Not thirty minutes ago, the UPS truck came to a screeching halt outside my apartment to deliver the package that I’ve been eagerly awaiting the entire week. Trying hard to contain my enthusiasm, I carefully opened the DVD-sized box that Amazon shipped it in, and there it was: Far Cry 2, Ubisoft’s latest and greatest — or so they claim…

The reviews have been pretty positive so far, with Metacritic giving it a very respectable aggregated score of 88%,  but consumers seen to have a different opinion so far. One need only glance at the user reviews on Amazon.com to know why: SecuRom, a DRM protection scheme that can only be described as malware.

A sizable number of gamers seem to have gotten it into their heads that if they do nothing but give DRM-laden games one or two star reviews on Amazon that the developers might get a clue and stop hassling honest users with DRM. I suppose that this approach might yield some results, but I’m not too optimistic. As long as these large game studios are run by naive, elderly executives, and over-cautious shareholders, I foresee little hope of getting any an A-list title on the shelves without the inclusion of some sort of obnoxious scheme to protect the game from piracy.

I firmly believe that the issue is one of utter ignorance and naivety. The inclusion of a DRM scheme, like SecuRom,  in a game is meant to deter and prevent piracy, which is all fine and well; I, like the vast majority of consumers, have absolutely no problem supporting artists and developers, nor do I believe that studios should sit idly by while their hard work is being sold on the black market. I do, however, take issue with the manner in which SecuRom approaches this problem.

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Anyone who’s even remotely into first person shooters on the PC has probably heard of, or come across, the Battlefield series from Electronic Arts. The first one was release way back in September of 2002, and its captivating online multiplayer scheme enthralled thousands. So, it wasn’t much of a surprise when EA followed up on the success of 1942 with its next installment, Battlefield Vietnam. Although it didn’t fair quite as well with the critics as its predecessor did, it wasn’t a failure by any stretch of the imagination.

The Battlefield series had already established itself as a franchise capable of delivering, but the true show of EA’s potential came in June of 2005, with Battlefield 2; the first true sequel. Instead of transporting the player back into yet another war of the past, the game was modernized into a fictional, present-day conflict between the Chinese, an undisclosed middle eastern nation, and of course the good ol’ US of A. Once more, the game was a stunning success.

But then, perhaps due to their success induced high, Electronic Arts let down a sizable portion of its fan base with their next effort, Battlefield 2142. Jumping from the varied theaters of the Second World War, into the claustrophobic jungles of Vietnam, and then to the present was a progression that seemed logic and apt to many. The series started out with the most significant military conflict of the last century, and then it series took players in a logical progression through all the major engagements that the United States’ military has seen.

The main reason that 2142 never really caught on was probably due to the fact that players suddenly found themselves more than 100 years in the future in a conflict with weapons and vehicles that seemed incredibly out of place in a series that seemed to be focused on realistic military engagements.Luckily, though, the upcoming entry in the series, Battlefield: Bad Company, is a true return to form — and what a form it is! Reinvigorating a series is one hell of a challenge, and as such, Electronic Arts has decided that what better way to field test a game, than to actually put it out in the field. The beta, available to those who have access to the beta codes, has been available for several days now, and I must say that the multiplayer component looks really promising.

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If you’ve taken the time to read the last two posts, then surely you must be aware that the time has now come to finally install Ubuntu; and if not, then oh well, just look at the pictures or something.

In my last two posts, I’ve attempted to explain the pains that I went through trying to get the best out of my new laptop. The problem originally started with my realization that I am in no means whatsoever a fan of Vista. Postpartum depression urged me to seek out XP’s familiar setting. Much to my dismay, though, XP would not install on my new laptop, so that was the first hurdle I had to surmount.

Not only was I interested in a return to XP, I was also curious about Linux; particularly Ubuntu. So, the obvious choice, or at least a logic one in my mind, was to dual-boot. In the previous two articles, I explained how to install XP on a new machine intended for Vista, as well as how to prepare a system for a dual boot operation. Okay, so now that we’re all up to speed once again, let’s take the plunge once more, shall we…

If this first step doesn’t seem blatantly obvious, then maybe Linux isn’t for you, but in order to do anything further you’ll need the Ubuntu installation disc. So, head on over to Ubuntu.com. and download the latest version — 7.10 at the time of writing. Once armed with the image file, you’ll need to burn this to a disc. If you already own it, I would recommend using Nero, but if not, InfraRecorder is an excellent, and not to mention free, alternative.

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After I got my new laptop, it didn’t take me all to long to determine that I wasn’t all too fond of Vista. Instead of hastily ditching Vista and running right back into XP’s familiar settings, I thought I’d try out Linux. Having heard myriad glowing reports of its user friendliness, Ubuntu seemed like the obvious choice. However, if I did dedicate my entire system to Ubuntu, there’d always be the problem of gaming; Linux isn’t exactly a hotbed for interactive entertainment. So, why not dual-boot?

There are several approaches to dual-booting a system with XP and Linux: you can either nuke the drive, partition it, and then reinstall both operating system; install Linux first, then partition and install XP; or you can install Windows first and then get Linux working afterwards. In this article, I’m going to choose the latter method, but no matter which way you choose to go, an essential tool to have in your arsenal is GParted.

GParted is a nondestructive UNIX-based partition editing application used to create, destroy, resize and move entire partitions and their file systems. The application is widely available on many Linux systems, but more importantly, it also comes as a live-cd. What that means is that you can download the application image, burn it to a disc and boot from it, without having to touch the rest of your system.

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If you’ve recently purchased a new laptop, chances are that it came with Windows Vista installed on it. Now, depending on how easily you can adapt, that might be a little bit of a problem. Even though Vista has been out for about a year now, many users are still reporting on having a hard time with the new operating system. Some consumers just can’t get all of their peripherals to work properly, others are experiencing horrendous performance issues, while still others just hate the changes that Microsoft made.

One solution to this dilemma would be to take Apple’s advice and just “upgrade” back to XP. If you’ve already gone ahead and tried this approach, though, you may have noticed that this causes another problem — quite a serious one actually. XP refuses to install!

So what’s the problem, you ask? Well, let’s think about this chronologically, shall we. Windows XP is old. No wait, let me rephrase that: XP is ancient! This means that the software and the drivers included with the installation package are just as old; that’s six years to be precise. Back in 2001, when XP debuted, Microsoft expected motherboards to interface with hard drives via an IDE cable. But, six years down the road, PCs and laptops manufacturers have all dumped IDE in favor of SATA, which is faster, allows for hot swapping of drives, and insures better data integrity and reliability. This all sounds wonderful, until you consider that Microsoft never included any SATA drivers with their XP installers. So now what?

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