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

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

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.

I, for one, was looking forward to Battlefield 3, provided there was no idiotic DRM or registration requirements (like those in Dragon Age 2). My fear at this point is that we might be forced to create an Origin account regardless of where we buy the game. That, at least to me, means no sale. To be fair, this is not a new problem, as others have done it as well. Dawn of War II, for example, forced me to play its single player campaign via both Steam and GFWL, even though I really didn’t want to deal with either. Make no mistake though, new or old – this is a problem.

Unlike many angry people on the Internet, I don’t believe that Origin is somehow more evil than Steam. The way I see it, both services install annoying software on my computer. Both are run by companies that have no qualms about locking people out of their collections for real or imaginary violations. Both are effectively DRM. Neither offers much to compensate for the inconvenience, nor any recourse or compensation when their services go down, so once they disappear all your games will be lost.

Oh and if you for some reason think that either Steam or Origin are forever…you might be delusional. No company is eternal. And yes, someone once said something about letting people download their games if Steam ever closes down. The thing is, companies go out of business all the time, and running such a service is expensive. Not to mention that DRM will need to be removed from the entire catalog, which once again will cost time and money. Basically, unless you have seen it in legally binding writing that there is an escrow account set up for this very purpose, you are just lying to yourself.

With that said, I trust that Steam will outlast Origin by a long shot. EA is notorious for discontinuing game servers for even relatively new games. If Origin doesn’t become popular immediately and doesn’t prove to be financially viable, they will shut it down. They’ve done it before. They’ve also once attempted to charge for “a service” that granted you the two-year ability to re-download the game you already bought. If Origin is not successful, you will almost certainly lose your games.

Why would it not be successful? Well, the aforementioned protectionist policy is not going to win EA any friends. (Valve does the same thing by the way, but Valve has the advantage of having been there first.) Many people, such as myself, will be unwilling to switch from Steam because they’ve used it for a long time and have their entire collections there. Many people don’t want to deal with yet another service, another account, and another installation. The biggest issue with Origin, however, is that EA is just not very good at this type of thing. All of their initiatives of this sort, if memory serves, have failed.

Most of the above is speculation, of course. Anything can happen that does not violate the laws of thermodynamics. Still, somehow I don’t see these recent developments as positive. Time will tell, but for the time being I am going to prepare myself for the possibility that I’ll just have to pass on Battlefield 3. Unpleasant as it may be.

© Alaric Teplitsky for The Adrenaline Vault, 2011. | Permalink | 9 comments

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”.

Difficult as it may be to admit, the grass wasn’t greener and the children weren’t more respectful. The games weren’t better either. In fact, they were worse. While it is true that we had some excellent games as kids, the majority of what was available was still garbage. Just like today. The reason we have so many pleasant memories is because we were kids at the time. These recollections aren’t of games in and of themselves; they are of something larger – our childhood. For most of us it was a good time, and so in our minds the things that we associate with it are embellished and romanticized.

The truth is, today we have it better than ever, and there are more games overall. Sure, this means that there are more garbage games, but there are also more good games. 1991 had perhaps a couple of dozen games released. Of those, maybe two or three were good. In contrast, 2011 will see the release of hundreds of games, and a few dozen of them will be good ones. Moreover, the good games of today are better on average than the good games of 1991. Why? For the simple reason that both the art and science of gaming have moved forward. For the past 20 years people have been building a better mousetrap year after year. There were leaps, there were gradual improvements, and there were new things entirely. We benefited from all of them.

What we really need to do is stop seeing things in terms of “before the fall” and “after the fall.” There was no fall! This fall we speak of is in our aging heads, all of it. Come on, guys, we are gamers! Our minds are trained in this stuff; we can think in the abstract and solve mind-boggling puzzles. This is just a trick biology is playing on us. We don’t have to fall for it.

© Alaric Teplitsky for The Adrenaline Vault, 2011. | Permalink | 19 comments

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.

© Alaric Teplitsky for The Adrenaline Vault, 2011. | Permalink | No comment(s)

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.”

Before I go any further, I think it’s necessary to mention that part of the blame lies with the company itself. This is not the first time something like this has happened, and everyone knows that theft is a reality that we all have to acknowledge. It’s the job of the corporation to safeguard their assets. We don’t know who stole the game, but whether it was a hacker who broke into the network or a dishonest employee who carried a CD out, there should have been a system in place designed to prevent this from happening. Now, however, the matter is out of Crytek’s and EA’s hands. At this point, the actors in this drama are not the company or the thieves, but us.

I’ve written on the topic of software theft in the past, and I will not reiterate my position. I would, however, like to use this as an example of how this “piracy” is harming us as gamers. The immediate harm is, of course, to the publisher and developer. Thieves don’t buy games (despite their claims to the contrary), and so the money is lost to all of the people who worked hard on these games. So how does it affect the rest of us? Well, after losing money, would you care to imagine what the developers are likely to do next? They will abandon the PC platform, as many have done, and switch to consoles. The notion that console games do not get pirated is a deeply flawed one, but nevertheless popular.

“All right,” some criminal might say, “who cares about PC gamers? They are a bunch of elitist jerks anyway, and so they can suck it.” This sentiment is not new, and is the very reason why I refer to those who participate in this thievery as unintelligent. PC gamers, or more specifically, the companies that cater to them, are nearly solely responsible for the technical advancement of video gaming in general. If it was not for companies like Crytek, Valve and id Software, there would hardly be any innovation when it comes to visuals and the hardware that supports these visuals.

No new developments in terms of graphical engines will mean no progress in video cards, no improvements of the existing technologies and no invention of new ones. Those of us who are content with the current level of graphics in games may not think it’s such a bad thing. Then again, some people were content with stone tools, the Ptolemaic system and steam engines. The majority, however, understand the importance of technological advancement. We also understand that causing direct financial harm to the innovators is no different than causing grievous harm to progress itself. Once those programmers, scientists, engineers and artists are forced away from their drawing boards by criminals, the industry will stagnate.

Of course, graphics are not all. There are plenty of awesome games that use graphical engines of 20 or 30 years ago. Keep in mind, however, at some point those old graphics were considered an amazing technological breakthrough. Someone brought them to the consumers. It was the same kind of people who today work for AMD, nVidia, Intel and others. And a lot of times they are spurred by the gamers’ demand for better, prettier, more realistic visual experiences. If PC graphics were to disappear altogether, consoles would certainly try to pick up the slack, but with hardware life cycles longer than seven years (and possibly as long as 10), the rate of innovation will slow down twenty-fold.

I cannot stop anyone from downloading, but I have this to say: if any of you were thinking of stealing Crysis 2, please reconsider. Do not cheat the industry and all of the talented, dedicated and hardworking people who bring you the games you love. Do not backstab millions of other gamers who share your passion for this exciting and illuminating pastime. Do not slash the tires of technical progress that benefits all of us and provides the foundation for the developments yet to come. If you ever dreamed of the future and all of the great things that it can bring, please, do not steal the present.

© Alaric Teplitsky for The Adrenaline Vault, 2011. | Permalink | 2 comments

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.

The second type of free games includes titles that were formerly sold for money, but have (usually due to age) been discounted to the point of being offered for free. This is not to say that they are bad games. Back in the day they may have been quite good, but enough time has passed that they will hardly be able to impress anyone. Take Beneath a Steel Sky as an example. It looked really good for its time, and is a reasonably good game. Currently it is available for free from Good Old Games, but in all honesty, it has limited value unless one is heavily into adventure games or is looking to tickle his or her nostalgia.

The third and final type of free game is the free-to-play MMO. They range from generic anime-styled trashware, to such high production value titles as Lord of the Rings Online. I will not go into much detail when it comes to the former type, except that these get made by the dozen, and usually fail. The only surprising thing about them is that people actually play them. The latter type, however, is worth examining up close.

How does a game like Lord of the Rings Online remain free? Well, first and foremost let us recall that it didn’t start off that way. This is a very recent development, and as of the time of this writing it has used the same traditional subscription model as EverQuest for the majority of its lifespan. Things were not going as well as the company would have liked though, so they decided to change their business model. Contrary to what some romantically inclined gamers may think, going free was a business decision born of the desire to make more money, not of pure altruism and a love for Tolkien’s work.

© Alaric Teplitsky for The Adrenaline Vault, 2011. | Permalink | 20 comments

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.

What I find deeply and thoroughly unsettling, is that as I look back on the stuff I wrote this year, I see that whenever I talked about Blizzard or their games I had nothing but good things to say. This may lead some people to believe that I’ve been paid off, or that I am simply a fanboy. To prove that I am neither I decided to take a two-pronged approach. First, I challenge anyone who would accuse me of these things to a duel. Second, I release a list of grievances that I have with Blizzard:

Starcraft 2:
1) It is ridiculous how much easier the final level is for those who elected to keep zerg air units and branched for the mind control tech. Take command of a few Brood Lords and watch the game win itself. Meanwhile I still cannot beat that level on hard because I kept the ground forces instead, and branched for the slow-em-down tech.
2) Any multiplayer map that has an area where one can fly to be out of range of land-based units is a potential impasse situation. If an otherwise defeated Terran player moves a building there, while his opponent is out of harvesting units and air units, neither can win nor lose. It then becomes a waiting match, to see who says “ah screw it” first.

World of Warcraft:
1) Give Warlocks a race-based demon flying mount.
2) Stop nerfing Warlocks.
3) Give something cool in-game to people who have a WoW VISA.

General:
1) Why are there no wallpapers for the 2560×1600 resolution?
2) Why is there no clear API for WoW armory?
3) Why is there no Armory web service?

Still, there is no argument in my mind that Starcraft 2 and WoW: Cataclysm both, are the most fun, interesting, engaging, polished, and overall best games of 2010. They are not the best games ever, but this year they hardly had any competition at all. Except for one…

My game of the year is Microsoft Visual Studio 2010. No, YOU’RE a nerd!

© Alaric Teplitsky for The Adrenaline Vault, 2010. | Permalink | No comment(s)

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.

2) A set of gaming headphones. As you know, my True Fidelity NC300B headphones, which I reviewed for Avault this year, were stolen by the marauding employees of Iberia Airlines. This international incident has left me headphoneless, and very sad to boot. I would like you to find something equally comfortable and well built. It should have an “around-the-ear” configuration, noise cancellation, and ideally an ability to attach a microphone, should I decide to inform my Modern Warfare 2 opponents of the shortcomings of their ancestry. A detachable cord would be quite a boon as well.

3) World of Warcraft: Cataclysm. While I don’t anticipate returning to the game in the long run, I’m quite interested in seeing the changes that this expansion will bring. I think I even have enough points left on my WoW credit card to pay for another month of play, so if you have a spare copy, I am more than willing to take it off your hands.

4) The death of DRM. If there is only going to be one thing that you are able to get me this year, let it be this one. I want to live in a world, where SecuROM is not installing root kits on my computer without my consent or knowledge, and where PunkBuster is not running in the background as a service. I don’t want to sign into Steam whenever I decide to enjoy the single-player experience of Metro 2033, and I never, ever, want to be forced to install and update Games For Windows Live, the worst trashware known to man, just in order to save my progress in Batman: Arkham Asylum. If I feel like playing Starcraft 2 with my friends, I want a LAN option, and I don’t want to have to sign into Battle.net. Basically, I want to live in a world in which I can set up my own Modern Warfare 2 server, with custom rules, custom maps, and so forth.

Looking forward to the New Year!

Yours truly,
Alaric Teplitsky

© Alaric Teplitsky for The Adrenaline Vault, 2010. | Permalink | 14 comments

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.

I do, of course, understand that when something ends something else begins. And judging by Blizzard’s track record, the post-cataclysm World of Warcraft will be an improvement over what the old one was. But…nostalgia is a wistful longing for a time, disguised as longing for a place. All the positive and negative emotions that I’ve experienced in this game are tied to the areas in which the events occurred.

As curious as I am to see a volcano erupt in the middle of Ashenvale, I know I will miss the colorful forest and its ravines. I remember visiting it for the first time, after pretending that Kalimdor didn’t exist for months and months into the game. I remember doing quests there and accidentally walking into a world dragon, and how scared I was. I remember power-leveling people there. Some of those people I later met in real life and saw my in-game relationships transition into real ones.

And that Dwarven airfield by Ironforge? There is no way for a player to get to it, but we didn’t know that at the time. I remember the hours my friends and I spent trying to find a path that would lead us there. Oh, the fun we had! I was so curious to find out what was going on with all those planes. Now, provided it still exists, I will be able to simply fly myself there atop my red drake. Maybe it’ll even have NPCs and quests, but the mystery will be gone. And the memories of the good times will no longer be triggered.

Am I complaining? No, far from it! I want to see the new world, new quests, and new characters. I want to visit Gilneas and maybe even roll a Worgen, provided they are suited to be warlocks. As someone who majored and minored in history and anthropology respectively, I am ever so eager to try my hand in archaeology. Still, I know that I will miss all that which will be lost. Except maybe the Barrens. Stupid horde deserves to have a huge fiery chasm in the middle of their zone.

My solution? Well, there isn’t a practical one really. If it was up to me, however, I’d keep a few “old world” servers around. Maybe without the ability to play…just leave the landscapes, the monsters, and things like that. You know…for the old times sake.

© Alaric Teplitsky for The Adrenaline Vault, 2010. | Permalink | 4 comments

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.

Now tell me if this sounds familiar. You get a base going, churn out a mass of marines and marauders, hastily research some upgrades, load your horde into a bunch of medevacs and after drawing your enemy’s forces away from his base with some designated decoys, take out his resource gathering units and a couple of buildings for good measure. You know he will not be able to recover from this, and so does he.

At this point you are subjected to a litany of verbal abuse. Apparently you need to learn how to play. You are also a n00b, and quite possibly a three-letter derogatory term for a homosexual. You are using cheap strategies, and it is ridiculous how someone like you was ever able to make it all the way to the platinum league. You are in fact a cheater. And so on and so forth. Curiously enough the insults are nearly identical from person to person. It is as though there exists a standardized database from which they are drawn.

Personally, I find it amusing most of the time, and I hardly ever reply to these people. When I do talk to them, I usually mock them by suggesting that if they know how to play, perhaps they should also know how to win. The irony is lost on them, however. I have a suspicion that no matter what course a game takes, if it leads to their defeat – they will always credit it to their opponent’s supposed deficiency. The talented strategists that they are, it is perfectly natural (so far as they are concerned) that they are repeatedly unable to devise adequate counters and fall to the simplest of tactics.

There is another side to this, of course. Often you find yourself being defeated by something as silly as a photon cannon near the ramp to your base, or by just a handful of reapers, or maybe a drone snuck into your base and placed an extractor on one of your Vespene geysers thus wasting precious seconds. All these moves can be frustrating, especially if you expected a long game or had an advanced strategy in mind. When that happens, do you always control yourself? Do you recognize that you were brought down in a clever way? Do you congratulate your opponent?

I consider myself a pretty thick-skinned person, and thus cannot recall an instance when I let it actually get to me. A lot of people, unfortunately, are more easily offended. What do you do when you win and a sore loser berates you? What to you do when you lose to something you feel is a “cheap” way of playing the game? Have you ever resorted to playing a certain game only with friends, or worse yet, have you ever completely quit a game over your multiplayer experience? More interestingly, if you are one of those people who curse others out for winning, why do you do it? I’m genuinely interested in hearing your side of the story!

© Alaric Teplitsky for The Adrenaline Vault, 2010. | Permalink | 2 comments

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.

To spice up the launch, OnLive introduced a promotion. Players could become “founding members” and get a free year of service, as well as a discounted rate for the second year, should they so choose. Since I’ve been skeptical of OnLive’s ability to deliver on its promises, I was very interested in giving the whole thing a try and hopefully proving myself wrong. Yesterday my confirmation arrived and I decided to dive right in.

Registration is easy enough, just your name, address, credit card, blood type, gaming handle, and so on. Once completed, the website prompts you to download the OnLive software. Apparently, however, I couldn’t download it using my Google Chrome browser. The site kindly suggested I use either Firefox or Internet Explorer instead. Alright then. I fired up Firefox and the installation successfully completed.

Before I go into my actual gaming experience, a few words about the features of OnLive. Not only do you get to play games, but there is also an entire social network of streaming video available to you. You can view any game in progress, unless the players have blocked the spectating feature, and you can also record your moments of glory or despair and share them with the world to be mocked or admired.

Finally I was ready to play. In order to do that, the player must purchase a game from the catalog, or, if you are not quite ready to commit, you can play any of the games for free for 30 minutes. The first game I tried was Batman: Arkham Asylum, and I was never able to get it to play. Each time I clicked on it, the loading screen would come up, and after a few seconds I was kicked off of OnLive. Whenever I tried to sign back in, the service would allow me back, but gave me a warning that my latency was too high.

According to the FAQ, “if your ‘ping’ result is much more than 25 msec”, it is not recommended for online gaming. The problem is, my ping, which I of course immediately tested, was somewhere around 15ms, according to pingtest.net. My speed was also way higher than the 5 Mbps that OnLive demands. Likewise my PC is well within the hardware requirements. This has led me to conclude that the problem does not lie with me.

After dozens upon dozens of attempts to launch different games, I was able to get Just Cause 2 to run. Having played my allotted half an hour, I can honestly say that, yes, it works. It doesn’t work exceptionally well, however. The controls are generally responsive, which was a pleasant surprise. Still, they are not perfect. Often there is a micro-delay of a sort. It’s usually noticeable when you fire on an enemy, and it takes a split second for the bullets to actually fly. Normally it’s not a big deal, but in fast-paced games it could create problems, especially when it comes to multiplayer.

The visuals are an entirely different story. First and foremost, you are locked into a 720p resolution (PC gamers know it as 1280 x 720.) Games, therefore, run in a window, which in my case looked pretty sad and lonely in the middle of my 2650 x 1600 desktop. There is an option to run in full-screen mode, but you can imagine what that does to image quality. My second problem, and coincidentally a complete deal-breaker, was the fact that the video quality is low, to the point of being vastly unimpressive. Having played a proper demo of Just Cause 2 on my computer, I was in a perfect position to compare the visuals, and I must say OnLive to a real game is what YouTube is to BluRay.

The above is not to say that you can’t see what’s going on. The game is very playable, but all the graphical splendor and all the crisp details are lost. It’s like looking at the Grand Canyon through a dirty windshield. It’s like watching a movie on a classroom projector. There is simply no comparison. I felt as though I would be better off playing on an older computer with graphics settings turned down.

Of course, there is still the question of the price. You have to pay for the games, but at least you don’t need to shell out thousands of dollars for a top-notch computer. I guess if I had a choice between never gaming at all or gaming via OnLive, I’d pick the latter. Still, I was disappointed by the service’s performance. On a more positive note, this is an excellent proof of concept. Maybe in another five to 10 years, a similar service will actually be able to deliver a pixel-perfect and instantly responsive gaming experience.

Overall I have the following to say: on a personal level (as a technology enthusiast) I wish all the best to the team behind OnLive. But at the same time, I don’t believe I will become a paying customer as long as it remains in its current shape.

© Alaric Teplitsky for The Adrenaline Vault, 2010. | Permalink | 7 comments

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.

Very soon you will not be able to play at all after your game’s authenticating server is taken down. If you think that won’t happen, take a hard look at EA, which has closed servers for a couple of games that are not even two years old. Moreover, should anyone ever carry out something as simple as a DDOS attack against the server, you will be out of luck. With the number of tech-savvy enemies that Ubisoft is making, this can be a very real possibility.

Oh, in case you are wondering, this is not the first time Ubisoft has been in the middle of a nasty DRM controversy. In 2005 they began shipping the StarForce copy-protection scheme along with their games. It resulted in an untold number of issues, including hardware damage. Yours truly had a DVD-RW drive murdered by StarForce. The outcry was so enormous that, a year later, Ubisoft backed down and announced that they would no longer use StarForce. Apparently, however, they are incapable of learning from their mistakes.

Some say that DRM is meant to fight piracy. I say this argument is as pathetic as it is fallacious. We all know that the pirates will simply crack a game and play all they want without having to be connected to anything. An honest paying customer, on the other hand, is going to get shafted for no good reason whatsoever. So far this only affects PC gamers, but if it’s not stopped, this will come to haunt those who play on consoles as well.

Those of you who know me are well aware of how much I detest piracy. A month or so ago I even had an article published in which I implored pirates to change their ways. To me, stealing any of Ubisoft’s games is not an option, although I have heard plenty of people say that this is exactly what they will do. What you can do, however, is not buy any of their games until this idiotic policy is discontinued. But do not just boycott. Let other people know what’s going on. Tell your friends. Post on forums you frequent. If you see someone pick up a Ubisoft title at a store, let them know what’s going on.

You can also tell Ubisoft directly. There is no e-mail address on their site, but you can call them up and tell them how upset you are about their ridiculous and insulting policy. Tell them you were going to buy their games but have no intention of doing so anymore. This worked five years ago and it will work again today. You have to do it. All of us do. I own a number of Ubisoft’s games, and I hate to see it come to this, but since we are faced with this reality, we must take action to protect our interests.

© Alaric Teplitsky for The Adrenaline Vault, 2010. | Permalink | 75 comments

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.

Surely it comes as no surprise that I was keeping an eye out for a new MMORPG that I could play. I tried Free Realms, which is geared towards children and so wasn’t very appealing to me. I also gave another shot to the newly free Dungeons & Dragons Online, but wasn’t as impressed by it as I was the first time I tried it. Lastly, since I’m not a “Star Trek” fan, I wasn’t really interested that one either.

I must say I am marginally interested in Bioware’s Old Republic MMO, as well as whatever Blizzard is still keeping under veils. One game that I am really curious about is Funcom’s Secret World, but from what I’ve heard it won’t be out anytime soon. Overall, things looked as though I had only two choices: either go back to WoW or just ignore the MMO genre for the time being. Recently, however, two games entered open beta stages, and both sounded interesting enough to warrant taking a look. One is called Mortal Online, and the other Allods Online.

Mortal Online has some interesting game mechanics and is worth a mention if only for its non-standard (that means un-WoW-like) approach to the genre. There is no leveling. Instead, your attributes rise as you use various skills that involve them. Chopping wood raises my strength, for example. Aside from a 10-slot quick bar, there are no buttons to press. Everything but simple attacks is done via slash commands. For instance, when I found a bunch of weasels, I was able to tame one of them by typing /tame. I couldn’t figure out how to make it follow me, though.

Then I decided that running is for losers and figured I should get a horse to ride. When I tried to tame a horse, however, it found my actions disagreeable and killed me. Instead of getting a mount, I was forced to find a shrine to get resurrected. The world seems very large and a shrine could be far away, but they are easy to identify from afar because of the pillars of light they project in the spirit world. I suspect I should cut a whole lot of wood before I can try fighting, because it’s disturbing the ease with which a horse killed me.

MO uses Unreal-3 engine and looks plausible, except for the player models, which all look almost scary for some reason. This is just a beta though, so chances are a lot of things are going to be worked out before the game is released. Generally it seems interesting, with all of its skills, abilities and different ways of playing it. Time will tell whether it’s a game to which I’d be willing to subscribe, but for now I will continue exploring the beta.

Allods Online is being developed by Nival, a Russian company that made Etherlords, Heroes of Might and Magic V and Blitzkrieg. This game is set in the world of Allods, another Nival IP. If you remember Rage of Mages I and II, as well as Evil Islands, you are familiar with the setting. Unlike MO, AO is very WoW-like in terms of mechanics and interface. Everything is bright and pretty, from interiors to characters. Even the monsters I’ve seen so far are original and well designed.

There are six races that comprise two factions: the League and the Empire. The League has Humans, Elves with fairy wings, and funny short furries called Giberlings. The Empire has a different nation of Humans, some sort of undead called Arisen (not the rotting zombie sort), and Orcs. There are also eight classes, from your standard Warrior, Healer, Scout, Paladin and Mage, to unusual ones such as Warden, Summoner and Psyonicist. Oh, did I mention that players can build humongous Astral Ships and fly or fight in the Astral itself?

I’ve only been able to put about an hour into AO so far, enough time to familiarize myself with the interface and the quest system, as well as to complete the instanced introduction and arrive at the first public hub. So far I am pretty impressed, though. It is too early to pass any judgment, but I’m definitely up for giving this game a chance. Later this week, I will dedicate a few more hours to it and explore other gameplay aspects. Particularly I am interested in the grouping mechanic, instancing, grinding (if any) and so forth.

© Alaric Teplitsky for The Adrenaline Vault, 2010. | Permalink | No comment(s)

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.

The very first game I ever bought was Sonic the Hedgehog for Sega Genesis. You roll your eyes every time I tell you that I actually own all my copies of Windows since Windows 98, and also my Adobe Creative Suite, my Visual Studio, and all my movies and MP3s, not to mention games. You tell me that the prices are too high, that you like to try before you buy, and that what you do is not stealing because you don’t actually take anything from the developers, since they are still left with their copies of whatever it is you now have. You complain about DRM schemes that treat you like a criminal, and you insist you’ve pirated certain games as a political statement against the evils of some particularly nasty DRM system.

While all those excuses are technically true, they are just that – excuses. The prices are in fact too high, but games and music are not a necessity, and neither is Photoshop. While you don’t actually steal a physical object, you do deny the developers the money they are owed for your use of their creations. As far as DRM schemes go, I agree they are a crime in and of themselves, but if people like you didn’t pirate, they wouldn’t exist. Trying before you buy is great, and all games should have demos, but not offering one doesn’t give you a license to steal them. Plus, how often have you really gone to a store and paid for a game after you’ve already finished a pirated copy of it?

I know that your ideas are still overwhelmingly prevalent in Russia and many other parts of the world. But didn’t our parents bring us here so that we could leave all of that behind us? The culture of thievery could be explained by how destitute those people’s lives are, although I am reluctant to use the word “destitute” to describe someone who owns a gaming system. Either way, neither of us has that excuse. We both make a decent living and can afford to buy a game every so often. You play much less than me, so the amount you are saving is negligible. Legitimate ownership feels good; you should really try it sometime.

In all seriousness, I don’t expect you to come around. We’ve talked about this before, and I know you believe that paying for something is silly when you can get it for free. There isn’t much I can do about that. Turning you in is out of the question; you are my friend after all. Sadly, I simply don’t hold enough sway with you to convince you of the error of your ways. I guess the only thing I can do is refuse to take any part in this. You’ll pirate anyway, but it won’t be though me. For example, even though I’m glad you decided to go with my recommendation and play World of Goo, I will not email you the installer. It’s a great game and I’m sure you will enjoy it. Just go to the website, spend $20 and buy it. It’s not that much money, and although I fully understand your desire to save, I don’t think that stealing this game is the best way of doing so. Wait for a sale if you must, or come over and play it on my computer; you know you are always welcome in my house.

© Alaric Teplitsky for The Adrenaline Vault, 2010. | Permalink | 5 comments

Just as year 2009 was coming to an end, I beat my 142nd game. It was also my 101st game since 1999, when I began marking down the year when each game was beaten.

What a long, strange trip it’s been…

A lot has happened in these years. Highs and lows, relationships and breakups, books and movies, jobs and travels, houses and cars, colleges and military service. They all are important because they are what makes up my life and who I am, but I’m also glad my gaming hobby has been with me alongside these life events.

Some say it’s a waste of time and that I might have missed out on some things while playing. I suppose I could’ve had a slightly bigger house if I had spent my time working instead of gaming. Perhaps I could’ve seen a few more foreign countries if I had focused on traveling. Still, this can be said for any pastime, be it lifting weights, praying in church or collecting stamps.

I’m not sure if I’ve lost anything, but there were definitely a lot of things I gained. Games made me learn about computers and gave me a career. Through games I’ve met and made friends with some interesting people whom otherwise I would’ve never come across. Often I’ve succeeded in my endeavors because of skills and knowledge I’ve acquired while playing.

Considerably more important is the fact that I’ve drawn a lot of insight and inspiration from games. Always more than mere entertainment, they’ve given me a means to escape when I needed to, and the strength to face many of life’s challenges upon my return.

Although my life has been saturated far above average with interesting, exciting and unusual events, bringing games into the equation has made life twice as fascinating. I can’t wait to see what happens next, and I am sure as hell looking forward to playing for years to come.

© Alaric Teplitsky for The Adrenaline Vault, 2010. | Permalink | 3 comments

What has always bothered me about the year-end compilations of any sort of “best of” lists, is that everybody seems to focus of the recent releases, as opposed to doing their due diligence in going over the entire gamut of that year’s titles. Yes, both Borderlands and Modern Warfare 2 were put on shelves in October and November respectively, but does that automatically mean they were this year’s best games? In any event, there is no way for me to be knowledgeable in every single game released this year, so instead I am going to take a look at the games I beat in 2009 so far.

That list includes a total of sixteen games, but many of them like Fallout 3 and Spore were released prior to 2009, so I will not include them. The games that I did count are Dawn of War II, Zeno Clash, Overlord 2, Plants vs. Zombies, Rosemary, Pizza Morgana – Episode 1, Heroes Over Europe, Modern Warfare 2, Torchlight and Devil’s Tuning Fork. In addition to these games, there were also some that I’ve played but didn’t (or couldn’t) complete. One such game is Aion, which is an MMO and thus can never be finished. A lot of these games were excellent, some were disappointing, and some had both good and bad aspects to them. From this group, I’ve selected my top four finalists.

Dawn of War II was released early in the year so by now it is all but forgotten in favor of the more recent offerings. This is a major injustice, however, as this game is an absolute delight to play. There may have been a few insignificant issues, but overall few things could be more awesome than Space Marines with chainsaw swords. The tongue-in-cheek space opera setting of Warhammer 40K and a real-time tactics formula developed by Relic were always meant for each other. This game is one strong contender.

Plants vs. Zombies is the little game that could. I am usually not a fan of casual gaming, but every now and again something comes along that makes it worth it to step outside of one’s routine. It’s a variant of a tower defense game, but unlike most of its flash-based siblings it is a finished and very well polished product. A lot of love went into making it and it shows. From graphics and music, to its encyclopedia and great sense of humor, everything is done in such a way that one cannot help but thoroughly enjoy the experience.

Modern Warfare 2 came late in the year, became a console best seller and enraged many PC gamers with its lack of dedicated servers and other expected inclusions. Controversy aside, it is a magnificent shooter with a single-player campaign that’s tiny but rich and exciting. The multiplayer aspect is so good that I still play it almost every day. The only other FPS that ever did this for me was the original Unreal Tournament back in the day. MW2 is a solid contender and will undoubtedly give other games a run for their money.

Torchlight is a lovable Diablo clone with lots of monsters, lots of loot and various styled areas. If it was a movie, it’d be the kind where you walk in with low expectations and walk out well entertained. There is nothng fancy about it, no profound storyline twists, no great feats of engineering as far as the engine goes, but it’s solid, pretty, cartoonish and fun. The campaign isn’t very long and there is no multiplayer component, but there is an infinite dungeon that opens up once you beat the final boss.

There were other good games this year, including a wonderfully artistic Zeno Clash. It didn’t make the cut because the mechanics of the game weren’t all that great, but many of its ideas and concepts were. The same is true of the recent indie title Devil’s Tuning Fork. Of course there were many other games released this year, which I haven’t had a chance to look at, but from what I’ve seen the above four are my contenders for the Game of the Year title. They are all excellent games in their own right, and they are all clearly on top of their respective genres. If we had category awards they would all win, alas there can be only one.

Upon careful consideration, I have decided that the best game of 2009 is Dawn of War II! Yes, zombies, commies and magical monsters all have their place in our hearts and minds, but if you don’t stop the Tyranid menace, who will? Who will take on the Orks and the Eldar if you go off playing computer games? Who will serve as the protector of humanity if not you? The Blood Ravens chapter of the Space Marines needs your leadership! To arms, brothers! Let’s show this alien scum what humans are made of! FOR THE EMPEROR!!!

© Alaric Teplitsky for The Adrenaline Vault, 2009. | Permalink | One comment

Back in the day, then I was writing for another site, the kind people over at Atari UK sent me a copy of The Witcher. You may wonder why I got in touch with the UK division, and the answer is simple, the American version was mercilessly censored at the time. In any event, The Witcher is a wonderful game, and I was very happy with it. (That means you should buy it, by the way.)

Later, however, the patch came out, and then an extended edition, and another patch. These were not your regular patches; they actually added content and improved many things about the game. Or so I have heard, because I couldn’t install a single one of them.

You see, the DVD I was sent, came in a paper sleeve with no box and no manual. What this meant is that I was never issued a serial number for the game. I could play, but I could not register and so could not install any updates. Admittedly, this is a very sensible DRM scheme, and a good idea overall, but in my case it backfired. I wrote to Atari multiple times, and sometimes they even responded, but it always went nowhere in the end.

Why am I telling you this? Because an awesome thing happened! This week, when a Facebook page for The Witcher made an announcement about their ongoing 50% off sale (Steam), I whined about my issue under their post. Immediately they replied and gave me an e-mail address to write to. I did, and today I got a brand new, shiny serial number from Paweł Majak, who is a PR & Community Manager over at CD Projekt RED.

Wow! If only all developers were so in touch with their fan base and so eager to help! CD Projekt pretty much ascended in my eyes. They didn’t have to do this at all, and yet they did! Now I can install all the patches, finish the game, and feel extra good about the whole affair! Moreover I think it is important that things like this do not go unnoticed, which is why I am telling all of you about how awesome these guys are.

Big thanks to CD Project and personally to Paweł! I truly appreciate your help!

© Alaric Teplitsky for The Adrenaline Vault, 2009. | Permalink | 2 comments

Hello, everyone! Congratulations to all of you, for today is the day of my glorious return. It’s been 1606453 hours since I departed, but now you can stop holding your breath. That’s right, I have come back and will write for Avault once again. Just as before, I will focus on reviewing PC games so that you know what’s good for you. Follow my recommendations and you will live a long, productive and healthy life, become successful in your business and studies, acquire fame and riches beyond your wildest dreams, get the girl, win the lottery, your children will be accepted into a good college, and your enemies will tremble! Go forth my minions and… Umm… Sorry… I’ve been seeing a specialist for my megalomania.

In any event, I’m glad to be back officially. You’ve probably seen some of my reviews over the past few months, but now that I have a blog of my own – I’m a real boy… man… man-child.

As to my latest gaming endeavors, some of you will be pleased to know that I am currently playing a new MMO, with intent to review. Also I am in a beta test of a multiplayer tactics game, which I may also write about. If that’s not enough, I am playing World in Conflict, which I will not review because it’s old, but I’d like to report that I am kicking some serious commie behind which (along with zombie, nazi and orc ones) is the best behind to kick.

Alaric out

© Alaric Teplitsky for The Adrenaline Vault, 2009. | Permalink | No comment(s)