Beyond the Office [The Game Room: CD Copy Annoyances; Batt..

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Beyond the Office [The Game Room: CD Copy Annoyances; Battlefield:
Vietnam - 05/06/2004]



Beyond the Office

May 6th, 2004

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Our editors' favorite PC and console games and hardware, a look at the

evolving world of digital music, tips on burning CDs and DVDs, and

everything about wireless technology and cell phones.



May 6th, 2004



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The Game Room: CD Copy Annoyances; Battlefield: Vietnam



Sr. Assoc. Ed. Andrew Brandt
Modern copy protection for games really chaps my hide. Almost every

game I load up has at least two protection schemes. First, during

installation they all require you to enter a long and complex string

of random text (the key). That, I don't mind. But I do mind the

second, most common, one: To play the game, you have to keep a game

disc in the CD drive.


For a lot of reasons, having to keep a CD in the drive is problematic.

Discs get damaged with use, and a sufficiently scratched disc can

leave you stuck with an unplayable game and an expensive coaster.


Another consideration is noise. My CD drive is loud. When I play

Desert Combat, for example, the game checks for the disc at three

different points in the game: once when I first load the game, every

time I join a server, and at the beginning of each new map. Every time

the game checks for the disc, the drive screeches loud enough to wake

the dead--or my wife. Either scenario has its drawbacks.


Don't Slow Me Down


And the speed of my CD drive also becomes a chokepoint. Having to wait

for the game to read the disc slows down level changes: The game waits

in a kind of limbo while the drive spins up; it won't load the new

level until it completes the check. The extra time this takes is extra

annoying.


Forced-CD-in-the-drive restrictions used to be fairly easy to bypass

using virtual CD software, which stores CD data in a file on the hard

drive. The software makes Windows treat the file as if it were a CD

and even maps a drive letter. If you loaded the virtual CD before you

launched the game, the game went along with the charade, none the

wiser.


But game publishers got wise. Now, some CDs prevent virtual CD imaging

software from copying the disc. Others let you copy CD data, but

something in the installer knows that the virtual disc you create

isn't the real deal, and it drops an error message on you instead.


I got so tired of having to switch CDs and listen to their racket that

I held a personal protest for the entire month of January: I played

only games that didn't require CDs in the drive, which meant that I

played a lot of PlanetSide, and got in a little Tribes Football in

between.


By March, I had resigned myself to my fate, thinking I'd be condemned

to forever swap CDs to play different games. Then I read that the DVD

X Copy people at 321 Studios have released Games X Copy, a $60 app

that can copy discs (or create virtual CDs) that use modern copy

protection schemes. Check it out here:

http://pcwnl.pcworld.com/t/71165/15377831/238589/0/


The possibility of a gaming life once again liberated from the tyranny

of CD-swapping beckons. In my next column I'll let you know how well

(or poorly) Games X Copy works.


Battlefield Plus 28 Years


It's a broiling hot summer afternoon on the Mekong Delta in June 1968.

You and a platoon of comrades are patrolling the river's edge in a

small PT boat at a crawl, watching the rustling vegetation for signs

of a sneak VC attack.


In an instant, a wing of MiGs appear out of the north and strafe the

river. As you sound the alarm, cannon fire from one of the fighters

narrowly misses cutting your flimsy vessel in half, and you order the

pilot to bolt downriver in the direction of a nearby squadron of F-4s

dropping Orange Crush on suspected jungle hideouts.


The captain valiantly steers the boat around a tight 180, sets engines

to full throttle, and lets her rip, but his reaction isn't fast

enough: Now on a second attack run, one of the MiGs fires a round that

neatly pierces a vital piece of your pilot's anatomy.


He goes down in an instant. You wrestle him from the rudder controls

as a squaddie fires the deck-mounted cannon at the sky. Smoke pours

from the engine compartment, where hot lead pierced the oil pan. The

boat's boom box, still tuned to Armed Forces Radio, howls guitar rock

into the alien jungle.


And behind a nearby banana palm, an NVA regular taps his feet to the

beat as he lines you up in his sniper scope...


Dice's latest venture, Battlefield: Vietnam, transports gamers to a

conflict in the recent past. This multiplayer online first-person

shooter brings you into the darker, non-Berkeley in the sixties side

of the war---an immersive, visually and audibly rich re-creation of

the war that, as it was waged in southeast Asia, tore America apart

from the inside. Like its predecessor, Battlefield: 1942, Battlefield:

Vietnam gives gamers solid hours of entrancing mayhem. You'll find the

official Battlefield: Vietnam site here:

http://pcwnl.pcworld.com/t/71165/15377831/238663/0/


The scenario I described above isn't too far off from one of my first

outings in the game. And yes, you get to play real, period music on

the radios in vehicles, and everyone else nearby (within the game) can

hear the tunes you play.


It Ain't Broke, So They Didn't Fix It (Much)


As with Battlefield: Vietnam's predecessor, Battlefield: 1942, the

overall online game-play experience is pretty solid, so I was glad to

see that Dice didn't mess with the winning formula too much. I

appreciate the smaller improvements Dice made, including the addition

of a visual representation of a flag-capture timer--a handy tool. The

more friendly teammates you can get in range of an enemy flag, the


faster the timer moves to switch that flag to your own. This change

makes team cooperation a vital part of winning, and motivates players

to constantly improve their teamwork. Check out a screen from the game

here:

http://pcwnl.pcworld.com/t/71165/15377831/238664/0/


Helicopters in Battlefield: Vietnam are reportedly easier to fly than

those in Desert Combat. I haven't bothered, but I may try them out

soon. I've flown an F-4 (badly) and still managed to shoot down an

enemy chopper before coming to a crunchy end in a stall. As with

Battlefield: 1942, a decent flight stick is still pretty much a

requirement for serious pilots, and I'm afraid I just can't be

bothered.


I'm still getting used to the new tanks, jeeps, APCs, and trucks in

the game. I'm also looking forward to trying out another new feature:

having my tank airlifted into enemy territory. It hasn't happened yet,

but it will, as people get more experienced at the game. I hope

players pick this stuff up and start using these features fairly

soon--they look like a blast from the past.



Read Andrew Brandt's regularly published "Game Room" columns:

http://pcwnl.pcworld.com/t/71165/15377831/238665/0/


==
"You make a living by what you get, you make a life by what you give."
-- Winston Churchill