Topic: Episode 249: Raindrops Keep Fallin' On My Head

[Enner]

I would give them the benefit of the doubt that they didn't think they would be able to fix issues post-release. PC gamers barely stand for that crap and I would imagine console gamers would just get rid of the game. I would imagine that the Dark Void team had a hard release date and shipped out the game as best they could. Looks like their best wasn't nearly enough.

Considering that the main game looks like its levels are held together with scotch tape, I think it's fairly certain that Capcom just put out an ultimatum that they game had to ship when it did and the devs just handed over what they had.  And then Capcom turned around and blamed Western Devs as a whole for screwing up their earnings forecasts, since Bionic Commando (which I've heard is a better game than it's given credit for) also didn't sell well.

Bionic Commando (2008) gets the most important thing, the swinging, right. However, everything else ranges from mediocre to bad. The poor gun play is marred by an annoyingly weak pistol that you will have to rely on because ammunition for other weapons is low. The levels are constrained with death walls, deadly water, and frequent loads. The bionic gives you such freedom of movement but the levels aren't quite open enough to take full advantage of it. Also, the story is stupid and ends with a quick timing event which I guess is par for course for the shooter genre.

Game has some cool boss fights. The best ones show up early.

[Chocobo_Rider]

The new Bionic Commando started off on the wrong foot for me when I saw the new "x-treme" look/attitude for the protagonist.

That sort of thing turns me off immediately.

I actually wrote High Voltage Software an email about my disgust at what they did to Michael Ford in Conduit 2.

[NWR_Lindy]

Yeah, Bionic Commando is decent. It's nothing special, but it's worth a quick playthrough.

As for Dark Void, I think situations like it and New Vegas are symptomatic of an industry that has yet to really take QA seriously across the board.  Some companies care about the state of their games before they ship, and some don't.  It'll take time and monetary losses to prove to companies that proper testing of their games actually saves them money.  But like Broodwars said, I'm sure on certain levels companies know that certain games aren't going to sell no matter what they do, so they just push the game out the door and hope for the best.

[Ceric]

Yeah, Bionic Commando is decent. It's nothing special, but it's worth a quick playthrough.

As for Dark Void, I think situations like it and New Vegas are symptomatic of an industry that has yet to really take QA seriously across the board.  Some companies care about the state of their games before they ship, and some don't.  It'll take time and monetary losses to prove to companies that proper testing of their games actually saves them money.  But like Broodwars said, I'm sure on certain levels companies know that certain games aren't going to sell no matter what they do, so they just push the game out the door and hope for the best.

If a game is suspected to do so bad that game crippling bugs aren't going to hurt sells.  Do everyone a favor and just cut your losses and can it.

[NWR_insanolord]

That's one of the reasons I love Nintendo. They have their faults, but they'd never let **** like that make it through to a shipped product.

[broodwars]

That's one of the reasons I love Nintendo. They have their faults, but they'd never let **** like that make it through to a shipped product.

Yeah, Nintendo would never ship a title with game-crippling bugs. *cough*Metroid: Other M*cough*

Bugs exist in every game that ever ships.  With games as huge and complicated as they are, it's just impossible to find and fix every issue in every game a company ever makes (and every issue caused by trying to fix every issue).  It's just a matter of how easily they can be found and the damage they can do.  Nintendo does do better QA than most, but bugs still slip through.

That said, horrible QA is the main reason I'm not buying Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim when it releases.  Bethesda has more than earned its reputation for having utterly inexcusable levels of game-breaking issues in its games, something that is only marginally improved with patches over time.

[NWR_insanolord]

There's a huge difference between Other M and something like Dark Void or Fallout, which is what I was referring to. And Nintendo would never release a game they new had a bug like that; Other M made it through because they never caught that particular issue.

[Ceric]

Personally if I come upon a game crippling bug in 1 play through of a game I think that's ridiculous.  Gold copies should have at least 5 play threws done to make sure nothing major got missed.  I doubt that happens to what becomes the gold copy.  I'm sure they test different segments but not go through the whole game like a player so many times.

Games will have bugs, that's true of any complex piece of software.  I can accept that just not when they crash things.

[broodwars]

Personally if I come upon a game crippling bug in 1 play through of a game I think that's ridiculous.  Gold copies should have at least 5 play threws done to make sure nothing major got missed.  I doubt that happens to what becomes the gold copy.  I'm sure they test different segments but not go through the whole game like a player so many times.

Maybe they do.  It probably depends on the kind of game, how long it is, and how many testers there are.  I'd wager 99% of the bugs that are found by consumers were probably found by testers at some point.  If you find a bug in a modern piece of software, it's probably there because Dev decided it either wasn't worth fixing or they couldn't figure out its origin.

[Ceric]

Personally if I come upon a game crippling bug in 1 play through of a game I think that's ridiculous.  Gold copies should have at least 5 play threws done to make sure nothing major got missed.  I doubt that happens to what becomes the gold copy.  I'm sure they test different segments but not go through the whole game like a player so many times.

Maybe they do.  It probably depends on the kind of game, how long it is, and how many testers there are.  I'd wager 99% of the bugs that are found by consumers were probably found by testers at some point.  If you find a bug in a modern piece of software, it's probably there because Dev decided it either wasn't worth fixing or they couldn't figure out its origin.

Agreed and as long as they aren't game crippling and very numerous I'm tolerant of that.