Sony clarifies PSN breach, somewhat...

The LA Times is reporting a few updates on the PSN breach after Kaz Hirai's press conference. Two notable bits:

Sony has revealed that 10 million credit card accounts may have been exposed two weeks ago when a hacker broke into the company's computers in San Diego and stole data from 77 million PlayStation Network accounts.

-- Sony apologizes, says 10 million credit card accounts may have been exposed in network attack

Which isn't much of a clarification. Actually, just a more dire way of putting what Sony has been saying all along: they don't know if the credit card information was obtained, so you should probably act like it was.

Then there's this (and the only reason I'm still blogging on this topic):

Clarifying an earlier statement that said consumer passwords were not encrypted, Sony said they were "hashed," a form of mathematical obfuscation that makes it difficult for a hacker to read the passwords.

So "hashed" means it wasn't in plain text - but any hacker capable of this breach is capable of decoding the password somewhat easily. If the passwords used a salt with the hash (I know, I'm thinking of breakfast foods as well) - it would much harder, perhaps prohibitively so, for the hacker to get them.

So what does that mean? Means you should still treat your password like someone else has them. And honestly, Sony is being kinda dodgy about this (took me forever to find the article above) ... so I'm kinda guessing they were unsalted ... since if I were Sony I'd be trumpeting anything they did correctly right now, no matter how geeky the explanation.

More on the PSN Fail

I really don't want to keep blogging about this, I would think the message should be pretty clear: change your passwords and watch your accounts. However I'm almost mystified by the two extreme reactions on the net right now. The first is just pure impatience that PSN is down ... which is totally understandable, I've got some Portal 2 Coop to play after all ... but really seems to be missing the proportions of the breach in general. This thing was huge, and I can't imagine what all is going on over at Sony right now ... but I'm sure some engineers aren't getting much sleep in the process.

Then we have this:

Meanwhile, the New York Times reports -- citing security researchers -- that discussions on forums have popped up from hackers claiming they snagged credit card numbers from PSN users.

An excerpt from the article:

"Kevin Stevens, senior threat researcher at the security firm Trend Micro, said he had seen talk of the database on several hacker forums, including indications that the Sony hackers were hoping to sell the credit card list for upwards of $100,000. Mr. Stevens said one forum member told him the hackers had even offered to sell the data back to Sony but did not receive a response from the company."

The New York Times also says they could not prove this list exists. On Thursday, Sony revealed credit card data was encrypted and there was no evidence that numbers had been swiped.

-- PlayStation Network roundup: Impact on Sony, compensation, more

So here's what happened. Some guys on IRC were talking about the hack, and they talking about rumors that the DB was up for sale. On his twitter account, security research Kevin Stevens mentioned the chatter - which somehow media sources took as a recipe that the whole thing was probably on like Donkey Kong and start reporting that millions of credit card numbers are now up for sale, and that Sony turned down an offer to buy them back.

Woah. Let's slow the fsck down. The IRC log isn't even from anyone claiming to have seen the database, just people talking about rumors they've heard. They certainly seem familiar with the details, the security implications, etc. - but it's not like these are the actual hackers talking about how they can cash in data or anything. It's actually a pretty fascinating conversation, especially one key bit I'll get to in a bit, but it's no smoking gun. And that Kevin Stevens tweeted about it doesn't mean that Kevin Stevens is commenting on the authenticity of the rumors. It's all hearsay. But media outlets are now treating Stevens as if he intended to add credibility to the claims, which he makes clear in a later tweet that he wasn't. It was, as he puts it, "seeing a post on a forum and tweeting about it." It's one thing to tweet about it - but if you're a major news source and you are putting in a bit which ends with "we have no proof about any of this" ... maybe don't put it in at all.

Probably the biggest problem with the rumor is that there is a claim that the CVVN (CVV? CV2 - fsck, I can never remember) is part of the data. That's the number on the back of the card which which you enter with phone and online purchases these days. It was huge push back several years ago to help prove that you were in fact holding the card you said you were using and most online retailers use it now.

And for that reason, it should never be stored anywhere after the purchase is complete. It completely destroys the reason for its existence. So I'm willing to believe Sony wasn't storing them, and I don't recall ever giving it to Sony in the first place. So unless there was another massive breach somewhere, I don't see how that could be up for sale.

Unless, of course, the whole thing is fake and there's just a bunch of people trying to con a phony database on to people. Which is probably the most likely scenario, and the New York Times and USA Today just gave them free advertising. Bang up job, there, real journalists.

So database up for sale? I call shenanigans on that one.

However, there's one bit from this whole sordid tale which still has me on edge. In their first Q&A, Sony revealed that the personal data was unencrypted. Which, OK, obviously I wish it was encrypted but I can imagine a lot of companies don't encrypt information like billing address, first name, etc.

But my password?

My fscking password?

Please, someone from Sony, please, clarify this bit and tell us that the current PR blitz wasn't specific. Because when I first read that the passwords were certainly breached, I did - as should anyone - assume that meant that a hacker would eventually be able to read them.

But to think that my username and password were both sitting in a datatable within Sony's network with only "a very sophisticated security system" between it and prying eyes ... I ... I.

OK, look, I'm not a security expert. I did a stint as a Data Security Analyst for a major insurance company many, many, many years ago. I've got friends in the hacker community which I don't really keep in touch with that much. And yet, data security 101 will tell you never to store passwords unencrypted at any time. It's just too sensitive. The only person on this planet who should be able to see their own password is the user. It's just a fundamental concept of data security. That password is the key piece of evidence that you are you. If anyone can read it? Then anyone can be you. Everything you do after that is simply a fail. You have lost the game.

I called PlayStation support to clarify. They could not (not too surprising, and I don't envy their job right now so I didn't hassle them on it). Sony's blog hasn't clarified. Then I read this in the log from Kevin's tweet:

[21:54:45] I doubt sony stored passwords in plaintext on the server
...
[21:55:04] kkk: they either did that or they hash em cause they are sent plaintext
...
[21:55:49] kkk: unsalted hashes wouldn't be too far from plaintext anyway :D

-- #ps3dev log

So a hashed string is essentially an encrypted string. "Unsalted" means that the encryption has no additional randomization to it, and these days hackers can use something called a rainbow table to unencrypt it. Salting adds randomization, which makes rainbow tables time/cost prohibitive to use.

But you know what? I'd at least like confirmation that Sony encrypted the damn things in any way. I'd prefer it to be a decent enough way that the hackers would at least have to break a sweat to get it. I don't need, or even want, to know the exact methods Sony used to encrypt my password.

I'd just like to know they bothered to do so. It doesn't mean I can ignore the fact that they're out there in the wild.

But at least I could assume Sony's data security wasn't being run like this.

Have a good weekend, people.

Game Play: Sword and Sworcery

My interest for Sword and Sworcery started just by seeing the screenshots. It's a game that's quite unique in several ways, and hence actually becomes somewhat difficult to review. The experience is designed from the ground up for someone who really has very little knowledge about the game's story, mechanics, characters and ... heck, even style. I was rather surprised by some of the tone of the narration - even though everything from the writing style to the mechanics corresponds quite nicely to create a rich gaming experience.

Without getting to specific, the impressive thing about Sword and Sworcery is its ability to play up old school gameplay from the days of King's Quest while rolling in modern concepts like social media. It is also a game which is neatly, I guess "metasmart" for lack of a better term. It's probably the least cliche use of the player being a "god's finger" that I can think of, but also neatly explains why you can point a direction for the hero and rustle bushes as well.

I wish I had access to the iPad version, but the iPhone version seems suited well enough for the smaller screen real estate. It is an absolute must to play this game with headphones (or really good speakers, I suppose). Not only is the music part of the rich experience the Superbrothers are weaving together, but there are few spots which use audio cues in critical moments as well.

I'm in the third session, and as an aside I enjoy the fact that the game actually insists on a bit of an intermission (it's part of that "metasmart" portion of the design). I've been using S&S as something of a night time read - and it feels in some way like an interactive story right for bedtime that you can simply put a bookmark in and pick up later.

My only complaint so far is that a few of the moments where they clearly want you to explore as oppose to explain get somewhat confusing, and I actually found some of the mechanics of the first boss battle a bit annoying (like holding down the shield to heal, which seems like a silly warmup exercise at best). But these are really small things compared to the game as a whole - which I highly recommend.

PSN #FAIL: Yes, it is probably time to change some passwords

That the PlayStation Network has been down isn't exactly earth shattering news, but Sony just released the first real information on the outage, which started on April 20th.

It's not good. Recently, rumors came about that the outage was done to build a defense around an a custom firmware hack called "Rebug", which allowed normal consoles to be identified as debug consoles which apparently gives them all manner of access on the network, including download free versions of games. Sony has yet to confirm if that was the original cause, but they have confirmed a successful intrusion into the network, which as a result has...

obtained the following information that you provided: name, address (city, state, zip), country, email address, birthdate, PlayStation Network/Qriocity password and login, and handle/PSN online ID. It is also possible that your profile data, including purchase history and billing address (city, state, zip), and your PlayStation Network/Qriocity password security answers may have been obtained. If you have authorized a sub-account for your dependent, the same data with respect to your dependent may have been obtained. While there is no evidence at this time that credit card data was taken, we cannot rule out the possibility. If you have provided your credit card data through PlayStation Network or Qriocity, out of an abundance of caution we are advising you that your credit card number (excluding security code) and expiration date may have been obtained.

-- Update on PlayStation Network and Qriocity

Everyone who has a PSN account should probably take the time to read that again. It's pretty significant, even if the intrusion did not successfully gain any credit card numbers. Consider this:

Many online systems now accept a valid email address as your username
Most users reuse the same password across multiple websites
Most users reuse the same security question information, when possible

And that's not adding on the truckload of personal information now open for social engineering.

It's a pretty big deal. And while I'm sympathetic to Sony that the event happened in the first place, I think waiting a whole week to notify users to the potential danger is a bit absurd. Did it take a week for Sony to realize the extent of the data theft? Or just a week to write the above update? Either way is a pretty massive fail.

If you're a person who falls under the bold behavior above, I'd recommend visiting your more sensitive online sites (banking, bill pays, mortgages, etc) and updating the password to something new. In this day and age, a good password should:

1) Not be based on personal data like birthdate, children names, home addresses. All of that was potentially just scooped up in this theft.

2) Be six characters in length or more. Five is still the standard used by many websites. Six is better.

3) Include at least one number, and at least one other non-alpha character like a "!", "#", etc.

4) Use a mixture of caps and non-caps.

I'm a pretty security aware kind of guy, and I'm honestly pretty annoyed at Sony right now. While I don't entirely fall into the mold of someone who uses "password" or "12345" everywhere - but this amount of data kinda spooks me. There's certainly a level of due dilligence that Sony is doing here, so I don't think we need to brace ourselves for some coming credit apocalypse ... but at the very least changing your passwords to something more secure is like calling your mother, it's always a good time to do it anyway.

Image lifted from Addicted Gamer

Nintendo Rumors: Revolution versus Cafe

There's something about Nintendo which sparks rumors to an extent greater than most companies. I'm not entirely sure what it is - it's not just because of how much of a game changer the Wii turned out to be, though those rumors certainly hit a high watermark. Now we're faced with the successor of the insanely popular Wii, now confirmed by the big N, and the rumor mill is churning at full speed.

One the big ones? That the controller will have a large, probably touchscreen, LCD display jammed into the middle of it. Something a like the picture to the left ... which was actually a rumored leaked image circulated for the Wii (or Revolution as it was called before being branded). Other rumors? That the Revolution would have a large hard drive, that it would have graphics comparable to the Xbox, and even that it would sport a 3D interface. I think someone even did a mockup of Revolution with a big holographic display in the middle - a la a Star Wars chess game.

The new controller rumors have decent weight behind them - and it may fit well into Nintendo trying to think out of the box. Of course, I'm an old Dreamcast guy ... so I don't find the idea overly revolutionary - but I do think Nintendo could make it work much better than the old white box did.

Otherwise, the rumors for Cafe are fairly reserved. That Nintendo would want to surpass the current generation of consoles is a bit of a no-brainer - when the Wii first faced off with the 360 and PS3, the HD generation was still expanding into critical mass. Now, HD sets are cheap and easily available - and Sony is even moving on to push 3D on the people. How much muscle Nintendo will throw down is an interesting question - since they're getting out of the gate earlier than Sony and Microsoft - they may be attempting a 360 strategy where their graphics will be good enough that they could soak up the early adopter marketshare. To make that work, they'll certainly need to bite the hard drive bullet - which given how cheap hard drive space is these days, seems a certainty.

On a geeky side, I have to wonder what Nintendo will use as a disc format. This could almost be the first console to not use a disc format, but that seems a stretch even for Nintendo. It wouldn't be a bad idea for Nintendo to embrace Blu-Ray, but Blu-Ray is probably not enough of a dominant HD format to justify licensing it from a competitor.

In fact, I'm not even all that interested in the Cafe hardware. Where Nintendo really needs to compete is on software. Both PSN and XBLA are excellent gamer networks, and if Nintendo was incapable of generating at least a worthy clone - the Cafe is going to have trouble out of the gate.

And the other thing Nintendo needs to fix, which I think has been mentioned in most of the previews up till now - is third party support. I'm not going to buy another piece of Nintendo hardware just to play the next Zelda or Metroid game. They're great franchises, sure, but they don't offer anything new to the table in the same way that, say, Little Big Planet or even Gears of War does. Nintendo needs to join the Call of Duty crowd for this generation - because while the old Nintendo mascots may have some of the most loyal following in the world, I don't see their numbers increasingly drastically in 2012.

Dungeon Hunter Alliance; Gameloft Versus Bethesda

I do need to preface this incoming rant with the fact that The Girl and I are big fans of co-op action RPG's. We played every iteration we could get our hands on, and a few them we played through a couple of times.

Oddly, this genre has been sorely lacking on the PS3. There was the near launch title Untold Legends, but when this title was released we were still pretty content loading up Champions of Norrath instead, which sounded like a much more competent title.

IGN gave a Untold Legends a 6.5.

And of course, the was Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2, which was a cut and paste of Marvel Ultimate Alliance with enhanced graphics.

IGN gave Marvel Ultimate Alliance 2 a 7.7.

Finally, there was Sacred 2, which had some pretty odd issues when setting up the coop functionality but we played quite a bit, even starting over a couple of times - because it was probably the deepest game of this type we found.

IGN gave Sacred 2 a 6.5.

So we were pretty stoked when we saw that Dungeon Hunter Alliance was hitting PSN and offering offline coop. I would say my expectations on the game were somewhat reserved. I had played the original on my iPhone and enjoyed it to a point. If it didn't have coop, I probably would have gotten anyway as just a late night console crawler - but couch coop made this an easy buy at $13.

And honestly, the game doesn't take much to review: it's solid, albeit highly derivative (I mean, the game world is called Gothicus of all things) action RPG in the same vein as every other Diablo clone on the planet. It does support a competent menu system, a decent skill system, and solid (though occasionally blocky) graphics.

The most impressive thing about Dungeon Hunter Alliance, however, is that it has one the better coop setups of any game of its type on the console. MA:U2 probably being the only one with a more robust setup. The only real flaw I can find is that it's a pain to drop someone out locally, which isn't much of a problem. You can seamlessly play the same characters online, offline or a mixture of both. Trading items is easy, and they've implemented a simple color assignment system to make looting straight forward, and giving items back to the players uses the same system. The only thing missing is trading gold, I think. So far, I've found very easy to find online games to jump in and join, which isn't always the case for this genre.

There does some to be a couple of flaws with the hit detection, though it's more of an annoyance than anything that will cause you to toss a controller to the ground. We'd love to have more customization, or classes at least, offered as well.

If this genre is your thing, this is an easy buy - especially if you have someone to coop with. It's not going to impress you, but it will entertain you.

So why did IGN give it a 6.0? By that account this should be the worst of the bunch by far, despite the fact that it is about 1/3 the cost, the only offering in the genre on PSN, has many of the same flaws as MA:U2 in being completely unimaginative, and actually a better coop setup than some of the titles? The reader average is an 8, press average about a 7 or so. My score would be 7, maybe a 7.5 on bias. So why is this just "Okay" and not at least "Good"?

Simple. It came from Gameloft. And it's very trendy to hate Gameloft.

Don't believe me? Here's how the review starts out:

Gameloft is at it again. The company has succeeded on a strategy of similarity throughout the past several years, creating cloned versions of other studios' biggest hits and serving them up mostly on mobile platforms. Dungeon Hunter: Alliance is another of these projects, a game that feels like a riff on more original dungeon crawlers like Diablo -- and it, too, originally debuted in the mobile space.

-- Dungeon Hunter Alliance Review [IGN]

Let's examine this for a moment. There's no denying that Gameloft has made a business model out of lifting successful themes and mechanics and deploying them different platforms, especially the iPhone.

But the phrase that stands out for me? This one:

a game that feels like a riff on more original dungeon crawlers like Diablo

Are you kidding me? Of course it feels like a riff on Diablo. Diablo was released in 1996 and has spawned so many clones that "Diablo clone" is synonymous with "Action RPG" as a genre. You could level the same critique at so many titles, but because this is Gameloft, it must be some kind of evil. And that the game originally debuted on a mobile platform? Like that should be odd for a PSN title? Should I go look up any Angry Birds reviews to see if anyone wrote that like it was a bad thing?

So Dungeon Hunter Alliance has almost the exact same core as a game released in 1996. Let's also note that the most recent game of this type was dropped onto the PS3 in 2009, so "Diablo clone" fans have been waiting a couple years to play anything new. And what do we have to look forward to? There's Torchlight, already on XBLA and supposedly coming out for PSN - which doesn't even have couch coop. That leaves Dungeon Siege III for the console market that is similar to Dungeon Hunter in terms of features, and it's fully priced game.

Some of the other points in IGN review are just bizarre:

Then there are only three different character classes to choose from -- the Warrior, the Rogue and the Mage. That selection made sense when it was just a game with one main character, but expanding out to four means that at least two people in your party are going to be playing the same guy. That's like the Ninja Turtles having Raphael, Donatello and two Leonardos. It feels odd.

What's worse, technical issues are currently plaguing the game's online play, meaning you probably won't be able to reliably get a party of your friends connected together until Gameloft releases a patch.

I've played four player online. I had no problems connecting (and I got the game like a couple hours after it came out, so no more patched than anyone else). And I didn't find it odd at all. I seriously have no clue as to what the reviewer is talking about here.

The closing comments indeed sums it up:

Dungeon Hunter: Alliance has left me less than impressed. Gameloft's strategy of copying other studios' hits has worked before and the core game here was a worthwhile clone back on the iPhone two years ago -- but playing it on the PS3 now feels out of place. The extras that have been tacked on to sell this version as a new experience all fall flat, or, worse, just don't work. You'll never forget for a minute that you're playing a game not originally meant for PlayStation, so save your PSN cash for a different download and give this port a pass.

The point that the reviewer completely misses is that in the two years that, according to him, Dungeon Hunter went from a "worthwhile clone" to a junk PS3 port ... is that there haven't been any releases in this genre. Which in many ways, makes Dungeon Hunter just as worthwhile as when it debuted on the iPhone, especially for just $13.

And my question to IGN would be ... what download would you suggest instead? There are exactly zero other titles in this vein on PSN. Zero. Dungeon Hunter Alliance deserves some credit because even if it derivative, unimaginative and shallow - it's also the only game like it on PSN and it manages to do a solid job of delivering such a game. Gameloft isn't stupid, and they aren't unskilled. They see a viable market, and they offer competent games otherwise not seen on that market. And I'm rather glad they have. We've been playing the hell out of it.

Now, this post has gone on longer than I intended and I know most of you have probably zoned out by now. But I did put "Gameloft versus Bethesda" in the title. Yes, I am going to kick this rather dead horse again. Because I've read a few reviews of Dungeon Hunter which spend a rather inordinate amount of time dissing Gameloft for being Gameloft ... and yet when I peruse through the flood of Skyrim previews I notice on thing still hasn't happened.

Not one previewer has had the balls to ask Bethesda the completely obvious question on whether they are going to fix their stability issues.

It is absurd that Bethesda gets such a free pass from the press on delivering some of the buggiest games in the industry because they offer a game experience which is somewhat unique, and yet when Gameloft finally delivers a PSN title which no other company has bothered to produce ... they get shafted simply because they are Gameloft. I honestly don't give a "kill 10 rats" quest if Skyrim is beautiful, or has a new skill structure, or anything at all about the title unless I know that Bethesda is at least willing to acknowledge the failure of quality from their previous titles and is making it a priority not to repeat such mistakes.

And people, there's no other way to describe not being able to finish a game unless you are wearing the right hat on your character than a complete and miserable failure of quality. As I've said before, I won't be buying Skyrim until I see a review - and the first review that states something like:

Typical of Fallout games, there are performance issues and game-breaking bugs that seriously detract from the experience.

...which is from IGN review of the New Vegas: Blood Money ... I am writing Bethesda off as a competent developer forever.

And let's note that the Blood Money DLC, which shipped with game breaking bugs, got a 6.5 from IGN. So even shipping with game breaking bugs, according to IGN that's a better use of your $10 than a game which, you know, works.

Game Play: Crysis 2

After having second, and possibly even third, thoughts on Dragon Age II - I thought it best to keep trying Crysis 2 for a while before writing about. Truth be told though, it is just simply one of the better shooters I've played.

It's a bit sad, actually, that the release of this game has been mostly centered around whether the PS3 version has the same resolution as the 360 version. My understanding is that it doesn't ... but I really could care less. It's breathtakingly beautiful. Yeah, OK, there's the occasional LOD model jump, or perhaps the infrequent frame rate drop ... but you'll be too busy going ZOMG to notice for the most part.

What's interesting about Crysis 2's graphics is that they're a different kind of beauty from say, Killzone 3. Killzone 3 was an extremely pretty game, but you knew there were sheets of pre-rendered graphics making that happen. That's not a knock against such graphics, I loved Killzone 3 - but Crysis 2 (while yes, I'm sure has some pre-rendering tricks of its own) manages to make an extremely immersive world because of the detail on everything around you.

But really, do you need me to tell you it's pretty? I can confirm PS3 users shouldn't shy away from it. However, outside of the graphics - it is a very tightly designed game. The gunfights are dynamic and fun. The story is inventive and interesting for the genre. The interface isn't terribly intrusive. The AI is very good.

I'm probably only half way through the game at most, and my negative comments on it are short and nitpicky. The voice acting could have been kicked up a notch, especially Gould's. It's not that it's bad, it's just that Gould's voice is pretty constant and so you pick up on artificial nuances about it. The combat is a little repetitive, though this is usually remedied by a changes in the scenario which will force you to shift strategies ... so you can't always sneak/snipe/brute force your way through the game.

Also, and probably my biggest pain - the waypoint HUD is sometimes confusing. There's a random point somewhere, but how to get to it may be a bit of puzzle. When it happens, it's really annoying - but it doesn't happen often.

My positive comments are many. The core mechanics are tight. The combat is fun. The story is interesting. The music is haunting. The environment feels vast and interactive. In truth, this is great shooter bordering on being one of the best ever. The only thing keeping it back is that while it gets high marks for doing many things right, there's not a lot here which feels like pushing the envelope. Even the online modes feel a little Call of Duty like (not that a dozen other shooters don't make the same design choices there).

Definitely recommended.

Final Thoughts on Dragon Age II

Towards the end of Dragon Age II, I was ready to post a pretty positive footnote to my previous review, saying that once you get knee deep into the game, the story, characters and gameplay really seem to overshadow the other flaws. I was going to briefly try out either a warrior or rogue to see if mages may just be more fun, and probably continue that through a slow second playthrough.

Then I got through the last chapters of the game. Free of spoilers, all I can say is that the story completely falls apart and the mechanics issues of the past come roaring back.

Spoilers ahead.

I didn't buy Anders. Not one bit
While I think the characters and plot of DA2 are still more two dimensional than Mass Effect 2, it was shaping up to be an interesting tale. I knew Anders was up to something, and it probably wasn't going to be the most peaceful thing in the world but ... blowing up the Chantry? What? It makes no sense, and only served to re-ignite open violence across the city. One could argue that the final ending might justify his actions, but Anders went from being a troubled mage trying to save lives to a cliche terrorist in about a heartbeat - with only a set of new shiny black robes as an explanation.

As soon as that moment hits, the plot stops making sense. It's way too black and white. Anders' actions are clearly out of bounds, but instead of anyone reacting to Anders - they just go off on a tear in whatever extreme they might have possibly been pointing at.

Speaking of - screw you Fenris
The worst of the lot, I think, is Fenris. I really wanted to like this character, but every time he managed to have a complex moment, it was punctuated with "all mages are evil." I had made every effort throughout the game to befriend and help the guy, but he uses Anders as an excuse to essentially swear an oath to kill me. The mages act as an odd reflection of racism in the game, and by the end Fenris proves himself to be the equivalent of a Neo-Nazi jackass who would stab a friend if he found out they were dating a black girl. At the end of the day, nothing matters to Fenris except who is or isn't a mage.

Blood mages, blood mages, everywhere there are blood mages
Course hating Fenris and even Meredith becomes problematic towards the end since apparently you are actually the only potential mage in the entire game not inclined to become a complete asshole (assuming you played one, otherwise there are none). Let's recap from my game: Merrill stubbornly seeks demonic advice, which ends up with us being party to slaughtering her whole tribe. After, let's see - her keeper decided to get possessed by a demon. We had to tranquil one kid because he might have become a powerful scourge on the world. In trying to help a group of apostate mages in the game, most of them try to kill me with blood magic - and the rest turn to blood magic to betray me later. Orsino, who should be making it his life goal to prove how mages aren't all evil, turns to blood magic and becomes an abomination ... resulting only in trying to kill his most trusted allies. And after Orsino's death, I keep running into not just circle mages using blood magic - but freaking templars.

The problem with wanting to hate Fenris and Meredith is that the game constantly tries to prove them right.

Those were some darn spammy boss fights.
Wanting to save the lovely Isabella, I got into a challenge with the Arishok. At first I wasn't sure how I could win with just myself. Then I realized I could run, zap, run, zap. Run. Zap. Run. Zap. Wash, rinse, repeat, oh ... about a thousand times. The guy never stood a chance statistically, provided I didn't die of boredom first.

Most of the boss fights ended up this way. There was no trick to beating Orsino or Meredith, just determined button mashing. And somehow, this seemed far less true of the standard battles I played out in the game.

And sadly, I ran into one battle I don't think was possible to win. Right after Anders goes all Al-Qaeda on you, you run into a series of fights with templars and blood mages. The last of these pits you against something like fifteen shades, a pride demon, a desire demon and the blood mage. By this time I had lost Fenris and Anders, which means I couldn't have two warriors and I was the only mage with healing. Every time, the shades just did way too much damage to the party, and there was no way my revival cooldown could keep things up to get past the two greater demons.

And whether this was winnable or not - the point is that it was off the scales more difficult than every other battle that followed. Including the end boss fights, which were cake walks. There's no way that is defendable as a well balanced game.

So in the end
Yeah, this obviously turned into a far more negative post than I had originally intended. In truth, I still liked the game overall - just very disappointed by the end. I compare it to Mass Effect 2, and it seems like a copycat from some company other than Bioware. I'm now a little concerned for Mass Effect 3, to be honest. It's not that Dragon Age II is a bad game, it's a good game. It just is far removed from a great game.

Game Play: Dragon Age II (and failed reviews in general)

I'm finding Dragon Age II a pretty fascinating game, and not just because of what comes on the disc, but also how it's turning into a somewhat controversial title. Not controversial like "Hot Coffee" controversy, but in that it seems to be causing a marked schism between industry reviewers and fans.

To recap from the original Dragon Age - the game was mashup of promising to deliver on the old Baldur's Gate PC games of the past and Bioware's usual character driven, branching conversation, see who can sleep with, style of gameplay. It was very highly reviewed, sold like crazy, and was in general a fan favorite.

However, while I enjoyed the game for the most part - many of Tanners know that I found the game to be wildly unbalanced. I won't even bore you with the link, rather just say that in follow up discussions I found everything from people who either ran into the exact same thing to people who never ran into a problem. The two main factors seemed to be whether people were playing it on a console and if they had been consulting wiki's and online guides to structure their play.

When I played the Dragon Age II demo, I almost got the impression that BioWare had actually read my blog post and made massive design decisions based on it. Since that's statistically impossible, I'll just assume my feedback wasn't a lone crazy voice in the woods. The short version is that the entire game has been re-tailored to be more console friendly and less dependent on micromanagement details (which I still say shouldn't be confused with tactics).

But have they gone too far?

First, let's note that I don't think I've read more negative opinion about a demo in a long while. I can't tell if that is because of the core mechanics or because, to be quite honest, the demo was something of a mess. You couldn't save, you couldn't access inventory, you couldn't modify anything about the character save for gender and class, and the story jumped around ... basically meaning you had to set aside a decent amount of time to get a clearly truncated experience.

But I gotta say - the demo kinda sold me on it. It felt more like Mass Effect than Dragon Age, which was exactly what I was looking for in the sequel. For an excellent counter-example, check out this Game Critic article from Brad Gallaway or this one from Sparky Clarkson.

Because I also gotta say, I can see where he is getting nearly all of those points. Except for the crashing one, though, I've been spending a decent number of hours in the game and haven't had a single glitch.

I think there's truth in the statement that if you loved the first one, you might want to be cautious of your expectations for this one. It really is a different experience in many ways, even if it does a great job of expanding the story. The skill trees are smaller, there are fewer character choices, the combat is simpler, etc. From my own perspective, however:

The Good
While I have had to try a few boss fights over a few times, I haven't once run to a wiki post to figure out why I can't get past a certain point. The combat is by no means flawless, but it certainly feels way more balanced to me. I don't think I'm going to get trapped in the Deep Roads at some point simply because I failed to train my rogue in how to make bombs correctly.It also means I'm not spending so much time bouncing around management screens. I can focus on actually playing the game.

And let's face it - this is still a BioWare game. I don't entirely agree with the Game Critics' take that the characters are poorly written ... I've found them quite entertaining and enjoy the conversation sets quite a bit.

The writing deserves some credit for brief moments of incredible cleverness too - the scenes where you play out Varric's tall tales, like in the beginning of the demo, are quite fun and you'll wish there were more of them.

The Not So Good
There are some side effects from the design changes, though, that aren't necessarily outright bad ... but they're certainly not improvements. The missions, for instance, feel disjointed and short. If you compare the design to either Dragon Age or Mass Effect 2, you get the impression that Hawke's story is less epic and important mostly because of all the time spent doing a series of quick and completely unrelated tasks. You're also likely to have several open quests at one time, and honestly you end up chasing down mission markers on the map with little regard as to what quest the marker is attached with ... you just kinda find out when you get there.

And there's no getting around that Kirkwall feels like a cheap way to shove a lot of mission options in to very little space. You end up in the same small instance dungeons repeatedly - a stark contrast from Mass Effects 2' array of fully realized alien spaces. BioWare has gone from presenting you with the feeling of wandering a galaxy to wondering why they couldn't bother making a new four room dungeon for this particular quest.

The Bad
While I enjoy the combat in general, I agree the way that mobs respawn in the game is a bit bizarre. It's also a little frustrating when you use up the last of your mana and suddenly there's a new hoard the teleports in from behind you. And the game isn't shy about the fact that they pop in from nowhere ... it happens frequently right in front of your eyes. It's a serious distraction from immersion and combined with the reuse of maps in the game really reminds you that you're just playing a game.

And I have no idea who thought it was a good idea that only Hawke could equip armor. Your companions can get new weapons and trinkets, but you're stuck with whatever they're wearing at the time. While appreciate that this reduces the amount of team management I need to do - it gets kinda frustrating when you find this amazing suit of armor that does nothing for you. And I'm playing a mage ... so this happens quite a lot. In fact, all of the extra goodies I had stacked up prior to playing the game, by playing the Dead Space 2 and the demo, were useless to me. I can see some reasons why this might have been done, but it feels like BioWare should have added some kind of mechanic in place of it.

The Ugly
I don't have an ugly for this game. Rather, I think the negativity is being produced as a sum of all the small and medium things that are a) wrong with it and b) different from the first title. I think if you play the demo and hate the demo, you're probably right in not buying the game ... because the plays a lot like the demo with a few more annoyances tacked on.

Though I will say this: I do find it somewhat ugly that what I think is the final showdown is featured so prominently in promos, trailers and ads. Um - spoiler much?

Short version: I'm liking, but not loving the game. I wonder how much of that is because I'm playing a mage, which from some accounts is less spammy in the combat than the other two classes. I find it funny that the mage was my least favorite in the first game, and I'm quite enjoying it in the sequel. If it weren't for the disjointed mission structure, I'd consider a replay as another class to compare it with - but let's be honest ... there are too many awesome games coming out this year to have time for replays.

What's even more fascinating to me is the stark difference between some of the forum and blog posts about the game and the game. When last I looked, the metacritic review for the 360 version was 81/100. The player review average? 4 out of 10. Review sites have become too complacent with franchise titles, I think. I know I bitch and moan about it all the time, but take this quote from the 360 review of the New Vegas DLC Dead Money:

Typical of Fallout games, there are performance issues and game-breaking bugs that seriously detract from the experience.

-- Fallout: New Vegas -- Dead Money Review

The review is, in general, pretty reserved ... and only receives a 6.5/10 in the end. But, 6.5
is "Okay" by IGN standards. So IGN is saying, "Because this is Bethesda, it's OK to have game breaking bugs".

No. No it's not. It's never OK to have game breaking bugs. You know why? Because they're game breaking bugs. By definition, that means the game is broken. Until that bug is fixed, that content should never be rewarded with an above average rating. It simply defies logic. And as I've said before - if any review of Skyrim mentions lockups, crashes, or game breaking bugs ... I'll probably be done with that franchise forever. I don't care how highly rated it is...

OK, off soap box. That was a long post, and you deserve a cookie.

Unreal 3 (Almost 4) Video

Why bore yourself with screenshots, when you can see the whole thing?



#wow

Unreal Engine 3 ... almost 4?

'Though the full range of technological bells and whistles unveiled at GDC will probably have to wait, according to his cryptic comments, until the next generation of consoles, he made much of the engine’s scalability, babbling enthusiastically about its application in a range of iPhone and iPad games, literally pulling out handheld devices from an array of unseen pockets to prove his point.

Sympathetically, also, he was eager to emphasize Epic’s status as a sort of gaming patron of the arts, developing useful, cutting-edge tools and then making them available to licensees like some kind of jolly developer Santa Claus: “That’s how Epic works,” Rein enthused. “We spend way too much time on tools, which helps our level designers and also our middlewear people…We work really hard so that what we learn in our games, we can share.”'

GDC 11: Epic Unreal Engine 3 Rollout - http://pulsene.ws/14c5f

Impressive screenshots, and it was apparently noted that version wise, this stuff is almost more like 4 than 3.  I still miss my old modding days, and I'm sure Epic will pass out their toys as much as can.

Is the Playbook RIM's last hope?

"The PlayBook is beginning to look like RIM’s last, lone hope. It’s allegedly a terrific piece of hardware, running their sleek new QNX OS, and I think there’s a lot of room in the market for a good little tablet. The Streak 7 and Galaxy Tab aren’t it, but a PlayBook that runs Android apps would qualify — if it didn’t have to tether to BlackBerries. Unfortunately, that apparently remains RIM’s policy, even though it’s like chaining an Olympic swimmer to an anchor and telling her to win a medal."

-- RIM Finally Sees The Light. Unfortunately, It’s An Onrushing Train – Or Is It? - http://pulsene.ws/147CH

Xoom, the iPad 2, and the next App Gold Rush

I knew, of course, that when I picked up a Xoom something else would get announced shortly after.  Naturally, Apple did not disappoint here.  I'd considered getting an I pad last year but wanted to see what 2011 might bring.  March is barely a whisper of Spring and the tablet wars are truly underway.

The have been two interesting trends since Apple's announcement. One is the coverage of what the iPad 2 didn't bring to the table: no Retina, no Thunderbolt, no USB, no SD slot, no 4G.  Hardware-wise, the new iPad's real trick is to maintain a bit of parity with the Xoom while cutting into the price point.  And of course, now you can get the still quite attractive original I pad for even cheaper.

But still, I don't think I've seen quite so many articles following in the heels of an Apple announcement which points to all the things Apple didn't do, instead of what it did.  Sure, the magnetic cover is slick ... but give me the pixel density of Retina, or at least the resolution of the Xoom instead.

The other trend is the rather palatable, though predictable, word from the Apple camp of ... so what?  It's still going to be the hottest thing since sliced bread and everyone will want one.  And, they're right - Apple me brilliant in its conservatism here, leveraging their excellent hardware profit margins and superior software suite to push their platform.

Did I say superior software suite? I did, but before the Android mob shows up on my doorstep - let me just say I love my Xoom and have zero regrets in purchasing it.  My iPhone is perfectly sufficient for my iOS needs, and I've had a blast with the Xoom so far.  But that's not to say Google can simply dismiss the iTunes factor, or that Motorola can really compare the current stock of iPad apps with a handful of apps geared for the Xoom.

But like I said in the last post: we don't have a mobile landscape, we have a tsunami.  Android tablets will sell and as that market grows larger it will attract more developers.  Google, or Amazon, or someone will realize the next app gold rush is starting.  We may be living in Apple's Post-PC world, but it's a world whose rules are becoming more strongly defined by software instead of hardware ... and Android as a lot of resources for delivering software.

Hardware: Xoom Review

I picked up a Xoom last week to expand my development options. Since I've already got a dual booted MacBook and an iPhone, the Xoom neatly rounds out both tablet and Android projects.

I had a tweet recently knocking the pricing and Verizon's fee to enable WiFi. The former turned out to be about $400 less than had been rumored, and I know it isn't a common opinion - but I think it's actually slightly competitive. More expensive than the iPad, but also more powerful ... the real problem is that the WiFi only version isn't out yet and Verizon needlessly tacks on another $20 to get you on their network.

It will be interesting to see how it sells. Most reviews have been positive, but most also mention that a certain company based in Cupertino might be making an announcement soon. Still, the Best Buy I went to said nearly every unit had been pre-ordered.

Pricing aside, let's take a quick gander.

The Good
Firstly, it really is a well put together device. It feels solid, has a hefty feel without feeling like you have to start lifting weights to carry it. The size is a great intersection of space and yet feeling comfortable. You get a mini USB, a mini HDMI, AC and headphone outlets out of the box - for some reason the microSD slot is disabled at the moment, but promises another storage option down the road.

For some people, the real attraction will be Honeycomb, Android's first real tablet OS. Combined with the Xoom's hardware, the OS really does sing. While the screen isn't quite as sharp as the iPhone's Retina display, browsing and email feels nearly akin to using a laptop. The UI has some quirks, but in general is very friendly and feature rich.

And from a development point of view, I compiled a quick AIR Hello World app and deployed it to the device effortlessly. Compared to iOS development, with the wrangling of certs and provisioning devices - it's simply night and day. Android is a very developer friendly OS, Honeycomb is well suited to tablets, and this tablet has some great hardware. In short - it's a very attractive device to develop with.

The Not So Good
Hardware wise, probably the only miss are the speakers, which carry too much vibration at louder volumes. They're fine for system sounds and listening to things around the medium range.

Also I found the cradle oddly difficult to work with - hard to determine where the connecting ports were.

Sadly, there's random bugs here and there. Widgets seem to occasionally take dirt naps if they require online connectivity. I've had a couple of browser crashes. Probably the most odd: I had the Xoom emit a strange hum if it was on the cradle and a system notification sound went off. There's no deal breakers and in general the experience doesn't feel overtly buggy - but you do get the impression that maybe some things still need a few round of testing.

The difference between the iTunes platform and not having the iTunes platform is palatable. Apple has made it so easy to purchase and consume media - Google and/or Amazon really need to take notes.

The Bad
If there's any real crime here, it's the fact that the device is sufficiently powerful with a well designed OS ... and yet there's so little content that even approaches showcasing the device. A couple impressive games have hit, and Google Earth is always a crowd pleaser ... but there's only a handful of apps really designed for the tablet screen and less that really take advantage of the hardware and software features.

Probably the two biggest criminals here are Facebook and Twitter. I find it rather astonishing that Pulse could take an app and so well adapt it to device for launch, and yet two of the most popular websites in the world cough up the same UI for phones.

Or in other words...
Having a Xoom right now is a bit like owning a Porsche that you can only drive in a parking lot. There's nothing about the hardware or software that I think is really a strike, or at least nothing which seems significant in a sea of positives. It really reminds me of the early days of the iPhone, when the App Store was first getting under way and development was still fresh. It's like that but - but imagine if Apple had started with the iPhone 4.

That might, and likely will, change quickly over the next few months. I feel I can recommend the device, but I understand why all these reviews mention that the iPad 2 is likely to be announced soon. There isn't so much of a mobile landscape right now as a tsunami, and the only thing that is really certain is that it's going to be an interesting year. With just device alone, we're going to get Flash and an AIR update soon, 4G compatibility and ... hopefully better apps.

Game Play: Mass Effect 2 (PS3)

I played the first Mass Effect briefly on a friend's 360, and while saw that it was clearly polished wasn't entirely sure what the real appeal was about the extremely popular title.

That's because you can't play a Mass Effect title briefly and get the real appeal. In fact, if I have any real complaint about the recent PlayStation 3 port of Mass Effect 2, it's that they won't be porting the first one.

Mass Effect 2 is a Bioware RPG through and through, and so players familiar with Dragon Age or Knights of the Old Republic know the basic score: a streamlined experience tailored around gathering characters into your party and selecting a couple of them to bring along with you on missions. There's a morality scale, there's a grand story, there's a lot of memorable NPC's to meet and interact with.

Kindly, though, the morality scale is less black and white, less "save the kitten" or "kill the kitten" - and feels more like changes in the style of the player than really building "the ultimate hero" or "the ultimate villain.

If anything impressed me about Mass Effect 2, it was how it managed to avoid pitfalls similar titles fell into. Take Fallout 3 for example. Fallout 3 could also be considered an open ended RPG based heavily on decisions made by the player. Mass Effect 2 has one huge advantage over Fallout 3, however, which trumps any other comparison:

Mass Effect 2 does not consistently crash. In fact, I think it crashed once on my during my entire 45+ hours of gameplay. Once, Bethesda, once... which is technically one more than it probably should be two less than an average Fallout title might accomplish in a single night.

Outside of that, Mass Effect 2 requires less wandering - and oddly enough, felt more like a shooter hybrid than the Fallout 3 titles. I never once felt the need to forcibly pause Mass Effect 2's action (though it does pause to let you select new weapons and use powers).

More interesting to me is Mass Effect 2 was also far more enjoyable than Dragon Age - at least for myself. As I wrote in the past, Dragon Age has serious balance issues which more or less beg for you to refer to wiki articles on how to "correctly" play the title if you don't want to get stuck in a dwarven dungeon getting devoured by some monster boss (still a bit bitter about that one). I never had that instance with Mass Effect 2, never felt like I had to be cautious in where I went in the galaxy, I simply explored and adventured and upgraded my party.

So this is a game that had none of the technical issues of Fallout 3, or New Vegas ... and had none of the frustrations I found with Dragon Age. In short: it was freaking awesome. I'm considering a second playthrough before Mass Effect 3 hits the holidays, which I rarely take the time to do anymore (even with Demon's Souls - and some would argue that was the point of that game).

Highly, highly recommend.