Prototype 2 Screens

The opening moments of P2.

Radical Wants Me to Fund Their Next Title

Last night I was fooling around in Prototype 2 with the RADnet content and when I selected a "free" download option I was presented with this screen:

Wait. How many MS Points do they want? I had to write it down and count the digits.

4,294,967,295. Or about 4.3 billion MS Points.

I did some quick math to figure out the actual cost because who knows, the next piece of RADnet content may be worth it.

A single MS Point works out to be about $0.02 (CAN). More math. The total cost to grab that content is $66,571,993.00. So either that content will tear a hole in the space-time continuum because it's so awesome or Radical Entertainment wants me to personally fund their next project, which is so not happening!

Or that's just the method being used to make sure the content isn't available until a certain date. Or it's a technical glitch.

I like my first guess.

EDIT: 8:01PM, May 1, 2012 - Clarification from Radical and Activision (thanks, Steve!):  "Given that the DLC isn’t available for purchase yet but it is still listed when you use a VIP code, 66 billion is the default amount it tries to charge you to make sure no one can buy it." Basically, as part of the press, I'm special! To further clarify: "Regular gamers with the Radnet edition will not see this at all. Only you and a chosen few who were lucky enough to get VIP codes."

The Door Is Raised On The Embargo Garage

So, my review of Prototype 2 is now live -- right here! -- and after re-reading the text, I'm struck by something.

I love writing, but after about midnight my desire to write drops off considerably and I was still writing well after that. "Sleep!" replaces "Write!" quite easily but I pushed myself through to get the review finished (more or less) and uploaded before the embargo lifted at 6:00AM (Pacific) this morning. The embargo was originally scheduled to end on launch day, which would have afforded me a couple of days to write the review. And catch some more of the grammar and puctuation issues, such as the "it's" error in the opening paragraph.

Stuff like that bugs the hell out of me. The "it's" will weigh on my mind all day. Something so obvious should have been ironed out before I uploaded the review. But as my eyes droop and the minute hand has started to swoop upward once more and the hour hand is sliding toward the "2", my ability to see errors and or other problems wanes.

And with no editor, or even an extra set of alert eyes to scan through the review, I rely on my own skill with words to communicate how I feel about a game. But running against the clock...

Maybe coffee would have warded off the worst of it, but when I was done I wanted to just drop into bed and fall asleep. I didn't want to wrestle with caffeine. I do, after all, want to be able to function during daylight hours. (I'm at an age, where I can't easily brush off fatigue.)

At any rate, the review posted and I'm tired. But not too tired do some more editing on the review. (The score still stands.)

From Blizzard, With Love

So, some sections of the Internet are crying today about the latest news from Blizzard: Diablo III will be available on consoles. I was pretty sure the company had announced this ages ago so I'm not sure what the big deal is. I'm sure that for a few days there will be some very vocal whining and complaining from some segments of the gaming public, but these guys need to spend their time on more fruitful pursuits, like say, horticulture or cleaning up a river.

Dollars to donuts, the same people flipping out about this recent announcement were the same individuals that went a little off the deep end when it came to the art style. I remember when Blizzard showed off Diablo III for the first time and the voices called the art direction terrible, the grittiness had been replaced by a Care Bear sensibility, and so on.

I'm not sure how small your world has to be to care about stuff like this. More players getting a chance at a Diablo game?

That's good news.

Not just for Blizzard, a company that needs to have its gold-plated silverware re-finished, but for those gamers that have to listen to "old timers" beat the drum about how awesome those old Diablo games were. Finally, they'll be able to experience the "killing and shopping" of an RPG series that is still labelled as one of the best ever even though the last game was released more than a decade ago!

ADDITIONAL: Blizzard has actually denied confirmation of a console version. I'd still say it's likely to appear though.

FTC Endorsement Guides

With the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 press package I received there was a sheet included titled "ATTENTION - IMPORTANT NOTICE" which seemed a little redundant given that it's all in underlined bold caps. Here's a scan of the document:

I had to Google "FTC Endorsement Guides."

"FTC" stands for "Federal Trade Commission" which was established in 1914 "to prevent unfair methods of competition in commerce as part of the battle to “bust the trusts.”" Being a Canadian (living in Canada, no less) this is kind of the first I'm heating about the FTC ant its endorsement guides. More than ten years into the enterprise of The Armchair Empire and I don't think I've ever acknowledged that we receive review copies of games. I feel so guilty! It's on a rare occasion that any money is spent on a game to review it -- usually a copy just shows up from the publisher. (Dead Island was the last game I had to buy.) This note from Activision got me thinking about the topic. I can think of only a precious handful of gaming sites out there that make any effort at offering this particular information. (I mean, aside from the usual unboxing videos and casual bragging that happens on gaming podcasts.)

I'll certainly be making some changes to how this information is conveyed to our readers in some obvious way, until then I have to admit that Activision sent us the "Hardened" version of Modern Warfare 3 (for PS3).

I feel better already.