Hit Points and Vista

This week I decided to bite the bullet and get a new hard drive and install Vista. Almost everything went well. Had a lot of trouble drivers for my soundcard. I ended up taking the sound card out and just using my on board sound.

I decided to test out the DRM on Hit Points. Not only did I “reformat”, I went the extra mile by having a different hard drive, different oS, and different sound card. I installed Neighbors From Hell 2 and when I got to the activation screen, I had to log back on to file planet to get my activation code.  I put in the code and the game activated and started up. Guess Hit Points DRM isn’t as bad as their FAQ claims. Reformating  doesn’t stop you from reinstalling on the same computer. Now the next challenge will be getting Neighbors From Hell 2 to activate on my new computer, but that will be next year.

Gametap

Gametap is a digital download service that tries to mimic the cable TV model. Gametap does offer digital download titles for free and for purchases but I’ll cover them another time. Traditional Gametap is now Gametap Gold and its access via its client. It changed a lot since its launch in 2005. Initially it was just a bunch of old arcade and Atari 2600 games along with 10 year old pc games.

Its positives are:

Huge selection of games of quality games, almost 1000.
Easy to navigate interface
Gamer friendly community

Negatives:

Have to be online to play anything
A few select games are really difficult to get working
You don’t own any games.

After the client is installed, you just use your mouse, game pad, or keyboard to navigate to the game you wish to play. They are in different catalogs, by system, genre, alphabetical, and so on. After you click on it, you either sit through a short download or if it’s a longer wait, you can watch a video or select download in background. You can have up to 3 games downloading in the background.

I selected Serious Sam II. The download was around 2.5 gigs and it took 45 minutes to receive it. A play little button lights up and after selected, I was in the game. On XP, I played through the entire game and it was flawless. On Vista, I played through the first level and it ran fine on that OS as well.

The Gametap web site on the other hand. I installed Vista on my machine this week and I’ve spent the past few days re-downloading everything. I had an old version of the Gametap client install but it wasn’t Vista compatible. I went to the Gametap website and it wasn’t clear. Unlike 2 years ago, there was no “download the client to get started here!”  I kept running into the free player that offers select few games for non-subscribers. From the front page I had to click on “Browse all games”, the select “gold games”, then select a game, then select “download free Gametap player”, cancel that download, and then I could download the full client. Gametap really needs to work on that. Below is Gametap’s coming soon list.

New this week.
Penumbra Overture
Clockwork Knight
Emergency 3

10/11:

The Typing of the Dead
Wing Commander II
F-22 Lightning 3

10/18:

Maelstrom
Brian Lara Cricket 2007

10/23:

Clive Barker’s Jericho
Clans
Abomination (Best name for a bad xcom clone ever! Baron)

11/8:

Sam & Max Season Two Episode 1: Ice Station Santa

First Half 2008:

Inconceivable!

I’m not going to make it a point to report news on this blog. This blog is more or less going to catalog my experiences of going digital download only for pc games over the next year with only a couple of posts a week. I have no desire to be a beat reporter following every step of the digital download movement on the hour, every hour. However this is too important to pass up.

Hollywood Reporter has on its site that World Wide Biggies is making a pc game based on the greatest single movie ever, The Princess Bride. It is going to be download only. No retail plans at all. Looking at Worldwide Biggies previous games, they are all little flash based games that are rather sucky, so I’m not holding out hope for a 10 million dollar Tim Schafer masterpiece. This is interesting because; a) its Princess Bride and everything Princess Bride deserves our attention and b) a download only pc game is getting attention from the press.

In other news Quake Wars Enemy Territories is available for preorder via steam. I know several people were holding out for that announcement to order it.

Hit Points

At some point in the recent past, Gamespy networks started giving Hit Points to their subscribers and in turn, Hit Points could be exchanged for games, guides, and softcore porn. No I’m not joking. One of the titles available was Girls of Gaming Issue 03 w/ “Bonus Mature Content”. When this program started, they only offered crappy games like the old version Deer Hunter and because of this, I ignored them as I gathered them. Yes, I should admit it since the subject; I am a long time File Planet subscriber.  Oh the shame.   

Recently Hit Points started getting some good games. Such as Neversoft’s Gun and Trokia’s Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines. Why they bother is kind of a mystery to me since they don’t advertise Hit Points anywhere and frankly I had forgotten about them. I traded in 350 of my points for Neighbors From Hell: on Vacation. Yeah it isn’t in the category of “good game” but I already own all the good games Hit Points offer. The title amuses me and besides, it isn’t like Hit Points are real money since they aren’t a reason anyone joins File Planet in the first place.

Before I dived in, I read through the FAQ. It was mostly meaningless drivel till I came upon this bit: 

“In what circumstances can my license be invalidated?

Formatting your hard drive or reinstalling Windows”

Wow, that’s a little draconian if you ask me. I reformat my system at least once a year to get rid of all the junk Windows has collected. Later this year or early the next, I’m planning on either building a whole new computer or buying a new hard drive and installing Vista. I will make it a point to attempt to get another license / activation from gamespy and I’ll report back on my efforts.

I put the title into my shopping cart, click to confirm my exchange, then next to process the order and I was greeted with a screen saying I was successful. Nothing happen and there were no links to download the game. After wandering the Hit Points pages for a few minutes I found that I could download the game from my Account page. Not the clearest system. When I clicked the download link, the file planet download manager appeared.  This program is the bane of my existence. Since I installed it for the Bioshock demo preload (what a joke that was) the speed from which I download from file planet has been half or more.. The 348 megs of Neighbors From Hell: on Vacation took over an hour to download. That is slower than the free and busted file server on FileShack.

Once the eons had passed and the file was downloaded, I clicked on the executable and the game installed. It was a rather plan install and it wasn’t until I launch the application that any digital rights management came into play. It requested an activation code which it said was on the download page. There was nothing on the download manager but luckily I vaguely remembered seeing a bunch of odd numbers on my account page. I was correct. I couldn’t right click the activation code into the box but I could hit “shift-insert” and paste it in. I can imagine that this part of the process would be a pain for someone who didn’t know keyboard short cuts. Hitting submit greeted me with a successful activation. I messed around with Neighbors From Hell for a few minutes. It is an interesting puzzle game. The package also includes Neighbors From Hell 1. I never saw the activation screen again upon restarting the game.

Hit Points worked but it was more frustrating and confusing than it needs to be. The DRM is a bit strict but since the games on the service are basically free with a file planet subscription, the trade off is almost worth it. It certainly would not be anyone’s first choice but it makes for an interesting replacement for bargain bin shopping. I still have a bunch of Hit Points left and I’ll revisit the service later in the year.

Estimated time left: 365 days

This year, October 1 2007 to October 1 2008 I’m going to explore the complete spectrum of digital downloaded pc games. To do this, I’m going to attempt to completely cut myself off from “the box.” I will not buy a physical copy of any pc game this year. Not even those shrink wrapped jewel cases at Target. It is going to hurt to pass up on Target’s clearance shelf. To go one step further, I will attempt to limit my console purchases to disc based games as much as possible.  During the experiment, I will buy at least one game from every major service out there and write my experiences here. I imagine that Game tap and Steam will get a vast majority of my business, I don’t want to exclude others such as Stardock and Playfirst.

In the past I’ve used a great many of these services. I could just write up an article detailing those times but I’m not sure how helpful that would be. In blog form, I think it will motivate me to revisit these services several times to see if the experience changes.

I’m a hard core gamer of 34 years and for the past 16 years; I have bought on average 3 games a month. A vast majority of these were probably clearance or bargain bin titles that I pick up on the spur of the moment. It should be interesting to see if my buying habits change. I already have gone all digital download for my music buying. For the past 5 years I’ve been buying music from Emusic and then Itunes. However my music buying habits always were different and my expectations are different. I don’t think I ever bought an album based on price.

I do want to make one exception, gifts to others. My kids’ computers are offline as they are too young to be on the internet and their games will still be physical retail versions.

- Baron