Mass Effect 2 PS3 save glitch will be fixed

PS3 users will soon be able to breathe a bit more easily when they play Mass Effect 2. A glitch that left numerous people with corrupted save files and nothing to show for their hours play has been fixed and the patch is in its final testing stage.

"First, we are sorry some of you have had problems playing Mass Effect 2 on the Playstation 3 and want to thank you all for providing feedback on our forums on both the freezing and resulting save game issue that some of you have experienced," said Bioware community chief Chris Priestly in an official forum post.

He said that the company is finalizing the patch with internal testing, and that it will promptly be sent over to Sony for release via the PS3 servers. Here's a full list of what the patch entails, as described by Priestly:

-Fixed a crash related to memory fragmentation. This fix will also resolve the crashing that corrupted Save Games.
-Slightly improved load times and level streaming.
-Added some telemetry to better improve future titles.
-Updated some strings to fix spelling mistakes (Sorry Kaidan!)
-Fixed the picture frame in Shepard's Cabin to accurately reflect your love interest choices in Mass Effect: Genesis.
-Fixed a rare crash in the PSN version in Shepard's Cabin.

In the meantime, he says, "We want you to be able to continue playing." Until the patch is available Priestly suggests the following:

"There is a very simple work around to ensure the freezing and corruption issues are minimized. Simply restart your game every few hours. By shutting down and restarting your game, you will not encounter the corrupted save issue."

I'm not sure how many would consider shutting down the game and restarting it every few hours a "very simple" workaround, but at least you shouldn't have to do it for very long.

[Source: Bioware.com]

Jan 27, 2011