Far Cry 2: (if) Anything Goes (wrong with SecuROM, you're fucked)

Today's title is a not-so-clever play upon the title of one in a series of trailers for the inexplicably-named Far Cry 2. Inexplicably named?, you wonder, whatever could he mean? Put simply, Far Cry 2 has, besides being a shooter which takes place mostly out of doors with fairly remarkable human AI and semi-realistic weapon handling dynamics, nothing to do with Far Cry. Neither the game engine, nor the development team itself are constant between games. The closest analogue to the situation that exists with Far Cry, Far Cry 2, and Crysis was that of the Age of Empires series compared to the first Empire Earth. The latter was the far more audacious brainchild of original AoE developer Bruce Shelley, who split with Ensemble studios, whose plan for Age of Empires 2 was simply more of the same. Crysis in relation to Far Cry is very much like AoE 2 versus 1. Certainly some aspects of the design have been improved, but along the way the developers seemed to lose sight of what we all found so charming in the original. Where Crysis is essentially a punishing benchmark for the PC hardware elite, it looked to me as though FC2 was shaping up to be a little more innovative, a little less stale. I was (the operative word) looking forward to the ability to roam 50-odd square kilometers of map at my leisure, to experimenting with different approaches to combat, and to interacting with the various in-game factions.

Well, what really separates Far Cry from its successor in my mind is that I cannot, in good conscience, buy FC2. Even on Steam it is saddled with a 3-computer 5-time semi-refundable secuROM-based DRM solution. Let's break this down, shall we? Even if I buy the game on a platform with tough, integrated DRM, a platform that requires me to be connected to the internet, a platform that knows my name, a platform that TRACKS MY GAME-PLAYING HABITS...UbiSoft still doesn't think their IP is safe enough. For the record, if I'm going to go into the kind of trouble it must take to crack a Steam game, do they really think I'll stop there? SecuROM, like every other kind of DRM, has attracted the usual posse of gamer-hackers and pirate-hackers who for reasons ranging from legitimate (secuROM is notorious for butchering system performance and flat-out not working, or so I hear) to the morally ambiguous (they do it for the lulz) to the nefarious (read: piratical). So, what they are asking me to do is to potentially devalue the money I spent on the kind of kick-ass hardware one uses to play current games by chaining me to a stupid activation system that doesn't seem to offer any more practical security than Steam already does (you know, locks and honest folk and that...). Oh, but it DOES limit how much I can use their game. To me, this represents the height of irony. Game developers are going out of their way to create the potential for what they call “emergent gameplay”, they are trying to give the player more control over the interactive experience. At the same time, game publishers are working round-the-clock to limit the number of times you can install the games that YOU pay to use with YOUR money, and piracy continues unabated. In fact, piracy was marketed as ACTIVISM when Spore was released with unreasonable activation limits. “Make Spore the most pirated game in history,” was the rallying cry “show EA that this DRM shit does not fly with gamers”. I didn't pirate Spore, though. I can't say that after seeing gameplay past the cell stage that I really felt I even wanted to play it. Everywhere you see people variously toasting and lamenting the so-called decline of the PC as a platform for games. Everywhere you see developers blaming piracy, but I don't think for a moment that we should be so naïve. Games are getting bigger, prettier, louder....but shorter and costlier, in general. This has been a recognized pattern long before people started whining about piracy as they have in recent months. If you read the newsposts on Penny Arcade (I only read it for the articles, I swear!), you'll see that Tycho always says the same thing about PC gaming: people – not counting the small but vocal minority of hardware aficionados, ie. Yours truly – just want to play. They don't want to worry about the kind of issues that will necessarily cause problems on a platform so variable and diverse as the PC. Consoles are cheap, their games tend to sell better than PC titles, and for the most part they are idiot-proof. While the move towards hard drives and firmware updates and downloadable content may complicate the gaming console experience, I doubt that the “insert disc and play” functionality is going to go anywhere. Well, at least until game cartriges make their inevitable return to prominence, but even so maintenance will still be as simple as “blow on the contacts”. Truly, what would make the most sense for people who want a thriving market for games with the kind of complexity and indie content that only PC gaming can provide as present, the 90% of gamers who don't have a hard-on for their hardware should just buy Macs, thereby creating enough of a market to make development worthwhile. Macs, with their (generally) standardized hardware, could then move into direct competition with gaming consoles, and proceed to beat the stuffing right out of them. The power of Steve Jobs to make relatively unremarkable products look like Yaweh's own gadget collection, combined with the kind of market share that would allow Apple to exert serious power over hardware manufacturers (hell, they somehow have Intel half in their pocket already!) would combine to form a super-gaming entity that could somehow convince consumers to pay three times as much for a piece of hardware with identical capabilities and upgrade options to a gaming console. Of course, Apple's record of having pretty strict control over media (the plan not to allow third-party iPhone apps, anyone) might antagonize indie developers for a while, I think that the larger problem would be in the long term. The few of us who love to tinker with hardware would just suck it up and hack MacOS onto a gaming PC...but the supply of hardware would eventually dry up. The mac platform would, due to its homogeneous nature, be a potential coup for DRM, which could be encoded into ALL HARDWARE.

Where I'm going with this is that PC gaming would have to sacrifice the strengths of our platform in order to achieve mainstream success. It would lead to a momentary renaissance of gaming, but we would be effectively signing away our last vestiges of control over digital content in the process. The other extreme is the abandonment of DRM, making the PC attractive as a platform through an unofficial “try-before-you-buy” culture (for the honest folk, at least). The lifting of DRM restrictions would create a lot of good will in gamers, and it might even lead to a momentary jump in sales...but big-budget games would inevitably disappear from PC, which would become a sort of starting point for would-be game developers, releasing freeware and shareware content in a bid to land spots at a major label.

The reason I'm not going to buy Far Cry 2 is because I am following the third path, which I believe has the potential to lead us toward victory in our fight to remain a viable, free environment for gaming. Of course, it is marked as a “top seller” on Steam, so the fight may already be lost, but I object to the DRM enough that this won't change my decision. If gamers don't buy games that come with unreasonable terms of use (ie. The retail version of Bioshock at launch), game companies WON'T MAKE MONEY. When they decide to treat their customers like vermin. Pirating games may feel good, but it's not the answer. I contemplated buying FC2 and then pirating a version with the DRM removed, but UbiSoft would only see my money if I did that. They would not see the gamer, fighting to preserve his favourite hobby by any means necessary. They would only learn that they can get away with bullying us, and everyone who went to school knows that if you don't let the bully use you for his or her personal entertainment, if you refuse to react to their provocations, they will (hopefully) stop trying. If you continue to react, they'll only come back more and more often.

So if you're listening UbiSoft, you just LOST A SALE of Far Cry 2. I sincerely hope it's not the only one you lose.

In the interests of striking an emotional balance in this post, I shall now shift gears entirely.

To be succinct, I've got love on my mind. Stop. Did you click the link before continuing? If not, open it in a new tab and keep going. It is thematically consistent with what I am going to say, and it will also make the experience of reading this blog 100% more FUNKY.

DDR players who own Supernova 2 are excused now, although they're likely to have reached for their dance mat upon hearing the first strains of music after clicking the link.

Now that we're all groovin', I can continue. This thanksgiving marked for me an entire year of being single, possibly barring an incredibly mishandled affair around the holidays. You know who you are and in retrospect I'm really really really sorry, even though I'm pretty sure you're not holding a grudge. One year of being single has taught me that, well, I don't really like being single. It has also taught me that I don't hate being single either. If I were surrounded by happy relationships, or incredible-yet-too-intimidating prospects, I think I might be a wreck, but neither is the case. Being single is totally stable, and relatively functional. The impending visit of my Ex-girlfriend does, however, have me in a bit of a rush. I'd love to have a date for next weekend, not only for purposes of escaping the house, but as a show of strength, a defensive maneuver of sorts. Unfortunately, dating someone for those reasons is a violation of the second formulation of the categorical imperative – the long way of saying I am uncomfortable with using people. Relationships being organic as they are develop at uncertain rates, and with a week's notice I really don't have the highest of hopes. It's not as though I haven't been considering the issue since much earlier in the year, it's that I have yet to really find an individual of the female persuasion with whom I have the right kind of rapport, ie. The kind I can talk to naturally, without watching my words to make sure I'm not geeking out too hard. As you probably know, this would already be PRETTY RARE even if I wasn't beset with a terminal case of shy.

So boo-hoo, I don't really talk to girls. At least I don't pop my collars.

What I have at the moment are prospects, but nothing more. In each case there are too many unknowns to allow for a solid plan. Missing first year university here has been academically painless (although I think I'd be better off having taken FYP, that's another story), but it has the unfortunate side effect of alienating me from the social dynamics which have sprung up. All I know is that if people like my housemates they tend to be ok with me. This would be awesome if girls visited this place more than once or twice in EVER. The only other constant that I have become aware of is that if I meet someone at Dal, chances are it turns out they're a King's student anyhow. Some have voiced an opinion to the effect that this just goes to show that I attend the wrong school. I guess at least that when I meet girls at Dal my housemates will invariably know something about her.

Fifty bucks says that no matter who she is, it's always:

“Oh, her. She's dating a guy in my tutorial”

(or something to this effect)

• Loud!

PS. My heartache is over and indeed I can live without you.

PPS. Have you listened to Holy Fuck? That shit is bangin'!

PPPS. Maybe I should just take the hint* and get a haircut?

*assumption that there was a hint to be had? ASSUMED!

I apologize if the spacing is weird...I hate .txt non-formatting!

Oddly, it's a Text Editor, not a Text Adventure...

To minimize the effects of that great distraction which we call 'Firefox', I have decided to compose this post in the no-frills word processor "dark room", and then post process it in my usual Openoffice.org. Should this yield faster composition times than usual, I think it's safe to say that I will make the use of "dark room" a habit. Of course, all the focus in the world is useless if I've nothing to say. Fortunate, then, that I am never at a loss for words...

...but what if they aren't the right words?

Something terribly ironic happened just a few days ago. I held something of an early birthday party, in order to celebrate with as many of those people soon-to-be-leaving as possible (my real birthday is coming in mere days now, when they have all left). A fair number of guests - possibly half - left without saying goodbye. The other half (especially the Windsor-bound Daydream Believer) did bid me farewell, but it left me thinking about how it's just something people do. There are tearful goodbyes, but movies and TV have for years made our best efforts at putting into words the myriad moments of elation and sorrow that we have shared with one and other feel empty, undramatic, and inadequate. I wish that I could bring myself to say in person the sort of things I write here when in a whimsical mood. Were that my tongue posessed of such poetry, I would not feel so intimidated by the prospect of inventing long-term, if not permanent, goodbyes to those departing whom I have come to love over the course of years. Reality, however, has no designs to so imbue me with that power, and as such my restraints remain in place. Until such time as I learn to compose and edit with the necessary alacrity to speak in a refined fashion, I propose a stopgap solution of sorts:

A toast. To those people who have made every minute of my live worth living Take a pic of yourself raising a glass of whatever you can spare, whatever you like to drink (silly expressions are cool, too) and post it somewhere. If you blackmail me into getting facebook

so I can make a group of this, the answer is "maybe". For now, post and link works fine for me. I'll start us off...

For those interested, these are quickly made pics from my Logitech QuickCam, with a single

fluorescent lightbulb providing illumination (bouncing off an orange wall, mind you). The cup is

a plastic pink goblet, and I'm drinking President's choice "Orange Frizzante", aka. Orangina-knockoff.

Sköl!

In gaming news, the Bioshock demo delivers enough of the game to make you know you want it, but not enough for me to tell you how well it scares throughout the game. This is, of course, to be expected. If I have any complaint thus far, it is that after a memorable cinematic in which your character - "Jack", if memory serves - acquires his first genetic upgrade, new plasmids are simply picked up from the ground (or elsewhere, one supposes). I think that the game should at LEAST show the main character injecting each plasmid, and include a period of disorientation after it has been administered, to drive home the magnitude of the biological changes which are occuring. Shooting fire isn't just another pickup like health and ammo, dammit! I think I will buy Bioshock, as much for the gorgeous art design as for the game. I like a good, lived-in, well-constructed gameworld, and Bioshock, like Half-Life 2 and the first 5 minutes of Doom 3 before it turns into a monster-closet crawl... well, it simply delivers those goods and then some.

If Bioshock 2 is indeed coming (and I think that it's reasonably established), it's my present opinion (which may change after I play the full game 1) that it should star a pre-collapse citizen of Rapture. Whether doomed to succumb to the plasmid-induced madness of the splicers, or to remain one of the few sane humans in the city, the character would be more or less doomed from the beginning, shadowing a utopian game introduction with that horrible, horrible feeling of impending doom. I think that this is narratively intriguing, and I think that it would reveal a great deal about Rapture as an intact, functioning city. Finally, I've been inspired by a friend's soon-to-occur spending spree to get a job, and immediately start dropping cash on a new computer. My challenge to myself is to build something equal and opposite in as many ways as possible, because building a copycat rig has little appeal, and also because I like to make simple tasks into complicated ones for my own pleasure.

Progress reports and pictures of the construction process will undoubtedly appear in this space

LOUD and distinct in a crowd!

Centennial

Curse These Romantic Sensibilities!

Some months ago now, it occured to me that the pathetic amount of yearbook space allotted to each graduating High School student for their grad write-up was woefully inadequate. Come to think of it, I'm sure it was more than a few months ago when I became aware of this , but it was only recently that I was forced to come to terms with the practical realities of the situation. My solution was to write up my shortlist of acknowledgements, and to supply at the very end the address for this very blog, where I promised a full and complete grad write up, in lieu of the truncated, almost impolitely curt entry which I had provided for the yearbook itself. It was, in equal measures, both a promise not to leave my reflection upon four years of my life at a pathetic ~50 words, and a postponing of the inevitable time when I would have to force that reflection from the indeterminate medium of thought into concrete, written form. On the occasion of this, my One Hundredth Blog Post, it seems almost too appropriate that I provide the promised piece of post-prom prose.

My initial expectations of high school (Gloucester In-Joke, for those readers who are not fellow aumni) were... actually, I'm not sure that I remember them all that clearly. I do recall that I expected there to be more clubs, because the promotional material for Gloucester indicated that there were many. It may be true that there were, but if so they did a wonderful job of staying quiet about it. Fortunately, the one club which I did join in my early years was enough to occupy every lunch hour for the better part of two years: the Reach for the Top Team. I believe that it was the winter of Grade 9 which drove us to practice daily in Grade 9, and the habit simply carried over into Grade 10. Those were a magnificent two years, so much so that despite an entirely shoddy practice season in the following two years, our team made it to provincials twice, and in this year finished in the National Semi-Finals. At this point, I would like to mention that in this last respect, we did what we could only dream of doing in Grade 9: we outdid both Colonel By and Lisgar. Of itself, this proves nothing, and I am aware of that. However, I have witnessed the low point of both my school, and of one of the above (which shall remain nameless), and I know extremely high achievers from each. Taken together, I think that Gloucester has been unfairly represented in public opinion. Our best are capable of competition with those of schools with more favourable reputations, and for this we deserve as much credit. Our worst is no better or worse than either of theirs.

But back to Reach itself. I wasn't the strongest player, but I made myself a keystone of the team (our coach, Mr. Jeacle has said essentially the following himself) by virtue of my knowedge of some obscure facts. I lived for moments such as the time I correctly answered the question "Who wrote the book '5001 Nights at the Movies'" ("Pauline Kael" is the answer, by the way), a feat immediately met with exclamations of "Whaaat?" and "How the hell do you know that?". It is perhaps a victory on an empty field, giving an answer where no other would likely know it as well, but obscure knowledge over speed was my path to victory, for better or for worse. Incidentally, the only reason I knew the answer to that question was because the book has sat in a bookshelf in my living room since I can remember, and every time I sat in a particular armchair, I ended up looking at it. You never know what might help you, eh?

Friends-wise, my Gloucester experience followed an established pattern: I arrived knowing very few people, friend and foe were defined quickly and with great distinction, and at the very last found the company of those with whom I was at home. The great tragedy of this experience was that by and large, I have to say that I was not fond of the gifted classes which entered the school from its traditional feeders. I can't say that they were overly fond of me, and so as a mutual arrangement, it worked perfectly after the great post-junior-years-dispersal. In the middle years of Grades 10 and 11, I actually had something of a social circle at Gloucester. We would enjoy weekend movies, baked goods, and making fun of one of our compatriots' OBSCENELY spotless house (we're talking remote controls kept in plastic bags, here). Whether we were watching Pirates for the umpteenth time, or sucking variously (well, there were those who dominated fiercely) at DDR, or celebrating a birthday, a good time was always had by all. It came to a crashing halt eventually, although I cannot remember how fast it was in real-time. To my mind now, it seems as though it evaporated overnight. A disagreement here, a broken friendship there, a poorly-orchestrated halloween party, and this merry bunch was torn asunder faster than you can say "internal strife". I can't say it was unwarranted, nor can I say that I regret this turn of events, because I believe the failure of our ersatz-family (a very long story) provided the catalyst for the beginning of something vastly superior...

...But that story must first be prefaced with the following. Now many a week ago, I was on a bicycle ride, and I was downtown. Driving past a particular building, the opening words of a blog post began to write themselves into my memory, for later use. They went something like this "I biked past Lisgar today, as I have maybe once or twice this summer. I really shouldn't do it often, because it is for me a reminder of a life I didn't have, and of those lives which have gone on without me nigh every day for six long years...". It was in Grade 11, after the dissolution of the aforementionned fellowship, that I re-established contact with old friends, whom I had by then spent more time away from than with. I love them all, old and new though the faces in their crowd may be, but every moment I spend with them is exquisitely bittersweet. We do not want for understanding, but I want so desperately for that experience of knowing someone day-by-day, which was torn from me six years ago by a transfer to a school which all others had forsaken. That split sent me to meet new people, and maintain a friendship with Gold - something I will never regret in all my years - as well as allowing me to meet Pinky (Achtung Harry Potter 7 Spoilers!), Sphinx, and their...animated lot. It even led to my meeting Star, and numerous though our times of trouble have been, it's another thing I wouldn't want to have missed. Thus, I cannot say that I wish things had gone the other way, and I had remained with them...but equally I am left to wonder for the rest of my life it it wouldn't have been better if I had. In the end, I wish that I could live that life as well, I wish that I could have my own sliding-doors-style replay of my life had it proceeded down another path, because all that this doubt and uncertainty brings me is anguish.

What's worst is that the vast majority of those people which I have only just settled in with again are leaving after the summer, and what little chance I have of seeing them again is imagined by my forever-romantic imagination. No amount of MSN contact, nor Blogging, nor even Facebook, Twitter, or a million social networking sites will ever be enough to keep us from loosing touch. It will happen - perchance slowly, should we resist - and we won't feel bad, not every minute, not every day. We will all grow apart, and lead separate, blissful lives. Yet, at least for me it has been verified that there are none other who can take your places as my friends. Given six Billion people in this world, that statement may prove false, but I still feel nothing but despair at the prospect of a life in which I am unlikely to match the caliber of company which I now enjoy.

I conclude this, my complete Grad Write-Up by saying "If what they say is true, and High School will be the best four years of my life when I look back, please kill me now".

I'm taking a break now (I've been writing this on and off for some hours), but I will hopefully return later in the day. LOUD over&out.