So, most of the season’s biggest games have landed on our hard drives by now, which means two things will follow in their wake:
1) A torrent of finely-detailed complaints about this, that and the other feature. With maybe the occasional compliment thrown in for good measure.
2) Patches!
There tends to be this weird two-sided coin for PC versions of big games – on the hand they often don’t receive quite as much spit’n'polish as the console versions, which is at least partly because there’s no Microsoft or Sony certification hoops to jump through. On the other, that lack of certification means fixing up minor holes can happen a lot more quickly. Case in point – in the last couple of days, two very recent biggies have already seen their first patches: Fallout 3 and Far Cry 2.
Let’s start with the former, because the details are dulldulldull:
Fixed occasional crashes when exiting the game or using Alt F4 to exit.
Fixed crashes when using Alt-Tab while binks or credits were playing.
The game now restarts properly after title updates finish installing.
Which is important stuff even if it’s not fun to talk about, and hopefully suggests Bethesda should be pretty on the ball about sorting out further bugs. Have you lot any particular requests? Oh – you can grab the 6.59Mb patch from here .
FC2’s sounds a bit more significant, sorting out a whole bunch of stuff in both single and multiplayer, as well as adding 5.1 sound support and a benchmark mode. There’s also a list of other issues currently being nosed at here. Full patch notes below, and again, what bugs/failings d’you reckon especially needs a fix sharpish?
Multiplayer
- Server’s IP address now displays in lobby, beside the match’s name (for direct IP join to work)
- Dedicated Server can now be launched in command line.
- Improved match start conditions. Ranked games can now also start if the player max is attained and everybody but the host is ready.
- Fixed a bug causing random crashes when joining a game.
- Ranked matches in progress will no longer display in the match list.
- Fixed players with same name by using identifiers instead of names.
- Fixed crash when creating a LAN game without a network cable.
- The diamond pool is now always validated after class upgrades, reset or rank up to avoid getting more diamonds than you are supposed to for your rank.
- When creating a dedicated server with PunkBuster enabled, then close it to create another but this time with PunkBuster disabled, PunkBuster will still be considered ON, on this new server.
- Fixed a problem where a player could get stuck (and couldn’t get killed) after pressing the interaction key while wounded and getting rescued by a teammate at the same time.
- Fixed players getting disconnected if they have too many user maps and try to enter the map rotation menu in a Player or Ranked match.
- Vehicles will now always respawn even if they are never used.
- Fixed users not being able to see a match if the host switched match mode after a rank.
- Fixed a glitch that could make a player invisible to another.
- Fixed incorrect check for negative values when adjusting diamond count.
- Fixed a problem where a player would render through objects if healing a wounded playing while being wounded at the same time.
- Fixed reload not being interrupted on the host when a client picks a weapon while reloading.
- Fixed Field Manuals not unlocking after game mode change.Singleplayer
- Fixed health not changing with the difficulty level.
- Keyboard controls remapping in single mode now carry into multiplayer mode.
-A buddy will no longer get stuck when healing him while player is receiving damage.
- Stats of favourite weapon are now properly reset between loaded save games.
- The mortar will no longer move the player through wall.
- Mission objectives markers are now show properly after loading a save game.General
- Fixed glider key remapping.
- Game will now minimize in order to show the website when clicking on ubi.com.
- Dolby 5.1 is now supported for most sound cards.
- Fixed a random crash that could happen when pressing ESC to cancel a Benchmark run.
- Added CPU Intensive benchmark test run.
- Fixed Jackal Tapes and Partner Tapes pages.Map editor
- Fixed crash in editor when deleting many objects in very rapid succession.
- Fixed crash in editor during parsing of the map headers.
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My main implementational issue with Far Cry 2 is the respawn/reset time of mobs.
My overall higher level issue with Far Cry 2 is that I’m constantly reminded I’m playing a game and not a character in a form of believable virtual world, partly by the aforementioned respawn times, but mostly the fact that generally all I can do to interact with most characters is shoot them combined with the very much mission based nature of the game. Still, I liked the way it ended.
Fallout 3, I haven’t come to a conclusive judgement yet, buts its generally positive.
My only Far Cry 2 problem is that Multiplayer doesn’t work at all. Whenever I try to join a server it just tells me I can’t connect. Pretty damn annoying.
That’s a very small patch for Fallout 3 considering you have to wait 20 minutes to update then finding out the program does not respond.
I love Fallout 3 but am constantly cursing myself for having put points in fast-learning before I realised it was capped at 20, now that’s several valuable other perks I could have got wasted.
Ironsights needed. Here’s why: it’s how guns are meant to be aimed. It breaks immersion to see a character mysteriously zoom in and use a hovering indicator to aim. I understand this is not COD4 etc, and this is their first “shooter” (ok shooter-rpg hybrid), but please at least give us the option. Contrary to popular fears, ironsights do not increase or decrease accuracy on their own. It just looks different. Also, now that I have 100 Small Guns skill, I would like my sniper rifle’s range to be more, sniper-rifle-ish. It also should be much more accurate at range now. I am a die-hard Fallout fan and I still play 1 & 2, but I really prefer that the animation was not a mystical floating thing and was instead a more immersive aiming experience. At least as an option. And another thing- what’s up with the general lack of console commands compared to Oblivion?
I have waited 11 years to play this universe in 3d and personally I always looked forward to playing it in realtime as a shooter esp with the energy weapons. BTW I’m 25 now. Anyways this game is almost perfect but the community needs mod tools ASAP if Bethesda isn’t interested in iron-sights. Also, the animations of their games have always seemed stiff to me, like every character is secretly played by John McCain. My friends, please lets mod this in one way or another. And I’d like some kind of answer from Bethesda about the stiffness of their animation system(s).
BTW I think all games that are classified FPS definitely have no excuse for not using iron sights, such as HL2 & Ep’s. HEV Suit or not, Gordon needs to use either iron sights, a scope, or a laser to aim. Not Vault-Tec Magical Crosshair-Thingy.
So there. Also, may I be the first to say that I look forward to my country regaining its esteem over the coming years now that our president will be both literate and (apparently) moral. I must remain skeptical on that last point as politicians tend to dissapoint in this regard.
Most Respectfully Yours,
Jackson A. Rochester Mathison Bartholemeu Jameson III, of Los Angeles
I played Far Cry 2 through over the course of a few days, skipping most of the repetitive side-quests (except the weapon dealer missions), and found it to be certainly very pretty. But I did bore of it quickly.
Guard-post respawn times seemed ridiculously fast, and having to stop the car, get out, and attack any other vehicle on the road got a bit tedious.
Fallout 3, on the other hand, has had me engrossed since the day of its release.
Most of the complaints about it seem to be from a relatively small handful of people experiencing crashes due to various specific hardware configurations, but my own experience with it has been more or less entirely crash-free, stable, responsive, and without any stability issues whatsoever.
I do find the occasional bug (like the disappearing robots in Big Town). I also wish we could drop more music into the GNR playlist, or make our own custom radio station blended with the appropriate scripted DJ commentary that follows your exploits in the Capital Wasteland. The 15 or so songs they licensed loop so often they quickly start to feel like 4 or 5.
For the most part, I have found it to be the most enjoyable game released in a very long time, and if Bethsoft can be persuaded to release even the most rudimentary Construction Set, a galaxy of tweaks to satisfy everyone’s desires will certainly be forthcoming.
In summary, I found FC2 to be pretty but repetitive, and FO3 to be surprisingly jam-packed with content and replayability.
Wastelanders ftw!
Brotherhood of Steel Paladin: “You should talk to Paladin (so-and-so). He can talk a dog off a meat truck.”