So many of you may of noticed The Broken Controller has been out of action the past month or so. Well this is our formal letter of apology and a quick explanation of where we have been. Over the past few months the lives of people of this site have changed dramatically and most of us didn't have the time we did before. But I am here to reassure you that we are back and ready to keep putting out quality content for all of our listeners and readers. With that said, both David and I would like to wish Aaron aka Ind1fference the best in his future indevors. Aaron left us a few months ago due to personal...

This week we are still down one man. The remaining hosts cope by talking about themselves, their anecdotes and what they've been playing. Alan Wake, Splinter Cell, DRM issues, Final Fight Double Impact and other topics manage to sneak into the show as well. Enjoy!

 This weeks indie games:

ikaroids

Olu

10-Year Alliance Expands Global Reach for Leading Game Developer Across Multiple Platforms

Kirkland, WA and Santa Monica, CA – April 29, 2010 -- Bungie, the developer of blockbuster game franchises including Halo, Myth and Marathon, and Activision, a wholly owned subsidiary of Activision Blizzard, the #1 online games publisher (Nasdaq: ATVI), announced today that they have entered into an exclusive 10-year partnership to bring Bungie’s next big action game universe to market. Under the terms of the agreement, Activision will have exclusive, worldwide rights to publish and distribute all future Bungie games based on the new intellectual property on multiple platforms and devices. Bungie remains an independent company and will continue to own their intellectual property. Additional terms of the agreement were not disclosed.

Review Rewind will be a feature where I go back to older games and review them. This can serve two purposes: one, this might make you find a game for cheap that you've previously passed up. And two, I finally have an excuse to go back and play all the games in my library I haven't even touched yet. Anyway, onto the review!

Prototype came out in June, 2009, so it's not a huge leap backward in time, but I didn't have much of a chance to play it until recently. It's a third-person, action sandbox  game set on Manhattan island in New York City. Granted, it's not a true one-to-one recreation of the entire island, but Radical Entertainment did a good job in grabbing the big, important parts of the city and even the street layout for the most part. I can tell because I've never been there, but I've looked on Google Maps! *grin*

You play as Alex Mercer. Starting out, you're dead on a slab, about to be dissected. Suddenly, you awaken and escape from the building, Gentek headquarters, only to find yourself being pursued by armed guards. Your body starts changing. You're suddenly able to jump unnaturally high and escape from the guards. Oh, and you have almost none of your memories.

By now, you've probably heard of Ubisoft's terrible digital rights management software. Unless you've been living under a rock, or just don't do PC gaming. So here's a recap:

Ubisoft added new DRM to their new PC games starting early this year. You have to have an Internet connection in order to play your game. Even if it's a single-player game. Your game has to be talking with Ubisoft's servers constantly. If you somehow lose your connection, it used to be that you were booted out of your game entirely without saving. Now (in Assassin's Creed 2, at least), it saves before booting you.

That being said, it seems Ubisoft's servers have had severe downtime, meaning the people with legal copies of their games can't actually play them. The games have been cracked in some way shape or form since the day they've come out, so the DRM is quite worthless. This has often been accomplished by emulating the DRM servers on a user's PC, artificially feeding the DRM beast. While this worked for a lot of people, the emulator wouldn't work with some localized versions.

Now it seems the DRM has finally been completely circumvented. Released by a group named Skid Row (stylized as SKIDROW at times), this cracked version of Assassin's Creed II completely strips out the DRM from the game. In addition, the group claims their cracked files have been protected from reverse engineering in order to keep other release groups from passing off Skid Row's work as their own and to keep Ubisoft from examining their work.

In the .nfo file for the cracked release, Skid Row tells Ubisoft, "Next time, focus on the game and not on the DRM. It was probably horrible for al legit users. We just make their lifes easier."

"Wherein our heroes make fun of Drew in his absense"

-Knuckles Dawson
 

In this weeks episode of The Broken Controller podcast the whole crew is here locked and loaded. In this episode we talk about PAX East and Prime, some spent a little too much time playing Catan, Gears of War 3 we know is coming, and still no one cares about the tester. We hopefully will have some pretty cool stuff to announce next week, so stay tuned! Thanks for downloading, Stay safe and Game on!

In this weeks episode of The Broken Controller podcast we are a man down but still let the good times roll. Sorry for the late episode, our audio guy started a new job and is adjusting to a new schedule. In this episiode we talk about PAX, PAX, and did I mention this funny thing called PAX! We tell you the good and bad of what we saw at the show. We will be back next week with the normal crew. Thanks for downloading, Stay safe and Game on!

3D Dot Game Heroes comes out in a little more than a month on the PS3 for $39.99. The game looks to be a very clever homage to The Legend of Zelda and other old-school video games. This makes me rather excited for it, having grown up with those games. To draw attention to the budget title, SouthPeak Interactive has launched a new trailer for the game. Check it out after the jump.


 

In this weeks episode of The Broken Controller podcast the whole team is along for the ride.  Killzone 3 is so predictable, 360 gets USB support, Rock Band Network is rocking, and of course we get off topic. If you're at PAX East watch out for the crew because we will be there in full force. Stay safe and game on!