F.e.a.r.

[sparhawk]

I just tried FEAR and I must say I like it, from what I have seen so far. It seems to be a much better game than D3 or Q4. The skyboxes look a bit cheap and the textures could be better, but from the immersion (which is the important part) it's feels pretty good.

To bad that it tries to tell me which kind of software I'm allowed to have installed which is a no-buy argument for me. For people who don't care about such consumers rights things, it is definitely recommendable.

[Vadrosaul]

I just tried FEAR and I must say I like it, from what I have seen so far. It seems to be a much better game than D3 or Q4. The skyboxes look a bit cheap and the textures could be better, but from the immersion (which is the important part) it's feels pretty good.

To bad that it tries to tell me which kind of software I'm allowed to have installed which is a no-buy argument for me. For people who don't care about such consumers rights things, it is definitely recommendable.

 

 

I found the levels to be somewhat repetitive. I also disliked the limit of 3 weapons (4 at least please) and the scare factor dissipated after a short while and became cliched and overused seeing another dissolving Alam or Paxton.

 

The AI is that of dreams. Able to coordinate, flank, flush out with grenades, take feasible cover, create a killzone. FEAR would bring out the best of your FPS skills, whereas a game like Doom 3 would not challenge anybody that can shoot straight ahead.

[oDDity]

THis another game that won't let you have virtual cd software installed or something?

Developers are getting more and more bold these days. I hear Q4 phones home when you start it up to check if your cd key is real or not, so you can't play the single player game without being connected to the internet.

Total waste of time of course, anyone capable of downloading a warez copy of the game will also have downloaded the crack to fix it. They've even cracked Q4 multipayer in a matter of days after release.

.As has been said before, it's nothing but an annoyance for their paying customers.

[Dram]

yeah, definately

[sparhawk]

THis another game that won't let you have virtual cd software installed or something?

 

Yes. I don't buy such games on principle. I think about writnig a letter to some of the lead guys, if I know wheer to address it, and tell them the reason why they lost a customer. Maybe if more people would do this, then game publishers would stop it.

 

Developers are getting more and more bold these days. I hear Q4 phones home when you start it up to check if your cd key is real or not, so you can't play the single player game without being connected to the internet.

 

That's only partial true. If an internet connection is available, it phones home, but if you cut it doesn't. I downloaded Q4 to give it a try and I ordered it at the same time, but my copy will arrive only in the next few days. In the meanwhile I use the pirated version and it gets annoying, because I always have to login into the router and disable my access to the internet for my machine. Obviously this is not really inspiring and makes me play more often, but at least it's less intrusive then having to deinstall software like SoftICE or Daemon tools. I would find it acceptable if Fear would recognize when I play it from a virtual CD and prevent it, but requiring me to have Daemon tools uninstalled without even using it is more than I can accept.

 

Still, if I had known about the homcalling on Q4 before purchase I might have reconsidered it.

 

Total waste of time of course, anyone capable of downloading a warez copy of the game will also have downloaded the crack to fix it. They've even cracked Q4 multipayer in a matter of days after release.

.As has been said before, it's nothing but an annoyance for their paying customers.

 

Right. If I use the warzed version i don't have to pay anything for it and have less troubles running it. In extreme cases the warzed version works even better then the original. When I played Hidden & Dangerous I liked it, so I bought it, but the purchases copy wouldn't run and complained about my gfx card not being supported. Helpdesk said the same, and when I told them that I haev a warzed version running quite fine with the very same gfx card, the only response was "We could sue your for admitting using a pirated version." I told them they can try it and that I'm pretty sure that this would make some great PR if a legal owner is sued for running a pirated version because the original claims to be not working on my hardware.

 

Needles to say that this wouldn't even have worked out, because since the orginal didn't work I was allowed to use the pirated version, so they would have had no chance in court if they had tried it.

[oDDity]

So why is cracking these protections so easy? Or is it just that it's impossible to wirte a protection that can't be reverse engeneered or circumvented in some way.

I'm not just talking abiout these new game protections either, there are a lot of even more advanced ones from 3d software like hardware dongles, flexlm licence servers etc, which are all cracked the instant they're released.

Is it just that the crackers are better and smarter coders that the software developers?

[Gildoran]

I think that as long as the software runs on your computer and not on a remote server, it's impossible to make it uncrackable. If somebody can find your copy-protection they can just bypass it. The best you can do is make it a real pain in the butt to find everything, and have it take a while. For software that mostly sells immediately after it's released (e.g. the vast majority of video games) that's usually good enough.

[sparhawk]

So why is cracking these protections so easy? Or is it just that it's impossible to wirte a protection that can't be reverse engeneered or circumvented in some way.

 

There are several reasons. As long as the client has full access to his machine, there is no way how a software protection can prevent to circumvent a copy protection. That's why vendors are keen on putting more control directly in the hardware, like this encryption chip, because it can prevent such kind of things.

Another thing why it is easy is because copy protection developers are software developers as well. So once you cracked one copy protection scheme you can rather easily crack the new version from the same developer, because in most cases they are not developed from scratch, but build on each other. So a new release is very like the previous version with additional stuff.

 

I'm not just talking abiout these new game protections either, there are a lot of even more advanced ones from 3d software like hardware dongles, flexlm licence servers etc, which are all cracked the instant they're released.

Is it just that the crackers are better and smarter coders that the software developers?

 

Hardware dongles are no better than any other software protection. The reason is quite obvious. The dongle has to interface somewhere with the software. So depending on the protection it may be a small effort or more, but in the end it can not protect.

If only the existence of the dongle is queried, then it's easy. Just remove the part where it is queried. It can be prolonged by distributing the check in different parts of the programs, and you can add additional precautions like encrypting the code and only decrypt it before you execute it.

A much safer method is to put a decryptor in the dongle and then decrypt the data on the fly with the help fo the dongle. Of course this can also be cracked, by sending all kind of data to the dongle and record the response. This is much more timeconsuming. Or you can revere engineer the algorithm that the dongle uses in which case you wont need to record it and imlpement a softwaredongle instead.

I think this is also a reason why consoles are prefered by game publishers. They are not so easy to mainupulate, but this is only a question of time. If more console games appear, then they will also be cracked.

[SplaTtzZ]

F.E.A.R is a great game; but whats really frightening is the cost of the hardware needed to run it at max settings

 

I don't manage to get it at full settings; but it still looks awesome and is lots of fun. I find it to be one of the more scary games that i've ever played, much more so than Doom 3 or Quake 4. FEAR's setting is alot more believeable and immersive; and i like the pyschological horror they try at points. Often your character starts hallucinating, which can be pretty freaky. Doom 3's "scares" wore off for me after the third imp jumped out when i opened a door; after that it became ridiculous. I find Fear tends to keep you more on your toes; you don't always know what happens next. And the comabt is lots of fun and looks great, though it is like a John Woo movie as the developer's said.

 

Have you played it multiplayer Spar? I thought it wasn't all that bad; though the novelty of it would wear off after a time, i don't think i could play it as long as some of my other multiplayer games.

[sparhawk]

No. Didn't use MP. I just started with SP yesterday. It really managed to sustain this creepy feeling so far