by Matt | Jul 2, 2009 | Aggravation, Games
Last night for the first time in probably two years I sat down and reunited with my old comrades for some good old fashion, ass kicking computer gaming. The members of the world famous Texas Combat Crew got together and had what I would consider to be a pretty awesome showing of raw gaming playing skill. We’re all older, we’ve all moved on to other things, but damn, we can still kick ass when we want to.
Of course, this meant I had to find and then install a copy of Battlefield 2, a feat that proved to be more difficult than shaking off the rust in-game. I had, at one point, two copies of BF2. One for the house and one for work. Playing at work was always a huge perk, one I genuinely enjoyed, and so that second copy was a necessity, especially since EA was (and still is) being an asshole about what computers use what CD keys. I managed to find both boxes. I managed to find both install CDs with both CD keys. What I couldn’t find anywhere were the “play” CDs.
That entire concept, from the beginning, has always been flawed and this is a perfect example of why. I own, legally, two $59.99 copies of that video game. I can’t use either one of them because I have to have a disk in the PC to play it. There’s nothing actually ON that disk, it’s merely “copy protection”. Now, 5 years after I bought those copies, I can’t find the disk to play. My install CDs, my CD keys, everything is useless without that second disk, the disk with nothing on it.
So, what did I do? The only thing a consumer can do (and they know it), I bought a THIRD copy.
Luckily, it was only $20 and included the entire collection (main game plus 3 expansions). Unfortunately, my fun lesson in economics didn’t end there. No, in order to maintain their place in the universe as a manifestation of everything soulless and wrong, EA requires “product activation” for the expansion packs. “Well, that’s not a big deal” you think, “I’ll just click this…..hmmmm…..why isn’t this working?”
Yeah, in order to play the expansion packs you have to visit EA’s website to register and activate your product. Only problem is, the websites for those expansion packs have long ago disappeared. The embedded links in the installer are dead. So, you get redirected to a page that says “sign up for an EA account”. I opt to login instead, because I already have an EA account from playing Skate and Skate 2. Oh no, that’s an EA Games account and the Battlefield page wants an EA Classics account. So you have to make a new one. Then, you go back and try and register again. This time it tells you it has no record of you playing Battlefield and can’t unlock the packs for you. This is because you haven’t “tied” your EA Classics account to your EA BF2 account. Oh, by the way, the page to do that, also dead.
You can see where I’m going with this. It took literally 10 tries, multiple account logins, multiple account merges, activations, dozens of dead links and finally a trip to customer support to finally get it straitened out. Two hours later (no exaggeration), I was ready to play.
Oh, and in the end, the expansions I was trying to unlock and install, add three (yes, 3) maps a piece. Oh, and the servers to play those on? They were shut down 3 years ago. Isn’t that awesome.
Way to make an installer EA. Keep up the awesome work. It was totally worth it to require I install (and then spend hours activating) those packs so that the main game install would finish. Totally worth it.
In the end, I really did have a blast playing. It was good to meet up with the guys again. It’s been too long. I look forward to the return of “Drunken Wednesdays” from now on.
by Matt | Jun 11, 2009 | Culture, Games, Personal
I’m not really sure when it happened, but apparently I’ve gone bat-shit insane. I’ve made multiple rather crazy purchases recently, for no reason other than they would give me personal satisfaction. The largest of these being Rock Band 2. I couldn’t resist the price RB2 was being offered at on GameStop’s website. They, according to the 100% fake story attached to the sale, came across extra inventory of Rock Band and Guitar Hero games in their warehouse and, being slightly aged from being in the afor-mentioned warehouse for so long, has decided to reduce the price to move the units. I have no earthly idea what condition the game will arrive in. It could be anything from “slightly faded box” to “OMG, someone drove the fork-lift off a cliff”. Either way, I have GameStop’s undying assurance that the contents of the box are in fact pristine and that it’s merely the outside that’s slightly “weathered”. We’ll see.
Either way, I only paid $94.99 for it, including free 3rd day shipping. So, there you go. The way I figure it, even if I only play it a handful of times with a “band” of friends, the way it’s meant to be played, I can at the very least play through it in Guitar Hero-ish mode just by myself. Or, I can actually attempt to learn the drums. I’m not holding out much hope. I’m rather rhythmically challenged.
Anyway, $95 for Rock Band 2, with the full bundle, sure isn’t a bad price. In case you’re feeling rather musical, I believe the sale is still going on. Edit, never mind, it’s apparently sold out.
So… who wants to rock their faces off!
by Matt | Jun 1, 2009 | Games, Personal, Reviews, Web, Work
No. I’m not at E3. I wish I was. Nope, just a guy watching all the press conferences and reading as much news as possible. I’m now post-live-blogging the Microsoft press conference. Post-live meaning that I’m watching it on my DVR after it’s happened. Here we go. Of course, to follow along, you should probably be watching it as well, or at least checking out clips of the afor-mentioned games. They should be everywhere by the time I post this.
Update: Just because I like you guys, I’ve gone back and tried to link to videos whenever possible.
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by Matt | Apr 21, 2009 | Culture, Friends and Family, Games
So, next weekend, all the ladies in our church are going to a women’s retreat until Saturday night. That means just one thing. LAN Party!
I’ve got a good sized group of guys coming over Friday afternoon for some gaming and we don’t plan on stopping until the girls get back the next day.
So far we’ve got PC’s, a couple monitors, 3 Xbox 360’s with 2+ controllers each, multiple TVs, a couple cases of beer and the pizza place on speed dial.
I’d like to some how take it to the next level, maybe set up a sound system with some techno going, or bring in some lights. I’d also like to borrow a projector from the office and maybe do some 120″ wall-gaming.
Ideally I think I’m going to need to find one more Xbox 360, one more copy of Halo 3 and CoD 5 and perhaps 2 copies of Left 4 Dead. That would give us an even number of everything across the board. Problem is the guy with the 4th Xbox will out of town and all three of those games are still $50 or more retail. So, renting becomes an option, at least until I realized there really isn’t a place to rent current-gen video game systems. I think both Blockbuster and Hollywood Video stopped the practice a long time ago and I don’t know what other options are out there.
So, now I’m looking around to see if any of our other friends in the area that have 360’s would let me borrow them, or if they would like to come, but if they come then I’d need to add another TV and another copy of the games.
It’s really kind of aggravating that there are so few multiplayer Xbox 360 games that support heavy LAN play. Halo 3 is only game that I can find that supports non-Xbox Live account multiplayer, meaning more than one person per console. With Halo 3 you can have up to four players, per console, with a maximum of four consoles (for a grand total of 16 person LAN play). Every other game that supports LAN play, is one person per console only. So, you can play Call of Duty or Gears of War with four other people, but you need 4 Xboxes, 4 TVs and 4 copies of the game. If everyone had the same taste in games maybe this wouldn’t be a problem but I’ve got guys who like WWII shooters but not zombies, zombies but not Nazis, Madden but not shooters, we’re all over the place.
Anyway, we’ll figure it out. I’m sure, even if we have to trade off every other round, that we’ll have a good time.
I’ve got two 1000ft boxes of Cat5 cable and I’m busy running long stretches of it across the house. I’ve got a 24-port switch and a 6 port to back it up in case it doesn’t work. This is going to be a good one.
I’m slowly trying to get all these guys, who have never really gamed before, into the sport. So far they all seem to enjoy it. My goal is that by this time next year, I’m planning a 30+ person LAN throw-down. I can’t wait.
Matt out.
by Matt | Apr 3, 2009 | Games, Work
So. We’ve made it to April. Spring is turning into summer and we haven’t seen a decent game release since Christmas. Now it’s conference and trade show season and all the big boys are announcing their game releases for the rest of the year. GDC has already happened and has already begun the year long tease that is the video game industry. E3 is up next and it’s supposed to be a big deal this year, back from the grave yard of canceled conferences. I know it’s early to be talking about the rest of the year, but I couldn’t wait. Allegedly we’ll get much firmer release dates, a lot more media and even a few new announcement by the time we get to E3, but here’s what I’ve got on my radar so far.
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by Matt | Apr 3, 2009 | Friends and Family, Games, Personal
Well, we had our fantasy baseball league’s draft last night. I got a number of the guys involved as well as my brother and my old man. We had a great draft and I think everyone ended up with some good players. The very first pick I made was for the entirety of the Boston Red Sox pitching staff. I have a pretty good feeling that this year they will be at least a very solid performer and at best pretty fucking fantastic. After that I was able to grab up Youk, Ortiz, and Hunter Pence, all guys I figure will have pretty big years. Not a bad lineup if I do say so myself. I’m a little weak at 3rd base and I don’t have a good backup catcher, but I think some trades could be made if needed to fill in the holes. I also picked up not only Jeter but Damon as well. I was planning on benching Damon, just on principle, but it looks like Ichiro will be on the DL for the first couple weeks, so he might get some play after all. Anyway, here’s the lineup.
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