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Assassins, Bullies, and Messiahs

Posted by Zonk on Fri Sep 01, 2006 11:59 AM
from the oh-my dept.
Entertainment Games
Some interesting news for a few upcoming game titles. Firstly (to no one's surprise), Assassin's Creed is coming to the 360. It will also be available for the PC. Secondly, Valve and Ubisoft have announced that Dark Messiah is coming to Steam when it releases in October. Chris Grant's commentary: "Ubisoft is acknowledging the demand for digitally distributed AAA content and using the largest platform they can find to promote it. We're still waiting on government-distributed protein pills and personal submarines, but the third pillar of our future vision is now realized." Finally, Rockstar appears to have partially bowed to public pressure over their 'Bully' title. In Europe, at least, Bully is now known as Canis Canem Edit, which means 'Dog Eat Dog' in Latin. To which I respond: Semper Ubi Sub Ubi.
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[+] Steam Users Steamed 881 comments
KrunchTime writes "The Steam network seems to be having some problems tonight. This is not good new for fans of counter-strike, day of defeat and other half-life mods. Some people seem to be able to log on fine while others, like me :(, cannot connect at all. The steam forums were filling up with invective when I was last able to get on. The forums now seem to have imploded under the strain of complaints. The question that was being asked most is why there isn't more redundancy on the log-in side of steam. They say that if one of the master servers goes down that the accounts held there become unavailable immediately. The other big problem is that while the Steam network is down even the offline games are unplayable. There was no sign of responses from Valve staff or forum moderators."
[+] Bully Gets In Trouble With School 290 comments
The Miami Dade school district is moving to pressure Rockstar games over its upcoming game Bully. From the Next Generation article: "Last Thursday, a board committee unanimously approved the resolution. A full board vote is expected this Wednesday. Rockstar issued a written statement to the Herald, which said, 'We all have different opinions about art and entertainment, but everyone agrees that real-life school violence is a serious issue which lacks easy answers.'"
[+] Assassin's Creed Not a PS3 Exclusive? 38 comments
Gamespot revisits a rumour that was floating around last month, which claims Assassin's Creed won't be a PS3 exclusive. From the article: "Further doubt of PS3 exclusivity was thrown into the mix this week when Web sites began reporting that Ubisoft confirmed at the Interactive Digital Entertainment Festival last week that the game would be coming to the Xbox 360 and PC. Which Web sites? It's not quite clear yet, though the rumor appears to have spawned on European-based Web sites. For those of you who predicted that Ubisoft would deny any other platforms for Assassin's Creed, pat yourself on the back. A rep told GameSpot News: 'Assassin's Creed is coming to the PS3. No other announcements have been made.'" Given the costs of next-gen game development, I don't think we're going to be seeing very many exclusives this time around.
[+] Jack Thompson Files Take-Two, Rockstar Lawsuit 451 comments
rtt writes "Jack Thompson is back on the video game scene and has followed through with his threat to file a law suit against Rockstar, Take-Two and Walmart for Rockstar's upcoming "Bully" title. bit-tech was sent a copy by the man himself which started as follows "Take-Two has until five o'clock p.m., Eastern time, Monday, August 14, 2006, to inform me in writing that it will forthwith provide me with a copy of Bully so that I and others can analyze it to determine whether it still poses a threat of copycat violence in our schools.""
[+] The Tale of Wal-Mart, Jack, and Bully 138 comments
GamePolitics is reporting on something that seems like a simple decision: Wal-mart is no longer accepting pre-orders for unrated games. As a 'family-friendly' establishment, it makes a certain amount of sense. The catch is that, in the eyes of many, one of the U.S.'s largest retailers is bowing to pressure from Jack Thompson. The company denies these claims, with Kotaku running a short discussion with John Simley, Wal-mart spokesperson. From that article: "Simley says it has nothing to do with Bully, but rather is the outcome of discussions that the company has been in for 'weeks if not months' about how to handle rating pending titles. Bricks and mortars stores have never accepted pre-orders for RP titles, he added. 'I'd like to give credit to Jack Thompson, but there are a lot of Jack Thompsons out there and we are just listening to our customers,'"
[+] Catan on Live, PopCap on Steam 63 comments
Two interesting bits of news on the casual gaming front today. GI.biz reports that PopCap games has signed a deal with Valve to have their games offered on Steam. The casual Xbox Live Arcade will also be getting some new visitors, though of a much more hard-core variety. Classic German boardgame Settlers of Catan will headline a trio of titles for Microsoft's downloadable games service, Gamespot reports. From that article: "Outpost Kaloki X is about to have some genre company on Xbox Live Arcade, as all three titles will call on strategic thinking from the players. The announced games include the civilization-building Settlers of Catan, the tile-based city-building game Carcassonne, and the Arabian-themed stock-market game Alhambra set to be available through the Xbox."
[+] Blair Bullied Over Bully 71 comments
Following up the banning of Bully by British retailers, UK BM Tony Blair faced criticism from Parliment members over the Rockstar title. During the daily 'Question Time' the PM faces, Leicester East's Keith Vaz called for a meeting on the game, and investigation of the title. From the article: "'I know that the Minister for Creative Industries and also the Minister responsible for the industry are very happy to meet with him and stakeholders to discuss it. It's obviously an important issue. I know there's a lot of concern about it. It is, I think, right to say that the video games industry, or certainly a very substantial section of it, have made significant strides and advances over the last few years, but he's quite right, it's important that's maintained,' Blair said."
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Assassins, Bullies, and Messiahs 47 Comments More /

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  • What does it mean? (Score:5, Informative)

    by IHSW (960644) on Friday September 01 2006, @12:04PM (#16025006)
    Semper ubi sub ubi is a pun based on the English gloss of a malformed Latin phrase: "always where under where." The motto is used as a joke by Latin students and others to mean "always wear underwear."

    source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semper_ubi_sub_ubi [wikipedia.org]
  • What you are essentially doing is renting the game at retail price. You can't even resell the game without paying a $10 transfer fee. Culture is going out the window if we buy into this junk. Imagine having kids 15 to 20 years down the road and waiting to show them the games, music, videos you used to enjoy. You won't be able to because the content is locked.

    Copyright is limited, but DRM is forever.
    • Simple answer? ease. I live in NYC, in are middle-of-no-where-Queens, and it is a pain to get out on release day to buy a new game, so I generaly have to roder it online. Now give me that chance to order it online and have it as soon as I download it (or instantly if it is preloaded) then sign me up! Yes, I bought HL2 and HL2 Ep1 via steam. And if you honestly think you are going to want to sell the game to some one else then create a new steam account and purchase it there! I personaly have 2 steam a
    • actually as long as steam still exists in some form you can continue to play the games. They let you make backups of all software you've purchased, they also keep track of what you've boughten. If my hdd goes kaput, as long as I remember my login/password they'll let me download the game again. I can also manage to get some games that either cannot be purchased in physical form, or are a bitch to find now.
      As far as reselling goes, it does really suck, but I could imagine you could add $10 to what you were g
  • The first I heard of "Steam" was when Half-Life 2 came out. I never bought HL2 (not into FPS), and so my association with Steam was "something that came with HL2 that nobody liked". Now I'm reading about various games "coming out on Steam" or something, and so I've been trying to figure out what it is. Apparently you download games on it, which sounds pretty good (although in the old days we used something called "FTP" to download things), and then whenever you want to play your game that you purchased, you

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by Brothernone (928252)
      Steam is an on-line contenet dilivery service. You downlaod and play games through steam. Each person is assigned a sepcific ID taht keeps track of what games you've purchased. If your local copy is deleted, steam knows that you have payed for the game, and simply lets you redownload it. Steam does not need to be connected to the interenet to play. Your games that are used through steam cannot be accessed any other way. If you use the icon to open say HL2 or CSS it will open steam, then launch the game. Man
    • Basicly Steam replaced WON a few years back. WON was Valve's old server for listing servers. Steam does these things: 1) List servers for Valve Games 2) Chat system (the friends system worked, then stoped, and is now aparently back, think kinda like XBL system) 3) Content distribution platform (be it automaticly pushing out patches, making demos/videos avaliable at good speeds, or downloading a new game) 4) Store 5) Anti pirac 1 and 2 are non enteties as far as the Steam love/hate goes number 3 is a goo
    • Can someone explain Steam to me?

      Think of it as something like an apt-get for games, just with some added stuff for copy-protection and payment.

    • What if you don't have net access when you want to play?

      Provided you've logged in once and set Steam to log you in automatically, you can play single player games (and maybe LAN, I'm not sure) offline.

  • Even non-Latin Students can translate this: (Score:3, Funny)

    by fujiman (912957) on Friday September 01 2006, @01:23PM (#16025656)
    Osibili si ergo
    fortibuses in ero
    Nobili demis trux
    Vatis enim?
    Covsendux!

    That was on my 8th grade Latin exam. ;)

    • The answer is.... (Score:4, Informative)

      by fujiman (912957) on Friday September 01 2006, @01:26PM (#16025676)
      Oh see, Billy! See 'er go! Forty busses in a row

      No, Billy, them is trucks

      What is in 'em?

      Cows and Ducks!

    • Anybody know the Latin equivalent of:

      All your base are belong to us
      ?

      I have a "Geek of Week" certificate that I use to try and get our staff interested in learning more about their computers. I thought the Latin would be a cute motto to have use in an "official looking" seal.

      • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

        by WilliamSChips (793741)
        In deliberately incorrect Latin, Omne tuum castrum sunt insunt nobis. In correct Latin, Omnia tua castra insunt nobis.
        • In deliberately incorrect Latin, Omne tuum castrum sunt insunt nobis.

          Thanks a bunch, William! It was the incorrectness of the grammar that was stumping me - I wanted it to be just as bad in Latin as it is in English ;-).

  • Assassin's Creed coming to Xbox 360? There goes my only interest in PS3. Assassin's Creed coming to PC? There goes my only interest in Xbox 360. *hugs PC*
    • Indeed. I've seen nothing compelling to make me interested in a 360. And now the only compelling game left (thus far) for PS3 is Heavenly Sword. If that'll be available for PC also, I look forward to sticking w/ my plan to purchase a Wii and keep the PS360 market away from my wallet.
    • Indeed - recently I've been thinking about picking up a 360 after new year but it would only be for exclusives and Assassin's Creed on the PC should keep me happy. However, MS will at least get some money from me as when the game comes out I plan to buy a wired 360 pad to play it on my PC.
  • It's "Dog eats dog"!
  • ...Is exactly what oblivion's combat should've been. That's some awesome video.

  • How unfortunate. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Fallingcow (213461) on Friday September 01 2006, @04:42PM (#16027143) Homepage
    I've been hoping that no other companies would start using Steam. I decided to give them a chance, and didn't jump on the "it's DRMed to hell and you don't really own the game" bandwagon (though I see where they're coming from). I bought HL2. It's fun, and so is Counterstrike:Source, but dicking with Steam is WAY too much work for something that I just want to play every now and then. I occasionally want to play a round or two of CS:S, but since my last format+reinstall, I've just not cared enough about it enough to install Steam. I *know* that, if I could just pop in a CD and install it, I'd have done so months ago, and gotten hours of playing in. Knowing that, I'm beginning to realize how much of the value of a game Steam destroys.

    I've been eyeing those HL2:Episode 1 boxes at the store, and I'd kind of like to play it. The reason I haven't picked one up and taken it through the checkout? Steam. I don't want to install it again. It's just too damn annoying. I don't know how many other people feel this way, but I'd bet that they've lost a fairly large number of sales--people like me, who'd pick up the game and buy it at the store, don't do it, because Steam makes it feel like the process of purchasing their product is continuous and never-ending, rather than being a 5-minute wait in line at the store that you never have to worry about again. Maybe they're still making more money this way, selling through Steam, in spite of this kind of thing. I don't know, but I hope they're not.

    I like the ability to get some mods through Steam. That's about the only thing I've seen in it that I like, but a similar system could be made without most of the other crap, and without making it a requirement to play the game at all.

    I fear that, if Steam takes off, it'll offset all of the great things about PC gaming. That may force me to go 100% console. What a dark, dark day that will be. :(

    (Not hating on consoles, I like them, but almost all of my top 20 or so gaming experiences have been on the PC, and many would likely not have been possible or not been as great on a console, for a number of reasons)
    • Wow, sounds like you haven't bothered with steam since the, admitedly rocky, HL2 launch. From a fresh format, this is what I have to "go through" in order to install Half Life 2.
      1. Download Steam. It's less than a meg to download
      2. Wait for it to update. It takes 30 seconds or so on a broadband connection
      3. Look on my games list for the game I want to install and double click on it.

      This is really the longest part of the process, where it has to download and install the entire game, and admitedly it does ta

      • I agree. Steam used to be a piece of crap, but has come a LONG way. I recently reinstalled CS:S and DoD:S. I think I averaged around 800KB/s (note the big B) downloading both of them. IIRC, it took about an hour to install both of them. Not quite as fast as installing with a CD, but certainly faster than hopping in the car, driving to and from the nearest game shop and installing it. Plus, it enables me to avoid that scary fireball in the sky.
    • Wow what a bunch of BS and black PR. I bought HL2 at release (and I mainly bought it for CS:S) since then I reinstalled half a dozen times, changed hardware 3 times, changed many hard drives . And never ever I had to reinstall anything. Thats right - on a freshly installed Windows it all took 5 seconds to drage steam icon to desktop in 10 seconds later I could play (provided my games were up to date -case not it took all 2-3 minutes to get updates for last half a year) .

      Steam is not perfect,and
      • Meh, that was just my experience with it.

        I think the worst part was, as I said, the feeling of being in the checkout line never ends. It feels like I am forever in the process of buying the game, even when it's already been paid for. It's bizarre, and not something I've ever experienced before. I definately don't like it.
        • I dont get why you get this feeling. -yes it checks your account login/password, but it never asks you to pay for games you already bought. If anything I like this system because I will never have to worry about media for games on steam - I can always redownload them at no fee and no questions asked. And you can play offline just fine ( when I had trouble with my provider I still could play all games no problem).

          I mean I can understand that related to some crap activation system (cough..cough.. wi
          • It seemed like I could never just *play the game* without making sure that Steam was appeased first. It's gotta check for updates or whatever, then probably download something and install it (I didn't play much after the first few weeks, when I'd finished playing through HL2 twice), and if I cancel it then it'll probably complain and refuse to let me play any games offline 'till I let it finish (and start the updating again if I plug the ethernet cable back in).

            Of course, I didn't leave it on all the time,
            • How it is different from anything else? If anything automatic update checking is a boon .Example -BF2 ,after a long break I want to play it ,but I cant ,because I didnt patch to the latest version. Now I have to manually find the patch ,download it ,install and then find no -cd crack (if its available) -since it will ask me for CD which is long time gone. -Thats a hassle. Steam on the other hand updates everything automatically in less than 5 minutes (usually) and never asks me for CD and I never have a h
              • Auto-updating: good for multiplayer games.

                Bad for single-player games.

                Look, I didn't even realize I hated Steam as much as I do until I was at the store, saw HL2:EP1 on the shelf, and caught myself thinking, "hm, that's probably fun, maybe I should buy it... but wait, then I'd have to install Steam again, and that blows so much that I'm not going to buy this game."

                Then, "whoa, I had no idea that I disliked Steam that much. Weird."

  • The irony... (Score:3, Funny)

    by LordEd (840443) on Saturday September 02 2006, @12:56AM (#16028728)
    Rockstar has renamed its Bully game due to bullying from the public.

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