Section_Ei8ht

Actually, it wasnt Securom, it was StarForce3, which is worse. And Ubisoft got off my shit list because after all the complaints, they voided their contract with StarForce and stopped using it (ironically, switching to Securom, but that was before the version of Securom that Bioshock uses, which is shit. Securom was a great DRM scheme until version 7). Steam version still comes with Securom (which is also pointless, because Steam IS a DRM scheme).

I'm never buying another 2K game again unless its DRM free. I've had enough trouble with my damn Bioshock. You know something is wrong when you have an easier time with the pirated version then you do the legitimate version. (Note: I don't condone software piracy, but come on. This is fuckin' ridiculous)

Where I live (the Midwest between Chicago and Milwaukee), at least the cities, all the dedicated butchers operate out of larger grocery stores.

From the sounds of it, a lot of people here are around the quarter-life crisis stage. I think mine ended a week ago

Good start. The lighting can be a lot sexier (sorry, couldn't find a better word) and I'd throw in some more junk to make this place seem really abandoned and condemned.

Pretty much what everyone else said. It's good, but its not great. Nothing about it screams UE3. It seems more UE2/Source-y. Keep it up, though. It's got definite potential.

The great thing about AS3.0 is that it's incredibly Object-Oriented and Event-Driven. It was just weird for me having used AS2 for around four years, then giving AS3 a go and and wondering why the old hacks no longer worked. The Pong game I wrote is very procedural and not very OO, but thats the great thing about flash and AS3. You can hack together some quick code to get the job done or you can make it OO and very efficient. Small kids games are great to do in flash if they're not graphically intensive. Heck, it's why I used flash for my Pong clone. I figured I could do it quick in flash to help myself understand the functionality of the game and how the game logic and everything works without having to focus on specific implementations of API's or memory management. Now that I have an understanding of the game logic, I can port it to C++ and OpenGL or something to take that next step. BTW, this thread is awesome. It's great to attach a greater sense of personality to all this text. I love reading everyone's stories. Really reinforces the feeling that I'm not alone anymore

My fourth year of college is starting up this Wednesday. I'd like to say its my last, but I'm on the five year program (might even stay a bit longer to get a second major). I'll be glad to be back in school because I'll actually get stuff done. Most of the classes are programming related and I'm really looking forward to the operating systems and software engineering classes (get to learn about multi-threaded programming, UML, and spend the semester converting a board game into a software product. I'll probably work on the GUI and throw some 3d in there.) I'm really glad that this last summer is finally over. It was pretty rough, mostly because all my good friends graduated college and are off in some other place in the world working, making a family, making a life, and here I sit in a closed off room never feeling more alone. That and it's been about two years since my last relationship, and every decent girl around this dank little shit town is already taken. After about a month of a lonely and boring summer, I really started questioning my faith and my life, and I started drinking heavily. I'll admit, I went a bit emo on the inside (not outside, though). In the last week though, things have really started to turn up. I've stopped drinking (when I'm alone, at least ) and I've actually been able to do a few things that are productive. Over labor day weekend I decided to learn ActionScript 3.0 (Flash CS3), so to help myself make the jump from AS2 to AS3, I made Pong in flash (it's funny. I'm trying to become a game programmer, yet I've never made Pong). I had a programming binge that went for about 7-8 hours and man, did I ever feel alive. I guess it's kind of nerdy to admit that one of the only times I truly feel alive is when I'm programming, but it's the truth. I actually was able to take a lot from making a complete game from start to finish, regardless of how small it is. I've never done that before, and now I want to keep going. It's a beautiful feeling; going from feeling like you're in the gutter to feeling like you're on top of the world. I guess the biggest part of my problem over the summer was the fact that I just didn't want to grow up. I didn't want anything to change. I wanted to stay in college with the same group of friends forever because hanging out in the computer lab with people I could relate to was one of the greatest highs a guy like me could ever have, and when they all left to go their separate ways and live their own lives, I went into withdrawals. But over the past few weeks I've been able to get over that fact and realize that this is my life, things change, things will change, and there is nothing I can do to stop it. And the change can either be for the better, or for the worse, but no matter which it is, things always come around one way or another. So here I am, back in a good position (even though I wasted most-of-if-not-all my summer being a drunken depressed emo [i'll admit it]). College starts up tomorrow, I'm back on my feet, and my faith is restored. Enough of me being emo. Never again! There is work to be done, a life to be lived, and games to make! Edit [to comment on Grin's post that was posted while I was writing my post]: Grin, sounds like you have a pain I know all too well. My last relationship ended with her leaving me for some guy I never met, and her becoming a stripper and a crack whore. Got me drinking, too. Don't worry man. Things will shape up for you.

Best of luck! Major props for making the decision broaden the horizon and do what you love.

10/10 3/4 The lizard one on the bonus round got me.

PC > All. More freedom and modability. Plus keyboard and mouse. I do own numerous consoles, though

I would have finished it by now if I could fucking play it! (grrrr PC)

And even with these drastic measures, the games still get thrown all over BitTorrent hours after a release. So far the record for longest time between retail release and scene release is Splinter Cell Chaos Theory with 422 days using StarForce 3. On that 422nd day, the release came with reverse engineering instructions for the entire StarForce 3 framework, rendering it useless. The only thing the protection does is prevent legitimate users from enjoying the product that they paid for. Rather than get a product that installs out of the box and they can play in a matter of minutes, they get something that is crippled with DRM (in the case of this version of securom, something that irreversibly modifies the system registry without telling you). The choice is between paying for something that fucks with your computer and probably wont work, or getting something that doesn't and is free. I buy my games because the dev's need (and in most cases, deserve) the money, but I usually don't buy it until there has been a crackfix that removes the DRM from the game because I don't want that shit on my PC. Of course, there are unobtrusive forms of DRM, like Steam or earlier versions of Securom that didn't do anything like what it's doing now. I bought the game on Steam. The reason I bought it on steam was beause I thought Securom would be removed since Steam uses it's own DRM scheme. I'm not going to play the steam version, but I'm going to play the pirated version because it doesn't fuck with my registry without telling me. I paid for the game, it should play where I want when I want. The retail version doesn't do that, but the pirated version does. Now I just have to ask: Does pirating a game I already bought make me a bad person?

There is no such thing as good copy protection.

Installed the latest drivers for everything and updated my windows, and the damn thing still crashes. I can't even load a level now, and I've tried tweaking my settings to damn near every possible permutation. I am quite pissed. I would get a refund, but I bought it through steam and steam = no refunds (although I don't blame steam for that, I understand why they don't). Hopefully a patch will fix all these problems. Securom and 2K Games just made my shit list.

Halo is nothing more than a generic shooter, but what makes me play through it and want to play Halo 3 is the universe and the story, which are top-notch.

I bought my copy off steam. Got home today and played it for a bit and from what I played, it was fantastic. Only problem is that I can't really play the game because it keeps crashing. The longest I've been able to play without it crashing is about 15 minutes. So far I've had one bluescreen, two bioshock.exe crashes, one steam.exe crash, and one hey-lets-make-both-your-monitors-stop-responding-resulting-in-a-manual-cold-restart. I have a 7800GTX and the latest drivers. I must say that I'm quite disappointed. Makes me wish steam had a refund policy. Hopefully this gets sorted out with a patch. [edit]Oh yeah, and I'm not using Vista.

Her boobs were all of 3 polygons.

Commander Keen yeah, I bought the id super pack on steam. Man, this takes me back.

tighten up the graphics? What does that even mean?

That's like saying they should kill off Jack Bauer and have Mike Doyle be the lead in next season of 24. We didn't start to see the human side of Fisher until Chaos theory. There is so much more of the Sam Fisher character to explore.

I heard that ubisoft was pushing for an october of this year release, but that can be taken with a grain of salt. Either way, I can't wait.

congrats!

I wrote this as a note on my facebook. If I had a blog, I would have written it there. Anyone else ever been lead astray by Google Maps? I've been talking to a few friends and they've told me some stories about Google Maps being completely wrong in the directions. BTW: Quakecon this year is awesome. In a few hours, I'm gonna check out the Left 4 Dead beta

Saw it before. Cool stuff. It was made by the same demoscene guys (.theprodukkt) who made .kkrieger (the FPS in 96K) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.kkrieger