I am probably one of the few people who has yet to play the first Bioshock. To be honest, it never grabbed my attention or looked to be anything spectacular. Additionally, one friend informed me of irremovable mouse acceleration in the PC port. So it should be no surprise Bioshock 2 was not on my radar. However, I received a spare copy thanks to my awesome friends in Australia who requested my help in purchasing a US 4-pack for them.
It took me a few days to download it due to my low end DSL connection and having to pause it frequently, as I share my connection with others. I was curious to try it out today, but I was taken back by the amount of DRM the game is plagued with. Over the past few months, I have seen various articles covering SecuROM and Bioshock. The last thing I remember reading is SecuROM was removed, and GFWL would be the only DRM for digital copies. So you can imagine my surprise when I was presented with a mysterious window asking for my product key outside of the game.
The window has no identification whatsoever, leaving me wondering who is authorizing my games. Through some research, I discovered it is SecuROM after all, something that is not mentioned on the Steam store page.
So, as a result, I as a legitimate consumer must be authorized by three different methods of DRM. Obviously, Steam is the first one, where I already ran into some trouble today. It told me my account credentials had expired, and logged me out. After a few restarts, I was able to load up Bioshock 2, where I had to enter my key and be authorized by SecuROM. After doing some research to see that it indeed was SecuROM, I loaded the game and then GFWL wanted my cd key to authorize my game.
This is one of the most asinine ways to protect a game I can imagine. Obviously, one of these methods is optional (Steam), but forcing consumers to go through this many hoops to play a legitimately purchased title is terrible. It did not even solve a thing, as from what I am told, the game was already available through torrents before its official release. I was already annoyed at having to go through two levels of activation with Dawn of War II, and now I have to deal with three.
I hope the game is worth the hassle, and I hope to write a review on it as I get time to play it. I also hope I will be able to fully understand what is going on, having never played the first one.