HomeForumsWhat's newResources 
 
 
Pet hates..
Myname - Jun 7, 2003
  Myname Jun 7, 2003
Lately I've been getting incredibly pissed off with half-finished PC games being released with the intention of 'fixing them later.. maybe' with patches or 'upgrades'. This isn't anything new obviously, but it's just seeming really noticable at the moment.

Example 1: I bought Metal Gear Solid 2: Substance last week (after waiting two years for it to come out of a platform I own, since no GC version was forthcoming), so naturally I was pretty excited to play it. After installing it on 98 I was treated to a game which ran at about 15 FPS (this on a PC with a 2.5ghz processor and a ti4600). After searching around for a while, I find that Konami has stated the game will not run properly with a gamepaad in 98, even though a gamepad is recommended for play. That's some fine testing they've done on the final product <_< . However they also state that they 'may' release a patch in future to correct this. Well that's very nice of them.. In the meantime I've had to set up a dual-boot. Also during this search I find that the game won't even run on ATI cards without a patch.

Example 2: I don't know if these games are well-known over in the US, but they're pretty massive over here (250, 000 sold in the first week). My housemate bought the new one, Championship Manager 4, only the game was so buggy as to be unplayable. SiGames has since released 'enhancement packs' for download, which correct the bugs and bring some new ones with them along with the 'enhancements' - elements which were included in the previous games at launch, but they obviously couldn't be arsed to put in this time around, knowing that people would buy it anyway. Presumably this is because they wanted to get it out ASAP since we are right at the end of the current football (soccer) season, and they'd very much like for people to buy an update in about two months to accomodate the new season.

I'm sure I'm right in saying this wouldn't happen in any other industry. Imagine a film coming out where you paid to see it at the cinema but it had the ending missing, so you had to go back next week to find out what happened.

 Gallstaff Jun 7, 2003
i know what you mean. Like neverwinter nights. What a crock of shit. I bought that the week it came out and returned it 2 weeks later. Patch after patch after patch and it never fixed shit. It just kept crashing my computer and i had the reccomended specs. Also postal 2, wtf just crashs my comp!

 Pearl Jammzz Jun 7, 2003
About 98 crashing and causing 15fps.....it's not the desired OS to make games for...as is known already M$ isn't supporting it anymore and I dont think the game makers give a rats as if a game runs decent on there or not. I think everything is gunna be designed around WinXP, which is stupid and a load of shit right there. BUT they should run fine on 2000 and NT4.0 so just get one of those (Win2k pro is great kids) and you should be fine....Maybe a dualboot w/ Win98 lite?

 Myname Jun 7, 2003
I've got no problems with XP, I'd just prefer not to have to dual-boot it to play one game. I'm pretty confident in saying that if I were to dual-boot all the time just for the sake of playing games, 2k wouldn't be the choice for me.

The point is: If the game doesn't work with 98, say so on the box. Don't say it's compatable if it's not and you have no intention of fixing the problem urgently.

Here's another pet hate, probably a longer standing one. From the news section of Games Are Fun....


  
	
	

		
		

			Nintendo has issued cease and desist orders to a number of independent United Kingdom retailers to have them stop advertsising and selling North American GameCube, and GameBoy Advance consoles, peripherals, and games.



The move is seen by some as a bad move, especially since the GameCube is in last place by a far margin in the United Kingdom according to retail sales tracking firms, which do not track the sales of imported consoles, peripherals, or games. Many also see it as a bad move because of Nintendo's consitent feet dragging when it comes to the release of hot titles in Europe. The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker seems to have been a fluke in Nintendo's normal European release schedule, as it appeared in Europe after just over one month of debuting in North America. The critically accalimed, and fairly popular in Japan and North America, title Animal Crossing has yet to see a European release; and Nintendo of Europe does not have the title on any release schedule for Europe.



However, sales of both Zelda and another hot game, Metroid Prime have been very slow in the UK. Zelda has only sold around 100 thousand units since it's release on May 5 in the UK, while Metroid Prime has only moved around 50 thousand units since it's UK launch in March (accross the rest of Europe, these titles seem to be faring much better, these numbers are only for the UK market).



Retailers, however, seem to be agreeing with the order from Nintendo. Many retailers fear that sales of the European versions Pokemon Ruby and Pokemon Sapphire will be hurt when it is released in Europe at the end of July, if rampant importing is allowed to continue.



It is entirely possible that Nintendo sees importing in the UK as the reason why their GameCube console and games are not selling in Great Britian. I know quite a few British people with North American Cubes, myself, so perhaps this is the reason Nintendo is trying to crack down on importing. However, even if this is true, there is really no excuse for the constant delays Europe sees when it comes to hot new titles, and Nintendo of Europe really should get on the ball and get their release schedule closer to the North American releases if they want to see sales increase.


Well here's an idea Nintendo, stop treating Europe and the rest of PAL territory like something you trod in and maybe we'll have a decent incentive to not buy games from elsewhere <_< . What doesn't tend to get mentioned is that the build quality of PAL Gamecubes is vastly inferior to the NTSC ones. Granted, they did this so it could launch with a low price, but any shop I go in the staff are moaning that GC's are constantly being returned due to being faulty. You're not going to shift many games if you're selling consoles that break after a month.

 megametalgreymon Jun 8, 2003

  
	
	

		
		

			Originally posted by Myname@Jun 8, 2003 @ 05:07 AM



 You're not going to shift many games if you're selling consoles that break after a month.


sony and ms both manage just fine whilst selling consoles that die unexpectly soon after purchase

case in point : my xbox started to fail to read discs shortly after i brought it, same has happened to 2 other xbox owners i know, ps2 tens to survive enough to be out of warranty then dies (at least 6 people i know have had that happen)

and its long been known that nintendo behave as if europe should do what nintendo want, rather than nintendo do what europe want, so that shouldnt surpurise you really, only they would act with their head so far up their own ass in the way they have though

at the end of the day what they should do is release the game at the same time (or as close as possible) to when the us version is released

maybe when gc is cracked for copied games they will wise up to this (like the movie industry has started to) since there is a reasonable portion of people who would buy the offical/legit version of the game if it was available, but since it isnt they have the copy instead

at the end of the day they really should look why people import games, as if they actually got rid of the reason for them doing so then maybe people wouldnt do so?

thats called thinking, which isnt something nintendo has the best record of doing, so dont expect it anytime soon

 Myname Jun 8, 2003
I didn't say it surprised me, the news article just brought back long-standing irritation .

 gamefoo21 Jun 8, 2003
my gripe lan games won't work on my nt network if they are older 9x style games hell even some of my newer games ask for ipx i mean ipx died years ago so i have to dual boot my machines cuz i refuse to make my Xp pro + 2k pro to use that pos protocol specially since it conflicts with with tcp/ip...