Category: general

Screwed by Securom once again

Once again I’ve installed a crack when a game wouldn’t work because of securom.

This time it was Bioshock. I found a cheap copy on ebay and it arrived so I installed it. Unlike other securom games this time it actually installed. But they added some crappy online activation and it wouldn’t activate so I couldn’t play it.

So I go online and 5 minutes later I’ve downloaded the crack and I can now play the game I paid for. Of course I could have found it faster if I had only wanted to download the entire game and not just the crack because there are tons of cracked isos online.

So copy protection is good how? It only keeps me, who pays for the games, from actually playing the games and doesn’t seem to do anything from keeping the people who want to download it without paying for it.

Thanks for nothing securom…

Do I Get Credibility Back For Liking TF2 Now?

A while back I wrote that I didn’t get Team Fortress 2. Well, now I do. I guess I was just playing as the wrong class. I started off playing as a soldier and I didn’t like it. I have since discovered my inner pyro and I’m loving it.

Does this mean that if I reinstall Second life I might like it too?

I shiver to think…

Despite the best intentions gaming the library initiatives can have some odd results

Apparently today is “gaming in your library day.” While there is some controversy over having games at the library, I’m all for it. After all libraries have had movies and music for years so why not games?

While the university has had little extension library things in the dorms that rented out games and movies for years it is only in the last few months that they main library has begun to rent out games. They have a small collection of xbox, 360, PS2, PS3, Gamecube, and Wii games. Imagine my surprise though when I notice a floppy disk version of Dig Dug:

Then I took a closer look at it and not only is it a floppy disk but it is for the Commodore 64!

I can only imagine where they found that disk gathering dust back on some shelf somewhere.

If that weren’t interesting enough, I was in the library today and noticed two games had been added to the collection:

H.E.R.O. for the Atari 2600

and Ghostbusters for the NES.

I can only imagine how many other games they have floating around in the system somewhere. Of course it isn’t unusual that they would have some unusual items in a system as large as IU’s library but it does seem kind of unusual that they would put them out on the shelf. It makes me feel like hooking up my Atari and NES just so I can check out a couple of these!

When Did Videogame Ads Get Such Odd music?

Once upon a time you could count on videogame ads to either have agro angry rock in it or pretentious orchestral music. Not any more. They have weird music in them. The first one that I noticed was the Gears of War Trailer featuring Mad World.

Then Lost Odyssey had Jefferson Airplane’s White Rabbit

Now Grand Theft Auto 4 has Miles Davis’ Move

Maybe it is just me but it is just kind of odd to hear Miles Davis in commercials for a videogame.

More LAN Party

Perhaps videogame culture is changing. At the LAN Party I went to last weekend there was something new there. There were women! At least 4 of them and they didn’t know each other or anything. It was pretty amazing.

Lan party aftermath

So I spent Saturday at the local gaming club’s LAN party. From noon Saturday until noon Sunday. OK, I didn’t make it until noon Sunday. I left at 6am. I guess I’m getting old.

I had another reason to think I’m getting old at the LAN party. Dell was there with some college gaming league thing and if you signed up they gave you a tshirt and some other swag. As part of the sign up they wanted my birthday. It was then that I knew I was old. Why? Because the years on the form didn’t go back far enough for me to enter my year of birth…

The lan party was pretty fun other than that. I played in a DotA tournament and lost in the first round. I played in a Call of Duty 4 tournament and lost in the first round. I played in a Counter-Strike: Source tournament and lost in the first round. I played in a Team Fortress 2 tournament and …actually won. I got lucky enough to be on a team with someone who was really really good and we mopped the floor with everyone. I also won a videocard in a drawing. It is a pci-express card and my motherboard only has agp.

However, it turns out that when I got hom and set my computer up again it didn’t start for some reason. So I guess I’m going to be putting that videocard to use sooner than I anticipated if I can’t get my current system back up and running (I booted into vista using my second hard drive but even if the main drive is plugged in the system won’t boot. It is SATA though so once booted into Vista and I plug it in the drive shows up so I was able to get my documents off it so that is a sign that it might be fixable. However, the bios is acting weird so I don’t know if I trust it or not).

Anyway… it was some good videogame culture and a good time all around.

I didn’t do any interviews or anything but it was some good old fashioned ethnographic participant/observation.

Getting ahead of myself while getting behind…

I’m working on getting a syllabus together for my class on videogame culture that I”m going to be teaching in the fall. Should be pretty fun. I’m also getting to teach a course on action movies. I’m going to make them watch Tokyo Drift. Ha!

However, I’m also trying to finish a draft of my prospectus that was due two days ago.

And there’s a LAN party this weekend so no work done this weekend — except for you know, the work of playing games as part of my dissertation…

And I’m grading stuff.

And I’m going to get even more stuff to grade tomorrow!

You would think it was part of my job to teach and grade or something!

Although… perhaps I should remember this grading stuff when I’m making up this syllabus!

That’s good readin’

If you haven’t been reading gamepolitics.com’s posts of the transcripts of Jack Thompson’s Bar Trial, you have been missing some hilarious stuff including such jems as:

JT: Do you recall my cursing at you?

CJ: I do not recall you cursing…

JT: In fact, I told you to “go fuck yourself,” didn’t I?

JT: What’s the cut-off on how many faxes?

MOORE: Oh, I don’t know. You reached it, whatever it is.

JT: Anybody else ever reach it?

MOORE: No… Not close… You ruined my fax machine.

JT: I ruined your fax machine?

MOORE: It quit.

JT: Did it.

MOORE: Yes.

JT: What kind was it?

SMITH: Mr. Thompson, I’m going to ask you to step back. Step back.

JT: I’ll step back when the court asks me to.

DT: Let’s do this. We have a podium that’s pushed over… Let’s have all parties utilize the podium.

SMITH: Thank you, Your Honor.

DT: All right.

JT: What were you afraid of, Mr. Smith?

DT: Okay. That’s inappropriate.

JT: No. It isn’t inappropriate, Judge. I don’t mean to argue with you, but I’d like to know what Mr. Smith is concerned about.

DT: Mr. Thompson, I’m going to ask you to please utilize the podium as it is –

This is stuff you can’t make up. This cries out for dramatic reenactment.

Farewell to Break…

Appropriately as my spring break ends I finished Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. It only took me something over a decade. Maybe one of these days I’ll finish Super Mario Brothers…

It was fun but like the Final Fantasy games I don’t really feel any need to go on to finish Ocarina of time. Maybe at some point I will but not now. Needs more guns.