Random Thoughts: Wii U and the Thomson Tablet

I find myself surprised at how addictive Mass Effect 3's multiplayer is.  The singleplayer story has been a great ride, but I had no plans on ever dabbling on the multiplayer part.  It seems to be very well designed in that it makes the game very hard to put down.  Unfortunately, the same cannot be said about New Super Mario Bros. U.

For a Mario game, I found myself slowly loathing the game the farther I got into the game.  The levels turn into a total drag to play and the Luigi Super Guide is just not a fun way of pushing the game forward when you've hit your limit.  Alas, my nephew loves the game, so I am forced to tolerate this drivel of a game.

Just got a new Android tablet called Thomson M6.  Here's some pics of the box.

Specifications

Thomson M6

It seems to be a Chinese OEM tablet released in Australia and New Zealand.  After all, how else can the NZ Herald Times app be preinstalled in this?  For a cheap 7" tablet, I found the fact it was dual core very attractive.  The tablet is plenty zippy and it also comes with Google Play Store.  Strangely, it didn't have Google Play Services which seems to be required for apps like Youtube.  You can install it via Play Store though so it shouldn't be much of an issue.

There are two main downsides to this tablet.  First is the screen.  The touch is just plain weird as it sometimes registers incorrect gestures.  Dragging icons seems to be very difficult on this tablet.  The LCD screen also suffers from colour loss when viewed from an angle.  Truly not one of its shining moments.  The second is the battery life which really sucks up fast.

Over all, it seems to be okay.  Doesn't hit all the bells, but for a cheap price tag, that is to be expected.

Playing Sims 3 on Origin Offline

I'll keep this brief.  I lost my internet connectivity all morning and thought it was a good time to test Origin and Sims 3.  All that I've seen online suggests that Sims 3 will only work online due to Origin's insistence of logging in when running the game.  So when I ran Origin, it gave me a login window and a note that Origin was not available (due to the internet).  I logged in anyway, and then Origin went to my library but also setting the client to Offline mode.  I was able to launch Sims 3 and Mass Effect 2 like this without issues.

A small note on Mass Effect... you will not be able to connect to the Cerberus Network.  You will get an error message but you'll be able to load your save just fine.

F You EA...

Once upon a time, I chuckled over the news that Electronic Arts was named 'Worst Company' by Consumerist Readers for a second year in a row. Over blown? At the time, I would think so, yes. My first hand experience leads me to believe that there's more truth to this than I originally expected.

This all started with me downloading Mass Effect 2 on Origin Games. The game started without much issues but when I attempted to register the product code to BioWare's social community website, the code was rejected. Not much of a big deal, but I figured I could slip in a ticket to see if EA could lend some assistance while I plow through the game. Looking back, I probably should never have.

EA did come back with a response and after a few back and forth response and some verification questions answered, they supplied me with a new product code that BioWare's site happily accepted. What I did not realize was that they had added another copy of Mass Effect 2 in my Origin account. What's the big deal? Lots.

This new copy was wrecking havoc with the license activation in my laptop. When I launch the game, I am greeted with this "Invalid License Reason Code = Invalid Cipher (0x0006)". Well, isn't that nice?

I scoured the web for solutions. I also reopened my ticket with EA pertaining to this issue and the only thing they did was delete the ticket. Yes. Delete. Gone. Needless to say, I was infuriated by their actions and submitted another ticket. That one did not fare any better as EA just decided to close the ticket with an empty promise of coming back to me with 'expert' assistance.

I've found out that EA holds its license files at C:\ProgramData\Electronic Arts\EA Services\License\*.dlf.  I've tried deleting the dlf file and repairing install but to no avail.  I also went through the trouble of redownloading the game which failed to make any difference.  Finally, I had a eureka moment when I realized I was doing all this hullabaloo with the new and faulty Mass Effect 2 copy.

I shut down Origin.  I deleted the dlf file.  Turned Origin back on and then used the old Mass Effect 2 game and repaired the install.  It threw a couple of errors a couple of times before finally working.  The game downloaded an additional 60 MB of which I have no idea what they are.  Then, the game started.

No thanks, EA.  Your help site is convoluted and crappy.  Your assistance broke more than fixed things.  I... FIXED my problem.

EA Origin Store Client on Wine

I have had some issues with Origin beginning last year where the client would just crash and crash.  No matter what version of Wine I used, it wouldn't run at all.  I moved through different Ubuntu distro versions and still no luck.  The crash point is C:\Program Files\Origin\Origin.exe: double free or corruption (!prev) and it seems to happen sporadically. After poking through the wine bug entries here and here, I figured out how to get the client to run reliably.

Since I installed my Origin client on a 32-bit Wine prefix, the commandline you'll see here is specifically for that.

WINEPREFIX="/path/to/wineprefix/of/origin" WINEARCH=win32 taskset -c 0 Origin.exe

Try it and see if it works!