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prfsnl_gmr wrote:As someone who bought AD&D Heroes of the Lance for the NES at launch, I wish the game had received an update to make it not so terrible.

Day one patch notes: "Yeah, we screwed up. We just patched in a different game instead."

opa wrote:

prfsnl_gmr wrote:As someone who bought AD&D Heroes of the Lance for the NES at launch, I wish the game had received an update to make it not so terrible.

Day one patch notes: "Yeah, we screwed up. We just patched in a different game instead."

Sadly, they patched in Bad Street Brawler…

prfsnl_gmr wrote:Still, it didn’t always happen, and there are plenty of old games with game-breaking bugs and a few that are literally impossible to beat (e.g., Rastan for the C64).

ZX Spectrum users could at least use POKE commands to fix some of those bugs, and magazines would sometimes publish the necessary memory locations that needed adjustment.

prfsnl_gmr wrote:

Raging Justice wrote:I'm an old timer who still remembers when every game came out on physical on release date and WORKED PERFECTLY WITHOUT NEEDING PATCHES OR UPDATES. I miss the pre-internet days of gaming.

Eh…I’m not so sure that was the case back then. Some old games were pretty broken at release and could definitely have used a post-release update. (As someone who bought AD&D Heroes of the Lance for the NES at launch, I wish the game had received an update to make it not so terrible.) Also, games were much simpler then; so, I think it was a lot easier to address potentially game-breaking bugs before release. Still, it didn’t always happen, and there are plenty of old games with game-breaking bugs and a few that are literally impossible to beat (e.g., Rastan for the C64).

Yeah, Metropolis Street Racer and WWF No Mercy are both decent examples of games that were released in pretty broken states nearly two and half decades ago.

Games did also receive 'patches'. They were just revisions in later print runs that we didn't really notice or talk about much back then.

What was broken about Metropolis Street Racer? I know it had a few design quirks that made it a little less friendly than it could have been, but I'm not aware of any outright bugs or errors.

marurun wrote:What was broken about Metropolis Street Racer? I know it had a few design quirks that made it a little less friendly than it could have been, but I'm not aware of any outright bugs or errors.

From a North American perspective or European one? The North American release was released later, was based on the final PAL revision and so was generally ok.

The PAL release had three different versions (only identifiable by the number on the underside of the disc).

'Broken' might not be quite the correct word, depending on your definition. I had the original launch version and it was certainly playable, but from what I recall, the main championship mode did not work as intended. They introduced this 'kudos' score system that was the game's core gimmick, so you were supposed to earn kudos points to unlock further chapters. However it didn't work and you could just unlock further chapters and progress through the game regardless of whether you earned enough points or not. It was also impossible (or possible to run into a bug that made it impossible) to unlock all the cars. In fact, from a quick look online, it seems it might have actually been impossible to complete the Championship mode, so I guess it might fit the definition of "broken". Also multiplayer quick races just didn't work at all.

They apologised and announced that they would work on fixing the issues and asked customers to contact them so they could send out replacement discs to those affected, once they were ready . That was version 2 and then eventually a final version 3 was released, which happened shortly before the North American release.

Here's some more info I just found:

Revisional Differences
In Europe (where it was first released), the game had three revisions. The third and final one was used for the North American release.

The first European release was recalled almost immediately by Sega Europe due to its many game-breaking bugs. The following bugs are present only in the first European release:

The player can complete Street Race challenges successfully without the required number of Kudos.
VMUs can sometimes be corrupted.
After playing for a long enough time, races in Tokyo would always be set at night, regardless of the Dreamcast's internal clock settings.
The keyboard doesn't work properly, as it is improperly mapped.
The second release, while more stable than the first, nonetheless retained several serious bugs. The following bugs are present in the first two European releases and were patched out for the final, internationally released revision:

"Quick Race" in Multiplayer mode cannot be played, as the screen simply goes blank.
Chapter 17, Challenge 8 cannot be beaten, as the race continues indefinitely.
The Alfa Romeo GTV cannot be unlocked properly, as the time limit is too low to clear.
Special Events can be completed without the required car or clock time.

https://tcrf.net/Metropolis_Street_Racer

prfsnl_gmr wrote:

Raging Justice wrote:I'm an old timer who still remembers when every game came out on physical on release date and WORKED PERFECTLY WITHOUT NEEDING PATCHES OR UPDATES. I miss the pre-internet days of gaming.

Eh…I’m not so sure that was the case back then. Some old games were pretty broken at release and could definitely have used a post-release update. (As someone who bought AD&D Heroes of the Lance for the NES at launch, I wish the game had received an update to make it not so terrible.) Also, games were much simpler then; so, I think it was a lot easier to address potentially game-breaking bugs before release. Still, it didn’t always happen, and there are plenty of old games with game-breaking bugs and a few that are literally impossible to beat (e.g., Rastan for the C64).

I always get this counter argument, yet I have purchased and played a LOT of retro games. There is NOTHING I bought at release that I couldn't finish from the 8-bit NES era all the way up to the Ps2 era. The 360/PS3 era is when all this constant patch/update stuff started becoming common when developers started having the safety net of games always being connected to the internet. Broken games used to be the exception, not the rule. Nintendo doesn't seem to have any trouble putting out 1st party games that work ON RELEASE DATE.

Also, most games today are not much more complex then what we were playing in the PS2 era. Most open world games aren't much more complicated than GTA III or Vice were. Assassins Creed games are still using platform mechanics from Prince of Persia: Sands of Time. Shooters haven't evolved much from Halo. JRPGs haven't evolved at all, they're arguably regressing as they become and more action oriented. The Mass Effect games were just Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic with space soldiers instead of jedis. From Software titles are just the same stuff we've seen in games for years, just with the difficulty cranked up to 11. 50% of Sekiro plays like a stripped down, PS1 era Tenchu game. Ninja Gaiden II on the 360 was hardly any different from the first NG on the OG Xbox. Bayonetta was just Devil May Cry with boobs. The graphics of our games just got prettier is all. That's all the last two generations have been, prettier graphics. The last big jump in technology was the N64/PS1 era where we ditched 2d for 3d.

The "games are more complex now" is just an excuse, one that doesn't seem to apply to 1st party Nintendo games like Tears of the Kingdom. Those games release and they just WORK

I suppose if you’re referring strictly to the core design loop you’re not entirely wrong, but outside of that you absolutely are incorrect. Just because you can’t see everything that’s going on under the hood doesn’t mean it’s not there.

This is bordering on the "things were better back in my day" memes that your older relatives share on facebook.

All games have flaws. They can just get patched at release now so they can go ahead and print discs/carts to stay on a schedule.

Also, I'm not really sure why Nintendo is being held up as an example of the bastion of quality. I'd have to check but I'm fairly certain all of my first party Switch games have had updates. Heck, if you want to be pedantic take a look at Animal Crossing New Horizons. The game shipped with very little content and they drip fed everything through patches. It's a very different game today from when it first came out.

One thing I notice about the modern "patch" era is how is affects reviews and criticism.

Atari Mania is a great recent example of this. Launched with shitty controls, and was met with a deluge of negative reviews based on pre-release and launch copies (plus fan reviews on Steam by those who review games within the launch week!). It's since been patched and runs fine now but the damage is done. It sits at a 6/10 "mixed" rating on Steam, 66 on Metacritic, and searching for reviews online will mostly yield critical ones.