These past couple of days I’ve been playing a certain fairly new Windows-based PC game, in preparation for an in-depth review. I won’t mention the title right now. You’ll probably be able to guess it, once the review is finished.
Within the space of two days I’ve gotten to experience: stupid copy protection schemes that try to interfere with my computer’s operation when not playing the game, random crashes, poor performance, a generally poor user interface, modal dialog boxes that prevent me from using the in-game help system, and a host of other annoyances.
I guess this must be some of that “deep, complex gameplay that isn’t possible on a game console” that I hear so much about.
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On the PC you have to insert your disc for copy protection reasons while it’s not actually neccesary, on the console you always have to insert it. I don’t see much difference other than that the general PC game is downplaying an huge advantage (play without having to search for a cd).
But then those problems you describe sound unfamiliar to me. It doesn’t happen playing Rome: Total War or Brothers in Arms: Earned in Blood anyway…
For the review, I would guess in the direction of F.E.A.R., which might very well have a horrible Halflife 2 like copy-protection system, I wouldn’t know.
Steam must die.
Frenzie,
I said “Copy protection schemes that try to interfere with my computer’s operation while _not_ playing the game” Game manufacturers seem to think that it’s OK to install a bunch of random crap on my computer that runs _all the time_, even when I’m not playing their (crashy, bad) game.
For a non-game related example, see http://www.sysinternals.com/blog/2005/10/sony-rootkits-and-digital-rights.html. Companies that choose to do this ought to be sued into the next millenium.
-peterb
Certain gameplay lends itself more readily to certain platforms. I am an RTS hound, and RTS games tend to be unwieldy on consoles. I would hate to play Spyro or Sly Cooper on a PC, though. This is to say nothing of quality – there are both fantastic and craptacular RTS games, same goes for everything else.
As you have pointed out, DRM is its own abhorrent set of issues, and very PC-oriented.
peterb,
My apologies, you are completely correct. The last game I considered user-friendly (read: normal) I’ve seen on the PC in the past 6 years or so might be Quake 3. It did not require the cd to play and the installation could survive reinstallations of Windows without any trouble because it wasn’t depending upon a bunch of stupid registry keys. In my opinion these are only for variables which should be global, I can’t think of any game variable other than being able to execute game.exe using the run dialog.
On the other hand, if someone would have put a USB stick into my pc while it was running and I wasn’t logged out he could have just copied the game.
I barely buy any new games anymore and then they think it’s because there’s apperently so much piracy. *sighs*
The Leo Laporte of pre-G4 TechTV fame, and http://www.thisweekintech.com, talks about the Sony DRM nightmare, if you do not want to slog through the good, but long sysinternals entry.