Ξ June 8th, 2008 | → Comments Off | ∇ Games, Technology |
I finally got around to loading up Mass Effect, and right off the bat a couple annoyances crept up that I think others that are playing the game on the PC would be interested in. First off, if you encounter problems with saved games, and your “My Documents” folder is pointed to a non-standard location, you’ll need to go into the <My Documents>\BioWare\Mass Effect directory and create a “Save” folder. For some reason the installer didn’t create one, and the the game wasn’t programmed to create one on the fly. Create that and you’ll be able to save games.
Next was the buggy shadows in the game, and the reason I like computer games over console games – the ability to tweak settings you normally aren’t suppose to be able to. The dithered shadows always drove me nuts when I saw it on the XBox360 version, and was one of the first things I looked for when I installed the game and saw they were still there. Turns out it’s a known problem with the Unreal 3 engine, and that a work-around was already discovered for it. User homerdog came up with the following solution that worked for me:
- Open <My Documents>\BioWare\Mass Effect\Config\BIOEngine.ini
- Alternately, you can edit <Program Files>\Mass Effect\Engine\Config\BaseEngine.ini
- Search for “DepthBias=0.012″ or something to that effect (there might be trailing 0′s)
- Change to “DepthBias=0.03″
- Save and Exit
Additionally, if you feel your card can handle it:
- Find “MaxShadowResolution=512″
- Change to “MaxShadowResolution=2048″ or higher – I upped it to 8192. Be sure that it’s a power of 2.
- Find “MinShadowResolution=32″
- Change to “MinShadowResolution=128″
- Find “MaxAnisotropy=4″
- Change to “MaxAnisotropy=16″
Lastly, I always disliked the fake movie grain they put into the game. You get that grain with a crummy transfer to high-def – it’s not a selling point and I have no idea why you’d want to actually *add* it. Luckily, that’s an easy fix. It’s in the Options -> Graphics menu selection of the game.
FYI, I currently have the settings on the game maxed out, and I’m not noticing any appreciable lag on my 8800GT. Your mileage may vary.
Ξ May 13th, 2008 | → Comments Off | ∇ Games |
Someone created a monster list of games scheduled to be released on the PC in 2008. Some are well known, some aren’t, but it’s a great list that gives you a taste of the possibilities this year. Heck, it looks like there’s even some SCUMM-like games on the list.
Ξ May 10th, 2008 | → Comments Off | ∇ Games, Technology |
I was looking forward to the PC release of Mass Effect this month, then I read about the draconian DRM present with the game. Oh well, I guess I’m going to download the game rather than buy it. Turns out, however, that EA isn’t nearly as tone-deaf as I thought they were, and reversed course, limiting the copy protection to authentication-at-install style. Great, so I hopped over to Amazon (which, BTW, is giving $10 off if you pre-register for the title, making it $40, as opposed to the XBox 360 version, which is $60) and ordered it.
I was sort of interested in the story, so I poked around a few threads on the matter, and eventually someone brought up reference to Stardock and their no-DRM policy. Stardock has released two very successful games, Galactic Civilizations and Sins of a Solar Empire. When SoaSE was released, Stardock posted a very eloquent explaination of their marketing philosophy – they design products around the consumer base they’re targeting, not the user base. They know very well that their products are going to be pirated – but pirates don’t enter in to their calculations. They are interested only in the people who are willing to pay for their products, and design products for them.
When you make a game for a target market, you have to look at how many people will actually buy your game combined with how much it will cost to make a game for that target market. What good is a large number of users if they’re not going to buy your game? And what good is a market where the minimal commitment to make a game for it is $10 million if the target audience isn’t likely to pay for the game?
If the target demographic for your game is full of pirates who won’t buy your game, then why support them? That’s one of the things I have a hard time understanding. It’s irrelevant how many people will play your game (if you’re in the business of selling games that is). It’s only relevant how many people are likely to buy your game.
Stardock doesn’t make games targeting the Chinese market. If we spent $10 million on a PC game explicitly for the Chinese market and we lost our shirts, would you really feel that much sympathy for us? Or would you think “Duh.”
Interesting thoughts.
Ξ April 19th, 2008 | → Comments Off | ∇ Games |
I finally got through the main campaign in Neverwinter Nights, and I have to say the ending was a real letdown. Not that it was particularly sad or anything, but that it was just really poorly done. The narrator sounded like he was just some guy reading a script handed to him. At first, I thought it was someone playing the part of a history teacher or something – telling some future generation of the history of the legend that was the adventure you had just finished, and that would explain the rather dull tone of the dialog, but no – it just turned out that it just was some dull sounding guy telling you that such-and-such ancillary character went on to be a beacon of light or some such.
In general, I felt that the game was very good – I really liked the main plot and the mechanics were pretty fun to work with. They had some good twists in the plot that didn’t feel forced (like they were there just to be plot twists), and while there were some bugs (such as when I couldn’t trigger the start to the fight with Lorne) or weak plot elements (such as how they shoe-horned in a love story), I felt that the strengths far outweighed the weaknesses. But the end story for you if you played a good character was just so bad – it felt like an 8th grader had taken as many cliches as they could and wrote a five-minute summary of how they wanted the game to end.
I’ve heard that the evil ending is much better – I don’t know if I want to play through the whole game again just to see it, but you might want to keep in mind that playing a good character doesn’t have much payoff at the end as far as closure goes. You might want to consider playing an evil character.
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