What's the glitchiest mess of a game you've ever played?

[KarumaK]

I don't normally have glitches, but I've had two major ones.
One was in Pokemon Red. I was past Lavender Town, and this Pidgey appeared. I used Rage. It used Sand-attack. Since I couldn't stop my pokemon using Rage, and it always missed... That went on for about two hours. I hadn't saved in a while either, so that pissed me off.

Recently, I was playing Dragon Age: Awakenings, and right near the end, in the city, all the textures and backgrounds disappeared, leaving this creepy brow/gold swirl covering everything. Eventually it just stopped loading. Worked fine the next day though.

Interesting trivia that is not a glitch that's a feature.

In the first gen Rage locks your Pokemon into it until they faint and if it ever misses, EVER, it's accuracy becomes 1/250ish. First gen is best gen my ass.

 

[Oilerfan92]

Far Cry 2. It seems a bug somehow erased all the plot.

I had a similar problem. Mine had a bug that erased all the fun too.

 

[GonzoGamer]

Black Ops, can't even play it because there's a glitch that make radeon x-series graphics card not work with that game, isn't that the ultimate glitch?

And they are doing nothing to fix it.

But that Patcher guy wants everyone to stop being "crybabies" about Blops. That makes me want to just smack him in the head.
That?s the other thing that amazes me: not only that so many people are willing to put up with a complete mess of a game but that there are so many who tell others how they should feel about buying a complete mess.
As if you have an overinflated sense of entitlement because you expect a working product for your hard earned cash.

Why has no one mentioned Big Rigs?..

It's scary how buggy that game was..

I was wondering when I would see that one.
The question was what is the glitchiest game you ever played and I get the feeling that enough people were warned about it and didn't even try it. How many people would've bought it in the first place?

I'd have to say Quake and Quake 2. They were hellatious before patches.

Funny, though - as much as people seem to gripe about modern titles, they're nowhere near as bad as they were 10 years ago. At least nowadays you don't need to worry about a game damaging your hardware or corrupting your HDD and/or OS installation.

Not to be a hard-on but do you have a source for that? That?s actually my biggest worry: that all the crashes & hard shut downs will wear out the ps3. There?s a big difference between a game really annoying me and a game breaking my expensive console.

Fallout New Vegas recently took the gold on Glitchiest Game Ever.
Before that, it was probably Final Liberation: a strategy game from 1997.

Been playing that recently, it's not really that buggy. Only issues I've had are from running it on XP (crashes a bit because of that) but it was intended for Win95.

That?s a game (Final Liberation) I bought at launch and pre-patch (even on win95) you could not get through a non-campaign match without it crashing to the desktop. I remember having to wait a while for the patch too. I think they might have even re-released the game with the patch on the disc it was so bad; I might be thinking of another game though. Like New Vegas, it was a fun game when it worked but it hardly ever worked.

 

[Death-of-Penguins]

I don't normally have glitches, but I've had two major ones.
One was in Pokemon Red. I was past Lavender Town, and this Pidgey appeared. I used Rage. It used Sand-attack. Since I couldn't stop my pokemon using Rage, and it always missed... That went on for about two hours. I hadn't saved in a while either, so that pissed me off.

Interesting trivia that is not a glitch that's a feature.

In the first gen Rage locks your Pokemon into it until they faint and if it ever misses, EVER, it's accuracy becomes 1/250ish. First gen is best gen my ass.

Wow. A feature? Hours of my childhood spent in a rage of my own over a stupid feature? Damn.

 

[cpnichol]

Civ IV. Probably due in part to the crappy video I had at the time but it was supported and judging from how busy the tech forums were it wasn't just me. It was a mass of graphical glitches, crashes and a memory leak, it was unplayable. I eventually went back to it after it got properly patched and I had a new gfx card and it was fine.

Clear Sky was pretty bad. One bug in particular got me stuck as the scientists refused to open their door until an alert was over, only it never ended despite having killed every enemy on the map. This meant you couldn't progress any further in the game. I managed to find a work around that involved shooting one of the friendly guards.

This kind of thing is why I rarely buy games on release, I'd rather let others pay a premium for the priviledge of beta testing games for me and wait for the patches.

 

[hazabaza1]

Neverwinter nights 2. Oh, wait, sorry, I hacven't played that game. BECAUSE IT DOESN'T FUCKING WORK ASILFHAIL RAAAAAAAAAAEG

 

[putowtin]

New Vegas and Saints Row 2 for me are fighting it out for the top spot.

never once had a glitch with saints row 2 and never had a glitch with NV until I patched it?!?!
glitchiest game for me had to be KOTOR II, I love the game but.... ahh stop doing that!

 

[AlternatePFG]

People really over exaggerated New Vegas's bugs. Yeah they were there, but they weren't much worse than Fallout 3.

For me, Black Ops PC hands down. Even though the game runs decently, I had my level reset completely and I can't change anything without it reverting. It sucks, and there hasn't been a patch for the game in a fucking month.

 

[The_root_of_all_evil]

Without doubt, Hidden and Dangerous, pre-patch.

Still a stunning game even with all those bugs. THAT'S how good it was.


And this is version 2...

 

[Nixzilla]

it was a recent game about dragon slayers but you get turned into a dragon

 

[imperialreign]

Not to be a hard-on but do you have a source for that? That?s actually my biggest worry: that all the crashes & hard shut downs will wear out the ps3. There?s a big difference between a game really annoying me and a game breaking my expensive console.

I can't say one way or the other regarding a console - I don't mess with them, I don't own them. I'll occasionally play them over a friends house or something, but not exactly my forte . . . I can draw some general conclusions, though, based solely on a console's similarity to a PC.


TBH, considering modern PC hardware - crashes and glitches will not wear out hardware. No source is needed. Hardware components contain a BIOS which tells the motherboard BIOS how they're supposed to be operated. As well, the component BIOS usually contains (nowadays) fail-safe algorithms that will simply shut down the hardware if something is happening on the hardware level that would be damaging. i.e. too high of voltages, too high of a processor or board temp, PCB components failing etc. etc. Years ago there weren't as many fail-safes in place, and the motherboard BIOS was extremelly rudimentary. Clocking a component was actually done via setting switches on the board itself - not via the BIOS.

It's in the same category of myths as turning your PC on or off is damaging to the components, or the contrary that leaving it on all the time is damaging.

The way it breaks down on PC, though, is that glitches, bugs and "soft" crashes are usually due to faulty coding within the application, background programs or applications, or the occasional driver issue. Either way, it's almost always software related. "Hard" crashes - those where the system goes to a black screen or re-boots itself - are typically related more to hardware problems (failing components, hardware overheating/shutting down), driver issues or hardware incompatibility. As far as a console is concerned, hard crashes are more than likely going to be due to the one or both processors overheating and needing to be temporarily shut down.

The question is - do these types of issues happen more after long gaming sessions? If so, overheating is probably a prime culprit.

Truthfully, the biggest headache you might run into today (at least in regards to a PC) is the OS installation becoming corrupted from a hard crash (i.e. BSoD). Typically then, it's only system files, and can usually be corrected by repairing the OS installation, or reverting to a previous system backup.

What I'd be more worried about, whether you own a console or PC, are environmental conditions that can cause degradation and/or failure of hardware. Too humid of an environment, too hot of an environment, too dusty of an environment (including smoking around your hardware) can cause hardware temps to soar. The xBox is notorious for overheating issues. Being rough and knocking your hardware around can cause things to become loose (internal coolers or expansion components), even damage weak factory solder points on PCB components.

 

[sluggyfreelancer]

Red Dead Redemption. the menu would freeze, I would fall through the ground, people would vanish, and animals would appear out of nowhere. I have no idea why so many people liked that game.

Because you were unlucky (or I was lucky). I never had any glitches in single player, including the Undead Nightmare add on. Only glitch I ever seen was 2 or 3 times was people hurtling upwards in multiplayer. Pretty funny to watch.

 

[ScroogeMcDuck]

Sonic '06 just thinking about it makes my head hurt.

 

[NorthernTrooper]

At the moment, Magicka. Nothing works!

 

[TorturedAvatar]

People really over exaggerated New Vegas's bugs. Yeah they were there, but they weren't much worse than Fallout 3.

I knew someone who ran into a showstopper - couldn't continue the game at all from his save, and not due to a corrupted save but due to broken mechanics. Basically, he was waiting to get the patch so that he could actually finish the game. That's bad.

 

[thedeathscythe]

Big Rigs Over the Road Racing. No game is as unfinished as that, these topics are all useless, no matter what game you name.

 

[Paragon Fury]

Either New Vegas, or Alpha Protocol.

 

[Riobux]

Fallout New Vegas recently took the gold on Glitchiest Game Ever.

I find that hard to believe, just because of Call Of Cthulhu: Dark Corners Of The Earth and the True Crime series.

 

[The Funslinger]

Let the Bethesda shit-storm begin.

Those games haven't given me much shit, to be honest.

If my friend's online bitching is to be believed, then apparently the halo games are the most glitchy I've played.

it was a recent game about dragon slayers but you get turned into a dragon

Played it. Divinity 2: Ego Draconis

It was alright, but yeah. Apparently they released a download version with the bugs ironed out, or some such thing. I loved the concept, and I did like the combat system, but the graphics were meh-ish, the leveling system of the player was a little skewed when put against the leveling system of enemies, and yeah, glitches.

 

[Meltyman]

I think no one has mentioned this (didnt read every page.. just going to sleep)

Bloodbowl ...

i pre-orederd the game for pc, apparently it was a BETA version after release. I heard it was even worse for Xbox.

funny that the free version of the game (fumbbl.com java version, try it out !)
is still better than the new one.