Anno 2070™ - contact@rockpapershotgun.com (John Walker)

Oh come on Ubisoft, do SOMETHING not stupid.

On Monday we reported the strange discovery by Guru3D that something so simple as changing your graphics card could use up an activation on Ubisoft game, Anno 2070. At the time I suggested that this was perhaps a bug in the DRM Ubisoft uses, Tages, meaning it was overreacting to hardware changes. It seems I was wrong, and Ubisoft have confirmed to us that this is how they intend the DRM to work.

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Anno 2070™
Anno 2070 thumb
Ubisoft's DRM isn't exactly known for its gentle, loving caress in matters near and dear to PC gamers' hearts, but the latest tightening of the cuffs seems a bit overkill-ish even by Ubi's standards. In attempting to review Anno 2070's performance on a range of hardware configurations, Guru3D made an extremely disappointing discovery: The second the site switched out a GTX 580 for a GTX 590, Anno demanded another, separate activation. On top of that, the game gives you a whopping three whole activations to work with, so think carefully before spelunking around in your machine's brittle innards.

I've fired off a mail to Ubisoft asking whether this is an intentional piece of extra armor plating for its DRM Voltron, or merely a glitch the publisher plans on patching out. Fingers crossed for the latter, though precedent's not exactly on our side.
Anno 2070™ - contact@rockpapershotgun.com (John Walker)

Um, how do people get into this town?

Ubisoft have managed to go a month or so without anyone loudly throwing their hands in the air and despairing at their DRM ways. They’ll be relieved to know the drought is over, with tech wizards Guru3D discovering that Ubisoft’s limited activations of their games are not just limited to specific machines, but specific graphics cards.

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Anno 2070™ - Valve
Updates to Anno 2070 have been released. The updates will be applied automatically when your Steam client is restarted. The major changes include:

Main changes:
- First Ornamental Buildings for Ecos and Tycoons implemented.
- Stability and performance improved for several system specs.
- Unit limit increased.
- Fixed an issue in the winning screen of several campaign missons.
- Fixed a severe graphical issue that occurred on Windows XP with graphics cards of the ATI-Radeon-HD 2000 and 3000 series.

Additional changes:
- Fixed several small text issues, such as typos and overlappings.
- AI behaviour improved.
- Fixed an exploit that allowed the player to sink Keto as well as Trenchcoat using the EMP.
- Fixed performance issues related to toll items.
- Fixed an issue with the Start button.
- Fixed Achievements: "Floating Clearance ", "The Latest Technology", "The Entire Tech Tree", "Back to Nature", "Too Good to Throw Away".
- Fixed smaller issues in several quests
- Fixed smaller issues with the interface.
Nov 29, 2011
Anno 2070™ - contact@rockpapershotgun.com (Jim Rossignol)

Blue Byte and Related Designs recently finished their latest trading and building game, Anno 2070 – this time set in later part of the current century, in a world where climate politics underlie the tale of commercial striving – and released it onto the wild seas of the internet. I’ve been wading through its depths for the past week or so and I am now able to tell you Wot I Think. > (more…)

RAGE - contact@rockpapershotgun.com (Jim Rossignol)

This year has been unusually rich in the kind of game that I most enjoy: those that are open-ended, or provide a sandbox world for me to mess about in. We usually get a couple of these every year, but in 2011 we seem to have run into a minor bounty of the open stuff, which is good news for explorers and meanderers alike. I’ve gone into a bit more detail about why this pleases me below. >

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Anno 2070™ - contact@rockpapershotgun.com (John Walker)

This looks all very peaceful. No need for war here.

Anno 2070 came out on Friday. Did you see? It’s Anno, but in the future! Although I’m now so used to having ridiculous year names from science fiction like “2011″ that I can no longer register “2070″ as sounding that far away. Heck, it’s reasonably likely I could live until 2070. I think futuristic sounding things now require at least a “2200″ century, if not ideally the third millennium. Please take note. Anyhow, the Anno launch brought with it an Anno launch trailer, which is below. And I believe one of our number is currently playing the game in order to let you know what you should think about it.

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Anno 2070™ - Valve
Anno 2070™ is Now Available on Steam!

2070. Our world has changed. The rising level of the ocean has harmed the coastal cities and climate change has made large stretches of land inhospitable.



Build your society of the future, colonize islands, and create sprawling megacities with multitudes of buildings, vehicles, and resources to manage. Engineer production chains such as Robot Factories, Oil Refineries, and Diamond Mines, and trade with a variety of goods and commodities.



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