By Kieron Gillen on July 16th, 2010 at 6:18 pm.
What are you doing this weekend? Well, if you’re less busy than me, you can play Ruse, the forthcoming Ubisoft strategy game. It actually quite impressed me at a recent press event, so diving into this Machiavellian game of bluff is something that I’d quite like to spend the weekend doing. Alas! But maybe your life is more pleasurable – yet empty – than mine, in which case I direct you to Steam. Download the client and you can play until Sunday. A chunky 20-minute video where the team talk about the improvements for the free weekend follows if you want a bit of hot developer goss…
Well, being 1) Free 2) Onlne Multiplayer does mean that at least there’s no reason for the Ubisoft DRM-system to be a problem here.
16/07/2010 at 18:37 Torgen says:
Would buy this, but for UbiDRM. Yes, it’s meant to be multiplayer, but I like to play single player too, and if I cave on one UbiDRM title, then UBI can blame the lower sales on other titles on the devs/game itself, not their own asshattery. (Sorry Blue Byte, old chums. )
Yes, I played it on the last free weekend and enjoyed it.
16/07/2010 at 19:47 Alastayr says:
I know how that feels, I probably would’ve bought the new Settlers game, especially since Bruce Shelley was working with them. But I refuse to budge on this. A man’s got to have his principles. I didn’t cave with Modern Warfare 2 (which turned out to be shite anyway), I sure as hell won’t do now.
(Before the flames begin: I played through MW2 SP and had a couple of hours MP on a friend’s acc. So I know what I’m talking about.)
16/07/2010 at 18:39 pupsikaso says:
Would they ever stop doing these free things on the weekends? I work on the weekends. Always have, and always will for as long as I live. I can never play these things =(
16/07/2010 at 18:44 blargh says:
No, thanks Ubi. Get rid of your pointless DRM system, and maybe then we’ll talk.
16/07/2010 at 18:45 colinmarc says:
blah blah blah boycott ubisoft blah blah blah
16/07/2010 at 18:48 Tei says:
It impressed me too. It really delivers on creating a fresh take on the genre, both in mechanics and graphics. Innovation + polish (love to detail). Too bad, It would be a foolish idea to buy any Ubisoft game now.
16/07/2010 at 18:55 Warskull says:
I agree, there are some interesting idea. It’s not worth putting up with Ubisoft’s DRM though.
16/07/2010 at 18:53 riadsala says:
same as what everybody above has said. Looks exactly like the type of game I’d happily buy, but I don’t want to encourage stupid DRM practises. And it’s not like I’m short of games with CiV, Elemental, etc coming out soon :)
16/07/2010 at 19:12 Arathain says:
As I mentioned in the the when RUSE was talked about last week, I feel bad for the development team here. I really enjoyed the beta, which would make it the only multiplayer RTS I’ve ever enjoyed online. It’s a slick, clever, and well designed game. It deserves to do well on its own merits. But I won’t buy it because… well, you know.
16/07/2010 at 19:13 Spinoza says:
cannot do. had several mix gender orgies to attend this weekend. shame ….
16/07/2010 at 19:19 Spinoza says:
timewarp
16/07/2010 at 19:29 Tei says:
@spinoza:
I have read all your post in secuential order.
1) had several mix gender orgies
2) timewarp
It seems you are tryiing to pull a “How is it possible to become your own grandfather?” ruse.
In order to save you from inventing complicated time machines, heres a cheaper and easy to made solution:
After long years as a bachelor I was tired of being alone and married a widow with a grown daughter. My father fell in love with the daughter and took her as his wife. This made me my own son-in-law and my stepdaughter became my mother. After a year my wife gave birth to a son. Now, my son was my father’s brother-in-law and at the same time my uncle, since he was my stepmother’s brother. But my father’s wife also gave birth to a son. So this was my brother and also my grandson, since he was the son of my daughter. This meant I’d married my grandmother, since she was the mother of my mother. As my wife’s husband, I was also her grandson. And since the husband of a grandmother is always a grandfather, I am my own grandfather.
Mark Twain.
16/07/2010 at 21:02 Antsy says:
The reports of his birth are greatly extrapolated.
17/07/2010 at 03:58 TeeJay says:
let’s do the timewarp again?
16/07/2010 at 19:22 Issac says:
Ubisoft’s Online Services Platform. Ubisoft requires a permanent Internet connection to play this video game at all times.
No sale, Hale!
16/07/2010 at 19:27 clive dunn says:
Oh crap, pre-downloaded it the other night when i was too stoned to notice that it was Ubicrap. I just saw FREE!
Now i feel dirty.
16/07/2010 at 19:30 Morte says:
First time I tried this last night, was massively impressed. I don’t really care about the drm thing if I’m honest, but will be buying ps3 move version anyway.
16/07/2010 at 19:32 Zogtee says:
Nice game, DRM, do not want, die in a fire UBI, etc.
16/07/2010 at 19:55 jonfitt says:
Sadly I have to agree. If this has UbiDRM, I will not play it.
16/07/2010 at 19:59 Noah says:
DRM bad. Game was ok… seemed a bit shallow? Also the whole “RUSE” card thing seemed like a gimmick.
16/07/2010 at 20:01 Mad Doc MacRae says:
The beta was fun, but UBIDRM etc…
Also I’m too busy playing World of Tanks while also being in the middle of Mass Effect 2, Red Faction Guerilla, Psyconauts, Beyond Good and Evil, and I also want to get to TF2 for the Engy update AND I just got the first 5 seasons of Strong Bad’s Cool Game for Attractive People for my birthday.
I don’t need another game at the moment, when the price is really nasty DRM.
16/07/2010 at 23:33 Torgen says:
World of Tanks is my current addiction as well. I’ve let my City of Heroes subscription lapse again after two months since all my guildmates are in the Going Rogue beta, so having great fun in WoT. Yay for not long time commitment to have fun, as in most MMOs.
However, I’m getting to the point where my lack of skill has slowed me down. I need more kills/scouts/surviving/being on the winning team to progress more than a grand or so credits per game, after repair bills :P
16/07/2010 at 21:05 CMP5 says:
Anyone else loving Alexi’s engrish?
16/07/2010 at 22:09 Schmitzkater says:
I feel genuinely sorry for Eugen Systems, I played their beta and had loads of fun for the first time in an online RTS, playing with strangers.
But, alas, UbiDRM means no sale =(
16/07/2010 at 23:38 dingo says:
RPS did you stop boycotting reporting Ubisoft related stuff apart from yet another cracked game or servers down?
And yes like everyone else: Fuck off Ubifail.
Sack Yves and get rid of the Launcher!
16/07/2010 at 23:41 Rugged Malone says:
Was REALLY interested in this game when it first came out, until I read that Ubisoft was publishing it.
Ubisoft DRM == won’t play.
17/07/2010 at 00:10 Zihua says:
Publisher: Ubisoft
Oh, nevermind.
17/07/2010 at 01:02 Aberinkulas says:
Just adding my sad, slow shake of the head, directed toward a certain three letter acronym.
17/07/2010 at 04:12 TeeJay says:
Hving a “register for Windows Live otherwise you can’t save your game progress” suddenly pop-up on my screen after getting a cheap copy of FUEL in the Steam sales, followed by the auto-pop-up IE link to GFWL failing to work – I am definitely of the “shove your always-on-DRM-can’t-save-games-connection-failed stuff up your @rse please ubisoft” view. I have a massive backlog of decent and non-problematic games waiting to be played so much so that I don’t need games like this in my life, thanks.
17/07/2010 at 12:26 jon_hill987 says:
I read some previews and R.U.S.E. seemed like my kind of g… oh, wait, published by Ubisoft, never mind.
17/07/2010 at 16:51 rocketman71 says:
Onlne Multiplayer does mean that at least there’s no reason for the Ubisoft DRM-system to be a problem here
Really?. It is a problem for me, on principle. I’m not buying ANYTHING with that DRM.
Also, if it’s only online multi and no LAN, they can forget about my money, assuming they dropped the DRM and I was going to buy it.
Bad Ubi.
19/07/2010 at 00:53 Gorgeras says:
I can happily report that as of this time on Monday morning, RUSE has failed to make it onto the top sellers list at any point this weekend in the UK.
Ubisoft liked to pin the last Prince of Persia’s failure on the lack of SecuROM they stuffed on it, rather than it’s awfulness. Maybe now they won’t blame RUSE’s gameplay but the friggin DRM.
25/07/2010 at 17:10 Mike13 says:
What if i have crappy satelite internet or none at all? Hey there loss right?