barely fatal

Pardon my French, but that’s what she is: Gothic 3 is a bitch. She has the looks, she knows how to make you love her. But there’s a catch: she likes to tease. It’s the unfriendly, annoying kind of teasing.

The following screenie only shows one of the fairly small annoyances, see the bow going right through the leg of the Nameless? I don’t care. Clipping problems here, a misplaced graphic there, a missing dialog – those are the things I can forgive. You find those in all role playing games, they are just too big to playtest every inch, every pixel, every option.

No, Gothic 3 has this particularly annoying memory leak. After some time, the higher your level the worse, you can’t save anymore, the game crashes. And eats your save game. It’s gone. You have to go back and re-play everything starting from the previous save game. Now it has become that bad, the game crashes even when I walk around too fast.

This is one of those A-category bugs that should stop every game from being released. I am amazed they missed it. I mean, I am a Quality Specialist, I know how to test software. And how to not get fired on the first occasion. There are workarounds, each one more complicated than the other, and not one practical. I could return the game (you can do that in Germany if there are A-category bugs). But then, do you return your little sister? Or your girlfriend/wife, just because they don’t let you watch football? No, you wait for the patch … uhm, well you know. ‘Cause you love her.

It took me two nights – TWO nights – to fix my XP. Something – probably the HDD cloning – broke my DCOM+ and System Restore services. Along with that I couldn’t install any Windows updates anymore. I had to comb the registry back and forth, register DLLs and whatnot. What a waste of time! Especially when Windows kept telling me that a certain fix wasn’t working when it actually was. Bleh.

I’m writing this using Internet Explorer 7. So it finally can do tabs. And RSS. Gee, I’m amazed. I miss my Extensions, so back to Firefox for now.

And Vista, have you heard about/read the License agreement they want to sell it with? My biggest complaint: You can change your hardware once. ONCE. Then, to re-activate Vista, you have to buy a new copy. I regularly update my hardware, usually I exchange my processor every two years (at least). Do you really think, I will buy Vista twice? If you could, you’d see my finger now.

Gothic 3 is great. I even got used to the combat system. If it wasn’t for the mentioned OS troubles, I’d be playing right now, but it’s too late already. When you compare the graphics to Oblivion I’d say it’s a draw. You can see farther in Oblivion, but Gothic’s woods and hand-build cities look much more ‘real’ and not half as cold and static. Gothic also spares you some work – no equipment decay or complicated lockpicking, I prefer it that way. Quests are fun and the guilds play much more dynamic and also deeper – your actions have much more noticable consequences. The game feeds on hardware, granted. But no loading zones, yay! I’ll post a few screenies soon.

One more day of work, then I’ll spend the next two weeks with, hm, playing games, sleeping, more sleeping, and even more … sleeping. And I’ll travel the world. A bit. And sleep. Yay! Ohmegosh I’m so boring.

Now there’s nothing to report this week really. I’ve started playing Gothic 3, but it’s too early to say anything. Just so much: graphics are pretty, the music’s awesome, combat system could still be improved, though.

I’ve also tried the Battlefield 2142 demo. I supressed the urge to totally “rant” it into the ground after my first session, and it was a good decision. Actually I had a pretty good time in a second run, and tomorrow I’ll have an extensive match with a bunch of friends. So too early for a detailed preview, too, but yes, it does feel a bit like a BF 2 future mod. But who would have guessed that, huh? As long as it’s fun, … can’t say if it’s gonna be worth the money. Perhaps. Perhaps not.

So I saw most of the E3 trailers and here are my personal highlights for this year:

Thumbs-up games

Dark Messiah
The possibilities … the moves, the physics …

Spore
It’s fresh … it’s revolutionary … hopefully. This is a wonky candidate.

Crysis
Oh man, this is the reason for me buying my next PC.

Gothic 3
Gee I’ve not seen much, but it’s GOTHIC.

Splinter Cell Double Agent
Chaos Theory was soooo cool. More, bigger, better!

Bio Shock
Well I haven’t seen anything, but everybody who has writes this is gonna be IT. So I go by the public opinion. This time.

Unsure about these

Stranglehold
Big big BIG action, but fun and story?

Dark Star One
Due this week, colourful, but any good?

Hellgate London
FSP-RPG hybrid – will it work? Is it just a 3D-Diablo?

Star Trek Legacy
I really want this to be any good.

Quake Wars
Hopefully more Enemy Territory than Quake.

Alan Wake
The trailer didn’t catch me. Hm.

Thumbs-down games

Lord Of The Ring Online
Looks like a WoW clone set in Middle-Earth.

Battlefield 2142
Looks like an expensive BF2 map pack with a few new units.

Call Of Duty 3
More generic germans to shoot. More target practise.

Test Drive Unlimited
Graphics totally plastic-like. Also I’m sick of racing games.

Did I forget anything?

Update:
Yes I did: Prey, Rise Of Legends, Gears Of War, Hitman: Blood Money, Medal Of Honor: Airborne, Rise And Fall, Huxley, C&C 3 … and then a few