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?

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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.

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I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but Crysis 2 was pulled from Steam a short while ago. That’s right, if you haven’t yet purchsed it, you are out of luck, at least when it comes to Valve’s download service, now. What happened? Well, the people over at EA decided to take yet another shot at launching their own store. Their original EA Store sucked, so they dropped it in favor of their new Origin service. Origin is basically EA’s own Steam knock-off.

What this means for you is that for a period of time, there will be a new online gaming store that’s backed up by the weight and wallet of a major publisher. In a bid for your money, they are certain to institute protectionist policies, making their games unavailable for sale elsewhere. BioWare’s Old Republic MMO is confirmed as an Origin exclusive (at least at launch), and Battlefield 3 will be available at other download services, but not via Steam.

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There is a very interesting (and at times heated) argument going on in the comments section of the Gaming revenue falls again article. Although mostly formed around the Console vs. PC argument, some points were raised that address the overall state of gaming. In particular, one of the explanations offered for the decline in sales is that the games of today are not particularly good. I was going to bring this up in the comments, but then decided that it is such an important topic that it should be explored outside of the current flame-war.

I’ll tell you straight out, I actually don’t think that games today are worse than they were 20 years ago. Or 10 years ago. Or 5. As Solo4114 pointed out, we are getting older. It means we have more money and less time, but it also means that we are more and more prone to fondly reminisce about “the good old days”.

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I just love it when my biases are validated by empirical evidence. Do you guys remember Ubisoft? It’s a French company that publishes games. I don’t know about you, but I’m currently boycotting them for their asinine antics. In particular they are in the habit of horribly mistreating their customers. Most people probably imagine Ubi to be one of those tightly run, military-style corporations that don’t tolerate any kind of inaccuracy or lack of discipline. This must be why they are so hell bent on using intrusive and damaging DRM schemes, and making ridiculous statements about piracy.

Well, guess what, this perception is wrong. There was this one episode when they patched one of their games (Rainbow Six Vegas 2) with an illegal third-party No-CD crack. It didn’t get much publicity, but it happened. Now they’ve outdone themselves yet again. Their game Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood happens to have a Digital Deluxe version. And that version happens to have music in the form of MP3s. And those MP3s happen to originate from some pirate who put them up as a torrent. Make no mistake, this is still Ubi’s own music. They just included a pirated version of it with their game. This is the company which claims huge damages from piracy, and “leads” the fight against it. Do what you will, but I’m continuing my boycott.

As I sit down to review my facts and write this article, I am once again overcome by feelings of anger, helplessness and indignation. Ladies and gentlemen, I have been robbed. You have been robbed as well, you just don’t know it yet. No, I’m not talking about taxes. This time around, all of us calling ourselves “gamers” have been wronged by a person who probably imagines him or herself to be a mighty pirate, but in reality is nothing but a contemptible thief. I am talking, of course, about the recent theft of Crysis 2 from its developer, Crytek.

So what actually happened? According to certain forums, a near-final build of the game, which included both single-player and multiplayer, was stolen. To make matters worse, a master authentication key is believed to be lost as well. Apparently all of the above is now being made available via torrents, and a lot of dishonest and not particularly intelligent people are both downloading and seeding it. Screenshots and videos of Crysis 2 abound, and publisher Electronic Arts has released a statement condemning the criminals and reminding all of us that “Piracy continues to damage the PC packaged goods market and the PC development community.”

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I was going to write an article about why no MMO currently out (or in development) stands a chance at beating World of Warcraft, but then I noticed that Extra Credits already explained it eloquently. As I was watching their video, I found myself in agreement when it came to all things except one. I genuinely do not believe that transition to free-to-play models is the future. It may sound nice in theory, but upon closer examination it becomes evident that games are not magically exempt from the notion of “you get what you pay for.”

There are three types of free games. The first type is genuinely free. It usually includes small, indie offerings, proofs of concept, and student projects. Sometimes the developers ask for donations, but it is always clear that they are not expecting to get paid and not counting on the money. The games in this category can be quite good, excellent at times, yet it is evident at first glance that they have low production values. Indie is a good thing, but they are not in the business of competing with AAA titles, and just as it would be premature to dismiss the value in indie games, so is it immature to dismiss the value of big AAA games.

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Did you know that tomorrow is New Year’s? I too did at some point, but then I forgot because I was playing World of Warcraft. What? No, YOU’RE a nerd! And then I switched to programming this really cool thing that extracts data from the World of Warcraft Armory. Anyway, last night I was gently reminded that it would have been nice to turn in my “Best Games of 2010” article that was due a week ago. You know what I did then? I went and I programmed some more. In fact I was programming until 12:30 AM, which is actually later than I usually stay up playing games. (I hope my editor doesn’t read this. Oh wait…)

In all solemn seriousness, 2010 has been a good year for me gaming-wise. I beat 16 games and played many others that I did not beat. To be honest most of them were actually older ones, such as Psychonauts or The Witcher, but some were quite new. I played and reviewed Supreme Commander 2, Dawn of War II: Chaos Rising, and a bunch of smaller games. Most notably, however, I played Starcraft 2, and World of Warcraft: Cataclysm.

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Dear Grandfather Frost,

Would you kindly deliver me the following:

1) A pad device that is not an iPad. Personally, I would prefer something that is Linux-driven, but should there be a good Windows-based device, I would not be opposed to it. To be more specific, I envision it as having a replaceable battery, a couple of standard USB ports, and full control over its software and hardware configuration. It should also place no restrictions on who can develop applications for it, and in case of Windows it should support .NET 4.0 so that I can write my own software without having to depend on app stores and such. Additionally, I would expect it to support all the standard range or external USB hardware that a normal computer supports. That includes everything from mice to monitors.

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I’ve been experiencing a strange urge to return to WoW lately. I suspect I just want to see that world once again, before it is all destroyed by an upcoming expansion. Laugh all you want and call me a nerd, but I have an emotional investment in it. Certainly it’s a make-belief world, but emotion is emotion and whatever causes it is not necessarily concrete. Books, films, music, and so on are make-believe, too. I haven’t played for over a year, and I can’t say that I miss it, but the thought of all of it just being gone one day unsettles me.

What’s worse, is that I’m not sure just how “gone” it will be. From what we know right now, all of Blizzard’s game servers will be updated to the new version, just as it was with both of the previous expansions. This essentially means that the world I knew and loved will only possibly be preserved on some secret private server, run by some hacker and hunted relentlessly by Blizzard’s legal department.

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StarCraft 2 is an excellent game, from all perspectives. Unfortunately, however, there is an aspect of it that neither developers nor the players are able to control. I am, of course, talking about the multiplayer experience. As with all other games where you play with random people on the Internet, StarCraft 2 matches can elicit emotions that range from exhilaration even if you lose, to profound annoyance even if you win. In a world governed by meticulous micromanagement the one part of the game that you have absolutely no control over is other people’s demeanor.

When a match begins, only one thing is certain: one of the sides will lose. Both know it, and both are prepared to give their best to not let it happen. Often, however, one of the sides is not prepared to deal with the possibility of defeat. The reasons for that are best left for professional psychologists to discuss, but what matters is that an alarmingly large chunk of people seem to perceive their own loss as a grave insult, regardless of the reasons for it.

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Have you heard of OnLive? It’s a service that lets you play games remotely, including some of the most recent ones. Powerful servers are used to run the games, which you control over the Internet as you normally would, with either keyboard and mouse or, if you are of the console persuasion, with your controller. The video output is streamed right back to you, and is displayed either on your computer screen or on your TV. Naturally this setup requires a high-speed, low-latency connection to work.

A few years ago, something like this would not have been possible. But now, as broadband connections become more and more common, services such as OnLive can be viable, at least in theory. And so, after years of development, OnLive went live on June 17. If you live in the continental US and have a PC or a Mac that meet the service’s hardware requirements, you can sign up and begin racking up gaming hours at your leisure.

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This week, Ubisoft Entertainment has once again decided to spit in the face of every PC gamer in the world. They have announced that, in order to play their games, you will be required to be connected to the Internet. Should a connection be dropped for any reason, your progress in the game will be lost. This applies to at least three of their upcoming titles.

What this means to you is that you will not be able to play these games on a plane without paying for an in-flight connection (assuming one is offered). You will not be able to play them if a squirrel chews through your cable. You will not be able to play them while you are waiting for the phone company to install your connection after you move to a new house. You will not be able to play them if your wireless is spotty. Of course you will not be able to play them where there is no wireless access (assuming a wired connection is also not available). Should your Windows have a networking hiccup, should your kid pull a cable, should there be a power surge…yeah, you will lose your progress.

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After quitting World of Warcraft about a year ago, I haven’t played much in terms of MMORPGs. Sure, I did dabble in Aion for a short while, but I found it ultimately uninteresting and did not renew the subscription when my complimentary review period ran out. The lack of such long-term gaming commitments was not altogether a bad thing. It allowed me to spend more time playing other games; 2009 was my most productive gaming year ever, with 19 games beaten. On the other hand, I did miss a persistent, neverending world. I also missed all the good times I enjoyed with my last WoW guild. BloodBonded was full of amazing people, and we shared some really great gaming moments together.

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Dear friend of mine,

Twenty years ago when you and I lived in Russia as children, what few games we saw were always pirated. There was simply no store that could sell us a game. The vast majority of people had never even seen a computer, and those who had, mostly did so at work. I remember going to my father’s office to play Leisure Suit Larry, Digger and Prince of Persia. It was even better when he brought a computer home to work on some project. Back then it didn’t occur to me that the people who made these games possible were expecting to get paid for their efforts. I thought that games just naturally shipped with computers.

We didn’t know each other back then, but my first week in America, I walked into CompUSA and was blown away. There were shelves full of games. It was amazing! I also was unpleasantly surprised by the prices. It turned out I couldn’t afford a single one. So I continued playing pirated games, but for the first time it dawned on me that I was doing something wrong. It was 1995 and I was 13 at the time. Later, as I got more and more into gaming, it began to bother me that I was stealing from the very people who were doing so much for me.

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