Why do era of games that don't require patches vanished? [closed]

Question

10-15 years ago, when game got released it was rock solid from the start, maybe with some minor bugs (but most of the time without them)

Today - almost every game require patches to play, they have lots of huge bugs, what changed?

Answer

Your question is based on a false assumption that older games were "rock solid" and only with minor bugs.

Maybe you happened to stumble mostly upon games that were good enough, but that wasn't generally the case. Many games were buggy or badly balanced, often to the point of being unplayable. But since the internet wasn't as widespread as it is now, and there wasn't such a huge amount of money in the gaming industry, no one bothered to fix them, issue and distribute a patch.

Another factor that might influence the abundance of bugs in today's games is also tied to the business logic. For big game publishers, it is often preferable to hit a release deadline, even at the cost of releasing a buggy game.
Almost ubiquitous broadband connections help with the patching immediately after the game's release, and the publisher doesn't lose as much money as he might if he delayed the release until the product is polished and finalized.

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Guide for improving aim at First Person Shooters in consoles

Question

I have played Half Life and Counter Strike since 2001 and many others since, so I have some years of experience in playing fps games in computers, with mouse and keyboard. While I am not very good, I manage to almost always with the top 5 players on my team.

However, when I play on the PS3, fps games like Wolfenstein, or games that are not fps, but ocasionally need some aiming like Uncharted or Fallout 3, I am totally lame, and end up dying even on easy difficulties.

Has someone with this same problem of mine published a guide that I will be able to follow and improve myself?

Answer

There's really nothing more to it than practice unfortunately. I've been playing PC shooters since the original Doom and thought I would never get into console shooters, but after playing a bit of CoD4, I started getting into it and after a year or so of playing, I felt as in control playing with a controller as I did with the keyboard / mouse combo.

One thing though, you will never be as accurate using a controller, it's just impossible. Whereas using a keyboard and mouse in a shooter could be described as "point and click", with a controller, I've found that it's more like sweeping towards the target and picking the right moment to press fire in that sweep.

It sounds kinda strange, but it can be 90% as effective as keyboard / mouse control once you get used to it.

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How to choose what video game console to buy?

Question

What parameters should I consider in buying a game console?

Answer

The parameters you should consider are:

• What games are available for each platform.
• Single-shot price for the console itself as well as peripherals and games.
• Availability of peripherals and games in your region.
• Availability of online extras in your region, such as support for online multiplayer, and their recurring prices.
• Available hard disk space, if you intend to use it.
• Other console capabilities other than gaming - e.g. PS3's Blu-ray drive, the ability to use the console as a media server, etc.
• Finally, investigate the specific games you are interested in, and compare their versions - is one version prettier than the other? Smoother? With less bugs? etc. This is of course unknown for future games, but there are already a lot of games released now. Take a look at this question to find out how to compare the versions.

I intentionally left out graphics or processing power from the above list, since that is either obvious (everybody knows PS3 > Wii) or the differences are small enough that what you need to focus on is the difference in specific games. Game A may look better on XBox than on PS3, while game B the other way around.

Now, as for which parameters should carry more weight, that's entirely up to you. Is price important for you? How about multiplayer gaming? Pretty graphics? Game availability? Make your own decisions about what is more important that what.

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