Gamenikki

This started out as a review. Not too long ago, I took advantage of one of GoGamers' 48-Hour Madness deals to pick up Toca Race Drive 3. I'd been jonesing for a good racing game, and after hearing some good feedback on the Toca series, picked this up pretty much on a whim.

And, at first, it was working out pretty well for me. The game featured all kinds of vehicles; if it has an engine and four wheels, somebody somewhere has tried to race it, and, for the most part, Codemasters has put it in the game. Unfortunately, they put something else in the game and it's one nasty little bugger: StarForce.

What is StarForce? StarForce is a copy protection scheme that has many PC gamers up in arms. StarForce generally has two big complaints against it. One, it installs a hidden driver on your computer that often does not uninstall when the associated game is uninstalled. That's pretty lame, although the fine developers responsible for the piece of crap do offer a removal utility on their site. Gee, thanks guys. Additionally, there are claims that StarForce causes stability issues and even the failure of optical drives. Frankly, I never put much weight into the latter claims, figuring them more to be exaggerations. That was a mistake.

I've now seen firsthand what StarForce can do. Plain and simple, it killed my DVD burner. On May 1st, I had a six-month-old burner working without a hitch. On May 2nd, I installed the game. On June 6th, I fired up iTunes to burn a quick CD of some righteous tunes, and the burner was toast. I'll skip all the troubleshooting I went through to test the drive; suffice to say, its days of burning CDs are over. While it's possible something else caused this, it's worth noting that from the time I installed the game to the time I discovered the drive was bad, the only thing that drive was used for was for Toca.

Can I prove that StarForce caused the failure of my drive? Nope. But you can bet a pretty penny that I won't willingly allow another game infected with this garbage to go near my PC. And we'll see how long my next optical drive lasts...

AKA "Blog, Part II"

So, played any good sequels lately? Sequels have been a natural (and, generally, welcome) part of the game industry almost from the beginning. And it's easy to see why: money. Games cost a lot of money to develop and distribute, and going with an established property instead of an unknown entity is a smart bet. Fine.

But does it have to be this bad? In my short time here, I've written two reviews - Age of Empires III and Call of Duty 2. Both sequels...er, threequels in the case of Age of Empires. Meanwhile, I'm currently working on reviews for two new games: Civilization IV and VietCong 2.

Sequels are nice, but I really wish we were seeing more original games coming out too. The Movies seems encouraging, and, truthfully, even if it disappoints, I'm just thrilled that someone is trying something new for a change (yes, I know the game is already out...but I haven't picked it up yet). More The Sims, less The Sims expansion packs.

Please.

Like Troy, I think I'll use my first blog entry to introduce myself. Right from the start, I'd like to confess that I don't own any consoles, unless you want to count the PS1 and Super Nintendo gathering dust somewhere in my basement. That is not to say that I'm one of "those" types - you know, the OMG-my-PC-is-WAY-better-than-your-Xbox people. I just happen to spend most of my waking hours in front of a computer, so that became the natural gaming medium for me. Also, I'm generally too cheap to spend a couple hundred bucks on a new console for myself.

I generally enjoy all types of games, with RPGs and FPSs usually high up on my list. And, like Troy, I'm pretty lousy at RTSs, but that doesn't stop me from playing them. If I was to draw up a list of my favorite games, it would include System Shock 2, Baldur's Gate, Sim City 2000, Tomb Raider (for the Playstation), Railroad Tycoon 2, Unreal Tournament 2004 and Alpha Centauri. I'm sure I'm forgetting something there, but that will just give me filler for my next blog.

Anyway, I'm 30 something, married, with two awesome kids. I like sports - especially hockey (go Avs) - computer games (duh), and music (even country). I'm rakishly handsome, dress like it's 1983, and in my spare time I fight for world peace. Or something like that.