worst bugs in adventure games?

Trent R · Mon 12/01/2009 05:57:38

I thought MI4 came out after XP? I was able to get it to run on my XP system... once upon a time.

~Trent

Akatosh · Mon 12/01/2009 10:56:29

In Discworld Noir, there's one soul-crushingly arbitrary "jail escape" section where

Spoiler

you have to wait for a really tiny mouse to appear, move into the right position, then try to grab it. It'll run off into a crack in a stone, which you'll then have to interact with to uncover a secret passage to the next room... from which you'll flee instantly after talking to the guy living in there because your police buddy is coming to free you from your cell.

[close]

Thing was just... the mouse didn't appear. I had to reload from an earlier save. Being a gullible child back then, I spent the better part of an hour staring at an empty cell until I realised something had gotten fucked up.

Also, I'm not sure if that counts, but the strange hack I have to use to get Oblivion to run on my shitty graphics card runs a little flimsy... and crashes as soon as I see a healing spell resolve. Makes for "interesting" gameplay, to say the least.

DanielH · Mon 12/01/2009 16:25:15

Quote from: Trent R on Mon 12/01/2009 05:57:38
I thought MI4 came out after XP? I was able to get it to run on my XP system... once upon a time.

Nope. MI4 released November 2000
Windows XP released October 2001

MI 4 Began development in early 1999 (wow, 1999 is a decade ago! :o)
XP Began development December 1999

There's no way MI4 would be designed to be XP-compatible, as XP didn't really exist. Minimum specs (on the box) State Windows 95/98 needed.

MI4 on vista? HAHAHAHAHAHHAHA Not a chance.

Also, In reply to Akatosh's oblivion troubles, anyone played KotOR/KotORII ? Anyone tried to play it successfully on an ATI card? Fat chance. the problems with ATI's catalyst drivers were reported by KotOR players back when catalyst 5(ish) was released. No fix ever came, from bioware or ATI.

DutchMarco · Thu 15/01/2009 09:48:29

I can't adda any bug/game specifically, but Sierra's games always had them as an added bonus; you got a lot of them for free. with every game This was at least the case in SQ4, and probably also others.

Yay for separating logic and programming with SCUMM (and AGS, obviously)

Radiant · Thu 15/01/2009 10:20:12

Quote from: DutchMarco on Thu 15/01/2009 09:48:29
Yay for separating logic and programming with SCUMM (and AGS, obviously)

Ironically, Sierra also separated logic from programming, in AGI, SCI and SCIV. But while crashes in AGI games are almost unheard of, SCIV games in particular seem to be rife with them. This may be related to the fact that LucasArts produced (roughly) one game per year, whereas Sierra produced three or four. Perhaps it's a quality vs quantity tradeoff?

Ali · Thu 15/01/2009 11:33:48

In Starship Titanic I found it almost impossible to get the bellbot to remove the lightbulb (titania's eye) and give it to me. The text parser seemed only to accept one way of phrasing GIVE ME THE LIGHTBULB, which I've never manage to guess when playing the game. I still love it though.

Not necessarily a bug, but it sounds similar to the airsick bag story.

Trent R · Sat 17/01/2009 17:16:11

Not necessarily a bug, but my friend Colt and I were playing GK1 when we were in elementary school. We played through it at roughly the same speed, but I was able to beat the zombies in Africa (swing on the vine and run through to find Wolfgang) and he wasn't.

Maybe he just couldn't do it (no matter how hard he tried), or maybe it was a speed issue (like many Sierra games)

~Trent

Invalid · Sat 16/05/2009 22:15:21

most games played on the GBA emulater for the pc have a bug that says "Unable to continue on platform" or something like that.... makes me so mad..... to go so far to have that

Trent R · Sun 17/05/2009 05:32:47

Maybe because it's not meant to be played on the PC, it's meant to be played on the GBA.

~Trent

incobalt · Sun 17/05/2009 08:12:52

For me, the worst bug I can think of right now was in Broken Sword 2, when the priest wouldn't give me back whatever he was supposed to give me (my memory is failing me =/ ); I spent hours trying to figure out what I hadn't done and going all over and trying everything. I eventually had to start the game over and get back to that point and it worked just fine. So. Very. Annoying.

Quote from: DanielH on Sun 11/01/2009 21:27:32
Trying to get Monkey Islands 3 & 4 to run on an operating system made after Windows 98. Mother of god, It's hard. At least MI3 can be run on Scummvm, MI4 is unplayable for me :'(. While MI4 isn't the best adventure game (or anwhere near the best) I feel a little saddened that I can't complete the series.

It's definitely not the best in the series. I played it on the PS2 for some reason. Just now looking, I realized that I must have sold my copy of the game (which must have been a hard sell) but I still have my end of game save file on my memory card.