Another tail of woe

[Big Lunk]

(nothing realy new to say, just how it's said)

 

Yesterday i, like so many others, bought a copy of GTA4.

"Great", i thought, "it's finaly out on PC, and i can enjoy the latest sequal without having to buy a console to play it on"

So with my new "toy", i head off home with anticipation of the joy of running over innocent bystanders in new and exiting ways.

I strip the packaging from the case, and set it off installing, while i read the manuals. I smirk at the typical GTA humour in the articles, which just adds to the anticipation of the game.

 

At this point, due to a rather bad cold, i decided to take a short nap. This is where the trouble starts.

 

I wake up, an hour or so later, and it's still installing from disk one.

"strange. That isnt usual." i say to myself "but then, it is 16gig of compressed files, so it's understandable" so i continue to wait. and wait. and get bored. and go have a beer in front of the TV instead.

 

Finaly, the game is installed, everything is set up. Except whats this? an error code? oh, i see, i need to update to SP3... not that i want too, but then it's not too much bother, right?

 

So SP3 installed and reboot..... hmm, this is taking a while.... a long while.... ah.... i see... Securom! A spark of recognition fires in my head, remembering the trouble this peice of "software" caused when i installed another game a couple of months ago, leading to me installing a fresh install of windows to fix it.

 

Yes, good old Securom, which changes my 30second boot time to closer to 5 minutes.

Securom, which if i didn't know better, thinks the way to stop me using my PC to pirate video games, is to stop me using my pc... or atleast not at full capacity.

 

With a sigh, i load GTA4 again...another error.

Luckily, this time i'm prepared, i already knew this error code while looking up the last.

I log out of Rockstar social hoo-haa, and try again

 

"securom is unable to verify disk in time"

uhm...okay.... it verified it before... why not now?

eject, replace, retry....no...

eject, replace, retry....again, no...

eject, replace, retry....YES! it did it! must be a product feature, help you get into the mindset of an angry eastern european bastard, by making YOU angry before the game starts.

 

We're in.... new game... loading screen. A bunch of rather ugly looking people posing, looping over and over. This is reminding me of the old c64, except without the epilepsy endusing loading screens, just the rediculous waiting. (aah, CJ's elephant antics, what a classic, and worth the 10 minutes wait.)

Loading screen changes. "the cousin's bellic" in the bottom corner. Hmm, must be the prologue.

 

But it just hangs there.... HDD light stops. cant alt-tab out. cant endtask. just stops there. Clearly not a system freeze, as the loady bit is still animated, and the keyboard still works, but it's pretty obvious it's NOT loading.

 

 

 

 

This is where i gave up. Box packed up, and tossed on the shelf, not to be touched untill patches (and cracks) are available to play the bloody thing without having to wait for hours, then give finger prints and semen samples to a buggy "anti-piracy" tool, just to play the f*cking thing.

I cant return the product, as i had to register it, and i cant play it, because frankly i'd rather pull out my own toe nails than go through all this again.

 

The over-the-top piracy policing is what is killing PC gaming (and EA, but that's another matter), as more and more people who would hapily pay for the product turn to piracy to avoid the addition of programs like securom.

Connecting to the RGSC/Live server in order to play would of been sufficiant protection, as there is only one type of PC game that isnt pirated*, and that is MMOs

 

 

 

 

(*okay, there are some pirated servers, but the percentage is FAR lower than the rest of the market)