Vintage

…especially now that I don’t need it! Don’t let the door hit you in the ass GFWL.

GFWL is henceforth known locally as Get F***ed With Licensing? - honestly people, copy protection that doesn’t protect your product but just punishes the honest purchaser is mind boggling. It’s like buying a car alarm that ONLY GETS SET OFF IF YOU USE THE KEYS.

This is old (in internet terms), but Shamus sums it up nicely.

I ranted a bit about it here and after the latest Fallout 3 DLC came out, I had my latest outbreak of self-loathing and Tourettes Syndrom that I hope other PC gamers go through, and again considered giving up on PC gaming all together…

(Although I don’t have the money for the Xbox/PS3 AND the required lobotomy, so I have to soldier on)

After many head-banging moments it turns out that while it’s impossible to *prove* the 1.5 patch is causing crashes for tons of players, *coincidently* the folks that work around the 1.5 patch aren’t having those crashes.

Yeah. Coincidence.

I know patches are a bitch, you fix one problem and cause another. But I’m not your beta-tester Bethesda, I bought the game.

Back on topic: After some digging I’ve fixed my problems, and am happily playing again. I’ll post my ‘must have’ addons and the fix in a separate post.

Ok, so there’s a new expansion for Fallout 3, and being a tool, I got it. Despite all the grousing out on the interweb, my FO3 experience has been pretty bug free.

The expansions haven’t been buggy - the damn Live client has. I constantly have connection issues TO PLAY A SINGLE PLAYER GAME, AND THE EXPANSIONS I BOUGHT AND DOWNLOADED…

Just so I can compare my achievements with some retard that can’t operate a PC so he got an XBox instead. Yay. When the hell are the game companies going to realize that making it a pain in the ass to PLAY your games means we are going to stop buying them and move on to companies that don’t rely on such crap?

Honestly, I HAD to have Steam to install and play Empire:Total War - if my internet connection goes down, I can’t play a single player wargame? WTF?

I’ve played through and beaten the ‘Grand Campaign’ as the Prussians, and started a new game as the Matarahahahaha Confederacy (Whatever, the Hindu Indian faction).

Overall I like the game. The battles are excellent, even if the AI is exploitable, its still fun.

The diplomacy/research/economic bit is a mixed bag, and is definately secondary to the battle engine.

Assassins, Missionaries and Scholars are a neat extra.

Overall I’m pleased, but I’ve got the nagging suspicion that I’d be just as happy if not happier playing Europa Universalis II to scratch that campaign ‘itch’ and just load up E:TW for the occasional ‘quick’ battle.

The scores coming in at 7.8, 80% etc. etc. Seem about right.