Game bugs that make you want to cry

[Atom523]

I did a quick search and couldn't find a topic like this, i am sure it has been talked about but the search function didn't show me any.

 

I recently downloaded the Knights of the Old Republic 2 Content Restoration mod, and you know it has been loads of fun. The new stuff is interesting and a lot of it really adds to the game. Now the game does freeze up occasionally and crash occasionally but i have learned to use the quick save option a lot and usually don't lose more then a few minutes. As a consequence of this all my saves are relatively close together, with only one save being a few hours behind the rest.

 

Here lies my problem, I have finished Dantooine, and just finished Nar Shadda, i was going to head to Onderon next, grab Mandalore have a good time. However, the game decided that i don't need to continue playing. It decided that it needed to trigger the Red Eclipse cut scene again, and whenever I enter the Ebon Hawk it loads up the Red Eclipse sequence minus the actual enemies. So I cannot leave Nar Shadda as I cannot do anything on my ship.

 

There is a solution to this problem! There is a patch i can download specifically for this problem, all i need to do is download it an then load a save that takes place before I got to Nar Shadda! Except the fact that the game crashes so much all my saves are close together thus all are while I was on Nar Shadda. Then when i try to download the patch the site tells me that i am over my limit for downloads even though i haven't downloaded anything from the site. Good times huh?

 

So i have to give up my 16+ hours of game time (actually longer considering the parts i had to replay when the game would crash 8 times in a row) and I have very little motivation to pick up the game for the next few days. (it would make it easier if i could cheat a bit to speed through the earlier parts but the cheats don't work for me so oh well) I guess i will wait a week or two before trying again. Replaying the game is one thing, replaying a game that frequently crashes and freezes is another.

 

So anyone else want to vent about game bugs that have driven you up the wall?

[Gorth]

So anyone else want to vent about game bugs that have driven you up the wall?

Yes... in Master of Orion 2. The dreaded "enemy AI tries to retreat when you have a warp dissipator" bug which crashes you back to the desktop. So does saving a game without selecting a save slot

 

The missing children in Fallout 2 made me want to pee on Interplay's grave already back then.

 

The bad walk meshes in Mass Effect 2, that often leaves you floating in the air, reaching for the reload menu.

 

The bugged Jaheira story line in the original, unpatched BG2

 

Kotor2

 

Plenty of bugs to go around in games, but those are the most recent ones I remember as particularly aggravating.

[Oner]

Not a bug, but not being able to figure out how to pick up the very first item in Gothic made me cry.

 

The game breaker bug in AP as well as the computer freezing completely once per day (memory leak perhaps?).

 

The bug where I lose save games in Gears of War and Unreal Tournament 3.

 

"Plenty of bugs to go around in games, but those are the most recent ones I remember as particularly aggravating."

[Amentep]

The disappearing inventory bug in Arcanum that ate my plot required items 3/4ths of the way through the game.

 

The save game bug in Divinity II that would load my character from savegame A to the location I was at in savegame B, thus causing instadeath because savegame B was about 5 levels higher. Also the game loading bug that would lock up the game and force a hard reboot.

 

ME1 had an annoying glitch where you could occasionally get stuck in objects and not be able to move (sometimes crouching would push you out of the object). Happened occasionally to me when survey markers would get put down where my character was standing but also after stopping a sprint.

[Hassat Hunter]

(Main poster, once you get your cheats working, it's REALLY easy to work around.)

 

* In Ankh, whenever I wasn't the main char, saving and loading made me an invisible main char, turned all objects from names to bindnames (ITEM_BUSH for example) and pretty much got me stuck. Got worse in Ankh 2, since there were more sections there were you weren't the main guy. Never finished that game due to this.

 

* ME2: A BSOD after 15 minutes gameplay. And thanks to BioWare's "no save, no skipping", I had to play it over and over again to see wheter or not I fixed my BSOD. Good times (not).

 

* Nuclear Strike: The game crashing on me after finishing the mission (taking 1.5 hours) just before touching down on the landing pad to finish the mission. Good thing for level cheats.

 

* Drakensang, during the final battle at one point it spawned so many enemies, I needed to reduce my graphics to the lowest and still only had 10FPS to play with, while the rest of the game was max at 40FPS.

 

That's about all I can think of right now...

Edited July 1, 2010 by Hassat Hunter

[GreasyDogMeat]

One word: Daikatana.

 

The bugs are too numerous to mention but one that springs to the top is AI that would get stuck in the environment. You would clear the level, get to the exit and the game wouldn't allow you to continue. Going back you would find a companion running at a wall with no way to get them to 'snap out of it'.

[Walsingham]

The bug in ALL Relic multiplayers which means I can't use my ****ing router. Which, in case anyone from Relic reads this, is the same router model shared with more than 20% of UK users. Way to go, ***holes. I love your games but I refuse to buy them from a company which completely ****ing ignores that many people.

[Enoch]

Well, aside from the (thankfully rare) PoR2-level cluster****s that totally bork the game, your saves, and/or even your operating system, the worst bugs to me are the ones that massively effect gameplay, but that don't alert the player to how exactly the bugs are affecting his experience.

 

Medieval 2: Total War upon release had a few huge examples. The combat calculations were not incorporating shield defenses properly, which left the player building units that he thought would be doughty line defenders, only to see them cut to ribbons. Also, certain units being almost wholly useless because their attack animations were screwing up their melee 'rate of fire,' the battle auto-resolver's absurdly pro-attacker formula for resolving seiges, and the TW series' consistent inability to teach an AI to use ships for transporting armies.

 

All these kind of bugs are the sort of things that affect gameplay in pretty meaningful ways. But they only really manifest in subtle oddities that a new player is likely to miss. Until the player or someone else in the gaming community really takes the time to test out what exactly is going on behind the scenes, he would never know how screwed up the game is. That's just infuriating in a way that a clean BSoD can't match.

[Gorth]

Aren't you mixing up bad design features with actual bugs a bit?

 

We could probably dedicate an entire forum to what we think is badly designed mechanics and balancing

[Serrano]

Aliens: A Comic Book Adventure used to crash constantly on every PC I tried it on, I mean literally it seemed to happen almost every five minuets it was just unplayable. I think I only ever got past the opening, which is to say I landed the ship and took a few steps into the base. The rest of the game is a mystery to me which always bugged me as I'm a huge Aliens fan.

[WILL THE ALMIGHTY]

I can't continue KotOR 1 on the PC because the game crashes completely any time a tarentatek dies onscreen. Turning the camera away works, but then I reach the room with two of them on Korriban... ugh.

[Nemo0071]

Basically any and all save corrupting bugs. Especially in games that don't allow you to save freely, anytime, in multiple save slots.

 

I can deal with most bugs. AS LONG AS YOU DON'T F*** WITH MY SAVES.

 

 

*calms down*

[Hassat Hunter]

I can't continue KotOR 1 on the PC because the game crashes completely any time a tarentatek dies onscreen. Turning the camera away works, but then I reach the room with two of them on Korriban... ugh.

Got the same.

Fortunately, you can just run past them IIRC.

[WILL THE ALMIGHTY]

I can't continue KotOR 1 on the PC because the game crashes completely any time a tarentatek dies onscreen. Turning the camera away works, but then I reach the room with two of them on Korriban... ugh.

Got the same.

Fortunately, you can just run past them IIRC.

Ah.

 

But.. the XP! What will I do without it?

[Oner]

You'll kill 2 extra sith in the endgame.

[Nightshape]

HA! you haven't seen a bug until you've seen a dev kit blue bar!

[Luckmann]

Basically any and all save corrupting bugs. Especially in games that don't allow you to save freely, anytime, in multiple save slots.

 

I can deal with most bugs. AS LONG AS YOU DON'T F*** WITH MY SAVES.

 

*calms down*

I agree with this. There have been many, many horrible, game-breaking bugs in the history of gaming. But none so infuriating as the ones that corrupt your savegames, for any reason.

[unskilled-]

I remember playing the aeon genesis translation for Shin Megami Tensei. In one of the routes you can pick there was a very serious game-stopping bug. Needless to say I happened to stumble upon it and my 80+ hour uber-romp was destroyed!

 

Took me a few years to work up the courage to tackle the game again :|

Edited July 5, 2010 by unskilled-

[Gizmo]

Well, aside from the (thankfully rare) PoR2-level cluster****s that totally bork the game, your saves, and/or even your operating system, the worst bugs to me are the ones that massively effect gameplay, but that don't alert the player to how exactly the bugs are affecting his experience.

POR2 had another nasty bug in the installer (IIRC It can reformat your C drive if you uninstall without patching).

[Nepenthe]

Well, aside from the (thankfully rare) PoR2-level cluster****s that totally bork the game, your saves, and/or even your operating system, the worst bugs to me are the ones that massively effect gameplay, but that don't alert the player to how exactly the bugs are affecting his experience.

POR2 had another nasty bug in the installer (IIRC It can reformat your C drive if you uninstall without patching).

 

The mac version of Baldur's Gate I had a similar bug. Sad, really, but the different publisher for BG2 really was a different story, they fixed some bugs that were still in the final PC version.

[Malcador]

I remember the WoW Alt-Tab bug bothering the hell out of me. More recently, would come from both Mass Effects. The first had me sliding around through walls when fighting the Matriarch, the second had those invisible floors.

[Bos_hybrid]

Space Force Rogue Universe. A soon as you fire your weapons everything goes black except for your hud. No fix, ever. But you can still play with pixel shader 2!

Edited July 5, 2010 by Bos_hybrid