To date I’ve been burned by every Battlefield title I’ve bought. In fact, I skipped Battlefield 2142 and Battlefield: Bad Company because of it. I’m happy to say that maybe, just maybe, DICE has managed to get their act together for Battlefield: Bad Company 2 (BC2). Read the rest of this entry »
Battlefield: Bad Company 2
March 7th, 2010Shedding 36,000 Jobs is Good
March 5th, 2010And you know it’s true because Harry Reid says it. Frankly, the only way I could possibly view shedding 36,000 jobs as a good thing is if it meant the entire Federal government exploded.
Tactical Officer + Science Vessel = Big Fun
March 4th, 2010My first character in Star Trek Online was a liberated borg engineering officer who chose an escort ship upon reaching Lieutenant Commander (Lt. Cmdr). I started a second character at that point when I found the escort to be bizarrely harder to play than the starter ship, which made me wonder about science vessels instead. Read the rest of this entry »
Wise Up, Ubi-tards
March 3rd, 2010Ubisoft has decided to adopt a new and ridiculously draconian form of DRM for their games, one that requires an Internet connection at all times. If your connection is dropped, you don’t get to play anymore and your progress is lost. Plenty of gamers have cried foul, but Ubisoft is sticking to their (foolish and poorly aimed) guns.
Now I read that their shiny new scheme has already been cracked with Silent Hunter 5, roughly one day after its release. A quick check of a couple of sites shows me that the full game is easily downloadable alongside the crack for pirates’ convenience. While I don’t condone piracy, it warms the cockles of my heart to see an option for legitimate users to free their property from its idiotic DRM shackles.
So here’s what you need to learn, you software-fascist morons at Ubisoft: DRM does nothing to stop piracy. All it does is irritate the paying customer. I would surely have bought Assassin’s Creed 2 and Silent Hunter 5, and I’ve been intrigued by the new game in the Settlers franchise as well. But you won’t get a dime from me until you drop your ridiculous DRM.
Star Trek Online Gripes
March 3rd, 2010On the whole I’m quite impressed with Star Trek Online (STO). It has had the most trouble-free launch of any MMO I’ve tried, and it has been fun and even refreshing in a number of respects. Having spent a few dozen hours with it, I think I’m qualified to report its problems. Read the rest of this entry »
Back to Borderlands
February 28th, 2010My gaming buddies bought the new DLC for Borderlands, so we were at it again tonight. Two of us had not yet played the Moxi content, so we tackled one of those arenas first and then headed off to confront General Knoxx in his armory. Read the rest of this entry »
Evil Then, Fine Now
February 26th, 2010Remember how evil the patriot act was when Bush was in office? How it was a constitution shredder, depriving us all of essential civil liberties? And useless, pointless, and misguided for stopping terrorism? Well apparently the same patriot act is just fine now with the Obama-fool running the show. The hypocrisy just never ends with this administration.
Simply Awful
February 25th, 2010I happened to catch a quick hint of a headline and was startled to find that Walter Koenig’s son, Andrew, has apparently taken his own life. For those who don’t recognize the name, Walter Koenig played the character of Chekov on the original Star Trek. And no I don’t mean the J.J. Abrams remake, you young whippersnappers. Get off my lawn!
On a more serious (and more appropriate) note, my heart goes out to you, Mr. Koenig. I never really cared much for your character, and I was never all that impressed with your acting, but you always struck me as a thoughtful fellow, and I feel terrible for your loss. May the God in whom you don’t believe nevertheless bless and keep you at this awful time.
The Photon Dump
February 24th, 2010One of the things I really like about Star Trek Online (STO) is the degree to which tactics matter. You can come up with some pleasantly unorthodox maneuvers that are nevertheless effective. For my part, I think I’ve just about perfected what I’m calling the “photon dump”. Read the rest of this entry »
The Usual Hypocrisy
February 23rd, 2010Hypocrisy and stupidity form the bulk of my expectations where politicians are concerned, and Canadian Premier Danny Williams only reinforces that with his recent trip to the U.S. for heart surgery. He says of his decision that “I have the utmost confidence in our own health care system in Newfoundland and Labrador…” but that he ultimately headed for the U.S. because he wanted “…somebody who’s doing this three or four times a day, five, six days a week.”
See, there’s a reason the U.S. has doctors who specialize like that, bub, and it’s because of the limited degree to which market forces still have any play in medicine. When you let government control health care, you get longer lines for crappier care with less specialization and lower overall quality. It’s amazing how people living in all those great countries with wonderful socialized medicine come to the U.S. for life and death care. Of course, not everybody can do that, but that just shows how some animals on the great socialist farm are a little more equal than others, right Mr. Williams?