Dragon Age 2

I thought it was about time I gave my opinion on this game given my love for the original. Be warned this is not a review in the traditional sense. I am simply going to make points about the changes made and why in my opinion BioWare got almost everything wrong with this game. Wrong? Yes very...

I played the original Origins and it's expansion Awakening extensively and it's safe to say I thoroughly enjoyed my time in Ferelden. Origins had problems certainly. The combat even on the PC was a little clunky and some abilities were never properly balanced. Arcane Warrior while fun was also stupidly overpowered and Shapeshifter... did anyone ever use it? Of course some did because there was so much freedom of choice people liked to play the game multiple times to try out new things. Graphically Origins wasn't very pretty and the universe certainly bore many similarities to other fantasy settings. However these are minor things really, Origins was such a good game that you glossed over these things to enjoy the greater whole.

Now Dragon Age 2 has made some improvements. The combat is much more fluid and in some areas it's a nicer looking game but that's about as far as the improvements end. The core of the game which has been changed has been changed much for the worse. By that I'm talking about choice or should I say the lack of choice. In Origins every player worked towards the same goal of defeating the Archdemon but how we got to the goal was widely different. The Warden character was important and by extension you the player are also important. You travel the land of Ferelden and can make changes that will have a massive effect on that country and indeed the larger world of Thedas. You never get the impression that the character Hawke is important. He rises in power to become Champion of Kirwall but you get the feeling he is just being swept along by the story, which of course he is. The character Varric introduces you as the Champion before you have even created your character.

This is the first major change, the Origins have gone. Hawke can be male or female and can be Warrior, Rogue or Mage but that's it as far as your choices go. No matter what you pick, you play the same introduction. Origins had six different beginnings based on your character but Dragon Age 2 has just one. Not long after starting the game one of Hawke's siblings (Warrior Carver or Mage Bethany) will be killed based on your starting character class. You have no choice in this, it's a scripted event. Already Dragon Age 2 is off to a bad start showing what you decide has no bearing on how this story is going to go. Shamefully this is repeated throughout the game. You are presented with choices either good, bad or snarky but the end result will always be the same and often you will hear the same reaction dialogue no matter how you act.

Dragon Age 2 has one story to tell and it's going to make sure no player is going to muck around with it. Which to me is a fundamental flaw in a Role Playing Game. If I want to watch a story I will turn on the TV, I play games because they offer a story which I can become involved in and the very best games will offer a story I make myself. Like Dragon Age: Origins. Mass Effect 2 another game from BioWare came in for some flack by having limited choices but even in that game you can make major differences with Dragon Age 2 it's like BioWare have tried to emulate Mass Effect 2 as closely as possible while missing the very thing people liked about it.

Of course like Mass Effect 2 limited or even non-existent choice can be forgiven if the story is good enough. Not really. It's a good story but it's not one I feel the need to play again. I got to the end and events happened no matter what I did and now the world has changed but I didn't really have much to do with that. The events have been in motion long before Hawke arrived in Kirkwall and the impression I have is they would have played out the same without me anyway. What made it worse for me was none of the options was a particularly good one. Join the Templars? Why? They are pricks and the leader is clearly going mad long before she gets her MacGuffin. Join the Mages? Why? The Templar's aren't wrong they clearly ARE all Blood Mages! Oh and the Senior Enchanter happens to know a bloke who killed your mother but said nothing. Oh and he also becomes a Blood Mage.

Making sense of some of this requires you to turn your brain off because it really makes no sense whatsoever. Clearly the writers knew there would be no choices for the player so they had to write people into complete extremes. I'm not saying every game should have a Deus Ex level of Grey where everyone has a valid point but just making everyone evil is extremely jarring. Companions also suffer from this often doing the most batshit insane things. Merrill for example will keep using Blood Magic no matter what you do right up to the point the clan leader is possessed. The Elves then go on a suicide mission of their own practically jumping on my sword. There was no point when Hawke shouted "LISTEN YOU SILLY BINT, ALL YOUR MUCKING ABOUT LED TO ME REMOVING 10% OF THE ELF POPULATION!".

In fact the thing that starts the whole war is started by your companion Anders. You can choose to help him or not but he will do it anyway. That's not a choice. Finding a way to stop him would have been a choice. In the end you get the choice of killing him or not (which I did, the stupid dickhead) but by then it doesn't matter. I would have killed him much sooner had I known he was going to start a war with the Templars by blowing up the fucking church! How about blowing up the Templars instead? By removing the one character who could have ended this peacefully BioWare removed the last obstacle to their ending and the failure of Dragon Age 2 is complete.

Along the way Dragon Age 2 is replete with failure of course. The loss of an overhead view makes playing tactically almost impossible. BioWare claim this is due to the high buildings in Kirkwall. Did they really remove a feature people liked just so they could have higher Beige walls to look at? In Origins fights were pre-planned with enemies placed intelligently to use the layout of the places. In DA2 we now have attack waves so every fight plays out like the Agent Smith burly brawl in The Matrix: Reloaded. I find that boring and sloppy yet BioWare claim they are happy with this. On the subject of locations they are re-used endlessly. There is one cave map, one mansion map, one hideout map and you will be seeing them repeatedly. There is no effort to even disguise this with doors just blocked off and the mini-map showing areas you can't get to on this particular visit. The Lead Level Designer thought it wouldn't be an issue.

Dragon Age 2 is clearly a very rushed and under-funded title. There were sweeping changes made to the core game when those changes really weren't needed leaving little time or money to then work on the areas that did need changing. Dragon Age 2 isn't a bad game but what it is, is to Dragon Age: Origins what Deus Ex: Invisible War was to Deus Ex. It's a crying shame especially as the original game was so well received. I have to question what the designers were thinking when they decided to ignore the 5 million people who bought Origins and develop this re-boot for a whole new audience. Judging by the sales figures so far it looks like DA2 won't reach the same sales numbers as Origins either so again why would they chase this new market who seem to have rejected DA2 when they had 5 million people waiting to buy a proper sequel.

BioWare say they have to change, to adapt to the 21st century and their RPG's have to change as well. I would question the wisdom of that decision because making games like Origins is what BioWare do well. I'm sure if the CEO of Ferrari turned up to work some day and announced "Guys I love the cars we make and we make a lot of money from them. But we could make even more money if we started making cheap hatchbacks with the Ferrari logo on them" he would probably turn up dead in a garbage bag in Turin before the sun was down. Make what you are good at making BioWare, the games people love and continue to buy even if they don't buy enough for you to own two ivory backscratchers.

The name BioWare no longer has the luster it once had for me and that's a shame because every new BioWare game was an event for me. Any game from BioWare from now on will be treated with the caution I use with any big publisher release and that's sad.

The Great PC Conspiracy

Why do we PC gamers have to get called pirates and cunts? Because the money is in console games end of. We have to listen to console gamers going on and on about the latest version of Halo because Kotaku sucks Microsoft the hardest.

The PC needs a spokesperson dare I say an Ambassador? When the product manager for Kinect has the balls to say no one plays FPS games on the PC anymore you have to know the line has been drawn. Who are we going to get to be our Microsoft or Sony? Intel? No they don't care. AMD? Give me a break. Nvidia? Maybe once their checks have stopped from Sony. And now we are left with the PCGA who all need to be sacked. Capcom being there alone is a huge insult.

I don't ask for much but I do want someone to take over the PC as it's format and call people liars when they are lying. At the moment the only company close to acting like that is EA and that shows you just how broken things are.

Fallout 3 - Modding for dummies.

Hey kids i'm going to do something techie now. Nothing good will come of this.

So you have the PC version of Fallout 3? Console version? GTFO. While Fallout 3 may be one of the most unstable and buggy games in history it's also extremely moddable which is really good news for us PC gamers. What i'm going to do here is present how to mod Fallout 3, how to sort out some problems caused by modding Fallout 3 and suggest some mods that may enrich your gaming experience.

The basics. The first thing you need to do to make any mods work is to download the Fallout Mod Manager. You can find the latest version here at http://sourceforge.net/projects/fomm/ . Why do you need a Mod Manager? For one thing making mods work depends on the order in which each mod is loaded when the game starts, this is called naturally a Load Order. Each mod is loaded in order and the latest overwrites any changes it needs to from the previous ones. That alone will tell you that a Load Order is very important. Thankfully FOMM (Fallout Mod Manager) will handle your load order automatically. Here is a look at my current FOMM Load Order or at least part of it:

Looking at this you can see that naturally Fallout 3 is loaded first and then all other mods including the DLC addons. Regarding the addons you need to move them out of the GFWL folder and into c:\wherever\Fallout3\Data. This is so FOMM and indeed other mods can actually see the DLC addons.

The second reason you need a mod manager is some mods will break your game. There is no avoiding the fact that two mods attempting to alter the same data will have a fight and you will end up crashed to desktop. The mod manager is invaluable in that you can simply uncheck a box next to a mod and disable it. This way if the game is crashing (more than usual) you can disable mods and enable them one after another to see which one is causing all the trouble. There are however mods that are designed to alter the same data and do work together, I will cover them later.

The second thing you need is FOSE or Fallout 3 Script Extender which you can find here: http://fose.silverlock.org/ . FOSE allows mods to alter the actual mechanics of the game adding new features and functionality not present in the Vanilla game. FOSE is not compatible with Games for windows live so launching with FOSE will disable that, sorry Achievement junkies. Thats all there is for FOSE, simply install it and forget about it. You will also note that FOMM now has 'Launch FOSE' as a button now, you will use this to launch Fallout 3 from now on. Well you don't need to but it's just better to get into that habit, it also bypasses the launcher so say goodbye to the disc check.

Last thing and probably the most important is FO3Edit which you can find here: http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=637 . FO3Edit allows your mods to all get along by creating something called a Merged Patch. FO3Edit runs the Load Order and then finds areas where mods are editing the same values and attempts to resolve them.

Copy FO3Edit somewhere easy to find, I like to put it in the Bethesda directory. Then you want to copy and paste FO3Edit twice. Rename one copy to FO3MasterRestore and the other to FO3MasterUpdate, FO3 is a clever program that launches in the mode it's named to. When installing mods the routine you need to get into is thus: Load FOMM, Click Help on the toolbar then select Check for Update. Make sure all the mods you want to play are enabled with the check boxes. Click the button Auto Sort, this will hopefully put your Load Order in the correct sequence. Exit FOMM. Load FO3Edit. Double check all the mods you want are enabled and click the OK box. When FO3Edit has finished right click anywhere on the Load Order in the left panel. Select Create Merged Patch, call it anything you like I usually use Merged as a name. Exit FO3Edit. Load FOMM. Scroll to the bottom of the Load Order and you will see the new patch/mod. Check it to enable it. Exit FOMM. Load FO3MasterUpdate and let it do it's job. Thats it. Load up FOMM again and click Lauch FOSE to start the game. When you want to change your mods what you do is run FO3MasterRestore, then load FOMM and delete your Merged Patch. Install your new mods then repeat as above. Always run MasterRestore before removing mods and always run MasterUpdate after installing new ones, it's really quite simple.

So we have finished how to install, manage and run your mods. So now you want some mods yes?

Vital mods, these are essential as far as I am concerned:

DarNifiedUI http://forums.bethsoft.com/?showtopic=984736 This comes packaged as a FOMOD which means you can use FOMM's Package Manager to install it. Makes the interface much smaller and look much nicer on a PC monitor.

CASM or Cipscis's Automatic Save Manager http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=3729 . The Autosave in Fallout 3 is broken. It will cause crash to desktop's and might even corrupt your save files. Open the options menu, go to gameplay and disable it completely. Then activate this mod you can completely customise how often and when your game is saved. One word of caution is to always make a new save never overwrite an old one, this goes for vanilla as well. Fallout 3 doesn't like overwriting at all. Best thing about CASM is that it is customizable in game using the Pipboy.

Overhaul mods, these change the actual Fallout 3 game to varying degrees:

FWE or Fallout 3 Wanderers Edition http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=2761 comes as a FOMOD for easy installation. FWE offers a huge amount of changes such as new weapons, armors and enemies along with alternate starts. You can play as a Raider or a Ghoul. Everything is balanced so the Wasteland is a lot more brutal and you actually NEED to drink water, eat and sleep. You can of course fully customize the changes in the Pipboy and you can go back to vanilla if you prefer.

FOOK or Fallout Overhaul Kit http://www.yourfook.com/downloads/ currently the overhaul I am enjoying which adds more weapons and clutter to the FO3 world. There are more types of food, drink and drugs. Opening the menu with the O key will allow you to customize things like FWE such as experience, damage etc.

Environment mods, this is how the game actually looks.

NMC's Texture Pack http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=12056 changes a huge amount of textures in the game. I run the performance pack myself and it runs pretty well on a Radeon HD4850 512MB. If you have a colossus of a PC then obviously the Full pack is going to look amazing.

Project Beauty HD http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=6341 This mod is wrongly named as the author admits. What this mod does is change almost every face in the game to match the lore of Fallout and in many places make corrections to them. Lot's and lots of tiny changes that really work well.

Enhanced Weather http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=6170 Add rain and snow to the Wasteland and if you choose radioactive rain and snow.

Dynamic Weather http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=10607 This is an add on to Enhanced Weather. Sandstorms you cant even see ten feet in front of you? Oh yes.

Gameplay mods, yup. These change the game.

Martigen's Mutant Mod http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=3211 This brings more creatures to the Wasteland along with more customization with regard to creature spawns. It's hard to describe the effect this mod has on the game. It makes the Wasteland more interesting and very much more lethal but again you can change that.

Weapon Mod Kits http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=3388 so good that Obsidian are including it in Fallout: New Vegas. Add Silencers, Extended Magazines, Laser Sights, Scopes and Auto-Fire to existing weapons.

Energy Visuals Enhanced http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=8340 as the name implies it seriously overhauls the lasers and other energy weapons in the game. (Integrated in FOOK)

I have to mention FOIP http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=4968 If you want to combine FOOK and WMK and Mart's Mutant Mod then you need one of the patches there. On the FOIP page you will find patches for most of the major mod combinations however I would avoid combining FWE and FOOK, they just don't play well together.

Lastly make sure Fallout 3 can use more than 2GB of ram. Instructions here http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=12031 . Next go to My Documents/My Games and find the Fallout 3 ini. Edit this:

uInterior Cell Buffer=3

uExterior Cell Buffer=36

iPreloadSizeLimit=26214400

To this:

uInterior Cell Buffer=9

uExterior Cell Buffer=102

iPreloadSizeLimit=104857600

Happy killing!

Terry Pratchett's Going Postal

I've loved Terry Pratchett's Discworld ever since I read the wonderful Guards, Guards! So I was overjoyed when Sky decided to adapt some of his novels to television. So far though they have been a little hit-and-miss in my opinion. While Hogfather was a perfect Christmas romp, not many can argue that it was toned down a lot from the original book to make it more family friendly. Still it was enjoyable and the story was still there, plus it had some excellent performances especially from Ian Richardson as the voice of Death (note the capital D) and Joss Ackland put in a great turn as Archchancellor Ridcully. He definitely got the right level of shouting at the very least. Sky followed this up with The Colour of Magic which I also enjoyed despite the rather bizarre casting of Sir David Jason as Rincewind. Tim Curry here stole the show as you can expect and again the story was there but a little trimmed for many fans' tastes.

So we come to the latest production which goes to almost the end of the Discworld run, Going Postal. Now let's get one thing out of the way first. As a novel we all have an idea of how these characters look in our heads so no matter who is cast it will conflict with that mental image. I can confidently say however that after you have seen Going Postal you will be more than happy with the cast and their performances. Going Postal represents a time when the Discworld is embracing new technology, in this case the Clacks which is similar to Morse code but using semaphore towers. However the company that runs the Clacks, the Grand Trunk is being mismanaged after a corporate takeover and is being run into the ground. Lord Vetinari, not one to be inconvenienced has decided to resurrect the Post Office as competition however he needs just the right man to do it. Enter con-man Moist Von Lipwig played by the wonderfully charismatic Richard Coyle. Vetinari (played by the wonderful Charles Dance) and his assistant Drumknott (Steve Pemberton in an almost League of Gentlemen portrayal) present Moist with an offer he cant refuse.

As we follow Moist's story the production team really show they have grown now. There is very little CGI other than the Ankh-Morpork skyline and most of the scenes are done with good set work and great costuming, it's never looked quite this good. Even the Watch look as shabby as they should compared to the brightly polished breastplates they sported in Hogfather. Most of all it's the cast that really bring this to life. While the previous cast's used in Hogfather and The Colour of Magic were fine you could tell there were people in there that didn't really 'get' their characters. No more obvious is this with Jeremy Irons who played Vetinari in TCOM who introduced a lisp to the character that left many fans baffled. While Irons certainly had the look of Vetinari he didn't have the delivery that Dance has. Charles Dance actually nails Vetinari spot on even down to the way the man carries himself. Ignore the superficial differences Dance delivers a performance far beyond what Irons did especially in the scenes with Reacher Gilt (David Suchet).

One of the real stars of Going Postal was of course Mr Pump the Golem and the rest of the Golem workforce. Now a few people expressed concern about them from pre-release shots I can happily say that when you see them in action you will manage to suspend your disbelief. They managed to put a lot of emotion into Mr Pump's face that you manage to forget it's a man in a rubber suit and think of him as a slab of clay. It reminded me a lot of Marvin from The Hitchikers Guide TV show in fact. Also the march of the Golem's certainly put a smile on my face.

Now i'm not saying everything was perfect it wasn't. There were a lot of sub-plots that were omitted from the book but I guess we have to expect that as they have to fit it into a TV Movie. There is no Anghammarad for example and the running joke about who is the werewolf in the watch has been lost as it's revealed to be Angua in the first 5 mins of the show which is a shame. It would have been a perfect excuse to use Corporal Nobbs again. Still Ingrid Berdal looks the part so brilliantly I can forgive that. Also Mr Gryle is decidedly not intimidating looking but i'm guessing that was intentional making him look like a part of the old world while the Discworld continues to move forward. At least thats what i'm hoping anyway.

Other than the trimming of the plot there is hardly anything not to like about Going Postal. I can safely say it's the best adaptation of a Pratchett novel made yet and I have nothing but praise for the whole production team. It was a marvelous piece of television and I can only hope they will get most of the cast back and start working on the direct sequel Making Money. I can't think of a better team to be working on this franchise and long may it continue. As long as it's still being mucked about with by Terry Pratchett of course.

Now please Sky hurry up with the Blu-Ray I can't wait to watch it again in it's entirety. It's a great example that Sky CAN make good television when they want to. Lets hope the re-launch of Blakes 7 is handled with this much care.

Watching a meme blossom.

The game Phalanx was a forgettable game. It was a very average shooter in a time when shooters were more common than wankers. The one thing Phalanx is remembered for is the frankly bizzare choice of artwork that became known as Banjoman:

Yes it had nothing to do with the game. It was a legend. Now Banjoman is getting a revival as Phalanx is now on Xbox live. Here are some pics to get started:

Thanks to Cemedee, Navagon and everyone on the GOG forums.

Video games can never be art. Possibly. Or you are looking in the wrong places.

Roger Ebert famously said this line and when he originally did a great many game fans balked and fired accusations at him. He recently clarified his comments on his blog and I found it a very good read. It shows just how someone can come to that conclusion when they don't play games and see nothing of value in them. Mr Ebert is merely making a statement based on his own opinion and thats something we all have the right to do. It might be wrong but he has that right. He's also not entirely wrong. On his blog he put up a video of Kellee Santiago attempting a counter point that games were in-fact art. I found myself actually disagreeing with her. Her point was not helped by the frankly awful evidence she provided with Waco: Resurrection, Braid and Flower. The Waco game is a nothing game it's frankly appalling both in execution and tone. Braid and Flower are clearly trying so hard to BE art that they manage to fail completely. I have Braid, it's an amusing little diversion but nothing more. It is what it is which is a cheap indie game. You will get some fun out of it for a little while but it wont ever be in your mind to recommend as a must-have game.

Braid - as exciting as it looks

Given the evidence provided by Miss Santiago it's no surprise that Mr Ebert remained unconvinced. I certainly would be. I believe far more compelling evidence can be presented and mostly it wont be found in the ranks of indie produced games. Games become close to art when the designers pull out all the stops to do something that Hollywood can't without a truly astronomical budget and thats create entire worlds. More than that worlds where you the player actually have a say in the story. I'm not talking about the Halo's or God of War's because there you are playing a set story the designers want you to play. I'm talking about what we consider sandbox games. If I wanted to impress Mr Ebert I would show him Fallout 3. The beauty of Fallout 3 is that after you have finished your origin (which exists only to develop the character that you want to play not what the designer wanted you to play) you enter a massive wasteland that represents the ruins of Washington DC, destroyed in a global nuclear war.

Now thats pretty!

Now there is nothing particularly original about Fallout 3. It's the third game in the series after all and it doesn't so much nod to Mad Max but fully bow before it. What Fallout 3 does is put the game fully in the gamers hands. Sure there is a story that Bethesda spent months writing but you don't have to play it. You can go almost anywhere on the map you like, you can just spend hours wandering and exploring and the feeling is wonderful. This is an experience that movies and books simply can't deliver. With a movie or a novel you are always taking the writers journey. Videogames can create the same worlds with that same level of detail but you can make your own story in that world. That is the magic of the videogame. Even games that are heavily scripted like BioWare's Dragon Age: Origins provides essential choices to the player that effect both the beginning and the ending of the story so while all players will experience mostly the same journey the ending and potential effects the player had can fundamentally change that world. It will be interesting to see just how much of those choices will be carried over to Dragon Age 2. Dragon Age is also an excellent example of the level of detail a game can have lavished upon it. From the quality writing and voice acting to the depth that has been written into the world, the world of Dragon Age is as compelling as The Lord of the Rings.

Loghain disapproves

Of course the real question is can any of this be considered art? I would guess that would be subjective. Can a movie be considered art? Can a piece of music be considered art? If so then yes games can be considered art as they are simply another medium. Publishers hold the real power when it comes to games and they are only interested in the bottom line of profit. This means that the vast majority of games will be made to be marketed at the blockbuster crowd. There will always be games like Modern Warfare 2, Halo, Gears of War because these games sell well. Why? The same reason the latest mindless action movie will sell, sometimes we just want to be entertained and if guns and explosions entertain us then so be it. It's a mistake to put all games into this category though. There will also be gems out there like Fallout 3, Dragon Age, Mass Effect, Deus Ex, Heavy Rain and Alan Wake where the publisher is ready to take a risk on something different. What I would say to Mr Ebert is that if you are going to make a judgement on games as an art form then at least pick something to look at that takes advantage of the format. The beauty, the art in say Deus Ex is not in the combat or the graphics or the story. It's placing the power of choice in the gamers hands. You can just shoot your way into the complex but if you don't want to you don't have to. Go and sneak in via the air vents with some lock-picking tools or try hacking the security system to turn the sentry guns against your enemies. Hell just try to do anything the game designer didn't expect you to do.

If you are looking to find art in games you wont find it in the equivalent of a Hollywood action movie and you wont find it in a game that is trying way too hard to be art.

Mr Ebert's original comments can be found here: http://blogs.suntimes.com/ebert/2010/04/video_games_can_never_be_art.html

Direct Download Update

I have been using the Direct Download services for a longer time now and I think it's time to revise the list.

Gamersgate:

Really I want to say Gamersgate is the number one direct download site. They ain't, at least not yet. The thing about Gamersgate is they pay attention to every e-mail and every Twitter, they want to be number one and they are doing it in the right way. Talking to customers. If number one was based on trying hard Gamersgate would win by a landslide.

Direct 2 Drive:

I love how D2D are on twitter. Thats how to get an interest and keep it going. The D2D guys keep throwing out competitions and trivia's to the people on twitter and they fix technical problems. If you ask a question to the D2D guys you can expect an answer that day and thats all we ask. There are some issues like regional restrictions. I was not able to buy the Civilization 4 pack on D2D despite the fact it was EU. Evidently 2KGames have decided some parts of the EU are ok.

Steam:

The Leviathan. Steam cannot be beaten when it comes to sales. GTA: VC was €2.50 in a Steam sale. Steam lags behind everyone when it comes to customer service. Steam are number one and they don't need to try. If you ever have a problem like I did with Steam then expect to be without all your games. Steam can take up to a Month to resolve a despute. Thats not a good thing when all your games are dependent on your account.

Impulse:

We have had enough now Brad. Impulse started with the best intentions. It was going to be Steam but nice. These days you will be lucky to buy a game on Impulse. Regional Restrictions. Stardock negotiate really good deals for the US but they don't bother with the rest of the world. They keep annoying me on Twitter, saying I am just bitter. At the end of the day Stardock spend more money on shutting people up on Twitter than they do in negotiations.