Poll: My Last Straw Regarding Rockstar/LA Noire Heating Issue: Your Opinion?

[Ian Caronia]

Yeah, so to start off, those of you who have no idea what the main topics of this thread will be regarding should go read this article:

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/forums/read/7.285099-UPDATE-Sony-and-Rockstar-Neither-L-A-Noire-Nor-Firmware-Overheating-PS3-Consoles?page=1

Now that you're all acquainted with the next big fiasco in gaming today (the previous statement was my opinion, though it may turn into fact):
What's your opinion on the matter?

Personally I got my money back for LA Noire immediately. I have an original backwards-compatible fat PS3 that I work my ass off to maintain and keep cooled (I don't have the money to buy the better fan and such, so it's double the work to make sure it stays fresh). No way in hell am I going to risk my PS3 (which had been making quite a bit of noise whenever I ran LA Noire) getting bricked because neither the developer or Sony will admit to fault. You guys can risk it all you want, but I work too damn hard to keep my consoles alive and well to be playing potentially fatal games.
_I believe Rockstar is to blame as well. I played Mortal Kombat, Yakuza 4, Blaz Blue, and even RDR on my PS3 post update and nothing happened. No odd noises. No freezing (aside from the typical Bethesda game and a bit of RDR locking up once in a while, but that's the usual). But then again, that's just me. Not to mention 360 owners allegedly had their 360's overheat from the game too.

What really bugs me is how many people seem to be defending Rockstar. I get it: "Fanboys will be Fanboys". But...really? The game makes consoles overheat, people. It does it on the 360 too, so it can't just be Sony's update no matter what you say. And yet Rockstar denies that there's a real issue here. Whether it's only happening to older model consoles or not doesn't matter. There is a serious flaw in a major release!
But whatever. It's your opinion and your console. You probably believe those console owners were bad at cleaning their equipment or didn't know how to keep it cool so it's their fault. But let me remind you that when the issue was brought up, the first thing out of Rockstar's mouth was pretty much "Sony did it!"
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/110187-New-Firmware-Reportedly-Causing-Older-PS3s-to-Overheat

While Sony is obviously money-grubbing (and I will never excuse that...the douches) I personally hated Rockstar after what they did regarding Red Dead Redemption's devs:
http://www.gameranx.com/updates/id/689/article/rockstar-laying-off-red-dead-redemption-developers/
This just takes the cake for me. Personally, I say: Forget Rockstar. I don't much care for Bioware, but at least they haven't been outed as doing that to their devs and their games don't run the risk of overheating even my original 360.

As a poster said in a reply to the first linked article:

I don't see what's so shocking. It was bound to come to this... And a whole lot worse. Sony knows R* isn't going to back down (especially after working for years on it) and R* knows Sony won't back down (especially right after the whole psn fiasco). The one thing they can count on is a legion of fanboys who will not only back down but lick their boots and buy new consoles if theirs gets fried.
I can't say I'm surprised at all. I only hope they're making a mistake of depending on the faith of fanboys too much and this turns around to royally bight them both in the ass.

 

[GonzoGamer]

What's your opinion on the matter?

Personally I got my money back for LA Noire immediately. I have an original backwards-compatible fat PS3 that I work my ass off to maintain and keep cooled (I don't have the money to buy the better fan and such, so it's double the work to make sure it stays fresh). No way in hell am I going to risk my PS3 (which had been making quite a bit of noise whenever I ran LA Noire) getting bricked because neither the developer or Sony will admit to fault.

I think you went about it the right way there. Really the only way we can curb this kind of behavior is by voting with our wallets. If enough people return their copy of LA Noir, we will start to see measures taken to remedy this latest fiasco.
Had Bethesda or Obsidian acted this way about the problems with New Vegas, my copy would?ve gone right back to the store. Unfortunately, they assured us (and got many of the ?critics? to assure us) that it would all be patched soon. In hindsight, I probably should?ve returned that game as well as it?s been over 6 months and I?m still hearing about new and old problems with it.
With both LAN & FNV we were given long lists of to-dos to get the games to function properly when the whole idea of console gaming is (or used to be) for it to be low maintenance. It?s just another example of them putting the onus on the consumer.
We have to take that onus and shove it up their anus. What we do have to take responsibility for are our spending habits: if gamers become more savvy consumers, the retailers, publishers, and platform developers will start treating us like real consumers and not groupies to be bullied when we?re not being ignored.

 

[Grey Walker]

I'll prioritize my ability to play SoTC and SH2 over L.A. Noire.

And I was really excited for L.A. Noire.

 

[MiracleOfSound]

How does LA Noire overheat the systems? It's not all that graphically intensive.

What's the story here?

 

[GiantRaven]

How does LA Noire overheat the systems? It's not all that graphically intensive.

What's the story here?

And more importantly, it is fixable? I haven't bought the game yet and this is making me worry about purchasing it.

 

[sneakypenguin]

Shouldn't the fans kick on at a certain temp... How does it overheat, unless it is slamming the cpu/gpu at 100% for extended times, which it shouldn't because its not exactly a looker.

 

[Daystar Clarion]

Seems kind of petty if I'm honest.

It's a great game and deserves to be supported. I don't see how the overheating issue could have been forseeable.

Want to take a stand? Do it against the devs who release the same shit year in and year out. Not Rockstar.

 

[Ian Caronia]

How does LA Noire overheat the systems? It's not all that graphically intensive.

What's the story here?

And more importantly, it is fixable? I haven't bought the game yet and this is making me worry about purchasing it.

I don't think it'll be fixed by the people I think should fix it. I mean, Rockstar now says that the game isn't what's causing the burn-outs. I doubt they'll make a patch or something.
_And maybe a lot of it has to do with the tech involving the facial animation. The game required a lot of hard drive space to even play to begin with.

But even then I don't know. FF13 and MGS4 AND Heavy Rain all had extremely amazing facial animation (well...not so much FF13, but it was still more graphically intensive than LA Noire).

My money really is on how the game was put together. It's a three-disc game, remember, put onto one blue-ray. No matter how you look at it, for both 360 (3disc) and PS3, that's a lost of space required for a game that's not as expansive as Red Dead Redemption or GTA4 (from my knowledge. Certainly didn't seem that way).

 

[Squeaky]

Well i wasnt that fused about the heating as i heard the game nurses you the hole way though and you cant go wrong even if you fail the interveiws etc apparently it still pushs you though the story.

But it wasnt R* that developed the game so iam not mad at R* for the problem concerning the heating however iam shocked at how they treated thier employees

While Sony is obviously money-grubbing (and I will never excuse that...the douches) I personally hated Rockstar after what they did regarding Red Dead Redemption's devs:
http://www.gameranx.com/updates/id/689/article/rockstar-laying-off-red-dead-redemption-developers/

 

[badgersprite]

Wait, how the hell does a game cause a console to overheat? I mean, wow, this sounds like the kind of thing people would joke about. "The game is so beautiful and cool that it melted my processors!"

I don't really know if I consider anyone to blame in this situation, especially since I'm as confused as anyone about what the actual cause of this is. But, I mean, game consoles don't last forever. That's just a fact. I mean, I had to replace my PS2 and my Xbox 360 (RRoD) at various points.

I'm honestly just baffled at how L.A. Noire can be doing anything to cause hardware to malfunction. I need more information, to be sure.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

I don't see how L.A. Noire is causing the systems (PS3 and 360) to overheat. If the new PS3 firmware did screw up something in the code regarding heat sensoring or fans kicking on, then a bunch of other games would be causing PS3s to overheat. I'm sure Sony's 1st-party games (like Uncharted, Killzone, etc.) push the system more than L.A. Noire because it's a mulitplatform game and it's not optimized to get EVERYTHING out of the PS3 hardware like a Uncharted is. The best explanation to me is just that a larger than average amount of PS3s decided to YLOD recently and people just so happened to be playing L.A. Noire when it happened.

 

[fenderstrat]

i think that due to the recent psn problems, there's a lot of alarmism around the ps3 now. i dont think that L.A Noire will brick my ps3 anymore than LBP, or any other game, for that matter.

 

[Ilikemilkshake]

Yup, despite all of the horror stories of games breaking systems, or games just not working at all (im thinking New Vegas but other games aswell) Ive never had any problems.. im not saying problems dont exist, maybe its just luck but ive never been affected so im not gonna be scared off from a good game just because some people are having problems

 

[DirgeNovak]

I've played for hours at a time and had no problems whatsoever. (Slim PS3 here)

 

[nicoca]

Didn't starcraft 2 have a similar sort of issue at launch. If i remember, it was something to do with a menu running at a ridiculous frame rate and causing overheating on gpu's.

I could be imagining it though.

 

[Ian Caronia]

Didn't starcraft 2 have a similar sort of issue at launch. If i remember, it was something to do with a menu running at a ridiculous frame rate and causing overheating on gpu's.

I could be imagining it though.

But was it ever fixed? Or just as if not more importantly, did the dev and/or publisher ever acknowledge it instead of blaming the first name to pop into their head?

Not being assy to you. I'm actually curious.
I was being snarky about Rockstar, though.

 

[ZeroMachine]

Didn't starcraft 2 have a similar sort of issue at launch. If i remember, it was something to do with a menu running at a ridiculous frame rate and causing overheating on gpu's.

I could be imagining it though.

But was it ever fixed? Or just as if not more importantly, did the dev and/or publisher ever acknowledge it instead of blaming the first name to pop into their head?

Not being assy to you. I'm actually curious.
I was being snarky about Rockstar, though.

They admitted fault and fixed it promptly after giving a temporary workaround.

As for you returning it, I think it's a damned shame. I have the game, it's running fine, and it was fantastic.

When the fix is made, or when you get a chance, play it.