By Alec Meer on December 16th, 2009 at 11:15 am.
Nothing brightens up a PC gamer’s day like news about Games For Windows Live. If Microsoft revealed they were going to harvest every person on Earth’s left eyeball, we’d probably still not be as pissed off as we are about the continue existence of their unreliable, unnecessary bloatware – which a frightening number of ignorant publishers and developers are still insisting on tacking onto their games to save a few quid. Yet Microsoft persists in trying to fix the unfixable. The latest release of the GFWL client adds something the console boys have had for a while – a games on demand store. Like Steam, Direct 2 Drive, Gamersgate, Getgames, the EA store… They’re absolutely right: there is room in the market for yet another games download client. We’ve all been begging for one, right?
The line-up of games isn’t awful, though Dirt 2 is the only game from the last few months on there. More appealingly, there’s a couple of games on it that aren’t available to download on any other service as far as I can see. Specifically, Shadowrun and Viva Pinata! Shadowrun took a sound beating from the mediocre stick, but Pinata’s a good time. Both are currently 50% off to celebrate the launch of this on-demand gumpf.
Too much venom? Too little? Just enough?
YES! I want to use Microsoft’s proprietary service to whisk my credit card details swiftly and safely through the dangerous Internet! The rest of the service so far has been so slick, smooth and reliable that I can’t imagine anything going wrong!
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Can we buy stuff directly with our credit cards/paypal services anyway? Or is this all running on Microsoft’s proprietary currency?
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Viva Pinata has the best sex in all games.
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Hmm..isn’t this rather a game for kids? Or am I just confused more than normally today?
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Christian: like all Rare games these days – they are kids games that are far too complex and difficult for kids.
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Christian:
The game is based on several creatures, and wen these creatures make sex, you can see it on a video _Safe For Childrens_ where the creatures ‘dance’ (is cute, and fun). The methaphor is strong enough for AndrewC to be right. Anyway I like more the Witcher version. But.. he!.
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Tei: They go to a dark, red room and rub up against each other while funky wah-wah disco music plays.
This one’s so strong its a metaphwoar!
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Ok. That really sounds like the Best Sex In Games Ever, thanks for explaining.
Better than trying to fit in some sort of Soft-Porn-action just to have another selling-point. Sexyness in games yes, but sex not so much.
And:
Maybe I should really have a look at this (not because of the sex, but because it sounds like a fun little game)?
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Christian:
Viva Piñata feels like a hibrid of Sim City (or sim ants?) and Fable or any other linear rpg. I recomend it.
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Viva Pinata in a nutshell: make pinatas do the nasty while making sure they don’t turn to cannibalism.
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@AndrewC
I’m really disappointed you didn’t provide a youtube link.
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cyrenic: do you take me for some sort of digital pimp? You trawl for your own porn you bestial pervert.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sRRWiJBam9Y
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It also has some surprisingly sexy puppets. If you don’t love Leafos by the time you reach level 10 then you are made of stone.
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Does it cost real money? I mean as opposed to points, which just confuse the shit out of me? If so, I might consider getting Viva Pinata on it. That’s supposed to be good, right?
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They list prices in real money, and you can pay them directly with a credit card. Thumbs up there, at the very least.
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Will this require you to call up customer service should you not want your credit card details stored with your account since Microsoft apparently assumes that because you bought a 1 month Live subscription with your credit card you must want to buy a 1 month live subscription every month and the only way to cancel said automatic charging is for you to call up customer support?
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YAY shadowrun §§!§
oh wait…
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Hands up those who’ve played it.
I have and its alot more interesting than any other team deathmatch game out there. Somewhat unbalanced and the inaccurate rapid fire weapons put the emphasis towards running down enemies. Put I still have more fond memories of it than I do of totally generic but polished shooters like COD or Halo.
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Tinker is free so it can’t be that bad.
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Unless you were dumb enough to pay money for Vista Ultimate.
Of the promised Ultimate Extras, of which about 3 actually arrived, the only one that wasn’t crap was Tinker. But now it’s free for everyone.
I want a refund, or at least a free upgrade to windows 7!!!
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I vote for “Just enough!”.
The strange thing that really bothers me about this GFWL-thingie is that you still have to have it installed and running when you buy and register one of the games with Steam.
Examples would be GTA4 and Fallout 3. I’m in no way interested in having and maintaining a childish GamerCard and using their XBox-Services and whatnot. I want to use Steam, that’s why I registered those games with Steam.
Why would I need to also sign in to GFWL? That makes no sense.
And don’t get me started about buying Fallout 3 DLC..
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@Christian. You never had to be signed into GfWL with Fallout 3, you could ignore it completely.
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EvaUnit02: Oh, really? Hmm, then it somehow tricked me into believing it has to be on in order for me to play. That’s pure evil at work there, it seems. Ha, devil’s work. Or maybe I was just stupid for not finding out myself. Well..
But:
Thanks, I’ll look into it. That would be fine news indeed.
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Why don’t you track down the people ‘responsible’ for GfWL and make them answer for their crimes?
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Not nearly enough, it’s a terrible needless system that only serves to add frustration and pain to frequent and casual PC users alike. Die in a fire Windows Live, and may your offspring suffer from incontinence.
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Hm, I can sense Mr. Meer had a few mildly frustrating moments with GFWL in the past.
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John definitely did.
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Who hasn’t
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My problem with these services isn’t the number of them (competition should end up being a good thing for the consumer), but that the majority of them are so poor. Steam is by far the best client based service, but even that has problems with their servers going down for maintenance quite often and the occasional sluggish download/unlock. Where Steam does excel is that Valve clearly consider it important. Most of the other companies seem to be doing it more as a token gesture than as the future of selling games.
I’ve not had much experience with Games for Windows Live, but when I have it has been somewhere between pointless and a nuisance (some long log in times when trying to play Street Fighter 4 have been my only real problem.) The lack of any pricing before downloading the client (and the fact it is Microsoft) seems to suggest they won’t be offering very competitive prices, which is my only real concern when it comes to choosing where I buy stuff (with in reason, of course.)
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One thing I don’t like about Steam is that you can’t always launch your game when you’re offline. My internet connection fails a lot, so in my case, I wish I could just launch the game without the harassment of logging into Steam.
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One thing I don’t like about Steam is how if forces me to be online to access my games.
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For all the bitching about various DRM schemes, the universally beloved Steam is the only one that’s ever prevented me from playing a game I had purchased when I wanted to play it.
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Not enough venom. Fuck Microsoft and their GfW* shit.
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I’m curious if they figured out that $1 €1 £1
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Have you noticed that the companies that do this are American. If they trick an entire generation into thinking that $1=£1=€1 then they, who have their money in $ will in effect make themselves 2-3 times richer, while making either the £ or € (or both) poorer. This is just another plan for world dominance by the big game companies.
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Maybe they just have problems dividing and calculating in decimal numbers, so 1 has to equal 1.
Either that or they think it’s the same currency, just those overseas people have a different symbol for it on their keyboards.
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@Lack_26: What are you talking about? If the price in your currency is too high, don’t buy it. I wasn’t aware that gamers were forced to buy games. If the game sells at the higher price, then you have collectively sealed your fate. Game companies can charge whatever they want for games, and will normally sell at the price the market will bare.
I agree that it is frustrating for those dealing with it, but I don’t think it is an evil corporate trick or something. It is just as much of a trick as Infinity Ward charging $60 for MW2. oh noes! You can’t charge $60 for a PC title! No fair, you’re just trying to get rich, greedy bastards! Well, of course they are trying to get rich, that’s pretty much their jobs. If you don’t like it, don’t pay.
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@ Clovis:
Bah, there is a perfectly good explanation. The tubes have to go underwater to deliver the games, and that isn’t very cheap.
@ Carra:
Download from the other source.
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@Clovis, erm, what are you on about?
It was a joke based on currency exchange rates, your reply just seems to bear little relevance to what I said.
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Perhaps I should elaborate, my flat-mate (who also reads RPS, despite not playing games) got the joke, but she’s doing economics.
If the next generation is labouring under the pre-text that the $ is not in-fact worth less than a £ or Euro but is worth the same amount, and someone looks at the actual exchange rate and goes “Holy-Moly Batman, that exchange rate isn’t right and re-values the $ to be worth 2 -3 times it’s actual worth. Everyone with $ gets rich. It also works the other way, if they value the £ and Euro down then the $ becomes comparatively worth more. See, so the Americans, perhaps the whole government, are trying to make everyone think the $ is worth more so they become filthy rich :p
Blurr, I hate explaining jokes, even bad ones.
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Looks like gets eaten by the html formatter!
Of course you’re right. If people will pay more in euros they will ask more in euros. I personally won’t be buying in those shops and find one with a fair conversion rate.
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Get Tinker ladies, get Tinker.
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The problem with GfWL is imho not the client itself (at least I never had any problem with a GfW game). It’s just that it does not excel in any way when compared to existing services. The store is great example. It’s not all that bad but there is absolutely no reason to use it because neither is it more comfortable, unobtrusive or bigger than any existing solution. And with such a small back catalogue they’ll likely fail once again.
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Only real differentia would be cross-platform play, and even then there not bringing anything out using it.
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Oh, the client has *plenty* of problems specific to itself as well.
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Games for Windows? Bearing in mind the effort they put into PC games against the effort and resources they put into promoting their consoles, that must be a really depressing dead-end job for someone working at Microsoft. I wonder who you have to piss off to end up in that department?
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I once observed a man walking his dog here in Dublin. Now next to the Jervis shopping centre, there is a little square where they have fairs every now and then. In the middle of that square is a surprisingly life-like statue of an angry bull. When dog & owner neared that statue, the dog suddenly became very angry, first pulling away on his leash, then growling at the thing, barking like mad, etc. His owner was very amused and tried to show him that there was nothing to be afraid of. He went over to the statue and touched the pull. Had the dog been wearing pants (and why wasn’t he! Inquiring minds demand to know!), he would have jumped out of them. As it was, he just dialed his crazy barking up to 11. His owner sat on the bull, hugged it, carried his dog over to the status and placed the dog on top of the statue… nothing. The dog kept barking angrily. At this point, everyone was watching and laughing.
Microsoft is like that dog. Angry, clueless, making a spectacle of themselves, but also kind of cute.
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Touched the pull, Daniel, really?
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Daniel Klein:
Thanks Daniel, your story is very good and funny. :-)
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And here I thought you were leading up to Microsoft being the statue…
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I could live with Live for Fallout, mainly because there is a mod that removes the need for it.
What really pisses me off is ‘Dirt 2′. I downloaded it with Steam and not only to I have to have Live installed to run the game, but I can’t even save my progress unless I’m logged into a Live account! What sort of fuckwit had that idea?
In future I will be avoiding any games with Live.
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FFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU –
I really wanted to try out some dirt racing too.
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Clovis:
‘FFFFFFUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU –
I really wanted to try out some dirt racing too.’
I wouldn’t worry about it too much, ‘Dirt 2′ ain’t nothing special. I don’t play racing games much but the game it really reminds me of is ‘Screamer 2′ (1996).
On the plus side it’s got a neat rewind feature and nice graphics but it’s also wrapped up in the most insufferable ‘Extreme sports is sooo cool, dude’ package that just screams of trying too hard. And the other drivers talk to you in the race, which I guess would be ok if it was trash talk but they actually encourage you. Seriously.
And the physics can be very annoying, with a minor bump in the road sending you flying end-over end.
The racings fun, but essentially not much different from every other arcade racer I’ve ever played and you have to fight through a load of bullshit to get to it.
Since I think I just reviewed it:
80% – OK, highly polished. Nothing special, glad I didn’t buy it at full price.
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@Clovis
“What sort of fuckwit had that idea?”
One of the fuckwits at Codemasters presumably.
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I too have cried while waiting endlessly to sign in to GFWL in Dirt 2 and it just refusing to complete. Twice, out of a couple of dozen boot ups. This is bad, but not death for a game you would want to play. Also the front end is a horrible mess – complex 3-D graphics means there’s about two loading delays before you can select the next option. This is bad-der, but the menu is still navigable, so only someone with anger issues would rage-quite for something like that. The racing is great fun and the graphics are gorgeous. It’s very similar to Dirt, only a bit better. Why would such small things stop you from playing? It seems stubborn to an almost sociopathic level.
The buggies are knob though. Fucking buggies.
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@AndrewC
Fucking buggies indeed!
I will be playing it (I stayed up to late last night having ‘just one more race’) but’s it’s just not something I’ll be remembering for any length of time. It’s good but I find it difficult to get excited because it doesn’t feel much different from racing games that were being made a decade ago, bar perhaps the AI being a bit more natural.
Apparently there are some issues with the multiplayer too, since it’s easy to drive without much skill by bouncing round corners on the barriers or off other cars.
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The ghosts of the fastest drivers don’t bounce off the sides of the track, and smashing other cars is a good, if nasty trick, in almost every racer ever.
I even like it when the other AI drivers say supportive things to me. Then I smash them with my car.
Not life changing, but very jolly good.
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It’s funny to me that the harder Microsoft tries to simplify PC gaming (something no one ever asked for, while we’re on that topic) they somehow manage to add yet more convolution. Half of me takes a sadistic glee at watching them fail, while the other half scowls angrily at them for mucking up what wasn’t broken and didn’t need fixing.
I’d say just enough venom. It’s nice to know you have GFWL as much as we do without having to see the point slopped all over the floor.
I also find it amazing that MS can manage to COMPLETELY BUNGLE such a simple feature as the windows Games Explorer. It was such a great idea…help reduce icon clutter and consolidate games shortcuts in an easy to access location. And the execution couldn’t have been worse. Just…amazing.
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Isnt that more the publishers thing ? Alot of games do it spot-on, while others do it piss poor.
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@TehOg
Part of it is publisher support. But that wouldn’t be an issue if it were possible to add games manually without having to resort to a smegging registry hack. No drag and drop support of shortcuts? No “add shortcut” button? I can only assume it’s some sort of a joke. Even Steam and Impulse allow you to add shortcuts to “foreign” games to their launch menus.
@cliffski
Yes, msconfig is my friend. Everything unnecessary gets pulled from my startup queue.
And I understand the point of GFWL from a business perspective. But if you look at all the digital distro platforms out there, GFWL is the only one trying to change how PC gaming works. My PC is not an Xbox 360 and I don’t want it to be one. I swear the next PC game to ask me which “save device” I’d like to use is going to get fed through a wood chipper.
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@MinisterofDOOM
Well not everyone is as computer literate as us ubermen. But that doesn’t they don’t want to play the games we do. My dad for example loves the Anno DS games but just can’t get started with the pc versions because of all the settings you need to alter and patches you need to keep adding. He even struggles finding the launcher for the games. As such I’ve had to install the games for him and covered his desktop with shortcuts.
So yeah, some people do want PC gaming made simpler. I’m not saying it’s there yet but Steam with it’s auto install auto patching and keeping everything together would probably make it a lot easier for him.
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I don’t understand why as a GAMER I would want ANYTHING running on my machine just to let me launch games, and buy games. We have a thing called a ‘desktop shortcut’ in windows that already lets us run games. We have something called ‘The Internet’ which allows us to buy games.
Adding anything onto that experience is just re-inventing the wheel and adding bloat.
As a BUSINESSMAN, I can see why everyone wants their own download service+store. it’s to lock-in customers and get them to buy more games and spend more money. It’s a smart business move, but it’s not being done to make gaming better, it always has been done to make more money.
I’d actually buy a lot more music from itunes if it didn’t always try and run on my machine all the time. As a developer, I HATE anything sat there using up RAM, CPU, disk access etc, when I should be compiling or rendering. I have steam, impulse and itunes installed, and none of them run on startup. I can wait the extra 2 seconds to start them if I actually feel the need…
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cliffski: You make some valid points there. No auto-run of any kind for me, and I can really get angry when another program just assumes I want to run it every time I start Windows and just turns on autostart as a default. Also I’m paranoid and don’t want anybody logging my computer on/off-cycles.
But:
As a Gamer I find Steam quite useful and although I know the risks and minus-points you mentioned, I quite like it for keeping my games up-to-date. Also, the Cloud-feature (save your settings, re-apply them on reinstall) is a great feature when it works.
And as far as I see GFWL doesn’t do that for me (or in such an annoying way that it’s not worth living with the minuses). So really no need to have it running.
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@ cliffski
I am a PC gamer. I don’t like consoles because when I choose a console, I choose what games I’m going to play for the next few years. In a way, these clients (Steam, Impulse, GFWL) do the same thing, only it is easier to have every client installed than it is to buy every console. These clients are specially bad when they start getting in your way when you just want to play.
I agree that launching games from the client is just bloating the whole thing. I prefer buying directly from the developer when I can, because I don’t care for yet another internet messaging tool, yet another online “community”, yet another ranking, yet another achievement list… On the other hand, I didn’t find out about your games by landing directly in your homepage. I guess the best option the devs have right now is giving the consumer options…
I’ve seen many indie devs complaining they don’t even get replies when they e-mail Steam / Impulse, so you should consider yourself “lucky”. ;-)
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As a gamer and someone who doesn’t do anything else intensive with their PC (just browsing and office work) I’d actually prefer (or perhaps I should say “loath the client based solution marginally less”) to have a client like this for GfWL to the old system. My PC is overspeced for what I do with it (Q6600 with 8GB RAM etc) so I’m probably not going to notice the footprint of the client where as old style GfWL has frequently left me near screaming with rage while it refused to let me play a single player game because it was having trouble connecting to the server or decided it needed to exit the game again to patch itself. I wish both systems a speedy death but I’d take a client that gets its problems sorted out at boot while I’m typically off making a cup of tea to an intergrated system that just doesn’t work half the time.
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Ugh… from what I gathered this doesn’t even work that well on the XBox. It’s not the technology that faults, or the interface. But the prices are too high and the content too little. Still the five first games in that picture are all quite good, but they will have to be noticeably cheaper than Steam for me to consider it.
GFWL still doesn’t work that well on my horrible connection, and the fact that I must login every time to have achievements et al update is annoying
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I found the use of GFWL too intrusive. Even the color scheme is a poor decision. Most intro videos are ruined by the lame “Looks to me, LOOOK TO ME!!!” nagware of his UI. If I have a game with GFWL, I have already “buy” GFWL, I don’t want more advertisement, branwding and nagware to ruin my gamming session.
Hope on design of the region looking is easy exploitable or wrong, so we can get games there that normally are “not allowed on your region”. If the quality of the portal is as good as everything else microsoft, Is sure that will have exploitable bugs.
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I’d prefer a metaboli/GameTap-type of service…One that doesn’t use that bloody crappy mal-functioning Yummy player…
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It’s difficult to see how there could be enough venom…
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laughably this is the only digital distro client that has a hope in hell of competing with steam.
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I can’t even transfer my Batman AA GFWL saves onto my new Windows 7 install as they’re encrypted and locked to the old XP OS, so you can well understand my reluctance to buy any games off this service.
Contrast that with how easy it was to transfer my Steam games and save files onto a new OS. Just install steam, copy the files over and it just works.
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Encountered the same problem yesterday, I even tried hex-editing the Live profile following this method: http://www.gtaforums.com/index.php?showtopic=386144. But it still wouldn’t work.
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Guess I’ll be encountering the same issue on the weekend then. (insert here)
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Saves are locked to OS?!!!?! AAGGGGHHHHHH
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Did you try contacting GFWL? I’m just interested in what their explanation for this would be. It might be a hassle, but maybe they’ll allow you to play the saved game you paid for if you beg.
BTW, your various friendly neighborhood pirates offer the same game for free with no weird save game rules. I bought Torchlight from D2D a few weeks ago and now I can’t update it to the current version b/c the D2D DRM special version isn’t ready yet. I just keep thinking how much better the price and service of the pirates is. I’m not actually advocating piracy here, it is just annoying how bad the customer service is in some of these digital retailers. When your competition is free and efficient, you think you would step up.
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Tried it and seems to work well enough, nice interface very clean. Microsoft never really gets things right you always have to wait for version 2 or 3 of their software before they get a handle on it.
That said I think the wailing an gnashing seems undeserved GFWL as it stands now looks pretty decent to me, would have been much better than Gamespy if Borderlands had used it.
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the thing is it works brilliantly until it doesn’t i was firmly in the ‘i don’t understand what the problem is’ camp, until one day batman wouldn’t let me play cause i couldn’t connect to the server and dow was stopping me from logging in, therefor i couldn’t play online, i was pretty miffed.
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I’ve heard (strongish) rumours they are going to do it properly this time…
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When you’re done reading the Microsoft press release, I’ve a bridge you may be interested in.
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And of course, you can only pay via credit card or “points”. Because Pay Pal eats babies, I suppose.
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Still better than the scam-like points they use for Live. I hate them, it’s a old technique for making people pay more than they need.
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I think you should be able to buy points via Paypal if you have your region set to United States. http://majornelson.com/archive/2009/08/06/pay-pal-now-available-for-us-xbox-live-accounts.aspx
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GFWL ate my Batman save-game because apparently they encrypt them to make them unusable on another operating system. Needless to say I’m pretty furious about that. Maybe this happened to anyone else? Tinker is a cute puzzle game though and it’s free to download via the client.
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Are you serious?
So if I upgrade to Windows 7 I wont be able to use my savegames?
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Is that a GFWL feature or a B:AA feature? I was able to copy my GTA4 save games fine when I had to reinstall my OS. I had planned to reinstall B:AA on my new Windows 7 installation, so had better check that…
P.
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You need to be sure to back up both your Batman folder in My Documents and the GFWLive and XLive folders in Users/XXX/AppData/Microsoft. Then it should work. I only learned that after the fact and only backed up the Batman folder assuming it would work.
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I tried transferring the xlive and and GFWLive folders too, and it still said my Batman save was ‘corrupt’. It’s like they’ve deliberately gone out of their way to make it difficult to migrate to a new OS or machine.
Fallout 3 was very easy by comparison, so not all GFWL games use the same stupid system.
You’d think Microsoft would have made a special effort to make GFWL save game and migration to Windows 7 easy, it is in their best interests to get gamers to upgrade after all.
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I transferred from Windows 7 RC to Windows 7 Pro on the same machine and even that didn’t work.
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Hilarious… The client is a horrible mix of three different languages (The description for games starts out listing the game’s supported languages in Danish, continues to describe the game in English, and then rounds it off with description of the DRM in German).
The Settings button is still named Settings, which much (but not all) of the remaining interface is Danish.
Prices are in local currency for most games, but Kane & Lynch seems to be priced in MS Points, or whatever that funny little icon means.
RE5 is about 3 dollars more expensive than it is on Steam, and nearly twice as expensive as it is on zavvi.co.uk (with play.com lying somewhere in between).
Apparently if I’d been in Norway, it’d have been another $10 pricier on GFWL.
All in all, they’re on to a clear winner, I think.
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To be honest, and I’m no MS fanboy, I’ve had more problems with Steam than with GFWL (then again, I have far more Steam games than Live games). So far, Live has never stopped me playing a game, while with Steam, those “Your game wot you have paid for is not available at this time” messages are infuriating.
P.
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I could forgive GFWL if it were just another crappy games downloading and service system, but it’s not. It’s Microsoft realizing that, sometime during their whole console crusade, they lost control of PC gaming, and now they want it back. They want to have it in some little corner, where they can grasp their claws on it and make sure it’s not causing any trouble. Well, I won’t have it. I – WON’T – HAVE – IT.
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GFWL meant I had to wait a week troubleshooting it rather than play the SINGLE PLAYER campaign in Dawn of War 2. Ended up having to hack the registry in Vista just to convince the bloody thing to connect from within the game.
It still infuriates me.
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@Kamos: Steam works for me when I’m offline
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@dbdkmezz: Well, I don’t really get it. You can start it offline, and it seems like sometimes you can play without an internet connection, but then other times when you start the game Steam launches and… nothing. It keeps looking for updates for the Steam client until it crashes.
Also, reply is acting funny again. I just made a double post. *facepalm*
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Really, don’t let the visual style discourage you from giving the game a go. The visual style is just that, a visual style, underneath theres a wonderful game that can eat away many hours on exploring the variety of available creatures and plants, etc.
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That said, I couldn’t in good conscience recommend buying it through GFWL. Better to get a boxed copy as far as I’m concerned.
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GFWL is the only thing (besides price) that has ever stopped me from buying a game.
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GFWL!! *Spits acid*
Why isn’t it dead yet~
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I’m going to pirate every game that makes people use this piece of crap, because installing 2 systems (steam in my case and gfwl) just to play damn game is more retarded than darwin prize winner. GFWL originally didn’t even work in my country and I had to register as an american to make the damn thing work, maybe they’ve fixed that now.
Anyway, either it is on steam, or I’m buying through retail, every gamer should know that they can offer some really competitive prices, especially since every company thinks that 1$=1€.
There is never enough hate for all the laughable shit MS throws at PC platform.
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Or how about you just dont play them instead?
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Viva Pinata’s on the PC?
I can no longer bring myself to hate GFWL.
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Darn tootin’! Viva Pinata is simply the most adorable game I’ve ever played and refusing to play it just because you don’t want to fill in a form is like you being a big git.
I got GFWL for that game and really haven’t had any complaints with it. It’s certainly less bloated and intrusive than say Steam and I honestly wouldn’t even notice it on my computer if it wasn’t for you basts kicking up a stink about it.
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Apparently it was released in 2007. Why did this slip my radar so completely? Was it a terrible port or something?
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Reply to Psychopomp (just in case)
That’s the first thing I was thinking too! I heard nothing but good stuff about it, but I let it go because I thought it was only for consoles.
My world! It’s… changed!
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@ Terry
It’s pretty much a direct port of the console version. It works great, well optimised, extra anti-aliasing, not heard of any more glitches than you’d expect etc. But the interface is clearly designed around the 360 controller and if you have a 360 controller knocking about you’d be better off with it than keyboard and mouse.
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MS are now experts at selling people shit that doesn’t work properly (as any early Vista adopter will attest to), the most efficient part of any MS software is the licence agreement that says you accept that it’s shit and probably won’t work and that you know there is nothing you can do about it.
I have 4 GFWL games and GFWL has broken all of them at some point, because it is shit.
So now anything with GFWL on it can faaaahk off; any piece of software with a 100% failure rate is one I will stop using.
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So this would be a reason for all the other digital distributers to boycott GfWL games wouldn’t it? You know like D2D et al are boycotting steamworks (and it might actually make sense now since they probably can hurt GfWL where as Steam is basically untouchable at this point). Please, please, please. I like more competition in the marketplace as much as the next man but far more than that I really want GfWL to just die so I’d count anything to make developers think twice about using it as a good thing.
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Gargantuan Failure Way Late
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I need to know why these services are called “Digital Download”.
There are any service out here that let you download “Analogic” stuff?
Also, If a game is content, and is downloaded, it can be called DownLoad Content (DLC).
Maybe a better name could be “DLC Shop”.
On the other part, we don’t buy games anymore, we buy “rights”, and we install systems on our computers so third party people remotelly manage our rights (DRM).
So maybe the real name is “Restricted Rights Acquiring Services and Binary Copy Adquiring Service”. “RRAS&BCS shops”.
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Yeah, DownLoadable Content is another word for “Software”. This page is definitely DLC.
It is one of the most stupid terms ever created. Probably at the same level as “WoW-Gayness” or the “War on Terror”
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Can I play a GFWL game while watching netflix on my xbox yet?
That’s what killed Fallout & DOW2 for me.. every time someone turned on the xbox to watch tv or a movie I got booted. But you couldn’t quicksave without being logged in. Infernally Stupid.
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Why doesn’t Microsoft makes versions of Halo 3, Alan Wake to promote PC gaming, instead of spend their time and our patience with this crappy Games for Windows thing?
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Re: “http://www.microsoft.com/games/en-US/Games/Pages/Shadowrun.aspx”
Why is this website “optimized” for 640×480? do gamers use these resolutions? The quality of this shop is barelly over a bad osCommerce site.
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So I click “Buy” to view the price of a game, and it redirects me to a Ciao search. Do you need the client to view prices? Words fail me, they really do.
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I love the fact that the first news I heard of this new ‘online store’ was games journalists complaining that it wouldn’t let them buy things, or download free things.
GFWL’s only benign purpose is to provide some easy cash for developers clued up enough to implement it in such a way that it can be turned off completely, like wot Batman:AA does.
If GFWL was the product of an actual business plan, rather than petty internecine corporate intrigue, it would have been put out of its misery years ago.
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Either that or it would be good, as lets face it when Microsoft actually care about doing something well, they generally do (after a couple of false starts).
If they took it seriously, and had an actual business plan then it would be a rival for steam, as Microsoft have the money (which buys them all the talent and experience they need), and infrastructure to create a serious contender.
As it is, it seems like a half arsed effort at best.
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You know, when given the choice, I would choose GfW LIVE and Impulse over Steam any day.
Unless there’s additional DRM, LIVE-enabled games can be installed without ever connecting to the internet. Steam, on the other hand, is a freaking nightmare in comparison which forces me to rely on internet connection. LIVE never bothered me in any game – Steam bothers me all the time.
The only problem is that the interface is crappy and many basic features are missing.
MS are losing the opportunity to do something good, they could turn LIVE into a nice client if they actually wanted to, too bad they don’t. Xbawx is too important for them.
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Forgot to add – this service NEEDS some “killer games” that will make people interested in using it.
People are using Steam because of Half-life, LIVE has nothing. Absolutely nothing.
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@Hmm: You’d think if they were serious, Microsoft would be spamming what most consider to be their “killer app” Halo* on it by now.
*My opinions of Halo are not worth reiterating here.
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One thing I like about GFWL is the widescreen support (though that’s increasingly more common nowadays) and the xbox360 controller support, no settings required. I have to admit as someone who prefers to use the PC as a substitute console and hook it up on the tv, it’s made my life a lot easier. So even if they have a crappy store now, it just makes my feelings towards GFWL kinda in the ‘meh’ range, not some kind of hatred yet.
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I kind of agree with that but I changed my mind when I heard that you could only put out a certain number of patches for a GFWL game before you had to start paying for the privelige of patching your game.
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Actually, those are GFW features, not GFWL. Though you can certainly be excused for confusing the two. GFW is a product branding strategy for PC games, that logo that they put on the top of the box. In order to get the logo they have to meet certain standards, like Xbox 360 controller support and widescreen support. GFWL, though sporting a similar name, is entirely separate from GFW. An important distinction, because many games that are branded as GFW do not support GFWL.
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Beaten by Matt, but yes, to clarify, the widescreen support, 360 controller support (where appropriate), language support, are all just part of the Games For Windows branding label, and have nothing to do with GFWL. Company of Heroes, for instance, is a GFW title, wheras Dawn of War 2 is a GFWL one, and brought in a bunch of related problems. And yes, Microsoft are total control-freaks at the moment. Developers have to PAY to patch their own games, and aren’t allowed to release free content unless a large publisher muscles in.
Though, I agree that there’s nothing unfixable here. Microsoft have cocked up the launch of the GFWL platform/service/system, but there’s nothing fundamentally wrong about it as a concept. Although they really have to drop this whole MS Points malarkey, as it’s completely shit. The Playstation Network doesn’t make you buy bundles of points in advance – you just buy stuff direct in your local currency.
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@ Alec
“Yet Microsoft persists in trying to fix the unfixable.”
That’s where you lost me. Without question, GFW Live is terrible – TERRIBLE. But there’s very few things that are truly “unfixable” – Windows 7 is essentially just a “fixed” version of Vista, after all. The problem – at least as I see it – is that Xbox Live is a significant revenue stream, driving both Xbox game purchases and yearly subscription fees. So they pour resources into it and take it very seriously, trying to make sure it has the capacity and availability it needs.
But GFW Live… not only is it free, but you can’t even claim it’s driving the purchase of MS products. Most of the services it offers are already available in other game services on PC, and it’s not like Mac or Linux die-hards are suddenly going to buy Windows even if GFW Live worked flawlessly.
Turning it into a store – while redundant – at least gives it a stream of money that will cause them to take it seriously. If people need it working to give Microsoft money, then Microsoft will finally spend some money on keeping it working. At least that’s the positive view. Even if you want to take the negative view, the chances that this thing is going away are pretty slight. If we’re stuck with it, the more they seek to “fix” it, the better…
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“But there’s very few things that are truly “unfixable” – Windows 7 is essentially just a “fixed” version of Vista, after all.”
I’d say that the people who have paid for Vista think it is “unfixable”. They have to pay for something for Windows 7.
“But GFW Live… not only is it free, but you can’t even claim it’s driving the purchase of MS products. Most of the services it offers are already available in other game services on PC, and it’s not like Mac or Linux die-hards are suddenly going to buy Windows even if GFW Live worked flawlessly.”
MS does a whole lot of things to prevent Linux and Mac machines from becoming gaming platforms. It just doesn’t need to do it so aggressively anymore, and they are focusing on their console as a gaming platform.
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Mac and Linux do a whole lot of things to themselves which prevent them from becoming gaming platforms too.
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No doubt about it.
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Windows Vista was already “fixed” with the service pack. What Windows 7 fixed was the bad press, little more.
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I recently relinquished my copy of Viva Pinata to my nephew. I enjoyed it when I had it, just run out of interest in collecting the last few pinatas I had to get, I’m afraid. :( Still, my nephew seemed to love it.
I also must point out: Why the hell are ALL the other games priced in GBP but for no obvious reason the price for Kane & Lynch is advertised in MS funbux? Sort it aht, MS.
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Before they start adding more superfilous facets, I think they should concentrate on fixing the fundemental flaws: Poor inegration with games, obtrusive notifications, inconsistency, general wonkiness. I’m reluctant to re-install Fallout3 and GTA4 after this service destroyed my savegames. The saved games, stored on a pc, must be tied to an account, and upon reinstalling, the service can’t restore the savegame and let me continue. The fact that the service is actually ruining the gameplay is unforgivable.
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What I wonder is, why don’t they have Halo 1 and 2, and Gears of War?
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nayon:
because they’re shit?
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@GS: And this would make them bad matches for GFWL because … ?
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My latest experience with GFWL–losing my 15 hours-in save game of Batman: AA because it decided to overwrite my Live profile.
Yet, as horrible as GFWL is, I wouldn’t call it unfixable. Money cures all ales, right? And MS has a lot of money.
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Did your save game disappear or show up as corrupt? I’m currently investigating this issue and trying to figure out why GFWL interferes with the files.
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@wviperw
Same here, I ended up replaying the start of Batman about 3-4 times before it deigned to start saving my game.
What pissed me off more, was that despite (presumably) going to extra effort to include this crappy save system, it added nothing but annoyance for me. So I decided to send a (rather polite actually) email to Edios pointing out that I was a paying customer and please could they reconsider using GfWL.
And then I found that Edios don’t have any email addresses for feedback on their website, so it looks like they really don’t care care about thier customers provided you buy the game.
Shitty service Edios.
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I think I must be very lucky, in that the only issue I’ve had with GFWL is occasionally having to update in manually because the auto-update stalls. But then again, I’ve never used it for multiplayer or DLC, so perhaps I haven’t really put it through its paces.
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While this is probably going to get me grilled, I don’t really mind GfWL, if the integration is more or less seamless like it is with Fallout 3 or Red Faction: Guerrilla, even with DoW2 it worked perfectly.
You just enter your details once to let it log in automatically (in all games I might add) and after that it only bothers you when you call for it.
And with Fallout 3 having it manage the DLC was nice, although the MS Points for currency thing is annoying.
I’ve never had any of the issues I see here, or even had trouble getting it to cooperate with something. No noticeable slowdown in any games either.
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GFWL has been relatively stable for me. Nor do I have any objection to the concept of the service. The problem is that, as it exists now, GFWL simply sucks.
First off, it inexplicably makes it impossible to copy or preserve savegames. This alone makes it a nonstarter for me.
The “community features” like messaging and chat are so laughably primitive they make Steam look like the ultimate collaboration tool. (And of course, you can’t even use GFWL’s miserable communication services unless you are already in the game – still no out of game chat client after 2.5 years??)
The multiplayer matchmaking has never even come close to working well for me in any of the GFWL games I have played (Universe at War, Lost Planet, and Red Faction). The presence of GFWL guarantees a game will have a dead, uninteresting multiplayer with no community (even if the multiplayer is actually quite fun, as it is with RF:G).
The integration with XBox live is also embarassingly bad (even forgiving the unfulfilled promise of cross platform play). You would think that, since GFWL and Xbox Live are the same network, I could compare my achievements in a game with my XBox friends playing the same game, right? Wrong, because the “PC” version of the game is considered a different game by Live, so the achievements can’t be compared.
Account customization with GFWL is limited to a fixed selection of about 16 dopey icons. Imagine a social network where you have no capability to customize your presentation to others in any significant way. There is no way to create a Live Avatar, which every XBox user has, so either your friends will just see you as a shadowy sillhouette, or, on XBox com, you will actually appear as a broken image link. Maybe I’m being too hasty though. Microsoft is willing to _sell_ you additional profile images (via Microsoft MegaMoney Points). It’s quite simple, just buy an XBox 360 and log in to that to actually make the purchase. Changing your Gamertag (which, btw, will also cost you), can also only be done from an XBox 360.
Even the DLC can only be purchased with the ridiculous MS Points, designed to make sure you spend just a little more than the DLC actually costs.
Using GFWL involves being reminded every time you play that MS considers the PC an inferior second cousin to the XBox. The examples go on and on. On the XBox, if you gain an achievement while playing offline, that achievement will be uploaded to your live profile the next time you log in. With GFWL? Sorry, you just won’t get that achievement, period. Play the game again if you don’t like it.
Add on to this the myriad limitations and costs that GFWL imposes on game developers, the unwelcome control it gives Microsoft over our game experiences and purchases, and the availability of dramatically better alternatives, and I do find it insulting that any developer would subject us to GFWL. I don’t boycott games that use GFWL, but I do find them significantly less attractive.
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You have perfectly summed up everything I hate about it.
Besides the poor design, GWFL is bloated and resource-heavy. When I disabled GFWL in GTA4, my average load time was only one fourth as long. In Fallout 3, half as long with a mild FPS increase.
The shopping client is just as bad. Having to pay with Microsoft’s FunBux is bad enough, but the program itself is needlessly slow and uses uses (relatively) a lot of resources. Steam, on the other hand, I can leave running in the task bar with no visible performance impact and message my friends in game and out of game with a useful chat interface, unlike GFWL’s terrible Message system.
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I happen to like GFWL and wished more games used it.
It provides online services for match making, stat tracking and plenty of other benefits for developers. It is also up more often than steam and impulse from my uses.
I play dawn of war 2 and everyone gets kicked because Steam authorization went down, but i have never found GFWL down.
For developers that cant afford to make thier own match making online service, it is a bonus, otherwise they use some other 3rd party software with lots more problems such as Gamespy.
I would prefer steam over GFWL, but steam doesnt seem to be able to handle the load it gets, and the more games that start using steamworks will just clog thier network even more. Modern warfare online is actually kinda crappy ping wise.
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“Modern warfare online is actually kinda crappy ping wise.”
Which has nothing what-so-ever to do with Steam but carry on blaming it.
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if you say so. Read a little more into it.
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http://www.steampowered.com/steamworks/gameservices.php
Point out the section where VALVe will sell you a networking architecture to implement in your game as I seem to be unable to locate it myself.
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Holy shit, why isn’t this crap over with, yet? GfWL destroyed GoW, is unnecesary and I remember it being bugged as fuck, last time I used it. It made me not buy Dawn of War II (my buddy who bought it couldn’t play online cause our “region is not supported” – aka 45 euros down the drain) and fuck me if just the fact microsoft is pushing this crap down our throats isn’t enough in it and of itself to make me hate that dastardy service.
I’m very disapointed (although not surprised) that Shadowrun came out on that platform, and that’s another game I won’t even be touching with the 30 inch stick of mediocrity.
Fuck them and Fuck GfWL, it’s fucking bullshit. Fuck.
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Oh, and fuck their e-shop as well, who the fuck would ever buy shit from the sewers anyway?
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It’s kind of nifty that my Dawn of War II achievements fold into my XBL profile?
Otherwise the interface and system seem like total shit, and those prices are laughable.
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Microsoft just refuses to admit defeat. While I can sympathise with the sentiments behind the base “Games for Windows” stuff, trying to create a standard of quality and compatibility for the platform, Games for Windows Live will forever be crap, overcomplicated and not worth the effort. They need to get out of the online portion and leave it to people who actually know what they are doing, like Steam, etc.
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*ahem* http://www.steampowered.com/steamworks/
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Still no mention of a networking architecture for developers to implement in their own game.
Perhaps try screenshots with arrows pointing it out for me since I’m still unable to see it?
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The “networking architecture” is generally specific to the individual game anyway. The tricky part (which can be usefully provided by a third-party is pretty much what it says on that page: Matchmaking and lobby functionality. The ability for players to find each others and establish connections to the people they’re going to play with. Once the connection is established, neither GFWL or Steam or Gamespy have any business interfering. At that point it’s up to the game what to do with those connections.
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Microsoft: you know what would get me interested in buying games from you? Publish some of your inexplicably Xbox-only games on the PC!
Get your buddies at Epic to port Gears 2 and Shadow Complex to GFW, re-new your commitment to Alan Wake on the PC, even bring Halo 3 over (although I care far less about that last one). Those will get me to install your system, shitty or not.
Valve has enough faith in their system to publish Half-Life and Left 4 Dead on Steam, but Games for Windows doesn’t actually have any Microsoft games!
(Also, why aren’t there any prices on the website? Do I really need to boot up GFW just to see if a sale is a deal or not? I’ve given Valve quite a lot of money, buying games on a Steam-less computer when I see a sale. This isn’t hard, people.)
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Actually, Valve published HL2 on Steam to force people to use the platform, not because they had fate in it. Back then, Steam was a huge turd that worked way worse than GFWL. If it wasn’t for the popularity of HL2 and Counter Strike, it would probably have tanked.
About GFWL: they should have hired gamers to help out on the project. Too many piss poor decisions were made – but any such system will have teething problems. Like I said above, Steam was shit for over two years too (and it’s still far from perfect) but Microsoft need to learn to see the problems before they can fix them. The lack of a separate client to chat with friends, the lack of the same options an Xbox has, the bugs, the tying of savegames to accounts, etc.
The save game problem is due to possible abuse of achievements it seems: people could post savegames right before an achievement is given and then others could load those savegames and unfairly gain those achievements. Unfair and open to abuse, but on the other hand, I prefer freedom over my savegames. What if a game is bugged? You used to be able to hand out your savegame for someone else to maybe fix it. Not anymore.
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Just when I thought I couldn’t hate achievements more than I already do.
“You can’t modify that single player game or even make back-ups of your savegames.”
“WTF?! Why not?”
“Because then you might be Lying to the Internet when you claim to have killed 12 rabbits while crouching.”
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@Urthman/Red Avatar
Do achievements have any actual value? I’ve been assuming they’re just pretend awards used to give an idea of how much time one has sunk into a game. I do seem to recall reading about people buying certain Xbox games for the easy achievements. Does the Live model give you points or something you can trade in? Regardless, my first thought was that this is more an anti-piracy measure rather than achievement related.
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Microsoft can make GFWL part of windows. Even push it trough a Windows Update.
But that is too obvious even for permisive judges.
But can pay money to devs (like the Dawn of War 2 ones) to put his horrible broken system on games, to have the same result, withouth having a high profile that can warm the people on our legal system.
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Does this mean I have to download yet another GFWL update, when I would rather just be playing the game?
Also, Viva Pinata is fantastic. Although I wouldn’t want to download, it comes on 2 dvds, it’s pretty big.
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Get the hell off my lawn!
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I’ve had no bad experiences with Games for Windows Live. And I quite like the integrated achievements. It’s Gamespy I wish developers would quit using. Infinitely worse – barely functional and a hell of a lot more painful to use.
That said, I have no particular desire to buy games from GFWL, and wish they would focus on making the service they’re already providing better.
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While I’ve no love really for GFWL, I do have to agree that my experiences with it have been much better than with Gamespy.
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That really aint saying much, using Gamespy is akin to pulling teeth. I litterally do not play games who use it. Seriously.
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Actually many have. The angry internet men (or is that term passe?) have been b****ing about Steam’s “monopoly” for years.
EDIT: Oh wait there’s no editing anymore and I don’t know how to use blockquote!
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i maybe had one or two times problems with GFWL. I can see why people complain about it but i love how all nur saved games are stored in GFWL n you dont have to worry about them anymore. plus i think people have more problems with steam than with GFWL. so compared to the huge bloat of %$$§% steam is i think GFWL is okay.
tho i agree that the market doesnt need another games download client lol
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Adrian that’s wrong – Most GFWL save games are stored locally, but often tied to both the gamertag and he OS, making it almost impossible to transfer a saved game to a new machine or OS install.
If GFWL really did save your save games in the cloud, and just tied them to your gamertag, then I’d be a lot happier, but currently it doesn’t do that.
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Did you happen to find a solution to the Batman save transfer problem?
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No, not managed to transfer the Batman saves across. Got a feeling it’s going to be the same for my Gears Of War and Resident Evil 5 saves too.
On the plus side my Fallout 3 saves from the original edition are working fine with the GOTY version, so that’s a plus.
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Could you contact me on Steam if you find something out? I’d really hate to loose that save and start the game all over again. http://steamcommunity.com/id/mcwizardry
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Fuck GFWL. Just wanted to say that again. I want to curse it like that old lady in Drag Me To Hell.
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The real question for me is whether this new version makes Halo 2 finally work on Windows 7…
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There are two games I’d buy: Halo 2 and GoW. I want to get both for my PC, even though they are console games.
GFWL doesn’t have them on sale. Huge fail for them.
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