Day One Broken
Day one patches are very cool. Once I’ve removed the
shrink-wrap from my brand new £35 game, I'll race to feed disc to console so
that I may be among the first to download the precious, launch day curative
patch. Before I'm allowed to play my new game, I’m invited to kick-start the
final stage of development by pressing X and helping un-break a product that
was otherwise fit for release. I love being involved. Of course, it’s not only
consumers who adore day one patches. The promise of a digital band aid enables publishers
to convince platform holders that their latest game isn't really broken at all,
just temporarily not quite fixed, and is suitable for release. Clearly, this is a wonderful situation for all involved.
This week's Medal of Honour: Warfighter is the latest big
release to rely on a day one fix to get through Sony and Microsoft's oh-so
strict certification process. Warfighter’s is no simple backward-flying-dragon
or culturally-insensitive-picture-on-the-toilet-wall-removing-patch, but a huge
glob of digital corrective fluid which covers issues both bizarre and game
altering.
Some of the more amusing corrections (you can find the
full list on EA’s website) include allowing 17 year old Japanese people to play
online, making sure that the start button works, making normal, not easy, the
default setting, removing unresponsive controls and preventing uninvited
strangers from joining invite only sessions. The patch also fixes a glitch
where aiming causes the player to float away from cover. Unannounced
corrections include a higher pixel count for Bin Laden’s dead beard, 20% more
Oscar Mike and explosions that are more respectful of army veterans. Despite
the cure-all patch, Warfighter is still a silly word.
It’s easy to pick on Medal of Honour: Warfighter, and I’d
highly recommend doing so. Despite rather enjoying the first MoH reboot – the
campaign was short & sweet and the multiplayer did some interesting things
- I decided very early on that I was anti Warfighter, as the day one patch is
merely the icing on an unappetising cake, one that is made of tomahawks and
Linkin Park tie-ins. With its delusions of realism, including developer Ready
at Dawn’s peddling of real-life weaponry through the MoH website, it pushed all the wrong buttons. Until
yesterday’s super patch, I had been more than content to simply ignore it.
The day-one variety is the worst kind of patching, the lowest
point of the “release now, fix later” trend that has plagued this generation.
Debilitating glitches should not escape Q&A, especially in a single
player experience, and any game featuring such issues should not be considered
fit for release. For most of us, a patch like Warfightererers will be a five
minute (15 on PSN) inconvenience the first time we boot up the disc, and an
indication of other issues that might be lurking elsewhere in the game, but
what about the poor sod who doesn’t have an internet connection, or is just
unable to hook their console up to some tasty broadband? They will be unsuccessfully
prodding the start button for hours on end and will be stuck with a soldier who
floats away from walls; it probably won’t matter, as they’ll only be playing on
easy.
Perhaps the patch will fix everything and Medal of
Honour: Warfighter will be critically acclaimed, or maybe the early maintenance
is fair warning of a game rushed and of poor quality. Whatever the case, I’m
happy to resume ignoring Warfighter and get back to working myself up about the
prospect of an Unfinished Swan - lazy fucking developers.
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