Darwinia: Evolve your own damn pathing!

[Samwise]

My first review.  Yay!

[Evangolis]

I'm too tired to be clever, so I'll try plain.  If the game needs a patch to complete it's main gameplay path, I don't really care how nifty the rest of it is.

[Samwise]

On the plus side, they recently dropped the retail price by about 50%.  By the time it's patched into stability it'll probably be reasonably priced to boot.   

[Prospero]

One must wonder: where the hell have all the British QA people gone? One assumes that at some point there were people in charge of things like testing and such. I swear every fucking piece of British software I've been near is nigh unto unusable because of stupid bugs that my grandma could have caught. Did the IRA blow up a British QA conference in attempt to destroy the country's technological growth? If so, it seems to have worked.

[Simond]

One must wonder: where the hell have all the British QA people gone? One assumes that at some point there were people in charge of things like testing and such.

FWIW, Introversion Software is only three people, literally run out of their collective bedrooms.

[Yoru]

One must wonder: where the hell have all the British QA people gone? One assumes that at some point there were people in charge of things like testing and such.

FWIW, Introversion Software is only three people, literally run out of their collective bedrooms.

It's more of an indictment of the value of internet-based testing as a replacement for a real QA lab than a black mark on Introversion's reputation. I still think they're one of the best small indie shops out there, but they need to budget for some heavy-duty QA next time. They had several phases of alpha and beta testing with a number of folks (presumably) on varying platforms, which really should've caught some of the bigger bugs I've heard of; problem being, just like a MMO beta, I'm guessing only a small percentage of the testers actually submitted valuable feedback while the majority were there for a free, early taste of the game.

That said, I bought and finished the game myself a while ago; I thoroughly enjoyed it, but it was too short to warrant the $40 (USD) pricetag for most folks. I didn't really mind shelling out the extra $20 or so since purchasing a decent game straight from a small indie shop gave me a warm, fuzzy "stick it to The Man" feeling. The only bug I, personally, encountered was on the Pattern Buffer level, where clashes between enormous masses of stuff eventually caused their sound routines to crash the program.

[Samwise]

I actually dodged the Pattern Buffer bug by shamelessly dropping battle cannons in front of the bad guy spawn points.     There won't be any big battles slowing down the game if the enemy is automatically annihilated the instant he spawns in.  Before I figured that out, the game would grind to a halt for a few seconds every time there was another incursion as my hundreds of moronic Darwinians ran around throwing grenades at each other in a panic.

[Alkiera]

the game would grind to a halt for a few seconds every time there was another incursion as my hundreds of moronic Darwinians ran around throwing grenades at each other in a panic.

Hrm.  I'm begining to think maybe we should issue grenades to the general public, hopefully they will similarly annihilate each other.

8)

Alkiera

[Prospero]

FWIW, Introversion Software is only three people, literally run out of their collective bedrooms.

FWIW, they were charging ~$40 dollars for the game. I don't care if the game was made by a parapalegic
monkey in a basement; you charge professional game prices, you'd best provide professional game quality.

I think it is rad that they are living the dream of the independant game developer, and I respect that they are trying to put out innovative games. But ya gotta have da quality. My rabidness comes from the fact I'm a QA monkey for a living. I know it is a hard, craptastic job. It's no excuse for putting out a buggy game though. At the very least a patch should have come out by now.

[Yoru]

I actually dodged the Pattern Buffer bug by shamelessly dropping battle cannons in front of the bad guy spawn points. There won't be any big battles slowing down the game if the enemy is automatically annihilated the instant he spawns in.

 Ah, I just herded all of my dudes into corners near the target zones, annihilated everything but the dynamically-spawning enemies, then bum-rushed them and held 'em with squad backup. I never really used the battle cannons much; I relied heavily on sneaking an engineer to the nearest spawn-providing building and taking it, then dumping out squads as necessary to cleanse the area. Repeat.

The only levels I really used the little green dudes in were the one were the incubator level (the one where you have to hold spawn points instead of converting dead enemies) and the last level. And on the latter one, I only used the green dudes for the final island (the one diametrically opposed to where you enter).

FWIW, they were charging ~$40 dollars for the game. I don't care if the game was made by a parapalegic monkey in a basement; you charge professional game prices, you'd best provide professional game quality.

Go tell that to Activision and LucasArts.

[Prospero]

FWIW, they were charging ~$40 dollars for the game. I don't care if the game was made by a parapalegic monkey in a basement; you charge professional game prices, you'd best provide professional game quality.

Go tell that to Activision and LucasArts.

Activision last I checked is just a publisher. While I have no doubt they were partially responsible for the unwholesome molestation of 'Vampire:The Masquerade', I still put most of the blame fully on the shoulders of Troika. LucasArts on the other hand has actually provided remarkably solid games. Of course they killed my childhood when they announced they were killing both the Full Throttle and Sam & Max sequels. Burn on a pile of angsty Anakin Skywalker figurines you bastards.

[HaemishM]

Activision shares more of the blame for Vampire: Bloodlines than Troika, IMO.

Sure, it was Troika's sloppy-ass programming that caused the bugs. But as the publisher, the money men, Activision has the final call on whether or not the gold candidate gets sent to the press or sent back with a "Fix it, you Slavic pigfuckers, or your next milestone check ain't coming." It isn't like the bugs in that game were well-hidden, obscure bugs. The main problems were all really obvious to any idiot that cranked it up. They could not have missed them, at all. Which means Activision got the gold, made sure it ran (like maggot-infested monkey shit), and sent it on its way. Either the QA department at Activision didn't do enough work or some fucker didn't listen to them.

Troika ain't blameless, but they ain't the final call either.

[Yoru]

LucasArts on the other hand has actually provided remarkably solid games. Of course they killed my childhood when they announced they were killing both the Full Throttle and Sam & Max sequels. Burn on a pile of angsty Anakin Skywalker figurines you bastards.

Yes, but aside from that, they also published KOTOR2. From what I've heard, modders have discovered a large amount of game content not linked into the final storyline - levels and such that would provide an estimated extra 25% of gameplay. It's believed that this comprises the intended ending sequence to the game, as opposed to the rushed abortion reputedly provided.

As a disclaimer, that's all hearsay; I've been holding off buying KOTOR2 until a patch is provided that makes it less of a buggy pile of camel turds steaming under the hot desert sun. However, a little dinking with Google (e.g. a search for 'KOTOR2 modder ending') brings up some threads on the official boards containing 'cut' material. Granted, they're threads on an official board, so the level of asstardery is pretty high. Caveat observator.

[Prospero]

Ouch. I had heard KoToR 2 was unpleasant, but I hadn't heard it was that bad. You've got to wonder what makes publishers move sequels to different studios. I can't think of a single time where it worked out well. Publishers must not like money.

[HaemishM]

Publishers like MORE money. By farming the sequel out, they save on paying salaries (and the taxes) for the production team, instead paying milestone checks to an independent developer. I'd imagine KOTOR 2 cost less to make than KOTOR 1.

[Prospero]

Right. Theoretically they have to sell boxes to make money though. No one I know has bought the game and most of my gamer friends bought and enjoyed the first game. I was suspicious when Bioware wasn't making it, and then the reviews confirmed my suspicions. I seriously hope that there isn't enough stupid in the world to make this fucker profitable.

[Yoru]

My guess is that they were relying on the goodwill towards KOTOR1 moving large numbers of KOTOR2 boxes, particularly for the X-box. I have no idea what they were thinking if they thought the X-box release would generate good buzz for the PC release.

As for the studio, I'm still being a total moron and holding out the faintest glimmer of hope for them. They have several old hands from Black Isle (Feargus Urquhart, for example) on board at Obsidian, so I'm hoping this was a publisher fuckup (rushing the X-box release for the X-mas 2004 season) rather than a developer fuckup. These guys are also working on NWN2, so we'll see.

[HaemishM]

I seriously hope that there isn't enough stupid in the world to make this fucker profitable.

Three words. E.T. for 2600.

[Yoru]

Three words. E.T. for 2600.

 Maybe I'm getting my history screwed up, but the urban legend goes that they had to bury thousands of unsold/returned E.T. carts in the middle of the New Mexico desert. Further, the losses incurred by the production and subsequent failure of ET indirectly contributed to the downfall of Atari during the videogame market crash of '83.

[MaceVanHoffen]

Maybe I'm getting my history screwed up, but the urban legend goes that they had to bury thousands of unsold/returned E.T. carts in the middle of the New Mexico desert. Further, the losses incurred by the production and subsequent failure of ET indirectly contributed to the downfall of Atari during the videogame market crash of '83.

That would appear to be a true story.  I hadn't heard that before, very interesting.

[schild]

For an awesome recounting in fictional form, read Lucky Wander Boy by D.B. Weiss. Which, by the way, could be considered the pinnacle and beginning of New Games Journalism. If you're so hateful as so believe in such a thing.

[HaemishM]

You're probably right about E.T. not being profitable. I was stumped for something witty.

How about boy bands, Friends, Titanic, and Doom 3 for profitable things people shouldn't have been stupid enough to pay for?

[Samwise]

Update: the v1.21 patch was released today, and seems to have fixed the severe crashing problems I had initially.  I still had to cheat to replay the endgame sequence, but it did complete with nary a sb.exe, and I now have access to mods and the map editor, so... um... yay.  I'd probably be more excited if I wasn't up to my eyeballs in the shiny new Doom expansion at the moment, but I can finally retract my dire warnings about the game's stability.

[Samwise]

Update: Darwinia now available on Steam for $20.  Also, they made the stupid gesture thing optional, so you can turn it off and have clicky icons instead or something like that.

[Typhon]

things people shouldn't have been stupid enough to pay for?

pet rock

[Shockeye]

things people shouldn't have been stupid enough to pay for?

pet rock

chia pets

[Signe]

Pets.  Go to the rescue agencies and save a life! 

[schild]

Pets.  Go to the rescue agencies and save a life!

I guess I represent evil here. Some people don't like damaged goods. Which is 99% of what you find at a shelter. I've had many friends get a pet at them and have them be just shy of BROKEN. I had better luck adopting a cat off a street.