Thanksgiving. We’ve already did our podcast about what the rest of the staff are thankful for this holiday. However, as I am out of town spending the Thanksgiving holiday with loved ones, I was not able to join in. But the way this year has been going, there was not much for me to be thankful for anyway. Seeing such controversies as GamerGate, death threats to developers over matters of console exclusivity, more false advertising about multiplatform games being console exclusive, and most recently, biased reporters saying they don’t like the Xbox One because “I can’t find the settings menu without using Kinect,” it has been a very difficult year for me to enjoy this industry like I used to.
And for that so-called professional, I want to put you on the “spot” and give you a little advice. You see that button with three lines on the Xbox One controller? Try pressing that. You see the word “Settings” as an option? There you go. No more excuses!
But recently, with the events of Broketober starting the glut of games, there were many enjoyable titles that I had to experience, including the likes of Sunset Overdrive and Forza Horizon 2, but of course there were also highly anticipated games that gave gamers like myself issues.
I already wrote about the issues with Driveclub on the PlayStation 4, how the game was crippled at launch because of the heavy social aspect, and how it eventually led up to Sony putting the PS Plus edition, a game that was promised at the PS4 launch, on hold. Since then the PS Plus version is still on hold.
But recently, we’ve had two other huge releases that featured issues online. The first was Halo: The Master Chief Collection, a game that is suffering from online connection issues. I admit I never played the game online, as I only played the campaign modes. But I have friends who couldn’t get online to play, and there were some who actually returned the game because of it. I am unable to return the game since I ordered it digitally, but I can understand why people would be upset over what happened.
The other game was Assassin’s Creed Unity. At its launch Unity suffered from some crippling bugs, including frame rate issues, and some missing textures that resulted in some rather scary character images. Again, I didn’t have many of these issues, specifically the latter, but I admit I haven’t played too much of Unity as my Gamefly copy only arrived recently, but I can confirm the frame rate issues.
Both developers are taking responsibility for their actions. 343 Studios is constantly patching Halo MCC in order for the game to function properly online. As for Unity, Ubisoft is taking it one step further. They fully acknowledge the disaster that befell them and are offering compensation. Those who bought the game and its Season Pass (which is now discontinued) will get an upcoming Ubisoft game for free. Reports are that Far Cry 4 will be one of the games available. As for those who didn’t get the Season Pass, they will receive the Dead Kings DLC. It is nice to see Ubisoft man up and offer compensation for their mistakes, and I am sure 343 will do the same thing should the MCC online issues continue, but I fear that this might become the norm and we should be used to it.
In fact, regarding the issues of Driveclub, SCEA President Shawn Layden said that effectively testing a massive online game such as Driveclub cannot be possibly done. I can kinda see that, but still, they need to be aware of potential issues such as this. One idea that seems to work quite well, and I wish that MCC did this, is offer open betas. Destiny did it, Evolve did an Alpha (and will later offer an Xbox One exclusive beta,) and they have both helped to project if it will work or not. Hopefully that will solve these issues, because if not we will have to be nothing more than paying beta testers.
Again, 2015, and this industry, scares me…I’m not thankful for that!
Currently Playing: Assassin’s Creed Unity (Xbox One,) Far Cry 4 (Xbox One,) GTA V (Xbox One) Waiting For: Halo MCC to be playable online