The Patch: Broken Games
Years ago, one of the most prevalent debates making the rounds was what effect making hard drives and internet connections standard in home consoles would have on game development. Those that saw the potential pitfalls were quick to surmise that this would inevitably lead to sloppy game design. Developers on tight budgets and even tighter time-lines would almost certainly be inclined to push an unpolished game out the door when they could simply correct flaws with downloadable patches sometime in the future. Others, like myself, weren’t so sure that publishers and developers could afford to be so callous - the console gaming public used to nearly spotless products wouldn’t be nearly as forgiving as their PC gamer cousins.
Today, all three major console come with some sort of broadband connectivity right out of the box. Indeed, all but the Wii have hard drives installed as well. Several years into this generation, we should have a very good idea of how the aforementioned arguments have played out. Unfortunately, I don’t think we’ve come out on top.
Most recently there are two games that immediately come to mind that disprove my argument and point towards a trend that developers are increasingly relying on the promise of future patches to fix their broken games. Gears of War 2 and Fable 2 are culprits of sloppy code that could have used more polish before release. Fable 2 is notorious for quest ending glitches, and Gears 2 has suffered from online multiplayer woes and exploits.
I’ve enjoyed playing both Fable 2 and Gears 2 immensely, don’t get me wrong. Yet their errors stick out like sore thumbs, and drag down otherwise great games.
Fable 2 in particular is, apparently, a giant mess of various bugs; wading through the various Fable 2 forums reveals a litany of flaws that appear unique to each and every game disc.
In my case, the Love Hurts quest is stuck in some sort of never ending loop. Despite having collected Lady Grey’s body parts and returning them to the grave keeper’s mansion, he stands there unresponsive. Moreover, every time I cross through the mansion’s door, I’m prompted to accept the Love Hurts quest despite having long since done so. Accepting the quest sends you back into the various tombs where, not surprisingly, the objectives you’re attempting to repeat have already been accomplished. The kicker here is that only by completing this quest do I gain access to an area with a gargoyle statue, which is necessary to destroy in order to progress on another more high profile quest and the awesome reward at its end.
This, frankly, sucks. And if that weren’t enough, we have in Fable 2 the absolutely perfect example of a developer rushing a game out the door before its finished: the online co-op had to be issued as a automatic download at launch instead of on the disc itself as promised, nevermind any bugs.
Gears 2 is another kettle of fish altogether. While one would be hard pressed to identify a rampant epidemic of bugs in the single player campaign like Fable 2, that same person wouldn’t hesitate to point out the awful online matchmaking for multiplayer and the frequently laggy matches. I’m telling you, when Gears 2 was first released it would take ages to get into a match, if at all. And when you did finally make it in, the matches were often unplayable due to severe lag.
Two or three patches later and things have improved. That said, the shine has worn off on a game that had its opportunity to get its claws into me weren’t they so dull at the outset. As it stands now, I’ve moved on. Besides, have things really actually improved? Last I heard there were a ridiculous number of exploits in multiplayer that are in need of correction, making an already hardcore and unforgiving experience even more unforgiving.
Looking ahead it’s hard not to be cynical. Fable 2 and Gears 2 were triple A, first party, high profile Microsoft Studios projects, and even that gargantuan resource machine couldn’t get these two games right when they walked out the front door. In the high stakes of game development, polish has taken a back seat to windows of opportunity and profitability. We’d had better get used to it.
peachey @ January 26, 2009