As the name of this post implies I got some hands-on time with the rather beta-feeling retail version of the game last night, where I leveled a Chaos Marauder to level five. It's amazing how long it takes to level up when you're actually reading the quests and figuring out how to solve them by yourself, instead of resorting to a helpful website which is what I do while playing World of Warcraft.
My first experience of the game was mostly fun but there are some really obvious and annoying bugs that Mythic Entertainment should have definitely noticed and fixed before pushing this game out the door.
The most annoying glitch is the fact that sometimes my Marauder's mutated arm is still using the look of the normal arm. I have all the abilities that being in mutated mode gives me, but the arm itself isn't mutated. Switching mutations, going back to normal form and then switching to a mutation again, and logging out and logging back in all do not fix the issue. Fore me, the only way to reset this bug was to completely exit out of the game and re-launch it. But even then it would happen again eventually. It probably happened five or six times in the four hours I played. Did Mythic not notice this?
Another annoying bug is that my characters hair and tattoo color will change from black and red respectively, to blonde and blue. I'm pretty sure his eye color and face changed too. It seems like something occurs that makes my character switch back to what he looked like in the character select screen before I started modifying his appearance. Again, exiting the game seems to reset this bug. Not a big deal, just distracting.
Finally, I've looted three or four different one-handed axes for my character and they all had the same skin. Not only is that annoying, but it is just downright half-assed game design. Oh, and I put a trophy on my belt and have tried moving it to the various different locations available on the belt, but it just doesn't want to show up. The trophy shows up as an item in a gear slot, but the actual appearance of my in-game avatar doesn't change at all. Frustrating. A quick search on the internet this morning revealed the fact that other players have been experiencing these same issues, so they are not just isolated events unique to my experience.
This is the first time I've played an MMO right out of the gates and I assume these types of things are to be expected, but something core game play mechanic related like the Marauder arm thing is purely unacceptable. The server I played on was also slightly laggy at times, but there were also a lot of players running around and it was very crowded. I lowered some of the graphics settings and that didn't seem to help, so it's not my system struggling to keep up. Hopefully future patches will address these issues.
All in all it was a fun first four hours and I'm looking forward to getting more time in this weekend. If you are easily frustrated with unfinished games and bugs, I'd suggest waiting a couple months while Mythic smoothes out the wrinkles. I can live with them. Before I sigh off I have one last gripe. I'm all about helping out and reporting bugs and glitches, rather then just complaining in a blog, but the in-game bug report tool is a total joke. I wasn't able to give an accurate description of the problems I was experiencing because the form only lets you type so many words. Maybe I should submit future errors like the average user: "my marauderz arm iznt werking lol".
What I don't get is why everybody is so shocked? The days of system exclusive 3rd party titles are seemingly all but over. Production costs for higher quality big name titles are in the millions - doesn't it make perfect sense for a developers to release their games on every possible platform they can generate profits on? This same uproar happened when it was announced that Grand Theft Auto 4 was no longer a Sony exclusive. And you have to admit that Microsoft's 360 is edging out the PS3 at this point and has been since day one of this generation of consoles, so why would a developer who spends four years of hard work on a game only release it on the least popular console?
We've all seen this before. It happened with Resident Evil. With Assassins Creed. We've seen Bioshock announced for the PS3 (it happens both ways, PS3 fan boys). Final Fantasy is just the next in line. And it won't be the last. It wouldn't surprise me if a Metal Gear Solid 4 Xbox 360 port gets announced sometime in the next year. Why should Konami be loyal to just Sony? Why would Konami opt out of millions of dollars of additional profit by only offering Metal Gear Solid 4, a highly desired game no matter what system you own, on Sony's console?
Sure we'll probably never see Halo on a Sony console, and God of War on a Microsoft console as those franchises are owned by Microsoft and Sony (Microsoft Game Studios and Sony Computer Entertainment respectively) and are 1st party franchises, but I don't expect to see many 3rd party franchises have anything but limited exclusivity on any one console. Limited exclusivity means one console gets a game for a period of time before the game gets released for other platforms. For example, Rock Band 2 will come out on Xbox 360 before it comes out for other platforms a couple months later. I think we all know how these kinds of limited exclusivity deals work (in this case it involves Microsoft throwing some of its unlimited supply of money at a developer). Money drives the video games business. Accept that for what it is. So to all the PS3 fans despairing over the fact that Final Fantasy XIII is no longer exclusive to Sony, realize you still get to play it. Square Enix makes more money, end of story. Think about it from Square Enix's position. You would do the exact same thing.
Finally, please stop the console bashing guys. Nobody will ever convince the other guy that his console is inferior. Ever. It's a huge waste of time and it's beyond boring at this point. Do what I do: Eventually buy all the consoles and play all the games that interest you . Once you do that the word 'exclusive' becomes irrelevant. Come to think of it, there was a price drop just announced for the 360 and Fable II is looking really good...
I was going through some old entries I had written in my now defunct video games blog hosted at blogger, which I was pretty devoted to from 2003 through 2006. One of those posts, which I originally wrote late in 2003, was about Beyond Good & Evil, a game which I had just completed at the time. Of course a sequel has just been announced recently (thank the gaming gods), so I figured it would be a good time to post up this old article containing my thoughts, at the time, regarding BG&E:
"I would like to say a few words about Beyond Good & Evil. I think it's one of the best games of 2003 and sadly it was undermarketed and very much a sleeper. I myself had never heard of it until a coworker recommended I play it. I found one copy of it at Best Buy and picked it up for $20 brand new. I was wondering what the big deal was? I mean, it was only $20 brand new. That means the developers knew it was a steaming heap of crap and priced it as a budget title, right?
Wrong.Totally wrong!
Beyond Good and Evil, while only good for 10-12 hours, is worth playing through at least twice in a row and features riveting gameplay, amazing graphics, awesome music and sound, and above decent voice acting. At $20 it's a steal. It's also uniquely genre defying and contains gameplay elements such as stealth, action, puzzle solving, exploration, customization, racing, etc.
Beyond Good and Evil is one of those games you'll keep forever and come back to re-play occasionally. If you happen across this game anywhere and you want a damn fine budget game, it doesn't get any better than this. It's a shame so few people know about this game, but I'm sure those who have played it absolutely love it."
And my opinion remains the same to this day. Folks, if you haven't played Beyond Good & Evil already, do yourself a huge favor and try to find a copy of this game. You won't be let down. It was available on PS2, Xbox, Gamecube, and PC so you have no excuse for not playing it. Hopefully the sequel will be just as great!
