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Terminator Salvation Game Launched, PC Version Recalled
On Tuesday, the video game tie-in to the Terminator Salvation movie was launched for the Xbox 360, PS3, and PC. Most reviews pegged the game as solidly mediocre; IGN said, "the action is fairly tame throughout and the cutscenes are stunningly ordinary. And yet despite the poor presentation, there are some clever gameplay elements that make Terminator enjoyable. Too bad that joy only lasts a handful of hours before the credits roll." However, customers who had purchased the retail PC version ran into installation errors, leaving them unable to play the game. Now, publisher Evolved has issued a recall for that version of the game, saying, "a defect occurred during replication," and promising a replacement plan for people who had purchased it.
I agree. Why would they publish for a platform that has the most profitable game ever by a wide margin? Damn these people are stupid.
the entire QA process that any competent business would undertake.
What, like the one outlined in the story? Shipping a busted installer doesn't sound too competent to me...
POKE 36879,8
Considering they DID release (and shipped out, and sold, without anyone from QA noticing) the actual _game_ that does not install on _any_ PC, your, your neighbors' nor your development test systems, and it hasn't killed their business yet... I don't think a patch that doesn't work on 10% of affected systems would mean suicide to their business.
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another game release that people need to acquire "illegally" if they purchased it in a box
My son purchased Crysis and then found he could not install the game so he went on-line and pirated it. Normally my son is quite happy to buy software but when things like this happen you sort of wonder why bother to purchase.
In all fairness at least the company concerned with making the Terminator game has offered to replace it and I doubt if you try to pirate the faulty game it will work. Still you never know because I have had legitimately purchased games before that I had to get so called illegal cracks and patches for the game to work properly.
IMHO console games normally have little if any problems than PC games although one or two sometimes get through, however they are normally replaced when the customers complain. On the other hand time PC games normally do get fixed eventually but whether it is a Console or PC it is still annoying.
There ain't no such thing as proprietary standards only proprietary formats. Standards are by definition open.
Ahhh, consolization at its best. Games being dumbed down, franchises becoming more important then creating good stories and/or gameplay, release dates being set in stone weather a game is ready for release or not, repetition being used in every conceivable way to artificially lengthen games without writing new code/assets.
By the sounds of it, the Terminator game is a turd and no amount of polish will make a turd interesting to play.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
Considering they DID release (and shipped out, and sold, without anyone from QA noticing)
To be fair, it sounds like the defect occurred AFTER QA approved and released the gold master to replication.
I don't think a patch that doesn't work on 10% of affected systems would mean suicide to their business.
They've already taken a big public hit. A half-assed response that does even more damage? Who would seriously advocate doing that?
Lots of money spent on a name instead of dev time.
The money spent on the name wouldn't be otherwise spent on dev time; it would be otherwise spent on promotion and other marketing to build an original franchise and make potential customers aware of it.
Looks like if you want to play the game now, You can download it and play a working copy.
Or you can use steam, for simplicity.
Pirates 1, publisher 0.
They're using their grammar skills there.
You should never play any game that's directly tied to a movie. Especially one that comes out the same time the actual movie comes out.
First you know they got a small budget. The game itself is categorized by the movie industry the same way a movie-themed lunch box is. Just as extra merchandise to turn a quick buck.
Second you know they don't have a realistic time frame to make these games good. There's no "When it's done" type speak. There's no "Hopefully we'll have it out by Q4 2009". It's out when the movie comes out, regardless of how much is fixed or broken.
Third, if you actually care about the stories in games, then you know movie games don't have very good stories. There's no imagination with it since you already know the plot-line. You already know what's going to happen since you've already seen the movie. Again this isn't a big deal to most people but it does matter to some.
Ok, I'm sleepy and I'm going to bed. I didn't even know there was a new terminator movie coming out until I heard an ad on the radio a few weeks ago.