I bought BioShock

[SUBMAN1]

I know - let the flogging start since I shouldn't be supporting this form of copyprotection, but I did anyway. Besides, it was on sale for $39. My reasoning is two fold - 1. being that it is a great game as said by every review possible, and 2. being that I was very interested in the copy protection itself - whats it look like? I spent most of last night toying with it to see if it could be fooled, and yes, it can be fooled. I now have a working installation without needing my CD key for activation (4 installs later - uggh!), and does not require the DVD to be in the drive, so don't let anyone tell you this is not possible. I had to accomplish this to make sure my key never becomes invalidated like others I have read about - that's just crazy and anti-customer in my opnion.

On the game front, I did get a little time in on it, but not enough to draw my own opinions. Great graphics with fluid motion is a given (playing on an x1900 XTX). The plane wreck in the Atlantic was entertaining with fire on the water in the middle of the night. The water motion and the way water looks in game I have to say does look great as everyone says. It is not slow moving either, but fast and fluid.

Anyway, I'll report more later on after I'm in a little ways in.

-S

[Skybird]

Bioshock? Happens to me each time I look into the mirror.

[bradclark1]

Oooh! I'm running to tell Neal. You are doing a baddy.:p

[Tchocky]

4 installs, wow. Doesn't SecuROM only allow you five?

[SUBMAN1]

Originally Posted by Tchocky

4 installs, wow. Doesn't SecuROM only allow you five?

5 activations, but I never activated it! :p It took me 4 installs to figure out how 'not' to activate it and make it still play.

An example of one of its nasty habits is that if you don't let it connect to the internet, ot instantly erases the entire directory! That ticked me off the first time I saw it because I waited so long to have it put everything in it!

-S

[caspofungin]

i don't condone piracy, but there are several cracks available to bypass the whole activation procedure. also, the designers mentioned releasing a patch at some point in the future to get rid of the copy-protection -- it seems thay only wanted it during the first period of retails when the game is "hot" and demand for copies -- legal and otherwise -- is highest.

[antikristuseke]

Bioshock could have been a lot better if they had turned down the pace and included SOME rpg elements, dont be fooled it is not the fps/rpg hybrid it is made out to be. Im not saying its a bad game, just that itsn ot what it claimed to be.
anyway this man sums it up better than i could. http://www.escapistmagazine.com/arti...ation-BioShock

[SUBMAN1]

Originally Posted by caspofungin

i don't condone piracy, but there are several cracks available to bypass the whole activation procedure. also, the designers mentioned releasing a patch at some point in the future to get rid of the copy-protection -- it seems thay only wanted it during the first period of retails when the game is "hot" and demand for copies -- legal and otherwise -- is highest.

WHich is why I won't tell anyone how to do it, especially not on a thread in this forum. The whole point of wanting to do it is to bypass the limitation of only being allowed 5 installs - no matter if your machine crashes 5 times, etc. That is a violation of their own copywrite even. Anyway, that is why I researched it.

-S

[Letum]

Originally Posted by caspofungin

i don't condone piracy, but there are several cracks available to bypass the whole activation procedure. also, the designers mentioned releasing a patch at some point in the future to get rid of the copy-protection -- it seems thay only wanted it during the first period of retails when the game is "hot" and demand for copies -- legal and otherwise -- is highest.

Circumventing copy protection to use a game with out the CD is not piracy as long as you own a legal copy.
Depending on the user agreement, altering files to achieve this may be less than legal.
Using files that are not derived from the product to achieve this is a grey area at best.

[SUBMAN1]

Originally Posted by antikristuseke

Bioshock could have been a lot better if they had turned down the pace and included SOME rpg elements, dont be fooled it is not the fps/rpg hybrid it is made out to be. Im not saying its a bad game, just that itsn ot what it claimed to be.
anyway this man sums it up better than i could. http://www.escapistmagazine.com/arti...ation-BioShock

No it is not an RPG like System Shock was - and I would so far rate System Shock 2 much higher in terms of gameplay, even with its outdated graphics. I don't think another game will ever capture the sense of dread you got from the audio alone in System Shock 2. That game was a masterpeice - along with the original Thief. Thief 2, and 3 didn't capture THief 1's atmosphere as well.

That said, BioShock might have a thing or two going for it in the way of atmosphere, but I have yet to delve deep enough to form my own opinions. Let it be known though, I am very jaded (seen it all, done it all) when it comes to gaming, so I will be it toughest critique. I already know it will never catch System Shock 2, but it still could be very good.

-S

[bradclark1]

The first thing I do when I get a game or even before is to see if there are nocd patches out.

[SUBMAN1]

Originally Posted by bradclark1

The first thing I do when I get a game or even before is to see if there are nocd patches out.

There isn't an official one to be found on gamecopyworld - just a work around using Daemon Tools 4. I had to go beyond this to get it to function without the DVD.

-S

[antikristuseke]

Originally Posted by SUBMAN1

No it is not an RPG like System Shock was - and I would so far rate System Shock 2 much higher in terms of gameplay, even with its outdated graphics. I don't think another game will ever capture the sense of dread you got from the audio alone in System Shock 2. That game was a masterpeice - along with the original Thief. Thief 2, and 3 didn't capture THief 1's atmosphere as well.

That said, BioShock might have a thing or two going for it in the way of atmosphere, but I have yet to delve deep enough to form my own opinions. Let it be known though, I am very jaded (seen it all, done it all) when it comes to gaming, so I will be it toughest critique. I already know it will never catch System Shock 2, but it still could be very good.

-S

I wasnt expecting it to do that, but even when i set my expectation bar pretty low it failed to reach it tbh.

[SUBMAN1]

Originally Posted by antikristuseke

I wasnt expecting it to do that, but even when i set my expectation bar pretty low it failed to reach it tbh.

That bad huh? So far, I have yet to have a sense of dread, and I am playing on the hard level, but I am not too far into it - just past the door that I opened using electricity - was jammed before. Anyway, if you were looking for an RPG, I guess you wouldn't find it here.

I would have played more, but I had sound issues with my sound card crackling to no end. Looking online, many people had the same problem and no one managed to fix it. I did manage to fix mine however using something completely opposite of what everyone else was doing - they all tried having the latest and greatest sound drivers and I went with an early rev WHQL driver released originally with my motherboard - worked like a charm in fixing the crackling sound problems 100%. As I say - having the latest and greatest rev of a driver is not always the best! I did share my 2 cents with them on the 2K board this morning, so maybe someone can make use of that idea.

-S

[kiwi_2005]

Theirs is a working one with unlimited activation, and importantly, contains no trogans, but you wont find it on GCW.