As the DRM failboat continues to capsize at Ubisoft, and gamers find themselves unable to even log into the newly IQOption released Settlers 7 to verify the legitimacy of the game upon release, I have to wonder: are these launch problems just a poorly timed April Fool’s joke?

Well, it’s April 2nd now, and their support forum complaints are still piling up, so I guess not. It’s a shame because in general I enjoy strategy games and was interested in trying out series for the first time - but if it’s as broken as it sounds, this gamer isn’t planning on supporting Ubisoft’s stupid DRM choices with her money any time soon. And Settlers 7 looked damn good, too.

All of this just speaks of a larger issue at hand, too. It’s starting to become evident that gaming companies are grasping at straws for explanations for their lower sales and that piracy has become the new scapegoat. It all started with Crysis developers and higher-ups explaining a couple of years ago that its lackluster sales hinged fully on piracy; a surprising disregard for the inability of the majority of gamers to run the game on their systems without serious overhauls to their rigs. Funnily enough, there’s a lot of video game companies that are selling their titles fine and don’t seem too stuck on pigeonholing their problems into the piracy excuse. Unfortunately for the Settlers series, Ubisoft doesn’t seem to be one.

But let’s be honest here, I don’t think Valve needed to do anything special for Left 4 Dead 2, and I’m fairly certain Borderlands did well despite extremely relaxed DRM on Gearbox’s behalf. Man up or get out, Ubisoft - or at least stop ruining games before they’re even released.

It had been a while since I had felt like writing here, and then Borderlands came around. Hailed as Diablo 2 meets Fallout 3 and introduced as a success IQ Options where Hellgate: London so blindly failed, Borderlands was last week’s big news release, and is by far the best game I’ve played in a while.

First off, let me do away with assumptions: Borderlands is really nothing more than a loot game. In fact, if you’ve played Diablo or Titan Quest, you know almost exactly what to expect from the genre. But what sets Borderlands radically apart from other such genre clones is that not only does it mimic Blizzard’s patented formula, it improves on it; your expectations are not only met, but raised substantially. Borderlands is more than just a game, it’s an experience, and it makes sure you;ll never look at these types of games the same way. Deviating from the mold, Gearbox developers intelligently chose to deviate from the medieval setting, throw in their own brand of humor, add a screen full of dynamic cell-shaded graphics, and finally a dash of seamless gameplay to create what is possibly 2009’s game of the year, bugs aside.

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The database is back to up to the wonderful Leslie. We’ve transferred servers and a new layout is coming eventually.

A couple of weeks ago, Jon, from The Clockwork Manual, sent me an email. What, he asked, do you think about a Grand Theft Auto MMO? In fact, he did more than just ask what I thought. He wrote a post on why it would rock.

If there’s one thing Rockstar can do better than any other developer in the world it’s create a bustling metropolis that feels lived in by the thousands of characters seen roaming the streets. How easy then, would it be to see other players filling the shoes of the people you pass by in the street without a second glance. That taxi driver that dropped you off at your mission marker could be someone on the other side of the world, saving up a little more in-game cash to hire some protection. That hotdog vendor you just paid could be someone else playing a minigame in between missions.

You can read the entire email here, and he’s definitely persuasive. But somehow - I wasn’t convinced. It took me a while to figure out why, but in the end I sent him an email back. Here it is:
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We’re alive, sort of.

The blame is solely me. I stopped writing and I stopped managing my other writers and now, somewhere, a tumbleweed blows by. There’s this thing with achievements, with Sartharion 3 Drakes (I’m officially “of the Nightfall” and a “Twilight Vanquisher,” with a rare mount to boot!), another thing with a full-time job in the video game industry (want a review copy of our latest game?), Left 4 Dead (Versus in CAL?), Fallout 3 (I haven’t even started it despite owning it), the holidays (I like turkey), college (compsci major)…

Well, you get the point. To top it off, my old PC fried and I built a new PC and I have next to nothing on this PC besides games.

Anyway, this is a quick heads up that things will change and regular posting will resume at some point. Apologies, hope you didn’t kick us off your RSS, and if you did, we’ll just re-earn our spot. I hope 2009 is treating you well and you’re as excited about the upcoming release of Resident Evil 5 as I am.

Bound and helpless in a tiny hut surrounded by fierce Japanese soldiers, you watch. You watch as a fellow soldier is grilled for information by a cigar-smoking general who would give up his own life for his Emperor. When your Marine brethren won’t give in to their relentless torture, he receives a searing hot coal to the face. As he spews blood all of the face of his interrogator, his life is quickly ended by a violent slashing of his throat. All you can do is look on in horror as you realize that the soldier coming toward you is about to offer you the same fate.

Just as you come to the realization that your time serving your country has come to an end, a glimmer of hope appears. A knife slices cleanly through your captor and he falls over, dead. A stream of Marines enter the rundown tent and offer you a weapon with which to exact vengeance on the Japanese soldiers who trapped you there. With that, the explosive campaign to Call of Duty: World at War begins.

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