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The Rise Of Bugs In Console Games

Posted by simoniker on from the not-the-armorines-kind dept.

Thanks to GameSpy for posting a column discussing the increasing prevalence of serious bugs and glitches in console titles, especially in relation to several of this summer's 'blockbusters'. Singled out are Enter The Matrix: "Even if you enjoy the game.. you can't ignore the fact that all three console makers let Atari have a 'get out of final approval free card' when it came to testing...", as well as the new Tomb Raider title: "AOD froze up on me at least half a dozen times... Lara fell through invisible gaps in the street, walked through invisible gaps in walls, and refused to walk up stairs that she was supposed to be able to climb." What's to be done when, as the author says, "judging from the sales of these... titles, enough of you guys just aren't punishing the companies for releasing sub-par products to make a difference"?

1 of 132 comments (clear)

  1. Industry correction needed by AvantLegion · · Score: 3, Informative
    The gaming industry needs to "correct" itself and enforce much tighter quality control on their products.

    Imagine if movies hit the theater with scenes missing, or even just sections that don't display right, or have faulty audio, etc. Moviegoers would revolt.

    As gaming heads more mainstream, the tolerance of the public to deal with technical failures will drop.

    I'm currently playing Midtown Madness 3 on the Xbox. Great game, but the custom soundtrack option has HUGE bugs (one involves a failure to randomize - playback just goes in reverse order through the playlist on some occasions, and another bug involves the soundtrack getting "stuck" on a single song). What trade school dropout programmer can't implement a simple randomizing algorithm?

    Luckily, a "fix" is supposedly coming (downloadable through Xbox Live). But it shouldn't come to that.

    In some cases, with games like Enter The Matrix, the push to release a game on 3 or 4 different platforms at once is a fool's quest that leads to crap like this. Any game that tries a simultaneous multiplatform release in a short dev time will end up like this.

    Of course, the biggest problem is a million or so idiot customers bought it anyway.