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When PC Ports of Console Games Go Wrong

Posted by Soulskill on from the in-other-words-always dept.

A post up at Gamasutra complains about the lack of effort put into the PC ports of some console games. The author picks on the unimpressively-reviewed Ninja Blade in particular: "Just as a quick guide to what we're dealing with here: when you create a new save file at the start of Ninja Blade on the PC, it warns you not to 'turn off your console.' Yes, Ninja Blade is one of those conversions: not so much converted as made to perfunctorily run on a different machine. In-game, you're asked to press A, B, X and Y in various sequences as part of Ninja Blade's extraordinary abundance of quick-time events. Whether you have an Xbox 360 pad plugged in or not, the game captions these button icons with text describing the PC equivalent controls. Only it doesn't always do that. Sometimes, you're left staring at a giant, pulsating, green letter A, and no idea what to do with it." What awful ports have you had the misfortune to experience?

13 of 398 comments (clear)

  1. Awful ports? by leromarinvit · · Score: 4, Funny

    Hmm, let's see. USB is a bit of a turd sometimes...

    *ducks*

    --
    Proud member of the Ferengi Socialist Party.
    1. Re:Awful ports? by Spad · · Score: 5, Funny

      Ah USB, the only rectangular connector where you have to make 3 attempts before you get it the right way around.

    2. Re:Awful ports? by Dunkz · · Score: 2, Funny

      Try reading http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kama_Sutra

      That should help!

  2. Re:Worse than bad ports are bad translations by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    Or Zero Wing?

  3. Re:Saints Row 2 by pcolaman · · Score: 1, Funny

    What the fuck is Saints Row 2 and why the fuck are you talking about it in here. We're discussing games, not pieces of shit.

  4. Re:Worse than bad ports are bad translations by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    What you say?

  5. Re:GTA IV! by Rogerborg · · Score: 3, Funny

    All that, and crappy DRM as well. It's like they punched you in the nuts, then whined that you hurt their fist.

    --
    If you were blocking sigs, you wouldn't have to read this.
  6. Re:A few awful examples by dingram17 · · Score: 2, Funny

    I found that the game worked really well, but loading took a long time. I think I need to buy an accelerator cartridge for my C64.

  7. Re:Worse than bad ports are bad translations by PhoenixFlare · · Score: 2, Funny

    "Summon Lich" vs. "Summon Rich"

    I always kinda liked that one, I imagined some guy named Rich in a Grim Reaper costume appearing to smite my enemies.

  8. Re:The new Prince of Persia reboot. by Voyager529 · · Score: 2, Funny

    and the fact that exclusives tend to be designed to run on hypothetical future computers from the year 2101

    I loved Crysis, you insensitive clod!

  9. The S is for Schroedinger by Cassander · · Score: 5, Funny

    Obviously, the orientation of the USB cable is in a state of superposition until you make an observation, collapsing the quantum wave function to a single orientation, thus allowing it to fit....

    --
    Knowledge != Intelligence
  10. Re:Worse than bad ports are bad translations by Nidi62 · · Score: 2, Funny

    Kinda like this guy? http://www.lfgcomic.com/page/3

    --
    The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
  11. Re:The new Prince of Persia reboot. by CronoCloud · · Score: 3, Funny

    The Netcraft meme is dying, Netcraft comfirms it.