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299 Comments
- amanilaenvelope, on 03/22/2008, -9/+141the bioshock thing where you can only play it on like two computers does that count?
- inactive, on 03/22/2008, -11/+107I list any and EVERY game release in Australia. The world treats us like a back water ***** island, and while it may be 90% true, I ask you ***** publishers one question...
WHY THE ***** MUST I WAIT?!?!? Global launch dates ftw!
And now the legions of arrogant, selfish americans all chanting ***** you ozzy step in and bury me because i propose and idea that might delay their release by a single day. sigh. - AManWithNoName, on 03/22/2008, -8/+72Dugg for the steam fiasco. Even though it still annoys me that they require me to be online for it...
- Darrelc, on 03/22/2008, -0/+50I don't think Duke Nukem Forever counts. For a game to have a botched launch doesn't it actually have to be launched at some point? :]
- stavrogin2, on 03/22/2008, -1/+47You stop exporting Foster's and maybe we can make a deal.
- SuperSunny, on 03/22/2008, -1/+37They forgot Halo 2 Vista. The team disbanded shortly after release and nothing has come of improving the ***** PC game ever released.
- Hermiod, on 03/22/2008, -4/+39They don't, you only need to stay online long enough to log in and then set Steam to offline mode.
- plethorex, on 03/22/2008, -0/+34Anyone who actually played Hellgate: London during the first month of it's release knows that it should be further up the list. The game was literally unplayable, and if you did manage to get anything accomplished, you knew the server would reset and you would lose any progress made.
And now that I think about it, no mention of WoW? Please tell me no one has forgotten about the 3000 person queue's, downed servers, crashing, and general mania that occurred in the first month of the game's release. The WoW of today and the WoW of November 2004 are night and day of each other. - MedHead, on 03/22/2008, -4/+37That doesn't really change the sentiment. It's still unacceptable that one must log on to an online service to be able to play a single-player game.
- inactive, on 03/22/2008, -0/+31Looking back, the launch of Half-Life 2 wasn't too terribly bad, as far as launches go. Yeah, I remember staying up all night waiting for the damn thing to activate, but after that initial hitch, it's been pretty smooth sailing. Of course, on the other hand, you have to factor in the fact that it was Half-Life 2, and we'd been waiting for it for years, and it had been seriously delayed multiple times, and many of us were already to the point of wanting to go after Valve with a crowbar when this happened... just saying, I think part of the problem was tensions were already so high.
- mookieXL, on 03/22/2008, -4/+34Agreed. ***** Windows Live!
- inactive, on 03/22/2008, -6/+35Battlefield 2 didn't work for me
even now a lotta times it doesn't.
what a poorly optimized game
lag on a card thats 2 years newer than the game itself.... pitiful.
EA sucks - chedabob, on 03/22/2008, -0/+27Are you serious? Half Life 2 Episode One was cracked within 2 hours of it being launched. Every single game on Steam has been cracked, and the majority of them can be pulled directly off Valve's servers. Steam is a pretty good deterrent, but it's a long way from being a robust anti-piracy solution.
- carpespasm, on 03/22/2008, -4/+28Right on, I'm American (though not of the arrogant, selfish type to say ***** you ozzy) and I think there shouldn't be any reason one part of the world should get any game faster than another with how easy it is to move data and ship things today. If there's a problem with supply then they ought to push it back the week or two it takes to get it straight.
- LoveWidescreen, on 03/22/2008, -1/+25Absolutely f**king BRILLIANT article for putting "Ultima Ascension" at the top of the list! I still have the collector's edition box, and I've been considering reinstalling it on a separate PC just to see how it now behaves on a system with more horsepower than was even thought of back in 1999. I have been an Ultima fan since the days of the Commodore 64, and this was THE most pathetic way to end the most brilliant RPG series.
I had a top-of-the-line (back then) 800 MHz Athlon PC that was able to run anything that was thrown at it -- *except* Ultima Ascension, because they used software rendering instead of hardware rendering. The bugs and crashes were absolutely ridiculous. A friend of mine, who was bigger into Ultima than I was, couldn't finish the game because of one bug that crashed his system every time he swam back to the water's surface (which was required to reach one of the areas) even with the final patch.
Ultima: Ascension is the quintessential example of a game that was rushed to market. It absolutely required a Christmas 2000 release, but Electronic Arts totally ***** it up in order to release for Christmas 1999. I have never forgiven EA for the destruction that it caused of Origin, Westwood Studios, and Bullfrog -- three of the most original and innovative companies in gaming history, all of which were DESTROYED by Electronic Arts. It's wonderful to see that 1UP has acknowledged it as well.
***** you, Electronic Arts!! - CaffeinePowered, on 03/22/2008, -2/+26No Daikatana? But John Romeo said he would make me his bitch
- Norochj, on 03/22/2008, -0/+23I thought he was referring to the most recent Z.P. where Yahtzee made that same comment about Australia getting the short end of the stick when it comes to releases.
- h4mx0r, on 03/22/2008, -2/+24Agreed. I have since decided to boycott any game that uses Windows Live. Not that there are many, but there are some such as Universe At War which I originally had considered. I don't mind the "Games for Windows" label, but keep your Live ***** off my PC.
- Koush, on 03/22/2008, -17/+37..........Gears of war PC?
- fluidfoundation, on 03/22/2008, -0/+19Two words. Two Worlds.
- DJCult, on 03/22/2008, -1/+20Top 5 Botched PC *MMO* Game Launches. Battlecruiser 3000? Duke Nukem?
- inactive, on 03/22/2008, -2/+20Bioshock was probably the worst launch I've ever experienced. Everything from the invasive malware copy protection (yes, it was malware) even on the demo to the broken validation system. I'm never buying another Irrational/2k title again after that debacle.
- Ganja420, on 03/22/2008, -1/+19UT3... Tribes 2.... Everquest 2... Quake Wars Enemy Territory
- nunofgs, on 03/22/2008, -5/+21Not true. As long as you have logged in to your account once, Steam will start in offline mode if there is no internet connection.
- themastersb, on 03/22/2008, -3/+18I dont see a problem with it. I got it off a torrent and it plays fine.
- consoneo, on 03/22/2008, -0/+14I was so disappointed with Ultima IX: Ascension. I had been playing Ultima Online for quite some time prior to that game's announcement, and anticipated it with much excitement. I managed to get ahold of a beta disc of it when I ordered UO:3D (Another flop, thanks for ruining a great game EA). I played it and was horribly dissatisfied :(. I knew it was EA that screwed over Origin Systems (Creator of UO, et al. They had been purchased prior to this). Origin had been working on UO2 as well, until EA decided to screw up UO (original). Then they canceled UO2, and all of it's hopes of being one of the coolest games to the time. Their reason? They didn't want UO2 to compete with UO. Richard Garriott resigned, from the company he and his family created, in disgust. And I resigned myself from the game series he created and allowed to be mangled by a corporation full of greed. Such a disappointment. Such a loss for the gaming community who desired real open ended content and fun.
- Spetz, on 03/22/2008, -1/+15Steam was actually launched way way way prior to HL2's release. It was initially for the open beta testing of CS 1.6 which I participated in. I think this was back in '02 some time? Also, interestingly enough, it was a FUBAR at the beta 1.6 release and the final 1.6 public release as well as HL2. :)
- legoalert33, on 03/22/2008, -4/+18***** you Ozzy............. Osbourne.
- tnatharik, on 03/22/2008, -1/+14I got owned by hellgate.
- slippeh, on 03/22/2008, -1/+14Did you guys read the first paragraph?
"Installing a new PC game can be something like a blind date. Yeah, sure, it may have sounded great when your friend was saying you'd be perfect for each other, but if things start off on a bad foot -- like, say, she vomits in your car -- you may just not want to bother with the rest of the night. Plenty of atrocious PC game launches litter the past, but what we have here are our five "favorites" -- the ones that still make us shake our heads and cluck our tongues and make other such disapproving gestures with our bodies as we recount their particular horrors. And while it would be easy enough to fill this entire list at least two times over with MMOs alone, we decided not to do that, as it's just too much fish-in-the-barrel shooting even for us. So let's laugh, cry, and get annoyed all over again at five of the all-time worst PC game launches. We promise, reading this list will not automatically reformat your hard drive!"
Meaning, it isn't the TOP 5, since as they said there are too many to choose, it is just 5 they chose? Maybe I'm wrong, but that's how I interpreted it, feel me in. - sexybobo, on 03/22/2008, -1/+13I will take having to be online to play it any day over having to have the cd in the pc to play it or the games that wont let you play them because you have daemon tools installed.
Steam is a hell of a lot better than any other copy protection you will find and the ability to re download games is what hooked me. I will never have to buy another copy of a game just because i scratched the cd. - Vegabondsx, on 03/22/2008, -1/+13I thought Neverwinter Nights 2 was great...
- sexybobo, on 03/22/2008, -2/+13Should have just bought it through steam.
- opnickc, on 03/22/2008, -1/+12When the hell has that ever happened? I've heard complaints about steam before, but I've never heard of it refusing to let someone download their games.
In fact, that's the very thing I love about steam. My computer has been through countless reformats, and I can always just download steam and get all my valve games back - no looking for disks, no cd-key codes, no hassles whatsoever. In addition, I can install and use my account on multiple computers (so long as I'm not on more than one at a time). It's like having a pirated version, but even easier to get onto any computer I'm using. - inactive, on 03/22/2008, -5/+16aww, poor boy has to read!
next they'll be making you think. - chedabob, on 03/22/2008, -0/+11Yeah, I know a lot of people that couldn't activate it by the end of the first week, so they just got the crack off the internet. It's a shame when pirates get the job done faster than the people that write the software.
- cleric85, on 03/22/2008, -0/+9Stronghold 2 was bad. I can't forget the horrors I experienced with that game.
- legoalert33, on 03/22/2008, -5/+14Your internets suck.
- FucangLong, on 03/22/2008, -1/+10I remember the release of Half Life 2, it was horrible. At that time, I didn't have a 24/7 access to internet so I basically couldn't play when I wanted to. Plus, my firewall and Steam weren't the best of friends. I had bought it in store too, and only after hours of installing 5 disks, I found out that I still couldn't play until I updated and validated and yada yada yada.
- Mysk, on 03/22/2008, -0/+9Maybe, maybe not, but I see popular steam games on torrent sites all the time regardless of this "robustness". No matter the "anti-piracy" nonsense that a company tries, the game will be pirated. There is no way around that. Ever. The only thing that they will continue to do is to screw the consume who actually paid for the product.
In the end, it's the pirate who gets the smoothest gaming experience once all of the trash has been gutted and they can sit down and just play the game.
Not to knock you Feargus. Maybe it is pretty robust. I don't know. DRM chaffs my arse regardless because it's screwed ME over too many times after I've paid my money out for a product. - TheAmbushAhead, on 03/22/2008, -1/+10Mass erect? Intentional or typo?
- kraniac, on 03/22/2008, -1/+10I can't believe Unreal Tournament 3 isn't on this list. Epic made a great game with a competely half-baked interface including the worst menu design I've ever seen. Then they released patches very slowly that only added buggy support for features that should've been in the game before it made it out the door. Then they claimed that PC games were dead. Then they claimed they were just kidding.
The entire time they completely failed to advertise UT3, so nobody bought it. Now less than six months later it's hard to find more than one populated server even during prime time. They had the opportunity to become the new standard of competitive FPS, the new Quake 3, but instead they sat around picking their noses, making pretty levels with unplayable layouts, and recording dumb voiceovers for their dumb single-player storyline (which I don't even have to talk about because Penny Arcade already did a better job): http://www.penny-arcade.com/2007/12/19 - bagelmaster, on 03/22/2008, -0/+9Just the very idea of the horrible greediness that led to a game being made Vista only makes me sick to my stomach.
- Snakedal337, on 03/22/2008, -5/+13Unreal 3 on the PS3 is still buggy as *****, and hasn't seen an update.
Actually, while were on the topic, how about the PS3 as bad launch? $600, crappy networking, half the features of the 360 (Background downloading ftw..) It seems their starting to pick up the pieces and get their horses in order though. - themastersb, on 03/22/2008, -1/+9I don't see a problem with that. I got it off a torrent and it played fine.
- Dylson, on 03/22/2008, -0/+8Agreed. One of the stupidest aspects of windows live is in Halo 2 PC. You can't play with xbox players. Are you joking me? Isn't that the whole point of windows live to begin with?
- foofighter828, on 03/22/2008, -0/+8Battlecruiser 3k?
- inactive, on 03/22/2008, -18/+26***** you prick. Offer me a joke, or an answer not some smug *****.
- rhinohelix, on 03/22/2008, -0/+7I can't believe Myth II's "Uninstall? I am taking your whole OS with me!" launch bug disaster was left off this list. They had to recall all of the copies from stores, destroy them, and then restock on a whole new launch date. While Hellgate: London and Vanguard were bad, they wouldn't wipe your C: drive out of spite when you removed them.
- chris9902, on 03/22/2008, -0/+7You still had to install that spyware ***** even if you used Steam.
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