No more Starfuck?

A few years ago, a software protection company developed a piece of software called Starforce to combat computer game piracy. The software is an extremely advanced anti-copy, anti-piracy, anti-everything protection program that pretty much takes over your computer once you put a game disc into your optical drive.

The software does the following: Renders any copies you make of the disc useless and will not allow you to run the game without having the original disc installed. Those two things are the two points that the company SAYS the software does. Here's a list of the tasks the program does that aren't listed by said company: Forces you to reboot your computer at least once, installs malware and spyware on your pc, damages your disc drive, corrupts your system registry, will not allow you to play the game you paid for even if you have the original disk in your drive.

Needless to say, the gaming community is not a big fan of Starfuck. And now, it seems, neither are the game developers. It was just announced that a bunch of gaming companies are going to stop using the program in favor of other protection software. Yay!

The only thing anti-piracy software like Starfuck accomplishes is creating more software pirates due to the irritations caused by having to deal with the annoyance. They fail.

Shit with a charge of neutral...

Ever have one of those days where there was nothing that went particularly wrong, but nothing seemed to go exactly the way you wanted it to either? That was my day today, and to me it feels like I should have just stayed in bed because the day was a total waste of my time.

This uselessness seems to have followed me home too, because I just downloaded a program and its not even the program it was supposed to be. Rawr!

I'll be under my bed if you need me.

No more SiN

Heh, I like ironic titles. Anyway, I finished Episode 01 of SiN, and it was de-lovely. The Source engine has never looked better, especially with the resolution cranked up as high as the game would let me. I also enjoy the fact that the game chooses the best video settings based on your computer's hardware. When I went into the settings to adjust them manually, the game had them all already cranked up as high as they would go. Mwa-hahahahaha.

The last quarter of this game was insanity -- I've never seen such large-scale gun-fights before. My favorite gun was probably the shotgun, just for the alternate fire. Gotta love the little exploding blue chips of death. The incindery grenades were also quite enjoyable, and a laughed as the bad guys screamed, "AAAH! I'm on fire! It burns! AAAAH!"

Naturally, since this is just the first of an episodic release schedule, the game ended on a cliffhanger, and also provided scenes of what was to come in the next episode. I'm looking forward to it. (If only to see if they dress Alexis even MORE scantily clad.)

Heel! Good boy...

Sign of the Times

I remember back when I was a kid, I would see displays in the supermarket for powdered drink mixes. The slogan was always, "Just add water!"

Now that Americans never go anywhere without their trusty bottle of spring water, the market for powdered drink mixes have changed with the times. The slogans now read: "Just add to water!"

The evolution amuses me.

SiN

Mmmm, naked rendering......

I never played the original SiN. It came out about 2 months before I started playing PC games seriously, circa 1998. It was immediately followed by Half-Life, and as a result the game is hardly remembered at all, being almost totally eclipsed by the gaming-gasm that was HL.

But now, SiN is back. And in a nice twist of irony, it's using the Source engine -- the same exact engine that powers Half-Life 2. This time around, Half-Life isn't killing SiN. It's helping make it one hell of a great FPS.

Contrary to what the above screenshot may suggest, no, this isn't a porno. That chick is from a weird vision the main character has near the beginning of the game. A weird....beautifully rendered.....sexually stimulating....vision....


I'll BRB.........

Delays Likely?

I laugh at road work signs. Especially the ones that read, "Road Work Ahead. Delays Likely."

Delays likely? Likely?? Let's see....for a moment we'll pretend that I'm the only person on the road, and that traffic doesn't exist. Kay? You're taking the 65 MPH speed limit down to 40 MPH. Sooooooo, unless you are encouraging me to break the law by speeding in a fucking construction zone, I would think that delays are fucking GUARANTEED. Last time I looked, it takes longer to get from point A to point B going 40 MPH instead of 65.


Fuckers.

Preloading is fun...

Unlike other game developers attempts at anti-piracy, Valve's rendition actually gives something back to the gamer. Instead of resorting to using something like Starforce, which tends to prevent you from playing a game even if you BOUGHT the fucking thing (Thanks, BiA!, nothing but love for you mother fuckers!), Valve developed Steam.

While I'll admit that Steam is MOSTLY annoying, there's one feature that I've recently fell in love with -- the preloading feature. My copy of SiN Episodes: Emergence just finished preloading. Which means the game is on my hard drive as we speak, and I will be able to play it on midnight of the release date if I so choose. I enjoy this.

Now I get to preload Half-Life 2: Episode 1.