Ben offers some advice that I can agree with: vote with your dollar, and don’t be a hypocrite. I also agree that piracy is not a valid way to protest. But it’s not enough for gamers alone to take a more effective stance against game makers, and joining an advocacy group won’t solve anything. To really spur change, the press needs to come around as well, as Ben has attempted to here.

I rather liked that Torchlight didn’t have skill trees. It made me a lot less stressed out about picking skills during the early levels.

Were it not for this news, I would have bought Resident Evil 5 during Impulse’s Thanksgiving sale. I’m thankful for Shacknews for saving me money.

Adding Tropico 3 only a month after its release is a quick turnaround for GameTap. More publishers should follow Kalypso’s lead.

It’s good that not everyone at Pandemic lost their job last week, and that their projects will continue at EALA. It’s also good to see that some of those who did lose their jobs have been able to find closure.

Good luck, guys. I mean it; I grew up using third-party memory cards in my consoles. They’re cheaper, they work just as well, and they come in wacky colors and capacities.

So cool:

Last time I heard from Shank it was being shown as an Xbox Live Arcade game. Now, fresh from the Penny Arcade Expo, GameTrailers has an extended gameplay video that they’ve filed under the “PC” category. This is great news, if it’s not an error, as the game looks wonderful.

At last, a zombie game that isn’t a first-person or twin-stick shooter, but a sim/RPG — and from a reputable developer, no less. By the look of those screenshots, the zombies may even be shambling.

It’s refreshing to see a someone in the press willing to play and cover the PC version of a multiplatform game. It’s not even a staggered release, which is usually the only time we hear about a PC version from anyone other than PC-centric outlets.

Although I’m wary of putting stock in non-announcements, I want to believe that publishers are coming back around to treating this platform right.

By now I hope you’ve noticed common theme in the items I’ve picked this week: the PC is getting its just deserts. News like this is so plentiful lately that it’s on the verge of becoming non-news; I’m okay with that.

Well played.

Just in case you don’t have enough reasons to not buy Guitar Hero, here’s another one.

Right on, Capcom: this may well be the first decent PC port of a Resident Evil game. It has mouselook and everything, though that doesn’t seem to be doing Brad Shoemaker any favors in this video.

Ah, oops. It’s Brad Shoemaker, again. Well, this video is too important for me to worry about the Brad-to-not-Brad ratio of this post. Knowledge is power.

Official Casebook Vol. 2: The Miles Edgeworth Files is the second entry to the Del Rey-published manga series based on Capcom’s Ace Attorney video game franchise. Over a dozen creators contributed stories to The Miles Edgeworth Files. It was released in the US in February of 2009.

Just as The Phoenix Wright Files was chocked with fan-service and silliness involving fan-favorite characters from the Ace Attorney games, so is The Miles Edgeworth Files. If you aren’t prepared for absurdity such as Edgeworth going to extreme lengths to keep Pearl Fey from being exposed to the sad ending of a TV movie, or seeing Edgeworth fight a bear while armed only with Pink Princess Chocolate bars, look elsewhere. Or just skip those stories, because there’s plenty more where they came from. Over twenty, in fact! Many of which have obviously been written with the swooning fan-girl in mind, but any fan of Ace Attorney should still be able to appreciate even the most frilly stories. Not every entry in The Mile Edgeworth Files is a stranger to seriousness, though; the very first tale in the manga concerns Edgeworth considering ending his career in prosecution. The legendary “frienemy” relationship between Miles and Phoenix is also spotlighted throughout the book.

That is to say, if you’re a fan of Ace Attorney — and especially if you’re looking forward to the upcoming Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth game — you should definitely pick up Official Casebook Vol. 2: The Miles Edgeworth Files.

Earlier this week, Valve announced that their digital distribution platform Steam would now be offering the ability to push “DLC” (Downloadable Content – a marketing term made to refer to microtransactions on consoles) to those who publish their games on Steam. This news has so far been met with reactions ranging from “good for you, PC” to customer outrage on the Steam forums. I am finding myself to be somewhere in between, but I’m leaning towards the belief that “DLC” on the PC is a bad thing for everyone involved. I’ll share with you my reactions as a consumer, as a business student, and also as a person who writes about games.

The Problem With The Maw

With The Maw’s “DLC” (two “bonus” levels), I went from thinking “that’s neat” to realizing the implications. I knew the maps were available and ready by the time the PC version released because they were available for purchase on my Xbox 360 before the game even came out. That means they were held back with the intent to sell them later as “bonus content”. This immediately diminished the value of the product that I had already purchased. I felt like I was not getting the full experience out of The Maw if I didn’t pay $2.50 for these extra levels. But I hadn’t even launched the game yet despite having pre-purchased it, knowing that if it’s good I’d be writing about it here at DoSu as a Cheap Game. But I hadn’t played it yet, so I was not attached to it. I found myself with no desire to play it. So I requested a refund. After jumping through some hoops, I received my refund. I no longer own The Maw — I probably never will again. Since that means I’ll never get to play it, The Maw will not be recommended by me here as a Cheap Game.
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I didn’t see this news bit get much circulation, but it seems Capcom has spilled the beans about when the PC versions of several upcoming games will be coming out relative to their console versions. Most notably, it seems that Dead Rising 2 may not be coming to PC at the same time as Xbox 360 and Playstation 3, as I had feared.

Depending who you ask, Rage is coming out this year… but it’s really not. There was some confusion over this interview that Geoff Keighley conducted with Todd Hollenshead during D.I.C.E. last week. Many people thought that Todd said “No, we’ll be out this year” when questioned about their targeted release window for Rage. In fact, he said “No, we won’t be out this year”. I happened to hear right the first time, but had to double check myself when several items in my RSS reader reported the contrary.

The finest trailer I’ve seen in a very long time came out this week. It’s up there with “that Gears of War trailer” and Grand Theft Auto IV Trailer 2.

Way back in April of 2008 I made a post talking about some of the games I was most looking forward to in 2008. Later, in November, I made another post reflecting on that list, what I’d actually gotten to play, and what I my impressions. Right now is that time of year just before games start getting announced en masse; GDC is just a few weeks away, and E3 has been moved to June this year, up from July last year. There are some PC games that we’ve known about for a while now which will probably be coming out this year, so I think I’m ready to share my list for 2009 right now.
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