Give examples of PC games that were in great shape on release.

[aran]

It seems like we routinely hear about PC games being in beta-like shape (or worse) upon release. Can you name a few games that weren't? I can't think of one off the top of my head.

[Honolulu_Blue]

I've always thought Blizzard's games were always in great shape on release. Diablo, Starcraft, Warcrafts, etc.

[spleen1015]

The Sims 3 and Spore were is good shape.

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

Maximum Football.

[Antmeister]

Yep any game released by Blizzard, any game released by Bethesda Softworks, a slew of adventure games, and a number of indie roleplaying games. Actually there are too many to list that meet the criteria of not being released in beta-test shape.

[dawgfan]

I thought Half Life 2 and the Orange Box were in excellent shape on release...

[DaddyTorgo]

there were a few things broken in Sims 3 on release - ageing and story progression type stuff i thought?

Football Manager comes to mind.
For all the crap they get for other games, EA's FIFA games are always great at release - the patches are always 98% transfer update and 2% graphics.

[wahoomac]

Sid Meier's Civilization games were very good when released.

[sterlingice]

I've always thought Blizzard's games were always in great shape on release. Diablo, Starcraft, Warcrafts, etc.

They're usually good in that they're not crashing every 5 minutes and all, which unfortunately passes for a "good job" these days. However, Blizz does love to toss out quite a few (~10sih) re-balancing patches in the first year or two of a game's existence.

SI

[JPhillips]

What is the definition of "great shape"? Do you mean a game that has an enjoyable experience or a game that doesn't require patching? Civ4 is a good example of a game that provided a great experience out of the box, but also needed several patches to address balance and small feature additions.

[Sun Tzu]

The Oregon Trail.

[Calis]

Yeah I think people are classifying stable as a good release. Blizzard has its fair share of balancing issues out the gate. World of Warcraft was a typical MMO in level of hideousness at release. That was an absolute mess the first month.

As said Adventure games are usually solid because of being linear for the most part, they know what to expect.
Honestly it is hard to name because the horrible ones stick with us. Even solid games have a bug or two sneak through that you hear repeated over and over.

For a small operation I've always found the Spiderweb Software RPGs to be extremely solid right out of the gate.

[Honolulu_Blue]

They're usually good in that they're not crashing every 5 minutes and all, which unfortunately passes for a "good job" these days. However, Blizz does love to toss out quite a few (~10sih) re-balancing patches in the first year or two of a game's existence.

SI

I never played "World of Warcraft", so I can't comment on that, but I don't recall ever downloading or installing 10ish patches for either Starcraft or either Diablo game. Maybe I did, it was a very long time ago.

[billethius]

What is the definition of "great shape"? Do you mean a game that has an enjoyable experience or a game that doesn't require patching? Civ4 is a good example of a game that provided a great experience out of the box, but also needed several patches to address balance and small feature additions.

Civ IV was also broken on machines with certain (or maybe all) ATI graphics cards at launch.

[-apoc-]

Galactic Civilizations, Civ 4, Orange box

I classifying good shape as being stable (on the majority of machines) and no glaring balance issues that would have been caught by chimpanzee playtesters if the company had bothered to employ any. There are always going to be some balance and compatability issues.

[AgustusM]

XOR NFL Challenge

[JeffNights]

They're usually good in that they're not crashing every 5 minutes and all, which unfortunately passes for a "good job" these days. However, Blizz does love to toss out quite a few (~10sih) re-balancing patches in the first year or two of a game's existence.

SI


They are patches, and they should be commended for this, a mmo is a "living" thing, players will adapt and changes should be made for better balance issues, also these "patches" also add new content such as raids, new dungeons, etc, etc

kudos to Blizz.

[Travis]

I've been pretty happy with almost any Bioware game I've ever bought. Granted, I haven't tried any of their games in the last couple years, but prior to that I was always pretty happy with my purchases from them.

[Swaggs]

FPS Football '99

[Dr. Sak]

Tecmo Super Bowl

[aran]

Maybe I should've been more specific. I'm talking about games that have larger budgets in the mainstream and that require sizable publishing and marketing efforts.

Bethesda and Blizzard are good examples of companies that release games in good, playable shape.

[DanGarion]

Valve's original Half-life release.

[RomaGoth]

Galactic Civilizations, Civ 4, Orange box

I classifying good shape as being stable (on the majority of machines) and no glaring balance issues that would have been caught by chimpanzee playtesters if the company had bothered to employ any. There are always going to be some balance and compatability issues.

Again, with the hate towards monkeys. Why do we assume that chimps/monkeys can't appreciate a well released game?

[Sun Tzu]

Festers Quest.

[Neon_Chaos]

Nearly all the Sierra and LucasArts adventure games.

[sterlingice]

I never played "World of Warcraft", so I can't comment on that, but I don't recall ever downloading or installing 10ish patches for either Starcraft or either Diablo game. Maybe I did, it was a very long time ago.

They are patches, and they should be commended for this, a mmo is a "living" thing, players will adapt and changes should be made for better balance issues, also these "patches" also add new content such as raids, new dungeons, etc, etc

kudos to Blizz.

Don't get me wrong- I love Blizzard. Heck, I love that they fix issues rather than letting them fester. And they do put out fairly polished games. But everyone has selective memory about how polished they are. I haven't played WoW either- this isn't about WoW.

StarCraft version history - StarCraft Wiki - StarCraft and StarCraft II units, races, features and news (http://starcraft.wikia.com/wiki/StarCraft_version_history)
Starcraft is at 1.16- so that's 16 major patches and there were even some sub-patches. The original was kindof flaky until 1.03 and Brood War needed the serious re-balance that it was given in 1.06, I believe- there was one big re-balance patch and one stability patch that made things much better.

http://diablo.wikia.com/wiki/Diablo_II_version_history
I remember when Diablo 2 came out- a ton of people were talking about how unpolished and unfinished it was compared to Diablo and even Starcraft. It's up to 1.12.

So, yeah, they do a pretty good job about putting out finished products. But they are far from perfect.

SI

[Tasan]

FPS Football '99

Great, now I gotta clean soda out of my keyboard. Way to make me spit laugh.

[JediKooter]

Pong and Micro League Baseball.

[Toddzilla]

Maximum Football.Nice...only 3 posts until this thread was Winter'd

Winter's Law
As a message board discussion over software - particularly sports simulations - grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Maximum Football or Daivd Winter approaches 1
Person One: "I bought this new game last night and it really stinks"
Person Two: "What's wrong with it?"
Person One: "It's full of bugs! It should have never been released!"
Person Three: "Sounds like Maximum Football"
Person Two: "Aha! Winter's Law!"

[aran]

The "Winter's Law" Law

when discussing a topic that invokes Winter's law, someone inevitably brings up how Winter's law comes up each time this happens.

[stevew]

Duke Nukem Forever

[EagleFan]

Starflight

Earl Weaver Baseball

[Marc Vaughan]

To be honest there have been VERY few PC titles I've purchased which have 'required' a patch to be playable and fun, some have had one to enhance bits and pieces - but very few have required one imho.

[Big Fo]

OOTP 10 worked well for me on release day, that's the last one I can think of but I don't buy many PC games that close to release, maybe a couple per year.

Hell I didn't have much fun with Civ IV and EU3 until their second expansion packs.

[TimGuru]

I agree with Big Fo about both C-IV and EU3. They were playable without anything other than the retail box, but I never had the slightest bit of fun with either until the expansions.

[kcchief19]

Serious answer ... almost every game released before 1998. The introduction of online patches has been horrible for the release of tight games out of the box.

I'll grant you that games are more complex these days but I've been playing computer games since the early '80s and until FPS Football Pro '99, I never had the need for a patch.

[Abe Sargent]

Startopia
RollerCoaster Tycoon 1 & 2
Railroad Tycoon 3
Tropico 1 & 2
Sid' Meier's Pirates (the most recent iteration)
Evil Genius

And those are just the ones I can think of off the top of my head.

[Toddzilla]

Winter's Law (http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Winter%27s%20Law)

[Qwikshot]

I remember many years ago, I bought a war game called Empire, at least that's what I believe it was. Recall this was during the age of floppy disk which had just gone to those square diskettes. My Dad bought me the game at my coaxing, took it home, to the IBM clone and it wouldn't download from the disk, exchanged it the following weekend (45 minute drive to the mall) and it did the same, then the guy behind the counter says you had to write to them to get the disk to fix it...I thought better and exchanged it for a different game. This must have been the early 90's, late 80's.

Just saying that even then there were issues with some games.

[spleen1015]

I think Master of Orion 2 was a pretty good game from go.

I forgot about Roller Coaster Tycoon. Man, I loved that game.

[AgustusM]

Serious answer ... almost every game released before 1998. The introduction of online patches has been horrible for the release of tight games out of the box.

I'll grant you that games are more complex these days but I've been playing computer games since the early '80s and until FPS Football Pro '99, I never had the need for a patch.

Front Page 98 was a great game, but it had 8 patches.

[tucker rocky]

From wiki:

Front Page Sports Football Pro '98
The sixth version of the game also showed many of the same issues as the '97 version that seemed to indicate a rushed release or poor quality control. Several of the new issues in the '98 version included a mix-up in the second-half kickoff if the coin-toss winner chose to kick, the game crashed when switching to certain camera angles, and some of the stadiums had erroneous features like the wrong type of turf. Three major patches were released during the first month of the game and Sierra Entertainment failed to include a player ratings editor with the initial release.

The '98 version did have a completely revamped user interface that was a significant improvement over prior years. Actual NFL player photos were introduced in the '98 version. In addition, arcade play was now available to play via multiplayer over the Internet. Audio play-by-play was also added, however it was quite lackluster. Non-NFL stadiums and cities were now available as well and a more precise weather system was also included in the new release. Teams could also create and customize their own schedules. The '98 version also had significant improvements in Internet multiplayer play in regards to stability and match making.

Despite these additions, the Madden NFL franchise had evolved quite a bit and the actual arcade / game play aspects of the Front Page Sports series had failed to adapt or upgrade these aspects of their game. In addition the Madden NFL franchise mode had also evolved, and while it still didn't compete with the Front Page Sports simulation engine as far as statistics, Madden NFL for many had become a superior overall game primarily due to the game play aspects of its franchise. The Front Page Sports series in fact were still using primarily the same graphics and player animations as it had over the past two releases.


[edit] Sierra Sports NFL Football Pro '99
The seventh and final version of the Front Page Sports Football franchise was rebranded and rebuilt to compete with the likes of the Madden NFL series that had won over so many football fans.

The graphics were completely re-tooled and supported the now-standard 3D look of most other computer games. A stadium announcer was added and the game's interface had a new updated look. The game play had been much improved, especially the control of the on-field action. In the past, the control had issues with responsiveness to the point that many had opted to simply call plays and allowed the computer to control the action on the field. Despite the efforts of Sierra Entertainment to improve upon these many areas, the graphics and audio aspects of the game were inferior to the Madden NFL franchise.

To further compound the problems, NFL Football Pro '99 was rushed to release to meet the 1998 holiday rush in a completely unplayable state. Sierra briefly considered patching the game but then decided to abandon the series entirely in January 1999. A recall notice was issued for the game by Sierra Entertainment on January 21, 1999, and the game was pulled from the shelves. Lingering attachment to the series caused a few hard-core fans to attempt to fix the game on their own, but many turned their attention back to the 95 or 96 games (both of which are still played in online leagues today.)

These 2 releases were the downfall of a promising series.

I'm actually looking at the CD right now, I doubt if it's even compatable with my PC.

[gstelmack]

I remember many years ago, I bought a war game called Empire, at least that's what I believe it was. Recall this was during the age of floppy disk which had just gone to those square diskettes. My Dad bought me the game at my coaxing, took it home, to the IBM clone and it wouldn't download from the disk, exchanged it the following weekend (45 minute drive to the mall) and it did the same, then the guy behind the counter says you had to write to them to get the disk to fix it...I thought better and exchanged it for a different game. This must have been the early 90's, late 80's.

Just saying that even then there were issues with some games.

I had a Gary Grigsby wargame for my Amiga (one of his Pacific war tactical games) that I had to send in for a patch disk because the game was so broken.

It's a combination of increasing game complexity and hardware complexity that has caused the decline in "quality" (I put "quality" in quotes because a lot of the supposed game bugs are actually issues with user's systems, not with the game. Not all, not even a majority necessarily, but a lot).

Let's also not forget that a lot of SNES games had bugs that they were smart enough to cover for as "cheats". Strategy guides were practically invented to make money off the bugs in the games that could be used as cheats. Anyone else remember playing Double Dragon and getting guys pinned just off screen so you could beat on them with impunity? A game ships with an issue like that today and they get raked over the coals for it. Back then it was a cool cheat!

[Young Drachma]

SimCity 4

[Sgran]

EA's FIFA games are always great at release - the patches are always 98% transfer update and 2% graphics.

I sure hope you're not counting FIFA Manager in that lot. The 2009 version is hands down the buggiest game I've ever paid money for.

[saldana]

wow...i will preface my comment by saying that i have always been a huge blizzard fan, back to the days of Warcraft: Orcs and Humans, and am currently a certifiable WoW addict.

that said, diablo 2 was a train wreck the day it came out. i preorderd the collectors edition and made sure i had the day off when it was coming out...i was at the mall when it opened at 10 am and home within half an hour...after the extremely lengthy installation, the first thing that happened was a crash to the desktop, had to reboot my machine, and couldnt get the game to launch from the shortcut. the only way to get the game to start without crashing was by taking the disc out and spinning it up again...once i finally got the game to start, the very first thing that happened was a patch download from battle.net.....they had already written the 1.01 patch between the time the discs were written and boxed and the time they hit the store shelves!

that said, i promptly played without stopping except to sleep for the next 2 days.

[Senator]

M.U.L.E.

[NewIdentity]

Space Rangers 2

Then again, I never got a chance to play the original russian version.

[Radii]

Dark Age of Camelot and Lord of the Rings Online both get a huge amount of credit IMO for having very solid MMO releases.

[fantom1979]

Minesweeper

[fantom1979]

dola,

I am not sure how high the bar is here. I played World of Warcraft on day 1 and it seemed pretty bug free and enjoyable game wise. Its only problem was a lack of servers to start off. This was before queues as well, so you just got horrible lag during peak times.

[sachmo71]

Jumpman