Orange Box Dysfunctional on the PS3?

Via Next Generation, a preview of the PS3 version of the Orange Box . 1up is the site running the piece, and it's notable because it's so incredibly negative. PS3 fans may have some frustrations in store when the game pack releases soon: "After spending a significant amount of time with a near final version of the PS3 game, it's apparent that this version suffers from a number of technical flaws, which at best merely hinder game play and at worst make the experience downright unplayable. Framerate is a consistent issue throughout the Half-Life series of games included in The Orange Box. One moment you'll be cruising through the game at 30 frames per second and the next you'll be enjoying a slideshow of series protagonist Gordon Freeman cruising down the river. "

Comments

I wonder why...

[Anonymous Coward]

While the PC and Xbox 360 versions were handled by Valve, the PS3 port was handed off to an internal team at EA.

Aha! There's the problem!

Re:I wonder why...

[djikster]

Every single PS3 game made by EA that I have played has been beyond bad in terms of sustaining a constant frame rate (demos, didn't bother to buy after playing them)! I cannot believe that EA is pumping out games on the conveyor belt without any QA, or if they do QA, their threshold for accepting a product is so good, that I do not want anything from them. Luckily, nowdays you can actually download the demo before having to buy it, so the gamers can at least taste the game before getting PO'd by its quality :)

Re:I wonder why...

[nahdude812]

A HUGE deal in Valve's current multiplayer engine is its anti-cheating code. My guess is that they want to keep individual environments as locked down and identical as possible so that cheaters can't exploit differences between the platforms.

Besides they are right about console controller vs mouse/keyboard for control. Average mouse/keyboard users can out-control excellent console controller users. The very best console users would not be able to hold their own against average or above average PC users, this is why PC users don't tend to use game controllers on their PC any more. You may be more comfortable with a keyboard and your friend may be more comfortable with a controller, but you're going to out-control him for sure.

...and multiplayer

[tepples]

Why people spend any money on a proprietary system is a mystery to me. There aren't nearly as many Free games of AAA production values as there are proprietary games of AAA production values.

Go open, build a PC, Install Linux, go to town ... Even with proprietary games, not enough multiplayer games are designed for use with SDTV or EDTV output and four USB game controllers. Developers of multiplayer games for PC seem to be of the general mindset that each player has his own computer and his own copy of the game. This is often not true for multiple players living in one household. Consoles, on the other hand, allow players to share one system, one (usually larger) monitor, and one copy of the game.

PRE-RELEASE

[Zoidbot]

What part of pre-release do they not understand.

I get EA are funing today. I also expect 1UP to be precluded from ever seeing unfinished code again.. Talk about killing your buisness..

Slate it, if it hits the shelves like this, but lets at least wait until then, before passing judgement!

Re:PRE-RELEASE

[Anonymous Coward]

I hate people who pull that crap. Yes, it's a pre-release. Yes, they might be able to fix it before release.

But when release is supposed to be so soon, there's only so much you can do to actually release it. Problems that exist in previews and demos often AREN'T fixed by release. Especially when the release is merely weeks away.

Face it, chances are the PS3 won't be able to get a bug-free Source engine. This speaks more to how insanely difficult Sony made PS3 development than anything else. Either it's going to get delayed even further, past when it would have mattered, or the final release will contain these bugs. Bugs take time to be fixed, and when the bugs are probably caused by the PS3 itself, it may take a long time to find workarounds.

Labeling something a "beta" doesn't absolve responsibility for fixing bugs.

Re:PRE-RELEASE

[seebs]

I'm not under any NDAs at the moment. :)

I think that, in the absence of Sony Pictures, the PS3 would have had 512MB of XDR, no hypervisor, and a DVD drive, and would have cost about $100-200 less at launch. They might well still be on the original design, which wouldn't have been remade four times to try to reduce costs, games would have come out a lot sooner, and so on. They might even have been able to not do the "one SPE disabled" thing which not only gimps the system directly, but also makes it impossible to use SPE affinity correctly -- since there's no way to predict at compile or design time where there will be adjacent SPEs.

Price savings would have come from not needing to push blu-ray (what a crock!) and not needing to spend nearly as much effort on the hypervisor and virtualization code; there would be more available memory, and the savings on using a more standard medium would have EASILY covered the cost of giving the machine a slightly roomier memory footprint -- which would have solved one of the biggest problems developers seem to be running into.

Having enough processor power and raw speed is great, but if you haven't got enough memory for enough data to keep the CPU busy, who cares?

Depressing

[Cy Sperling]

Meanwhile, Infinity Ward managed to put out a rock solid multi-platform FPS- COD4. If they can make it look and play so great on the PS3, why can't Valve?

Re:Depressing

[Alphager]

So my impression so far is that Valve doesn't care enough about the PS3 to do the port themselves, or to carefully track EA progress on the contracted port or to step up after this horrible PR snafu and promise that everything will be smoothed out before release.

So far I am not impressed with Valve and their commitment to anything besides MS platforms. Yup, they don't care about the PS3.
Or more realistically: being a pure microsoft-shop they do not have the necessary knowledge to port the orange box to ps3. Makes sense to outsource that work (especially if you don't believe the ps3 is going to be important).

Re:Depressing

[Anonymous Coward]

Makes sense to outsource that work (especially if you don't believe the ps3 is going to be important).

Okay ... I agree that it makes sense to outsource the work, but that last bit is just over the top.

Valve hasn't done ANY non-Windows work (and I include the 360 as a Windows platform do to the similarity on the APIs). I don't see HL2 running on the Wii, and it certainly has sold more units than the 360 or PS3.

Yes, considering that their primary market is (and probably will remain) PCs, it makes sense for them to do the 360 dev in-house (again, assuming the APIs are pretty close). On the other hand, since Sony has consistently said that developing for the PS3 requires the right mindset, and since EA claimed to have done it before (for various values of "done"), on paper it made sense for Valve to hand off development for the only other platform this generation that would be capable of supporting HL2.

Its not Valve's fault for EA screwing up royally.
Its not Sony's fault for EA screwing up royally.
Its EA's.

Re:consoles are for kids ... and companies

[Chris_Jefferson]

So, what platformers are there even close to Super Mario Galaxy for Linux?

Precisely

[fistfullast33l]

Some commenters on the blogs I've read are quick to write this off as Gabe Newell hating on the PS3. I really don't think that's it. It's just that EA couldn't code for a non-Microsoft platform if it's life depended on it. Everything they put out for the PSP had bugs (two Maddens, NCAA Football, Sims 2), and now bugs on HL for the PS3. I've decided that EA couldn't code themselves out of a black box.

Fault lays about 90% on EA and about 10% on Valve for trusting EA's coders. If this actually is the case, then it definitely will tarnish Valve's reputation which has been pretty good (barring initial Steam issues) to this point.

Re:Precisely

[happyemoticon]

If I were to bet, Valve probably made a pragmatic decision because they had nobody in-house who knew enough about the PS3 to do the port. Their roots are in PC gaming, and from what I understand, they have a very dedicated culture. The chances that one of their star developers would learn to write for the PS3 just for fun are slim. Then, EA says, "Oh, sure, we've got people who can do the port!" and of course, because they're a bonehead marketing company with little respect for programmers, this turns out to be an exaggeration or an outright mistake.

Re:Oh

[Blakey Rat]

I hate to break this to you, but it runs fine on Xbox 360 which is, what, 2 years old now? Video game consoles (at least non-crappy ones) have no problem running Half-Life 2 engine games whatsoever.