After I canceled my WoW subscription, I reinstalled The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion, and I've been playing that since.

My major point of contention with the game before was the difficulty balancing system; everything in the game leveled with you, and if you focused on anything but combat, the game became impossible within an hour or so. In short, the game as it existed out of the box was not enjoyable. I needed to do something about it if I was going to enjoy this rich and beautiful game.  Read more »

Frank Caron over at Ars Technica's Opposable Thumbs journal has a write-up on LittleBigPlanet, a platform game for the PS3. Now, normally you'll catch me hating hard on the PS3, but I've got to admit: this game looks very, very sexy. Don't believe me? Check out a game play video and see for yourself.

The game is made by Media Molecule, the guys behind the incredibly quirky Steam game Rag Doll Kung Fu, and it features an incredibly detailed world in miniature, complete with realistic physics and magic powers. Simply breathtaking.

But no, I'm still not ever buying a PS3.

Shamus over at Twenty Sided has made it pretty clear that he doesn't like the Steam gaming service.

Now I respect Shamus' opinion on a lot of things, but here I tend to disagree. I haven’t had a problem with it yet, and I’ve even considered rebuying some games that I already own, when they come out on Steam, so that I can have them available on Steam and throw out the game CDs.

It has its flaws, certainly, but I prefer the Steam distribution model to the CD (with 300-digit authentication key) model. All signs point to digital distribution being the method of the future. Bill Gates has gone on record to state his belief that HD-DVD and BluRay will be the last generation of wide-scale physical media, and that the future will be digital downloads. Granted, Bill Gates and Microsoft don't have the greatest track-record when it comes to future trends (”Internet Explorer? We don’t need no stinkin’ upgrades to Internet Explorer!”), but I happen to agree with Mr. Gates in this case. I think the future is going to move away from CDs, DVDs, HD-DVDs, and so on, and focus more on digital distribution.

And if that’s the case, let’s face it: we're going to be dealing with a whole lot of DRM. I hate DRM as much as the next tech nerd who follows the news, and I’d love to see a world that’s DRM-free, but I don’t see that happening any time soon. In the meantime, if I have to live with DRM, I'm going to support the products that provide the best compromise of IP-protection and freedom for the user? In that respect, I'm behind Steam.  Read more »

geez this sucks.