reviewed this year aren’t even the same now as they were when I reviewed them. Star Wars: The Old Republic has added a ton of good content and interface/gameplay improvements. Worms Revolution has new DLC available. Warlock: Master of the Arcane has had some major improvements via patches, along with some new DLC that adds some gameplay. In short, it’s becoming increasingly more difficult to apply comparative criteria to most PC games because they might be getting better or worse over time.

This also doesn’t factor in the relative merits of various genres. We don’t even have time to open that can of worms.

So, with all of that said, I will claim that Crusader Kings II is my favorite game of the year. I’m still playing it after several months (a good sign). The new content has expanded the game in great ways. I get more emotionally invested when playing it than I do most games out there. It is, at the end of the day, more than worth the cost.

But if I broke it down by genre, I’d have to say I still prefer Star Wars: The Old Republic as my MMO of choice. I haven’t been lured back to Lord of the Rings Online, even with the release of the Rohan expansion. While SWTOR‘s free to play now, I find running around the stars with a blaster or lightsaber by my side to be good fun, even if I don’t get the time to complete as many flashpoints and operations as I would like.

As for indies, I enjoyed Resonance this year, but as far as off-the-wall games that are entertaining is concerned, I have to say I enjoyed Slender: The Eight Pages. It’s been a very long time since I’ve played a game that could elicit real fear. The last time I truly felt fear, as opposed to just a desire to shoot and kill enemies, was when I played the Colonial Marine maps on Director’s Cut difficulty in the original Aliens vs. Predator back in 1999. That was a game I would refrain from playing in a darkened room.

As for FPS games, I haven’t played one since the start of 2012, so all you Call of Duty fans will have to tell me if you really liked the new one on PC or not.

© Jason Pitruzzello for The Adrenaline Vault, 2012. | Permalink | 5 comments

Retirees gathered around the Wii. Mothers playing a few rounds of Angry Birds on their smartphones. In the last two decades, games have emerged from a small curiosity to a billion-dollar industry that attracts nearly everyone, even (perhaps especially) those who don’t consider themselves gamers. As this new media has slowly emerged from its childhood, we see more of its full-grown potential. Games don’t simply amaze us with technological wonders. They stimulate our intellect, creativity and emotions. Our hobby has just as much artistic potential as any film or novel, perhaps more. Being interactive, games have many artistic opportunities that simply can’t exist in traditional media. For all of their unique strengths, games are still thought of like any older art form. We talk about stunning visuals, immersive sound design and amazing storylines, but we ignore the meaning the game mechanics themselves carry.

The confusion is understandable. Games are media collages. It takes huge teams of artists from many disciplines to release a AAA title. Often the writing, music or visual art of a game will outshine all other elements. But when it comes to gameplay, we rarely grace it with more than a “fun” rubber stamp. If games truly are an art form, then they must have some element that makes them unique. Gameplay itself must be more than fun. It must be meaningful.

Take the classic BioWare RPG Baldur’s Gate, for example. It tells a classic epic fantasy story of a young man thrust into an adventure of noble friends, vile foes, and a dangerous world to explore. If you remove all gameplay and turn it into a series of cutscenes and dialogue, what’s left? We’ve reduced a dynamic classic to a generic fantasy story. Without a choice in the storytelling, the player doesn’t identify with the hero as much and is more distant from the story. Without leveling up and character building, the journey lacks the same feeling of epic progress. Without the possibility of failure, every success lacks meaning.

There’s a reason that most RPGs are story-centric. The standard mechanics of gaining experience and slowly leveling up a character from a weakling to a powerful hero are well suited to mirroring conflict and growth in a story. Just like in a real adventure, they are comprised of many mundane, repetitive tasks that are given meaning by their larger narrative. It’s fun to read the conclusion of an epic adventure, but it’s even better when you’ve had a hand in it. That final confrontation with Sephiroth/Sauron/Darth Vader is much more rewarding when you have to fight tooth-and-nail to get there.

Similarly, there’s a reason that first-person shooters are sometimes called Ego Shooters. While a third-person perspective identifies with a character, the first-person perspective is instantly self-identifying. Furthermore, the primary way the player interacts with the world is through a weapon. FPSs inherently communicate individualism, power and conflict.

© Ian Davis for The Adrenaline Vault, 2012. | Permalink | 4 comments

I feel like it’s five years ago, but I feel the need to bring up DLC because of stupid stuff I’ve been reading. Normally, stupid comments on Internet forums are nothing I care about. Let’s face it: for any given community in any medium, there’s going to be some percentage of individuals who forsake logic, reason, and their own self interest to indulge in faux outrage over perceived injustices that are, in fact, nothing of the sort. But after reading through comments in various game communities (which shall remain nameless to protect everyone involved), to say nothing of conversations with good friends, I have come to the conclusion that some people just have no idea what they are complaining about.

People who complain about DLC content for PC games are (often) one such group.

Now, before you get riled up, let me explain myself.

Gamer A buys Oblivion and loves every minute of it. Bethesda announces DLC containing horse armor. Gamer A buys it because the gamer loves Oblivion. It turns out to be a crappy DLC. Gamer A then buys some iteration of Modern Warfare and purchases some DLC because friends also have the same content. The new maps suck and Gamer A complains that they should’ve been included in the original game anyway. Gamer A then hears that Totally Awesome Game, released by Really Cool Studios, is going to use a DLC model for new content rather than expansions or sequels. Gamer A then throws a tantrum and promises to never buy any content from Really Cool Studios again.

Now, can anyone see the problem here? And before someone points it out, the deliberately biased rhetoric towards Gamer A and the “tantrum” was intended to grab your attention.

The sticking point here isn’t that DLC is somehow a problem. In each of these cases, it comes down to something so fundamental that it’s easy to forget. We don’t buy games because they’re useful, or to help us make money, or even because they’re a status symbol. They are entertainment. As such, there’s really only one overall criterion to be used when determining whether game stuff is good or bad. The following fake algebraic formula covers it well:

(C1/C2)/D > 1

C1 is the content provided by a designer, and C2 is the cost of that content. D represents the annoyance of the DRM. If you get enough enjoyment out of what you buy without DRM making you want to kill yourself, then you win. It’s so basic that we use it all the time around here when writing reviews. Games with lower price tags simply don’t have to provide as much content to earn good marks. Why? Because I’m not stupid. I don’t expect a $10 game to give me 80 hours of game time with graphics that make my PC hurt. But if the game costs $80, it had damn well better justify that cost to earn good marks. And if the DRM is problematic, we try to tell you, all the while acknowledging that different people view DRM in their own ways.

See, it doesn’t matter whether a game is a full version, expansion pack, DLC, or contains pink ponies fighting zombies. It only matters whether the content is worth the price and whether the DRM is acceptable. Period. That’s all that matters.

There are some common complaints about DLC that need addressing. Let’s take them up one by one.

© Jason Pitruzzello for The Adrenaline Vault, 2012. | Permalink | 25 comments

A few months ago I reviewed the casual-focused Microsoft Flight. Apparently I was the only gamer who didn’t view it as a personal assault against all of sim culture. If even reading its name tortures your ulcer, just get yourself a license for Xplane and never want again. I was a believer in the concept of a small free-to-play flight sim that focused on VFR flights. The aerocash hunts, missions and unlocks were a great idea and made a genuinely fun flight sim. But for all of MS Flight‘s inventiveness, it seems that most of the creativity went into making the DLC a rip-off in new and exciting ways.

The first warning should’ve been the Hawaiian Adventures expansion. It opened up the game to all the islands, new missions, and even a new plane. Not too bad for $20, right? There’s a good bit of content to keep you busy, and the powerful Vans is fun to fly. However, if you want to try any of the medic evac or cargo-hauling missions, you’ll need to purchase the Maule, which is available for a staggering $14.99.

It’s not the prices that are the problem, though. This is pretty standard in Sim Land. Just look at Railworks, whose catalog features thousands of dollars worth of DLC. Microsoft Flight Sim X scenery packs regularly sell for much more than what Flight charges. Simming is an expensive hobby, even casual ones like Flight.

The problem is that if you actually want to try the new stuff in your expansion pack, you’ll have to buy even more DLC. Hawaiian Adventures doesn’t cost $20, it costs $35, but you’d never know that until you’ve spent yourself more than halfway there. It’s like buying a used car and realizing later it doesn’t just need an oil change, but a new radiator too. Surprise!

Recently, a pack containing the entire Alaskan wilderness was released in the same $20 format. The pack comes with a Carbon Cub to fly and lots of tiny airstrips at which to land. Yet the Cub doesn’t even come with a cockpit. That’s right, you can only fly the Carbon Cub in third-person mode. The devs say that a virtual cockpit is on the way, but I have a bad tingling feeling that it’ll cost me. Oh, and it still requires the Maule.

F2P can work; just ask Turbine. Heck, if anything, F2P made their games better. This isn’t Day 1 DLC outrage or overpriced garbage (Saints Row the Third, I’m looking at you), but a whole new way to get screwed. When you start holding back content from DLC packs to sell as other DLC packs, you find yourself three-layers deep into the Russian nesting doll of shame.

© Ian Davis for The Adrenaline Vault, 2012. | Permalink | 6 comments

It’s hard to believe that it’s been five years since the relaunch of the Adrenaline Vault. Angel Munoz, who founded Avault way back in 1995, and editor-in-chief David Laprad gathered together a ragtag bunch of newbie reviewers and set us loose on the gaming world. Since then, we’ve published more than 800 reviews, plus countless blog posts, news items and forum conversations. It’s truly been a long, strange trip.

People come and go. Now, only Jason Pitruzzello and I remain on the staff from the list of new writers who joined up in the summer of 2007. My very first published review was for the PC version of Shadowrun, and it didn’t take long for you readers to welcome me to the fold. In the very first comment about my review, I was accused of “fluffing MS (Microsoft)” by someone named “chriskovo.” You guys gave no quarter, and it made all of us better writers. Some of us have moved on to host podcasts and work in other parts of the gaming industry; one of us actually gets to sit at the right hand of Gabe Newell at Valve. And we have you passionate folks to thank for it.

It’s more than 130 reviews later, and now I’m serving as both senior writer and editor of Avault, and I’m blessed every day by the opportunities I’ve had here. I’ve been to product release parties in Manhattan, I’ve attended three E3 conventions, and it’s been a blast. We’re smaller now than we were five years ago, but we’re doing our best to continue to provide you with the best opinions and information we can possibly muster. On behalf of the staff here at Avault, I’d like to thank each and every one of you for sticking with us. Thanks for the comments and the forum posts and all the things that make our site vibrant and fun. Thanks to the folks who are members of our Steam group (please visit us and join up next time you’re about to start your next Counterstrike match). Thanks to everyone who regularly visits our Facebook page. And a special thanks to all the gamers who have visited us in the past, continue to keep us honest in the present, and who will keep joining us in the future. We have a talented, motivated group of writers who promise to keep giving you honest, unbiased opinions on the entire gaming world, from the biggest AAA blockbusters to the exciting products coming from the best indie developers. If you like what you see, pass the word! The more the merrier, I say.

© Michael Smith for The Adrenaline Vault, 2012. | Permalink | 12 comments

Wine, like golf and good scotch, remains a pursuit of the elite. Connoisseurs sit around sipping $50 bottles of wine, smacking their lips and debating the difference between “aged oak” and “corky” flavors. Of course, the joke’s on them. You see, we humans suffer from something called “confirmation bias,” which means that we’re more likely to see (and taste) what we expect instead of what’s actually there. It’s been fairly well documented that the more a person thinks a bottle of wine costs, they more they like it. No doubt this phenomenon exists in gaming as well. I like a masterpiece as much as anyone, but I have to admit: sometimes I want a thoroughly mediocre game.

My guilty pleasure is the middling FPS. Not the bad ones; they’re too frustrating or broken to enjoy. However, a “just ok” shooter, the kind made on a shoestring budget, using “customizable controls” as a bullet point on the box, and attached to a license, is buttery popcorn to my soul. It’s a genre that has calcified into concrete corridors and chest-high walls. You don’t have to design an FPS anymore; you just take the Ur-FPS and pick the shade of brown you want. It’s like Build-A-Bear for emotionally-stunted adolescents.

Yet, I love it. It’s the joys of pulp genre fiction; you know exactly what you’re going to get. You know every line before its spoken and how to beat every boss. If it feels as if you’ve experienced this before, its because you have, many, many times. But there’s comfort in that repetition. The detective is always betrayed, the young hero always finds the McGuffin and gets the girl, the Space Marines always make everything go boom. These games don’t innovate or win awards. They won’t make you think deeply afterward. But that’s why you came here in the first place: to rest from all the thinking and worrying that plagues our big brains.

Of course, the trick is finding these gems for the right price. Garage sales, thrift stores, and discount shops such as Biglots can often be treasure troves of yesterday’s lemons. Even Ebay and Amazon can offer so-so games for a few bucks. However, each of these leaves some sort of physical residue in your life. You might pitch that Area 51: Blacksite box as soon as you get home, but the disc will wedge itself into your library, a beating tell-tale heart of your dark secret. For this reason, I prefer more discrete outlets such as Gametap or OnLive. These buffet services are full of games such as these and allow you to gorge yourself on as much crap as you can find (just like a real buffet!).

Whatever your niche, I urge you to find one. Can’t get enough European RPGs based on obscure tabletop games? Great! Copy-and-paste tower defense clones? Go for it! Adventure games? Whatever, man. Abandon tradition and best-of lists and find something new in the wide world of gaming. Break away from the mainstream opinions and try what they left behind. Shoot for something with a Metacritic score in the mid 50s and work your way down from there. I’m not promising that you’ll come away satisfied, but maybe (just maybe) you’ll expand your gaming menu and discover tastes you never thought you had.

© Ian Davis for The Adrenaline Vault, 2012. | Permalink | 3 comments

Retired baseball pitcher Curt Schilling has a thing for MMOs. Having lots of time and piles of money lying around, he started his own game company, 38 Studios. He brought in all the big names. R.A. Salvadore is the Director of Creative Content. Todd McFarlane is the Executive Art Director. They even hired Travis McGeathy, the lead designer of Everquest. Schilling wasn’t messing around.

Since their founding in 2006, they’ve been working on a big, expensive MMO. We don’t know anything about it, only that it’s been in the works for six years. Investors tend to like seeing MMO development. After all, World of Warcraft makes more money annually than some small nations, so they have to be profitable, right? Right?

In June 2010, Rhode Island guaranteed a $75 million loan to 38 Studios if they would relocate there, and bring 450 jobs with them. That’s right, Rhode Island paid $167,000 per job. Oh, but they’d get their loan money back, right? Because MMOs never flop and always make lots of money, right?

Click here to view the embedded video.

Now, reports are saying that 38 Studios isn’t making payroll. When (not if) the studio implodes on itself, Rhode Island taxpayers will be on the hook for the initial loan, plus interest, making this move to manually develop the state’s economy a $100 million bungle.

The problem isn’t the loss of the studio (as much as we liked Amalur), but that the governor of Rhode Island thought it was a good idea to gamble with $100 million of taxpayer money. What makes this even worse is this loan was made after 38 Studios had four years of development without a title or screenshot to show for it. It’s one thing if private investors take risks: it’s their money. But this is playing poker with other people’s money, and despite all the good intentions in the world, you’ll always play a little more loose when your wad isn’t on the line.

There are many things that government shouldn’t do. Picking winners and losers is one of them. This is why. Folks, don’t let your government gamble on MMO developers.

© Ian Davis for The Adrenaline Vault, 2012. | Permalink | One comment

Syndicate (360, PS3, PC) – 2/21

The last time a classic franchise was rebooted into a new genre, it didn’t turn out too well. While the classic Syndicate was a top-down tactical shooter that took place in real time, the new version is a four-player co-op FPS. It sounds like cause for concern, but everything we’ve seen about it is reassuring, nay, exciting. With various biochip implants and a co-op design from the ground up, Syndicate might actually have a chance to win angry fanboys back. Anyway, what with the corporate control chips they’ve been implanting at E3, it’s not like they have any sort of choice about it.

Mass Effect 3 (360, PS3, PC) – 3/06

BioWare is set to release the final part of their epic space opera trilogy this March. We’re pretty stoked for this one here at Avault, and for good reason. We’ll finally witness the end of this massive story and see the consequences of choices we made way back in 2007. It’s also set to feature competitive multiplayer, which seems like peanut butter and syrup (a lot better then it sounds). BioWare has already hinted that you should keep your ME3 save files around, so it sounds like the franchise isn’t going away anytime soon.

Kid Icarus: Uprising (3DS) – 3/23

Those of you who’ve been trying to swallow the regret of purchasing a 3DS will soon have another reason other than the Vita to feel better about your life decisions. Pit, a character from the NES days who would’ve been entirely forgotten if it wasn’t for his inclusion in Smash Bros., is getting his first game in two decades. Fans who’ve been clamoring for a resurrection of this neglected property will get their wish granted this March in pretty 3D-o-vision.

Max Payne 3 (360, PS3, PC) – 5/15

While the first two Max Payne games are ironclad classics of the genre, the third installment has been late to the party. After years of being beaten with delays, Max Payne 3 will finally shoot its way out of the Rockstar dev labs, muttering noir narrative to itself while gunning down hapless QA testers. Oh Max, you’re so gritty.

WiiU – Late 2012

After everyone got over making puerile jokes about their last console’s name, Nintendo decided to make their next one completely unpronounceable by the Western tongue. Featuring a massive touchscreen controller (with actual buttons and thumbsticks), the WiiU seems to be taking its cues from the rapidly developing iPad sector. There’s a lot of creative potential packed into touch gaming, and Nintendo wants to unleash it like a biological contaminant upon your entire extended family (pets as well). To facilitate their entertainment conquest, The Big N has also made a point to sign up big third-party developers, so WiiU players can also play the same games as everybody else, which is nice of them. Look for it sometime this year.

Bioshock Infinite (360, PS3, PC) – Fall 2012

Here at Avault, we’re definitely looking forward to Bioshock Infinite. St. Levine and his team are back in control and branching out into fresh and creative territories for the next game in the Bioshock series. In response to criticism of the original Bioshock, a hidden “1999 mode” aims to make the game more like the classic System Shock 2 and less like a handholding grandma who doesn’t want to hurt your feelings. I’m looking forward to letting Bioshock Infinite hurt all my feelings this fall.

Halo 4 (360) – Fall 2012

Halo returns for a fourth installment, developed by 343 Industries this time. At this point, the vague release date of “this fall” is all we know about it. We’ll see how the series fares outside of Bungie’s protective care.

CounterStrike: Global Offensive –TBA 2012

We’ve already covered this one in some detail here on Avault. New modes, new maps and a few new weapons should make for a fresh CS for the year of the apocalypse. Valve and Hidden Path are working hard to make it just as enjoyable outside of PC land. The real question will be how large of a splash it’ll make on consoles when it’s released sometime this year.

Doom 4 –TBA 2012

Developer id software has the latest installment in their classic franchise listed for a 2012 release date. With their last game, Rage, flopping like a wet fish, and nary a screenshot in sight, I wouldn’t place any hard bets on it showing its demonic head this year.

Dirt Showdown – TBA 2012

Codemasters hit paydirt with their 2008 rally racer Dirt, and they’ve been milking it hard ever since. Showdown will be the fourth entry in the series, and will focus more on destruction and chaos then precision driving. This will be felt most by the inclusion of new demo derby modes and the removal of any actual rally racing. A different take to be sure, but Codemasters’ racing division hasn’t let us down yet.

Prey 2 (360, PS3, PC) – TBA 2012

The original Prey is what would result if Portal and Quake made a baby. Instead of complaining that it never lived up to its potential, it should be lauded for getting released at all. Instead of doing the original right, Prey 2 is set to become an open-world role-playing FPS, which is as stunning a development as any. It looks like Human Head has big plans for the world of Prey, and we can all pray that it pays out.

© Ian Davis for The Adrenaline Vault, 2012. | Permalink | 9 comments

After dozens of hours in the province of Skyrim, I’ve done a lot. I’ve plundered tombs, slain dragons. I’ve picked a point in the landscape and gone there, full of manly purpose. I’ve listened to many personal stories and stuck my mailed fist of intervention into more then a few faces. Though my adventuring might someday come to an end, it will never truly find a conclusion. Yet, through all of it, I have reached one conclusion:

I like Fallout: New Vegas better.

It’s not a beautiful beast. New Vegas is a cluttered game, mechanically and aesthetically. It’s not just diverse, but outright unfocused at times. The interface, as broken as anything compromised for a controller can be, breaks under the weight of the added survival and crafting modes. Nor is the ham-fisted way the intro exposition is handled a compelling start. Sometimes it can be an outright ugly game.

At the heart of New Vegas is something that you’ll never see in an Elder Scrolls game: a real, dynamic plot. A score of forces all compete for the heart of The Strip. The NCR, the Legion, the Brotherhood, Mr. House, maybe even you. Each faction is well developed and thought provoking. The NCR isn’t the shining beacon of democracy and freedom you’d expect, nor is the Legion pure evil (well, they are, but have very good reason for being so).

Playing through the main storyline involves picking winners and losers, shaping the political dynamics to your liking. The wasteland is not for the weak. Eventually, you’ll have to step on some toes and anger (or outright kill) factions you’d rather not. Make the choice. If you don’t, someone will. In the end, you cut a swath through the wasteland, reshaping it in your own image. It’s this blending of stories that elevates it above Fallout 3, which polarized its players into Paragon or Villain story branches.

Perhaps we can forgive Skyrim for its failures in plotting; Elder Scrolls has always focused more on world-building than story. Yet, I can’t help but find its world boring. It’s far away from the bland European realm of Oblivion, but I can’t help but feel that I’ve done it all before.

Skyrim’s bandits are typical thieves and murderers, while the enemies in Fallout are shaped and broken by the nuclear-charred world in which they live. Murder and theft are necessary actions to survive, be you bandit or homesteader. Why plunder identical ancestral tombs when you can explore ancient nuclear vaults and uncover tales of experiments gone wrong? Why adventure with Illia when you can choose Lily?

I’m not ready to say that New Vegas is a better game then Skyrim. Elder Scrolls V offers far more coherent aesthetics and sensible mechanics, but New Vegas just clicked better for me. I’ve never given Obsidian much credit, but I think that they might’ve bested Bethesda by creating a huge RPG that has a sandbox and thought-provoking plot developments. I’m 30 hours into Skyrim, yet I’m already hunting down more mods to toss into New Vegas for yet another playthrough. After all, when the forgotten realms are quite explored, why not dose up and go to Gamma World?

© Ian Davis for The Adrenaline Vault, 2012. | Permalink | 6 comments

Ed wrote a wonderful review of Skyrim for the Xbox recently. I don’t want to steal his thunder, but I thought I would chime in on how the game feels on PC.

First, let me just say that I agree with Ed’s overall assessment of the game. It certainly merits the Seal of Excellence from Adrenaline Vault. And let me also indicate that I think Skyrim balances the demands of gamers for an open-ended experience with the needs of others for a CRPG with real structure. Skyrim is pretty darn open-ended; if you don’t even begin the major narrative arc, it’s like there isn’t even a threat of dragons at all. You can immerse yourself in the Byzantine politics of the region, pursue wealth and riches, or even become a hated villain who murders people for fun and profit (with all the attendant consequences). In fact, your actions outside of the main narrative of dragons attacking Skyrim still have a large impact on the world around you. The game is not only open-ended, but you can change the status quo while not pursuing your destiny as the Dragonborn. (I’d say more, but I don’t want to spoil anything related to certain quest-lines or stories.)

But the main narrative is also gripping in its own way. It embraces moral ambiguity over black-white moral decisions (just because you are trying to save Skyrim does not mean you or your allies are the good guys). It has a logical progression and plays down the busy work of fetch and carry quests. The voice acting is top notch all around, and it doesn’t ever get in the way. And thanks to the way the journal and maps work, there should never be a moment when you are confused about what actions to take or how to achieve certain goals. Everything that was right with Oblivion’s fast travel system has been carried over.

I also have to give Bethesda credit for revamping the game’s skill and character rules in such a way as to eliminate the pitfalls and exploits of the old system from Oblivion. Character classes are gone and it is no longer really possible to game the system by under-leveling, or to screw up your game by over-leveling. In fact, since there are no attributes (like strength and so on) anymore, skills and perks are the only things that really matter. There is no race to raise certain attributes by incrementing stupid skills you don’t really want to use. Instead, you simply increase skills by using them, regardless of other considerations. There’s no point in spamming pointless skills that you don’t use anymore. Even better, the perks system ensures that specialization is still possible while retaining a character development procedure that emphasizes freedom of action. It is way too complicated to explain here, but let me just say that the tool tips and explanatory information on the character and skill sheets make everything very transparent. Those who love to plan their characters methodically will not be disappointed, while those that just want to focus on doing things will never find themselves leveled badly.

I am also pleased that alchemy is no longer the skill to rule them all. In Oblivion and Morrowind, alchemy was so profitable that anyone who wanted to make lots of money legitimately in the game would just buy out entire shops worth of alchemy ingredients and process them into potions, which you sold to make money to buy more ingredients. Now, alchemy is just plain more difficult because food items are used in cooking and can’t be made into potions (no more cheap stamina potions from bread). Furthermore, while you can make money with alchemy, you have to have both a high skill AND invest your perks in alchemy in order to make it financially worth your while. Since perks are a finite commodity, abusing alchemy for cash means giving up on better combat skills or magical spells. Along those lines, Skyrim has included several methods of crafting. You can make your own armor, weapons, food, potions, and enchant your own items. Since enchanting is now a skill, you can’t just grab grand soul gems and make awesome equipment. Like everything else in Skyrim, making your own awesome magical equipment requires perks that involve sacrificing some other ability your character might have. So, while I have a character with a full set of awesome Daedric armor and weapons he made himself, enchanted in just the way he likes, he’s just not super great at certain combat tasks like another character would be. Another character would have taken all those perks invested in smithing and enchantment and put them in weapon skills, making his attacks much more deadly in certain ways.

About the only complaint I have is that the menus are clearly designed for a console. This wouldn’t be a big deal, except that they interact poorly with a three-button mouse. It is a common occurrence that in dialogue, I will point the mouse at one option, and the game will register another choice, because the mouse wheel was used to scroll between all the choices, while the keyboard controls have another option selected entirely. I end up using the keyboard to scroll through dialogue choices to prevent infinite loops, but I find this to be a bizarre issue. Also, in case anyone does not already know, the game requires Steam activation, even if you bought it on disk. I don’t find this to be a big problem, as Steam can be offline while playing Skyrim, but those with an axe to grind against Steam might find themselves disappointed.

Aside from these minor problems, I can say that Skyrim is worth every penny I paid for it. I was initially skeptical about certain features, but after playing through with different characters and choosing to do radically different things in the game, I have to say Bethesda hit a home run. Christmas came early for PC gamers!

© Jason Pitruzzello for The Adrenaline Vault, 2011. | Permalink | 4 comments

How do you say good-bye to someone who has been an integral part of Avault since before you can remember? You could do a sappy retrospective of their body of work, add an orchestral soundtrack, and bring a tear to the eye of everyone reading. You could write a brief farewell and announcement of their departure for their fans. Or you could say nothing and quietly hope that no one notices the change in the masthead.

But what if the body of their work can be summed up with an acronym and a word? “DRM bad!” What if they have no fans and only adversaries? What if the sudden rantless silence is too much to go unnoticed? Yes, the rumors are true. Doug Lombardi’s Valve has swooped in and captured the one and only (thank the gods) Tsar Alaric Teplitsky.

And while we honestly wish Alaric nothing but the best, he’s stirred up too much controversy over the years to simply let him go with a handshake and cheery good-bye. Instead, we wanted to allow each writer a free shot at him, right out here on the front page. Unfortunately, only one was brave enough to let me actually see what they intend ahead of time, but the rest have vowed to chime in below in the comments (which I hope I’m fast enough to moderate).

What follows comes from the fingers of Matthew Booth…

When I first started writing reviews for The Adrenaline Vault, I couldn’t stand Alaric. Now, almost a year later, he still finds a way to upset me on a regular basis. I’m not sure if it’s the smug, professionally done portrait on his Avault posts, his overwhelming hatred for practically everything, or the popularity of his posts that upsets me most. I suspect my uneasiness with his work is a combination of all three of these things. Regarding his negativity, Alaric hates more games than the number of games I’ve played in my lifetime. In fact, Alaric hates games he doesn’t even know exist.

To keep things fair, I might not relate to his bottomless negativity, but darn it, I respect the man. Alaric is passionate about what he does and I think a lot of his criticisms stem from him having higher expectations than a majority of the population. When it comes to gaming, I don’t expect much so I’m rarely angered by a game. Whereas Alaric, my polar opposite in most things, hasn’t lost his desire to hold everything to a nearly impossible standard. He reminds me that keeping my expectations low reduces my disappointment in the gaming industry.

Alaric, we may disagree on most things, but I appreciate you having a hand in bringing me back to PC gaming, and always being there to tell me I’m wrong (even when I’m right). I hope Valve is ready to step their game up if for no other reason than to avoid one of your infamous rants. Don’t let us West Coast hippies turn you soft!

In the end, Alaric may be a royal pain in the donkey, but you can’t help but love him. He makes sure to keep me on my toes regardless of the hour, and is always willing to plead his point or toss out ideas at 1am. (Make what you will of that regarding his alleged social life.) He’s also not afraid of hard work, and has proven more than once an ability to make the impossible happen. I’m going to miss our late night chats, our arguments, but thankfully not our friendship (I threatened him with grievous bodily harm should he fail to drop by now and then).

Fair winds and following seas, my noble adversary. You will be missed.

Now, do I send Doug a thank-you note or a sympathy card?

© Michele White for The Adrenaline Vault, 2011. | Permalink | 13 comments

A curious thing happened recently. I was reading the magnificent RPS, and learned about a very cool indie game called Legend Of Grimrock. It is a first-person dungeon-crawling game, which is essentially a remake of the old classics such as Eye of the Beholder and Lands of Lore. Much like that other bearded game critic John Walker, I look fondly upon those games and yet find them unplayable for reasons such as lack of modern controls, graphics, and having to run them either in DOSBox or on a virtual machine of some sort. It makes me happy that someone is remaking (or almost remaking) these almost forgotten games. It also makes me wonder why this isn’t happening on any significant scale.

Why does nobody remake old games?

It’s quite strange really. We all know games from years ago that are still every kind of awesome (even correcting for nostalgia) but didn’t age well. We think about them, talk about them, sometimes rant about them on forums. Hell, we still play them, warts and all. The Eloi amongst us buy them from gog.com, while the Morlocks just download them from somewhere. Some of the most anticipated games at any given moment are sequels, prequels, and all other manner of quels. That’s reasonable. Obviously we enjoyed the originals and want to re-live the experience. Why is it then, that no developer, publisher or some other rights-holder thought to invest into faithful recreations of these games? Was it at some point deemed too difficult or unprofitable? Did someone decide that “it just won’t work” and abandoned the idea?

It really cannot be all that difficult. Certainly not anymore difficult than making a brand new game. After all, most of the work has already been done. Let’s take Betrayal at Krondor – my favorite RPG of all time. If I was to guess, I’d say that recreating it in some amazing modern engine would be about as complicated as creating levels for any new game. In fact it would be easier because there is no need to design them. Sure, certain things would have to be added, but maps, game mechanics, characters, and dialogue already exist. And the sales are pretty much guaranteed. I know I’ll gladly pay $50 for a good remake. Why, I’ll re-purchase all of my favorite games! If other media are any indication, people love paying for remakes. Bach hasn’t gone out of style for the past 260 years and people keep buying those records. His music is now played (recreated if you will) by metal bands, ensembles of traditional Chinese instruments, street drummers and just about anyone else. Great stuff is great.

Outside of Legend Of Grimrock there have been few attempts at remaking a few iconic games. Sure, ADG Interactive has been doing a magnificent job with the King’s Quest games, but their goal has always been to bring old Sierra’s titles to VGA, which in and of itself is a wee bit dated by now. OK, terribly, colossally, unimaginably dated. The Secret of Monkey Island had also been remade recently. It wasn’t all that well done, but I guess it’s the thought that counts. Most fan-made projects have rarely made much progress past the initial motivated push. Not many people are willing to dedicate their lives to remaking a game, even a very important one. This is why those who are in the business of making games should be the ones spearheading the effort. With the weight of a major publisher (or even an indie studio) behind such a project, a lot of good old games can become good new games.

P.S. – Any persons suggesting that I misspelled “Murlocks” will be re-educated through labor.

© Alaric Teplitsky for The Adrenaline Vault, 2011. | Permalink | 21 comments

Well, that seems to be the impression Patrick Bach, executive producer of Battlefield 3, has. When questioned by a competition winner from Rock, Paper, Shotgun he remarked, “If you put the player in front of a choice where they can do good things or bad things, they will do bad things, go dark side – because people think it’s cool to be naughty, they won’t be caught… In a game where it’s more authentic, when you have a gun in your hand and a child in front of you what would happen? Well the player would probably shoot that child.” As a subsequence Battlefield 3 is not going to be keen on letting you strafe any civilian life you encounter. Personally I think his comments are a little naive and at best uncharitable to us gamers.

One of my research students has recently interviewed some adolescent gamers (15-17 year olds) on this very issue, exploring the roll of morals and ethics in young gamers. What was her most interesting finding? That it’s fine to shoot other players and NPC’s who might impede your game progress but it’s not the done thing to liquidate neutrals, women or children just for the fun of it. In fact these adolescents went as far as saying such things are frowned upon in their gaming circles. Now I’m not saying there won’t be some players somewhere out there who enjoy such things but I’m arguing the majority of us would try to avoid them if they were not central to progressing the plot line.

I have played hours upon hours of Red Dead Redemption and can only remember shooting three NPCs that I didn’t have to. One NPC wondered aimlessly into my line of fire. The two others were shot on purpose – not motivated by pure inherent gamer evil, but by the need to meet a game challenge, which involved staying alive and becoming ‘most wanted.’ In fact, in the same game, whilst online, I have actually heard other players chiding co-players for shooting civilians, only for them to argue that they hadn’t meant to, etc.

My point is that I don’t believe players always adhere to the evil stereotype. I do think games allow us to experiment with the environment, in a kind of “what would happen if I did this?” way. Surely, this is simple curiosity. It’s the same as if I sat you all down in front of a desk with a large glowing red button on it – how many of you would want to push it or wonder what happens if you did press it? That’s one of the big draws of video games; they allow us to experiment with curiosity in a fun and safe environment. How many of you, if you encountered a real dragon on your way home from work, would strap on a shield, grab the nearest sword, and advance confidently on it? Not me. My car would be in reverse all the way. Gamers know that what they are playing isn’t real – even the majority of seven year-olds fully understand that what they can do in a game they couldn’t or shouldn’t do in reality. So do you really need to be banned from shooting civilians to save yourself from your own evilness or should game developers just give you the choice and hope you’ll do the right thing?

© Simon Moore for The Adrenaline Vault, 2011. | Permalink | 9 comments

This is not, strictly speaking, a review. We don’t currently have an Android games section (although we might in the future), but that doesn’t mean we don’t play them. I, for one, was an early adopter of the Android platform. I still have my G1 laying around somewhere, and right now my non-PC time is split between my G2 and my Asus Eee Pad Transformer. The latter has replaced my old laptop in terms of reading books, browsing the web and other similar tasks. Of course I also play games on it; in fact earlier you might have seen my tutorial on how to get DOS games to run on Android.

When a representative contacted us with a review request, I felt it was a good idea to take their game for a spin and do a write-up. The game in question is called My Country and it is of the city-building genre. At first glance is it reminiscent of the SimCity games, and I remember thinking that it would make more sense if it was named “My City” instead. I haven’t played that series in a while, but I have a soft spot in my heart for SimCity 2000, which I played growing up. Because of that I found myself pretty eager to dive in and enjoy the experience.

The game is free, and although there are many free offerings in the Android Marketplace – most of them are decidedly sub-par. My Country therefore has the benefit of a pleasant first impression. Naturally, the purpose of the game is to build a large and profitable metropolis, which you try to achieve by placing residential and commercial buildings, roads, parks, et cetera. All of the above costs Game Dollars, and you start off with a substantial amount. A tutorial gets you going and before you know it you are the proud mayor of a few apartment buildings, a business center and a taxi company.

This is where things get different. Each building has multiple levels of upgrades, which cause it to bring in more money. When you purchase a building, it doesn’t immediately appear. Construction takes time (sometimes hours) and may happen in multiple stages. At the end of each stage your input is required in order to begin the next one. Business buildings, such as banks and factories, require professionals to be hired in order to operate. These men and women demand you collect certain items in order for them to work for you. A teacher, for example, needs a Book, some Chalk and an Attache Case. These objects, as well as myriad others, are dropped on a semi-random basis during completion of building upgrades or when you collect profit.

That’s right, collecting profits is a manual task. Apartment buildings bring little money, even when fully upgraded. Businesses can bring a ton of money, but require contracts, which in turn cost Game Dollars. Depending on how far you’ve upgraded any given building you can sign either a short term, a standard, or a long term contract. The length of the contract determines the cost, the money it brings in, and how long it will take to complete. Once a building produces a profit, you have to tap the profit icon, then tap the money icon to collect the money and the XP icon to collect experience, then tap the contract icon to renew the contract, and finally tap an item if one happened to drop. If you neglect to collect the earnings, they will just sit there while the building performs no useful function.

There is also another currency called Country Bucks. It is earned at very slow rate and is realistically meant to be purchased with real money. The purpose of it is to make things easy for you. You can buy items or hire workers, cause a contract to finish immediately, build and/or upgrade instantly, and collect all of the rewards at once.

© Alaric Teplitsky for The Adrenaline Vault, 2011. | Permalink | 15 comments

DRM, Internet connections, and digital downloads for games and content are always controversial. My own colleagues here at Avault have very strong feelings about these subjects. Mentioning Steam as a service can raise the specter of a flame war between those who like Steam and those who hate it. But even as people flame each other, we can all generally agree that DRM does not really work to deter the piracy of games and digital downloads can be convenient, even if download services can get rid of the content later.

That said, it should be no surprise that Blizzard is forcing PC gamers to play Diablo III with a live connection to the Net. Blizzard wants to protect its investment, and DRM that does not involve a connection to the Net is shockingly easy to bypass. By the same token, connecting to the Net enables plenty of functions that both PC and console gamers enjoy. Achievements, chat, and an auction house that allows for both in-game currency and RMT for in-game content, are some of these goodies. While we may argue about the value of these services, I can understand why Blizzard would feel that an always-on Net connection would be in their best interests. If I were in their shoes, I would be sorely tempted to make the same choice. After all, Blizzard does not exist just to entertain us, but to make money while doing so.

However, that does not mean that I approve of their decision. My reasons are, perhaps, a bit different than most gamers.

First, to clear the air, it seems that Blizzard feels piracy considerations are not that important. Robert Birdenbecker has said, “Internally I don’t think [always-on DRM] ever actually came up when we talked about how we want connections to operate. Things that came up were always around the feature-set, the sanctity of the actual game systems like your characters. You’re guaranteeing that there are no hacks, no dupes. All of these things were points of discussion, but the whole copy protection, piracy thing, that’s not really entering into why we want to do it.” That actually makes sense, considering that there are plenty of ways to modify games that require servers to function. While I am skeptical that the topic of always-on DRM didn’t come up at all, I do believe Robert when he says that there are other considerations. Whatever else this is about, piracy is not that important. But Birdenbecker’s statement reveals what is important to Blizzard. When he says “…no hacks, no dupes…” and you combine his statement with the knowledge that there will be real money transactions at the Auction House that comes with the game, and that Blizzard gets a small cut of those RMTs, then the real reason is quite clear. Blizzard wants to make additional money off their players, and they are embracing an MMO-lite gaming model in order to do so.

This is where I start to worry. Not because I begrudge Blizzard making money (make good games, and I will wish you healthy quarterly profits), but because I think the model they are using is flawed. MMOs are themselves a healthy model for gaming. I’ve talked at some length about MMOs as a successful model, especially Turbine’s “legalizing” of gold farmers’ services. It is a model that makes good money and provides an experience that many gamers enjoy. But Diablo III is not an MMO. Instead, what Blizzard is doing here is making a single-player game that has just enough MMO elements to generate extra revenue without actually being a real MMO.

© Jason Pitruzzello for The Adrenaline Vault, 2011. | Permalink | 27 comments

I have a lock on the door to my house. If someone really wanted to get in, however, that lock wouldn’t necessarily stop them. They could shoot the door down with a missile launcher or even bypass the door completely and break the window with a brick. I could worry about time traveling robot ninjas with energy swords that can cut through any material that my house is built out of, but I don’t (mainly because I do not have anything of value in my home). Most people would not buy a house or even rent an apartment that doesn’t have some form of lock on their door. People have the right to protect their property and that includes video game companies.

It shouldn’t come as a surprise that video game companies make games to make money. I know this might be a shock for many, but the video game industry is a business. I may not have a Doctorate in business, but I would assume that one of the most important aspects of running a business is protecting your property. In this industry most game companies, if not all, have some method of protecting the products they sell.

Digital rights management (DRM) has been around for a while and will now forever be a part of the industry. It is a way for companies to control access to a particular game, in an effort to protect their property. It is not because evil executives sit around all day thinking of ways to take over the world one game DRM at a time! If I steal a game, I would have to worry about the DRM in order to play it. If I legally purchase a game I will never have to worry about the “evil” DRM. Some companies have a form of DRM that requires a continuous Internet connection to play a game. Companies who use this method will always tell you beforehand. If you don’t like it, don’t buy it!

No one is forcing anyone to buy a video game they don’t want to buy. No one is forcing anyone to play a video game they don’t want to play. You can always say no and you can say no to the terms of use for the game. I have never once been at the checkout line, with a video game that I wanted to purchase in hand, when suddenly the store clerk put a gun to my head and angrily yelled at me to put that game down and buy a different one. (If that ever did happen, however, I would begin to cry and quickly agree to buy the game forced upon me.)

Game companies that use DRM as a way to protect their property are not the enemy. People who pirate or buy/play pirated video games are the enemy. The industry is a business and companies need to protect their product. The only people who are greedy in this equation are the pirates. I will support any company that uses DRM to protect their property. I will never worry about any form of DRM because I always obtain my games legally, and I have the right to not play or buy them. Companies who limit the number of times you can install it on your computer, do so because it is their choice. You also have a choice of whether to buy and play it. You don’t have a choice on the method a company chooses to protect their property. When the day comes when you don’t have any choice at all on what games to buy or play then we really have to start to panic.

© Patrick Watts for The Adrenaline Vault, 2011. | Permalink | 11 comments

Written by: Mark Turcotte

Every fall we gamers get the gift of new AAA games delivered to us just before the holidays. These titles usually start arriving in late September, and continue right through to the year’s end. It seems I always find myself thinking that that year has the best fall release schedule ever, as each year comes and seems to top the last. This upcoming autumn is no exception, and has a November release schedule that I think is second to none. The number of AAA titles arriving over a span of mere weeks is staggering. It has left me stumped as to why these games would be released in such close proximity, and has me putting money aside as I prepare to buy them all.

First up on November 1 is the follow up to one of the most critically acclaimed games of all time, Uncharted 3. If you have never played a game in the Uncharted series, then you are missing out on a franchise that has the perfect blend of great story-telling and high intensity action. The main character, Nathan Drake, has become a household name after only 2 outings, and it is often said that he has out “Lara’d” Lara Croft from the Tomb Raider series. The cinematic flare that these games bring not only keeps you pushing through to the story’s end, but has you on the edge of your seat as you experience an over-the-top adventure through Drake’s eyes. From what Sony has shown so far (Did you see their E3 Press Conference Demo?), Uncharted 3 will be a must have and will once again push story telling forward in the action genre.

Next up on the list is Activision’s Modern Warfare 3 on November 8. Okay, yes, I heard the groan across the Internet as you read the title but let’s be honest. These games are fun to play. Say what you will about the set piece moments and what seems to be endless waves of enemies coming at you as you fight through areas that appear open but actually aren’t, but the bottom line for any Call of Duty game is that the campaign be exhilarating, over-the-top, and when it’s all said and done you have to catch your breath. On top of that, throw in the addicting multiplayer that the series is known for, and this is another must have title. The wildcard for this game is that Battlefield 3 actually releases days before Uncharted 3 on October 25. Despite its early release, Battlefield 3 needs to mentioned because it is a AAA title that many people plan on purchasing. Some say they’re picking up Battlefield 3 and not Modern Warfare 3 but, I gotta admit I’m getting them both.

On November 11, Bethesda is releasing the fifth installment of the Elder Scrolls series with Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. I try not to let the fanboy in me come out that often, but I can not help but get excited for this game. Skyrim looks beautiful, will have an engaging story, and will once again allow players to fine tune their character to their style of play. Like the previous games in the series, it will contain hours upon hours of gameplay and a massive landscape to explore and interact with. The demo that I saw at E3 showed off improvements to the interface, and displayed the new battle system that allows for numerous combinations of weapons and spells while appearing both intuitive and streamlined. When I think of this game, I find myself wondering just how many hours I will invest into it. It’s awe inspiring just how much content will be included, hence my undying need to see it all.

Finally on the list is Assassin’s Creed: Revelations which Ubisoft is releasing on November 15. The game will see the end of the Ezio and Altair story arcs. If you have not jumped into this franchise, yet, then you are missing out on one of the coolest and most engrossing series of this generation of consoles. The Assassin’s Creed series has one of the most in-depth stories, and some of the most engaging action gameplay available. With Revelations wrapping up the Ezio arc, however, I can’t help but feel some sadness. Ezio is a character that I have grown to know and have a connection to, and seeing him in this final act will be hard. The E3 demo looked a little bit more of the same, but with the promise of the continued story I’m sold. Add on top of that the inventive and original multiplayer that Brotherhood introduced, Assassin’s Creed: Revelations will be a game that can’t be missed.

So what’s a gamer to do? Here are four top-notch, AAA, must have titles all releasing in a matter of weeks in the same month. Not to mention Battlefield 3 which misses the month by just days, and Halo: Combat Evolved Anniversary which shares Ezio’s November 15. This month is going to be one for the history books. I wonder how the sales of each of these titles will affect the other. Additionally, many gamers often say that too many sequels are being made, and all of those titles mentioned above is a sequel. Is this really a bad thing? From the track record of the previous installments in each of these series, these new games will not only build on what the previous title did but will also add some new and inventive mechanics that make it better. What’s your plan for this November?

© Michele White for The Adrenaline Vault, 2011. | Permalink | 19 comments