I sometimes wonder at whether reviewers get copies of games that are a little different than what ends up in the stores. That or they have funny ideas about how to address some technical issues.
My little story:
Dragon Age: Origins. Many are claiming it to be the RPG of the decade. A true masterpiece some say. Whatever the case, this game has enjoyed some high critical praise. Storytelling and setting aside, there have been hardly any negative criticisms regarding poor performance. In fact, as far as technical issues go, reviewers have only concerned themselves with the topic of what system the game looks best on. Good news, right?
Imagine my surprise to find that the PC edition of game has technical problems that prevent the game from running reliably, and to learn that I was far from the only one having this problem. To clarify what the problem is, the game is guaranteed to crash, whether it is a simple CTD or the nastier Blue Screen. For me it happens every 15-20 minutes, sometimes it is even more frequent. There is no official word (as far as I know) from Bioware as to the possible cause of this. I feel it may be due to the game maxing CPU usage and leaving an incredibly high memory footprint, or perhaps to some nasty memory leak caused by some operation within the game. Needless to say, this has rendered the game unplayable for me. I am not the only one in this. The technical section of the Dragon Age community boards has many posts discussing this very same issue. I will note, however, that frequency that the game crashes does vary. For some, it?s every hour or so, or more. I just happen to sit at the low end of the spectrum.
Considering the many critical reviews of this game, it's surprising to find that none of the PC reviewers had this, what seems to be, somewhat common problem. Or if they did, they chose to exclude it from their reviews. You would think that they could squeeze that little tidbit in between their glorious praises of the game.
This whole ordeal makes me a sad panda =(
What are your thoughts? If it is a common problem, why did we see nothing of it in reviews?
It would be nice if some reviewers would give post release status updates on games with, or without, technical issues. Especially since the games have have hit the streets, and all manner of technical problems have begun to surface
My little story:
Dragon Age: Origins. Many are claiming it to be the RPG of the decade. A true masterpiece some say. Whatever the case, this game has enjoyed some high critical praise. Storytelling and setting aside, there have been hardly any negative criticisms regarding poor performance. In fact, as far as technical issues go, reviewers have only concerned themselves with the topic of what system the game looks best on. Good news, right?
Imagine my surprise to find that the PC edition of game has technical problems that prevent the game from running reliably, and to learn that I was far from the only one having this problem. To clarify what the problem is, the game is guaranteed to crash, whether it is a simple CTD or the nastier Blue Screen. For me it happens every 15-20 minutes, sometimes it is even more frequent. There is no official word (as far as I know) from Bioware as to the possible cause of this. I feel it may be due to the game maxing CPU usage and leaving an incredibly high memory footprint, or perhaps to some nasty memory leak caused by some operation within the game. Needless to say, this has rendered the game unplayable for me. I am not the only one in this. The technical section of the Dragon Age community boards has many posts discussing this very same issue. I will note, however, that frequency that the game crashes does vary. For some, it?s every hour or so, or more. I just happen to sit at the low end of the spectrum.
Considering the many critical reviews of this game, it's surprising to find that none of the PC reviewers had this, what seems to be, somewhat common problem. Or if they did, they chose to exclude it from their reviews. You would think that they could squeeze that little tidbit in between their glorious praises of the game.
This whole ordeal makes me a sad panda =(
What are your thoughts? If it is a common problem, why did we see nothing of it in reviews?
It would be nice if some reviewers would give post release status updates on games with, or without, technical issues. Especially since the games have have hit the streets, and all manner of technical problems have begun to surface
