A new day for PC gamers dawns, developers dropping draconian DRM

You may have heard that Ubisoft released the PC retail version of Prince of Persia without any hard-ass DRM. They said that it was a test, but haven't released their conclusions of the test to the public. The general consensus around the communities seems to be that the test went well for us PC gamers, since Ubisoft hasn't made a huge news headline out of it where they show the numbers that justify DRM use.

So, now it seems that other developers are following the good example set by the French giant, since the second news for today is that Dragon Age: Origins is not going to use SecuROM, instead opting for a basic disc check authentication. 1UP reports that this bit of news came directly from the community manager for BioWare. While people probably don't like disc checks either, it certainly is a step up from the online authentications and install limits we have come to expect from SecuROM laden games.

Quote: We're happy to announce that the boxed/retail PC version of Dragon Age: Origins will use only a basic disk check and it will not require online authentication. In other words, the retail PC version of the game won't require you to go online to authenticate the game for offline play. We have chosen not to use SecuROM in any version of Dragon Age that is distributed by Electronic Arts or BioWare.

If you haven't heard, EA's other big name game, Sims 3 is apparently going to be SecuROM free as well. All this bundled with the earlier mentioned Ubisoft experiment, it seems like publishers are finally starting to realize that it really doesn't help with piracy at all, and only hurts the real customers.

This probably sounds too good to be true, right? Well, have faith brothers and sisters of the gaming world, it's a new era of PC gaming! Maybe. Hopefully.

Posted in Gaming by Kilu on May 05th 2009 at 7:48pm 0 Comments

Final Fantasy XIII might be arriving sooner than you expected

If you haven't heard, Square Enix is developing this small game called Final Fantasy XIII. Some weeks ago the Japanese demo of said game was spotted out in the wild and soon after tons of media of the demo surfaced, including a screenshot of the demo's end screen, which effectively put the game's Japanese release at Winter 2009, some guessing that it would land in December.

Considering Square Enix's track record with localization for the North American market and the subsequent release in the PAL regions, odds were that NTSC guys would get their game sometime summer 2010, and PAL would get theirs for Christmas 2010. And these estimates didn't even factor in the time it would take them to get it in releasing order for Xbox 360.

Well, now some good news has surfaced from an interview by VideoGamer.com with Yoshinori Kitase, the producer of the game, who they spoke to in London.

Quote: Obviously we would like to release it over here as soon as possible. Traditionally the Final Fantasy numbered series, it takes about half a year between the release in Japan and the release in North America, and another half a year before it's released in Europe. But we would like to minimise this, this time. For example we have already started recording English voices, and also the text localisation has been in progress, too. Normally we complete the Japanese version first, then move on to the US and EU versions, but this time there are some tasks that are happening simultaneously. So this time we're hoping to release sooner than a year later than the Japanese release.

In the same interview (but a different news story), Kitase also revealed that some of the engine work is also being done simultaneously.

Quote: When it comes to the basic engine it's likely we are going to keep them on the go simultaneously. But the finishing touches, the details, the PS3 version will be completed first, then we will move on to 360.

And there you have it. If the localization time is shortened and the development of the 360 version will not have to wait for the PS3 version to be finished (like was reported back when FF13 was first announced for 360), the game just might be released in both US and Europe sooner than people are prepared for.

Oh, and if you didn't know, there has been some new stuff in the official Japanese FF13 site as well, mainly some wallpapers (click the thumb to see a part of one of those) and some info about battle system I guess. Not like I read Japanese.

Posted in Gaming by Kilu on May 05th 2009 at 7:11pm 0 Comments

Sound Test X: About Time released!

It's About Time too!

The RPGamers.net's own little music collection project has been on hiatus for a while now, much like the rest of the site has been. Sound Test 9 was released August 2006, and that's probably longer than anyone thought it had been, but the time just passes so fast these days I guess. We made the first forum announcement about the starting of the Sound Test 10 on 27th of February, 2008, which is when some of us started picking our tracks. We never set a schedule for it, knowing that we probably couldn't stick to one anyway. As I recall, we a got a fair amount of submissions reasonably fast, but as active members were but a handful, we came up short. As with everything else, we needed more people. And so it took us quite a while to get a CD's worth of music ready.

But even after that it wasn't smooth sailing. BAMAToNE, who was managing STX, got busy, and doing the finalizing of the files and tracklist took longer than expected. When he finally was able to do that, just a few days ago, he forwarded the final tracklist to silverDistortioN for the artwork. And even then our STX birthing troubles were not behind us. When silverDistortioN was making the covers, his Photoshop crashed and he lost the original cover. Which was apparently superior to the final (still awesome) cover.

So now it's finally out. If you know how to use BitTorrent, you can get it from The Torrent Tracker. If you don't know how to, fear not. Locke has now posted the album on our media server for direct download as well!

Direct Download: Complete Album (ZIP) - Individual Files

Posted in Site News by Kilu on May 03rd 2009 at 9:18pm 3 Comments

Dawn of War II soundtrack available for free

And it's totally legal too.

Have you ever wanted to get your filthy paws on the Dawn of War II music, but didn't have the skill to rip them from the game, or was just too lazy to do anything about it? Now your wait is over, because Relic is giving you the soundtrack for free. Yeah, that's right, free. You don't even have to own the game to download it. Just head on over to Steam's Dawn of War II page, scroll down, and download the bitch. No, you don't need Steam, your regular browser will do just fine.

The soundtrack is composed by Doyle W. Donehoo, who I have never heard of until now, and I haven't played the game and have no clue what kind of music to expect, but I'm going to get it either way. I mean, it's free. So why not. More info about the soundtrack, liner notes, if you will, can be found from the first link on this post. For your convenience, I also pasted the tracklist down there, after the break.

Continue reading »

Posted in Gaming by Kilu on April 29th 2009 at 7:34pm 0 Comments

Steam Weekend Deal, Orange Box for 10 bones

Just a quick heads-up for everyone, this weeks weekend deal on Steam is The Orange Box, for $10. That's right, 5 games for $10. That's Half-Life 2, HL2: Episode 1, HL2: Episode 2, Portal and Team Fortress 2, it's a ridiculous deal, so get it while you can. As said, it's a weekend deal so be quick about it. Even if you have them, might as well get a second copy and gift them to your brother/mother/sister/father/friend/dog.

Posted in Gaming by Kilu on April 25th 2009 at 7:32am 0 Comments

Official Braid soundtrack available from Magnatune, has awesome music

As you may have heard, Braid is quite an excellent game. It has beautiful art, wonderful story and a great gameplay idea with solid execution. As an icing on the cake, Jonathan Blow licensed music from several artists through Magnatune, and while I generally don't think that licensing is the best solution when game music is considered, the selections are so fitting that it feels like the music was made for the game.

So, the music has been previously available in Magnatune, iTunes and Amazon MP3 on their original albums, as well as single tracks on some services. But now, in celebration of the PC release of Braid, Blow has worked with Magnatune to put together an actual soundtrack with two additional remix tracks to boot. And that's just awesome. The album is called Music from Braid (shocking, I know), and you can preview all the tracks in the album page. I previously didn't want to buy the music because of how it was spread across different albums with no official tracklist, and I can't use Amazon MP3 because of my location, and iTunes is just donkey's balls, so this is wonderful news for me.

If this wasn't awesome enough news, I should also mention that Magnatune offers their catalog in perfect WAVs and FLACs, high quality VBR MP3s and OGGs, even on lower quality 128CBR MP3s and OSX AAC files. The choice is yours, and yours alone. And there is no DRM, and you can redownload whatever you bought later, as long as you remember the email address you used with the purchase. That's how digital purchase should always work.

So, I already bought mine and am downloading it right now! Go and buy it, now! Here's a link for you again! GO! GO! GO!

Posted in Gaming by Kilu on April 22nd 2009 at 2:59pm 1 Comment

Final Fantasy XIII Japanese release date all but confirmed

As the official release date for the Final Fantasy VII Advent Children Complete box is closing in (that's tomorrow, Thursday, 16th of April), some fans have already gotten their hands on it, including the Final Fantasy 13 demo that the initial release of the box also holds. 1UP news reports that the demo ends in a screen that says "Coming Winter 2009". So there you go, the Japanese release date for FF13. But wait, I hear someone complaining that Winter 2009 isn't exactly a date now is it? Lets work on that a bit then.

According to 1UP, the second half of December, more specifically the two last Thursdays of the year, have been kind to Square Enix in the past, and those crazy Japanese guys are just all about tradition and things like that, right? So, 1UP's quick glance at the calendar seems to confirm that the release date is either 24th or 31st of December. Now, I personally think that those two dates are pretty crazy to release a game on, so I'm going one week back in time and say it's going to be 17th of December. How's that for speculation?

In addition to this little news bit, some demo gameplay has also already surfaced. User esegk at Justin.tv had a live stream of the demo's first moments, and now some recorded clips of that stream have popped up in YouTube. User Daxter241 apparently has 40 minutes of it, though only part 1 and part 2 are available as I'm writing this, totaling in about 12 minutes. I think we can assume that more will come as soon as he can split the 40 minute stream to YouTube sized chunks. It's only a matter of time until the more professional media has their video capturing monkeys do some better looking videos of the demo, but in the meantime these will have to do.

Posted in Gaming by Kilu on April 15th 2009 at 9:35am 2 Comments

Server Maintenance, Expected Downtime (IRC, Torrents)

This is just a quick note to let everyone know that we have some planned maintenance coming up in the next few days. This will affect the chat (IRC) server, as well as the torrents. The tracker will be unreachable during this time.

We expect the maintenance to begin either late Wednesday night, or on Thursday during the day. Estimated downtime is less then 3 hours. As more information is available, I will make a follow-up news post with exact times for the work to be done.

Posted in Site News by Locke on April 14th 2009 at 7:12pm 2 Comments

Dungeons & Dragons Co-Creator Dave Arneson Dead at 61

Dave Arneson died April 7th 2009 after losing his battle with cancer. Dave is known for Co-Creating Dungeons & Dragons alongside Gary Gygax who died late last year.

Dungeons and Dragons was the first game in a long time that forced players to think and imagine. Created in 1974 and published by Tactical Studies Rules, Inc. (TSR).Dungeons & Dragons's publication is widely regarded as the beginning of modern role-playing games and, by extension, the entire role-playing game industry.

Our sympathies go out to the entire Arneson family.

Posted in Gaming by Baron on April 09th 2009 at 8:39pm 0 Comments

Access the Animus, Assassin's Creed 2 teaser

A small Assassin's Creed 2 teaser has been revealed by Ubisoft. While not much is actually shown yet, it appears that the next issue of Game Informer will have a bigger scoop on this thing, at least that's the assumption, based on the mirrored text and date that shows after the flash animation has played. Based on the animation, renaissance will be the next time period that the game will take place in. Sounds certainly interesting. That period certainly has its share of interesting people.

Also, some Assassin's Creed soundtrack news. Looks like an official soundtrack will finally be released. Few days ago a post at the official Jesper Kyd forums informed us that the digital soundtrack will be available on April 13, 2009 on both AmazonMP3 and iTunes. No news on a physical album yet, but I won't lose hope just yet on that either.

I'm totally excited for both news, even though I actually can't buy anything from AmazonMP3 and iTunes just sucks in general. If you buy the soundtrack from either service, hit me up at IRC, I want it.

Posted in Gaming by Kilu on April 06th 2009 at 4:33pm 0 Comments