1UP ranks botched PC game launches

by Justin McElroy { Mar 24th 2008 at 11:30AM }

If you've played PC games for any length of time, we're sure you've experienced it: You wait for months for the game to be released, only to spend launch day (week? month?) staring at a frozen cinematic, a crashed-to desktop or (in the old days) the dreaded blue screen of death. 1UP has called up those repressed, heart-breaking memories to rank them in order of their wretchedness.

Some picks are obvious, while a couple may be a surprise. What we're really interested in though is which of your own personal tragedies escaped the list? We're not limiting the question to PC gamers: As we learned over the weekend, even console launches aren't immune from being debacles.

Tags: bugs, launch

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)

ninfan87 @ Mar 24th 2008 11:39AM

I knew the type of article this would be as soon as I saw the Ultima IX screenshot. Biggest. Disappointment. Ever.

Rob Accomando @ Mar 24th 2008 3:41PM

Funny they don't mention that there was a new game disk sent out to everyone who bought the first edition.

ninfan87 @ Oct 16th 2008 4:09PM

Which really didn't change much, sadly. It was still a buggy mess. :(

MooseMuffin @ Mar 24th 2008 11:40AM

Doesn't WoW belong somewhere on that list? Its early days were enough of a mess that they stopped selling it for a while until their server situation was cleared up.

LaughingTarget @ Mar 24th 2008 4:06PM

WoW is incredibly strong for an online game release. Just about every other prior release and most since have been far, far worse. It is difficult to consider WoW when you have Ultima Online, WW2 Online, EverQuest, Dark Age of Camelot, Asheron's Call, Anarchy Online and the more recent Vanguard to fall back on.

I'm shocked SOE is calling Vanguard a success. They have, at the very most, 200k players that they need to get revenue off of to pay back a massive $100 million development bill.

Lars @ Mar 24th 2008 6:05PM

Yep, WoW at launch was a horrible HORRIBLE mess. I was insanely frustrated with it, but they cleared up a lot of problems about 2 months later. It just seems to be par for the course with PC games of the last 5 or so years. For some reason devs have the attitude of "eh, launch it with bugs anyways, we'll just patch it in a couple weeks."

AwesomeTown @ Mar 24th 2008 11:44AM

I only game on the list I have is HL2, but I got it a couple weeks after release, and I don't remember having any problems.
I do remember having Fallout, and getting stuck on some bug (I can't remember what). The patch finally was released, but of course, wasn't compatable with the old save games. That sucked.

Saneless @ Mar 24th 2008 11:55AM

What? No Anarchy online? That game was unplayable at launch.

Unreal gets an honorable mention for its useless netcode at launch as well.

copa @ Mar 24th 2008 11:53AM

Wow, that Ultima 9 business was a nightmare.

The problem was that people like me were never able to get our heads around the idea that the same studio that produced gaming milestones like Ultima 3-7 were able to produce an unmitigated monstrosity like Ultima 9.

We were absolutely convinced that this was a rushed product, and that we were one patch away from getting the real game, the final masterpiece that would conclude the Ultima series.

It was the original message-board meltdown, right until the final thread-locker that stated they would not be providing any more patches or support for this abortion.

Lars @ Mar 26th 2008 5:04PM

Yeah, it really made me sad too. Not only was it the last of the series, but it's like they gave up halfway through development. It's so sad to end such a wonderful franchise on that sour note. I think the problem was that they drastically changed their game engine with 9, and apparrently had no 3D programming experience.

Fortunately there are still great games in the same genre, though few and far-between. The last couple Elder Scrolls have been sublime. It would be nice to see Origin jump back in the running with something similar to Elder Scrolls. Forget the Avatar story, just let us play in Britania with an open world full of minor quests, and some over-arching story.

Erwos @ Mar 24th 2008 11:55AM

I'm surprised SiN isn't on there - it was the first serious "must patch before playing" offender in PC gaming history. And to make matters worse, it was a huge patch for downloaders to grab, too, at a time of 56k modems...

Zertoss @ Mar 24th 2008 11:58AM

My favorite was the Neverwinter Nights launch. Of all the people that had the game from day one, only a handful could actually play it, the rest just crashed to desktop. They had a patch out that night to disable the "feature" that was behind that mess: the copy protection.

Probably the earliest cockslap on DRM in gaming history. Well, if you ignore that anytime the copy protection has caused problems for people trying to play the game, it hasn't been the pirates having said problems.

Crono (NDF - Knight of the Old School) @ Mar 24th 2008 11:59AM

Daggerfall needs to be on this list.

PojoMofo @ Mar 24th 2008 12:01PM

Battlefield 2 was the game for me. I loved BF1942 and was VERy eager to play once I put it in. It had so many browser/lobby issues, crach to desktop about once an hour, was you actually got into the game it seemed fien, but getting into one was a huge hassle. It took EA/DICE a while to fix it also.

Wayne Saunders @ Mar 31st 2008 4:00PM

lol..I knew that Vanguard would make that list..lol. Hellgate London too..

PojoMofo @ Mar 24th 2008 12:02PM

DrNicodemus @ Mar 24th 2008 12:04PM

While it wasn't as big of a title as Ultima 9 or Hellgate, any list like this that leaves off Sierra's FootballPro '99 is an Epic Fail (just like FB99).

deaftly (Brawl - 1075-0467-4222) @ Mar 24th 2008 12:05PM

Wheres Daikatana?

Dale @ Mar 24th 2008 1:38PM

This was the most baffling omission to my mind.

Mr.ESC @ Mar 24th 2008 3:43PM

That was exactly what I was about to say.

Also that Bioshock in the Pc had some issues.

LaughingTarget @ Mar 24th 2008 4:02PM

That game failed years before it ever launched, so it doesn't count.

nick @ Mar 24th 2008 9:33PM

Yeah, that's the first thing I thought when I saw the title of the article.

Maurice M @ Mar 24th 2008 12:18PM

Don't forget the recent Bully botch... Man, I was really looking forward to that too :-\

Maurice M @ Mar 24th 2008 12:20PM

Don't forget the recent Bully botch... Man, I was really looking forward to that too :-\

(hope this isn't a double post)

aggrazel @ Mar 24th 2008 12:24PM

How can anyone forget Daggerfall? A game with huge promise pathetically buggy at release. They fixed it in a patch later and it became one of the best games ever... but at release it was a huge unplayable turd.

Stoo @ Mar 24th 2008 3:20PM

GTA III (PC) was the same, at launch the pretty much the only people who could play it were those who had pirated it and were using the no-cd crack. A "patch" was released soon after which was the no-cd crack.

WiNG @ Mar 24th 2008 12:32PM

I'll never forget how BIG of a hype there was for Diablo 2, yet on-line was UNPLAYABLE for like 3 weeks straight upon launch, due to huge demand, bad netcode, etc...

That said, in the long run Diablo 2 was an amazing game.

Mr.ESC @ Mar 24th 2008 3:52PM

Diablo 2 that was such an epic game,I still have it in fact I'm staring at it right now.

I was disapointed when Blizzard announced ScII when I really wenated Diablo III.

Warlord @ Mar 24th 2008 12:42PM

Yeah, wow really deserves to be on that list. With server problems preventing play, authentication, and many many bugs, it was also one of the games laughingly refered to as "paying for the beta".

HL2 didn't have as much a problem on release as WOW did.

mykie @ Mar 24th 2008 12:46PM

And this is why PC gaming is dying.

Aside from the Smash Bros Brawl issue with my Wii, I've been able to play every console game I've ever bought within MINUTES of getting it home.

Playing a PC game generally involves updating drivers, Windows update, viruses, disabling services for better performance, installing the game, downloading patches, and any combination of the aforementioned drudgery that takes anywhere from an hour to all day to get out of the way before having the privilege of playing a game you just shelled out $50 for.

I'm just happy I didn't pay money for Dikatana.

Shagittarius @ Mar 24th 2008 12:57PM

Your full of crap, this is why I'm voting you down.

Einhanderkiller @ Mar 24th 2008 1:12PM

Go troll somewhere else.

Einhanderkiller @ Mar 24th 2008 1:13PM

Go troll somewhere else.

Einhanderkiller @ Mar 24th 2008 1:21PM

Go troll somewhere else.

Einhanderkiller @ Mar 24th 2008 2:00PM

Wow, how did I triple post?

mykie @ Mar 24th 2008 12:47PM

mykie @ Mar 24th 2008 12:48PM

TomCo @ Mar 24th 2008 1:25PM

Maybe its just your PC.

It seems to have this problem with triple posts.

[**HUMOUR**]

Blazur @ Mar 24th 2008 1:31PM

With your inability to operate a basic webpage form I can see why you suffer so many problems with PC gaming. Perhaps it's not PC gaming which is destined to fail?

Ogo2k @ Mar 24th 2008 12:52PM

as far as mmo releases go, WoW wasn't that bad. They couldn't have anticipated the traffic and because of that couldn't get reserve servers online fast enough, but atleast the game as it was shipped worked fine. It was just a problem of sheer volume.

Jeff @ Mar 24th 2008 12:51PM

Gears of War PC.

The game worked, I imagine. But the Games for Windows crap that was required in order to log in didn't. So you couldn't play the game. The only thing wrong with the game was the update feature, which meant that Games for Windows couldn't update itself.

Lots of other people suffered crashes and stuff, autodeleting savegames, and all that jargoin-- I already knew how to tweak the config file because it was almost 100% the same as Ut3's, so THOSE problems didn't take long to fix.

bombtrak @ Mar 24th 2008 12:54PM

1up should be ranking their own botch-ness...their community is practically broken by the endless server problems resulting in lost blogs, fubar-ed friends lists , server timeouts, etc etc etc.

ZeroCorpse @ Mar 24th 2008 1:06PM

I hate that apparently everyone is drinking the Steam Kool-Aid now, and all the gaming blogs and commercial websites say it's the best thing ever. I'm sorry, but Steam SUCKS. It's a bad precedent to set, and the fact that gaming journalists have all accepted the idea of online verification for single-player games as the norm is just pathetic. It's like all the gaming journalists were either bribed, or simply lost their testicles at the 2005 CES.

Steam is a bullshit idea. Online distribution is fine, but the whole idea that you have to have a server client of any kind running in your OS in order to play any non-online game is as unwelcome now as it was when it launched. I do not keep Half Life 2 on my hard drive anymore. Frankly, I'd rather just play it on the Xbox 360 at this point (if I bother at all-- Valve is getting kind of repetitive and boring) because at least I expect the Xbox to be connected to Live (and by the way, HL2 in The Orange Box works just fine if you aren't online, so it makes it even more nonsensical that you're required to be online when you play it in Windows.)

Damn 1UP and EVERY OTHER GAMING SITE that gives Steam a pass and "forgets" about the invasion it represents. When it comes to Valve, if I buy their games at a retail store, I *still* cannot trade them or sell them because of the draconian Steam tendency to personalize every game. Once you bought it, it's yours for good. I hate that.

I expect that with an online purchase. That's fine. But making me have to do an online verification, ala Windows XP, every time I play a game? That's control I do not like, want, or accept. It's why I won't buy any Steam games, and why I won't purchase any Valve titles for Xbox 360 at retail stores-- I'll trade for them, instead.

Valve and Steam are not getting my business-- Ever again.

--As to the article, I had Ultima IX at launch. Oh, boy. . . That game was such a wasted opportunity. The joke at the time was that Origin were designing games on computers that wouldn't be available to the public for another four years. Every game they made required a top-of-the-line rig.

Man, that sucked. I loved the Ultima series.