Technically sound games this decade

[RabidusUnus]

The best game is obviously Heroes of Might and Magic III, even if it was released in late 1999. If you are super picky about your game, then it's S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Call of Pripyat, which was only released recently.

The worst game? You guys all fail, because you did not say Big Rigs Racing. You are all ignorant.

Oh god. That game is fucking hilarious. 250mph in a 5ft circle.

Best: Bioshock 2 hasn't done anything wrong with me, other than freezing when I tried to get the achievement for 3 big daddies at once.

Worst: Far Cry 2. I didn't notice any game-breaking glitches, bu some of the mechanics were way off. Like the cars that all cap out at 30mph, and hitting the wildlife because they don't know how to avoid loud, noisy, easy-to-avoid cars.

 

[ottenni]

I'm going to have to say the path finding in Dawn of War made me go mad. Moving tanks was impossible and if a single member of a squad was in range the whole squad would stop moving making missile launcher a hazzard.

 

[Hiphophippo]

fugly character models in Dragon Age

Really? What was your problem with them? I thought they were really nice. For my own submission to this thread I submit everything Bethesda has done in the last 10 years.

That's in reference to being technically unsound, right?
Because apart from Fallout 3 (even with all it's glitches it was a good game) the rest were just crap.

It is. I'm an old school PC gamer so I was a little upset by the direction they took with fallout 3, and the game still has the lifelessness feel from oblivion but they lucked out. It sorta works in the Fallout series. I could certainly say some bad things about the game but I still played and enjoyed it. I just wish it were more like fallout 2.

 

[CheckD3]

The Good:
Heavy Rain and Killzone 2 all did a great job showcasing the visual prowess of the PS3.

Haven't played KZ2 but have and am Heavy Rain. I actually have had it glitch on my, the 1st was the demo, but the game froze in the middle of Shelby's discovery of a body in the Clock shop (kept that as watered down as possible to avoid spoilers), and it really upset me.

MW2 has gotten not glitchy, but laggy, but that's my evil internet's fault so I don't hold it against MW2.

Going back to Heavy Rain, it was visually nice, well half the game. There are lots of little things that keep me not 100% in tune with the game, like water splashing a full inch (game inch not TV inch) above the actually window, the controls sometimes bug out and I do 360s trying to keep walking, there are a lot of little issues that appear despite the game's best efforts, and I will say that the characters are well presented and have a look in their eyes that the loading screens make me enjoy to see, and even though the scar on the FBI agent's cheek is the only difference between him and Ethan, there are enough differences overall to keep people looking different. But overall the good is weighed down by the bad, and the bad to me pull the overall feel down a good bit actually, sadly.

I'm excited for God of War 3, because despite the blood splatter from the guy on the ledge being worn like a hat, and when you use the final triangle hit and the light/fire it produces is seen in the square count on the game, it looks fabulous, the black/maroon blood that spurts from enemies looks real sorta and on Kratos gives him a look that complements his new, darker, more solemn look that paints a man who has lost too much to bear with. I'm exicted to see the final product, since the God of War franchise is visually one of the best, even nowadays on the PS2 after playing powered PS3 graphics does God of War look just as pretty as it did back then as now

 

[MiracleOfSound]

[
It is. I'm an old school PC gamer so I was a little upset by the direction they took with fallout 3, and the game still has the lifelessness feel from oblivion but they lucked out. It sorta works in the Fallout series. I could certainly say some bad things about the game but I still played and enjoyed it. I just wish it were more like fallout 2.

New Vegas looks like it will be much more in tune with the first two. The humour and more 'alive' world seem to have been brought back.

I have high hopes for it, as I love all 3 games.

 

[hazabaza1]

Resident Evil 4 was good on a tech level. Also, pretty much no issues with Bioshock, except one time when the crosshair remained while I was aiming with the machine gun. I guess Half Life 2 was okay on a tech level, even if it didn't do great in the other departments.

 

[Alarien]

The Good:
God of War 2 probably pushed the PS2 as far as it could physically go. And it did it well.
Uncharted 2, Heavy Rain and Killzone 2 all did a great job showcasing the visual prowess of the PS3.
Non-WoW Blizzard games generally come out sparkly clean in terms of bugs. Don't know about WoW, since I've never touched it.

The Bad:
Empire and Napoleon Total War. Recent Total War games have a tendency to come out broken.
Hearts of Iron 3. The first game that I've encountered where a game was actually 80+% unplayable two weeks after release (the stupid infinite supply needs thing).
Bayonetta PS3. How do you f*ck up a PS3 port this bad? With the screen tearing and texture issues to go along with the deathly load times (the load time thing is now fixed).

I fail to see what is wrong with Empire and Napoleon. Maybe because I play the core game and am unconcerned about the mod community? Rome and Medieval were broken for me because of the idiotic "squalor" mechanic and the fact that any large city more tha 50 feet from your capital had to have rebellions put down and the populace killed on a regular schedule.

Empire has some wonky AI but essentially plays just fine on H/H and Napoleon's primary episodic campaigns have been brilliant for me on H/H. (I haven't played VH/VH since they broke it after Medieval 1).

So, for me, Medieval 1 was brilliant, Rome was "good, but had serious issues." Medieval 2 was Medieval 1 dumbed down, and including Rome's "issues." Empire had a good American campaign (Grand Campaign was a bit wonky), and so far, Napoleon is the closest to Medieval 1 for me.

 

[Spiner909]

Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising. It's because it was made by Codemasters. It is ugly, boring, and difficult.

On a plus side, I thought Mass Effect 2 was very sound except for the probing (duh)

 

[veloper]

Blizzard games come pretty polished out of the box and will run on ancient rigs aswell.
Valve don't do too badly either.

 

[Jacob.pederson]

God of War 2 probably pushed the PS2 as far as it could physically go. And it did it well.

That was indeed a very well programmed game. You could tell they worked thier asses off on it.

There was a little screen tear here and there, but other than that it was flawless.

Halo3, not alot wrong with it other than ugly graphics,

I thought the graphics were fine in Halo 3. A little low rez in parts but generally pretty big and epic looking!

If that's a little screen tear, I'd hate to see a big one

 

[Daniel Cygnus]

Halo3, not alot wrong with it other than ugly graphics, NFL 2k5, splintercell was good unless you broke the AI.

Those two words don't belong in the same sentence together, unless there's a "doesn't have" in there somewhere. Even now, they still look pretty good.

Left 4 Dead is pretty stable. Same goes for Ratchet and Clank 2. There's just no breaking them.

However fun they may be, I'll have to nominate Oblivion and Fallout 3. I can't even begin to count all the bugs I encountered with both of those. The Vampire Cure quest immediately springs to mind.

 

[Jacob.pederson]

GTAIV on pc is glitchiest for me, considering the Steam version wouldn't even start even start until the most recent Nvidia driver, and now runs at worse frame rates then the 360 version on a quad-core with gtx280 sli. No thanks RockStar, I can see why you where selling it for 5$.

Smoothest would be the source engine games: LFD1 and 2, Portal. Also, Relic engine games, Dow1 and 2, Company of Heroes. Curse those dirty consoles, etc, etc, etc. You can pry my anti-aliasing and 3d-shutter glasses out of my cold dead fingers, Unreal.

 

[Jacob.pederson]

Resident Evil 4 was good on a tech level. Also, pretty much no issues with Bioshock, except one time when the crosshair remained while I was aiming with the machine gun. I guess Half Life 2 was okay on a tech level, even if it didn't do great in the other departments.

I got this thing in Bioshock where the screen would lock up for 5-10 seconds when bringing up the weapon selection screen on the PC version. Solid other than that though.

 

[Jacob.pederson]

I'm going to have to say the path finding in Dawn of War made me go mad. Moving tanks was impossible and if a single member of a squad was in range the whole squad would stop moving making missile launcher a hazzard.

Not to mention the whole super-vehicles spawning stuck thing. That was cool.

 

[hazabaza1]

Resident Evil 4 was good on a tech level. Also, pretty much no issues with Bioshock, except one time when the crosshair remained while I was aiming with the machine gun. I guess Half Life 2 was okay on a tech level, even if it didn't do great in the other departments.

I got this thing in Bioshock where the screen would lock up for 5-10 seconds when bringing up the weapon selection screen on the PC version. Solid other than that though.

Weird. Mind you, I was on the 360 version, so I guess the PC version could be a bit buggier.

 

[Jacob.pederson]

Biggest Technical messes I've played were Mass Effect 2, Far Cry 2, and TES IV:Oblivion.

As much as I love Me2, I'll be the first to admit it had many, many bugs.

These become much more apparent on Insanity difficulty, when you die repeatedly due to the awfully glitchy cover mechanics and broken squad pathing.

I had game breaking ones too, like getting elevated and stuck into invisible geometry, or doors refusing to open.

I got stuck on top of park benches and foot-high railings a couple times. Good times.

 

[sneakypenguin]

Halo3, not alot wrong with it other than ugly graphics, NFL 2k5, splintercell was good unless you broke the AI.

Those two words don't belong in the same sentence together, unless there's a "doesn't have" in there somewhere. Even now, they still look pretty good.

Lol i've got a few replies for this one, facial animations and detail where lacking, heck detail most everywhere was lacking. Pop in and texture draw where also major issues. It was colorful at least but not up to standards, even if only held back(graphically) by the vehicle heavy sections and having to render the whole level.

 

[Jacob.pederson]

You forgot Empire Total War!

Never played it (I'm awful at RTS games)

Borderlands was really good when it came to a solid framerate.

It was great for the most part, but some sections had drastic frame rate drops, like the final level with the snow effects, or anytime you headshot someone through a sniper scope.

Agree, Borderlands framerate was pretty wacky in places, specially if ambient occlusion was on. Also the whole no anti-aliasing thing, exasperated by everything being outlined in the jaggiest black lines ever deserves a mention. They have been really good with patches though, adding upnp support for routers, fixing some Nvidia shadow bugs, and even adding 3dvision support (hooray).

 

[reg42]

MW2's campaign was (technically) perfect for me. Didn't try the MP.

The worst? Saints Row 2 on the PC has got to be up there. I'll get on PS3 one day, hopefully that'll be better.

 

[Tzekelkan]

The good

I have to say that the one of the best graphical engines I've seen recently was the one from Modern Warfare 2's singleplayer. I was amazed that the game ran at so high settings on my moderate laptop. I mean, it ran more fluidly and on better graphical settings than the first Modern Warfare. Considering the improved effects and very realistic models, I was gobstruck.

Also, Blizzard and Valve make some great games that work very well on low-end systems. Also, Torchlight.

The bad

The prize would go to GTA4 for the PC. The same system that ran Modern Warfare 2 at medium-to-high settings can only average about 15 FPS with everything turned down to absolute minimum, clip capture off, internet and anti-virus turned off and system recently rebooted. The game is great and all, but its requirements are horrible (and it keeps crashing!). I sure hope they make the Episodes from Liberty City port a bit more democratic in terms of resource usage.

Also, Saint's Row 2 suffers from the same problem... and considering the graphics are way, way beneath GTA4's, it just boggles the mind. Prototype only stuttered on my rig when there were +2e10 enemies on screen.