Tag Archives: steam

Windows 7 Shenanigans

…well, that didn’t go as planned.

What happened yesterday was completely different to what I actually thought (or had planned) to happen. My original, original plan was to move as much freshbytes stuff over to here as possible, but then I decided to use my time more wisely and play Dragon Age: Origins instead. 😀

If only that had been what actually transpired.

You see, I have this file system scheme with my Windows machine where as much as possible is moved off the OS drive. As I format my machines regularly, it just makes sense to dedicate a hard drive to Windows, and have two 1TB drives for storage – one for installed programs (okay, just Steam) and another for all my media, legally acquired or otherwise.

The way that it worked before I decided to play with it was that my User folder was on my OS drive, but the Documents, Videos and Pictures folders underneath that were moved to the Program drive. Truth be told, there’s nothing wrong with this setup.

However, I must make a special mention to those developers who think a special hidden folder in my User folder is an excellent place to store save games and other important info. Usually games store their save information, profiles etc, in either their own program folder, or under the Documents folder, or even under the My Games folder in the Documents folder. Such is the case with games like Dragon Age, BioShock, TrackMania, Rainbow 6 Vegas (1 and 2), and so on. There are certain games, however, that decide the hidden folder AppData is an excellent place to store this information instead, and without naming names, we’ll just say that a certain indie physics puzzler inolving Goo and a recent driving arcade game involving Paradise are the main culprits here.

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LEGO Star Wars: The Complete Saga on Steam

Kick Some Brick in I through IV

Play through all six Star Wars movies in one videogame! Adding new characters, new levels, new features and for the first time ever, the chance to build and battle your way through a fun Star Wars galaxy on your PC!

via LEGO Star Wars: The Complete Saga on Steam.

Er… That’d be VI for six, Steam.

Roman numerals FAIL! 😀

That being said, US $20 for all six isn’t bad. I already own boxed copies (at roughly double that), but having the physical media is always fun. Right?

Borderlands, Steam, and one screwed up release date.

rage

Yep – the above image was pretty much me at 6:30am this morning. (Image credit Whirlpool forums)

Having done lots of study the previous day to make up for what I had hoped was going to be an excellent day of FPS/RPG fun, I was greeted with the words “Pre-load complete; unreleased” when I looked at Borderlands in my Steam Games.

Shock turned to horror as I visited the Steam page for Borderlands, which happily, even casually, informed me that the unlock date had been pushed back a little over three days.

Horror turned to pure anger (much like the ragetoon above) when I realised what Steam had actually done – screwed Australian gamers over once again.

The official Steam comment is nothing short of abysmal:

Sorry for the confusion, guys. There was a slight mix-up with the release dates. North America will be releasing in an hour or so while Europe, Australia, etc. will be releasing 12:01am GMT on the 30th.

The count-down you see on the page now should be accurate.

A SLIGHT MIX UP is the understatement of the year.

Here’s a quick recap as to what’s happened in relation to Borderlands so far:

  1. Firstly, it wasn’t available for preorder in Australia, when it was in the US.
    Steam later said this was an issue with their store, which they then rectified by adding a new item to the store: “Borderlands Australia”.
  2. This, combined with the fact that there’s a “borderlands_low_violence.ncf” file somewhere among the Borderlands files, lead people to assume that Borderlands is censored for Australia. However – this isn’t the case.
  3. Internode then broke the news that there was a wrong version of Borderlands that Australian Steam users received. They managed to confirm with 2K Games that the Australian version was indeed censored. This was then wrong, however – “The full violence version of Borderlands was successfully rated by the Classification Board. […] Just to reiterate, Aussies will be playing the full violence version of the game, complete with gibs and all.” This was further confirmed by the fact that new Borderlands installs on Australian Steam accounts contain no such “borderlands_low_violence.gcf” file.

So. Here we are – 3 days out of the official Borderlands release in Australia, all while our US counterparts are playing the game.

That’s not the real issue here, though – it’s the fact that, up until ONE HOUR before the game unlocked (that is, 5am this morning), the countdown on an Australian Steam client showed the US countdown. This just doesn’t make sense, especially when you take into account that there was a separate “Borderlands Australia” store item created in the first place.

Don’t kid yourself if you think that Steam don’t have the technology to have two separate countdown timers, oh no – when they can clearly differentiate between different regions based on IP address, remember things like credit card details, account passwords – don’t tell me they can’t have two separate countdown timers.

Sigh.

Enough about that, though.

I’ve played Borderlands for a good 3 hours now, and can say it’s completely awesome, and deserves all the credit it gets.

This post part of Blogtober 2009 (where, I think you’ll know by now, I post a blog post every day of October 2009) – Borderlands is one of the best games of 2009 (that I’ve played).

Your guide to moving unseen in Left 4 Dead

When you’re playing the versus mode in Left 4 Dead, the zombie’s ability to see the outline of your character through the walls gives them a huge advantage while planning their attacks. There are some things you can do to make that outline disappear so you can move in secret, but what those things are have been subject to debate online. Finally, someone on the Steam forum has outlined exactly what you can and can’t do if you want to remain unseen.

via Your guide to moving unseen in Left 4 Dead.

I really, really need a computer that can handle this game!!

ARGH!! Not being able to play this game is driving me mad… 🙁