The last few Penny Arcade strips have been talking about the history of copy protection in PC Gaming, something I've had to deal with since my first two PC games (Maniac Mansion and Eye Of The Beholder 2 in case anyone is wondering) As a result I've seen several methods, including "Find letter V in word W in sentence X in paragraph Y on page Z", code books that give you the answers, maps where you are asked to name the X in grid Y/Z, Match the Picture (or variations of that theme) and my personal favorite, the Code Wheel, as seen in Yesterday's strip



Here is the thing though. I can understand why the code wheel would be stupid for an FPS or something like that, but the first one I got, and all of them since, have been for RPGs and adventure games, where a device like that made sense. It made you feel like you were solving a puzzle in the game, not by remembering some fact or combining items, but by actually interacting with something that would not be out of place in the game world. As a result, there was a level of pseudo-interactivity that added to those games.

Obviously all these methods have been made obsolete with the rise of the Internet. the passwords for Prince Of Persia, for example, kept me from playing the original for years, because I lost the list and my bro-in-law, who gave it, and the game, to me couldn't find his copy or the manual to make a new one. then a few years ago I decided to go online to find it and not only did I find the ones I had, I found the ones I didn't have as well (Saleem's list wasn't complete and we had called each other a couple of time when we discovered new ones, to work towards completing that list) I've done the same for several other games I own, but have lost the manual or copy protection answers that came with them. So obviously there needs to be some new method. Are the current ones the way to go? Probably not, but they are at least better then nothing. Sometimes not by much and in concept only, but they are.

Of course none of them are any match for a good hacker or someone who knows where to look for ways around them.

Final Fantasy 7: Advent Children

It came out Tuesday, I watched it Wednesday, but I was half asleep and didn't feel right writing a review of it then.

I watched it again yesterday, and it is definitely targeted at fans. Fortunately Sony decided to help non-fans or people like me who never finished the game by including a rather boring 30 minute recap of the game.

The movie great. the story is kind of thin, but there is so much action in this movie that you won't notice. It didn't seem like I was sitting there for 1 1/2 hours (it did during the recap, but not during the movie)

About the main complaint I have with the movie is the fact that most of the characters from the game show up to fight Behumet, but that is pretty much their only purpose. I understand that they only had 90 minutes, but it would have been nice to find out what they had been up to for the last 2 years.

Speaking of the other characters, there are some recognizable voices. Christiy Carlson Romano played Yuffie in the movie and in Kindgom Hearts (but not Kingdom Hearts 2) and is better known as Kim Possible. (it was kind of weird hearing Kim's voice swearing BTW.) Mena Suvari plays Aerith in the movie and in Kingdom Hearts 2 (Mandy Moore, yes the singer, played her in the first game.) Rachael Leigh Cook played Tifa in the movie and In Kingdom Hearts 2. Steve Burton played Cloud in the movie and in both Kingdom Hearts games and is a long time cast member of General Hospital

Steve Blum played Vincent and has also done about a million voices for video games and cartoons, including playing Spike in Cowboy Bebop. Beau Billingslea played Barrett and also played voices in several video games and cartoons, including Jet, Also from Cowboy Bebop (Actually, looking at the roles these 2 have played, they have worked together on a lot of stuff.

I thought it was kind of interesting that they choose the people who played the voices in Kingdom Hearts 2. I am sure when they were looking for actors, they choose to go with them because of the fact that Kingdom Hearts 2 came out a few weeks before the movie.

Ultimatly, if you like the game, you will proboly like the movie. If you never playe dthe game, watch the recap before watching the movie.

Now if you will excuse me, I am going to go play Final Fantasy 7 :)

Mommy! Miyamoto Isn't Sharing His Weed!

For most people, this would be late. For me, it's right on schedule. I just found out that Nintendo changed the name of the Revolution to Wii (pronounced Wee)

I tried to figure out some way to use that in the title of this post. I really did, but in the end I couldn't think of anything. All I could think of was what Miyamoto was smoking when he came up with it.

What I don't get is why they went from a cool name, the Revolution, to a dumb name, Wii. I am sure I am not alone when I say that I will continue to refer to it as the Revolution, because it makes sense. Not only will it have the cool new controller, you'll be able to play old Nintendo, Genesis, and Turbo-Graphix 16 games. In other words, all three sides in the 16 bit war will be represented on 1 console! If Revolution doesn't fit, I don't know what does!

But no, we are stuck with Wii. There have been some good jokes though. Here is what Real Life Comics had to say. (I was going to post Penny Arcade's reaction, but I want this to be a family friendly blog.)



Gamespy weighed in on this subject too, and they made some good points. The timing had to be part of a plan to increase exposure going into E3. This, combined with the fact that we will finaly see the Revolution in acction and people can finally get their hands on the controller means this could be the biggest E3 yet for Nintendo. Microsoft and Sony are going to have to pull off something big to top this

Li Kuo, news editor for Gamespy had this to say.

"Nintendo takes more chances than anyone else out there when it comes to thinking outside of the box, and sometimes they get a little carried away (Virtual Boy, anyone? ...Besides, if anyone can get away with calling their console "Wii," it's Nintendo. After all, they're the ones that made little green dinosaurs and fat Italian plumbers cool. "

In the end though, it won't mater. I think Will Tuttle, Console Editor for Gamespy said it best.

"Of course, they could name the console The Awesome FartHammer and I'd still be pushing people out of my way at Best Buy just to sip some of that delicious Nintendo Kool-Aid. We've all been doing it for years, so why stop now?"

Oh yes, we will drink the kool-aid, and it will be good (and black cheery flavored.)

Quake 4

While I was getting ready for work, I was watching X-Play and they did a review of Quake 4 for the Xbox 360. I'm a big fan of the Quake games, so of course I watched. The game looked good, and for a split second I was tempted to buy a 360 in order to play it. Fortunately they said something that brought me back to my senses. They said that the game occasionally had a problem with slowdown, something the PC version doesn't have a problem with (assuming you have a powerful enough system, of course.)

That is one of the reasons I never bought an Xbox. There are only about 8 games that I actually wanted for the system, and most of them are available, and better on, PC. If the games available so far are any indication, I won't be getting a 360 for the same reason. I'll spend the $400 on a PS3 instead. or better yet on a Revolution and a few games :)