Displaying items by tag: Gaming

It seems the Judge in the case involving the FTC, Microsoft and Activision Blizzard thinks that the FTC failed to reach a sufficient threshold to prove harm in a request for a preliminary injunction. To some this is cause for celebration although most people who have followed Microsoft’s history of anti-competitive behavior, in any market they play in, will know this is not a good thing. What makes this decision even more suspect is the fact that the judge precising over the case, U.S. District Judge Jacqueline Scott Corley, has a direct family member working at Microsoft.

Unless you have been living under a rock or just do not care about gaming at all, you have probably heard a lot about the Microsoft Activision merger/acquisition. The deal, one of the largest in history, is a monster. Microsoft wants to buy, lock, stock and barrel, the Activision Blizzard game development company for a whopping $68.7 Billion (with a “b”). The deal would give Microsoft complete control over everything Activision/Blizzard. Now for some this might not be a bad thing if you look at it from just a game perspective or if you are just a PC gamer. The problem comes when you get into how games are really developed and how game developers work with component and console makers to ensure their games work properly.

In our coverage of the Microsoft Activision/Blizzard deal we have often wondered why so many of the groups that approved the deal, and one that opposed it, focused only on cloud gaming. We saw the UK say that the deal was bad for cloud gaming while others stated that a 10-year licensing deal for cloud gaming services that Microsoft agreed to made everything all better. As we looked over the approvals and oppositions this odd focus on what represents less than 1% of the gaming market seemed so out of place that started to feel that the opposition was just a token resistance and the deal (which is a bad thing) was just going to get rubber stamped.

As we hear more about Supply Chain attacks and the need for Software Build of Materials we are now hearing of an attack on the popular game, Minecraft. It seems that attackers are leveraging popular Modding platforms to push out information stealing malware (Fractureiser). They are accomplishing this by injecting malicious code into modifications that are then uploaded to different platforms. These are then downloaded and installed by unwary gamers.

Remember how the EU regulators said the Microsoft Activision deal was pro competition and pro-consumer? Well, I wonder what they might be thinking now as news is dropping saying that both Microsoft and Activision are considering pulling games out of the UK in order to push the buyout through. The deal all on its own is far from pro-competition and standing on licensing agreements that affect 1% of the market defied logic, but now we see the lengths that Microsoft is willing to go to in order to get their way.

For the second of our game reviews, since returning to covering games, we decided to look at the Microsoft flagship game RedFall. If you have heard of this game, it has probably been in a negative light. Most reviews have already come in and they are not good. Everything from calling the writing and plot “Woke” to buggy graphics, enemy AI, and terrible stylized artwork. So, with this list of negatives already in place, why even bother? Well, I am a glutton for punishment, I like terrible games (at times) and it was free on Game Pass… incidentally I also thought it might be funny to see if this game was as bad as everyone said and add something to the pool of snark surrounding it. For this review we will be covering the Game Pass PC version and playing it on the Xbox One Series X.

RedFall by Akrane Austin was not a well-received game. It has been pretty much panned by everyone that played it. The complaints range from a bad story line and plot to bad graphics, game lag and terrible AI (you can read our review to see our thoughts). Well, it seems that the developers at Arkane Austin were not happy with the game either and were hoping that Microsoft would step in and alter the course before launch.

Long, long ago in a development studio far away there was a concept for a game where the protagonist was something more than just another boss to beat. In 1994 LookingGlass studios launched the game System Shock. It was a 1st person shooter game where you take the role of a “hacker” onboard a space station in 2072. Your nemesis, a malevolent AI called SHODAN. The game was a critical success although it lost money for LookingGlass. System Shock also changed the genre of first-person shooters with its innovative style, story line and, of course, SHODAN.

Over the last few months Windows 11 users have dealt with an annoying bug in Windows Defender. The bug was a continuous restart prompt to “enable” LSA protection. The problem is that LSA was enabled the whole time. The system just did not acknowledge that his was complete and had a flag requiring a reboot to finish the configuration. To combat this Microsoft pushed out a patch that was really little more than removing the reboot flag from the registry.

When DecryptedTech was much more hardware and gaming focused we used to have a review style called Short Attention Span. It was a very quick 90-minute test of a game which included first launch, general configuration and any game play that could be accomplished inside a 90-minute window. If the game could capture our attention, we noted it and it got a follow on review. If it did not, usually there was no further mention of it unless we had a direct request for a more complete review. To me the 90-minute window was enough to get a good understanding of how a game worked, what hurdles to actual play time there were and if I would like it or not. It was very subjective with some basic objective observations around game engine, enemy AI, and startup complexity/cut scenes.