Tsk. Bugs, eh. In games. Nothing worse. They're not meant to be there. But sometimes they are and that's where they stay until Mr Developer stops fiddling with his massive beard and decides to do something about it. And he always does something about it because he knows otherwise gamers will just refuse to play his broken piece of programming ever again. Because unlike developers, gamers actually have standards. Although that's not actually true. Because sometimes we'll happily play a game - even love a game - that has more bugs than an 80s rap jam.
Like what games exactly? Like these games exactly. The Top 7... horrendously buggy games we loved anyway.
7. Dead Island | 360, PC, PS3
Let's start with the game that has the honour (although it should probably be considered more a dishonour) of being the inspiration for this week's Top 7. So perilously rough around the edges that it always seems a realistic possibility that at any moment it could actually fall apart. Sure, all Dead Island's problems aren't exclusively bug-related - stupid plot, stupid characters, stupid quests - but ho-lee shit there are a lot of bugs.
Above: Even without the bugs, Dead Island is pretty stupid
Google 'dead island bugs' and - BOOM - 16,000,000 results. There's a 50+ page thread at the Steam forums dedicated to the game's myriad issues of technical slapdash shittery. Inability to complete quests. Vanishing inventory. Game crashes. Terrible frame-rate. It reads like a laundry list of stuff that you absolutely don't want to have in your game. Because broken stuff isn't good stuff. Developer Techland has tried to improve things with patches, but so far that hasn't gone as smoothly as everyone would have liked either. Ah. Oh dear.
Above: What we're saying here is that trying to patch Dead Island is like trying to use a box of Band-Aid to treat a man who has been chopped in half by a freak elevator accident caused by the Antichrist
This all sounds pretty awful. And it is. But after investing several hours into the quality assurance void that is Dead Island, we came to appreciate that - despite its flaws - it's an incredibly hard game to put down. This is probably because violently killing infected tourists with frighteningly brutal weapons is a lot of fun. Dumb, blatantly unfinished and nothing like that fancy trailer everyone jizzed over, but good, honest, mindless fun all the same.
6. Gears of War | 360, PC
We’ll never forget the moment we saw the magical levitating car. It was a beautiful, nay transcendant, experience. One of those wonderful convergences of universal serendipity. It was Act 2 of Gears of War. After an initial shaky start with the game, we had made ultra-super-besybest friends with it, was completely in the flow, and had commenced utterly kicking all kinds of arse all over the show. And after a long, hard-fought, but ultimately rewarding tactical battle, we heard a curious noise.
Above: But, you know, at least everyone could enjoy a good old knees-up together, despite the ongoing horror of war
We turned around to find the source of this strange, metallic rattle, and found a car going berserk on the tarmac. It started with a gentle vibration, as if having a satisfied purr to itself at our victory, or perhaps a hearty giggle at the plight of our fallen Locust foes. But then it started slowly, ever-so-gradually rising off the ground, as if the sheer joy of its victory was literally lightening its spirits, causing a physical manifestation of its elevated mood which seeped through to take command of every proton of its being.
Above: It was like this, only more majestic and with less Spanish voice-over
Up! Up went our glorious, beautiful, triumphant car of victory! And then, in one flawless moment of life-affirming splendour, once it was free enough of petty earthly conceits, it completed its perfect tribute to our vanquishing of the dark subterranean hordes by beginning to rotate upon its horizontal axis. Yes! Yes, our benevolent automotive friend was actually doing slow back-flips of joy! We watched as it continued up into the heavens. It took ten minutes before it disappeared up through the clouds, but we didn’t miss a second of its ascension. We love you, magic sky-car. We wish you the best, wherever you are.
