Terminator Salvation Game Launched, PC Version Recalled 75
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.
ummm... patches? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:ummm... patches? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:ummm... patches? (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
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Ahhh, consolization at its best. Games being dumbed down, franchises becoming more important then creating good stories and/or gameplay,
That's a problem with all gaming-console and PC alike.
release dates being set in stone weather a game is ready for release or not
PC games are notorious for shipping in alpha quality, with the attitude "we'll patch it later." Consoles have largely been spared this fate, however it is creeping in a little bit with the PS3 and 360.
repetition being used in every conceivable wa
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It's a game I recall with great fondness, never mind how few colours it had.
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Because "consolization" means you can't have boss battles?? Sorry, but that doesn't sound like a console problem, that just sounds like a shitty game.
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Because consolisation means that it was rushed to release without the thought or effort going into game play, testing, development/bug fixing or story. In other words the arbitrary dumbing down of the game experience in order to shorten multi-platform dev time and make the game appeal/accessible to the Lowest Common Denominator crowd. This is what the OP was complaining about, throwing in an arbitrary boss fight wouldn't have fixed the problem.
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the Master System from which all their little consoles derived.
What? [wikipedia.org]
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the Master System from which all their little consoles derived.
Both the Sega Master System and the Nintendo Entertainment System . The ColecoVision had a Z80 CPU and a TMS9928 VDP (picture generator). The Japan-only Sega SG-1000 by Sega was Sega's clone of the ColecoVision. The Sega Master System was an SG-1000 with more RAM and more color depth in the VDP. And the designers of the PPU in the Nintendo Entertainment System were inspired by the design of the TMS99 series VDP [parodius.com], especially the way it handled processing of the sprite display list.
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I didn't know people were still buying games
fixed.
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Re:wow (Score:4, Insightful)
Just to clarify, (Score:2)
He means Portal (Orange Box), not WoW. 8')
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The Call of Duty series has plenty of players online using the PC versions. Just watch, when Diablo III is released, it will sell like hotcakes. :) PC gaming is still alive, but the # of titles worth playing has dropped to a handful, IMO. But when a worthy game is released it does sell well.
Side note: I don't buy anything published by Electronic Arts (that's both PC and console).
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Funny that you mention two Activision games while you bash EA. Don't you know? Activision is the new EA. I hate to misquote it because it was so funny, but the head of Activision said "We don't want any franchise that cannot be exploited on a yearly basis".
EA at least has Ghostbusters, Brutal L
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EA at least has Ghostbusters, Brutal Legend, Dead Space, Mirrors edge, and a few other new ip's (along with all the other dead horses they keep beating).
Yes... a game based on an 80s movie series, plus cartoon series, isn't beating a dead horse at all...
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Wake me up when consoles attain these:
1. Games on consoles are fully modable
2. Standard USB peripherals [thrustmaster.com] are usable
3. Decent games like X3: The Reunion [wikipedia.org] are available
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Oh my... I thought this was a kind of funny joke. And even if it wasn't, I think there are other posts that deserved the -mods. Oh well.
Re:once again (Score:4, Insightful)
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.
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The license allows you to install one copy of the program onto your computer for the purpose of using that program. It does not specify that you must use the disc you purcahsed to install it. What your son did is entirely legal, and the kind of case which needs to go to court so this whole "AMAGAD P2P IS TEH LOOZORX!!1 Piewacy iz killinz teh bizniss!!1" tripe from major corporations can be thrown out, as it should have been before technology like BitTorrent
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Funny you mention bit torrent because purchasing the game doesn't give you the right to distribute that game to other people which is what BT does.
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Funny you mention bit torrent because purchasing the game doesn't give you the right to distribute that game to other people which is what BT does.
That's why I set the upload speed to 0. I'm just making my own copy, I'm not distributing.
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That's why I set the upload speed to 0. I'm just making my own copy, I'm not distributing.
And that's why the download takes a month to finish.
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IMHO console games normally have little if any problems than PC games
Console games have to pass the rigorous quality assurance process of the console manufacturers. PC games do not.
And this is not my humble opinion, this is coming from a former quality assurance project manager (I used to impress the beta testers by quoting the Sony Technical Requirement Checklist by heart).
I've seen games submitted against my advice and rejected by Sony or Nintendo for the very reasons I had bemoaned. On a PC, they just ignore the QA and ship it, with a "we'll patch it later if enough peopl
unprecedented (Score:5, Funny)
What defect? (Score:4, Funny)
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I wish AoC would have had that defect. Could have saved me 27GB of bandwidth patching the stupid thing the first month.
Download and play or buy and wait (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Download and play or buy and wait (Score:4, Informative)
Clearly it doesn't take much time to make.
In the real world, it usually takes longer to do regression testing than it does to fix a problem.
When "someone" on the intarwebs "repackages the game" manually and throws it up on a torrent he bypasses the entire QA process that any competent business would undertake.
And so we get it "works on his system" and maybe if we're lucky a few of his friends too... and out the door it goes... if it explodes when it hits the general public, well... hey... what did you expect?
That sort of cavalier process would be suicide for a business.
Re:Download and play or buy and wait (Score:5, Insightful)
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...
Re:Download and play or buy and wait (Score:5, Insightful)
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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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?
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A half-assed response 6 hours after the mistake plus a full fix 30 days later is less of a hit than a full fix 30 days later.
Fix 90% now and remaining 10% later vs fix 100% later?
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So instead of their QA being stone blind, the problem is that the gold master can get altered after QA approves and releases it--in other words, their release process is fundamentally broken. That doesn't seem much better.
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When "someone" on the intarwebs "repackages the game" manually and throws it up on a torrent he bypasses the entire QA process that any competent business would undertake.
This is the sort of thinking that sinks corporations. They begin with an idea that is "good," and then later on they blindly accept that it is _always_ "good."
This company needs to hire a man who specializes in making customer-recovery decisions, because it seems like they have _nobody_ with the skillset necessary.
The machines are in cahoots I tell you... (Score:2, Funny)
Launch date.. (Score:2)
Is it just me, or does anyone else find the fact of the game based on the movie launching two days BEFORE THE ACTUAL FILM a little irritating? IIRC, this was the case with Quantum of Solace as well.
I don't think I like this trend...
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Depending on the game (I like action/adventure and RPG's) what I consider value for money is when an action game that I like has over 10 plus hours game play and an RPG that I like has over 20 plus hours game play. Of course the longer the game or if the game has excellent re-playability the better the value for the money. While I can't really speak for fighter
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Unfortunately the game is shit. Also extremely short at 4.5 hours long.
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I said the same thing in the "Why Sarah Connor Failed" Thread.
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There's another Terminator movie?
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It shouldn't be that much of a surprise. Last year was the first time that the video game industry actually made more money than the movie industry. I would bet you'll see more and more movie-based games coming out before the actual movie.
A Defect in Duplication??? (Score:4, Interesting)
I wonder if they decided that they had to put assloads of DRM in and THAT was what was broken.
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Because they obviously didn't test it. Not even once!
Defect? (Score:4, Interesting)
Sounds more like 'a defect occured in QAing replicated discs'.
NEVER EVER buy a game to a current movie (Score:2)
While (movie) studios by now realized that it's not a good idea to just cash in on the movie name and drop the franchize on whoever pays the most (which resulted in some pretty sucky games that were only sold on the movie's name), games to current movies are usually a nightmare.
Realize a few corner elements and ponder for yourself why the games usually suck:
1. Hard deadline. No way to push production back because either you deliver now or never. In 3 months, nobody will care about your game.
2. Lots of money
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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.
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Hmm (Score:1)
Is there some new law (Score:1)
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No such law, but the notion of deriving related products in other markets is not new. Wheaties frequently exploited sports figures to sell cereal. Burger King, McDonald's and Jack in the Box are constantly in a battle to see who gets to make the next themed kid's meal and series of toys.
But while we can see countless examples of this for more than 60 years, we can look to the likes of George Lucas to have really picked up and exploited the practice to the point of complete saturation.
Now, interestingly, w
New DRM (Score:1)
and piracy wins again! (Score:3, Insightful)
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.
The truth about movie tie-in games. (Score:3, Insightful)
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.