8-bit hacks

Aliens vs. Predator vs. Sierra: A Cautionary Tale

There was a time (quite some time ago) that I was a big fan of playing Aliens vs Predator 2's online multiplayer mode. In the realm of multiplayer gaming I've since mostly moved on to greener pastures, but after finally getting around to playing the terrible Playstation 2 RTS game Aliens vs Predator: Extinction (and promptly wishing I'd never bothered) I thought it might be fun to wash the bad taste out of my mouth with some AvP2 action. What actually transpired, though, ended up putting an even worse taste in my mouth.

I installed the game, got all set to go online and... nothing. No master server. That means no cd-key verification, no list of game servers, nothing. After some quick searching, I'd found that Sierra has pulled support of the game. If you want to play AvP2 online now, well, sorry. You can't. If it was just this one game, just this one time, it might not be worth mentioning, but what happened here is a sign of the times for the PC game industry as a whole, particularly as we move faster and faster toward a digital-download-dominated market. It is not just a story of one game, but a cautionary tale of what happens when there is a single point of failure.

New XBox concerns in the experience

Last week, Microsoft began letting selected users get a "preview" of the new XBox 360 operating system upgrade, the so-called "New XBox Experience." Yours truly was among them, and I've gotten a good chance to put the new upgrade through its paces. I'm not going to go in-depth with a discussion of the system because there are several accounts around. Of all the new tweaks, additions and features that have been rolled up into this update, little of it has a serious impression or appeal to me. The inclusion of MiiTwos would be a whole lot more impactful if Microsoft's first party "blue ocean" stuff was anything to write home about, as I do get a kick out of the Wii Music jazz quartet of Einstein, Jacko, Walter Sobchak, and Geordi La Forge. The Netflix streaming feature will be quite handy to many users, but I've been streaming Hulu, Netflix, and the like to my TV for a quite a while now so it's not going to change my world.