If You're So Inclined, Steam Now Offering From Dust Refunds

It's too bad most of what's been written about From Dust lately is about a bad PC port. It's a great game!

The sordid tale of From Dust's is-it-or-isn't-it digital rights management appears to be finally coming to a close.Ubisoft has promised a patch within the next few weeks to make the game completely playable offline, and I've just received word that Steam is offering refunds to unsatisfied owners of the game.

There were reports of Steam offering refunds to aggitated From Dust owners last week, but when I personally submitted a customer support ticket asking about a refund, Steam flatly denied it was a possibility.

In light of recent events, appears Ubisoft has asked Steam to give players the option to get their money back.

"Ubisoft has just announced that they are working on a patch that will eliminate the need for any online authentication for From Dust," reads the updated support ticket sent my way tonight. "The patch will release in approximately two weeks. If you don’t want to wait for the patch or if you haven’t played the game, per Ubisoft’s request, we will issue refunds for this title. If you would still like your purchase of From Dust refunded, please reply to this ticket."

I haven't purchased From Dust on PC, only inquired about the refund through my Steam account, but it appears anyone who has picked up From Dust and would like to reverse that decision has the option.

Customers were upset at Ubisoft for originally announcing From Dust would not have any DRM. When the game arrived on PC, in addition to other port issues, the game required users to login online at the start. Ubisoft has a history of flip-flopping on DRM for its PC ports, which has given the publisher a bad reputation amongst PC gamers.

Read More

Your Friend and Mine, Garcia Effin' Hotspur

There are very few good playing, genuinely funny video games. Shadows of the Damned is one of them.

It should have been a home run.

Shadows of the Damned sold just 24,000 copies in North America when it was released in June. It doesn't matter how many copies it has or hasn't sold since; it's a tragedy when a trio of gaming's most creative minds out of Japan produce something terrific and the game fails to bring anyone out.

Shadows may have started as horror, but it ended up more Sam Raimi than Wes Craven.

As the story often tragically goes, the collaboration between No More Heroes designer Suda 51, Resident Evil 4 mastermind Shinji Mikami and Silent Hill composer Akira Yamaoka was widely praised by critics. Electronic Arts did little to market the game, dooming it to word of mouth.

"I'm not satisfied with the sales," said Yamaoka in a recent email. "I'm proud of the project, so I'd like for a lot more people to play it."

You and me both, Yamaoka-san.

The project that eventually become Shadows of the Damned was announced in August 2008 at EA's annual summer event. Suda 51 and Mikami were both in attendance (Yamaoka was still working at Konami) to announce a collaboration with EA Partnersfor a horror game both of them would be working on. At the time, the game was even intended to be released on Wii. Obviously, that never happened.

EA, Epic Games and People Can Fly announced its partnership at the same event. Bulletstorm was released this past February.

Shadows of the Damned changed shape from when Suda 51 and Mikami conceived it while making Killer 7 atCapcom, and again over the course of development. Mikami and Suda 51 were aiming at Western audiences from the start, and signing with EA was seen as a way to reach that goal.

"Well, one of the reason for the, and I don’t know if I would call it restrained, but one of the reasons is our partnership with EA," Suda told me over email. "As a publisher, EA has been involved with Damned since the planning stages and their feedback has been invaluable. Damned has changed significantly since the first game design documents were created. And both Grasshopper and EA had the American and European markets in mind when we decided to make the game. Of course, we never once thought that we wanted to make a game that didn’t resonate with our Japanese audience also."

Suda pointed towards the decision to move onto Unreal Engine 3 was one of the reasons Shadows of the Damned underwent one of its stylistic changes, long before the public would actually see it.

Yamaoka was not part of the game's entire development. He left Konami in December 2009, having been the face of the Silent Hill series for years. Shadows of the Damned debuted for the first time at Tokyo Game Show in September 2010, less than a year after Yamaoka showed up. Even though the project had changed several times before he came on, he didn't look back.

"My focus was on the game we were creating when I joined," he said.

Catherine was not the only Japanese video game to feature a scantily clad blonde.

Like so many other of Yamaoka's projects, it's impossible to discuss Shadows of the Damned without mentioning its music. Music feels like little more than a checkbox in most games, but as with Silent Hill, Yamaoka's contributions help define the game. Shadows of the Damned is hardly a scary game, with a style heavily influenced by Sam Raimi's Evil Dead, but Yamaoka changes the game's mood on a dime, invoked by a eerie, shifting combination of music and sound effects.

Yamaoka described his work on Shadows of the Damned as "ethnic."

The composer is a player, too, and is constantly picking up the controller for influence.

"I think I spend more time playing the games than working on the music," he said.

His old habits have continued at Grasshopper, too. At Konami, Yamaoka was known for composing music at his apartment, a tradition that continued when he started working on Shadows of the Damned.

Yamaoka described his relationship with Silent Hill's musical style as "one and the same."

"I don't feel as creative when I'm at the office," he said. "In my home I have a studio with all of my personal equipment and it's more familiar. To me, making music isn't an extraordinary special activity. It's just like anything else you do in your home from cooking, to sleeping, or just relaxing; making music is the same. Your house is the place you're most comfortable, so it's the best place for me to create."

Shadows of the Damned is not a perfect game, but it exemplifies some of the best, craziest parts of Japanese creativity, something that's been largely lost in the transition to this generation. This problem is a source of great angst, an issue former Capcomdesigner Keiji Inafune railed against on a regular basis, telling Japan to evolve or perish to irrelevancy.

When Shadows of the Damned did arrive in stores in June, the game had been reworked several times, based on back-and-forth feedback between Grasshopper and EA.

"I created the original concept for Shadows of the Damned and the light and dark gameplay," said Suda. "I think I’ve rewritten the scenario for Damned at least five times!"

However long it took was worth the wait, unlike something else.

Shadows of the Damned arrived just after the release of Duke Nukem Forever, an ugly affair in which Duke experienced an old fashioned critical bloodbath. Duke Nukem Forever forced a whole generation of gamers to question their nostalgia. Was Duke ever really funny? What was I laughing at the whole time? Oh god, has my life been based on a terrible lie?

Shadows of the Damned's dick jokes were...legitimately funny. Okay, the "taste my big boner" part went on about 10 minutes too long, but if you were scared about the death of the dick joke, worry not. It turns out Duke Nukem Forever was missing a key ingredient: actual humor. We also have the 8-4 localization production house, who worked on the game, to thank.

Unfortunately, Suda passed on the opportunity to talk about this critical split. It's unclear whether Suda just doesn't know who Duke Nukem is (definitely possible) or didn't want to comment (also possible).

Players have been quick to throw EA under the bus regarding Shadows of the Damned's poor showing. EA featured the eccentric shooter at its press events, but in terms of wide advertising, the game felt blindly dumped at the end of the company's quarter, right alongside Alice: Madness Returns.

Suda, however, remained positive about the relationship.

Grasshopper is showing no signs of backing off from its traditional brand of crazy with Lollipop.

"EA has given us feedback and support on many aspects of the project," he said. "There is a lot of mutual respect between EA and Grasshopper. Foremost in EA’s thinking was introducing Grasshopper to a global audience without losing the trademark style and attitude that has helped made us who we are today. We've been great partners."

It's unclear whether Grasshopper and EA will work together again.Warner Bros. will publish Lollipop Chainsaw, based on an idea from Suda and with music by Yamaoka. It sports a skirt-flashing cheerleader who moonlights as a zombie killer--and there's a head strapped to her gun.

Yep, sounds like a Grasshopper game.

Yamaoka said a Shadows of the Damned soundtrack will be available in early September.

The game will finally be released in Japan on September 22.

Thanks to the folks at 8-4 for making this happen. Listen to their podcast (mostly) about Japan, 8-4 Play, athttp://www.8-4.jp.

Read More

Sony Overhauling Home, More Interested in Pushing Games

...yeah.

I know that most of you don't pay attention to PlayStation Home. Hell, I barely do, even though the service fascinates me. It doesn't capture my interest any more than Second Life, but Home is a thing I can quickly boot into before playing a game and see what's changed since the last time I got tempted. That itch comes along about once a year.

Sony announced today it's rolling out a massive restructuring sometime this fall making games front and center in Home.

Home director Jack Buser signaled the company was heading in this direction when I interviewed him for a series of pieces about Home.

"If you look at the average Home user, they are the most hardcore gamer on the PS3," he said back in June. "They buy more games than the average PS3 user, they play more games than the average PS3 user. They also watch more movies than the average PS3 user, who is already a highly self-selective consumer. We're talking about rabid consumers of media and hardcore gamers. That's who these people are."

The people I talked to who drove the community aspects of Home, such as HomeStation Magazine, did not strike me as people particularly interested in more games in Home, but that's where it's headed.

In the fall, Home will ditch its current (and outdated) central plaza for a segmented hub that essentially splits into genres--Action District, Sportswalk, Adventure District, Pier Park. These new environments will also come packed with activities and games to interact with. Everything about the redesign seems tailored to push Home users towards more and more games.

Home was more of a "world" before, but Sony's aiming to make it a "platform," not unlike Facebook or any other networked hub where people hop online to do any number of things, like play games.

Additionally, Sony will be releasing an update to the underlying Home client to minimize "the time it takes for players to get into games." Again, it's all about the games.

I'm curious about the reaction from the more hardcore users, who may not take kindly to this approach.

Read More

GameStop Offers Up a Sort of Apology for the Whole Deus Ex Thing

GameStop has not had a particularly brilliant week. Immediately following its forcible removal of OnLive bonus codes in copies ofDeus Ex: Human Revolution for the PC, the company suddenly found itself inundated with enraged (and rightful) hurlings of vitriol in the direction of the retailer's management and its policies regarding selling opened games as new--not to mention physically removing content, even if it is for a competing brand, from copies of games. After Square Enix, Deus Ex's publisher, inexplicably apologized for a problem that was only tangentially its fault, GameStop has finally come out and said something beyond a simple reaffirmation that it wasn't cool with a competitor's promotion being sold at its stores.

Sent in an email to GameStop customers today, CEO Paul Raines offered up the following half-apology and goodwill offering:

Dear GameStop customer,
Earlier this week, GameStop removed a competitor's coupon from standard edition PC versions of Deus Ex: Human Revolution, a recent release by Square Enix. We were not aware that the product box would contain this competitor's offer. We regret the events surrounding this title release and that our customers were put in the middle of this issue between GameStop and Square Enix, the publisher of this game. And for this, we are truly sorry.

For your inconvenience, we would like to offer you a free $50 GameStop gift card and a Buy 2 Get 1 Free pre-owned purchase. We want to earn back your trust and confidence in the GameStop experience. Please bring in this email and your store receipt or order confirmation from GameStop.com and present it to a Game Advisor.

Sincerely,
Paul Raines
CEO, GameStop

While it's unarguably great news that anyone who purchased a copy of Deus Ex: Human Revolution for the PC (and still has their receipt) will apparently get these free offers, Raines and GameStop PR's unwillingness to straight-up say "We should not have removed these coupons from the product in question" effectively implies that GameStop isn't really sorry that they did it in the first place. Some might chalk it up to legal language wrangling, in an effort to avoid admitting a more specific "our bad!" that could potentially turn into some kind of lawsuit down the road. Still, all Raines really admits to is that it was pretty jacked up that customers were brought into this mess between a retailer and a publisher, which is but a fraction of the issue at hand.

If you're one of the customers who picked up your PC copy of Human Revolution at GameStop, go forth informed, and get your free games on. Then I suggest doing as I will do, and never, ever purchase anything from this company again.

Read More

Street Fighter III: 3rd Strike Reviews

The in-game achievement system keeps you informed about your current status.

Do you like Street Fighter III? If you already have an opinion on the game, then all you really need to know about Capcom's new Online Edition release for Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network is that the elements surrounding the game are nicely done, intelligently designed versions of the modes and options we've come to expect from a modern fighting game. It also uses GGPO, the netcode that's often hailed as the great savior for online fighting games. It's certainly capable of playing a perfect-feeling game online. But it's probably important for you to know that Third Strike Online Editionis not going to magically turn a bad connection into a good one or anything like that.

As for the game itself, it's a more technical fighting game than most, with a parry system that puts a greater emphasis on timing. Third Strike also has plenty of things that carried right over into Street Fighter IV, like EX moves and using the two light attack buttons to throw. So if you played a lot of the SFIV series, plenty of those skills will carry over. But you'll have to brush up on a lot of characters that didn't make it into other Capcom fighters, like the robot-in-a-trench-coat, Q, or the weird, slightly gelatinous mutant, Twelve. Back when it was all new, the roster of Street Fighter III was just disappointing. Where were all the characters that people actually enjoyed using? Your Guiles, your Hondas, your Sagats? Removed from that context, though, the characters are just fine, and it's actually sort of exciting to have a "new" cast of characters and new sets of attacks to learn and protect against.

The emulated arcade game feels just fine, when compared to the arcade version. It's a standard six-button fighter, and it's best played with a proper joystick, though it has some of the most flexible and easily edited control options around, so even if you're playing with filthy animals who like their buttons in weird spots, it's easy to swap those around on the fly. Like plenty of other emulated arcade games, Third Strike has several display options, like scan lines and smoothing options to iron out some of the rough pixels of the original artwork. Personally, I like that rough, pixelated look, even if it starts to look a little too blocky when it zooms in on the game's super attacks. It has the standard sort of training modes, letting you practice your best stuff against dummies or even record inputs with one character and then try to parry the playback of those inputs with the other. A set of challenges gives you combos to learn and a set of parry challenges further drive home the importance of learning the timing on every other move in the entire game. There's also a robust replay system and a ton of additional dipswitches that essentially let you rebalance the game yourself, if you feel like you're up to the challenge.

Online, you can get up to eight players together and either play tournament style or in a simple round robin style. When building an unranked player match lobby, you can even ban up to three characters, just in case you're sick of seeing Ken everywhere you go. Ranked games are limited to two players and are played with the default settings. Winning ranked games earn you rank points, which funnel into an overall rank that gives you a basic indication, at least, of how many fights a player has won. Some of the menu flow could have been better throughout the online modes. Ranked games dump you back out to the menu instead of offering an easy "next match" option. In unranked lobbies, readying up is done as a toggle with one button, so if you don't realize that you're already ready already and tap that button, it'll automatically send you to the back of the line. Minor stuff, overall.

You can stretch the screen out to 16:9 if you're some kind of filthy monster who can't handle the proper aspect ratio. Seriously, don't be crazy, play it 4:3.

The performance online is totally fine, provided you're matched up with a player to begin with. Like many other Capcom games, Third Strike seems to have trouble getting people connected, and plenty of my attempts to join ranked games have been met with a "Join Failed" error, which sends you back to the menu instead of just rolling along and trying to find another opponent. It displays a ping icon when you're matched with another player, but this doesn't always mean that you'll find a smooth game. When you're fighting on a poor connection, the game begins to behave erratically. That shouldn't shock you. But the way it responds can be a little jarring. Instead of limiting you on the input side, the game quickly "rewinds" a few frames whenever it gets out of sync. This keeps the game feeling as it should at all times, but the glitchy look of these rewinds can be really crazy. It can also change the course of a fight right before your eyes.

In one especially close online fight, I landed a killing blow, and the sound effect for a KO started playing. Then it rewound a bit back into the fight and showed me what really happened: the other guy smoked me, and I lost the fight. From a latency and network perspective, this is a more accurate take on the fight that makes sense. But in the moment, I think I would have preferred a game that lied about that stuff and got latent the way other fighting games do. Either way, it looks and sounds really crazy when it starts happening and it'll take some getting used to.Every mode is tied together via an in-game achievement system that gives you unlock points for completing specific tasks. Some of these are multilevel challenges, too, so you'll get some points for throwing, like, 10 projectiles, but you'll get more once you throw 500 of them. Some of these are designed to get you into the different modes, and others are character-specific. The points you earn can be used to unlock music and concept art from a separate menu, which isn't a terrific reward, but the points system and the way they're displayed in-game give you some interesting extras to strive for along the way.

It comes from a weird spot in history, but now might just be the right time for Street Fighter III. With SFIV out there satisfying players who want to use that classic cast, there's plenty of room for a game that uses some similar ideas but gives you plenty of new characters to learn and master. And the features that live around the edges of the game are really well-done. It's unfortunate that it isn't easier to get into online matches, but overall, if you're looking for some more characters to beat around, play Third Strike. It's a good game.

Read More