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Gaming Gaffes of 2004
jvm writes "It's about time for the "Best Games of 2004" articles to flood the web, and in preparation Curmudgeon Gamer has assembled Gaming Gaffes of 2004 (alternate link), a followup to our 2003 edition. This year we point to the the EA_spouse blog, the Driv3r review scandal, Sony's hardware missteps, and seven other less than impressive moments from the past year."
How about the Steam update from two days ago that disabled logins from Linux/Cedega users?
I really hate Dan Patrick.
Glad the alternate link is there but it takes longer to load then the "correct" one. I suspose this will change once more people look at it. I would be interesting to see where the tripping point is.
Probably so it could, you know, survive with the ever-increasing production costs of a single game.
Honor Among Slackers. A veri
Manhunt playing kids getting murdered!
Some of the best games I've ever played this year, like Katamari Damacy, were made on a small budget with very few developers. In fact, with the notable exception of Yu Suzuki's Shenmue, most big budget games have left me extremely cold.
Nice to see another person pointing out that Doom 3 was a hit sleeper -- it was a huge hit that put us all to sleep. Too bad he didn't also point out all the shining reviews given to id Software's latest over-hyped tech demo.
And on the topic of FPS games with issues, how could he have forgotten all of the copyright stupidity surrounding Half-Life 2, the game that required online authentication, the CD/DVD to be in the drive, and to top it off, the authentication servers weren't built to handle the number of games that actually shipped at launch! Now THAT is a fiasco!
Until you have a good way to distribute console games from small developers (including the licensing fees involved for consoles), I think the unfortunate side effect is that better-selling lowest-common-denominator games are needed to support the publishers and keep game sections viable in larger chain stores.
The problem I see continually lamented, though, is how royally the big publishers, especially US ones, apparently, do exploit the small development teams.
Also notable is that Katamari Damacy's development, whch involved I think around 20 people (there's a postmortem feature in the current issue of Game Developer written mostly by the lead designer), was funded and supported the whole way through by Namco.
Honor Among Slackers. A veri
...so I'm going to have to vote for the NFL and NFLPA giving Madden an exclusive license. I don't think that gaffe will be realized this year, but it will in years to come.
And now, their "new and improved" PS2 (sorry, PStwo, or as I like to call it, PoS Too) doesn't even support the damned drive. If you play FFXI on the PS2, you'd better pray your old console never dies, or you're out of luck.
psmylie's dictionary: Godzillion (noun) Any number large enough to destroy Tokyo
That it's still 2004 and there's a X of 2004 List already coming out.
If you want to make a list that truly encompasses the Best/Worst of a Year, wait until the following year.
Netjak.com independent reviews of domestic & import video ga
I'm sick and tired about how people keep on complaining that the new PStwo doesn't support the hard drive. Who cares? Apparently a vocal few care, but I have yet to hear of anyone who wanted both the hard drive and the PStwo, only people who already have a PS2 and hard drive complain.
The hard drive was used in how many games? Best count I got was 3: the always-mentioned Final Fantasy XI, Resident Evil Outbreak, and SOCOM II. There is a total of one game that requires it: Final Fantasy XI.
So, you have a $100 accessory that's only required by one game, and that has had less than stellar sales in the marketplace. Other games that use it don't require it and few people feel like spending $100 on a totally optional feature. (Especially because in the SOCOM II case, it was only useful if everyone else you played with also had it.)
Ultimately, this leaves Square and Final Fantasy XI fans out in the cold. Except, not really, because 1) anyone who wanted to play the game should already have gotten it by now, 2) you can still get the old PS2 and hard drives, and, of course, 3) you can still play it on the PC.
So I'm left with "who cares?" It's not that big a deal. The hard drive was never that popular anyway and it really doesn't make any sense for Sony to waste space on a new version of a console for an accessory few people want.
I forgot to mention: Katamari Damacy's retail price is $20. Any game with its singular design focus and simplicity and purity of gameplay, which for you or me might be its biggest draw, would in the eyes of most people not be worth the standard $50 initial retail price of most games. I really doubt that even I would have bought it if it was $50, though I don't buy many other games at $50, either.
Honor Among Slackers. A veri
You've a good point there. Critics and high-prestige awards go very far to raise awareness about more obscure great movies. It's also a more mature industry with its own problems, and it still suffers from the multimillion-dollar blockbuster syndrome. It's amazing when a movie can be made for under $10 million, and that usually involves the actors working pro bono or at least at very reduced pay. Only the very fringe of independent films are made for less than $1 million, and hey, those aren't even guaranteed great (see: Blair Witch Project), though some do stand out, like this year's Primer, a very confusing sci-fi movie shot for $7000, which I assume means that it was a done-in-one's-spare-time type of deal, as equipment alone would have approached that price.
And being more well-established, movies get much more airtime (as you mentioned) and artistic acceptance. You don't see a Roger Ebert analog every weekend reviewing games on ABC. Instead, we have... G4/TechTV, where the only reasonably palatable game coverage is X-Play. Sure, there are myriad web sites dedicated to gaming, but that's still a small subset of gamers that utilize such sites for recommendations. And as for televised gaming awards? Apparently that thing on SpikeTV is all we can expect for now.
Honor Among Slackers. A veri
Strangely, only the American retail price for Katamari Damacy was $20. The Japanese original retailed for about 4000 yen (about $38), a discount from the normal 6980 yen price (about $66) (really) for new games. It's now available in a best sellers edition for about 2400 yen, bringing it closer to the American retail price.
In fact, Katamari Damacy now costs less in Japan than the Katamari Damacy Soundtrack CD, which amazon.co.jp will sell you for about 2900 yen or $28 American.
For more information, click here.
A stunning first game and a buggy, glitchy, bastardized, neutered sequel.
Please someone let Warren Spector make the Deus Ex sequel he actually wished to make!
Stop ruining potentially good games to make them run on consoles...
I somehow think if it gets released in the UK, it'll be at GB£20, which at the current exchange rate would be something like UD$40. Games companies love to screw us with prices. Then again it's been going on for years...
Then again neither Amazon.co.uk or Play.com seem to have heard of the games, so it probably won't be an issue anyway (although I am safe in the knowledge UK PS2ers can play Metal Slug 3, whilst SCEA rejected it in the US).
10 PRINT "LOOK AROUND YOU ";
20 GOTO 10
The biggest failing is no Dance Dance Revolution for GameCube.
Come on, GameCube is supposedly the "kid's choice" but we're not gonna provide kids with the one video game that has the redeeming quality of making you get your fat ass off the freakin' couch.
Ooh, Thet get Donkey Kong Bongos instead. What a joke.
One more thing to add to the list, what is up with game CDs comming in envelopes now? WTF? I fork out an average of $59 per game and they take away the cases and replace them with cheap assed envelopes. I can appreciate that they were cheaping out on boxes because smaller boxes are much better than those old skool monstrosities but the new cost cutting measure just pisses me off.
piss off
What about Steam/HL2? There are plenty of graffes with this scheme, the release, and the game.
For one thing you have to register just to play single player, even if you legally purchased the CD/DVD. Just one more step from us not really owning our software purchases, and giving profit hungry companies even more power and control.
The day they were suppose to unlock the game was a mess, lots of people not being able to play the games they purchased. Also these problems lasted beyond the initial unlocking date. While understandable for an MMORPG, it isn't for a single player game, especially if you bought it retail.
Then there is Valve's decision of requiring users to register Steam. Wouldn't be surprised if Value did this with money on their mind, what better way to get people to be registered with your distribution scheme then to force them register?
And then there is HL2, with people having problems with stuttering sound, graphical glitches, a map not loading, and people getting motion sickness apparently due to the frames per second greatly dropping in places. And these problems such as the audio and FPS affected even those with high end systems, a lot of them were something you would think they would have found when testing and corrected before relase. While I can understand the obscure bug on a rare video card that hardly anyone has, this wasn't the case.
It was just an overpriced Demo for your hardware.
Sera
Slashdot, where armchair scientists get shouted down and armchair theologians get modded up.
It was just an overpriced Demo for your hardware.
For many people it was an overpriced memo that says they need new hardware...
I don't need a signature.
I dont understand why the PC game companies dont just put everything into DVD type cases (like they have for the XBOX and Playstation 2 and GameCube).
For things that have too much stuff (e.g. multiple disks) to fit into the DVD case, do what they do with DVD box sets for TV and put them into cases like that.
Get rid of the !@##!@@#! waste of space boxes.
that's exactly what they do here in Europe. even the PC stuff is in a DVD case. Purrrrfect.
Nor really a gaffe. Did they underestimate the demand? Yes. Did they double their server count on the first day? Yes. And then they game people extra free time to compensate for it. Hardly one of the biggest gaffes of the year. It wasn't even like the Half Life 2/Steam server issue, the game was still playable, and I never had to wait for long in a queue line, and even those were gone after like 2 days, and only existed during prime time.
One of the biggests gaffes this year has to be the inability to hold a friggin flashlight and a gun at the same time. Doom 3 doesn't show it, but aparently your crack marine only has one arm.
free online diet tracking.
Not exactly "hard-core" games, but the Nancy Drew adventure games my wife loves have been coming in standard DVD cases for the past couple of games.
She's been ordering them off eBay though, since they're released about six months earlier in the US than in Canada for no apparent reason.
- chrish