Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Gaming Glitches Add Character

Posted by Zonk on from the seeing-inside-laras-skull dept.

jasoncart writes "Glitches in videogames are always a bad thing, right? Wrong, argues columnist Rob Wilson - citing developer oversights in titles like Halo, Pro Evolution Soccer, Vice City and Quake as adding welcome 'character' to our gameplaying experiences." From the article: "Then, in the distance, something astonishing happened. The car I was chasing sunk into the road as if it were careering off a cliff. The car vanished and a welcoming sight flashed up on the screen. 'Mission Passed - $1000'."

3 of 88 comments (clear)

  1. Glitches by 64nDh1 · · Score: 4, Interesting
    I've always found it quite welcome when you don't go looking for cheats, but end up working out how to beat parts of games. Things like in NHLPA '93 on Genesis/Mega Drive if no teammates were ahead of you and you pressed pass at the halfway line the puck went straight up the ice and under the goalkeeper. It was a goal that couldn't be stopped, but still tricky to accomplish. If you screwed it up it was icing, or a two line pass. And it was a pass, so it improved your stats if like me your anal about stuff like that, so you could actually win a game and have no record of any attempts on goal.

    Glitches obviously can also be the ruination of a game, but they're not all bad.

  2. Speed Demos by Kelerain · · Score: 4, Interesting

    http://speeddemosarchive.com/

    Bending the rules is pretty much the entire premise behind speed runs. They are very entertaining as well. The origional inspiration for the site was Quake done Quick, a full play-through of the origional Quake in 19:49, which culminated in a 12:23 run through Quake on Nightmare skill. (not that they aren't trying to improve on that time).

    At the speed demos archive, you can watch Super Mario Brothers 3 completed in 11:11,Super Metroid in 36 minutes flat and The Legend of Zelda in 35:50. On the PC Game front there is Half-Life in 45:45, Fallout2 in 17:51 and Jedi Knight in 34:03. I find these very entertaining, and sometimes informative. Check out the Game List and see if any of your old favorites are there!

  3. Article is wrong.... by Koiu+Lpoi · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The article claims that, since his graphics card was failing, the road disappeared and the other car carrened through the level. Last time I looked at a game engine, the video card's inability to display the ground doesn't affect the internal game engine's dealing with it.