So, back before Thanksgiving, I finally picked up an XBox One, lured by the siren call of Sunset Overdrive (something all too rare these days, a stupid videogame that revels in being a stupid videogame). I was just going to get the Sunset Overdrive edition, but none were to be had at a reasonable price, so I snagged the Assassin's Creed version instead... and I have to say, Black Flag, what I've played of it, is a fine game in its own right. But then, I got to pondering... I remember all the brouhaha back when "XBone" launched about restrictions with disc-based games, so I wanted to test that out as well.
Turns out, Destiny was available for reasonably cheap at Amazon, and I'd heard it was a decent enough shooter, and various elements about it intrigued me... so I decided to give it a go. Long story short, I've played that game more, and more regularly, since then than I have any other game in recent memory. It's not that I'm a big fan of shooters... frankly, they generally are built with competitive multiplayer in mind, which my reflexes aren't quite up to speed for any longer. Mix that with the near-requirement to use headphones, which I don't like wearing to begin with, and which often carry the sounds of ten-year-olds screaming obscenities, and it's been enough to keep me away from shooters in general (the obvious exception being the Borderlands series, which has a lot of content and a storyline to keep the single-player experience worthwhile).
Destiny, as of this moment at least, is different. It has a storyline to follow through, without ending up at "the world's been saved, why are you still playing" territory. It has automated matchmaking for co-op multiplayer (usually, more on that later), and competitive multiplayer in several formats, with chat-channel participation optional and off by default... so, I've even dipped my toe into those waters (where yes, I suck, but I think I'm sucking less day by day). Overall, I'm quite happy with this game.
Of course, it's not perfect by any means... Destiny employs a peculiar experience scheme where your character advances levels up to level 20, unlocking various modifications in the process... but, while your level tops out at 20, you keep earning new modifications afterwards. Also, you can get your effective level up to 30 using equipment (which also improves with use?)... in-game, it makes a certain amount of sense, but it really smacks of the developer saying "how do we ramp up the experience curve in the early game, to keep rewarding players to keep playing, while flattening it out in the end-game, to keep players from maxing out too early?"
Limited content is also an issue at this early stage of its life cycle... but worst is probably the inconsistent matchmaking. While the story missions are pretty much multiplayer-optional (as evidenced by even me making it through them all without assistance), there is a lot of intended-for-full-multiplayer content as well, in the form of what the game calls "strikes" and "raids" (which, basically, just involves the number of people supported and how many "stages" are involved). "Regular" strikes and the level-enhanced versions served up by the "strike playlist" all do automated matchmaking... while the "weekly" strikes and the raid (there is only the one at this moment, I believe) are all who-you-bring-is-who-you-get. This choice makes no sense to me... making the game harder to let your customers play, when you have the systems in place to do matchmaking already, can't be ruled an oversight, but I can't see what goal they were trying to achieve.
All in all, though, I'm thoroughly enjoying my time shooting various denizens of the Dark, and expect I will be for some time to come. If you're looking for a low-stress intro to the world of first-person shooters, you could do much worse.
Sunday, December 7, 2014
Sunday, October 12, 2014
What the hell is wrong with some people? #gamergate
There's a basic principle I try to follow in life, and it's not something I came up with on my own. Modern phrasing of that principle would be "so long as you're not harming others, do what you like." Of course, there's exceptions to that principle, chief among them being "don't break the law" (unless you're doing the whole civil disobedience thing to highlight a wrong, you should be working to change the law as directly as possible instead), another being "try not to be a bigger dick than you have to be." Of course, everybody's personal stance varies somewhat, but the civilization we've inherited puts a premium on letting people have differing opinions and beliefs... resorting to violence or threats of violence is left to drunks at sketchy bars, domestic abusers, street gangs, abortion clinic bombers, suicide bombers, Islamic State ruffians and the like, who may feel that they have an overriding, immediate need to make people see things their way, but whose desires are found lacking or abhorrent to the rest of us.
How, then, do we come to this pass? Over on Twitter (which I don't actually use, because I find the important things worm their way out of there in due course, and monitoring anything important there would seem like a full-time job in and of itself), some time back, somebody started a #gamergate hashtag. What I've gleaned to date is that the tag started as a calling-out of certain game journalists and organs for being too cozy with the developers and publishers they're covering... all good so far, any journalist should be able to refute such ties, or disclose them as part of any coverage they're providing. Somehow, some offshoot occurred, still using the same tag, making the point of contention focus on "male dominated" gaming culture and industry culture versus the "radical feminism" of some of the females involved in the industry who dared to speak out on the topic... unpleasant, contentious, but still fair game, people having different values talking about those values, for all that talking probably descends to mockery on a regular basis (another reason I don't use Twitter... I suspect that regular exposure, much like reading many comment sections on websites, will stain the soul).
But then, somebody (likely several somebodies) has to go and cross the line. Here's an example that crossed my path. Somebody decided that they were pissed enough about the way that conversation was going that they threatened to rape, mutilate, and kill the person they disagreed with... and went to the trouble of finding and publishing their target's home address to really make the threat strike home. Whatever justification that somebody wants to come up with, at the end of the day, they made a credible threat against the lives of another person and their family, over videogames... and, even if they didn't intend to carry out the threat personally, they tried to provide the necessary info for someone else to do the deed for them.
Honestly, I don't even know what to say here... I mean, odds are it's mostly a bunch of teenage boys unsure enough of their manhood that they think they need to feel some power by victimizing strangers over the Internet in ill-conceived ways, but that's hardly an excuse. At the end of the day, maybe this guy will get caught and punished, maybe not... my fear would be that somebody really will follow through on this sort of a threat, and provide fodder for anybody with an agenda to further regulate/lock-down the Internet, or the US portion of it at any rate. That, and the thought that somebody that unhinged over videogames might be unhinged over other topics as well, and lives in my vicinity...
How, then, do we come to this pass? Over on Twitter (which I don't actually use, because I find the important things worm their way out of there in due course, and monitoring anything important there would seem like a full-time job in and of itself), some time back, somebody started a #gamergate hashtag. What I've gleaned to date is that the tag started as a calling-out of certain game journalists and organs for being too cozy with the developers and publishers they're covering... all good so far, any journalist should be able to refute such ties, or disclose them as part of any coverage they're providing. Somehow, some offshoot occurred, still using the same tag, making the point of contention focus on "male dominated" gaming culture and industry culture versus the "radical feminism" of some of the females involved in the industry who dared to speak out on the topic... unpleasant, contentious, but still fair game, people having different values talking about those values, for all that talking probably descends to mockery on a regular basis (another reason I don't use Twitter... I suspect that regular exposure, much like reading many comment sections on websites, will stain the soul).
But then, somebody (likely several somebodies) has to go and cross the line. Here's an example that crossed my path. Somebody decided that they were pissed enough about the way that conversation was going that they threatened to rape, mutilate, and kill the person they disagreed with... and went to the trouble of finding and publishing their target's home address to really make the threat strike home. Whatever justification that somebody wants to come up with, at the end of the day, they made a credible threat against the lives of another person and their family, over videogames... and, even if they didn't intend to carry out the threat personally, they tried to provide the necessary info for someone else to do the deed for them.
Honestly, I don't even know what to say here... I mean, odds are it's mostly a bunch of teenage boys unsure enough of their manhood that they think they need to feel some power by victimizing strangers over the Internet in ill-conceived ways, but that's hardly an excuse. At the end of the day, maybe this guy will get caught and punished, maybe not... my fear would be that somebody really will follow through on this sort of a threat, and provide fodder for anybody with an agenda to further regulate/lock-down the Internet, or the US portion of it at any rate. That, and the thought that somebody that unhinged over videogames might be unhinged over other topics as well, and lives in my vicinity...
Sunday, August 10, 2014
Tampering with the Courts
Think back to your school-days civics lessons... particularly, the bit about how the United States federal government is divided into three separate-but-equal branches, set up in such a way as to check and balance each other. Now, check out this article.
The short version... the NSA claimed that one of their lawyers might have accidentally released classified information, sensitive to national security, as part of their public testimony in a lawsuit against them. To fix this, they wanted the judge to quietly alter the court transcripts at their direction, leaving no indication that they had been tampered with. Thankfully, the judge in question told them in effect, "not only no", then informed the plaintiffs about the NSA's request and gave them opportunity to respond. On further review of the public transcript, the NSA decided that no classified information had been released, so forget they even asked.
So, the good news is that the system worked... this time. The bad news is that the NSA, taken at their word, is incompetent enough to first let truly sensitive data escape into the public space, then try to close the barn door after the horse is out, and, in the process, corrupt the public record of what's going on in our courts... or, if you're not so charitably minded, they made a "request", covered in a fig-leaf of national security concerns, to put a thumb on the scales of justice, fully expecting compliance from the supposedly-separate-but-equal courts.
Me, I'm a pessimist... and the worst part is, there's no good way to know for sure, one way or the other. Short of somebody coming out and saying "yes, I tampered with court documents at the executive branch's direction", how would we know? Worse, the ham-fistedness of this attempt makes me wonder, is this how they do things in that secret FISA court, so that's why they expected it to work here? Well, at any rate, kudos to Judge White for this time, and here's hoping the courts are filled with judges equally well suited to defending the judiciary.
The short version... the NSA claimed that one of their lawyers might have accidentally released classified information, sensitive to national security, as part of their public testimony in a lawsuit against them. To fix this, they wanted the judge to quietly alter the court transcripts at their direction, leaving no indication that they had been tampered with. Thankfully, the judge in question told them in effect, "not only no", then informed the plaintiffs about the NSA's request and gave them opportunity to respond. On further review of the public transcript, the NSA decided that no classified information had been released, so forget they even asked.
So, the good news is that the system worked... this time. The bad news is that the NSA, taken at their word, is incompetent enough to first let truly sensitive data escape into the public space, then try to close the barn door after the horse is out, and, in the process, corrupt the public record of what's going on in our courts... or, if you're not so charitably minded, they made a "request", covered in a fig-leaf of national security concerns, to put a thumb on the scales of justice, fully expecting compliance from the supposedly-separate-but-equal courts.
Me, I'm a pessimist... and the worst part is, there's no good way to know for sure, one way or the other. Short of somebody coming out and saying "yes, I tampered with court documents at the executive branch's direction", how would we know? Worse, the ham-fistedness of this attempt makes me wonder, is this how they do things in that secret FISA court, so that's why they expected it to work here? Well, at any rate, kudos to Judge White for this time, and here's hoping the courts are filled with judges equally well suited to defending the judiciary.
Sunday, June 29, 2014
Steam Sale - Summer 2014
It's been months since my last post, and I'm really tired of looking at that rant at the top of my post queue... how about a quick rundown of the PC titles I picked up and tried out on the most recent Steam sale? In alphabetical order, then...
BattleBlock Theater - Charming short-level puzzle-platformer, with collectibles and, quite possibly, the best narrator/script combination ever. Available on other platforms... get it, if you don't have it already.
Blockland - Lego-flavored FPS/Minecraft, what could be better? Many things, actually... limited gameplay modes, plus it's the most hurf-inducing first-player-perspective game I've played in over a decade. Skip.
Borderlands 2 - Loot-centric FPS with a cel-shaded look and a sense of humor. Available on other platforms, and recommended, especially since you'll get to know Tiny Tina.
Brothers - A Tale of Two Sons - Requires the use of a game controller, since you use one analog stick and trigger to control each of the titular brothers... I'm sure I've run across this control scheme before, but where eludes me. Not too difficult, beyond keeping track of which brother is controlled by which stick, and what I've seen so far is well-done. Worth checking out.
Castle Crashers - Side-scrolling beat-em-up with leveling, a wonderful cartoon art-style and equally wonderful juvenile sense of humor. From the same developers as BattleBlock Theater, and having either game unlocks goodies in the other. Again, available on other platforms, and should be owned by anybody who likes action games.
Don't Starve - Peculiar art-style combines with the "start from scratch and survive" game mechanic of Minecraft, etc. Might come back to give it a fair chance later, but it strikes me as a game that will require the investment of time to truly enjoy... and that's in short supply for us gainfully-employed types.
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim - Yes, I've already got the XBox360 version of this game... and, as the "development target" Bethesda used, that's the smoother/more stable version. However, at the price Steam offered for the "game of the year" copy with all the DLC, I gladly picked this up for PC. Plus, the PC version allows for community-created mods, covering a spectrum of useful, fanciful, and downright game-breaking options, if you're so inclined... I already picked up one to color-highlight books I haven't already read, to cut down on the OCD factor when playing. The only downside... I was playing with Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning prior to the sale, and it pales so badly in comparison that I'm likely to drop that game to continue the character I started in Skyrim instead. Oh well, survival of the fittest and all that...
Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams - Platformer with an interesting art style, which ties into a light/dark character switching mechanic... I enjoyed it well enough, until it switched from allowing/encouraging exploration to forcing exploration to get through levels. If that doesn't bother you, give it a go, otherwise pass.
The Stanley Parable - Honestly, there's not much "game" there... and I can't say much about it without ruining the experience for new players. That said, if you're old enough to have had a long-term job, but still young enough to be inquisitive, I would absolutely recommend this to almost anyone.
They Bleed Pixels - Combines the difficult precision-platforming play-style of titles like Super Meat Boy with a Lovecraftian/Dreamlands storyline centered around a new arrival at a "home for troubled girls". Made it a few levels in, but odds are I'll make it no further... wall jump/slide mechanics are all well and good, but levels consisting almost entirely of such are more than I can handle these days. Worth checking out, if this sounds like your sort of thing.
Well, at any rate, it's a nice parcel of games to keep me occupied for a while... assuming the new season of anime coming up doesn't do that for me. Just as well I'm not independently wealthy, I guess... I'd never get out of the house! ;)
EDIT: Whoops, forgot one... XCOM: Enemy Unknown - Lovely update of the original '90s-era game, simplified where it makes sense, mostly left alone where it should have been left alone. Definitely worth a peek if you catch it on the cheap... just know that the mouse controls are a little janky.
BattleBlock Theater - Charming short-level puzzle-platformer, with collectibles and, quite possibly, the best narrator/script combination ever. Available on other platforms... get it, if you don't have it already.
Blockland - Lego-flavored FPS/Minecraft, what could be better? Many things, actually... limited gameplay modes, plus it's the most hurf-inducing first-player-perspective game I've played in over a decade. Skip.
Borderlands 2 - Loot-centric FPS with a cel-shaded look and a sense of humor. Available on other platforms, and recommended, especially since you'll get to know Tiny Tina.
Brothers - A Tale of Two Sons - Requires the use of a game controller, since you use one analog stick and trigger to control each of the titular brothers... I'm sure I've run across this control scheme before, but where eludes me. Not too difficult, beyond keeping track of which brother is controlled by which stick, and what I've seen so far is well-done. Worth checking out.
Castle Crashers - Side-scrolling beat-em-up with leveling, a wonderful cartoon art-style and equally wonderful juvenile sense of humor. From the same developers as BattleBlock Theater, and having either game unlocks goodies in the other. Again, available on other platforms, and should be owned by anybody who likes action games.
Don't Starve - Peculiar art-style combines with the "start from scratch and survive" game mechanic of Minecraft, etc. Might come back to give it a fair chance later, but it strikes me as a game that will require the investment of time to truly enjoy... and that's in short supply for us gainfully-employed types.
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim - Yes, I've already got the XBox360 version of this game... and, as the "development target" Bethesda used, that's the smoother/more stable version. However, at the price Steam offered for the "game of the year" copy with all the DLC, I gladly picked this up for PC. Plus, the PC version allows for community-created mods, covering a spectrum of useful, fanciful, and downright game-breaking options, if you're so inclined... I already picked up one to color-highlight books I haven't already read, to cut down on the OCD factor when playing. The only downside... I was playing with Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning prior to the sale, and it pales so badly in comparison that I'm likely to drop that game to continue the character I started in Skyrim instead. Oh well, survival of the fittest and all that...
Giana Sisters: Twisted Dreams - Platformer with an interesting art style, which ties into a light/dark character switching mechanic... I enjoyed it well enough, until it switched from allowing/encouraging exploration to forcing exploration to get through levels. If that doesn't bother you, give it a go, otherwise pass.
The Stanley Parable - Honestly, there's not much "game" there... and I can't say much about it without ruining the experience for new players. That said, if you're old enough to have had a long-term job, but still young enough to be inquisitive, I would absolutely recommend this to almost anyone.
They Bleed Pixels - Combines the difficult precision-platforming play-style of titles like Super Meat Boy with a Lovecraftian/Dreamlands storyline centered around a new arrival at a "home for troubled girls". Made it a few levels in, but odds are I'll make it no further... wall jump/slide mechanics are all well and good, but levels consisting almost entirely of such are more than I can handle these days. Worth checking out, if this sounds like your sort of thing.
Well, at any rate, it's a nice parcel of games to keep me occupied for a while... assuming the new season of anime coming up doesn't do that for me. Just as well I'm not independently wealthy, I guess... I'd never get out of the house! ;)
EDIT: Whoops, forgot one... XCOM: Enemy Unknown - Lovely update of the original '90s-era game, simplified where it makes sense, mostly left alone where it should have been left alone. Definitely worth a peek if you catch it on the cheap... just know that the mouse controls are a little janky.
Saturday, April 5, 2014
Religious Monuments on Public Property
Oh, for fuck's sake.
I wake up this morning and pull up the electronic version of the local paper (yes, I'm one of those oddities that actually pays money to keep the news engines fed somewhat), and come across this article. Go ahead and give it a read... for the tl;dr crowd, it's a retired pastor writing about why a Ten Commandments monument in a public park in a small community is a "big deal" for the Christians in that community.
The first problem I have with this is actually with the newspaper... they ran this as "local news", when it's clearly an opinion piece, but that's not what I want to focus on.
The major problem I have with this piece is that it highlights a major blind-spot that is common to fundamentalists off all stripes, religious and otherwise... basically, that My Way is Right, so everyone should do things My Way. This neglects both the spirit of our country's founding (that whole "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" thing), and the rules that we're all supposed to abide by as citizens of this country, starting with the Constitution.
I have no problem with the Ten Commandments as such... in fact, I wish more of the members of the Abrahamic religions were a little more strict in their observation. I also get that this monument is likely one of those relics of the days when some organization was giving them out for free to try and stem the tide of "godless communism", and I don't hold any ill will to anybody involved in that back then. However, that was then, and this is now... and, when we have groups using religion to divide rather than unite us, as is now the case, it's all the more important for us to fall back on the concepts that brought our country into being and enabled us to co-exist mostly peacefully (excepting the Civil War, of course) for the past couple of centuries. Prime among those, as in listed first in the First Amendment of the Constitution, is not doing anything to say or imply that one religion (or branch of a religion) has a favored status with the government.
There's a whole can of worms that can be opened up there, as there is with much of the Constitution... what the words actually say versus the perceived intent of the founders, among others. Personally, I'm of a literalistic mindset, so, if anything, I find the fact that the wording only references Congress passing laws on important things like religion, speech, press, assembly, and petition disturbing... but the prevailing interpretation at this point in time, as tested again and again by lawsuits reaching the Supreme Court, is that, if something is publicly funded or owned, that either no religious influence is allowed, or all religions are allowed to come play on equal grounds. You don't have to like that interpretation, but you do have to abide by it, unless you want to further fuel the growing schism in this country. Of course, you could always see about getting the Constitution amended to your liking... I'll likely oppose it, but I'll support your right to try.
With that all said, what should be done with that monument? The only bad thing about it is that it's on publicly-owned property. So, either surplus the thing, let it sell at auction, and let the buyer move it wherever they own space to put it (out front of a church or similar sounds ideal), or sell it and the property it resides on, at market rates, along with enough adjoining land to meet existing codes (so, for example, if it's in the middle of a park, sell enough land to access the monument without going through the public park), and leave maintenance of that land and the monument to the new owner. Either way should fix the basic problem... one side or the other might not care for the solution, based on their views, but that, in and of itself, is not the public's problem.
I wake up this morning and pull up the electronic version of the local paper (yes, I'm one of those oddities that actually pays money to keep the news engines fed somewhat), and come across this article. Go ahead and give it a read... for the tl;dr crowd, it's a retired pastor writing about why a Ten Commandments monument in a public park in a small community is a "big deal" for the Christians in that community.
The first problem I have with this is actually with the newspaper... they ran this as "local news", when it's clearly an opinion piece, but that's not what I want to focus on.
The major problem I have with this piece is that it highlights a major blind-spot that is common to fundamentalists off all stripes, religious and otherwise... basically, that My Way is Right, so everyone should do things My Way. This neglects both the spirit of our country's founding (that whole "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness" thing), and the rules that we're all supposed to abide by as citizens of this country, starting with the Constitution.
I have no problem with the Ten Commandments as such... in fact, I wish more of the members of the Abrahamic religions were a little more strict in their observation. I also get that this monument is likely one of those relics of the days when some organization was giving them out for free to try and stem the tide of "godless communism", and I don't hold any ill will to anybody involved in that back then. However, that was then, and this is now... and, when we have groups using religion to divide rather than unite us, as is now the case, it's all the more important for us to fall back on the concepts that brought our country into being and enabled us to co-exist mostly peacefully (excepting the Civil War, of course) for the past couple of centuries. Prime among those, as in listed first in the First Amendment of the Constitution, is not doing anything to say or imply that one religion (or branch of a religion) has a favored status with the government.
There's a whole can of worms that can be opened up there, as there is with much of the Constitution... what the words actually say versus the perceived intent of the founders, among others. Personally, I'm of a literalistic mindset, so, if anything, I find the fact that the wording only references Congress passing laws on important things like religion, speech, press, assembly, and petition disturbing... but the prevailing interpretation at this point in time, as tested again and again by lawsuits reaching the Supreme Court, is that, if something is publicly funded or owned, that either no religious influence is allowed, or all religions are allowed to come play on equal grounds. You don't have to like that interpretation, but you do have to abide by it, unless you want to further fuel the growing schism in this country. Of course, you could always see about getting the Constitution amended to your liking... I'll likely oppose it, but I'll support your right to try.
With that all said, what should be done with that monument? The only bad thing about it is that it's on publicly-owned property. So, either surplus the thing, let it sell at auction, and let the buyer move it wherever they own space to put it (out front of a church or similar sounds ideal), or sell it and the property it resides on, at market rates, along with enough adjoining land to meet existing codes (so, for example, if it's in the middle of a park, sell enough land to access the monument without going through the public park), and leave maintenance of that land and the monument to the new owner. Either way should fix the basic problem... one side or the other might not care for the solution, based on their views, but that, in and of itself, is not the public's problem.
Monday, February 24, 2014
Mini-rant: purchase and license aren't the same thing!
I like to think I'm not an overly avaricious sort... but I do have certain minimal expectations. Once I've "bought" something, I expect it to be "mine", meaning that I can put it to personal use however I see fit, for as long as I like. Even when it comes to software, that should be the default... for example, I even have my original 3.5" discs with Advanced Civilization on them (and a USB floppy drive!) on the off chance I decide I want to jump through the hoops necessary to get it to run on a modern machine. However, when it comes to purely online, digital "purchases", that's not necessarily the case... especially when the store backing whatever licensing restrictions regime goes away, the "buyer" often gets left holding the bag. In that extreme case, I can at least begrudgingly accept it... well, as far as I can accept the concept of DRM to begin with, I can accept the potential longevity of the provider as part of the purchase decision. For an example of how this can be done right, one only needs to look at Steam... you buy things from them, you can install those things on whatever machine you're on, including multiple different types of computers, for no additional price. By that means, among others (such as their routine sales), they work towards the long-term survival of their storefront... I think they even said they'd let people take their purchases with them should Steam ever shut down, but that seems like a remote possibility these days, and I'm not about to waste the time to search the 'net for any such statement so many years later.
Compare and contrast, then, to one of my no-buy-list companies, Sony. They sold a game, Gran Turismo 5, which they're shutting down the multiplayer servers for in a few months... which is in and of itself unfortunate, but not something worthy of being taken to task over. However, they also sold DLC for that game... and apparently, something to do with some of it must have some tie to those multiplayer servers, because they're removing the DLC from their storefront (fair enough, if they don't want to sell to anybody else), and announcing that people who bought some of that DLC won't be able to re-download it for themselves thereafter (what what WHAT?!?). Now, this doesn't affect me directly, since I haven't bought any Sony anything in forever, but I can put my feet in one of their players' shoes... last I knew, all their store checkouts were labeled "purchase", never mind the weasel-words of any click-through license agreement, but, due to their concerns about piracy, rather than allow for a transferable backup of some sort, they compensated by allowing indefinite re-downloads of your purchases. Apparently, that is, until it's no longer convenient for them to do so, at which point they'll just stop.
So, like I said, it's not directly my problem, since I'm not a Sony customer any longer... so why, you might ask, do I care? Frankly, because it's not the first time I've seen companies try to get squishy with the term "purchase" when it didn't suit their needs... maybe it's not the best example, but Amazon's issue with 1984 a few years back springs to mind first. Simply put, if you're running a storefront of any sort, digital or otherwise, and you use the terms "buy", "get", or "purchase" in your checkout process, those imply a transfer of ownership... if you mean "license" or something else short of a purchase, say so. It'll be less hassle for all involved, for all you might lose some sales... oops, I mean "licensing revenue".
Compare and contrast, then, to one of my no-buy-list companies, Sony. They sold a game, Gran Turismo 5, which they're shutting down the multiplayer servers for in a few months... which is in and of itself unfortunate, but not something worthy of being taken to task over. However, they also sold DLC for that game... and apparently, something to do with some of it must have some tie to those multiplayer servers, because they're removing the DLC from their storefront (fair enough, if they don't want to sell to anybody else), and announcing that people who bought some of that DLC won't be able to re-download it for themselves thereafter (what what WHAT?!?). Now, this doesn't affect me directly, since I haven't bought any Sony anything in forever, but I can put my feet in one of their players' shoes... last I knew, all their store checkouts were labeled "purchase", never mind the weasel-words of any click-through license agreement, but, due to their concerns about piracy, rather than allow for a transferable backup of some sort, they compensated by allowing indefinite re-downloads of your purchases. Apparently, that is, until it's no longer convenient for them to do so, at which point they'll just stop.
So, like I said, it's not directly my problem, since I'm not a Sony customer any longer... so why, you might ask, do I care? Frankly, because it's not the first time I've seen companies try to get squishy with the term "purchase" when it didn't suit their needs... maybe it's not the best example, but Amazon's issue with 1984 a few years back springs to mind first. Simply put, if you're running a storefront of any sort, digital or otherwise, and you use the terms "buy", "get", or "purchase" in your checkout process, those imply a transfer of ownership... if you mean "license" or something else short of a purchase, say so. It'll be less hassle for all involved, for all you might lose some sales... oops, I mean "licensing revenue".
Sunday, February 16, 2014
7 Grand Steps
Not going to take a lot of time here, but I figured it would be a good thing to let people know and/or warn them about a little game called 7 Grand Steps (it's got a longer full name, but I'll worry about that if the makers ever come out with more games in the series). Why do I say warn? I hopped into it about 6pm last night, and finally dragged myself away from it about 1am, and I still hopped back on for a couple of hours this morning... it's not for everyone (as the Metacritic reviews will attest to), but, if you've got the right buttons to press, it'll press them non-stop.
As far as what it is... it's a computer game that plays like a combination of a boardgame, pachinko machine, and boardwalk fortune-telling machine, for lack of a better way to describe it. The goal, starting with a lone laborer in copper-age... Egypt? Mesopotamia? Somewhere in that general region... anyways, start and grow a family, track them over multiple generations, work their way up the caste ladder, and try to survive whatever "challenge" brings the age to an end. So far, I got my family up through the ranks to the ruling class in the copper age, where an additional layer of play similar to the old "Hammurabi" game from Apple II days is added on, met the copper age challenge head-on, tried to proclaim my current family head as sole king, got told to retire or be exiled... but that was good enough to have my family stick in the nobility for the start of the bronze age. Tried working our way back up to leadership in the new order, but playing general is a bit more tricky than playing agriculture minister... so we got punted back down to the lesser nobility again... oh, and, throughout the game play, you get these little vignettes detailing turning points in the lives of your family members, which often have an impact on the game itself.
Past that, I'm not going to say much... it's got way more moving parts than the mechanical-looking interface lets on at first glance, and, for me at least, part of the fun was finding out how everything works. Yes, there are instructions, but they're really not necessary, if you pay attention to how the game behaves. Besides, if you follow that link at the top of the post, there's a free demo on their site... all it can eat is your time, and, if the $15 asking price for the full game is a bit steep for you, I wouldn't be surprised if it cropped up on another Steam sale one of these days.
As far as what it is... it's a computer game that plays like a combination of a boardgame, pachinko machine, and boardwalk fortune-telling machine, for lack of a better way to describe it. The goal, starting with a lone laborer in copper-age... Egypt? Mesopotamia? Somewhere in that general region... anyways, start and grow a family, track them over multiple generations, work their way up the caste ladder, and try to survive whatever "challenge" brings the age to an end. So far, I got my family up through the ranks to the ruling class in the copper age, where an additional layer of play similar to the old "Hammurabi" game from Apple II days is added on, met the copper age challenge head-on, tried to proclaim my current family head as sole king, got told to retire or be exiled... but that was good enough to have my family stick in the nobility for the start of the bronze age. Tried working our way back up to leadership in the new order, but playing general is a bit more tricky than playing agriculture minister... so we got punted back down to the lesser nobility again... oh, and, throughout the game play, you get these little vignettes detailing turning points in the lives of your family members, which often have an impact on the game itself.
Past that, I'm not going to say much... it's got way more moving parts than the mechanical-looking interface lets on at first glance, and, for me at least, part of the fun was finding out how everything works. Yes, there are instructions, but they're really not necessary, if you pay attention to how the game behaves. Besides, if you follow that link at the top of the post, there's a free demo on their site... all it can eat is your time, and, if the $15 asking price for the full game is a bit steep for you, I wouldn't be surprised if it cropped up on another Steam sale one of these days.
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