Last week I was playing Rock Band, and whilst hammering out an awesomely over enthusiastic drum solo my bass pedal snapped in half. While this only caused me a few days of inconvenience (it was surprisingly easy to get EA to send me a new pedal) it got me thinking about the multitude of hardware failures that are reported when new peripherals are released.
The recent popularity of the Guitar Hero series of games has meant that living rooms up and down the country have become infested with plastic, guitar shaped controllers. However since the first game these peripherals have been plagued with faults, most notably the Xbox 360’s Guitar Hero II controller. The majority of peripherals shipped with the game suffered a fault out of the box which meant that the whammy bar on the controller wasn’t sensitive enough and barely worked at all. When Guitar Hero III came along the guitar was designed so that the neck of the guitar could be detached to allow for easier transportation. However the designers forgot the fact that this meant the connection between the fret buttons and body would constantly be moved and as such frequently broke. Surely if these peripherals had undergone rigorous testing, the likes of which most consumer electronics are subjected too, then these errors would have been noticed before the games were shipped? Even simple play testing of the game should have brought these faults to the attention of the companies who produced them?
Then along came Rock Band. They introduced a peripheral which you hit repeatedly, hard, and with sticks. It also has a component which you stand on quickly and repeatedly. This peripheral, however, was obviously not subjected to any kind of heavy testing. As stated earlier I’ve managed to snap the bass pedal in half (and I’m not the only person to do so as a quick search of Google will reveal) and many people have reported faults with both under- and over-sensitive drum pads. Surely play testing would also have brought up the issue that repeatedly hitting plastic pads with wooden sticks makes a really annoying noise. These issues have been rectified in the Rock Band 2 drum kit, with a metal bass pedal and quieter pads, but surely they shouldn’t have been issues in the first place? And who has room for a second plastic drum kit anyway?
This issue of a lack of testing isn’t just confined to music peripherals either. When the Wii came out there were a multitude of reports of people hurling their Wiimotes into their expensive television sets during overly enthusiastic games of bowling or golf or tennis. This wasn’t due to a flaw with the Wiimote itself, but rather the small piece of string which attached the Wiimote to the wrist band. Now the Wiimotes ship with thicker straps and more secure clasps on the Wiimote, but surely there shouldn’t have been an issue in the first place? This, again, could have been identified with the same kind of repetition and stress testing that consumer electronics undergo before they go on sale.
The most prominent and widely experienced of all the hardware faults of the current generation of gaming is the dreaded Red Ring of Death, which almost every single Xbox 360 that was sold has experienced. Microsoft is fairly lucky that the PlayStation 3 is quite expensive otherwise I’m sure more people would have jumped ship when they experienced the RRoD on multiple replacement consoles.
We consumers are spending hundreds of pounds on these pieces of technology and really, these faults should be unacceptable. It wouldn’t be acceptable if, after three months of normal use, a leg fell off your sofa; or if you bought a new bike only to find that the handlebars won’t let you turn left. It is this apparently lack of hardware testing that has cost Microsoft millions to extend their warranty on the Xbox 360 and on replacement consoles. It has also cost EA Games and Harmonix a pretty penny on replacement peripherals and free games which were offered to certain customers. Surely this money could have been spent on properly testing the hardware instead of inconveniencing the consumers when their peripherals end up breaking?
The summer, or what little of it we had, is drawing to a close. The nights are getting longer, the weather is getting even worse, and soon Halloween and Christmas decorations will start appearing in the shops. However, the positives to this are that there are a fair few games and films coming out over the coming months in the build up to Christmas. Here then are some of the titles which I’m looking forward to.
Burn After Reading
The Coen brothers return after No Country For Old Men with a comedy thriller in which a disc containing the memoirs of CIA analyst Osbourne Cox (John Malkovich) falls into the hands of Chad Feldheimer (Brad Pitt) and Linda Litzke (Frances McDormand); two gym employees who intend to blackmail Cox. CIA agent Harry Pfarrer (George Clooney) who is sleeping with Cox’s wife is assigned to recover the disc.
The Coen brothers have a habit of making films which I enjoy (The Big Lebowski and O Brother, Where Art Thou? to name but two) and with a cast that includes Pitt, Clooney and Malkovich I’m expecting this to be a film that gets added to that list.
Choke
Based on Chuck Palahniuk’s novel of the same name, Choke features Victor Mancini (Sam Rockwell), a sex-addicted, medical school dropout who works at a colonial theme park, who has devised a scam to help pay for his deranged mother’s hospital bills: He dines at various upscale restaurants and purposely causes himself to choke mid-way through his meal, luring a “good Samaritan” into saving his life. He keeps a detailed list of everyone who saves him and sends them frequent letters about fictional bills he is unable to pay. The people feel so sorry for him that they give him money, send him cards and letters asking him about how he’s doing, and even continue to send him money to help him with the bills.
Palahniuk is one of my favourite authors, and the film Fight Club (again based on the Palahniuk novel of the same name) is one of my favourite films. Judging from the trailer the film is going to have a different feel to that of the novel but after seeing that it has won a Special Jury Award at this year’s Sundance Film Festival I’m still optimistic about it.
Quantum of Solace
Quantum of Solace is one of the few direct sequels in the Bond series and begins about an hour after the end of Casino Royale. Bond (Daniel Craig) is on the hunt for answers after Vesper Lynd seemingly betrayed him and died. The investigation leads him, via new Bond girl Camille (Olga Kurylenko), to a mysterious business man named Dominic Greene (Mathieu Amalric).
I was always a fan of the Bond films, but after GoldenEye the series began to get stale. Casino Royale refreshed the series although I feel this was partly due to the success of the The Bourne Trilogy and Casino Royale showed that with a similar style of action. The Quantum of Solace trailer shows that the series is keeping the Bourne-esque action whilst also keeping some of the over the top sequences which are a staple of the Bond series.
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed
Being both a sci-fi and a Star Wars fan (believe it or not I do know people who claim to be sci-fi fans and yet don’t like Star Wars) this game has been getting a lot of my attention recently. While I did enjoy the KOTOR games, turn based combat isn’t something I’m a huge fan of, and the amount of random wandering I did in those games did get me bored at times. From playing the Force Unleashed demo I get the feeling that the game is considerably more linear (which some people might see as a bad thing) and that it flows seamlessly into combat from the fact that you’re not limited to only using force powers and your weapons when in a combat situation.
The plot is set between Episode III: Revenge of the Sith and Episode IV: A New Hope and has you playing as Darth Vader’s secret apprentice, tasked with hunting down the last remaining Jedi after they are ordered to be killed by Emperor Plapatine. Described as being “pivotal” in Vader’s history, The Force Unleashed provides a link between the two trilogies of films.
Mirror’s Edge
Mirror’s Edge is a game which has been receiving a lot of hype recently due to its innovative gameplay and visual style. The problem with hype is that it can lead to huge disappointments and it’s because of this that I’m trying not to get my hopes too high for this game. While I am excited about it, I’m worried that the development of the gameplay and visual style may mean that the story which drives the game is lacking, or that it could become repetitive and boring jumping around similar environments all the time. I’m definitely going to give this game a try, but it isn’t something that I’ll be running out to buy as soon as it hits the shelves.
Left 4 Dead
A game where you play a survivor attempting to escape a zombie apocalypse is always going to entice me (and yet I still don’t own Dead Rising?). Left 4 Dead places four survivors (hence the use of the 4 in the title) in the middle of pandemic against hordes of zombies “Infected”.
While this game looks like it’s going to be a lot of fun, I expect it to really come alive with the four player co-op mode where you and three friends have to help each other battle through the hordes of Infected. That doesn’t just mean helping each other kill as many of the Infected as possible either, but also to heal team-mates, help them climb obstacles or pick them up if they get knocked over.
I see this being a game where I might not give it that much time as a single player game, but that is going to be great with a group of friends.
So there you have it; they are a few of the things I’m looking forward to over the next couple of months. What are you looking forward to? Any games you have your eye on? A film you can’t wait for? Maybe a new album that’s coming out some time soon?
