A geek, gamer and programmer from Israel. I'm primarily a PC gamer with a few PS3 games. I usually post gaming-related content, music and my own thoughts on plenty of things.
Catching Elephant is a theme by Andy Taylor
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Not only does this game look mysterious and interesting, but it’s also beautiful. It’s an indie iPhone/iPod touch/iPad game using Epic Games’ Unreal Engine.
There’s a new trailer available for Tekken Tag Tournament 2! Yay!
(via fuckyeahalbuquerque)
Yay! Snake is awesome.
After seeing the latest trailers and such, Singularity is definitely on my wishlist. I wonder when it’ll get to Steam. And whether Activision will release a demo or not. I really hope they do. :-/
Weekend Deal: All Codemasters racing games 75% off on Steam!
That is one awesome deal! I’ve been wanting to get DiRT 2 for a while now, but the $39.99 price point seemed a bit high. Maybe now’s the time - you can’t beat the price of $9.99! ^^
An extreme case of legal software agreements gone nasty
An hour ago, in the supermarket, I saw a cereal box advertising this flying game inside. What caught my eye was small, bold text under the ad saying you need to agree to a legal release form and a End-User License Agreement to use the game. This seemed odd, and because the form was on the back, I started reading. Here’s a rough translation of what I found: (Text was in Hebrew. Bold parts were not originally emphasized.)
From the moment you insert the disc into your optical drive, you agree to waive your legal rights against the publisher, should it damage your optical drive. […] By using this computer program, you confirm you are aware any computer program may contain a computer virus (“infection”) or any form of malicious code. All possible actions were taken to make sure the disc will not have any defects or errors. However, you agree to waive your legal rights against the publisher should the disc contain any defects, errors or malicious code. […] The application may gather information about your computer and use of the software and send it to the company’s servers, should you contact technical support. You agree to have the application gather information about your use of it, your computer and its configuration.
It “may” damage your drive? It “may” contain malicious code? It “may” watch what you do and tell its creators? Awesome!
I’ve read about cases where a license agreement was tricky and had some bad parts, and we all know about SecuROM, a known “legal computer virus”. But this is just too much. You’re basically agreeing to not take any legal action against the developer/publisher or even complain if the game turns out to be a malicious spyware-like virus! Earlier cases and the legal release form above (Yes, the game also comes with an additional EULA you must agree to. Crazy!) emphasize the fact a user should NEVER install software without thoroughly reading the attached agreements.
Welcome to the 21st century’s revision of the “Buyer Beware” rule.
Store your game progress in the cloud - for free
Valve introduced a sub-service of their content delivery system Steam last November called Steam Cloud, which is basically a system to store your saved games on Steam servers as well, so that you could pick up where you left off on any other PCs you might have, without needing to do anything. The service sounds well, but sadly, only supports a limited number of games, most of them from 2008 and later. Games like Half-Life 2 and Portal were excluded with a notice from Valve that they will be supported in the future. In addition, Steam Cloud only supports games purchased and/or activated through Steam.
But with a little willpower and about 5 minutes, one could make his own Steam Cloud without repurchasing games or even paying a single dime. This can be done with Dropbox, a service currently in alpha beta which can sync a single folder across all of your Windows PCs, Linux computers and Macs. You don’t have to be a computer expert, too; you just need to have an advanced knowledge of computers and not have the irrational fear of black-background-white-text console windows many people have.
