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Bioshock's Launch Aftershocks
It should come as no surprise that the level of hype BioShock reached in the last month has had some aftereffects. The game itself is really good; few are disputing that. There were, however, some problems. Next Gen has a few words with Ken Levine on BioShock's troubled launch looking at the broken Big Daddies, the allegations of a rootkit, and the 'widescreen issue'. There are other issues still floating around, of course: despite rumours Levine has now confirmed there will be no PS3 version of the game, and one problem may just be starting as big media finds out about the Little Sisters. 'The Boston Patriot-Ledger ... argues that BioShock is "testing the limits of the ultraviolent gaming genre with a strategy that enables players to kill characters resembling young girls." Despite the shock-inducing lead, the article goes on to give a more or less accurate description of BioShock's choice between saving and harvesting the creepy Little Sisters ... The conclusion tries to draw a link between BioShock's violence to a stabbing death allegedly inspired by Grand Theft Auto, but the connection is pretty weak.' To close on a good note check out 1up's profile of Levine's career, or download the BioShock score ... which is beautiful.
I'm sick of hearing all the negative buzz about Bioshock
The game is 99% perfect! There is a very small widescreen issue. There is a bit of a DRM issue. A couple of AI bugs (which personally I have not witnessed, so as far as I can tell, how widespread they are is perfectly anecdotal). Show me another top-tier game launch recently that has has LESS bugs than Bioshock. I'm not hearing about bugs which are causing blue screens, or crashing X-Boxes or losing save games.
I find it disheartening that with how incredible this game is, and how relatively PERFECTLY the launch went, that people are trying to focus press on what is wrong with it. People are making mountains out of molehills on this one.
Bioshock is an amazing game. All issues and bugs reported on it are vastly overstated. Just play the game and enjoy it for god's sake. If the press wants to focus on something negative, go write a story on Iraq.
In short, there's no story here. Move along.
..I've not noticed anything "considerably" broken with BIg daddies. I believe they're referring to the Big Daddy figurines that came with the Special (Collectors?) Edition, many of which had the drill piece broken off in shipment.shame on us / for all we have done / and all we ever were / just zeroes and ones
There is no rootkit you idiot, just some fool who didn't know how to use some rootkit detection utilities and mistook a single registry entry for a rootkit.
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In my opinion, 2K Games has addressed the issues that have come up in a very rapid and appropriate way. When people started running into problems with the 2 active PC install issue, they bumped it up to 5, even though this technically lets 5 people pool their dollars to buy a single game.
It still doesn't change the fact SecuROM is a rootkit. No amount of reinstalls allotments will change that.
I mean, most people bitch that by itself Steam is evil incarnate, but its quite a saint compared to what Starforce and SecuROM does to your system.
Personally, I feel Steam and Gamer's Gate AB isn't a bad way to do things (you authenticate, checks the CD Key lets you install and your done) but installing anything else that disables programs and could potentially used as a method to root the system is a bad thing. No amount of freebies and patches will resolve that issue.
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There was more to the game than that. Rapture was, in essense, an experiment in unfettered capitalism and self-interest. As the game goes on, you get to see how that influenced Rapture.
Also, I blasted through killing everyone, and later found out that I missed some items that I could have gained if I hadn't been so quick on the trigger finger.
Theres more to it than that, but it involves certain plot points, and I wouldn't want to ruin it for anyone. Your post makes it seem like you're still relatively early in the game, so I hope you enjoy it.
As far as the Big Daddy issue, that had to do with the figurines that came with the collectors edition, nothing in-game.
I have to say that the game was excellent. I'm already tempted to replay it.
Except it's not a rootkit. Jeez, you people are really demonstrating the power of misinformation.
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Its worse than that. When the guy who detected it was corrected in his comments, he stated that he would get better hits if he called it a rootkit and then went on to say that he'd let the readers decide if it was really a rootkit.
The whole OMG ROOTKIT thing was nothing more than a publicity stuff. Yes its DRM, and yes it sucks, but its not a rootkit. And you don't get it if you buy it off of Steam either.
Sadly, I've noticed that Slashdot is very VERY bad about spreading disinformation and hyperbole. It'd be nice if the stories could be substantiated and checked for accuracy, especially considering the number of people who take anything posted on Slashdot as The One and Only Truth.
Or when I've installed for the Nth + 1 time, or whatever. You have 5 installs. You use one when you install, you get it back when you do an uninstall. Inconvenience? Yes. A bit insulting? Yes. But it doesn't actually prevent you from installing it each of the 50 times you wipe your OS. Criticisms of copy protection as a matter of principle are entirely valid, but your specific gripes are simply not true.
I installed over steam, did a search for the SecuROM stuff, and came up negative.
Which would be significant if it was a rootkit in the first place. It isn't. And I used the exact same tools and process that the guy who found the SecuROM stuff did. Several other people with Steam have indicated that they didn't get hit with the SecuROM stuff.
I bought it on Friday night, US version. I also installed the demo from Steam too. I can check again just to be sure whenever I get home.
I remember my brother telling me that it installed a rootkit, and being super pissed off, then researching and finding out that, no, its not a rootkit, just a Windows service that does some tricks to make it a pita to uninstall. After that I did the scan and came up with nothing.
I'd classify it as DRM/malware, because it seems like its particularly nasty to get out of your system. But it doesn't behave like a rootkit, and thus far I haven't heard of any bad side effects, other than the usual DRM stuff.
Except, it doesn't even do that. It's a pretty obvious service, that you can stop, set to Manual start, or even disable, and it is removed on uninstall. (Yes, the service itself is removed even if the registry keys got left behind).
The ONLY reason it has been referred to as a 'rootkit' is because SecuROM used a NUL character in their registry key, which the MS-provided Rootkit scanner flags as suspicious. By the way, it also flags some keys for MS software as 'suspicious' on a clean install, so how is that for reliable?
Stop perpetuating misinformation that you have heard second hand from unreliable sources. You look like an alarmist for doing it.
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