Activision Drives the Guitar Hero Franchise Even Further Into the Ground

Although I was never a huge fan of the series, I once thought that the Guitar Hero games were decent rhythm titles that provided a good amount of fun. However, with Activision releasing countless spin-offs with negligible improvements and song lists that decline in quality with each new edition I quickly lost interest in the Guitar Hero games.

It looks like Activision is going to milk the series even further in 2009. Although we're all aware that they're going to be releasing Guitar Hero Metallica for consoles this upcoming spring, it looks as if they have their third DS title already planned for release next year as well. The ESRB has confirmed the existence of Guitar Hero: Modern Hits for the Nintendo DS for a 2009 release. This will mark the third time Nintendo's ultra popular portable has seen a Guitar Hero title in less than a year.

After playing the mediocre Guitar Hero: World Tour on the 360 and deciding that the series has lost its appeal I can't say that I'm excited for another title in this series, especially a dumbed-down portable off-shoot. In the end, though, I really can't blame Activision for rehashing the same one-trick pony ad naseum. The sales are certainly there, and the public seems to be eating these sequels up. However, this is a series I see heading down the same route as Tony Hawk (another Activision property that was milked beyond belief) where the franchise is eventually run so far into the ground that the public will eventually lose interest.

Source

Poor Play Testing + A Rushed Product = A Broken Game

There is a growing trend in the industry that seems to be affecting all types of games, regardless of genre, size, or console. Despite the leaps and bounds we’ve made in technology through the years, numerous “glitchy”, barely-tested games are hitting the market. In fact, this seems to be becoming more and more acceptable with game publishers who just want to make a quick buck by putting their title on the market without thoroughly testing it.

Unfortunately, there’s not much we can do about this problem besides voting with our wallets. If you have heard about a game being filled with bugs then simply DO NOT purchase it. If you would try to return a bug-ridden game to the store you would only be provided with the same copy, and most of the time game publishers could care less about these bugs. A popular and well-known game publisher, Activision, provides walk-throughs and tips on how to get past known bugs in their products, but this is rare and if they didn’t’ have these rushed products filled with bugs in the first place it would not even be necessary. Many PC games provide patches for these problems, but on consoles it is not too often that a patch is released to fix some known-issues in a game (the only title I could think of is The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion for the Xbox 360).

One recent occurrence of a major glitch is SNK vs Capcom: Card Fighter’s Clash for the Nintendo DS, and this one is a doozy. This huge glitch prevents you from progressing through the game at a certain point, and the sad thing about this is that it wasn’t found in the original Japanese release. That’s a sign of piss-poor play-testing, and so far the official word from SNK on this issue is, simply,

"We're looking into it".

Um, thanks for that response, guys, but some people blew $30 on this broken game. Sadly, this occurrence is happening more and more often in games and needs to be stopped before it becomes even more of a problem.

Update: SNK is offering replacement cartridges for those who have received the initial broken version of the game, but the growing trend of glitch-ridden games continues...