More on Ubisoft's DRM

If you're reading this then you've most likely read my previous post regarding Ubisoft's DRM for Assassin's Creed II.

I want to write my own review of the game, but I don't know how many spoilers I want to include (if any) but I want to get this out there.

First off, my opinion of the DRM now that I've actually got the game is that it's not as bad as I first thought.

It doesn't use that much bandwidth, probably because I've turned off the cloud saving.

But it still sucks and I still don't like it. Right now I have to make sure that anything else that's downloading isn't, and that includes Windows updates, so no downloading pod- or vodcasts while playing single player games, or frankly, downloading anything because the game becomes a little glitchy.

At one point I wanted to play the game and had to spend some time figuring out why my internet connection wasn't working properly, which if I was playing any other single player game, even those using Steam, I could play offline without worrying.

But the most annoying thing is being interrupted in cutscenes or a fight where all of a sudden you get a message telling you that it's trying to re-connect to the server. Then I have to see what is causing the problem, if it's indeed something on my end or actually just some stupid thing out of my control.

It ruins the experience. Especially when you're at say, the pivotal moment of the reveal and then you're given the crappy gaming equivalent of the intermission in Monty Python, only with fewer colours and no organ music.

But if this Escapist article is anything to go by, other people are just as annoyed when the server happens to go down. That is something beyond their control.

Personally I believe that Ubisoft should not take the stance that those of us who bought/received legitimate copies of this game as our approval of the DRM. The reason that there are people who aren't pirating the game is because they want to acknowledge the work of the programmers, not the idiots who thought the DRM would be a good idea.

At least Steam give us an offline mode.