Recently in Games Category

11 hours, 52 minutes. 900 enemies killed (that's a little disturbing). 161 checkpoints failed or restarted later...

Uncharted 2

I finished Uncharted 2. And it was fun.

I will admit that this isnt the kind of game I normally play. I like first-person shooters with a good story. I like RPG's. But...

I have never liked Lara Croft-type puzzle games because consoles move so slowly and slowly looking around for the next ledge (while the camera had a mind of its own) gives me vertigo. I never liked FPS games on the console because the controller moves so slowly compared with a mouse.

I did not play Uncharted: Drake's Fortune but I heard good things about it. I got Uncharted 2 because I heard it was even better than the original. I was curious.

And I enjoyed it. At times I thought I might even play a second time. Much more fun than Metal Gear Solid. The whole Tomb Raider thing is still not my favorite (even Claire got sick watching me zoom around trying to solve puzzles) but I admit the gunfights were fun and I'd kind of like to find the treasures (although I am not sure why).

This is basically the computer-version of a movie. No choices, just a linear story with lots of cut scenes. And the story is your basic Indiana Jones movie - an ancient treasure, a few puzzles, some climbing and jumping, and a LOT of action. Fall down, get beat up, get beat up some more, shoot a lot of guys.

Not exactly Shakespeare but a fun ride all the same.

My only complaint with the game was the camera which drove me insane at times. Otherwise this was top-quality experience.

If you are looking for a game with good graphics, good writing, excellent voice overs, bug free, and lots of action, Uncharted 2 is recommended. If a movie is worth $5/hour, this game is priced right.

From time to time, you get your money's worth. I got my money's worth and then some with Dragon Age: Origins.

Dragon Age: Origins

It took me about six months and over 130 hours of playtime but I finally finished the game in June.

I have played Bioware games before: I tried Baldur's Gate but dont remember finishing. I played KOTOR, got bored and did not finish. I tried Neverwinter Nights, twice, before I eventually finished it. I did enjoy Mass Effect on the Xbox 360 but overall I like the idea of a Bioware game more than the actual games. Until now.

I did not hear a lot of publicity about this game before it was released, but once I started playing I was hooked. I loved this game. The graphics on the PC were great. The story was great. The characters were great. The voice acting was great. I never ran into a single crash or bug or obvious graphical problem. And the content was there. It kept going on and on and on.

DA:O did exactly what I want from a game: Strong narrative that takes me on an adventure. I will have memories of this game for a long time. By the end, I thought back at the beginning, before I had heard of a darkspawn or grey warden, and was amazed with how much stuff I did.

I survived the massacre that killed my family.

I survived the first battle with the Darkspawn.

I freed a prisoner sentenced to death.

I met a demon and bargained with it.

I rescued the Mage's tower.

I went to the Fade, the first original magic idea I have read in years.

I saved the elves from werewolves.

I saved the dwarves from each other.

I brought a golem back to life and found the golem maker.

I went to prison and got out again.

I killed a lot of darkspawn, a few revenants, and a few dragons.

Like I said, what an adventure.

I played the game as a human noble rogue. My constant companions were Alistair and Wynne. I rotated my 4th slot between my dog, Shale, and Oghren (who I didnt like much). I hated Morrigan and didnt see much point to the others.

Only a few small negatives marred the experience. Inventory was a pain and being limited was annoying to a completionist like myself. I never figured out or used the AI tactics-thing for my characters, which meant a LOT of pause-ordering.

And towards the end, I kept thinking about Oblivion and wishing I was playing an FPS instead of a group-based game. (Where is the next one, Bethesda?)

DA:O is clearly one of the best games in years. If you are looking for a lot of game for a little money, this is a good choice.

E3 kicks off next week. How does the industry look?

In 2005 Microsoft introduced the Xbox 360 which has sold 40M units in the past 5 years.

In 2006 Sony introduced the PS3 which was criticized for its $500 price and has sold 36M units in the past 4 years.

In 2006 Nintendo introduced the Wii - a last-gen console that was much derided for its old tech and its bad name - and then went on to blaze past Microsoft and Sony. 4 years and 71M units and all of them sold at a profit. (Who is laughing now?)

In 2007 Apple released the iPhone. With a data plan, it cost almost as much as a PS3 and in 3 years it has sold 50M units (plus 20M iPodTouch units) while the app store has changed gaming profoundly with its price pressure on software. (And no, I doubt Apple will even be at E3.)

In 2009 video game industry revenue fell 8%; this past year it fell 11%. Two straight years of decline.

At E3 this year we will see the new 3D handheld technology from Nintendo. Hmmm.

We will see Microsoft's military-camera-technology turned into a device-free motion controller, Natal.

We will see Sony's is-that-a-microphone-in-your-pocket camera-based motion controller, Move.

I am curious if any of those companies will have software that makes us want to care about any of those new devices.

The Wii was a hit because it went after the massive, non-tech market. (They continue to pursue seniors and casual gamers.) Sony and MSFT are both trying to out-do the Wii with "better" technology. I am curious to see their products but I think they kind of miss the point. The folks excited about bowling on the Wii dont know or care a thing about technology and the gamers that do care either have a Wii or dont give a shit. That is a tough sell.

Natal is a crazy-no-gadget camera detection system; Move is crazy-precise motion tracking system. Neither will matter unless they have crazy good games to go with them.

While that is happening, I find myself spending more and more time with my iPad. (2M units sold in the first few months = the fastest selling new platform in technology history.) The iPhone was too small for me but the pad is a perfect casual gaming system. A nice screen, lots of space for my meaty fingers, low-price apps in the direct download app-store. I expect mobile gaming on the iOS platform to continue to dent the traditional console market - convenience, selection, and low price. Hard to beat that.

So who is excited for E3? Im crossing my fingers for some yummy surprises.

How many things would you purchase for $5?

It turns out that $5 is a magic price point for me and video games. Every week I check Steam for sales and if I am curious about the game, I can rationalize an impulse purchase. "$5? That is 2 cups of coffee. Sure..." (Of course I still buy the coffee so this is just an unnecessary personal expense but let me live the delusion.)

Apple has put tons of price pressure on software with their app store but Steam has recognized that weekend sale prices create all kind of demand from people that otherwise would not purchase the product.

Would I have paid $20 for an old game like Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind? Heck no. But for $5, I am willing to get it just on the chance I might have the free time to try it. Even though that scenario is highly unlikely, I made the purchase.

Have I mentioned how much I love Steam?

Video games are like perishable foods. They make over 50% of their sales as pre-orders before release and then another 30% within the first month of release. After that they are "old", past their expiration date, moved off the mental shelf for the next pre-order/new release.

Sales on Steam is a great way to produce new sales revenue from old products whose development cost are already sunk costs. It is like DVD sales versus theater showings. With digital distribution, that means marginal revenue with almost no marginal cost. And I doubt that I am the only person that pays for a game he never even downloads which means there is zero marginal cost.

Steam sales - another smart business move that benefits gamers and game developers.

There it is. Dawn of War 2: Gold for sale on Steam. 50% off for the holiday weekend.

And since I already own DAW2, I can gift the new copy to a friend. Freaking awesome.

Have I mentioned how much I love Steam in the last 5 minutes? I love Steam.

Good grief, can you believe it has been a whole year since the JJ Abrams' (dumb and dumber) Star Trek remake movie? Where does the time go? (Answer: day job)

Last year I got really excited about a Trek game. Two months ago, Cryptic released their Star Trek MMO. I love sci-fi. I love Star Trek. I gave it a try.

Star Trek Online

Cryptic's previous MMO was City of Heroes. That was a traditional FPS MMO and I had a great time flying around and throwing fireballs with my alter ego, Ragin' Flamer. Based on that experience, I had high expectations for this new game.

STO is an ambitious project. I would say that it is actually two MMO's using two different engines. There is a traditional FPS "away team" game and a novels starship in space MMO.

Given Cryptic's experience with CoH, one would expect the away missions to be the strong part of the game but ironically I liked that part the least. You play yourself but you also have a team of 3 officers in your "away team" with which to battle nefarious NPC's. I never got to play with friends so my officers were always bots, which jumped and danced around like insects on meth. It was a passable FPS but did not grab me much as a solo experience. I also found the system for leveling up your team, the skills and the character development, to be pretty confusing. I could not tell if there was actual depth there or just clutter.

On the other hand, the space ships were a total blast! A very simple system with managing energy to shields, engines and weapons. Phasers, torpedoes. All the stuff one would expect. Even playing alone, I had a great time with the ships and they make it very easy to do team missions with total strangers so I got to do some big battles without actually knowing anyone.

The game was quite stable for me with few hiccups. The graphics were terrific (except for the animations in the FPS mode). They did a great job tying in space and planets with a Trek feel.

I played every day for about 2 weeks. I was curious. I got my money's worth but then I let it go and moved back to Dragon Age and Dawn of War.

This is a game that seems like a lot of fun with friends but all my game friends are too busy with work these days to invest in an MMO. Like all MMO's the game itself is not what keeps you there, it is the people and the human interaction with other players that gets you to come back. I considered making more effort to join a fleet but the truth is I dont have time for an MMO these days either; I just wanted a few hours of Trek a week.

I will add that I had hard time meeting new people in-game which I attribute in part to the game itself. It was odd to try to meet other "space ships"; looking for a group as an inanimate object was just kind of weird. Another factor is that the game is highly instanced so you just dont see that many people at any one time. This helps performance but is a strange experience. Admitedly I did not put a lot of effort into finding groups but in my brief play, I found no pickup groups outside of the ship encounter zones. The few people I did try to contact basically ignored Captain Kirkland.

I wish STO all the best and would gladly give it a try again in the future if another friend or two wanted to try it. They have a lot of potential here to build on. (Just writing this review has me itching to fly my ship some more.)

Let me close by saying that this game begs for a non-traditional revenue model. I would happily play this game a few days a month just to zoom around in the ships -- but not if I have to pay a fixed $15 monthly fee whether I play or not. This is a perfect "Casual MMO". If Cryptic switched to a free-to-play model like Dungeons and Dragons Online, I think this particular game would do better.

You will be glad to hear that the universe if safe from the Tyranid threat - finally.

Warhammer Dawn of War II

I purchased Dawn of War 2 when it came out about this time last year. As I started to hear about the expansion pack this year, I realized that I never actually finished the game. I was pretty close to the end but I lost interest (as I often do) and never went back to it. Before buying anything new, I decided to finish. The RTS mood was upon me again.

I only remember a few things about the first game except:

• I loved the game
• It was really hard; I wiped out on several missions
• I was almost finished
• The game requires a Microsoft LiveID and I had problems with mine

Reading my review from last year, everything I said then still applies. Unlike any other game I have played, this game merges a 6 character RPG with RTS game play and a strong story.  I loved Company of Heroes but this 4-squad type of RTS without base-building or minerals is the type of game I want more of. Lots more.

Over the past year, I lost my saved game so I was forced to start over completely. My first decisions were a) what Xbox Live account to use and b) what difficulty to play.

One of the good things about waiting this long is that the game platform has been patched and improved by both Relic and Microsoft.

As I wrote last year, this game requires a Games for Windows Live account to play. This was a problem for me last year year because the email and password for my Xbox Live account had expired and I was unable to sign in. Thankfully Microsoft updated their Xbox Live account system this summer and I was able to change my email and start using my original Xbox Live account again and add a few points and achievements.

Remembering that I had problems playing the game, for this play through, I chose the second difficulty level. I suspect I was on the third (of four) levels the first time but I dont remember. What I do know is that this time the game was a breeze to play though. Perhaps they adjusted the difficulty over the past year?

Just like my first impression of the game, this second and complete play through was a blast. Over two weeks I had a great time and continue to regard Relic as one of the best game companies out there. The game and their online component work flawlessly without a single crash or hiccup and the production values are top notch. It is clear they have continued to update and tweak it over the past year. For instance, I dont remember seeing that you can play this game co-operative when I got it. You can now.

While I was annoyed that the PC game required me to log into a Games for Windows account to play it, I was happy to see gameplay statistics in the game this time. I consider that a fair trade-off. The game now tells me how much time I have spent playing it. I love this kind of user metrics. It is a benefit to them and a benefit to customers like me. First off it told me that I had already played the game for about 80 hours and I finished it this time in about 40 hours. Tracking this number shows me that I really got my money's worth. I already had a good feeling about this one but the added data appeals to my rational-brain: DAW2 = good game investment.

This is possibly the first time I have ever done a complete play through of a game but I had so much fun with this one, I might even do it all over again. Maybe even give the multi-player a try as that seems equally deep and well crafted.

Xenos!

It is November again and that means a smorgasbord of new video games.

All year I listen to podcasts and wonder how the guests can play so many games. I certainly cannot keep up and no time of the year is worse than the holidays.

I still have several good but unfinished games: "Warhammer Dawn of War II" (on the last level I think),  "The Witcher", GTA4, Portal plus some PSP titles like Patapon, Jeanne De Arc, and Final Fantasy 6.. And Im trying to play an MMO again.

On a whim I bought "Halo 3" recently for $15 and then I splurged for "Brutal Legend".

Brutal Legend

Amazingly, "Brutal Legend" is already off the top 10 list at Amazon after only a week!! Instead there is an onslaught of new titles including several that interest me: "Uncharted 2: Among Thieves", "Dragon Age: Origins", "Ratchet & Clank Future: A Crack In Time" , plus the "God of War: Collection" re-issue for PS3. For fans of 4-player games there is "Borderlands" and Left for Dead.

For fans of story, reviewers cant say enough about Brutal Legend and Uncharted 2.

BL is really funny and I am loving the classic metal soundtrack. I plan to pick up some new albums based on my experience.

I always meant to but never picked up Uncharted. The sequel is garnering even better reviews so I am sure to give that a try. It sounds like one of the few games that really pushes the PS3 and shows what it can do.

I know I will buy a several of these games, it is just a matter of how long I can hold off.

This weekend I played the final mission and finished Bioshock.

One of the reasons I play games is their ability to take me to a new place in my imagination. Bioshock's story and execution were so excellent, it totally brought me to another world.

Which is probably why I had to take two long, extended breaks from the game before I finished it. As I wrote about this time last year, the world of Rapture is just too disturbing to experience for very long. The first time that has ever happened to me in a game.

There have been other games that I felt were so disturbing I just didnt want to play them. In this case, the story was so well written, the world so lovingly created, I had nightmares but I still wanted to know what would happen. There was at least one big twist in the story and I kept waiting to see what would happen next.

I wont spoil any of the story for you other than to say it is much more mature than 99% of the other games out there. If you play one first person adventure, it should be Bioshock. Hands-down one of the best games ever made.

I bought the game on Steam and played it on Windows XP, Vista and ultimately Windows 7. No technical problems at all for me and it looks fantastic on a nice PC.

No matter what platform you game on, you should experience Rapture for yourself.

Every so often I get curious enough about something, I throw some money at it and give it a try.

A few years ago, I bought two game console systems and experimented with console gaming.

Recently, I decided to give mobile gaming a try.

iPhone

Since I already had an iPhone, I started with iPhone games. Good grief there is a lot of buzz about iPhone games! I dont think a day goes by without hearing another iPhone game rant or rave. Since the attention was coming from mainstream gaming media and not Apple fan boys, I finally bought a few to see for myself.

I tried Monkey Island. I tried an RPG. I tried a few arcade games. It did not take long before I realized that I hated it.

Since the screen is also the control panel, I found it way too small. I did not like the touch screen. I found it hard to see the screen when I was using it. I have the first iPhone and my battery life was really poor; playing a game meant losing my phone. And switching apps or taking a call meant losing my game and starting over. Overall, feh...

On the other hand, we bought some learning games for our 3-year old and she loves them.

PSP 3000

Next, I decided to try the PSP.

I got really excited about the PSP, probably more than I should have. Although the hardware seemed nice, there were not actually any games on it that I really wanted to play. Unlike the iPhone there is almost no buzz for the PSP and the list of games is pretty small after five years of release.

I found a used PSP-3000 (the third model) on Craigslist a few weeks ago. Since then I have spent several hours playing an RPG and plan to pick up a few more games for my vacation next week.

It is not a smashing success, but I am much happier with the PSP than the iPhone for games. The PSP screen is nice and wide but it is not very tall which is a little annoying. But the controls are on the side, not on the screen, and I really enjoy that. It is a little small in my hands which makes some of the buttons hard to use but overall I like it. The thing I like most about it is that I can use it anywhere in the house and if my daughter interrupts me, I can pause the game and resume it anytime I want. The hardware has a great suspend/resume feature.

I will write some PSP game reviews after I try a few more games.

I never liked Star Wars all that much. I mean I enjoyed it but I never got into the books or comics and I certainly didnt think much of the most recent 3 movies.

Star Trek however is my thing. I have watched every episode of ever series. I was really bummed when Enterprise was cancelled just as it was getting great. The only HD Trek series too :(

I have played a few Trek games over the years but they have all pretty much sucked...

But I am TOTALLY excited about the new Trek MMO, Star Trek Online.

The title isnt all that but Cryptic is a great developer. Despite my own feelings about pre-release hype, I find that I am really excited to give this MMO a try. Much more than I am excited about the new Star Wars MMO by Bioware. (Was so bored with KOTOR that I didnt finish it.:)

My life is not that conducive to MMO play anymore but my hopes are high for this one...

For the past month or two I have been listening to the Gamers With Job's podcast. It reminds me a lot of my own podcasting experience with Confab - a bunch of mid-career friends get together and chat about issues while making fun of each other. Except this podcast sticks to video and board games.

The recent DnD episode really made me miss my own pen and paper experiences with friends. It also filled me with regret at how hard it is to find friends like that when you get older.

In episode 148, I really enjoyed comments by Eskil Steenberg. He sounds like a guy I would enjoy hanging out with. Check out his blog.

This episode had some really interesting discussion of the game industry itself. (Skip the gaming section and listen to the last hour or so.)

Episode 148 - August 12th, 2009

Batman: Arkham Asylum, IL-2 Sturmovik: Birds of Prey, Starcraft Watching, Wipeout Pure (The Purest), Special Guest and Love Developer Eskil Steenberg, The Future of Motion, Platforms & Tech, Your Emails and more!

GWJ Conference Call Episode 148

Eskil proposes many interesting points:

It does not make sense to spend a lot on PC video hardware because video games are basically built for console now and consoles are years behind PC video hardware.

Natal is a cool "camera" but Microsoft is unlikely to create any software for it that you will actually care about.

10 years ago the video game effort was in code like building an engine. These days the code is well known and the real effort is the artwork. Artists outnumber programmers 10:1 now.

The last thing the game industry wants is a new console platform. Better video hardware means more artwork work which means more costs.

Nintendo has the worst hardware in the industry but they are the best at developing games. (Recently I was thinking about how significant Nintendo's success is.)

He observed that the industry has really changed as more people in the industry just want to play games, not actually write them.

He also had some interesting comments on industry leaders like World of Warcraft, Valve and Nintendo and how different these companies are from the "business guys" at the other companies.

Great stuff.

Sometimes saving a few bucks is no savings at all.

I recently decided to purchase King's Bounty: The Legend.

I compared prices between Steam and Amazon and found that Amazon was selling the boxed version for $15 less than the Steam version.

So the next thing I did was look for differences that would warrant paying the Steam price. In particular, I looked for details on the DRM.

Reviewers said the Steam version used the Steam system (which I love) and the retail version used a CD check with Securom. (The EU versions had the dreaded Starforce DRM.) Reviewers said no problem with the CD check so I bought it.

I waited to get the box. When I got the box, I installed it in Windows7 x64 and the game ran fine.

But what about patches? I didnt want to play the game for a while, then find I needed a patch which invalidated my save game.

The game does not include its own patch mechanism (like Steam does). The game did not have an "update" button or a link to their website. I did some searching and found the website which contained no less than 3 versions of the same patch number... Hmmm. A totally ghetto website with no explanation of the patch differences.

I tried to look at the release notes of the first one but it was in a Word document!! I dont have Office on this PC -- which is why everyone else puts notes in a text file or a PDF.

So I picked another patch version. Downloaded it.

And it would not install. It was a .rar file which is not supported on Windows7. To get this patch, I would need to purchase software that could unpack .rar files. So now I am off to get a demo version which will last for this game.

Once that was finished, I install the patch.

And now the game wont run. It no longer detects the CD in the DVD drive. The mild Securom DRM system has now invalidated my retail copy of the game.

At this point, I have been swearing for a long time. I ask myself: "Why on earth did I think I would save some money by not using Steam?" With Steam I would have had the game installed, patched and running days ago. With the CD copy, I find myself spending much more than $15 in my time and frustration...

The good news is that I was able to uninstall the game, then reinstall it and play it successfully without being patched. I lose out on the many bug fixes but at least I can play it.

I had gotten so used to the convenience of Steam, I had forgotten what a pain it is to deal with retail software on a disc.

Steam is one of the many experiences in software where you dont realize how unhappy you were until you start using a different product and are forced to go back to what you used to do. It is an "aha!" moment that makes perfect sense when it happens to you but is very hard to convince people who are still doing the old way.

I have had several of these aha- moments in recent years. I get a real smile when other people tell me about their moment of clarity, "NOW I understand what you were talking about....". But most of the time, I get rather frustrated trying to convince old dogs to learn new tricks.

Next time, I think I will be a little wiser about the Amazon option.

After my disappointment with Sins, I experienced a first. I re-bought a game I had previously returned only to find I love it...

6 years ago I was living in Pasadena, CA and used to shop at InteractCD, a great retail store in the neighborhood.

I heard great things about Freedom Force and Ken Levine is basically a game-God so I bought it. Got it home. Played 3 levels and hated it so much I actually brought it back to Interact for a refund. (I've only returned 2 games in my life; the other was Grand Theft Auto 3.)

Recently I have been on a strategy/turn-based game kick. Sins was a flop so I looked for something new. I decided to give "Kings Bounty: The Legend" (Atari) a try but Amazon was charging half the price Steam was so I decided to wait for retail.

While waiting, I picked up two Freedom Force games for $8. Let me repeat that. TWO full retail games for $8!!

The game runs great on my Windows7 x64 machine and still looks terrific. At the ripe old age of 40, I am enjoying the humor in ways I didnt years ago. It is not a turn-based game but it is keeping my attention.

For $8 this is HIGHLY recommended.

There are a LOT of games every year. The supply of games vastly outstrips my ability to pay and my ability to play all of them or even a lot of them.

"Sins of a Solar Empire Collectors Edition" (Stardock)

As a result, my decision to purchase new games is painful. I have to really want a game to buy it. I have to have heard a lot of good things about it, be in the mood for that style of game and almost always, I have to have played and liked the demo.

All these conditions were true for Sins of a Solar Empire. I played the heck out of the demo a few months back and I have been in an extended strategy game phase this summer. I finished Company of Heroes, got to the final level of Dawn of War 2, and played a long scenario of Civilization 4.

So in July, I finally bit the bullet and bought the Game of the Year edition. The game was offered as a download from Stardock's ESD system Impulse but it was cheaper on Amazon so I actually bought the physical game.

I waited patiently for the mail. Excitedly installed it from DVD. (Where I learned that the license key is only good once. I cannot ever resell the game.)

I jumped into my first trial game. Remembered the basics (it had been months since I played the demo) and then I started over on my first real game.

Only to get bored after getting a few hours into it. I am sad to say that I am over Sins. I heard great things about it. People rave about it as a hard-core gamer's game. But it just didnt do much for me.

This is a game designed for playing with friends and I wanted a single player game. I just dont like games without a story (with the exception of Civ4). Im also finding that I only like a handful of real-time strategy games. More often than not, when I want to play a "strategy" game, I want to play a turn-based game.

Oh well. My filter for buying games means that this kind of disappointment almost never happens but I like to support small developers so my $40 is not a complete waste. On to the next one.

While Nintendo is totally dominating the video game hardware market with the Wii and DS platforms, two systems that basically lack networking capabilities, online gameplay continues to march ahead.

Other countries like Korea have massive online video game markets, particularly with free games where you pay for extras.

The US has mainly seen online play in PC games of two varieties: first-person shooters and MMO's like World of Warcraft. Casual games on the PC are also a huge draw but a different audience.

This year EA is supposedly investing big in online gameplay, starting with Battlefield Heroes, their first free-to-play-pay-to-accessorize offering.

OnLive is trying to create something totally new with games and networking.

And older games like Quake are being moved to browser-based platforms, proving that the web can support arcade action.

It is a slow progression, often slowed down even more by resistance from the mainstream game companies, but it seems clear that the Internet is now right in the center of video game business.

"Warhammer Dawn of War II" (THQ)

Back in the day, I was a big fan of RTS games. I loved Westwood Studio's Command & Conquer. It combined the RTS gameplay with a fun story and high quality cut scenes.

Then a little Mac developer called Bungie blew my mind with their first PC games: Myth and Myth2 - two of my favorites games of all time. Bungie realized that chopping wood and mining tiberium were, well, lame. Instead of base-building, Myth levels started you with a team of soldiers and mission. Any solder that survived the mission moved onto the next one. I loved it. You cared about your guys surviving and the story was great.

Fast forward almost a decade. Westwood Studios is long gone. Bungie has gone to Halo and left the RTS games behind. The RTS standard now is held high by Relic, a Canadian developer.

Relic's first big game was Homeworld (which I have written about). They have done one RTS after another building up to this one: Dawn of War 2.

Yes, I finally got my Xbox Live account stuff squared away and gave this game a try. Im totally hooked.I played 10 missions (about half the game) before starting over with a new character and trying harder to keep my guys alive every mission. I cant seem to put it down.

DAW2 is different and yet it is also clearly a Relic game.

There is no base-building at all. You get a squad of guys. You know their names. You care about them.

Each guy does something different and they added an RPG-like system of earning experience, gaining levels, building skills, and using better weapons. Each mission is graded on performance and you get bonuses for keeping your guys alive, going fast and killing.

The game is story-based but not totally linear. You get choices to make and the story is played out on several worlds with several territories. This borrows from Dawn of War: Dark Crusade. But they have added a time limit. Every mission takes time; die too often and you wont save the universe.

There is a cover system and buildings which help keep your guys alive. Borrowed from Company of Heroes.

The graphics are fantastic, the voice acting top notch. Another high-quality Relic production.

Another twist is that there is no save games. For a save-game-whore like myself, that is a huge change. Mostly I dont mind it. It keeps me honest in a mission but if you start losing, its a bit annoying that you cannot go back without starting over completely.

Another little niggle is that there arent any good wiki's out there with strategy and tips. I really got stuck with the swarms and it got a bit frustrating.

I am playing the game on Windows7... Not a single crash or graphics problem. Finally!

I dont actually like the Dawn of War universe, the Orks are especially retarded, but if you like RTS games this one is not to be missed. Nothing by Relic can be missed it seems.

OK, enough of that. Time to kill the Wraithlord...

So you decide to give the Windows7 beta a try. The first decision you have to make is, 32-bit or 64-bit?

I had no idea what to choose or how these two version are different. The same thing happened to me with Vista when I got 2 DVDs - 32-bit and the other 64 bit. Apparently this is so confusing to consumers, some of them thought they got two copies of Vista and were selling the "second" copy on eBay...

Maybe 64-bit is faster? The only thing I had heard about 64-bit was that their drivers were often buggy. As a gamer, hearing about bad drivers means sticking to 32-bit. So I did.

Only to find out this week that 32-bit Windows systems can only use 3GB of memory. Put in 4GB or 8GB, it wont matter. The system will see it but will only use 3GB. This was a "bug" in the first generation of Intel Macs but it is a permanent situation in Windows XP, Vista and Windows7.

My initial reaction was, what the hell!?!? I just wasted some money...

My second reaction was, why?

I actually found it hard to find any real explanations for this issue. My conclusion is that there are a lot of people out there with memory they arent actually using and no idea its happening.

One of the best explanations I found was here: http://members.cox.net/slatteryt/RAM.html (The HP link has a good diagram of the address map.)

Here is my take:

Computers talk in powers of 2 (that whole binary thing you never understood). A 32-bit computer means the biggest number it can hold is 2^32 or 4 GB. Every location in memory has an address, a number, so a 32-bit system should be able to access 4GB of memory.

Except that the PC is OLD, designed long before 4 GB of memory was even imaginable. The PCI bus and other hardware locations like video cards were placed in the range from 3 to 4GB, because, well, nothing else would ever need to go there.... The more memory on your video card, the more of this memory space you are using.

There is the irony. The people most likely to have extra memory and big fancy video cards and concern about drivers are the ones least able to use the 3 to 4 GB memory...

So what is the fix? The fix is moving to a 64-bit OS.

Now that the Windows7 release candidate is out, I am planning to do another clean install on my game PC (ugh), reinstall all my games on Steam, and see what happens. Hopefully that 64-bit driver problem wont be so bad.

Good news! The problems with my Xbox LIVE account are resolved.

When we were on vacation in Florida, my iphone rang. It was the "engineer" at Xbox with the results of their "research".

He was polite and mostly understandable and happy to provide me with 1 free year of Xbox LIVE Gold Membership to compensate me for my loss.

Loss?

I made him repeat it. My account had been "corrupted" and could not be repaired. If I still want to access my gamertag account, I am not to worry - it is saved on my Xbox. At least "until you have to send the Xbox in for repairs."

Out with the old

Really? You cant just throw a new email address on that account? I can access my gamertag from the Internet after all so the data is still somewhere...

He was very sorry and wanted to move onto the 3 million letter code for my free Gold Membership. W - W - 8 - ....

Of course, I dont want a Gold Membership, especially if they delete me every 9 months or so. What I wanted was my old account, my identity, back. I know it is only a game but these things are our identities. I feel like companies should treat them as such. A free membership is not making me feel better about my loss. So long Silverfyst - maybe Microsoft will count us as 2 happy Xbox LIVE customers now.

When talking about this at work, I found out that my co-worker is on his THIRD account for the same problem. You game, you get busy with your kids, months go by, your account is deleted. He didnt seem to mind but I think its garbage.

In with the new

But life goes on and there is nothing I can do about this. If I want to play DoW2, I need to create an identity with Games for Window LIVE - which I did in a browser (but not Safari) in less than 5 minutes. Sure hope I dont have to type it in with a controller more than once...

I have always enjoyed foreign movies because they take something familiar, the movie medium, and twist it in ways that reflect other cultures and seem new to me. Occasionally there is a video game that does the same thing.

"The Witcher Enhanced" (Atari)

A while back, I raved about an FPS called STALKER. This year, Im raving about the Witcher.

After a long break, I got back into Bioshock. Great game but man Rapture is DE-pressing. I started to dream about all the good times I had collecting flowers and being a good-guy in Oblivion. There is no new Oblivion right now but I remembered that Jack had recommended the Witcher and I had heard folks on 1Up talk about it several times.

This is the best game you never played. You should play it. It's on Steam as a deluxe enhanced version for $44 and a massive 3GB download. I hear the enhanced version is much better with a ton of voice over added although it removes some of the racy content that American's cant handle.

What is the Witcher? This is Oblivion but its nothing like Oblivion. They take the RPG elements you are familiar with and mix them up in ways that are novel and a lot of fun.

I am on Chapter 2 and I love it.

As I said earlier, I have a PC with two hard drives. On one drive I had Windows XP and on the other drive I tried Windows Vista and then Windows 7 beta. I use BIOS to decide which drives loads first and that determines which OS runs.

As win7 seemed to be working with my Steam games, I tried to copy my save games from the XP drive (D:) to my win7 drive (C:). win7 gave me an odd warning about not having permission to read these files and asked me if I wanted permission. I said yes, time passed, the files moved.

A week later I tried to run XP, and it had the swine flu. The first symptom: waiting forever after i gave my password and it says loading your settings... Other symptoms: no task bar; Explorer wont let me copy files; Steam wont run because of a pkg error.

Win7 horked my PC but I was not sure how badly.

I went back to the XP installation CD and ran the Repair Console. Unfortunately I dont really know how to use the repair console so I just ran chkdsk and that showed no errors.

I used the XP installer to do a repair installation. This basically installs all the Windows XP files all over again but leaves the registry and the disk contents intact.

The repair installation made progress. My system would boot again and the taskbar was back and I could copy files. But things just didnt work right.

Steam still would not work. On the forums, it indicated that I should download some Microsoft installer tool but when I tried to download it, I got errors. It looked like I no longer had permission to access /TEMP folders...

Wow. Trying to copy files from one disk to another with Windows 7 really f@cked my PC. I am guessing this is a security feature. It detected that the users on both drives was different (different OS's) and then tried to "fix" it for me, breaking my access to the D: drive in the process.

Ugh. Note to self: Dont copy files between disks anymore.

So I went back to the installer, wiped my hard drive, and did a clean install of Windows XP, complete with registration, Windows Genuine Advantage, service pack 3, a bunch of patches and drivers.

Now after installing XP twice in a single day, my machine seems back to normal. Oh brother.

Ohhhh Microsoft....

Well I told you about my Xbox LIVE gamertag problems. (Why is LIVE in all caps anyway?)

Well I used the webpage form and two days later I got a polite email.

It seems my account problem requires a lot of security questions so the web form will not work. I need to call the 1-800 number instead.

1-800-4MYXBOX

As you might expect, the person that answers is a female computer and you spend a while going through the phone tree options to find your problem.

"OK. I can help you with that." Except she never could. Here is a tip: "Operator" will get you a person although that is no guarantee that they can help you either.

Unfortunately the person I got was rather hard to understand. She did ask a lot of questions, my address 3 years ago, my phone #, my email, etc. All the info I would have used to create my account when I got it in 2006.

our customer surveys indicate that this point in the call is an optimal up-sell opportunity

At least she was polite and she did help explain my problem. The only weirdness was at the end when she asked if I was planning to upgrade to a Gold membership, ie pay money.

I got the impression tech support was suddenly an up-sell opportunity. Yeah, good luck with that. As someone who is not happy about wasting time with tech support in the first place, I was not feeling inclined to pay Microsoft anything for my trouble...

how did it feel to be terminated?

So what was my problem?

"If an Xbox LIVE account has not been used for a long period of time, the passport account is deleted. If you want to keep your old gamertag, you will need to create a new account by talking with my supervisor."

Deleted? Really? Did she say DELETED? I didnt log in for 9 months and they deleted my email account? What, to save a few bytes of space?

When I thought about this I was really surprised. They kept my gamertag information but deleted my email account which I need to access my gamertag. How does that make any sense?

I use Yahoo email about once a year and they have kept that account for me for a decade... I had 4 Microsoft passport accounts and 3 of them have been deleted in the past year. Yeah, I am definitely not wanting to upgrade to an Xbox LIVE gold account.

software catch-22

The weird thing is that my Xbox360 remembers my gamertag info and all the games I have played but it no longer has an email address. Knowing Microsoft I am sure each part of my "account" is stored in a different system and managed by different departments, each with their own goals and priorities but still. I am beginning to see why they needed a fancy automated phone computer to separate themselves from unhappy customers.

But hey, no problem. All they need to do is add a new email account to my gamertag info and I am back in business. Let's talk to the supervisor.

meet the super

He is polite but REALLY hard to understand. He gets my Xbox serial numbers and then tells me that "one of our engineers will investigate your request and get back to you."

What? Cant you just take my new email address?

"No sir, we have to investigate." Oh brother, how long with that take?

"5 to 10 business days."

5... to... 10... business days!? DAYS!! OFMG.

But wait a minute, why did I even have to talk to you? That first person could have told me the same thing and saved me 5 minutes on the phone waiting for you to tell me that you couldnt help me.

tech-support quest recap

Well kids, let's recap our Xbox LIVE experience:

I buy the game, cant play it without an account. I cant get my old account working. I turn on my old Xbox and cant get that working. Fill out the tech support website form. 2 days for an answer that says call the phone number. Call the phone number and after 20 minutes of alternate waiting and interrogation, I get to wait another two weeks to hear back, something. Who even knows what this "investigation" involves and the supervisor did not actually confirm they could assign my gamertag to a new email address.

A little swearing to myself. Another cost benefit soliloquy: is saving this gamertag account really worth all this fuss or should I start over tonight? Just shake your head and walk away.

Thank you for enjoying another episode of Tech Support Quest. Come again.

I bought Dawn of War 2 on steam. I want to play a game...

At Microsoft, this is what we would call a scenario: User wants to play a PC game using his Xbox Live account. Even though we focus on scenarios, it would appear that we are not very good at them sometimes.

Sometimes you just have to laugh...

Yet another tale of trouble with my Windows PC.

I have two hard drives in my PC. One with Windows XP and the other with Windows Vista (now Windows 7 beta).

These two drives co-exist peacefully without any knowledge of each other. I use BIOS to determine which drive (and OS) loads first and life has been good. When I have problems with one OS, I use the other.

Since I finally fixed the power supply issue, I have tried gaming with Windows 7 and DX10. I installed steam and then Bioshock and Company of Heroes.

Since I had been playing these games on Windows XP, I needed to copy the save games from one drive to another. No problem, right? Both drives are NTFS and in the same PC.

From Win7, I click on the 2nd drive to load the save games from the XP drive. Fail...

Win7 complains that I dont have permissions to see this drive. What?? Never seen that before. But not to worry, it asks me if I want to continue and fix the permissions. Why not. I say YES and wait a long time while that happens.

I get access to the files, copy them over, continue gaming with Win7. Yay.

Until last night when I bought Dawn of War 2, again on steam. The game downloads without problem but when I try to run it, i get problems.

The first run experience fails. First it tries to install Direct X, I get a window that pops up too fast for me to read and then nothing. The install has failed. So I try to run the game again.

This time it tries to install Games For Windows Live. This fails too.

After a while mucking with this and looking for help on the Internets, I give up. It wont start.

No problem, I think. I will just go back to Windows XP and install it there. I think you can see where this is going.

I switch the drives in BIOS, boot up Windows XP, and once I enter my login name and password, it sort of sits there. Eternal bootup is the first sign of disaster.

Eventually I get to the desktop but its still really slow. More importantly Steam never starts. I try to start it myself, it shows in the process list, but it never finishes starting. Now I have that sinking feeling.

I reboot and this time it comes up with a desktop and no command bar at all. Not good. I run the XP disk checker - no errors found... Now what?

With the two drive setup, nothing I did in win7 should have affected XP. The only thing I can think of is that weird permission thing. *sigh*

Now my fallback has fallen. I am not playing my new game and I am probably going to be re-installing Windows XP and all my games all over again. The joys of Windows-Quest never end.

I built a new PC last December, 4 months ago. Right from the start it had problems with crashes.

It looks like I may have finally solved the problem but the solution was not what I expected.

This experience has turned out to be another example of the power of marketing to distort reality and how data helps you find the truth.

I can hardly believe it but it has been 4 months since I built a new game PC and bought new monitor.

My old game PC was based on an aging AMD Athlon64 X2 3800+ with 2GB of DDR400 ram, and an ATI HD3870 video card. This was a dual-core system dating back to August 2006. It was time.

Here is what I built:

This was basically a new system except for my favorite (and discontinued) case the Super Lanboy, the hard drives, and the Soundblaster card. As it turned out, I never connected the Soundlaster card so I am using the onboard audio.

All the new parts came from Newegg. A fantastic game system for about $650.

A personal highlight is the end of PATA (parallel ATA) drives and their ridonculous ribbon cables. Now my DVD and hard drives are all SATA and more importantly, the motherboard does some magic so that I did not need special SATA drivers on a @##$%! floppy disk to use them. Somehow Windows XP sees the drives without a special driver. I dont know what they did to make this happen but its about #$% time.

After my problem with Vista, I switched back XP and have been happily gaming every since. In the past 4 months, I finished Fallout3, Homeworld2, Half-Life2: Episode 2, and Dawn of War.

Although this system was a huge graphical and performance leap over my last system, there is trouble in paradise. This PC is unstable. As in, it crashes regularly.

I have put up with this behavior for months but its super annoying. I will detail my travails in a later post because it is time to spend more money and fix it.

The hotness for PS3 these days is Killzone2.

"Killzone 2"

Thankfully, it has a demo so I download it.

1.2 GB?!! Damn, that is a huge demo. I am expecting a lot...

15 minutes later, I finished playing the demo. It is a short mission followed by a few minutes of "review" quotes about how amazing the game looks... quotes that you are forced to watch.

What the?! Why is such a short demo such a massive download? Argh.

As for the game, it feels like Gears of War for the PS3. Although Im not a huge fan of FPS for console, I have a feeling I will play it. Sure it looks great but will the story be worth telling? The story for Gears was not so I skipped Gears2.

After a long break, I finally sat down and finished "Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots". It took me about 6 months to finish this game.

Overall I would say that I have never played anything quite like MGS4.

"Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots" by Konami

First off, its not a game so much as a game/movie.

The gameplay is highly polished AAA-mediocrity. The movie is terrific. More than once, I wished that the whole game was a movie so I could just sit back and relax and try to decipher the story.

I assume the game has a lot to do with the previous games but I never played any of them. More than once I felt like a person that had never heard of Star Trek attending a Trekie convention, wandering around int total befudlement...

I had heard that MGS4 "explains all" but I found that the explanation needs an explanation. The story was so freaking complicated.. Just look at the cast: Naked Snake, Solid Snake, old Snake, Octagon, Liquid, Zero, Big Boss, Big Mamma, the 3 furies, Ocelot, Jack, Raiden, Naoimi, the Colonel, Vamp, Eva. *phew*

Last year they actually released a free downloadable "game" that is in fact an encyclopedia of game characters and events. Top that.

At times I wish they had just written a book. Maybe it is genius but for a video game it seemed too much, the opposite extreme from Gears of War. The movie scenes also include a lot of flashbacks that did not make sense to me so I assume they were from previous games.

I had heard that the guy behind this game really wants to do movies and it shows. The cut-scenes are long and numerous. They reminded me of the movie version of Final Fantasy. Pretty amazing stuff that would make a totally good movie of just CGI. The chase scenes are great. The fight scenes have amazing choreography. The camera moves like scenes in a movie. They even add flecks of water on the lens.

If the movie aspects of the game are amazing, the gameplay kind of suffers. This is an FPS and a derivative one at that. You can sneak around and use CQC ("Impressive CQC, Snake") but the game has such an arsenal of weapons, I mostly killed people. Hundreds of them.

I have heard that the Hard version of the game is very different. I played it through on Normal and did very little sneaking. Progress was easy except for the boss battles. A few of which were so darn hard... I dont like it when games alternate between mindless and impossible.

There is some variety. Some sneaking. Some fighting. Some chase scenes. But as a sneak-y FPS, I preferred Splinter Cell and Thief. The massive compendium of detailed weapons was pretty irrelevant to me.

The story is also odd for a video game. The theme of the game is that war is bad, war victimizes people and technology generally encourages war and makes things worse. Moreover, the game flat out states that FPS games only encourage real world violence by making "war a game". Yep. This is a game that says video games are bad. Too much for me, especially the backstory for the three boss battles. I guess I am not ready for video games to provide commentary on real life.

There were some amusing moments in the game and even a few jokes. They include a few scenes from the previous MGS games, as in the actual scenes in the old graphics engine. And there are some self-referential jokes about the PS3 and blueray and rumble. I have never seen that in a game before. Those were cute even if the retro-gameplay was a bit frustrating.

A year ago, this game was getting huge attention in the media. It was gonna sell PS3 systems... It was gonna be the best game in history... Well, if you already have a PS3 you ought to get this game just to see it. It may be the best PS3 game but its not the best game Ive ever played. However I am glad I got to experience a bit of the MGS world before it ended.

"Appleseed Ex Machina [Blu-ray]" by Shinji Aramaki

PS

When I played the game, I was impressed with the mech's and the choreography and the female characters. But this weekend I saw "Appleseed Ex Machina [Blu-ray]" -- a movie that is almost identical to MGS4 in many ways. I guess MGS is not as original as I thought as it seems to borrow from other contemporary Japanese entertainment.

I rarely watch movies a second time. I almost never read a book twice. And I've never replayed a game or played an old game.

Until now.

"Homeworld 2" by Sierra

"Company of Heroes" was such a good game, it got me in the mood to play RTS games again. It has been years.

But I have also been in the mood for some good science fiction. I read "Redemption Ark" and started watching Battlestar Galactica again but that wasnt enough. I wanted to play a sci-fi RTS...

And as fate would have it, in my pile of old games, I found "Homeworld 2". I had a great time with the original Homeworld which was one of Relic's first games.

But how a 5 year old game hold up?

I had some problems installing it but I got through that.

Unfortunately it looked like crap on my monitor. Happily, the release notes indicated that you can launch the game at any desktop resolution using a command line argument. Which I did. And the game looks FANTASTIC at 1900x1200. I cannot believe how well the graphics and even the HUD hold up after years.

The gameplay held up too. An RTS in space is the most basic RTS there is. No terrain or buildings and such. But this was the first game to really nail and interface for moving ships in 3D. And by the end, I finally knew the difference between a corvette and a frigate.

The story was fantastic. I love the Middle Eastern theme and the cut-scenese are still good looking and plenty theatrical.

I dont know why it took me so long to actually play it but I sure got my money's worth. The game was a blast and it ran with no bugs or problems.

One of the things that surprised me was how well the Middle Eastern theme worked. More so because BSG did the same thing years later. Were they fans of this game too?

Relic has a whole stable of RTS games out there now but if you are in the mood for some good sci-fi, you wont go wrong with Homeworld. The games were orginally published by Sierra which is now defunct and owned by Vivendi. I really wish they would update the games a bit a re-release them for Mac and PC.

I also wish they would do a sequel and take us to the Age of S'Jet.

I've had all kinds of serious blog posts on my mind lately. Turning 40, the next great depression, job layoffs, the fact that Greg doesnt even read my blog.... but the heck with that. I want to talk about Singstar.

I played music instruments for years. Piano, french horn, 3 kinds of guitar. But I did not enjoy any of it as much as I enjoyed singing. Granted Im a fair to miserable singer but instruments always felt like work and singing just felt like fun.

I tried my hand at Rockband last year and decided against it. Simon with music just was not playing music. It irritated me. I started to feel like I was in a scene of Idiocracy.

So I started to think about karaoke games. At least the vocals in a video game are actual vocals so I started looking for singing games on the PS3.

Singstar. I hear it is the best karaoke game for folks that want to, you know, sing.

So I start doing my research on what will work on the PS3 and what wont. Most important I start looking at the songs.

Christ, what kind of crap songs do people like to sing? Are these the songs people want or the only songs that can be licensed for a tiny game MTV doesnt own?

The discs were a huge disappointment but I held out hope. Maybe the new online SingStore would be better!? Gah!!! What are all these crappy songs?

I am probably going to buy it just to try it but it depresses me a bit that I have so many CD's from the past 30 years and so few of those songs are available in these games. This idea seems impossible to screw up but Im sure music industry lawyers are doing their best.

Well crap.

For the past week, I've been refreshing iTunes to get the next 1upShow podcast. Today I finally pointed my browser to the google and found out why.

The website (and thus podcast) had been bought and half the staff fired. Now what am I going to listen to? Listening to TWIT mangle the truth is no substitute.

2009 is going to a tough year.

Well this is it. My reign of looting-terror is over. No more metal boxes, footlockers, lockers, first aid kits, or dead bodies for me. I finished Fallout 3. I saved the Capital Wasteland.

Which is somewhat bittersweet. On the one hand, the wasteland was depressing (especially the recordings and radio broadcasts of the dead). On the other hand, I kept wanting to play more and see more.

But I did have an adventure, a full journey with many memories.

I came out of the Vault not knowing anything. I didnt know where to go or what to do or who to trust. I was weak. I was scared. I was amazed and curious.

Over time, I killed a millions creatures and people. I learned what junk was valuable and what was plain junk. I grew stronger and confident and by the end I truly was the last hope for the wasteland.

I had a great time with Charon at my back.

I met Falkes and adventured with it.

I found Megaton and helped those people.

I was terrified on my first mission, to the super-mart. The first time I went I found ghouls but instead of attacking me, they talked to me. The second time I went, I found a bunch of dead Chinese soldiers and raiders who killed each other just as I got there. I was really impressed how the game was so random and varied.

I freed slaves.

I snuck through a million miles of sewers.

I found friendly ghouls and feral ghouls.

I found vampires and robots and mercenaries and the Enclave.

I met President Eden.

I found the Slavers (but I didnt stop them).

I decapitated a countless number of those who stood against me.

I started off as a timid thief sneaking around for the first shot and ended as a power armored titan able to walk into any room and defeat any opposition with little damage.

I found 7 bobbleheads.

While I had a great time and leave with a lot of memories, I feel strangely unfulfilled. There were several mysteries I never solved.

I never figured out why the Super Mutants were so strong in the Mall or the square or why they "acted different".

Although I did find an alien weapon, I never found the alien spacecraft.

It took me most of the game to figure out lockpicking and to realize that every wrecked car is really a massive bomb in disguise.

I found heavy weapons to be underwhelming. I never used the flamer or the fatboy, and the rocket launcher and miniguns seemed ineffective.

I was able to play almost the entire game without using a wiki for help, which is pretty unusual these days, but the wiki did explain a lot of things that I missed in the game. I had not realized I found the source of the supermutants until I read it in the wiki, for instance.

I didnt care for the ending, which was like a movie. Roll credits... As soon as I won, I went back to a save game to continue to explore the wastes. Unlike Oblivion, I saved the world but I didnt get to see the future I created. The ending was a bit of a letdown.

While Microsoft is almost invisible in the PC game space today, Valve continues to blaze ahead.

I was surprised to hear that Electronic Arts is now on Steam. EA is a huge game powerhouse and master of the retail space for all game platforms. Now they are on Steam. Amazing.

Steam is quickly becoming THE store for Windows games. Retail is dead. Long live the king of digital downloads and agreeable DRM.

I still hate their olive-green look but I am thankful that someone is keeping Windows gaming alive.

My new PC (running XP not Vista) is working great and I have been playing Fallout 3.

A LOT of F3. Im totally hooked. Im loving the game. I want to play every day, all day. Its nice :)

Im level 12 and have about 30 hours on my save game, which includes a lot more hours of die-restart time. I've heard characters can reach level 20 so I am guessing Im about half way through.

On first impressions, the game is definitely related to Oblivion. The character animations are similar, the map is similar, the dungeons are similar, the way you look and walk is similar, even the voice-overs are similar. Which is not a complaint since I loved Oblivion too.

They have added a number of niceties - at the end of your tutorial you can change the way your character looks and re-jigger the stats. Later in the game you have many opportunities to change your appearance which removes an annoyance that would make people restart the game.

On my original PC, I had problems with the PIP Boy but I think those were graphics glitches and they are mostly gone now. On the other hand, there are still glitches. The game crashes once a session or so which usually require PC reboots to fix; restarting the game just causes it to crash again. Fortunately, I havent lost any data. I dont play many games that crash this much but its infrequent enough that I am definitely able to play it.

The game looks great, especially on my new game PC. No slowdowns at 1650x1080 and high details although there are issues with object pop-in. Since you want to see things far away and you have weapon scopes, they way they handle depth is not always perfect. I will look in a direction and see empty hills, walk closer and suddenly there are buildings and baddies there... Frustrating but I imagine a sacrifice for frame rates.

Its also a little annoying that the game UI was clearly designed for consoles and their simplified controller schemes. But they did a much better job than Oblivion and the game is playable without mods. Which is good because I havent seen any mods yet...

The only downside is that the game is such a downer. Bioshock, STALKER, The Road, Jericho, even Serenity are all similar in tone and atmosphere. I am already a worry-wort and spending hours in a toxic world of mutant Armageddon has been giving me nightmares and making me even more paranoid.

Bioshock and STALKER comparisons are worth mentioning.

STALKER is a true FPS game while this is really a turn-based game hybrid. STALKER does have the same Mad Max nuclear wasteland atmosphere though and you will spent a lot of time wandering around opening containers in both games. In fact, opening containers and managing my inventory is one of the things I spend the most time on.

I've heard designers say that inventory management is a game "feature" that breaks up the action between fights. But in both of these games there were moments when I wondered if I was playing a inventory game or a RPG...

Bioshock is an even more similar game. 1950's feel, dark, grim, trapped in a vault/trapped under water. As I play this game I find myself thinking of Bioshock all the time which is pretty unusual for me.

I feel that Bioshock did environments much better although they did have a much smaller and more contained world to model. F3 has a lot of low-res textures of trash and empty rooms where I find myself thinking of Bioshock and how much more interactive it felt.

If you are into that sort of thing, Bioshock was even creepier with far more disturbing characters. I never felt good about myself in Bioshock (to be honest I felt kind of dirty playing the game) whereas here I kind of feel like Im being a good samaritan by removing Mad Max-style Raiders from the world. Most of the time.

The quests in F3 are entertaining although there are not a ton of them so far they do offer a lot of play. Just getting from A to B can be a struggle and the AI does not seem to give up, which is not a good thing. Run into some mirelurks and they will follow you to the end of the earth. The other day 3 of them chased me into a house where they ate everyone in the room! Did I mention a lot of restarts?

Considering how tough some fights are, it would be nice if the AI would let you run away but its also impressive how reactive the game is. The NPCs react with each other in a fun way. I often run across them fighting each other (instead of me) and get to watch the show. Since Im a goody-two-shoes, killing NPC's hasnt been a real advantage for me but if you want to be evil, it might make this a uniquely adaptable game.

The downside of this is that main characters can die, sometimes quiet easily. I spent several nights trying to find a quest giver to do a turn in. Eventually I found my way to a great wiki which informed me that he was probably dead. Even better, there were instructions on how to find an NPC (I found his corpse inexplicably outside the city) and on how to resurrect them. Awesome.

I spent a lot of time with Oblivion on wikis but hardly at all in this game. Another example of how they refined this game and made it simpler.

In particular, the character development is much simpler. In Oblivion, you had to raise skills by using them which was separate from leveling up through experience. I spent many hours alone in my house practicing my skills in Oblivion. None of that exists here. You get a single house for your stuff and skills are raised by assigning points. Much simpler.

Yes, I have fallen for Fallout. Easily one of the best games of 2008.

Yay me! I got a big box of toys last week from Newegg and I was pretty excited to get my new game computer.

How quickly the excitement of a new PC turns into the realization that putting it together is a shitload of tedious, cut-your-fingers, drop-little-screws, my-fat-hands-will-never-fit-in-there work.

This was not a new PC so much as a major PC shuffle.

1) Replace the drive in our HTPC with a larger one and replace XP with Vista
2) Build a new PC for gaming and install Vista
3) Take my old game PC and put it into another case
4) Assemble a 4th PC from leftover parts

By midnight on Sunday, after three entire days of work, the HTPC was finished except the remote didnt work and the sound only worked sometimes; my game PC was working but only with XP; my old game PC was working in a new case and I hadnt even started the 4th PC.

At no time over the weekend did I get to relax and actually play any games - the whole point of this exercise.

I may do follow up posts on the HTPC and Game PC details but here is an overview.

Let me start by saying that the highlight of this change was to finally move to Vista and DirectX10.

I have been using Vista for almost 6 months at work and like it just fine. That seems to have been the highpoint. My impression of Vista has dropped steadily all weekend.

It turns out Vista is that gorgeous person who blows you away when you meet them. Then you spend time with them, spend money on them, and you realize what a pain in the ass they are. You suddenly start to appreciate your previous significant other a lot more...

#1 HTPC

We first started using an HTPC as a home-brew TIVO back in 2004. Recording HDTV really fills up the hard drive so I finally got tired of having to delete stuff (make decisions) and I bought a new, cheaper and much larger drive.

The goal was to replace my two 160GB drives with a single $60 640GB drive. At the same time I planned to switch from Windows XP to Windows Vista Home and to a video card that supported audio on HDMI cables.

After making lists of all the important software and license codes, the hardware changes were pretty easy. The Vista installer was what one would expect; totally easy. It detected the new SATA drive with no problems and installed quickly.

There were no questions about floppy drives or driver disks. It formatted the new drive amazingly fast - as in so fast, I wondered what it did. This is older hardware and Vista detected and installed the network driver and sound drivers itself. Sweet.

What did surprise me was that Vista itself took over 10GB of the drive and 400MB of the memory just to run itself. The drive space is ok I guess but this machine only had 512MB of memory so using it ALL for Vista was a concern. How do you tell your new friend Vista it is a fat cow?

After this clean install, Vista needed an immediate 29 updates followed by a reboot and another 19 updates.

It was at this point that the problems began.

SageTV

I installed our awesome TV software, SageTV, and struggled for hours trying to get it work right. It wouldnt recognize our old recordings, the remote, or get channel data even though I followed these precise directions.

On Sunday I tried again and found my problem. Vista does not install files in the same place as XP.

I started to feel that Vista is your friend who is so smart, he is a dumbass. With this understanding, I was able to restore our favorites and recordings and I even fixed the TV guide. Later I found that I had missed this important line which would have saved me some frustration:

Usually, wiz.bin and sage.properties can be found in the same directory where your SageTV server is installed. For Windows Vista, see this FAQ: Where to find Sage properties files in Vista.

HDMI audio

Unfortunately, the HDMI audio was still not working. In order to hear TV, we have had to use our stereo and send SPDIF data to it. This works but the extra remote and steps had bothered me so I wanted to use ATI's HDMI audio feature to send video AND sound to the TV and only use the TV remote. I struggled with this for a long time.

In the end, I think the issue was a cable one. The only way I got it to work was using the DVI-HDMI converter provided with my video card with an HDMI cable. Using a DVI-HDMI cable without the dongle did not pass sound. Grrr. Later I found that some of the recordings I had would not work even with the dongle so I had to revert to the stereo. Double Grrr.

Hauppauge remote control

By Sunday night, things looked pretty good. SageTV ran fine even with the meager memory left by Vista and we could watch new TV and our old recordings.

The only problem left was the remote control. Cant relax on the couch when you have to get up to change the channel. No matter what I tried, Sage just did not see the remote. I tried the latest drivers, I tried the oldest drivers, I uninstalled and reinstalled, I cursed. Nothing.

I did learn that the remote was actually working though. It sends half of the commands to Sage and the other half of the commands to Windows Vista Media Center. Again Vista is trying to be too smart and pissing me off. I dont want to launch Media Center when I am running SageTV...

This is still unresolved but I hope the fix is simple.

#2 Gaming PC

My new Game PC was a totally new build. The only things I kept were my case, aging Audigy2 soundcard, keyboard and mouse. The hardware assembly went smoothly and I was reminded how much I love this case, the discontinued Antec Lanboy.

This time I tried a SATA DVD drive so I had no IDE cables in the box except for the floppy. I was dreading the F6-floppy-with-SATA-driver ritual and was thrilled to see it never happened. Vista Ultimate installed like a charm. Again, it went so fast and smoothly I wondered what it actually did. How did it format the drive? What drivers did it install?

Sadly, it did not install a network driver for me but that was easily solved with the DVD from ASUS that came with the P5Q PRO motherboard. Then I did the 33 Vista patches, installed the video drivers and all the rest of the hardware drivers.

Pretty exciting! The Vista UI looks terrific. I went about installing all my games and the saved games. Again, no problems. Steam looks like ass but it installed fine as did Fallout 3.

If you suspect this is the peaceful moment before the tsunami wipes out your village....

DDO no go

My first hint of problem was installing DDO, the only MMO I am playing these days. I could not find a network installer so I used my original game CD's from 2006. The game tried to then apply 14,000 patches. Woah. Worse, they took a LONG time. After hours, it wasnt close so I had to quit. When I restarted it later, there were only 2,000 patches. Hmmm.

I had hard that DDO looked even better with DX10 so I know it works in Vista but after the patching, I could not get it to run. The patcher would start but launching the game gave some weird error.

Fallout falls down

Then I tried Fallout 3. The game installed fine and launched fine - and much faster. It detected my hardware and set itself for warp speed: ultra-high details.

But every time I loaded an outdoor area (as in most of the game) two things happened: 100% memory got used up and the game would hang or crash or reboot the PC. Indoor areas were playable but outside was death. Maybe the game was trying to tell me it was safer inside?

So the joke is on me. The main justification I had to myself for getting a new PC was F3. In order to enjoy the game, I needed a faster PC, I reasoned. Well now that I have a faster PC, with Windows Vista Ultimate, brand new hardware, the latest drivers for everything -- I cannot get F3 to run for more than a few seconds.

On my old Windows XP PC, the game was slow. Now it is completely unplayable. It would appear that the devs at Bethesda couldn't afford shiny new $700 Vista PC's like I could because they apparently never tried to run the game with it.

plan B

So it is late on Sunday. I see my weekend slipping away and feel that Monday-morning, the weekend-is-over! panic rising. I briefly think about setting up my old PC and playing something for a few hours with it but I rule that out.

Time for the backup plan: put a 2nd drive in the PC and install Windows XP. Ugh.

Looking at the great guides [guide 1, guide 2], I could only roll my eyes. Dual-booting has been around since Windows 2000!! and Microsoft does not have an easy solution to dual-boot their own products? Good grief.

Since I still had the fantasy of having an actual play-a-game weekend, I opted for a simpler route. Install the two OS's on two drives and use BIOS to determine which drive boots first.

Then I braced myself for the F6-floppy routine installing XP -- but it didnt happen. Curious.

Here I was giving Vista credit for handling SATA drives and it looks like the motherboard was actually doing this for me! Not only that but the motherboard would boot a SATA DVD without drivers and it came with a bootable DVD that creates a driver floppy for you if you need it. WOW! Three cheers for ASUS. Stern looks for Vista and XP.

XP installed like XP although the SATA driver thing is fixed which was a huge improvement. All the drivers had to be installed by hand and I had to install Windows XP SP3 followed by more patches. (I also became even more curious about Vista's speedy drive formatting after I accidentally told XP to format my drive the normal, not fast, way - and it took an HOUR! just to format.)

By Sunday night at Midnight I had Fallout 3 installed and... it ran wonderfully. The game looked fantastic. XP only used 200MB of memory (unlike Vista's 400MB+) and the game zipped along using only half of the 2GB installed.

vista - how I love thee - let me count the ways

So Vista looks nice and is completely unusable. Oh brother. Of course I had heard that Vista had problems but its been TWO YEARS! What was the point of all those patches?

I didnt get to try Steam in Vista but with a working XP box, Im not sure how eager I am to invest more time getting Vista to work. I suspect the problems have to do with the "confirm or deny?" security model in Vista but whatever the reason, I am greatly disappointed.

But I am sure that will fade with time. I have a zippy new PC and I can enjoy some XP gaming in the weekends to come.

Happy holidays to all and merry christmas come early to me.

A new day. Another hour debugging Windows XP.

After a nights rest, I went to work on this problem again. The good news is that I fixed it. The bad news is that I don’t actually know what the cause of the problem was.

I uninstalled every device I could think of trying to find one that stopped the interrupts. Nothing worked until I killed the CCC process. CCC is the Catalyst Control Center by ATI; it is the little icon tray app for ATI video cards that starts their display control panel.

Unfortunately I know that I killed that same process the first night and nothing happened so it seems that it was the combination of removing hardware and killing the CCC did the trick. Oh, and don’t forget the 50-million reboots that Windows requires anytime you change something.

All in all, not a satisfying fix since it did not really identify the cause of the problem. DRM? Video driver? Hardware interaction?

So my PC is fixed but I still have a problem. I still want to play Homeworld 2.

Homeworld was released by Sierra, a fine company that self-destructed. Wikipedia says the license was sold to THQ in 2007 but they haven’t done anything with it. There is no version on Steam but there is a Mac version. Unfortunately the Mac version is PPC-only so no luck there either.

Do I reinstall the game and hope the bug doesn’t happen again? On the hunch that this was a DRM issue, I looked for a cracked version of the game.

I hear a lot of complaining about software piracy but I haven’t stolen a game since middle school and my Apple IIe. I was kind of surprised how easy it was. Google for “crack homeworld 2” and the first hit was an updated .exe that doesn’t check for the CD. I got the file and popped it into my install directory and it worked.

Now I am playing the game at 60fps. There is no visible slow downs like before and no problem with interrupts. Maybe it was the DRM after all...

Funny story.

I have been on a strategy game jagg recently. Cleaning up my office I found the CD for an old game I never finished, Homeworld 2 by Relic.

This is an OLD game but I loved Homeworld and Relic’s newer Company of Heroes games so I popped it in. This is a Windows 98-era game so I figured it would scream on my PC and might still look good.

It did look great although it didn’t exactly scream. I was getting under 20fps which seemed odd but still playable.

So I saved the galaxy for a while until I got to a point where I died. I reloaded the level and *bam* my system slowed down so much it was unplayable. The mouse wouldn’t respond, the frame rate was single digits. Computer-badness.

Hmmm.

I restarted the game – same problem.

I quit the game and used Task Manager to look at the CPU load. NO processes running but the CPU was 50%.

Now that is odd. In fact, that is something I have never seen before. The system Idle process is 99% and no programs were running but one of my two CPU cores was pegged at 100% doing something.

I applied the magic Windows fix-all, a reboot. The machine came up fresh and… still 50% usage.

Very odd indeed and now a bit alarming. So I consulted the Google Oracle, although it was hard to think of a question to ask it. Eventually I found two things:

The first was Process Explorer, a Windows application I had never heard of. I installed it and looked at the results.

Sure enough, 50% of my CPU was going towards “Interrupts”. Interrupt handling not an actual process was killing an entire core of my CPU.

That is when I found the second thing. A number of people with the same problem. For them, the problem was that the IDE driver for a CD drive was reverting from DMA mode to PIO mode. A little more digging and I figured out how to tell what mode my DVD drive was in – DMA mode – but others said that sometimes what it says is wrong. I followed their instructions and uninstalled my IDE controller. Windows reinstalled it and same problem – 50% for Interrupts.

So I uninstalled, rebooted, and reinstalled. No change. Still 50% interrupts.

At this point I am alarmed. My PC is horked, it appears permanent, and I have no idea what changed or caused it.

Whenever I reach this low point, I think about the millions of PC users who have no idea what DMA and PIO modes are. What would they do? Their computer is suddenly ½ as fast and they have no idea why or what to do about it. They pray to the God of Reboot, to no avail, and then they just live with it...

Thinking of those folks always comforts me even if it doesn’t solve my problem.

So what is the funny part? I guess there isn’t one; that’s what's funny. Im sure this kind of problem happens every day to thousands of people.

At this point I really have no proof of what is wrong. I removed the DVD from the drive and got my first real clue: an error dialog.

Securom, a DRM program, popped up an error dialog – It couldn’t find the right CD.

Aha! It is not proof but it is highly suspicious.

You see, Inspector, I installed an old game on an otherwise working computer. The game installs Securom DRM but an old version that hasn’t been supported in years. Securom’s CD validation code uses some crazy calls to the CD, perhaps PIO mode, perhaps something undocumented, and my system is slowed down to 1998.

If I am really lucky, uninstalling the game will remove the offending code but that is one of the reasons I abhor games with DRM. Uninstalling them often removes the game but not the DRM system.

So here I am with a game I paid for but never played and a damaged PC. It is Monday night at 1am….

I am weak. I admit it.

After telling myself I could wait a few months, I just bought parts to build a new PC... Oh well.

the case for change

First I decided I needed a new monitor to get a larger desktop. I have a great 24" monitor at work and that only confirmed my belief that I needed one at home.

Then I rationalized that if my system was slow now, it would crawl at 1080p.

Then I tried to play Fallout 3. Bethesda's previous game, Oblivion, was the reason I did my last CPU update so it makes sense that their new game broke the camel's back. I have said many times that normal users (web and email and Word) havent needed a faster PC for the past few years but gamers arent normal users. The only reason to buy new a Windows computer is to play games.

Unfortunately my motherboard and memory were at the end of their lifecycle so I couldnt just get a new CPU. I had to do a total rebuild. This has been on my mind for about a month and I have done a lot of research, which kept it on my mind.

Until tonight when I pushed the button and sent in my order to Newegg. So much for my willpower in the face of wants versus needs.

low low prices

Although I agonized about spending any money at all, I am amazed at how low hardware prices are. I am getting a much faster system then the one I am replacing AND it is costing me almost 1/2 as much.

2GB of Memory - faster and 1/4 the price
New video card - 2x as fast and 25% less

You can build a screaming PC for $600 today and the only reason you would need to replace it is that games keep getting harder and harder to run. I think games are the only thing driving system demand these days.

The downside of cheap new PC's is that old PC's are almost worthless. I paid $1200 for my current gaming PC. Now I will be lucky to get $250 for it. Lucky if I can sell it at all. Computers have become a total commodity that few people understand. Low prices for a new but cheapo PC are going to be more popular than a used PC with top quality parts.

Windows computers are like throwing your money away so I guess it is good that the amount you have to throw away keeps shrinking.

big changes - intel inside

This new system is a big change for me. It will be my first Intel system and my first Windows Vista DX10 system.

I feel pretty guilty about leaving AMD to buy an Intel system. I have never had an Intel PC. Ever since my first PC in the late 1990's, I have supported the competition. It is important to have competition and AMD was usually cheaper, faster, and friendlier to home PC makers like myself.

But I did a lot of research on Intel's stuff for my mac and I just didnt want to do it all over again to learn about AMD's offerings. Especially since I only wanted a dual-core CPU and the AMD systems are slower. Moreover, AMD's architecture seems more complicated for overclocking -- something I want to do a little, not a lot.

Sorry AMD. It is sad to let you go. I really hope you stay in business.

big changes - vista to kick the floppy habit

At my new job, I have been using Vista. Its not bad for the office and I found myself wondering why it has such a terrible reputation. I am curious about DX10 and want to see it in games and I have heard that Vista improved the audio support for games as well.

But the REAL reason I want to try Vista is the floppy drive. I HATE floppy drives. Apple computers havent had a floppy drive in a decade but every time I have to install Windows XP, I find myself searching for floppy disks. Even though you can still buy XP in the store, it has the same 1990's installer that I have complained about before. XP doesnt understand SATA drives so if you want to install XP with a modern PC, you need that floppy disk with the right SATA drivers for your hardware. Blow me.

I almost skipped Vista completely, sticking with XP and its lame installer for years. But as fate would have it, now that Windows 7 is in beta, I am ready to try Vista. If Vista installs without asking me for a floppy drive, I will consider the change well worth it.

So wish me luck. I did the research and I ordered the parts but that is the easy step. Now comes assembly, configuration, and moving software. I will be updating our HTPC at the same and moving parts here and yon. It promises to be a frustrating time but I cannot wait to play Fallout3 in all is dismal glory.

"Sid Meier's Civilization IV: Colonization"

I am a huge fan of Civilization. I buy every "Sid Meier's Civilization IV" expansion and every few months I blow hours and hours on a game of Civ.

This is the first time I find myself not recommending a Civ 4 game. Colonization is a big disappointment; one I recommend you skip.

I love expanding into new continents and creating my own empire. So I thought I would love this game since that is all it is. However it is not a "create your own reality" game so much as it locks you to history. You have to play one of four nations and you have to finish by 1776 because that is what happened in reality. The turn limit in particular bothered me.

Games are a race and I still dont understand how to win. It is easy to make money but defeating the King not so much.

This game is largely an economic simulator and more than any other game, I kept feeling that the only way to win is to plug my cities into Excel and run some linear analysis. It felt more like work than fun.

The best part about this game is that you can get it on Steam. The worst part about this game is that I cant get my money back.

For a similar game that is totally hard to win, I recommend "1701 A.D.". At least that one is fun even when you lose. For a pure economic simulator that is fun, I recommend "Sid Meier's Railroads!"

"Company of Heroes: Gold Edition"

Good news!! Germany is defeated. The Falaise Pocket is closed. The war in Europe is over!

I wrote good things about "Company of Heroes" when I bought it but ended up taking a 6 to 9 month break. That is not uncommon for me as my gaming moods change but recently, I started playing CoH again.

And I was hooked again.

Relic is just about the only company that makes RTS games I like although I do think I cheat. I have to pause the game constantly and I reload a lot. Needless to say, I havent tried multiplayer yet which is sure to be different although I have heard that people love it.

Two signs of a great game are that you enjoy it and it never ends. When I first reviewed the game I had only played about 1/3 of it although I thought I was almost finished. Picking it up again, it took me weeks to finally finish it. Weeks of pleasure and about one mission a night.

When I finished, I immediately wanted to purchase the expansion pack and play more. Now that the game has been out for a while, the gold edition includes the original game and the expansion for just $30. For RTS goodness, that is about as good as it gets. The only thing that makes it better is that you can get it on Steam and not worry about the CD or DRM.

Christmas is just around the corner which means that it is video game season. Ive tried to stop buying new games until I finish or sell my old ones so I thought I would post an update on what Im playing (and what is sitting around).

It is not unusual for me to take a break from a game I like for a few months only to return to it later and finish it. But this year I find myself with a number of games that just arent that compelling to me. We moved over a month ago and that disrupted my gaming time but even so, I am thinking more about selling these games than actually finishing them.

DDO

"Dungeons & Dragons Online: StormReach"

After a year long break, I started playing this MMO again with 3 friends. I am having a blast!! I cant say enough good things about this game, which is unlike any other MMO out there. The company is positioning the game as the closest thing to the old pen&paper games and there is a lot of truth to that.

We play twice a week for a few hours and knock out a few missions. The game is totally mission based and you cant do much without a party. It has a great balance of pacing and gameplay. The graphics are good but also run on lend end machines like laptops.

The game seems to have a strong community even if it is small enough to never get mentioned by the larger gaming press. The developer, Turbine, treats customers well with 8 free expansions since the game launch.

This game is only $10 now. Amazing deal!

MGS4 (PS3)

"Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots"

I havent played this game since my preview. I popped it in last night and realized Im just not that interested in playing anymore.

This is one of those games where they spent a TON of money to produce a polished product that is lifeless. It has beautiful graphics, amazing cut scenes, the most complicated story ever, tons and tons of guns and yet it just is not compelling. Head shot, knife kill, sneak a bit, headshot... Bo-ring.

GTA4 (PS3)

Like MGS, "Grand Theft Auto IV" is a high production quality game that just isn't that fun.

I got a girlfriend, went on a bunch of dates, out to eat, for drinks, to play darts, bowling. I stole cars and raced around town. I killed a few folks, bought new clothes. I did some drug deals and murdered some drug dealers. I went to a strip club and did favors for a Russian mafiaso. I raced a motorcycle and murdered a motorcycle gang. I even surfed the internet and did some online dating.

I played about two dozen missions before putting this game aside and forgetting about it. Maybe I will get into it again if I pop it in but Im just not that motivated to try.

Rockband (PS3)

"Playstation 3 Rock Band Special Edition" is a big hit at my office and I was psyched for this game last Christmas but the year has not been kind. I am not playing it and most of the time it has sat in the box.

The problem for me is that I used to actually play music and I cant get over that fact. These games are karaoke for music but they are a level lower than karaoke. At least in karaoke, you actually sing. In these games, you just click buttons to hear someone else play music. All I think about is that I ought to get out my guitar and start practicing again.

I like the idea of Rockband more than I like the reality of Rockband so this will get sold.

Bioshock (PC)

"BioShock"

I had to stop playing this game because it was too disturbing. The characters in the game are so realistically crazy, I just started to get depressed when I played it. I fully intend to return to the game and finish it because the story is great but with current events what they are, I find myself looking for happier titles first.

Even so, if you are looking for a great game I would recommend this one. The PC version is only $20!! Wow.

HL2: Episode 2 (PC)

Half Life 2: Episode 2 (found in "The Orange Box") is another great title that I set aside. I plan to finish it eventually.

Super Stardust HD, Eden (PS3 PSN)

One of the reasons I let up on PC games was that I was playing more PS3 games. After we moved, I bought several download games from PSN (playstation network). Two of them hooked me immediately and I played them for hours. Definately got my money's worth.

LocoRoco, Everyday Shooter (PS3 PSN)

The other two games just didn't grab me. I can respect Everyday Shooter but Stardust was more fun. LocoRoco was just weird. Much like Katamari Damarcy, it didnt' grab me.

Although I am not fond of flash websites and I have heard that technically it is not a great product, flash is everywhere. Particularly in interactive and media applications like streaming video.

Today I heard that the latest PS3 2.50 patch added flash support. Very exciting. I already had that patch and had no idea.

I have never used the PS3 web browser because it sucks. However adding the ability to watch streaming video on hulu.com and abc.com is AWESOME. One less task I need my HTPC for. One more reason to buy a PS3.

As soon as I heard about this, I tried out hulu,com and an episode of 30 Rock. It was not perfect but it did work.

Now Sony needs to clean up the browser experience.

It should be easy to close windows. (I wasnt able to find any way to close them)

It should be easier to type in URLs. Sony should copy the iPhone keypad scheme at the least.

If possible, it should help you deal with popup windows. Right now, it asks you if you "want to run the script". Since you dont know what the script is, you get a lot of popop windows, only some of which work and then you cant close them.

So kudos for flash but the browser still has a ways to go.

Later I accidentally discovered another cool PS3 feature. I put in a CD and turned on the visualizer only to be stunned by the amazing videos of planet earth from space. I was expecting a light-show like iTunes but instead I got to see amazing photo-realistic fly-overs, sunrises, and eclipses. Wow.

Last year it seemed like DRM for music was on the way out. Sony created a huge mess when Sony music CD's installed rootkit on people's machines without telling people. Steve Jobs wrote is famous DRM letter and Amazon started to sell DRM-free music.

"Fallout 3" poisoned by DRM

While DRM has been losing power in music it has been gaining power in game software.

There are a ton of great new games coming out this quarter but Ive been more focused on a different issue: DRM. The industry has a bee in its bonnet about software piracy and they are punishing customers with dangerous DRM software.

I was surprised but happy to see users on Amazon give EA's Spore a 1-star rating for choosing offensive DRM software. The same thing is happening now with Bethesda's Fallout3. Both are games I would love to play but refuse to buy because of their DRM schemes. (I am particularly disappointed with Bethesda because I loved Oblivion and it did not use SecuROM. It only made me keep the DVD installed.)

To make matters worse, companies and game reviews (hello 1Up), are saying that anyone like myself who dislikes the current DRM schemes is a pirate. I just dont understand companies that insult their customers and this line of insult is getting more and more blatant.

A pirate? Well screw you EA. Any company that insults its customers doesnt understand the first thing about customer satisfaction -- and should not be supported by consumers. If you continue to follow the RIAA path, you will only find that the more you abuse customers, the more motivated they will become TO steal your software.

I am not a pirate and I am more than a little pissed off about being called one. PC's are hard enough to keep running. The last thing I want is to have a game hork my PC... Again.

It happened to me a few years ago when DRM software decided my CD/R drive and software was for piracy and it stopped various things from working. To fix my PC, I had to reinstall my OS. After a few trips to websites around the world to figure out what had happened in the first place.

I dont mind DRM.

I do mind invisible software you cannot see or uninstall.

I do mind software that is not supported by the company that made me install it.
I do mind software that conflicts with unrelated programs and can even ruin your PC.

DRM per se is not the problem. The problem is DRM schemes like secuROM and StarForce.

As I have said before, companies should use a system like Steam and iTunes. Force users to register their software online to use it. Online systems dont hork your PC nor do they affect other programs on your PC.

Quit calling users pirates and move to a DRM system that works without compromising your customer's computers.

Like making movies, making a video game is a dream job for millions of people. I tried myself (unsuccessfully) to get into the industry but as I have gotten older (and hopefully wiser), I have come to realize that a job is a job.

Making a game may be your "dream" but the job is still plain old hard work and there are often a lot of unsavory politics involved. Especially with big companies.

This post and the comments on Gamasutra is a great read. An example:

A Designer who had originally built only 1 mission on Halo was promoted by then manager John Batter, who had a hard on for Hollywoodesque big talent. John poured milliions into James Bond over Medal of Honor. This mean that less experienced personal got bigger salaries than the MOH teams. The designer "Dan Orzlak" experience on 1 mission in Halo was quickly used to calm DANJAQ's butterflies. He was promoted to Design Director. Although very personable, he only understood Halo's systems superficially. Why? Beause he was never a system's designer. Boom, fast forward to the next project.

The Producer pretty boy from marketing (insert his name) and Dan came up with a game called "vertical" that never saw the light of day. Neil young then moved them to Tiberium. While Neil squashed the old guard and created his own kingdom, FEAR fell upon all those working on Tiberuim. In other words no one wanted to make a design decision.

5 years later, Dan and team had changed the weapons 5 times. Hired a myriad of clown hack jr designers, all who wanted to be the "AI designer!" Dan was let go, and in came Tim Coolidge, who left after 2 weeks.

It seems like a slam dunk - take Command&Conquer, one of the biggest RTS franchises in game history, and create a first-person shooter out of it. The backstory is already written and the universe is familiar to customers. All you have to do is write some missions, build some levels, and pick an engine...

Or not.

Making video games may be a dream job but not all video-game jobs are a dream. Sadly.

Crap.

"Sid Meier's Civilization IV: Colonization"

Im already way behind on my current set of games (GTA4, MGS4, BioShock), playing an MMORPG again (DDO), there is a wave of new games coming (LBP, Fallout3 , Stalker2) and I just saw that there is a new Civ4 expansion – Civilization IV: Colonization – coming out in a week.

I had no idea another Civ4 expansion was near. Colonization is my favorite aspect of the game and one that it never gets right so Im pretty excited about this one.

As a lifelong civ addict, it looks like I will soon be dropping everything to play more civ… (assuming it is launched on Steam at the same time as retail.)

E3 had a lot of hype about a new downloadable game for the PS3 called Eden. Curious, I downloaded the demo and have been playing the game every day since.

Downloadable games have been hyped for a few years now but its been a slow launch. Xbox Live (XBLA) had the first good service but it is limited by size restrictions and the user interface. Steam is a fantastic service on the PC but it focuses mainly on full retail games. The Sony Playstation Network (PSN) is the latest to join the party. (Not holding my breath for Nintendo.)

Better late than never, it looks like PSN has finally arrived. If I can ever get my account working (another issue), there is a growing list of these $10 games I want to try.

• flOw
• Warhawk
• SuperStardust
• Everyday Shooter
• SuperPuzzleFighter
• LocoRoco
• Eden
• Flower

XBLA still has the most content overall and the most board games in particular (as in PSN has none), but all the hot new original content seems to be coming on PSN.

Looking ahead into 2009, it looks like there will be a resurgence of smaller, arcade-type games from indie developers. Expect a real conflict between indie-games (which are cheaper to make), AAA-titles (which can only come from major studios) and retailers.

Steam has proven that you can sell downloadable AAA titles with a system that also encorporates DRM and prevents piracy. Downloadable games also prevent reselling used games and puts the hurt on retailers.

Establishing a strong download experience for indie and arcade games is the first step to establishing a full-blown AAA download system. Managing accounts and payments are still a pain with PSN but that can only get better over time.

Since I did not play console games until recently, there are a lot of major game franchises that I know nothing about. For instance, Metal Gear. Metal Gear Sold 4 has just come out on the PS3 and it is my first exposure to the brand. I have heard praises about this franchise forever on the 1up Show, I have wondered about all the bizarre names, and I was very curious to try the game for myself.

"Metal Gear Solid 4" by Konami

Here is my initial impression of MGS4 after just a few days with the new game and my new HDTV.

A metal gear appears to be a robot.
Snake is the main character. Solid is a phrase from Undercover Brother - it also appears to be Snake's first name. Or maybe not. Snake looks really old but apparently he is not; he has some kind genetic issue or maybe it is nanomachines. He also has a voice so gravely it sounds like Jack Palance aka Curly.
Every character in the game has a crazy name like Liquid, Ocelot, Octogon, The Colonel, etc.

After hearing all the hype for so long, I was expecting a lot from MGS4. So far it has been a good game with impressive graphics but it has not overly impressed me.

I am not sure I have ever played a game like MGS4 except for all the other games like MGS4.

• The story of this game is a combination of Syndicate Wars and the Bush/Cheney White House.
• Snake himself is Sam Fisher's twin brother from Tom Clancy's Splinter Cell games. Complete with night vision, a sneaky/climby suit, and a silenced pistol.
• One thing that I did think was unique about MSG4 was the proportion of cut-scenes to action until I remembered Mark Hammil and Wing Commander.

Maybe the timelines actually show that MGS invented all these techniques but my impression is that the game is more evolution than revolution.

Even so, the game has a lot of polish and it looks great. Really great. In fact, this game looks more like a movie, which is good because the game practically IS a movie. The proportion of cut-scenes to play-content is huge. It does not bother me so far because i am new to this game world but it is unusual.

What does bother me a bit is the gameplay. I kept hearing this is a stealth game and the "right" way, the MGS way, to play the game is NOT to kill anyone. Just sneak, sneak, sneak...

Well if this is a stealth game, why are there so many weapons? Tons of them. Moreover, why do you make money from selling weapons? The game pretty much tells you to kill guys and take their guns to make money. That seems incongruous.

And right at the beginning there are some incongruous action parts. Locations where you can skill guys (to get their guns) like fish in a barrel. They dont see you and but they never stop coming either. Infinite pointless kills because when you climb out of the hiding spot, you get a cut-scene and all the guns they dropped are gone. Hmmm.

Although you can sneak around forever, the game forces you to keep up the pace by giving your gadgets batteries. If you move too slow, you batteries run out and you lose your cool night-vision and computer assist. Although this is clever, I must be pretty slow because my batteries are often dead and the game is less fun without your gear.

Sadly MGS4 follows the Japanese game tradition of wonky interfaces. It requires way to many clicks, menus and generally non-intuitive navigation. To see the mission briefing you have to quit the game? But then you have to load the save game you were playing to get the briefing? Oddness.

And the true joy of all console games is present here as well: save game madness. You can only save at certain points but the game does not autosave. If you die, it takes you back to the last checkpoint but if you turn off your machine and go to bed (like I did), you find that you can only load a game that you specifically saved. There is no "Continue" option when you restart the game. So there are checkpints but you actually have to use the menus to save by hand. This behavior is retarded.

I started the game and wandered through the first intro level, watched a huge cut scenes, started the second level and then read the manual. The manual says to start with the training simulator which is kind of cool. The manual also says to to watch the mission briefing which tipped me off that there actually was a separate briefing...

The game has extremely long cut-scene intros for each level. But it also has an option from the main menu for a "Mission Breifing". I assumed the briefing was a replay of what I had seen but I was wrong. The briefing is another LONG and completely different exposition of backstory. I now understand why the game barely fit on a BlueRay disc - it must have hours and hours of movie content.

Based on the comments, it sounds like the MGS fanboys enjoy the game more than newbies like myself. They see a continuation of a long story with a lot of nostalgic memories. I am meeting totally new characters with pretty silly dialog and a lot of cut-scenes.

But I am enjoying the game and it has pretty much stopped me from playing GTA4. If Im not playing Team Fortress 2, I am playing MGS4.

Between March and May of 2008, I played and finished Mass Effect.

"Mass Effect" by Microsoft

Given all of the hype that preceded the game, it was a bit of a let down. (One of the reasons I dislike all the pre-launch hype in the video game industry.) But I did finish the game so that says something.

If you are dying for a sci-fi themed RPG, Mass Effect is worth it. If you are looking for the best RPG for your money, you would be better with Oblivion.

While I liked the game enough to finish it (after a break), most of my notes are actually complaints...

Overall

The graphics are both good and bad. They are certainly not up to the level of PC graphics and Oblivion but they are good. The characters are well designed and interesting. The space ships and cut-scenes and environments are also good.

My only complaints with the graphics are performance-related. There is a really annoying texture "pop" that never stops -- a character will load and then the textures will "pop" in. There are also noticeable artifacts in shading and an odd blue line that appears fairly regularly accross part of the screen. Not a deal killer but definitely a distraction.

In terms of gameplay, this game has action but it is not an action game or an FPS. Much of my time was walking around listening to the people talk, especially the first part of the game.

The pacing is not a necessarily a bad thing. The voiceovers are top notch and the story/backstory is quite interesting. On the other hand, the quests are a not that interesting and some of the collection missions are just plain terrible. In fact, the entire "visit random worlds for random encounters" aspect of the game is repetitive and lousy.

Overall the game reminds me a lot of KOTOR - a game I played but never finished because it bored me so much. The art direction is similar to that game as are many of the character models. Several times I felt that Mass Effect was just KOTOR in 3D.

The 3D is well done. Having listened to the reviews I knew this game was not Halo. As an RPG played in a 3D world, it works quite well. I never felt bad that pulling the trigger meant "throwing a dice" to determine a hit. The combat itself was fun.

Complaints

In addition to the graphic pop'ing, another detraction from the game is the strong similarities to other games. Did I see that In Halo? Did I see that in Gears Of War? If you have played those games, the apparent re-use of assets becomes distracting. This is especially true for the voices like Captain Anderson, and some of the commercials that sound right out of Crackdown. (You are forced to listen to the commercials when you are forced to spend time in the elevators.)

I got lost a lot. The environment is not nearly as believable as Oblivion and the in-game map is not helpful. Perhaps it is harder to make a modern world believable. In the main city, there are NPC people around but most of them are just mannequins. If you dig just a little bit you find that the whole game has a thin veneer over a limited world.

Another niggle is the equipment screens. I dont really understand them and how they relate to the quickload inventory during combat. I never really know what my team is using so changing gear is a major time sink. (I heard the PC version of the game revamped this.) This is a big problem with an RPG where gear is a major aspect of the "fun".

The lockpick minigame is terrible. The entire first missiion i was unable to open a lock or understand what i did wrong. (Basically what I did wrong was be old - the mini-game is about lightning-quick button-pressing reflexes.) Eventually I got the hang of it and then it got really easy and boring.

You have a squad of teammates throughout the game but the screen for choosing a squad is inexplicable. You meet a character for the first time and *ding* this screen appears out of nowhere with no explanation. You are only allowed to change characters in certain fixed spots and then you are stuck with them until you get to another spot. The whole thing is quite artificial and dissatisfying.

One of the main things advertised about the game was its "revolutionary" dialog system. Well dont get your hopes up. While the system is ok it has a major flaw in that it does not tell you dialog you have already done. As the dialog trees get more complex and you maybe forget what you said to different people, not being able to see your dialog history (like colored hyperlinks in your browser) gets annoying fast.

As I mentioned, the planet exploration missions are silly. point here, click here, click A, go back and repeat. Do I really want to find minerals? Do I really want to read these descriptions of planets? And if you are really unlucky, you will actually have to land and drive the stupid car around looking for probes and more minerals. I guess this could be fun to someone but my impression was that only the most anal-retentive achievement whore would do it for very long.

Which leads to one of the worst parts of the game- the silly vehicle. If God had wanted us to drive cars with joysticks, he would not have created the steering wheel. The vehicle missions are absolutetly terrible - and you do them a lot. *blech*

With all that said, the most disappointing aspect of the game was a plot decision.

The game attempts to get you more involved by forcing you to make decisions (and presumably branching the story). At one point, I was given the choice: save the person I like or save a person I dont like along with his whole team of innocents. Well I picked the innocents and totally regretted it. The person I liked died and the game never mentioned the team I was trying to save... all I got for the sacrifice was the irritating guy I disliked. Im still pissed about losing my fav character and it did not get me more involved in the game.

I played the entire game through basically as Paragon (good guy). I've heard that it is hard to play the game through as Rebel (bad guy). It's unlikely I will play it again to find out for myself.

I decided to check out GTA4 on the PS3 and have just finished playing it for about a week. As I mentioned before, I am new to GTA. This is the second game I have purchased but the first one I have tried to play.

My verdict so far? It is nowhere near as fun as Oblivion but I keep playing it so that must mean something.

the good

I give them props for building a modern virtual world. Modern worlds are harder to make because there is so much detail we expect and they did a great job. Some have said that they have raised the bar.

The buildings look good, the city has lots of details and plenty of virtual people walking around and doing stuff. The dialog is terrific with a large variety. The TV shows are good ("Republicans In Space!!") and the talk-radio is hilarious. There is a lot of good humor here and the voice-acting is top-notch. Brucie and Manny are fantastic.

the frustrating

The problem with the game is that there is a lot of frustration too. The game was easy to start but it didnt take long before I was swearing and throwing my controller around the room.

Take the first combat mission for instance. Instead of kicking the guy, I would jump past him and turn. I could never land a punch and kept ending up in the hospital.

Turns out I missed a critical control - the left trigger. You have to hold the left trigger to target someone. Once I figured out the missing control, combat was pretty straight forward and reasonably fun. But my experience illustrates that there are a LOT of controls in this game. It takes several hours to learn how to interact properly.

But I never got any guns or any cool missions. I kept going on dates with Michelle and Roman but nothing happened in the story. Is this Grand Theft Auto or 50 First Dates? I dont know if I was bugged or just missed a mission trigger but I never got any more missions and I restarted the game.

My second time through was much better. I was already familiar with some of the controls and this time I found the drug-dealer missions and was able to continue with the story.

Unfortunately, the frustration keeps popping up, mainly in the driving missions. The next time I tried to break the controller was a motorcycle chase. Then again in a car race.

The driving is frustrating enough but the save-game system only makes it worse. I just dont understand the craptastic design philosophy for console save games. Even through there is an autosave system, no matter where you were when you turned off the system, you restart in your apartment. The only place to save a game? In your apartment. You apartment isnt close to anything and saving the game advances the time 7 hours.

If you fail missions, there is a retry option but you have to retry the ENTIRE mission, including getting there. For the race mission that means every time I fail the race, I have to start all over again including a LONG drive and diatribe from Brucie (which makes it seem even longer after hearing it 5 times) before starting the race again... the race wouldn't have been as frustrating if the restart just let me restart the race.

Another frustration is that my cars keep disappearing. I drive up to a mission, start it, see the cut-scene, and then the first step of the mission is "get a car" but my car is gone. Or I retry a mission and this time my car is gone. This behavior is minorly annoying most times but majorly annoying when you actually had a car you wanted to keep. One goes through a LOT of cars in this game.

The subway system seems cool but it is not marked on the map so I never use it. The game includes a paper map but that isn't much good for me since I play in the dark. Anything that makes travel faster would be appreciated so this seems like a missed opportunity.

Another problem is that you cannot leave notes on the map. This city is huge! I will do a mission and drive by a cool neighborhood or a jump - something I want to come back to. But without a mark on my map, I will never find it again or even think to look for it again. The game already has an in-game map - I would have enjoyed the game more if the map was more interactive.

While the city looks good, a lot of dumb stuff happens. Perhaps they are hitting an uncanny valley situation. Traffic often comes to a stop for no reason. Cars run over pedestrians. Once I heard a huge noise and turned around to see a gas station behind me exploded as two cars inside crashed and burned.. a minute later the cars were fine and drove off. Or you look down a street that is totally empty, turn your head and suddenly a car drives by. Lots of quirky little details that damage the immersive feeling.

the flaw

GTA is fun and they clearly spent a lot of time adding details to the world. The newspapers, the radio news that reports ingame events, the character dialogs, the phony websites and TV shows.

But this is no Oblivion. For me at least, role playing in a real city just isn't that much fun. In particular, random carjackings and killing innocent bystanders just isnt that fun after the first day. I had more relaxing fun riding my horse through the woods and picking flowers than I do making drug deliveries or running people over. The last thing I want to do after a long day at work is come home and get on their fake internet to do fake online dating...

Although there are minor complaints and frustrations, the main problem with the game is the narrative. You want to like Nico. He has had a hard life and comes to America for a second chance. You want to give him that chance and see him redeem himself. Instead you are forced to do all kinds of random violence to people you dont even know. Killing random drug dealers is ok but killing complete strangers just because someone tells you to? Nico wouldn't do that. Killing police or witnesses? The game really hurts itself by drawing you in and then forcing you to do incongruous acts.

But perhaps that is what makes it GTA - pointless sex and violence designed to titillate and amuse the very people the game mocks. Less of a social satire and more of Idiocracy - the game.

Metal Gear Solid 4 just arrived and my new HDTV shows up on Wednesday. While I have enjoyed my GTA experience, I am curious if I will still be playing GTA in a week.

"Grand Theft Auto IV" by Rockstar Games

When there is a lot of buzz or hype about something, one naturally gets curious. Is there fire behind all that smoke? Such is the case with GTA4.

Years back, I played a previous version of GTA. It only took an hour or so to realize I hated it so I took the game back. (It is the only game I have ever taken back.) Weak graphics, boring open-world pixelated mahem. Hitting people with a 2x4 so I can steal their car and then run pedestrians over? It just wasn’t the game for me.

GTA4 has improved the graphics and is competing with Bethesda (of Oblivion and Fallout3 fame) to create the most advanced virtual world. That is interesting in and of itself but not terribly compelling. However there is also a lot of talk about "parody" and "satire of American culture". The 1up guys are talking about the compelling story and the depth of the social statement GTA makes about the immigrant experience and our culture. They even say that this GTA is less of a nihlistic shoot-em-up and more of a "chase game". And they talk about how you get drawn into the characters such that the randon violence seems jarring and out of place, even upsetting.

So it is looking like Rockstar is going to get another chance at my disposable income.

But the talk has me reflecting on a familiar topic: what is fun?

"Crackdown" was one of my all-time favorite games because I got to blow things up for good. I committed crimes to stop crime and it was fun for me. I always play super heros because I don’t want to hurt people. I don’t want to be the master criminal mind or be a virutal serial killer. Those things are not fun for me.

All games have a game mechanic and most games have a story but few games have both that appeal to me, especially the story. I play some games to escape into a fantasy world for a while but that fantasy world needs to be fun. "BioShock" is a terrific game with a well thought out story but the world is totally bleak and depressing. When I am trying to relax after a stressful day at work, Rapture is not the first fantasy destination on my list.

But given the prevalance of sadistic movies like Saw, clearly there are a lot of people who want pointless and arbitrary violence as entertainment. Different people define fun in different ways.

Is GTA4 going to be a piece of satircal high-art? The kind of thing Jonathon Swift would write if he were alive today? Is it The Colbert Report on a cartridge? I am not holding my breath. The series has always truck me as uniquely Russian -- able to find "humor" and entertainment in the kind of nihlism and violence that most people find abhorent in the real world. Is the series a morale comedy that points out the flaws in our culture or is it one of the many factors contributing to those flaws? I suspect the later more than the former but, hey, maybe its fun.

Now that 2008 has begun, I wanted to do a quick roundup of the best games in 2007.

Crackdown

"Crackdown" by Microsoft

What game was the most fun? When it comes to that elusive feeling of just plain fun, my favorite game of 2007 was Crackdown on the 360.

Crackdown is not the best game nor is it the game I played the most but whenever I played it, it brought a smile to my face. A rare thing.

This is the one game that really made me feel like a super-hero in a funtastic way. More than City of Heroes or any other super-hero game, this game was a blast for me. Climbing buildings and jumping were a particular blast. Kind of a Spider-Man thing (albeit a fun spider man not a lame Toby Whatever spider-man).

The devs have created this city world that you basically play in. Driving cars, shooting and blowing things up, jumping and climbing and exploring.

I also liked the good-guy theme of the game, working with the police and stopping crime. This is in contrast to the main game of this type, Grand Theft Auto.

I have not quite finished the game yet (close) but even after taking a long breaks of many months, I hook up my 360, pop in the game, and get immediately drawn back into the fun, collecting orbs, jumping a mile, blowing up cars....

The worst part about Crackdown is that it sounds like there will not be a sequel. This was such a special game for me, I hope someone is able to develop a follow up. Perhaps it will be Prototype?

If you buy a game for the 360, buy this one.

Oblivion

"The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Game of the Year Edition" by Take 2

I cannot believe it. I checked my blog to find that I started this game in 2006! A year and a half later, I am still not finished with the game and I am still enjoying the heck out of it.

Oblivion on the PC is hands down my favorite RPG -- ever. (And this is from a guy who thought the previous Bethesda games were stupid.) It is more immersive than an MMO, with a great story, fun writing, engrossing quests, terrific graphics, and fun combat. If you had told me I would spend over 150 hours playing a game that made me pick flowers to make potions, I would have laughed in your face. But that's just what happened.

I played this game for the first half of the year, then set it aside for several months, only to pick it up again in December to finish it. Even a year after release, this game looks great and is a blast to play. Having played the game for so long now, I have so many memories in the game.

At this point, my character is strong enough to just blast through the story. I expect to be finished soon and I am already wondering what game will take its place.

If you buy one game ever, this should be it.

Civilization 4: Beyond the Sword

"Sid Meiers Civilization IV Beyond the Sword" by 2K Games

Civ4 was a dramatic redo of the Civilization franchise. In 2007, the Beyond the Sword expansion came out. BtS added some great new game play features and continued to help the game mature. Every few months I pop this game in and play a few games. Civ4 is one of the best games of the year, every year.

I am undecided about espionage and I have yet to figure out how to start a corporation. But I really do enjoy the random events that have been added. They add a nice touch of randomness and polish to a game we have all played for years, if not decades.

If you like Civ, buy it with this expansion on Steam. You wont be sorry that you did.

Ratchet & Clank: Tools of Destruction

"Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction" by Sony Computer Entertainment

How many times have I sat down to play this game for 30 minutes only to realize 3 hours have passed and its 1am on a work-night?

R&C is a kids game but it has addictive game play and a lot of entertaining story to it. The graphics are so good, the story bits are like watching a Pixar movie with loveable and laughable characters.

The only blemish on this game is the really lousy space-ship sequences. Unlike the rest of the game, I have no idea what to do during these space mini-games and I hate it. Luckily I have never been stuck on them for too long and there are mercifully few of them.

If you have a PS3, you should own this game.

Rock Band

"Rock Band Special Edition" by MTV Games

I bought myself Rock Band for Christmas as something the whole family could enjoy. It was a hit. Having my parents (people that dont "get" games), mock and jeer at our performance over the holidays was also a treat.

This is a music/rhythm game that is a big hit with non-gamers. The price tag is steep but I got a kick out of the gigantic box that got delivered to my door by Amazon.

Although watching Gavin and Aaron do Karoake Revolution wasnt enough to give me the sing-along-bug, I have been having a blast with this game, playing the drums, guitar and singing. It is a very different experience from regular video games. My 2-year old daughter is already trying to play the drums after watching me play only a few times.

The one weak aspect of the game is the vocals. Unlike guitar and drums, you really do sing; you make your own music. It is hard to mesh this into a game where you also hear the real singer and you are judged by how well you sing like them. The microphone seems a bit cheap and I still dont really understand how the game scores singing.

While the vocals are odd, playing the drums is a laugh riot. I was so bad and laughed so hard when trying to play the drums at first, I got my money's worth right there. Supposedly the drums are modeled after real drums although I know so little about drums I cannot confirm that.

The guitar is definitely similar to a real electric guitar but you are playing rhythm not actual notes. As someone who has played a lot of guitar, this can be a bit distracting but it is still fun.

Day of Defeat

"Day of Defeat: Source" by Electronic Arts

For multi-player mayhem, my game of choice in 2007 is the same as 2006: Day of Defeat.

I expect TF2 to take some time away in 2008 but it will be hard to top DoD for me.

Company of Heroes

"Company of Heroes DVD-Rom" by THQ