Tag Archives: steam

Steam is better than anything else, but Steam can be better

Posted on May 4, 2011 by | 1 Comment

Today the Steam sale was The Sims 3 focused. I’ve wanted to pick up The Sims 3 for a while now, but I was never going to pay $50 for a game that I’ve already played over and over again for the past ten years. At $20, though, it was suddenly reasonable. The problem is that for whatever reason, EA doesn’t sell The Sims 3 for Mac on Steam. So only the PC version was on sale, which is ridiculous, because when you buy the game in a physical store, they give you a DVD that works on both PC and Mac.

After a quick internet search, I saw that both the EA Store and Direct-2-Drive also had The Sims 3 on sale for $20, and they were offering the Mac version for the same price. Score, right? No. I spent my whole lunch break trying and failing to buy it on Direct-2-Drive. They wanted me to make an account, enter in all of my billing information, and then they had to call me to verify. Only the phone call verification would never work. After three tries with my credit card and three tries with my PayPal, they blocked my account from trying to purchase the game (what?), and I turned to customer support.

To use Direct-2-Drive, you have to make an account. To use their customer support, you have to make a different, separate, customer service account. What? I’m having a problem with your service, and you make me fill out more forms, just to gain the ability to fill out more forms? So for a good half hour I said no to that, until eventually I said okay, fine to that. I opened a customer service account and filed a case with them. By the end of the day (end of the day?!) they e-mailed me saying they had lifted the block. I went back in, had to start from scratch with an empty shopping cart, but I bought the game and it worked.

So now I’m playing the game, right? No. Now I’m downloading a huge file, then I’m going to have to enter a serial number they sent me, then I’m going to have to do some kind of activation with EA. I could have avoided all of these problems by just downloading the game illegally, which begs the question, why is EA punishing the people who want to purchase their games? And why is Direct-2-Drive so improperly named, as nothing is going directly to anything, you guys.

And all of these problems would be avoided if the game was on Steam for Mac, because you guys, Steam just works. But Steam can’t work if you don’t put your game on Steam. Why would EA put The Sims 3 for Mac on disc, on Direct-2-Drive, and on their online store, but not on Steam? It boggles the mind.

So, game companies. Hi. I have a favor to ask you: put your games on Steam. I know you’re afraid of Steam, you can see that it’s a monopoly train barreling towards your bottom line, taking control of all sales in this industry. But you guys, at least their train runs like it’s supposed to. And I know you’re trying to get your own online stores going, but until your online stores have integrated friend lists, automatic updates, and unlimited downloads to unlimited computers, STOP TRYING TO HAVE AN ONLINE STORE AND JUST PUT YOUR GAMES ON STEAM. Because yes, Steam can be better, but Steam is better than everything else.

Sincerely,

–Adam.

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Posted in PC Games

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Insert a Quarter to Continue: DLC and Broken Storylines

Posted on January 25, 2010 by | 2 Comments

Downloadable Content? I love it! It’s like printing free money! It’s a trick we learned from heroin dealers: give people a little bit, but not enough to tide them over, and then charge them exorbitant fees to continue with the taste of heroin that they’ve come to love. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I am going to go eat bacon-covered diamonds. Because I’m that fucking rich.

-Unnamed Microsoft Executive

The most obvious complaints against Downloadable Content, or DLC, have been made many times, so I’ll rehash them quickly before I get to my point. Basically, companies sell incomplete games, and then make you pay to complete them. Or, they charge too much for content that adds very little to the game. (“For only $10, you can get the Modern Warfare 2: Hat Editor! Change your character’s hat to a cowboy hat, fedora, or bowler! And if you like the Hat Editor, make sure to get the $5 Hat Editor expansion, which allows you to purchase a baseball hat in one of 4 awesome colors!”) Those are valid points, and reason enough to hate the policy of charging for DLC.

I’d like to add another problem with a lot of DLC: it breaks storylines.

Continue reading →

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Posted in PC Games, ps3, xbox 360

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Defense Grid: The Awakening. Tower Defense with Fancy Pretty Graphics

Posted on January 10, 2010 by | Leave a comment

Defense Grid: The Awakening is a tower defense game. I’ve been playing a lot of tower defense games lately, because they require little time investment. I can start, play a level or two, and then go do something else. I was a huge fan of Rampart back in the day, and within the last year or so I’ve played a fair amount Desktop Tower Defense and Gemcraft. The idea is pretty simple: there’s a playing field, either with a pre-set maze or a canvas to be divided and sub-divided into a maze. Enemies come at you, and you keep building and upgrading towers to shoot them down. They are games of delegating. You do not shoot monsters. The towers shoot the monsters. Who built the towers? Well, you did, but you can not be blamed for the monsters’ deaths, can you? No, because they knew the towers were there. They knew the towers were there. Why did they still attack? It’s not my fault they’re all dead! I swear, I just built towers with guns, how was I to know they were being used to shoot at waves of monsters? HOW WAS I SUPPOSED TO KNOW???

Where was I? Ah yes, washing my hands. But I digress.

Defense Grid follows the typical tower defense pattern to a T. It’s well designed, the mazes are fun, and there’s the usual variety of towers. The enemies, part of some weird alien race, attack your base to steal one of the 20 power cores it contains. Once an enemy grabs a power core, the alien carries it off, unless your towers manage to kill the alien. When you kill an alien holding a power core, your power core slowly floats back to your base, unless another enemy happens to grab it along the way. This adds an excellent twist to the usual “kill them before they make it to the other side” dynamic. Alien grabs core. You kill alien. Another, fresh alien grabs the core. Hopefully, you kill that one too, and your core floats safely back the base. Otherwise you watch as a series of weak aliens manage to relay your power core off the map. Lose all your power cores and you have to replay the level. Continue reading →

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Posted in PC Games, xbox 360

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Dragon Age: Origins. Pretty [Now Loading.........] Great.

Posted on January 5, 2010 by | 11 Comments

The Blood Dragon. Look, we all know what "The Blood Dragon" is a euphemism for, right? If not, ask your Aunt Flo. She knows all about it.

BioWare described Dragon Age: Origins as an “epic tale of violence, lust, and betrayal,” which makes it sound like it’s a game about the Bible. I hereby offer a better description of Dragon Age: Origins: it is a tale of blood and loading screens.

From the first second of the game, BioWare lets you know that they’re not fucking around. A sword cuts some invisible sap, letting blood spew forth. The blood turns into a dragon, which then falls onto a piece of paper. The splash of blood makes a big dragon-shaped bloody mess. You have already seen 3 pints of the Mountain Dew of Vampires spilled, and you haven’t even started the game. That was the intro.

Before we talk too much about blood, however, let’s talk about being born. You start DA:O in the usual Sim-like way, designing a character’s face, body type, et cetera. Then you pick his or her race (human, elf, dwarf), background (noble, commoner), and class (warrior, rogue, mage). I created an Elven mage who is a dead ringer for Spock. Why limit your nerdiness to the nerdiness provided? You shouldn’t. That’s how I keep it real. Who is to say this universe isn’t also the universe of Star Trek, thousands of years before? No one. I can be Spock in any game I want. Continue reading →

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Posted in PC Games, xbox 360

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Gratuitous Space Battles: I’m Sorry Dave, I Can’t Give You That Information.

Posted on December 25, 2009 by | 5 Comments

Would you like to play a game?

Curtis: All right, Gratuitous Space Battles. I like spaceships, and you’re a game about spaceships fighting each other. Let’s play, shall we?

GSB: Excellent, Curtis. Would you like to play a brief tutorial first?

Curtis: Sure, that would be great. Tutor me!

GSB: Click on ships to place them in the battlefield. When ships are placed in the battlefield, you can give them orders to determine their behavior. Press “Start” to begin the battle.

Curtis: All right, I’ve got some ships set up. Let’s start!

GSB: Battle commencing.

Curtis: Can I control my ships?

GSB: …

Curtis: Uhmmm…I guess not? Well, my big ships are making mincemeat of the smaller enemy ships. I think they’re almost done taking down that big enemy ship. Is that enemy ship almost dead?

GSB: …

Curtis: Can you tell me how many hit points that ship has?

GSB: …

Curtis: Can you show me at least vaguely how much damage the enemy ship has taken?

GSB: …

Curtis: Okay,well it’s dead now. There’s only two more big ships, and a bunch of tiny little fighters. If my big ships just gang up on the enemy big ships–

GSB: …

Curtis: WHY ARE MY BIG SHIPS FOCUSING ON THE TINY FIGHTERS??? THEY SHOULD BE ATTACKING THE BIG ENEMY SHIPS THAT ARE ATTACKING THEM!!!

GSB: No need to get emotional, Curtis. You should set your priorities differently before battle. You can choose specific behaviors for your ships.

Curtis: Okay, let’s do that. So let’s start over, and set up the ships better. Continue reading →

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Posted in PC Games

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Lessons in Game Design Learned from Mirror’s Edge

Posted on December 13, 2009 by | 4 Comments

Ah, Steam. Your specials arrive and entice me to play video games I had long ago given up the idea of ever playing.

For instance, Mirror’s Edge. The previews looked awesome; I was excited. But then, by the time it came out, I was busy playing Left 4 Dead. Who needs to be a goth chick who runs around when you can be a normal chick who kills zombies? No one. So I pretty much forgot about Mirror’s Edge until Steam’s recent Holiday Sale. At $5, I figured I may as well give it a download.

The plot of Mirror’s Edge is…something. You run on buildings, because that’s your job. I think. Oh, and someone gets killed. And your sister’s a cop. To be honest, I didn’t try to hard to follow most of it, partly because I accidentally clicked through some cutscenes (more on that later). Your name is Faith, and you are are a Runner in a futuristic metropolis designed by IKEA. I assume it was designed by IKEA, because everything is white, with the occasional brightly colored hallway or door. It may have also been designed by the same people who designed the Progressive Insurance commercials with the peppy white girl wearing too-red lipstick.

There are only a few jobs available to people in this futuristic city. If the Ravers and Goths rejected your fashion choices as “a little too much,” or your awkward face tattoos prevent gainful employment, then you can become a runner. If you have really, really bad aim, you can become a cop. If you have really, really bad aim, are nearsighted, and have the reaction time of a dead sloth, then you can become a sniper. If you like repeating yourself and offering vague bits of “help,” such as “don’t get shot!” or “get out of there!” then you can become a Radio Guy. (I’m sure he has a name, but I don’t know it. Radio Guy talks to you throughout the entire game, “guiding” you. I hate him more than I hate the dog in Duck Hunt.) If you are not any of those things then you can drive a white minivan, far in the background. Continue reading →

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