PC PC GAMES

Here is a game that has been plagued with it’s fare share of delays and massive community unhappiness due to it’s bad record of communication with the fans. Delays without explanation are never a good way of making fans.

I was able to play a few minutes and it delivers everything that w have been waiting for. But I also heard that some might have issues launching the game. Lets hear it?!

Looks like a lot of forums are ablaze and some news sites start to report about a lot of people that can’t start the game or if that not connect to the servers. How are you guys doing? I know quite a few people purchased it.

Gamefront News and comments:

• I can’t even get the game to load battlelog tonight. I’ve restarted etc. It just gives the loading pop up screen and that’s it.
• Anyone know how DICE or EA is going to fix this? As far as I can tell no official word has been given regarding these issues.
• Can’t get on the game on pc, can’t play at all, no launch. I have been on the phone with tech support for 2 days and still can’t launch, they don’t have an answer. 
  What a nightmare!

http://store.steampowered.com/app/47400/

I broke down and bought it. So far I’ve played for an hour or two.

I am very impressed with the quality of this game. And considering the quality, I’m even more impressed that they decided to sell it for only $19.99. It’s amazing how these days, big-name software companies often release a buggy mess of a game, and yet a small indie developer can release something nearly flawless. I’ve yet to encounter any noticeable bugs. Even in the menus, before actually getting into a heist, it gives the impression of a Valve-quality title.

Yes, I’m comparing this to a Valve game. And not just because it’s “very similar to L4D” (which is a pretty big misconception from gamers who haven’t actually tried it), but rather, because it feels like all of the right design decisions were made.

The graphics, while nothing groundbreaking, are very pretty and clean. It looks good while running like butter at the same time. Think Portal 2-level of visuals. The audio sounds equally as great. The soundtrack does an awesome job of carrying the intensity of the game, while the radio chatter and bantering between your teammates really complete the effect.

Yelling at civilians, pushing them to the ground, and screaming “GET THE ♥♥♥♥ DOWN” is more satisfying than it should ever be. The gunplay, while not spectacular, is still decent. It’s no Killing Floor or Red Orchestra, but more of a standard CoD type of feel. Like L4D, the pistols feel like pea-shooters. This makes sense though considering the fact that you’re firing at very heavily-armored law enforcement units not far into the heist.

This game is challenging. Even on normal difficulty, if you mindlessly run ‘n’ gun into a group of cops, you’ll get busted pretty fast. It’s no Rainbow 6 either; Payday is still very much a shooter at it’s core, but there’s also a lot of strategy to consider.

Unlike L4D where you’re slaughtering hordes of zombies, the enemies in this game are much more intelligent. Seeing the AI move from cover to cover, dive through windows, grapple through skylights, and snipe from rooftops is legitimately intimidating. Also unlike L4D it’s fairly less linear.

Situations and objectives are different from game to game, which adds to the replay-ability. Even little things like shooting out the security cameras will have an actual effect on how difficult and/or successful your heist will be. In one game, after walking into the bank, one of my partners accidentally revealed himself way too early, which resulted in the alarms setting off. Consequently it seemed like we had a harder time tracking down the bank manager so we could kill him and steal his keycard.

I know some people are unsure about the replay-ability of this game. After playing it today, I can confidently say there are at least dozens of hours worth of entertainment here. Although I’ve only been playing the game for one day, I’ve just been playing the same map (The First World Bank) over and over, multiple times, which definitely says something about the replay-ability. I haven’t even touched the other heists yet. I’m excited to see what the other campaigns have in store.

Amazing value for this game.

Rage has been out a couple days now and I would like to chat about it. Anyone want to join me tonight in a google hangout and talk about it?

It is interesting who often they highlight the PC in this video. As a matter of fact you see that quite often in the last couple month. Make no mistake, we are in the renascence of PC gaming. With consoles reaching their age and hardware restrictions and with devs finding out that the PC platform is easy to develop on, without artificial restrictions by the platform owner it becomes more and more the target for developers again.

The Frozen Synapse Humble Bundle is almost done. You chance to name your price and buy some great games! If you have not done so go get it!

• Trine
• Shadowgrounds: Survivor
• Shadowgrounds
• Splot
• Jack Claw

Great article over at EuroGamer about Piracy, real and imagined damages and the a special look at UBI and the damage they have caused by insisting on punishing customers. It looks like customers did vote with their wallets and my assesment of “Driver: SF” and it’s lack of sales wasn’t far from the truth.

Notable quotes:

“Ubisoft told me that their PC game sales are down 90 per cent…”

“[There's] no public data to suggest that DRM works,” says Pachter, “but the fact that more companies are imposing it strongly suggests that they believe it works.”

“Consumers are right to complain about DRM, since it impacts both legitimate and illegitimate users,” reckons Pachter. “The problem is that the companies think it limits piracy, and an industrious and determined hacker can work around DRM, while a normal, legitimate user must deal with a hassle. I’m not sure where to come down on this, as I respect the companies’ right to protect their intellectual property, while acknowledging the legitimate consumer’s complaint about the problems created with DRM.”

“There’s good DRM and what we call bad DRM,” explains Svensson. “There’s a huge breadth of parameters and technologies available, and no one technology is bad – it’s the implementation that can be bad, the communication around the implementation that can be bad. What we try and do – and we haven’t always been successful in this – is never hurt the legitimate user. If the legitimate user is ever going to have a more negative experience than a pirate, you’ve done something wrong.

Of utmost importance, says Svensson, is “being upfront with fans”. And he himself has been on the receiving end of fan backlash before.

“If I were a console evangelist I’d totally play up piracy on the PC,” Ployhar says. “But I have to stop and wonder how in the world they can continue to make that argument when a few years from now most games are likely going to be free-to-play anyway.

 

 

BF3Blog has word that some servers have popped up for the Battlefield 3 beta allowing 128-player games. The servers are apparently running the Operation Metro map, but rather than offering the 32-player rush mode like the official servers, they are running a hacked version of conquest mode, allowing 128 players rather then the intended 64. The bad news is that this is, rather unsurprisingly, a “considerably” laggy experience, and worse, they pass along Electronic Arts’ warning that playing on hacked servers may compromise your EA account, and may earn you a ban, which can cause you to lose access to your other EA games.

… the happier I am that I already purchased it.