* REMOVED *
This comment was deleted on Aug 31, 2010, 15:16.

Finally, a Mafia II review that I totally agree with. It blows my mind how many people in here think Mafia II is amazing. Do some games stores insist on performing lobotomies on the customer before giving them Mafia II? It sucks, it blows, it's the most tediously boring game I've played. "It looks fantastic!!" "It has atmosphere!". I guess that makes up for the brain-dead, lame-o, pathetic excuse for game-play to some. Not to me. It's a flop and the reviewer on Gameshark was generous imo

First of all, I apologize to everyone for actually talking about the game. I hope I don't annoy anyone by ignoring the piracy/anti-piracy war that's going down here.

Now then, onto the post: I thought the original Mafia was a masterpiece. I'd go so far as to say that it was absolutely brilliant in fact. After playing through a half-dozen or so "missions" in Mafia II, I'm scratching my head and wondering how the hell this game is getting so many rave-reviews. Am I the only one who thinks this game is a tedious snooze-fest? I've never played a game with so much filler and so little actual meat! Drive here, drive there, change your clothes, blah blah... I have nothing against a "cinematic" experience in a game, but this game is loaded with cut-scenes and the majority of interactiveness involves banal bullshit. I'm half-expecting, at some point, to be told to push "E" to sit on the toilet and push "F" to wipe my ass. To anyone who has finished this game (which I doubt I'm going to do) I ask: If you whittle away all the cut-scenes and all the "gameplay" parts where you're driving from point A to point B, changing your clothes or otherwise doing monotonous things, would there actually be an hour's worth of action (where you either shooting, sneaking, beating-up or otherwise enjoying the main-course rather than the salad and bread filler)?

The game is gorgeous to be sure, but I've gotten so bored with it that I'm debating whether or not to just drop it. Is the second half of the game a million times more exciting than the first half? Please tell me it is!

I haven't played a game in a long time. I'm getting old and have grown sick of the same old - same old being regurgitated over and over. The last game I played and enjoyed was Fallout 3. I tried Badlands and thought it sucked...entertaining cut-scenes and flashy npc introductions, but otherwise, been there done that...yawn. The fact that everyone seemed to rave about it made me think my PC gaming days were over. In fact, I pretty much only visit this site for the "Out Of The Blue" section (which is usually fascinating and/or good for a laugh). Yeah I know, I'm a big old downer with a soggy diaper.

However, reading about Mafia II has suddenly changed my outlook. I'm totally F###ing pumped about this game! Mafia 1 was an absolute treasure of a game created by people who obviously know how to entertain and is without a doubt one of the very best PC games ever made...at least in my opinion. Old jalopies, tommy-guns and an open bustling city are just the bee's knees. I would buy this sequel even if it was merely a mod of the first title with a new story. This is one case where even regurgitation would be delicious....yum yum. I can't wait to get my stiff wrinkly hands on this baby!

NM...comment was based on incorrect info I read online.

This comment was edited on Apr 1, 2010, 00:06.

Rigs wrote on Mar 28, 2010, 03:52:

Gotta love those idiots who accuse anyone who hates Starforce (or other invasive garbage drm schemes) of being pirates.

Whoa, hold on there Jethro... I don't really care who pissed in your corn flakes this morning, but you need to get a few things straight. I never 'accused' anyone of anything. What I said (if you had put down the bottle of Prozac and cared to read it) was since Starforce has been out there for a number of years, most of the earlier bugs had been smoothed out and most newer games with Starforce have had little trouble with consumers. The reason I mention pirates was NOT to imply that legit gamers who have problems with it are thieves. What I meant was that pirates were the only ones that actively and constantly try to hack their way around it and as such, run into many problems and hassles that most legit gamers don't run into. I also didn't say NO ONE has a problem with it.

What the hell's a nausance? You mean nuisance? I don't pay for nuisances. If you wanna pay for a nuisance, then don't let me stop you...

Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't think I would have someone over-analyzing every word I wrote for proper spelling and grammar. You know, because if I misspell a word it means the rest of my post is uninformed, biased crap.

You wanna imply that those who's principles prevent them from supporting such bullshit are thieves, then you're an asshole.

Again, that's not what I said, dipshit. If I didn't know any better, I'd think you were just trying to start an argument...

It sucks, period, and those who are too complacent (or dim) to see the problem with it are the real problem.

So, because I have no problems with it and think the that the issues with Starforce are overblown makes me complacent and stupid? Might it be, rather, that I have actually done my homework, sir, and have seen the gradual decrease of problem posts to various forums about Starforce over the last two years? Seems to me that you had a very disastrous run in with said DRM and now go off half-cocked whenever someone mentions that it's not as bad as some make it out to be...

I don't claim that there are no longer problems with this kind of DRM, but it is a noted and known fact that the makers of Starforce have tried to fix the problems consumers were having. The large majority of games now with Starforce have few problems with it but like with all other DRM, there are going to be problems. If you 'don't pay for nuisances' then your library of games must be mighty small because most games have one or more problems. It's the nature of the industry...


=-Rigs-=

Blah blah blah...what a convoluted load of bullshit. You said:
"Please, about the only ones that have a fit about Starforce nowadays are the ones trying to pirate the damn thing"

You can blather on and on about how that's not what you said, but it is. Furthermore, you go on to say

"What I meant was that pirates were the only ones that actively and constantly try to hack their way around it and as such, run into many problems and hassles that most legit gamers don't run into.
"

Yet in another thread you say
Oh, as for Starforce, it's a whole lotta NOTHIN'. I can honestly say I have NEVER had a problem with SF, except for the fact that they aren't compatible with Win7 or so it tells me when I boot up. That's what No-CD cracks are for, people!

"That what No-CD cracks are for people!"

"What I meant was that pirates were the only ones that actively and constantly try to hack their way around it and as such"

You're so full of shit you stink. Blah blah fuckin' blah.

DDI wrote on Mar 27, 2010, 23:45:
Yea uh this is the same limited activation crap that is the norm for PC DRM. Get over it, it's not the same awful system corrupting Starforce as before.

As amusing as the idiots who accuse drm-haters of being thieves are the idiots who feel they have the right to tell drm-haters how to feel about drm. Sorry, I hate drm, especially shitty drm that installs low-level drivers on people's machines (among other crappy ideas), and I choose not to "get over it". I don't believe there's anything to "get over". It sucks, period, and those who are too complacent (or dim) to see the problem with it are the real problem. Should you take issue with my refusal to obey your command, may I suggest you write a letter to Dear Fucking Abby? Thank you, and forgive my impudence, your excellency.

"Please, about the only ones that have a fit about Starforce nowadays are the ones trying to pirate the damn thing"

Gotta love those idiots who accuse anyone who hates Starforce (or other invasive garbage drm schemes) of being pirates.

"It's a nausance that's all"

What the hell's a nausance? You mean nuisance? I don't pay for nuisances. If you wanna pay for a nuisance, then don't let me stop you. If you wanna encourage game publishers to include nuisances in their games, knock yourself out and give 'em your money. You wanna imply that those who's principles prevent them from supporting such bullshit are thieves, then you're an asshole.

Once again, a bunch of corporate assholes figure out a new way to insult every honest customer for buying their product.

Fuck you Ubi.

This comment was edited on Jan 27, 2010, 02:58.

Only in the software industry can they get away with releasing broken product that doesn't work as advertised. With any other business, the government would intervene and force them to do a recall or shut them down altogether.

In the case of SH3, it had nothing to do with the vast amount of varying hardware; The software was defective...defective in many ways, and they never fixed all the defects. We should be allowed to mail them our defective discs and obtain a full refund.

Anyone who had SH3, or SH4, hated the bugs, yet buys SH5 is as much a part of the problem as the a-holes who continuously release defective product. The only ones who should be buying SH5 are the poor chumps who've never bought any previous Silent Hunter games and just don't know any better.

I won't get fooled again.

This comment was edited on Jan 21, 2010, 11:40.

I could be wrong, but it sounds like the same bullshit from previous games. The video asks if you wanna attack the supplies or the reinforcements first...Dynamic Campaign! No, that sounds like a dynamic mission. A dynamic campaign is where what you do in one mission affects to progress of the campaign in future missions. It totally pissed me off that they advertised the campaign as being "dynamic" in a previous version when it wasn't. That combined with the fact that the game was so riddled with bugs made me swear I'd never buy another game from them again...and I won't.

Maybe they got the "dynamic campaign" idea right this time around, though they sure made it sound like the same bullshit as in previous versions in the video. Regardless, I felt so burned by the months and months of waiting for patches to fix the incredible amount of bugs in a previous version (it was either SH3 or SH4...I think I passed on SH4...the bugs and lack of a real dynamic campaign was memorable, the game itself wasn't) that they've lost my business.

End of rant

20,000+ downloads on one torrent.

How many of those do you think are international?

20000 downloads from one torrent?!!! That's about a million bucks! I'll bet if they'd released it at the same time as the console versions a substantial percentage of those downloaders would have bought it rather than wait the three days for the pirated version to come out...it took three days right? What a joke DRM is! It does little more than treat the paying customer like dirt while the pirates enjoy a hassle-free experience. I wonder how much they paid for this "protection" scheme!

Unconscionable contracts, by law, are completely void.

Der. But what about this situation is unconscionable?

Everything. No matter what point of the license the customer may disagree with, the fact remains that he or she is stuck with a product they cannot return because they had to open the package and initiate the install procedure in order to view the EULA, making it impossible, in most places, to obtain a refund. Period.

Now if the original poster is refering to this pre-release debacle, then no, there is no grounds for a law-suit. I believe it would be deemed frivolous. If, however, we're talking about EULAs as contracts in general, I believe they would be deemed worthless due to the single point mentioned above. Publishers should really print the EULAs on the box, or on the seal covering the box, because sooner or later, a precedent is going to be set in court with regards to this unfair practice.

And your "leap of reasoning" is as lame as your social-skills, you petulant, witless imbecile. You don't even make sense, but that's of little importance, as long as you win the argument in your own delusional little mind. Good job!

oh, sorry professor! i didnt mean to speak over your head, even though thats impossible. how could i ever hope to? your smug and puerile logic is unassailable! go on and argue against the evils of EULAs and how your mighty majesty could easily defeat them in any court of the land. IM ENTRANCED BY YOUR WISDOM


That's the ticket! Behave like an offensive little brat who owns the joint, insulting members, who've done nothing other than engage in polite conversation, by calling them "seriously dumb motherfuckers" (for things they never even said, no less), and then play the role of the victim when someone points out what a dick you're being, using sarcastic remarks which, as with the rest of your inane attempts at making argument, are based nowhere in reality.

Your pattern of behavior has established you as one of the most ill-mannered and repugnantly offensive members in this forum, You insult forum members with foul language and vile terminology, and then you put on a ludicrous act of indignation when someone has the nerve to treat you in the same manner in which you treat others here. Go take your meds kid...you're making a bigger ass of yourself with every post

Secondly, calling someone "seriously one dumb motherfucker" for something they never said (despite your having made up a quote implying they said it) makes you "seriously one dumb motherfucker"..."haha"

i guess you cant make that leap of reasoning to understand what the hell is going on. therefore you too are a seriously dumb motherfucker

I doubt anyone could be held liable in court for breaking the EULA in the form to which you refer

but i didnt refer to anything about breaking a EULA. looks like you broke your own little rule about dumb motherfuckers, huh? i guess you are a double dumb motherfucker then


I was saying that a EULA buried in the installer means FA due to your snide statement:

its a contract you agree to BY RUNNING THE INSTALLER. you know that little thing that asks you if you agree?

Edit: To spell it out for you...since you obviously can't understand what you read and jump to the wrong conclusions, "in the form to which you refer" means in the form of a EULA built into the installer, and does not, somehow (don't ask me how your mind works) imply that you were talking about the breaking of the agreement.

And your "leap of reasoning" is as lame as your social-skills, you petulant, witless imbecile. You don't even make sense, but that's of little importance, as long as you win the argument in your own delusional little mind. Good job!

This comment was edited on Oct 24, 2009, 23:17.

space captain wrote: Neither can you be bound in a legal agreement by opening the shrink wrap on some software.

its a contract you agree to BY RUNNING THE INSTALLER. you know that little thing that asks you if you agree?

"im gonna take em to court!" haha.. you are seriously one dumb motherfucker

First of all, "that little thing that asks you if you agree" is a sleazy bit of policy that corporate assholes like to use -I doubt anyone could be held liable in court for breaking the EULA in the form to which you refer, and I doubt any corporate asshole would want to risk setting a precedent by trying. When they bury the EULA inside the code (ie. by only making it visible when the user starts the installation program), they are making it so that the user is stuck with the software whether they agree to the terms of the license or not because they had to open the package to do so, making it impossible (at least where I live) to get a refund on the product if they disagree. It's an unfair practice and I suspect that "little thing that asks you if you agree" would be found to be as legally binding as you are personable if someone were taken to court by the assholes who wrote the EULA.

Secondly, calling someone "seriously one dumb motherfucker" for something they never said (despite your having made up a quote implying they said it) makes you "seriously one dumb motherfucker"..."haha"

Har! I just looked it up on Youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cb45RkfWjV0

I had to laugh when I saw the opening scenery. Apt indeed.

@theyarecomingforyou

Actually, "singing lullabies" is a pretty bad choice of words. It's not like everyone should be sleeping in a Utopian hippy reality. If you want to describe a bunch of tree-hugging lovey-dovey do-gooders, I think "Singing Kumbaya" would be a more apt choice of words.

Oh, and it's "babbling brooks". I don't know why, but brooks are said to babble (much like I'm doing) and not bubble, though I'm sure they do bubble if the topography and current speed permit.

Release date debacle or not, I still look forward to murdering a gazillion psychotic Mad-Max extras in Borderlands!

I don't know about transitions being "done right", as it does seem a tad non-eventful -moving at the enormous speed that craft must have been moving in order to get from space to ground in so short a time (even if the planet is tiny), you'd think there would be massive amounts of turbulence-induced vibrations, or perhaps some plasma effects from air colliding with the craft being super-heated. However, relatively speaking, everything else is certainly done right -the objects look realistic, specifically, the texture imagery is pleasing to the eye compared to the colors-for-the-sake-of-colors in Smart's game, and the planet actually looks like a planet with ground detail that...well, with ground detail. In short, the scenery in this video, while nothing spectacular by any means, is vastly superior to Galactic Command. From a gameplay point of view, who knows?

This comment was edited on Oct 20, 2009, 00:29.

So what's it like working for the Supreme Commander? Is he actually a charming guy in real life? Does the job pay well or do you work on commision?

This comment was edited on Oct 17, 2009, 02:02.