Today was an interesting day for getting a keen look at what happens when games come to the public in less than perfect shape. For starters, Atari and developer Eden took the middling reception of Alone in the Dark to heart. They’re showing off the Playstation 3 version of the game in Leipzig at the moment featuring in-progress fixes to the game’s unmanageable, glitchy camera as well as the iffy driving and inventory control in the game. They will also be releasing these fixes as a patch for the Xbox 360 edition of the game. Of course, Eden didn’t have to do this. They could have just gone the EA route, and (hilariously) said that those aren’t glitches! That’s just the way the game’s meant to be played.
Chances are though, EA will go ahead and patch Tiger Woods ’09 regardless of the funny marketing. This is the way of it with games in the age of net-enabled consoles; ship the game as soon as you possibly can, fix it later if you have to. PC games have enjoyed patching for well over a decade at this point but it’s still a new phenomenon in the world of devoted gaming machines. It’s a good thing, ultimately. If NES games with crippling slow down could have been patched, they would have been. The romantic in me, though, can’t help but be sad to see console games lose their permanent state. Glitches in classic games have a rich, memorable history. Take the classic infinite 1up exploit in Super Mario Bros.
Or, my personal favorite, the Mega Man 3 “pit” glitch.
Glitches may break some games, but they also have the capacity to add an entire layer of interaction with a game that the designer never even intended. The fact that games are now fluid objects and can be changed limits, to a small degree, how we can interact and explore within their boundaries. Not to mention how fixing glitches alters speedrunning. Patches are great, but game developers would do well to remember that not everything broken needs to be fixed.
Our thanks to Joystiq, Eurogamer, and YouTuber pabrtrky.
Related links:
Screen Test: Alone in the Dark
Follow Up: Mega Man 9 and Design Resurrection Part 2
We Are Watching Many, Many Speedruns. Join Us in Some Castlevania!
Free Running: How Speedruns and TAS Make New Games