This week at The Warp Pipe was mostly spent struggling trying to get a belated Mario Kart Wii review together. Every time reviewing a game seems a bit difficult or frustrating, I just remind myself that I could be stuck in an office being forced to pretend I give a damn about this week's Big Brother eviction. That usually results in me loving this job even more. I expected to like Mario Kart Wii a whole lot more than I actually did; the latest iteration seems to make the series' flaws more noticeable than ever before.

For this week's column, we'll discuss copy protection, revisit the spectacular Zone of the Enders: The 2nd Runner for PlayStation 2, and recommend a rather good budget-priced adventure game in Full Throttle.

Don't Copy That Floppy

Invasive copy protection is not the answer

The choice bit of news on the PC front last week was the announcement and subsequent retraction of Mass Effect (and Spore)'s SecuROM copy protection. The latest version of SecuROM requires a connection to a central server which authorises your CD key on installation, and confirms its legitimacy every time you boot the game. It has to then check again with the main server within 10 days to reconfirm this legitimacy. Miss this revalidation period, and you're out of luck. You're also limited to only three installations of the product before you have to call the publisher to get the codes reset. This version of SecuROM protection has appeared in many titles on the market, but the authentication system we're seeing here first debuted in BioShock in August last year, much to the chagrin of many PC gamers.

Copy protection is designed to prevent the end user from giving copies to their friends or selling them for their own personal gain – essentially to make sure everybody buys a legitimate version of the product, and everything is kept kosher. For many years, copy protection was transparent, having minimal-to-no effect on the user's experience (beyond requiring the disc to be in the drive). With the rise of technology like StarForce and SecuROM, copy protection is now impacting the experience of the user, causing difficulties with operating systems, breaching the user's privacy and what not. Of course, these technologies only impact on the experiences of the legitimate consumer – the versions of games acquired through illegitimate means tend to have the protection stripped, or dealt with through other means. This is where modern copy protection fails.

Some games are more prone to piracy than others

There are few absolutes in life, but one of them is that whenever someone releases a new copy protection technique, someone will break it. To some, it's a hobby, a bit of fun on the weekend, while others will dedicate their lives to finding loopholes. Regardless of how it happens, the product's protection is broken and released into the wild. With the rise of the Internet and peer-to-peer technology, piracy has more or less become mainstream – I mean why would someone pay for something when you can get it for free with a couple of mouse clicks? Does that not make piracy a social problem, rather than a technical issue? The industry likes to claim that piracy has cost them $X billion dollars this year, but how many of those illegitimate users would become legitimate users if purchasing the product was the only option? The answer is "not very many." So why punish the customers who do buy the products with invasive DRM and copy protection measures which have a tendency to return false positives and lock legitimate consumers out of their products?

Certain games are more vulnerable to piracy than others – the big budget, heavily hyped Crysis, although successful with a million units sold, was heavily pirated, while the lower budget Sins of a Solar Empire sold well above expectations; the complicated 4X strategy gameplay style appealing to a more mature audience that tends to pay for the goods on offer. The number of people playing pirated PC games normally outweighs the number of legitimate gamers, and every PC publisher cries piracy when their game fails to meet their sales forecasts, but don't you dare think for a second that piracy is just a PC problem. In fact, it's probably more rampant on consoles – the reason it doesn't get attention is because a) console game sales aren't falling below expectations yet and b) it usually requires the use of some form of external hardware. Markets where manufacturers refuse to officially support their consoles, such as Brazil, are entirely driven by piracy. Official releases in these countries are so outrageously overpriced that the average worker simply cannot afford to buy them, so piracy reigns. Legitimate software sales on systems where pirated games can be played with minimal fuss and outside hardware suffer big time – look at the Dreamcast and PSP.

Retail versions of games need features that encourage gamers to purchase them

It's not really viable to think of a way to stop piracy, because that's not going to happen. Rather than employing draconian methods of copy protection, companies should be thinking of what they can offer consumers in order to encourage them to buy their product. If you look at the top selling PC games on the market, you'll notice that they all offer a range of features that you can only get by owning a legitimate copy of the game; Blizzard and Valve's games offer structured online play through Battle.Net and Steam and The Sims games grant you access to the online community where you can create and share new items and other designs with players of the game.

Plugging the leaks on the publisher's end should also be a priority. Copies of games that are sent out to the press often have a way of making their way into the hands of pirates; we're beginning to see personalised codes and USB keys issued alongside review copies of some games to prevent copying – perhaps this should be common place? Replication plants are the other major point of origin for leaked releases; security at these plants is notoriously loose, and poorly paid employees are bound to be indifferent to the company's cause. Let's not forget security at the developer itself – remember the Half-Life 2 source code theft incident? Valve's network security wasn't up to scratch, and thus their game made its way into the wild (along with proof that the game had no chance of meeting its September 2003 release date).

I'm hopeful that the fallout from the Mass Effect incident will discourage other companies from using invasive copy protection measures; in the future, we can only hope that companies begin to realise that the error of their ways.

Great Games Remembered

Zone of the Enders is typically remembered for all the wrong reasons; the inclusion of the Metal Gear Solid 2 demo, the cry-baby protagonist Leo Steinbeck, its short length and pedestrian difficulty. In 2003, Konami released a sequel; Zone of the Enders: The 2nd Runner. While it didn't perform as well at retail (due to the lack of a Metal Gear demo, one can assume), ZOE2 is one of the best looking and playing games on the PlayStation 2.

ZOE2's particle effects show the PlayStation 2's true power

Directed by Shuyo Murata, produced by Hideo Kojima (co-directors of the upcoming Metal Gear Solid 4), and featuring the designs of Yoji Shinkawa, ZOE2 sees remote miner Dingo Egret stumbling upon the Orbital Frame Jehuty during a dig. When the dig site is attacked by BAHRAM, Dingo climbs aboard the Jehuty unit to repel the attack. Dingo is eventually defeated by the superior Anubis orbital frame, piloted by the evil Nohman. After being captured and mortally wounded by Nohman, Dingo is revived by enemy pilot Ken Marinaris, who attaches Dingo to Jehuty's life support systems (consequently rendering him unable to leave Jehuty without dying). After several battles on Mars, Dingo and Ken learn of the massive battle station Aumann, and set out to destroy it.

ZOE2 is one of those games that really pushed the PlayStation 2 to its limits. Not only does the game look good, but it runs at a constant 60 frames per second, even when the game is pushing a ridiculous number of particle effects at any one time. The combat is always intense; battles between orbital frames are so fast, furious and full of energy blasts that they're reminiscent of your average Dragon Ball Z fight. The story is far more interesting than its predecessor, and is told through the use of traditional Japanese anime sequences. The pacing of the plot is superior too, building up to one of the most amazing looking battle sequences in gaming, where Dingo and Leo (who is piloting the Vic Viper, the ship from Gradius) team up to fight a seemingly endless wave of enemy orbital frames.

It's a shame that ZOE2 didn't see much attention when it came out, because it is truly one of the strongest games on the PlayStation 2. It's not particularly easy to get a hold of, though a few usually float around the auction sites. Hideo Kojima has stated that he wishes to revisit the series after he's finished with Metal Gear Solid 4, so maybe we'll get to see what Jehuty can do in HD.

Budget Gaming Highlights

Previously in the budget section, I've recommended compilations of reasonably good PC titles, but I recently stumbled upon a re-release of the classic LucasArts adventure game Full Throttle. Released in early 1995, Full Throttle was part of the SCUMM engine lineage which included great games like Day of the Tentacle, Sam & Max Hit the Road and The Secret of Monkey Island. Full Throttle was written, designed and directed by Tim Schafer, who was also responsible for the previous Tentacle outing.

For only $10, it's a crime not to pick it up

Full Throttle's story deals with a biker named Ben, leader of the Pole Cats gang. Ben's gang has been requested to escort Corley Motorcycles president Malcolm Corley to a shareholders meeting by Vice President Adrian Ripburger. Ben initially refused, which resulted in him being knocked out by Ripburger's goons and having his bike trashed. After patching his bike together, Ben catches up to the gang only to find out that Corley is dead, and he's been fingered as the killer. With his gang in prison and the law on his tail, Ben must find a way to clear their names and find out who the real killer is.

There was a bit of a shift away from LucasArts' usual programming for Full Throttle. It's a darker game, with mature themes and a higher level of violence. It marked the first time that Screen Actors Guild members were used to voice characters in an adventure game with Mark Hamill, Maurice LaMarche and Tress MacNeille providing voices. The game featured a new interface which revolved around the mouse icon indicating the player's action before a click – a moving mouth for talking, a fist for a violent action and so on. Full Throttle also includes a number of action sequences, though they're not quite as good as the rest of the game.

Released as a part of a new LucasArts classic range, this version of Full Throttle has been patched to run on Windows XP, and will set you back a measly $9.95 at the most.

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Quote of the Week

Microsoft was quite proud of itself this week, trumpeting that they were first to sell 10 million units in the United States, and 19 million units worldwide. Electronics Senior Vice President Don Mattrick had this to say; "History has shown us that the first company to reach ten million in console sales wins the generation battle. We are uniquely positioned to set a new benchmark for the industry." I wouldn't be declaring victory just yet. There's just a few problems with that, namely the fact that a) the Wii is already 5 million ahead worldwide b) the Wii just outsold the 360 in the US in April on a 3.79 : 1 ratio c) the Wii is now at 9.5 million units in the US, despite the fact that Microsoft had a full year's head start d) the Wii is still supply constrained e) the PS3 is matching the 360 in monthly sales in the USA, and beating it elsewhere f) 360 sales are slowing year over – it couldn't break 200k in the USA in GTAIV's launch month. Perhaps this time it'll be first to 11 million, eh?

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Next Week

We'll have another round of random thoughts with a bit more emphasis on the factual side of things, and the usual smattering of sub-topics.