The Store

The store is as basic as it can possibly get. Click what you want, and buy it. What an intriguing concept! There are no annoying download managers required, or any client needed to play the game (I’m looking at you EA). Everything is done right over the website. With all the complaints over DRM as of late, where does GOG stand? To put it bluntly, there isn’t any. After you dish out the $6 - $10 for a game, you’re presented with the option to download it.  There is no CD-key verification, no connecting to Securom servers, and no online checking to make sure it belongs to you. Absolutely DRM free. This is particularly good news if they ever have to close up shop. And what about piracy? Some Most of these games have been around for more then a decade. It’s safe to say they’ve already made their rounds on the torrent/rapidshare sites and wont attract much, if any piracy. So no, there isn’t anything stopping you from sharing the games with the rest of the world.

The Games

As it’s name implies, these are all old games. The classics. You won’t be finding Crysis or Mass Effect on this list. But the titles they do have are all noteworthy nonetheless. Browsing around, some titles really stuck out at me, like the Fallout series (just in time for Fallout 3), Shogo, Freespace and MDK. There are others of course, but don’t expect as wide of a variety as you would find on Steam. Not yet, anyway.

Compatibility

The games are also all optimized for Windows XP / Vista users. I still have a lot of old games laying around, most of which just do not want to run because it cant figure out what the hell I’m running, or real DOS is no longer in existence. Windows “compatibility mode” being little more then a gimmick doesn’t help either. That’s when GoG comes to the rescue. Thanks to the use of black magic, that one could only assume involves some sort of human sacrifice, the site states all the games have been “optimized” for running in XP and Vista.  And surprisingly enough, they actually really work on Vista. Now if only we could get some Mac and Linux love.

Bonus!

Everything I looked at has at least some form of free, extra downloadable content available once you buy the game, be it the game manual pdf, in-game soundtrack, or some hi-res wallpapers (ranging from 1024×768 to 1600×1200 in resolution) and avatars. Some of these games I’d pay out the $6 just for the soundtrack alone (Hello Shogo, my love).

Conclusion

Overall, it’s as easy and painless as ordering something over Amazon. Everything is also guaranteed to at least run on Xp/Vista There is some great bonus content for every game, and best of all, they’ve been tweaked to actually work with current systems. No word on any other OS’s, but at least they’re playable again.

The Witcher, if you’re not familiar, was released last year. While it was a solid RPG that garnered high ratings, a lot of things were simply broke. Dialogue was crap. The alchemy profession sucked. Load times were horrid. The AI had a mind of a 4 year old. The Witcher’s developer, CD Projekt didn’t want to let it’s fans down, so they spent nearly a year fixing it. They rerecorded some 200 hours worth of dialogue to make up for the poor translations. They sped up load times. The AI and game play was improved. The alchemy, well, that’s still crap. But hey 3 out of 4 isn’t bad. They then released it as a new game, “The Witcher Enhanced”.

The Witcher Enhanced features not only new improvements/changes, but also a slew of bonus content that you typical only find in the over priced collector’s editions of games (I’m looking at you Warcraft and Warhammer) that parade around for 80 bucks a pop. The new release includes 2 soundtracks- music from the game and music inspired by, a world map, making-of DVD, a 100+ page guide, and even a short story written by Sapkowski (the author of the original book series), all for $40. That’s more swag than I got in the Age of Conan Collector’s Edition box, at half the price.What’s even more awesome, is that all the in game additions are handed out to the owners of the original game for the delicious price of free, in the form of a 1.5 GB patch.

So how’s this all relate the Spore’s DRM? I’m getting to that. Earlier this summer when I bought a new video card, I got an OEM version of the original Witcher game. No fancy box or even a jewel case. just the game in a paper sleeve. The game installed and ran fine, and played without asking me for a key or asking to connect to a server to check if I was using a legit copy. To my surprise however, when the 1.5 GB patch  came out, I was asked for a CD-key before I was able to install it.  At first I figured I would just wait for a crack, or just download the torrent of the new version. Before I did that though, I checked out their forums to see if anyone had the same problem as me.

I was told to contact Atari, but I didn’t have much hope. I mean, I only had an OEM version that I got for free. I told them the situation, and 3 business days later I got this gem in the mail this morning:

Just like that, they handed me a CD-key. No asking me to send them a copy of my receipt of the video card. No verifying who I was, or if I really had a legitimate copy of the game. Atari could have just flat out said no, and told me to go buy the new game. I tip my hat to Atari and the CD Projekt team, not only for making a great RPG clicker, but for the great tech support.

When you really think about it, CD Projekt/Atari found a way to sell essentially the exact same, DRM-free game to people who bought the first. And guess what? It’s working. Gamestop’s online store is currently on backorder of the game, and if the talk on The Witcher forums are true, it is largly due to people who owned the original like the game so much they’re buying another copy. Now compare that to Spore. Some people hate the game’s DRM so much, they’re pirating it only to spite it’s DRM, and giving one star reviews on Amazon. I’m not saying The Witcher is doing better than Spore’s sales, or that Spore’s a bad game (which it isn’t). I’m simply making observations between games with DRM and those with out. It’s obvious DRM is working.

<?php include (TEMPLATEPATH . '/sidebar2.php'); ?>

And to display different text depending on the page:

<?php if (is_page('about')) echo('
<li class="widget">
<h2>Frequently Asked Questions</h2>
</li>
'); ?>

That works, but is a bit messy, escape characters are needed, and everything needs to be done through the theme editor. Thus began my quest for an alternative.  I found a  few solutions mentioning editing core files to accomplish multiple sidebars, but doing so typically results in things breaking when updates are applied. After some googling and searching the Wordpress docs, I came across this solution, but required multiple files, a new one for each sidebar.

After some tinkering with the code, It finally dawned on me I could do it with a few if/elseif statements right in sidebar.php.You still need to define how many sidebars you’ll be using in your functions.php. Because I’m using six sidebars, my  functions.php looks like this:

if ( function_exists('register_sidebars') )
register_sidebars(6);

You’ll need to replace this inside the php tags of functions.php, along with the number of sidebars you’ll be using. And lastely you’ll need to edit sidebar.php to include the new sidebars:

<div id="sidebar">
<ul class="sidebar_list">
<?php
if (is_page('Archive')) (!function_exists('dynamic_sidebar') || !dynamic_sidebar(2));
elseif (is_page('About')) (!function_exists('dynamic_sidebar') || !dynamic_sidebar(3));
elseif (is_page('Contact')) (!function_exists('dynamic_sidebar') || !dynamic_sidebar(4));
else (!function_exists('dynamic_sidebar') || !dynamic_sidebar());
?>
</ul>
</div>

The is_page(’Archive’) is used to determine what page the sidebar is used in, and the dynamic_sidebar(2) represents which sidebar to be used. The last line is used to display the default sidebar (sidebar 1) on every page that isnt any specific page (Single posts, main index, etc). There’s several other ways to display the sidebars, for example if you want more then one on the same page, or the same one on multiple pages. Play around with it and give it a try.

Want. The new GTA IV. The last Grand Theft Auto that appealed to me was the original, with the top down view. Since then, I was turned off by every game in the series. With four however, seems to bring a breath of fresh air. The marketing, and overall design of the game, have all been very well executed. The amount of detail and openness being put into the environment will make this a game I see myself playing casually for many months to come.

Play. I’m back in the World of Warcraft. My current guild rank is “non-raiding”, and I’ll be keeping it that way. With the wide assortment of daily quests now available with the latest 2.4 patch, the game has become even more casual. And that’s the way I’ll be playing from now on. I had the opportunity to face Illidan and the Black Temple with another guild. It was my last goal to accomplish in the game, so I can walk away happy and play casually, with no obligations to anyone anymore.

I’m also playing Rainbow Six: Vegas 2. So far I’m really loving the character customization and RPG elements the game introduces. Your teammates are all back (with you know playing the role of a more experienced op known as Bishop) in Vegas. I am a bit disappointed with the change in setting though. While the original covers the glitz and glamor inside the casinos and hotels of Vegas, 2 takes you away from that and more into suburban and industrial areas.

Delete. I finally wrapped on Conflict: Denied Ops, Sins of a Solar Empire, Rainbow Six Vegas 1, and Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars. Denied Ops was a fun, action packed change of pace. Although it was nice to play a nice action FPS with explosions galore again, I really don’t see myself playing this over. There are a lot of achievements (even on the PC port) to unlock, but I don’t see myself wasting any time getting them. SoaSE, though having a good story, wasn’t exactly what I was expecting, so after I finished off the campaign, I just didn’t come back to it. I still prefer more hands on real time strategy games such as Command & Conquer. Speaking of which, I finally finished up both campaigns in Tiberium Wars, as well as the secret Scrin campaign. I still would like to pick up the Kane’s Wrath expansion at some point to see how it ends, but it’s not at the top of my list, at least not until it’s on sale. Until then, the game is uninstalled. Lastly, It took me almost two years to pick up a Rainbow Six game again, but I’m glad I did. As I already mentioned, the original Rainbow Six: Vegas took you through various fictional casinos and hotels in Vegas. The game was fun, but offered no replayability other then online play. With the sequel now out with improved multiplayer and coop ability, there isn’t any reason to keep the first game around anymore, so off it goes too.

That about covers my gaming habits for the month. Hopefully I’ll keep this up and it’ll become a monthly thing, but we’ll see.

In every MMORPG, there’s an overlaying story that is happening in the world while you’re playing. In World of Warcraft nowadays, demons (known as Burning Legion) are destroying the world of Azeroth. In Hellgate, Hell’s minions take over the Earth in 2038. In Tabula Rasa, you team up with alien races to fight off evil alien races. The setting and story are setup differently in each game, but the basic premise is always the same; it’s your sole duty (along with every other user) to fight off the bad guys.

I’m not saying this is a bad thing. From that general of a viewpoint, 90% of games follow this plot idea. But if you go this route, it’s not going to set you apart from any other MMO. You aren’t going to become a best selling game. What makes WoW so different? You can blame it’s success on it’s appealability to the casual gamer, yet no one seems to notice what made the game so popular in the first place; it’s backstory- the World of the Warcraft series. Before the MMO, the franchise has had nearly a decade to build itself up. It’s had three popular games and expansions and a handful of books to tell tales of some of the characters in Warcraft. Anyone who’s played the games will know who Malfurion Stormrage is, or how the orcs allied themselves with the trolls and tauren.

The problem with games such as Tabula Rasa or Hellgate is after watching a brief cutscene, you’re just tossed into this unknown world and you don’t exactly fully understand what’s going on. They try to explain through quests and talking to NPCs, but often times they go ignored or completly skipped because you’re too busy leveling up to care. When I made my first night elf in WoW I knew exactly what I was doing there. As a result I took the time to figure out why Im doing the quests I was given. The same can be said for Star Wars Galaxies. Being a Star Wars geek, I knew about the races and planets. I already knew the backstory. I was part of the Star Wars universe. Knowing that alone made it all the more fun. As it did for most of it’s followers.

In another example, I used to have a couple of friends that played a lot of Dungeons & Dragons (the tabletop). They instantly liked D&D Online because they knew the system. I on the other hand shrugged it off. I had played games like Neverwinter Nights and Baldur’s Gate, but not much beyond that. So the game just didn’t stick out to me as it did them. The only thing that probably kept them from playing more then a couple months was the game just lacked in content. You just couldn’t do all that much.

While some believe it may cost over a $1 billion to take on WoW, I believe what’s needed is a good backstory. World of Warcraft has such a vast ocean of lore one can dive into. But I’m not saying thats all that’s needed. Games like Dungeons and Dragons Online is rich in lore, but lacks in so many other areas (too much dungeon, not enough dragons). Guild Wars has a good story, but isn’t a true MMO. Star Wars Galaxies makes it too easy to become a Jedi. The list goes on. I’ve probably learned more about the Tabula Rasa story by reading its Wikipedia entry then I have actually playing the game. Im simply saying, in order to get someone interested in a game, you cant just toss them into a world. Doing something so simple as creating a small single player game/tutorial to introduce someone to the game could even do the trick.

I’ve finished the majority of work I had to do for some clients, so for the first time in nearly half a year I’m finally free to delve into my own projects again. TWiG is coming along nicely, and it should enter beta in a couple weeks, and I’m about half way finished with the new ULost. And Eye1? That will be up soon too. Other sites will also soon follow.

But back to the purpose of the new redesign for underlost.net. Since the release of Gears of War and Unreal Tournament 3 for the PC, I’ve been tinkering in Unrealed. It’s been more then a year since I learned how to use the thing in anticipation for the new engine, and I’m quite happy I did. Both games are extremely fun, but the editor itself is what ignited a spark in me that had nearly been extinguished. And while my bookshelf above my computer has always been lined with classics such as Duke Nukem 3D Level Design Handbook and Game Design: Secrets of the Sages it has been far too long since I’ve spent any worthwhile time whipping up a level, or even a small mod for anything.

Thats where the new vision for underlost.net comes into play. From now on I’ll be focusing a lot more on game design. I’ll still rant on about games and life and whatever else I come across, but this site will also serve as a ways to document my break back into the modding community I had left behind so long ago. I’ll also be starting a weekly column on here in which I’ll be discussing ways to mod up some popular games that normally aren’t modded much (The first piece should be going up some time tomorrow soon). So here’s to 2008. Lets hope it won’t be as weird and confusing as 2007 has been!

Welcome to WordPress. This is your first post. Edit or delete it, then start blogging!

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First thing’s first. The Graphics. As long as you’re running something built within the last few years, it will run just fine. I was capable of running the game at 1280×1024 resolution with everything on full settings, and Im on a lower end gaming machine. I was even capable of maintaining an average of 60 FPS on the largest, most crowed of maps. A feat I cant even pull of with Flagship’s Hellgate London. And above all else, in a game like Unreal tournament, a high FPS is a requirement.

Beyond that, the game sort of went downhill. Even though the multiplayer/”instant action” is fun, it can get boring after a while. This lead me to try out the campaign. Despite the fact it was delayed for more then two years, Epic still claims it hadn’t had the time to polish it up. And they weren’t lying. The story does have some potential, but all the characters are easily forgettable. Besides brief cutscenes between games, there is no interaction between team members. The game tries too hard to try and explain why I need to capture the enemies flag, or why everyone can respawn despite having a rocket blow off their head. The game is called Unreal Tournament. How hard is it to integrate a story into the idea of these games to the death run by large corporations? Honestly, I really don’t need a reason to capture a flag. As far as Im concerned, Unreal 2004 had a better story.

What has still kept my interest is the heart and soul of the game, the Unreal Editor. You have access to all the textures used in the game, 3d objects, etc. Everything in the game is yours to play with to your hearts desire. You even have access to camera controls and AI behavior. The editor contains everything you need to make your own level, mod, or total conversion of the game if you have the time. This is the same tool used by the developers to make Unreal and Gears of War. And if you pick up the collector’s edition, you’ll have over 10 hours of great tutorials teaching you everything you need to know to use the powerful editor.

It’s unpolished surface makes it similar to Epic’s previous failure, Unreal Tournament 2003. With Gears of War now being Epic’s primary focus, it’s doubtful we’ll see a major update to it anytime soon as we did with the release of Unreal 2004. Even so, sales continue to do moderately well. Plus the editor is no laughing matter. UT3 may not win GOTY, but gives you the tools to potentially make your own.

The game itself is nothing extraordinary. For the most part it’s your typical run of the mill shooter. With out even attempting to explain the story or why the hell soldiers enjoy bullying some really ripped citizens. All the NPCs I encountered in the demo have muscles stacked upon muscles, making you wonder why the hell they couldn’t just prevent the enemies from leveling most of the city in the first place. Unless that’s the result of having your city burned to the ground? Anyway. You find yourself with a broken time suit, and as you progress, is trying to repair itself, periodically screwing with your magic time altering powers.

The usual set of weapons makes it’s appearance; Assault riffles, shotguns, crossbows, and grenades, while more will be appearing in the full version (No crowbar?). Also following the new trend in FPS games, there are no health packs to pick up or food to eat. You rely on your suit to regenerate health after fire-fights. Really, the only interesting tidbit the game has to offer is the ability to pause, slow down, or reverse time. Prince of Persia time manipulation. Unless this game has some spectacular, breath taking story explaining why I traveled to the past, or future or wherever I am to save a bunch helpless muscle heads from getting their ass kicked by giant robots.

In a nutshell:

• Rag doll physics and partial destructible environments are swell.
• Pausing/reversing time is fun.
• Kind of a drab, dark, boring setting- everything looks the same.
• Creepy little girl narrates the game.

I still intend on picking this game up eventually, but I think I can wait until it appears off steam for under $20.