Games For Windows Live sucks
There is no way I can put it any better; Games For Windows Live (GFWL) is awful. Not only is it cumbersome, especially when combined with other forms of DRM such as those built into Steam, but it openly punishes gamers who most want to use Microsoft products.
Way back when, my first encounter with GFWL was Fallout 3. At first, I thought it was pretty cool that I could play Fallout 3 on my PC and get achievements in it that were reflected in my Xbox Live account. I don't recall having any problems with using my Xbox while playing Fallout 3, so I didn't get why so many other people had complaints about GFWL. It was just one more login to get it started, what's the big deal?
Not too long ago, I bought the Game of the Year edition of Fallout 3 through Steam so I could play through all the DLC that I missed. I wasn't thrilled to find out that even the Steam version had GFWL, but that didn't immediately make me regret buying it. Since then I've gotten Fallout: New Vegas, which uses Steamworks, which provides the achievements and the ability to buy DLC through Steam.
I've played through Fallout: New Vegas and purchased all the DLC separate from my initial purchase, and never had a single problem. Throughout almost the entire game, I've watched TV shows and movies through Netflix on my xbox 360, which requires me to login to my Xbox Live account because an Xbox Live gold account is required to use Netflix.
Now I want to go back to Fallout 3 and play through it again, except when I start the game, it logs into my Xbox Live account and promptly disconnects from my xbox. GFWL and Xbox Live will not allow me to be logged into both services at the same time on the same account, despite the fact that I'm doing entirely different functions on two different devices.
I want to play Fallout 3 on my PC, and watch Netflix (which requires its own login and account, with its own costs!) on my Xbox 360. Because of Microsoft's policies, I cannot do both without some inconvenience, being either having to re-login every time I finish an episode of a TV show or movie, or risk having achievements malfunction and not being able to use the DLC that I want to play in Fallout 3.
Because of these hassles, I can barely muster the enthusiasm to play Fallout 3. During my vacation, I sank over 40 hours into Fallout: New Vegas and watched an unholy amount of Netflix because the DRM and copy controls were not preventing me, the legitimate, paying consumer, from using those products which I've paid for. The other side of that is Fallout 3, where the DRM is actively working against me to prevent me from using both products at the same time.
These frustrations are what drive so many others to video game and movie/TV piracy. If I were downloading movies and TV shows illegally, I could watch as much as I want while being logged into GFWL because watching local media on an Xbox 360 does not need an Xbox Live gold account. Similarly, if I were playing a pirated, cracked copy of Fallout 3, I'd at least be able to play the game while being logged into Xbox Live because the cracked copy would bypass GFWL.
This doesn't just affect Fallout 3. I have Section 8: Prejudice, which also uses GFWL, which I also can't muster any enthusiasm to play. Section 8: Prejudice is also mostly a multiplayer game which takes advantage of GFWL matchmaking services. There is no logging in, logging out, logging in like sometimes works out in Fallout 3. It's either GFWL or Xbox Live but never both. With these kind of irritations, it affects the community of a game. If it's a hassle to play Section 8: Prejudice because of GFWL, it's easier just to play one of the bazillion other multiplayer action games on PC that don't need GFWL.
DRM only punishes legitimate, paying customers. It's not a hassle for people who illegally download and pirate games and movies. Games For Windows Live is particularly bad because it doesn't just affect one product, it affects multiple products across multiple platforms. I will be more wary in the future not to buy games that use Games For Windows Live because it sucks.
Clive Barker’s Jericho is not Clive Barker’s Undying
I have a lot of love for Clive Barker's Undying. It oozed Clive Barker from beginning to end. It was a colorful, imaginative, and well-made first person shooter. Jericho is basically the polar opposite of Undying.
The premise of Jericho is that you play a member of a team of witches, warlocks, priests, and other occult figures sent to investigate an opening hole in the middle east. A bad guy is trying to open a breach to release The Firstborn, the thing the Christian god created before he created mankind. The team jumps back through times in which others have tried to unleash The Firstborn and so goes from modern times, to World War 2, to the crusades, to ancient Rome, to Sumeria.
So your guy dies early on, but he can possess the other members of the team, which gives the game its strongest hook. You can freely jump from team member to team member, each with unique weaponry and special abilities. The weapons all sound and perform really weakly. It takes a full magazine to kill the most basic enemies and it sounds you're firing a rapid-fire BB gun. They all lack power. Of the special abilities, only a couple are worth using. There's one that lets you shoot a guided sniper bullet, which will kill three enemies in one shot, and another that shoots a fire demon that automatically hits enemies and sets them on fire.
The design also suffers. No matter what time period you're in, the game's color palette has three colors: black, brown, and red. The enemies lack imagination in their design. Take a body, wrap it some straps, put a bag on its head, and color it brown and black. Ta da! And they all just run at you until you've put enough bullets in them to put them down.
The ending, like the rest of the game, is a complete disappoint. Spoiler alert, that childlike figure that has led you toward The Firstborn is The Firstborn. The Firstborn is a glowing green toddler. Like the previous bosses, it takes a little use of your special powers to beat The Firstborn, and then the game very suddenly ends. No epilogue, no resolution.
I don't know what to say. I've tried really hard to like Jericho but it just doesn't measure up to Undying. Supposedly a sequel is in the works. Hopefully it'll fare a little better.
Wasted
Where the hell did today go? I can't think of a single thing I did today that could be considered productive. I've watched some TV shows, and played some games but not much, and that's it. Oh well.
DLC
I am, for the most part, okay with downloadable content (DLC). They usually expand the game, and are typically cheap enough to more than warrant a purchase for their content. However, I do not like reminders that some DLC exists because it was carved out of the game so that it could be sold later.
Case in point: Dragon Age: Origins. I know DA:O is an enormous game. I know it. I know it is chock full of content. So I find it odd that when the game opens up (as in, once you're past the tutorial stuff), a conversation with a random person in your camp ends in a dialog option for "download new content to begin this quest".
At first I thought that maybe it was one of those pieces of DLC that is offered as an incentive to people who buy the game new (which I did), and thus free. But when I opted to download it, the game pulled up the DLC menu, attempted to purchase the addon, and found I had insufficient Bioware points. So it wasn't free, and this guy is hanging out in my camp as some sort of living advertisement for this non-free content and probably won't go away until I buy it.
(Entirely-too-long-sidenote: why does every company need their own form of moon money to sell their DLC? Seriously, why can I not exchange American dollars or Euros or Zimbabwe dollars, or some other real currency for it? I don't understand why they insist that I convert my cash into their limited-purpose currency, except to coerce me into buying more of it than I can spend. If my American dollar converts to 80 moon dollars, I can guarantee that those moon dollars will only come in $12 blocks, and that the content will sell in nice, clean $5 increments, thus leaving me with 160 spare moon dollars that are completely fucking worthless. It is irritating.)
Is this necessary? When the game starts, there's a Downloadable Content menu option right there next to Load Game and Options. If you read any video game news site regularly, you will be beaten over the head repeatedly every single time a piece of DLC comes out. And if you don't have regular internet access, and you're playing DA:O offline, you can't download any DLC anyway!
What I'm getting at is that for an immersive, and well thought out game such as Dragon Age: Origins, being given a dialog option that says "Download New Content" is entirely unnecessary and detracts from game's experience. It's a reminder that I'm not playing the whole game, because this piece is missing; a piece so vital that I've being given an opportunity to fill it in at first stop, in exchange for more money than that I've already spent.
A roommate returns.
About midway through finals week, one of my roommate's left. He said he was going home for a few weeks and didn't really give a timeframe for coming back. That weekend, my other roommate moved out entirely to go live with his girlfriend. I had the whole place to myself!
I relaxed a little more. I kind of let myself spread outside of the confines of my room. All good things must come to an end, however, and my remaining roommate returned yesterday.
I almost wish he hadn't left, because I got used to living alone. I could wander around the apartment in my underwear whenever. I could leave dishes and pans in the sink for a couple days. I didn't have to get my clothes out of the dryer as soon as they were dry. I could leave a mess of razors and face cleaning stuff in the bathroom.
But now I have to go back to living-with-other-people mode. And it's annoying.
Off to an amazing start
I am having the world's most embarrassing day and it is not even noon yet.
Last night I simply could not sleep. I tossed and turned for what must have been at least an hour. I'm woken up this morning by a phone call. I knew that the weather today would be shitty so I was expecting this to be my instructor telling me that she's canceling this morning's flight. It was my instructor, but she was asking whether or not I planned on coming in this morning. I had overslept. So we plan on me coming in at 9:30 and I apologize for oversleeping, and then I'm getting ready. I had apparently not re-set my alarm for this morning and it was still set for 10AM, which is when I woke up yesterday.
I get to the airport and my instructor had left me a practice exam to do while she was in a meeting. This practice exam is in preparation for a test that I have to take before I'm allowed to fly solo, and it's kind of a big deal. There's a certain number of failures, which implies that the test is somewhat difficult, and if you bomb out you're done in the flight program. The practice test is short answer, which is the bane of my existence. I can take multiple choice tests all day but short answer is the worst because then I actually have to recall the things I've learned.
The practice test went well though, and I did pretty well on it. My confidence was building and my instructor and I went over the questions I missed and a couple of things that weren't on the practice test. She asks me if I wanted to take the pre-solo written now. I was feeling pretty good about it and I know it's a multiple choice test and by now I just want to get it done with so I agreed. She did some admin stuff, and made a phone call, and then she asked me if I had an E6B with me. The E6B is a little metal plate with some slides and charts for computing numbers quickly. I don't entirely know what it's used for. I told her my E6B is at my apartment because we haven't really used it yet. She told me it wasn't a big deal, if there were any questions involving the E6B it'd only be one or two, and I'd probably be OK guessing them. Another instructor pipes up to say that his student (a friend of mine) just took the test and didn't even need the E6B. With that she sent me up to the terminal to take the test.
I got up there and talked to the lady to administers the test. She asked me if I needed a pencil or any materials. I couldn't fathom what materials I would need beyond the E6B which I am now not concerned with, so I went into the testing room which what I have; a pen and my coat. She handed me a blue binder and piece of scrap paper. The test is computerized through Blackboard so I logged in, and started it. The questions were worded a little different from the practice exam and some of them covered topics not even hinted at in the practice exam, but it was a multiple choice test and I considered myself pretty knowledgeable as far as I'd been in the course. Then I got to a question that referred to figures and diagrams. This is a computerized test and there were no figures or diagrams on the screen so I assumed this was one of those E6B questions that I can disregard. I made an educated guess and moved on. I got to another question that referred to figures. Okay, two questions out of 36 isn't that bad. All told there were about 5 questions involving figures. By the end of the test, I was slightly concerned. I submitted my answers and logged out.
Then I noticed that blue binder the lady gave me. I opened it up, and lo and behold, diagrams and figures. It was a little late now, though, because I had already submitted my answers and logged out. Oh well. At least I get multiple tries at this exam, right? I returned the binder and my scrap paper and the lady kind of looked at me like I was done, even though Blackboard didn't immediately give me my score, and she clearly wasn't going to tell me. Okay, I guess that means my instructor will let me know how I did.
Back in my instructor's cubicle, another of her students is already there. She was astonished at how fast I had finished the test and asked me how I did. I made a face and told her about the blue binder. She assumed that I had failed and asked me if I wanted to try to get a retry now based on the fact that I'd missed out of the blue binder, or if I wanted another day to study and I could give it another go tomorrow. I knew that the difference in taking it with the binder would have saved my score so I told her I wanted to try to re-take it now.
She called the lady to administered the test and told her I didn't know about the blue binder and that I failed. As soon as the words "failed" exited her mouth, I had to interject that I didn't actually know my score and that I may not have failed. I was not looking forward to re-taking that test and if I passed, then the blue binder is moot. My instructor hung up with the lady, so she could try to check my score. Her account wouldn't show her my score, so she asked me to log in to see if it'd tell me. Sure enough, I got 26 out of 36. Quick math revealed that I got a 72%. My instructor called up the lady to ask what was needed to pass and she's told a 70%. Even without the blue binder and the diagrams, I passed.
That shit is embarrassing. I am so totally okay with bombing out on a test. I'm okay with bombing a test because I'm too dumb to realize that I have the testing materials and I'm not using them. But no, this time I get to limp across the finish line, with a barely passing grade. I almost would have rather failed the test and re-taken it and gotten an appropriate score, rather than slide through with the absolute minimum score.
I know my agonizing is ridiculous. I know passing is passing, and no one really cares how well (or poorly) I did on my pre-solo written exam. But I am seriously embarrassed.
I still have a theater class and a philosophy class to get through, on this rainy, embarrassing, shit day.
Spring break ends with a dick punch
Spring break was pretty enjoyable. Got to spend some time helping my friends move into their new house, played some games, had a good time. I found a new love for Wii Fit Plus. Biked almost 20 miles on the first nice day of the year, and then got my nipples pierced again. That was a fun day!
I came back to Carbondale last night. Okay drive but it was all in the rain. Both of my roommates were gone. This morning I found out the little refrigerator that I use to keep my soda in was turned off for however long they were gone for. It was gross though because my roommates keep some meat in the freezer section and it had all de-thawed and stank.
Then my xbox 360 died. Not like the last time it died, where it was acting weird and not turning on but ended up working fine. No, this time it won't turn back on without showing a screen that says E79 error. E79 is hard drive related, and since it won't turn on with or without the hard drive, the internet tells me that the console is fucked. I have the good fortune of having just received a big check from the government for god knows what, so I didn't have much work convincing myself that the best solution was to replace it entirely.
Soooo I did. I went to Best Buy first but they didn't have any of the bundles with Halo: ODST and Forza 3. I found one at Gamestop. It was possibly one of the best experiences I've had at a Gamestop. I asked the lady behind the counter if they had one, she said they did and got it for me, and rang me right up. No Game Informer, no reservations, no warranty, no bullshit. In and out in less than 5 minutes.
I got it home and agonized over opening it. Unopened, I can still return it for a full refund. Once I opened it, though, it's all mine. I stared at it for a while. I plugged my old xbox back in and tried it again. Same crap. Then I bit the bullet, took out my knife, and broke the seal.
Don't get me wrong; I did want a new xbox. I wanted a bigger hard drive and quieter console and more reliable hardware. I just didn't want it like this; my old xbox in a state of limbo, not entirely dead but definitely a brick until I open it up. I'm still going to need a transfer kit to move all my savegames and downloads from my old hard drive to my new hard drive.
I did it. I have a new xbox, huge (well, 120 GB) hard drive, HDMI support, another controller and headset, and Forza 3 and a bonus copy of ODST. Life is almost good again.
Lamenting Dead Space 2
Visceral Games may or may not be killing me. Visceral Games used to be known as EA Redwood Shores. EA Redwood Shores made Dead Space, one of my favorite Xbox 360 games.
Visceral Games is now making Dante's Inferno. It's a God of War-esque button smasher. They took a low-key walk through hell and social commentary, and turned it into blood soaked tits and violence. It is a remarkable departure from the source as well as an enormous shift from the tone of Dead Space.
Dead Space has a lot of action and violence but it's deliberate. You're encouraged to conserve ammo by taking aimed shots at limbs. There's an equipment upgrade system that allows you to choose what upgrades you want and how you get to them. It has a lot of scares and shocks but it's also nearly impossible to fight off a crowd by panicking and wildly blasting away. There's only two actual guns in the game! The rest are industrial tools!
After Dante's Inferno, Visceral's focus will shift to Dead Space 2. There is so little information that has excited me about Dead Space 2 that it may drop off of my wanted list entirely. From what I've read, it features more wide open environments, more aggressive gameplay, and a no-longer-silent protagonist! So what, they're turning Dead Space into Dante's Inferno in space?
For being an unreleased and, thus far, barely developed game, I am amazingly bitter and unexcited about what should be an impossibly easy sale.
Bad News
I'm tired of bad news. I'm deleting two links from my bookmarks, for at least a month, and doing my best to not visit these sites.
I'm done with Digg and Reddit.
Digg has slowly devolved into strictly stupid pictures and top 10 lists. Reddit gets huffs and tisks at every wrong doing while rarely doing anything about them and is a general wellspring of negativity.
Now I am batshit insane about getting new news but only when it's stuff I care about. I could not care less about top 10's, dumb pictures, and I can wait for good tech news if it means I don't have to wade through a sea of bitterness. So I'm back to relying on old favorites, Slashdot and Ars Technica, and Google News.
The waiting game
So I got a letter in the mail about a month ago from SIUC saying that they would accept me regardless of prior academic standing due to my status as a veteran. Which is only slightly off-putting but awesome nonetheless. But that wasn't a letter of admission, I'd have to fill out a little form stating that I'd present my discharge paperwork to the school prior to registering for a second semester. So I dutifully filled out the form and managed to lose the return envelope I was to send it back in. No big deal, I'm resourceful dude and I have any number of methods by which to get this piece of paper to them.
I call the admissions office to ask if I can fax it to them. The first person to answer sounded a little overwhelmed and I think they shut off as soon as I said "veteran" because they immediately transferred me to the veterans advisory office. I spoke to someone there who gave me a number to which I could fax this letter and called it a day.
Two weeks pass and no letter of admission. I'm getting anxious. This letter of admission is the one piece of paper I need to start the process of getting out of the Army early enough to start school in January rather than have to wait until August of next year. I'm stuck in the field so Katie emails the admissions office a letter I dictate to her over the phone.
Over the course of a week of slow email conversation the admissions office gives me another fax number (apparently the one I had used before was just the veterans advisory fax and they're not the ones who needed my letter, the admissions office does) and I fax off the letter again and admissions tells me that they have it and I'm in and I can expect a letter in the mail in the next couple weeks.
So I wait.