Rootkits Keep Falling On My Head

Oh hell, not again. EA in it's latest bout of brilliance (read: complete incompetence) has decided to institute the latest form of SecuRom torture on it's legitimate customers buying Spore and Mass Effect. For those of you that don't know what I'm talking about Sony invented this lovely little program they call DRM and most PC users with two braincells to rub up against each other call a root kit. Yes this program installs itself, refuses to run the game if it finds legitimate programs like Nero, MICROSOFT'S Process Explorer, and Disc juggler, and to top it all off, proves irremovable unless you reformat your system. If that's not a root kit than you don't know what is. The game has to be online every ten days for reactivation, if you aren't online to bad, the game will lock you out. And it's also been reported that the activation limit is back, this time it's down to three. I hope before PC gaming completely croaks some game company has the balls to admit it's mistakes, and understand that the way to create loyal customers is NOT to treat them like criminals.

Above: A Tech Support Cat tries to pull SecuRom off an Infected PC

I have, in fact, learned my lesson with Bioshock and I will NOT buy any game that features SecuRom, that goes for everyone. I don't care if your game is the best damn game since Duke Nukem 3d, put a root kit on, and I ain't buying.

UPDATE: Bioware/EA has decided to remove the 10 day re authentication but they have still not committed to an entirely non-SecRom Disc. Basically they are now back to exactly what Bioshock had for it's DRM. And that just isn't good enough.

"Pirates are not lost sales... they were never sales to begin with." --michaelca Via the Bioware forums

A Message From GTAIV...

Don't drink and drive. Duh. The Parent Television Council (a.k.a. the people so morally stuck up their own ass that they want to dumb down television to the point that Elmo seems like Shakespeare) seem to believe that GTAIV advocates and "gives points for drunk driving." In reality the game WILL let you drive drunk HOWEVER there are severe consequences for doing so. I tried it one time just for the hell of it, your steering sucks, your vision is blurred and the cops are on your ass faster than half price day at Dunkin' Donuts. Its NOT a good idea to drive drunk in GTAIV just like it's NEVER a good idea to drive drunk in real life.

And parents get a grip. YOU are the ones who control what your child sees, hears, and does. That's why it's called parenting. Sit down with your kids play some video games with them. And when a clerk WARNS YOU THAT A GAME IS VIOLENT and you don't like that DON'T BUY IT. For f***'s sake don't buy a copy of GTA: Vice City for little 8 year old Jimmy only to come in the next day screaming that this game is so violent and you can have sex with prostitutes when I F***ING WARNED YOU TO BEGIN WITH. I was so inspired by this incident I created a T-Shirt in it's honor. Something I believe anyone who works selling video games for a living thinks every time something like this happens. That shirt can be found here.

Moving along to the game itself. The game is good, but hold your horses, it really doesn't deserve all those 10/10 scores it's getting. I remember back when review sites didn't worry about getting paid for game advertising so much. Otherwise known as back when they had balls, and they had balls enough to call a game's sequel out when it was just more of the same and lacking innovation. Don't get me wrong, more of the same isn't bad in the case of GTAIV, but its getting a little bland and a bit repetitive.

All my complaints from GTA San Andreas (mostly due to the fact that I hate micromanagement, "CJ feed your damn self or starve, I don't care about you.") seem to have cleared up but they took out a few features I actually LIKED from San An. For example, bikes are GONE, I actually enjoyed peddling around when I had the chance, it was faster than running and also a bit relaxing. Cliff jumping seems to be gone as well, and given that I would really love to jump Niko off the empire state building, only to be saved a few seconds before impact by a parachute, that hurts my feelings towards the game as well.

The graphics are superb, this is definitely the prettiest GTA we've ever seen, but that doesn't save the fact that by comparison to San Andreas the city feels really, really small. But I guess its really a trade off, either huge environment and shit graphics, or small environment and gobbstoppingly beautiful graphics.

Multiplayer is really the shinning force of this game as I find myself playing more of it than I do the single player game. Which the people that know me know that me getting addicted to multiplayer is completely unlikely. However I find myself actually wanting to pay *GASP* for a years subscription to Xbox Live just for this game *double gasp* and that's just not like me. But given that it's Rockstar's first real atempt at online, there are of course some drawbacks. After playing a complete round of Cop's and Crooks I find myself either dropped out into the "party area" or completely thrown back into the single player game. This is of course rather annoying.

If I honestly had to nail down a score for the game I'd give it a 9.5. Looking at the game itself it's more of the same GTA we all know and love with a few improvements and a bit of polish here and there. The improvements are welcome and this series is sure to live on, however there are still some minor and major setbacks that Rockstar will only be able to iron out with time. Here's hoping for another trip back to the 80s, oh how I love 80s music, I love it good.