Disappointing review?

[DarthPanda]

http://pc.gamespy.com/pc/star-wars-knights...2/585574p1.html

 

I originally got this game for the Xbox and returned it after about two decent weeks of playing - I liked the game, and it was very addictive, but as everyone knows, buggy as hell. Of course, I returned it and used the money to preorder the PC version

 

Reading about the bugs at the end of the article was rather disappointing, considering it sounds like new bugs have been introduced into the game. Are any former Xboxers disappointed as well? Not surprised at all? Any PCers who followed the Xbox tech help forum disappointed?

[NeverwinterKnight]

not surprised at all. considering it didnt seem they were spending much more time on the pc version once the xbox version was released, and the fact that pc versions usually have many more bug issues on their own.

[mastromanos]

I can only hope that they will fix the major ones at least in the first patch. Plus I pray that obsidian will not abandon the title after the second patch like Bioware did with KotOR leaving unresolved bugs .

[Darth Riker Ketra]

Ya i read the review on gamespy. It was pretty disappointing. If the game is gonna be released next week ie probably the 8th, they better recall it and fix all the bugs/glitches, such as the game crashng, party members, etc. Or they should improve and fix them before it gets shipped to stores. They have 3 days left and they better make use of it. Bioware when they made kotor 1, there was a few glitches/bugs, but not as worse as kotor 2. I dunno, but it maybe the developer. Thats just my opinion.

[NeverwinterKnight]

Bioware when they made kotor 1, there was a few glitches/bugs, but not as worse as kotor 2. I dunno, but it maybe the developer. Thats just my opinion.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

you dont know that yet since you havent personally played the pc version. buy the game when its released, play it and then if you do have these problems, then post about them.

 

making a statement like you did doesnt really hold validity.

[mkreku]

At least the PC version is patchable.

 

That was a really harsh review, by the way.

[jaguars4ever]

At least the PC version is patchable.

 

That was a really harsh review, by the way.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

*shrugs*

 

Harsh, pragmatic...it's all the same. ^_^

[Foomanshoe]

I Dont think that was a harsh review. He compaired the story to the Legendary Planescape Torment itself. That has to be the highest complement a developer can get.

 

I wonder though, does Obsidian do in house QA, or does Atari do it? or both?

[Darth Ni]

Bioware when they made kotor 1, there was a few glitches/bugs, but not as worse as kotor 2. I dunno, but it maybe the developer. Thats just my opinion.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

you dont know that yet since you havent personally played the pc version. buy the game when its released, play it and then if you do have these problems, then post about them.

 

making a statement like you did doesnt really hold validity.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

That's true. Some people have written reviews on games being really buggy but when I've actually tried them out, I found maybe 1 or 2 odd bugs. Ofcourse, Darth Riker Ketra has a point there... Almost everybody reviewer has complained about the bugs including many users. Then again, many of these people are probably saying that because a few others have experience minor bugs and they just want to flame the game....

[NeverwinterKnight]

That's true. Some people have written reviews on games being really buggy but when I've actually tried them out, I found maybe 1 or 2 odd bugs. Ofcourse, Darth Riker Ketra has a point there... Almost everybody reviewer has complained about the bugs including many users. Then again, many of these people are probably saying that because a few others have experience minor bugs and they just want to flame the game....

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

it might have been a valid point if he hadnt said it was "his opinion". saying something is your opinion implies you have first hand knowledge of it and that you were affected by these bugs.

 

since the pc version hasnt been released yet, he has absolutely no way of knowing first hand whether the game is buggier than kotor1 or not.

[Gorth]

PC version of Kotor1 had "game stopping" bugs after 3 patches. Things should improve.

[213374U]

not surprised at all.  considering it didnt seem they were spending much more time on the pc version once the xbox version was released, and the fact that pc versions usually have many more bug issues on their own.

Bugs related to how the engine works on the PC (due to porting and different PC configs) are to be expected and acceptable to some extent.

Bugs due to design flaws (looping dialogues, broken quests, etc) are not and these should have been fixed for the PC release. If the old Xbox bugs have been fixed, I'll be one happy camper (and wait for the patch).

[LordRaven]

I have played through it starting on my fifth time now and have not expireinced any of the issues that I have read on this board. The only thing I noticed was a major slow down when you are fighting with alot of things on the screen at once. Other than that no freezing, areas not opening, stuff diapearing. I'm just not sure what everyone is talking about. Maybe I am lucky in that I have not had any of these issues. My problem is the lenth of the game. Too short. I expect Metal Gear Solid to be short because it is an action game. But role playing games are supposed to feel epic and give a sense of achivement.

[Darth Ni]

Xequted: There have been complaints on the LucasArts forums about a lot of bugs in the game on the Xbox, will the PC version address these issues when it's released?

 

Mike Gallo: The PC version of the game is essentially the same as the Xbox version with the exception of the high-res textures, higher screen resolutions and other high end graphic card features. The game has also had several more weeks of development, so it has a few more weeks of polish.

 

Then there were all the little things. Cutscenes where the camera was inside a character's head, leaving nothing but eyes and a mouth talking on the screen, or cutscenes where two characters were having a conversation and one of them was completely missing. Any one of these might be forgivable (except the crashes, of course), but all of them together just mark a title that desperately needed another few weeks (or months) of polish.

 

Hmm.... What did you say Mike Gallo?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I refer you to my post.

 

Oh btw, if the graphics in the review looked really crappy to you, it's because the reviewer was using the low quality texture pack.... Don't worry about the graphics part of it. Even though the engine is a year old, the graphics still look pretty good considering their age. Don't expect something ilke HL2 or Doom 3 but the graphics aren't crap either.

[Darth Ni]

I have played through it starting on my fifth time now and have not expireinced any of the issues that I have read on this board. The only thing I noticed was a major slow down when you are fighting with alot of things on the screen at once. Other than that no freezing, areas not opening, stuff diapearing. I'm just not sure what everyone is talking about. Maybe I am lucky in that I have not had any of these issues. My problem is the lenth of the game. Too short. I expect Metal Gear Solid to be short because  it is an action game. But role playing games are supposed to feel epic and give a sense of achivement.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

I beat the original MGS in 6 hours while watching all the cinematics and listening to all the codec conversations.

[Darth Sun_Tzu]

I can only hope that they will fix the major ones at least in the first patch. Plus I pray that obsidian will not abandon the title after the second patch like Bioware did with KotOR leaving unresolved bugs .

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

That's strange! I remember 3 patches and after that there being only a few minor bugs left.

 

Must just have been me then. *shrugs*

[Naso]

They did somethine weird with the engine and then blamed it on ATI and somehow finally ATI finally released drivers that do something special for KotOR. It finally works for me now, but my buddy has a laptop and says he has to install special drivers released from the company who made it, and still can't play for more than 5 minutes. Doom 3 and Half Life 2 run fine mind you. I really find it ridiculous that ATI is blamed though at this point. They have been so quick to fix everything else that I think Buggyware must have dropped the ball and ATI had to do something to fix it for them. Excepting that KotOR just won't run on some computers still, it's relatively bug free at this point.

[DarthPanda]

I have played through it starting on my fifth time now and have not expireinced any of the issues that I have read on this board. The only thing I noticed was a major slow down when you are fighting with alot of things on the screen at once. Other than that no freezing, areas not opening, stuff diapearing. I'm just not sure what everyone is talking about. Maybe I am lucky in that I have not had any of these issues. My problem is the lenth of the game. Too short. I expect Metal Gear Solid to be short because  it is an action game. But role playing games are supposed to feel epic and give a sense of achivement.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I was also fortunate enough to experience only a few of the bugs that people complained about (often minor ones I could ignore or simply reload to get around), but there were a few design bugs that you'd only notice if you were looking for them.

 

One such example would be the attribute bonus you receive from Light/Darkside Mastery; if you weren't wearing equipment that boosts the attribute in question (Strength or Constitution, depending on character), then the bonus wouldn't apply. If you removed the attribute-raising equipment after receiving the LS/DS bonus, you wouldn't lose the bonus from the equipment - allowing you to put the equipment back on for an additional boost.

 

Edit: And dear lord, I hope Atari didn't have anything to do with QA. They did a piss poor job with Temple of Elemental Evil.

[Demigod]

They did somethine weird with the engine and then blamed it on ATI and somehow finally ATI finally released drivers that do something special for KotOR.  It finally works for me now, but my buddy has a laptop and says he has to install special drivers released from the company who made it, and still can't play for more than 5 minutes.  Doom 3 and Half Life 2 run fine mind you.  I really find it ridiculous that ATI is blamed though at this point.  They have been so quick to fix everything else that I think Buggyware must have dropped the ball and ATI had to do something to fix it for them.  Excepting that KotOR just won't run on some computers still, it's relatively bug free at this point.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

 

It was (and still is the cat 4.12 broke things again havnt tried 5.1) ati problem actually. At the release of kotor they hadnt implemented soft shadows into the drivers properly. There was a post from bioware about this .So it was initaly disabled though you could hack it on, it took 2 ati driver releases to enable softshadows However softshadow performance on ati cards is still slower in this game than on nvidia cards. the cat4.2's had the best softshadow performance but its been getting slower ever since. It took them (ati) almost 8 months to fix the area load are crash bug. As regards the crash issues this is again an ati issue relating to the way buffers are cleared iirc. Hense why this problem occurs in some drivers and not in others.

 

Oh and dont blame bioware for only 3 patches either. Its lucas arts who have to pay for and authorise the production of pathches for their games. Its was they who said no to any other patches, there was a thread on this on biow's forum months ago.

 

Also it was lucasarts who set the release dates for kotor2 I just hope they give the go ahead for a patch for this or obsidian's rep at least for reletivly bug free games will be ruined on their first game.

[Pulverizer]

It was (and still is the cat 4.12 broke things again havnt tried 5.1) ati problem actually.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

It is still broken in catalyst 5.1; catalyst 4.11 is the most recent release that works well with KoTOR. Hopefully, it would work with KoTOR2 as well.

[JamieKirby]

It was (and still is the cat 4.12 broke things again havnt tried 5.1) ati problem actually.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

It is still broken in catalyst 5.1; catalyst 4.11 is the most recent release that works well with KoTOR. Hopefully, it would work with KoTOR2 as well.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

Hmmm, when i next reinstall my computer, i will try the 4.11.

 

i think Lucasarts should get some patches done for Kotor II because they are rather obligated to fixing a game they payed for to be made and we broguht the game, but hey, thye could be one of those companies that think ' why fix a game when we already have their money?'

[dantivirus]

Any review from Gamespy needs to be taken while severly drunk. That's the only way one can suffer it.

 

I trust Gamespy's reviews as far as I can toss the Death Star. A lot of their reviews are seriously skewed in one direction or another. As for me, I let myself be the judge and if the reviewers don't like the game, that's their loss, not mine.

[TentamusDarkblade]

I wonder though, does Obsidian do in house QA, or does Atari do it? or both?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Atari provides the majority of the QA testing, but i think OB hires temp testers for short term testing in house.

 

EDIT: Most dev houses rely on the publisher to provide the majority of testing on a title. It's simply too expensive to hire a skilled test staff for most devs.