Assassins Creed 2

[Ratman_tf]

But it isn't PC gaming killing itself, it's PC gaming development trying to something - anything - to reduce the rampant piracy of their games.

It's why PC gaming is eventually going to end up as the MMO- and casual-game platform (or any model that doesn't rely solely on players buying the game to start off with).

And yet consoles are slowly becoming more like PCs, with internet connectivity and hard drives. What's to stop piracy from just moving to consoles? (It's already happened with the PSP, apparently.)

[Tebonas]

The problem is that the pirates will have a cracked exe or dll that lets the game think it is phoning home without any actual internet connection while the paying customers are the ones stuck with ridiculous safety measures.

Once they become annoying enough people will find those patches. Once they have those resources discovered, a portion of them will say "Fuck it, why buy it in the first place" and be lost as customers.

They are not gaining customers, because every DRM can be broken if one is so inclined. At best they stay stable, at worst they are losing customers. And thats what is retarded about it.

[UnSub]

I've avoiding titles on DRM grounds as well. BioShock 2 and Assassin's Creed 2 will be Xbox 360 purchases.

The issues is that ignoring pirates has only seen PC game piracy continue to escalate. Not saying that Ubisoft's approach is good - it really isn't - but it's the way things are going.

FAKE EDIT: Because MS has Xbox Live on a choke chain; don't know about Sony but I'd suspect it is the same. If consoles do go to full, open access for the internet, then they will suffer the same fate.

There is console piracy. I've played on modded boxes, played pirated games, played fully refit Xboxes with heavily modified OSs that had HDs stuffed with games. But that involves physical changes to the box and isn't that convenient and then you need to have access to someone selling pirated games / box mods (which is easy / hard depending on where you live). Difference with the PC is that all you need to do is download and install something and you've just got an $80 game for free without leaving home.

REAL EDIT: Sorry for turning AssCred2 thread into a piracy thread, y'all.

[tgr]

And yet consoles are slowly becoming more like PCs, with internet connectivity and hard drives. What's to stop piracy from just moving to consoles? (It's already happened with the PSP, apparently.)

Apparently there's quite a lot of piracy going on for the various consoles as it is, it's just hidden by higher sales figures (so far). Prediction for the future: They'll kill off the PC as a primary gaming platform (done?), start complaining about piracy on the consoles, implement online activation there as well, kill off console as a viable platform.

(technically they've done the latter for me since they flat out refuse to allow KB/M or an equivalent controlling mechanism, but )

Edit: I'm no fan of "cloud computing" either, so fuck games for windows live titles right in their ears/eyes/whatever convenient orifice is available. Same goes with console games requiring I be online. Fuck that shit.

[Malakili]

I guess this isn't such an issue for me.  I rarely buy single player games anymore to begin with so being online is hardly a problem for me, as the vast majority of the time I am playing multiplayer anyway.  Torchlight is the last single player game I bought, and I bought that on Steam.  I did buy Bioshock and Assassin's Creed and refrained from both sequels, but that was more because I found that the original games weren't very good.

Things that annoy me is: 1) Having to put a disc in the dive 2) Having a limited of number of installs 3)Installing 3rd party software unrelated to the actual game.

Things that don't annoy me. 1) Requiring an internet connection 2) Signing into an account associated with the game.  Etc.

I think the issue here is losing progress if you lose your connection.  Ideally you should be able to play single player games without an internet connection, but I just know that for me personally, it is at absolute worst something I would have to be against in principle if I was against it at all.  In practice, I am always connected to the internet when I am playing any games, and like I said signing into an account is far less trouble to me than having to swap discs.

[AutomaticZen]

I'm not hating on it, it's their decision.  But I can't play Splinter Cell Conviction on PC as I'm on wireless and sometimes, that shit goes down.  So, SCC PC for me.  I guess I'll have to go with the 360 version, which sadly will only tell them 'EVERYBODY HATES PC!  CONSOLE ONLY ROCKS!'

Ah well.

[Tebonas]

And then your internet connection is down for technical reasons and you can't play your games until it is back up. Because there are SO many other things you can do with a computer without internet. 

[tgr]

Things that don't annoy me. 1) Requiring an internet connection 2) Signing into an account associated with the game.  Etc.

I think the issue here is losing progress if you lose your connection.  Ideally you should be able to play single player games without an internet connection, but I just know that for me personally, it is at absolute worst something I would have to be against in principle if I was against it at all.  In practice, I am always connected to the internet when I am playing any games, and like I said signing into an account is far less trouble to me than having to swap discs.

Or you're at, say, a LAN party which is having issues with its internet connection up until 1-2 hours after the tournament starts, which means you're not going to be able to join any of the teams that entire weekend. That's just dandy, and surely not more annoying than keeping the disc in the drive.

Out of all the things they've done lately to curb piracy, requiring the disc be in the drive is easily the least annoying mechanism so far. At least that means if I don't get to play a game, then I can only blame my own fat lazy ass. Not Joe ISP, or Joe Publisher.

[Murgos]

I bought more PC games than console games in the last year and would say I more fully enjoyed the games I played on the PC (Sword of the Stars, X3:TC, Dawn of Discovery, etc...).

That said, if a game was clearly developed for the console market (Assassin's Creed II, Mass Effect II) then you can be sure I played it on a console.  I've never been happy with console games on a PC so I don't bother.

[Xuri]

Was looking forward to playing this on my PC (half a year after all the bloody console gamers), but now it's just not going to happen. Not a chance. :/

[Azazel]

I wouldn't call it hyperbole, I've refused to buy Bioshock 1 due to activations, I've avoided spore due to copy protection (unfortunately I wasn't quick enough to stop a friend of mine from buying spore), I've avoided anno 1404 (and been vocal on the forums, to no effect), etc etc etc etc etc.

I never buy buy games on impulse anymore, I always wait until at least the copy protection situation is uncovered, and preferably also until real humans have played the game and made comments on how good (or bad) it plays.

I'm also not buying console games as a replacement for games I think will work much better on the PC, this includes FPSes. I'm also getting depressed at just how hard the consoles are working at fucking up the UI for FPSes.

Mass Effect was bought for the 360 just because it looked like it was never coming out on the PC, and I figured I'd give it a try to see just how bad the UI was. I've played worse (GRAW, anyone), but I was still annoyed by my inability to use keyboard/mouse. So fuck that.

Oh, I mean frothing frenzy material by hyperbole, and I do the exact same thing as you with copy protection. The only exception to impule buying is your $5 steamers, but then again when i do that I'm at my PC and google is only a browser tab shift away. I pre-order on occasion (BFBC, AVP) but there's always the out of cancelling it if it's shit (AVP again). I bought Bioshock only after Ubi loudly announced that they were dropping the DRM. Bioshock 2 might have had the same result for me, but with GFWL involved as well, it can suck a dick. The first one wasn't good enough to get me to complete it anyway, so I'll skip it on console. Spore and Sims 3 I'd have pirated if I could have cared enough to do so. But I didn't, and don't.

I probably would buy MW2 on the console to give it a runthrough, but only when it gets cheap and considering how much MW1 is still selling for, that may never occur. I'm happy to buy games on the console for multiplayer though, even if the PC is "better" in situations where my wife's PC won't run the thing anyway (L4D2, Borderlands). ME I actually own three copies of now. Retail disc, Steam without the DRM, and the 360 version with DLC included. I may even crack the shrinkwrap on one of them this year. I do agree with the UI fucking, though.

And yet consoles are slowly becoming more like PCs, with internet connectivity and hard drives. What's to stop piracy from just moving to consoles? (It's already happened with the PSP, apparently.)

There's huge amounts of piracy on console. A couple of years ago, every PS2 was chipped, and before that, so was every PS1. Cracked 360s are all over the place, and that apparently includes ones with alterable bioses (or some such) so you can toggle "pirate mode" on and off so you can still play online (will have to ask that one of my former students who modded his 360 if his still works online). Cracked Wiis are also commonplace. Not sure about PS3 - Blu-Ray might have been it's piracy saviour for the time being? PSP is a pirate heaven, and apparently nobody I know who owns a DS doesn't have an R4 card or the like...

The problem is that the pirates will have a cracked exe or dll that lets the game think it is phoning home without any actual internet connection while the paying customers are the ones stuck with ridiculous safety measures.
Once they become annoying enough people will find those patches. Once they have those resources discovered, a portion of them will say "Fuck it, why buy it in the first place" and be lost as customers.
They are not gaining customers, because every DRM can be broken if one is so inclined. At best they stay stable, at worst they are losing customers. And thats what is retarded about it.

This. Exactly, and perfectly put. I'd be doing this right now if I didn't have an enormous backlog of games and no time to play them in.

[Mosesandstick]

PS3 was supposedly only cracked a couple of months ago. Was big news.

Back in Asia one of the reasons why console's were popular was piracy. No hassle with playing lots of games.

[Paelos]

If my internet is dead, I'm probably not using my computer. So, this is a pretty big non-issue for me. Also my net's been down once in 6 months, and I have Comcast. That's what I get for living in the heart of the city, instead of in the shitty suburbs of Atlanta where the net dropped once a week.

[Malakili]

I bought more PC games than console games in the last year and would say I more fully enjoyed the games I played on the PC (Sword of the Stars, X3:TC, Dawn of Discovery, etc...).

That said, if a game was clearly developed for the console market (Assassin's Creed II, Mass Effect II) then you can be sure I played it on a console.  I've never been happy with console games on a PC so I don't bother.

I made that mistake once this year (with Borderlands), and I'll be making sure not to fall for that crap again.  In general though, I just don't play very many games that console players like anyway.  One of my friends recently moved towards the xbox, and he has been prodding me a little bit to get one, and I honestly can't think of a single reason I'd want one to be honest, when I sit down to play a game, I'm just never going to choose to play my hypothetical xbox instead of my PC.

[Paelos]

Console can't do strategy games or FPS right, so who cares? They can do some RPGs well, and they excel at action and sports.

[Azazel]

I made that mistake once this year (with Borderlands), and I'll be making sure not to fall for that crap again.  In general though, I just don't play very many games that console players like anyway.  One of my friends recently moved towards the xbox, and he has been prodding me a little bit to get one, and I honestly can't think of a single reason I'd want one to be honest, when I sit down to play a game, I'm just never going to choose to play my hypothetical xbox instead of my PC.

It depends very much on genre and what the game is developed for. 1st person, the PC is better by far, though console is passable if you have no other option for a specific game. 3rd-person interestingly works well on both.

It also depends on the comfort and social aspects. I prefer sitting on my nice chair at my desk (where I am now) but then again I like to play epic games on an epic-sized screen, and clearly multiplayer works very well with the lounge room atmosphere. (Though we also PC-LAN here as well - depends on the game.)

I tend to follow "best tool for the job = best format for the game" as much as I can though.

[stray]

Console can't do strategy games or FPS right, so who cares? They can do some RPGs well, and they excel at action and sports.

Two of best games on consoles are strategy imo.. Civ Revolution (admittedly, not as good as PC.. but it's cool enough), and valkyria chronicles if you want to call it strategy. Some shooters aren't bad either, single player at least.

[Azazel]

Stray has a decent point here. Japanese Games. They're pretty much all on console, shy of a few that eventually get PC ports done for them. And even those are developed for whichever console first.

[tgr]

I'd like to see RTS games like supreme commander ported to the console, even if only to watch console gamers get completely curbstomped due to the higher pace PC gamers can keep up.

There's a reason strategy games like civ revolution works on console, it isn't fast-paced, and it allows for a suckier controller to be used. Same goes with 3rd person games, they can easily mask the inadequancies of the pad by using autoaim and context-sensitive controls like ducking behind cover if you run towards something. God I hate that with a fucking passion.

[Murgos]

I made that mistake once this year (with Borderlands), and I'll be making sure not to fall for that crap again. 

Yeah, well, if the game is obviously better suited to KbM then I never buy it on a console.  This means almost all FPS & strategy games.

[stray]

I'd like to see RTS games like supreme commander ported to the console, even if only to watch console gamers get completely curbstomped due to the higher pace PC gamers can keep up.

There's a reason strategy games like civ revolution works on console, it isn't fast-paced, and it allows for a suckier controller to be used. Same goes with 3rd person games, they can easily mask the inadequancies of the pad by using autoaim and context-sensitive controls like ducking behind cover if you run towards something. God I hate that with a fucking passion.

Supreme Commander is on the 360, I believe.. but it's apparently not a good port.

A few others as well.. I've not played any of them. I'm sort of tempted to check out C&C: Red Alert because it looks funny. The reviews don't seem too bad either.

There's also Halo Wars, but I think it's not been reviewed well. Plus, I haven't played a Halo since the first one, so I'd rather not bother skipping the "storyline" if I'm even going to play another Halo at all. Kind of disappointing that they didn't get Bungie themselves to make Halo Wars too...... seeing that they made one of best strategy games of all time.

As for 3rd person.. you're kind of a glass half empty guy, I guess. Where you want to lambast the games for their targeting, I see a control scheme more naturally suited towards acrobatics, combos, and all of that good shit.

[tgr]

As for 3rd person.. you're kind of a glass half empty guy, I guess. Where you want to lambast the games for their targeting, I see a control scheme more naturally suited towards acrobatics, combos, and all of that good shit.

Wait, what? SC is actually on the 360? I wonder how awful that is to play, but I feel no desire to test it. I'd probably just rage incoherently after 10 minutes.

I'm lambasting the games for their targeting, because they still haven't moved away from that.  mass effect is still a shooty game, and the only thing they did with the 3rd person perspective was make you press space to run, which also ducks behind cover, and is used to jump OVER the cover if I'm already IN cover. And that bleeds over to the PC version.

Games like Heavy Rain is probably games I would love to play on the console, but they keep insisting on shoehorning traditional PC-games (with tactile controls and lots of possible buttons to use) onto the consoles (with awkward controls and limited buttons to push). For me, it just ends up with a frustrating mishmash of bad controls, bad UI design and awkward in-game design choices.

And it's doubly frustrating because if they insist on making games with the old-school way with a few monor changes, it would be so easy to fix it all by having custom controllers designed to cater to the particular type of games they want to bring over.

I've got assassin's creed sitting next to me, along with mirror's edge. Assassin's Creed I've actually never fired up (360's dismanteled at the moment), but I spent a bit on mirror's edge. Never enough to actually get proficient with its controls, yet enough to notice how they had a separate button for doing a 180. That's quite telling.

[stray]

Hmm, yeah I forgot Mass Effect qualifies as 3rd person. I have some complaints about it as well.

Off the top of my head, I think Uncharted is a good example of 3rd person shooting, with other controls more naturally suited for consoles. [edit] Umm, by this I mean the experience as a whole makes up for the targeting being less than ideal.

[Azazel]

I'd like to see RTS games like supreme commander ported to the console, even if only to watch console gamers get completely curbstomped due to the higher pace PC gamers can keep up.

There's a reason strategy games like civ revolution works on console, it isn't fast-paced, and it allows for a suckier controller to be used. Same goes with 3rd person games, they can easily mask the inadequancies of the pad by using autoaim and context-sensitive controls like ducking behind cover if you run towards something. God I hate that with a fucking passion.

I was actually thinking of Saints Row 2, which didn't use a cover mechanic, nor did it use autoaim. (might have a slight aim-assist, I'm honestly not sure, but definately not like the full-on aim-assist in a lot of other games..)

[stray]

This game's pretty rad. I had a lot of misgivings on buying it because of the first one, but the story is a lot more engaging/varied. Although Ezio is sort of guido douche, he's sorta of cool too. I mean, at least he talks. HOWEVER, it does kind of make me want to revist the first now too. Has anyone done that that didn't like the first? Was it better the second time around?

[Hawkbit]

I got the first and never made it out of the second major area (Damascus poor, I think).  Then I bought II on a whim, played about an hour of it and realized it was fcuking awesome so I put it on hold and started the first one again.  Oddly, I'm finding the first one to be a damn fun game now.  I really can't figure out what my issue was with it to begin with.

[K9]

I found the first one to be really fun; but that's because I derived huge enjoyment from the free-running/jumping/stabbing malarkey and wasn't too bothered that the missions mainly asked me to do nothing but run jump and stab people. It was repetitive, but for me the thing being repeated was fun, so I was happy. I think the first section of the game lets the rest of the game down though, it's definite the weakest portion.

[stray]

I think I'll revisit it too..

BTW, have any of you played the Prince of Persia remake? No one seems to talk about it here. It's not bad.. although it's a bit on the handholding side of things (i.e. easy). It shares some tech with AC though, so it might appeal. It's just more platform heavy.

[tgr]

It was fun for a while, but I never could finish it, even if to see if the prince got the (hot) princess.

But get this: some versions of it has NO DRM whatsoever. They said it was an experiment, and I went out and bought it just for that reason alone, to try to help UBISoft choose a less fucked up partyline.

That worked well.

[stray]

Now that I'm pretty far into it, I'd say it's only fault is the lack of difficulty. Not as easy as PoP, but it's still too forgiving.

I don't remember the last time I played an Ubi game on the PC, so I can't complain about DRM. I can't even think of anything I'd want to play from them on a PC other than Ghost Recon.

[Trippy]

DRM servers fail, hilarity ensues:

http://forums.ubi.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/4721051016/m/7481010838/p/1

[NiX]

Borrowed the PS3 version off my brother over the weekend. Left the system running while I went to make some food and it would seem my HDMI died. Other than that, much improved over the first one.

[Hawkbit]

DRM servers fail, hilarity ensues:

http://forums.ubi.com/eve/forums/a/tpc/f/4721051016/m/7481010838/p/1

That's amazing.  I figured we'd see a downtime a few months down the road, but a few days?  Makes me wonder who the real pirates are. 

[stray]

Cool, creative ending... seems like they have a lot planned for more sequels. They just need to up the difficulty. Sometimes it's too easy to forgo stealth and assasination and just take on 5 dudes toe-to-toe. Too easy to beat ass, too many health pots, too bad ass armor, weapons... etc.. Really, I only assassinated when the mission req was to not be detected.

Also, I noticed Jade Raymond hardly did any promotion for this one. Heh. She's still the producer though. Look what you bastards did! Scaring a cute girl like that... Meh.  

[NiX]

I think they're still balancing it. The first, at times, was terribly painful to play. It wasn't that it was really hard, but that it just punished you for the slightest mistakes. Seems they took it too far back.