Bugs and Usability Gaps Ruin a Great Game
920679
This game is deeply disappointing.  While gameplay itself has been good, the quality of DICE's game menus and selection screens for multiplayer makes it almost unplayable.  The GUI of this part of the game is completely counter-intuitive, appears to have been an afterthought, and does more to prevent players from joining games than it does to actually support them.

As an example the game often fails to load simply when you boot it up, sitting uselessly at the "Connecting To Account Server" screen during initial log in.  Bear in mind, you're not logging into multiplayer here... the game needs to connect to the server so that you can even play it on your own machine against the computer, and often fails to do so!

Once in, finding a game can be impossible, or at least infuriating. The game often loads completely (takes forever), begins comparing data with the server, and breaks with no error message, returning you to the game selection screen.  This process will not be unfamiliar to those of you who formerly owned Commodore Vic-20s with the Cassette Tape storage system.

DICE should be ashamed at the inattention to detail and overall poor quality of this software.
4905409
I'm a guitar teacher, a grade 8 guitar player, and a performing musician.

Rocksmith is a really great idea. I got the game with much excitement. However, here are the main issues with it.

1) There is no tablature for any of the songs, and the rocksmith guitar notation is substandard to normal notation, and a pain in the butt to learn to read - especially if you have already spent years and years becoming proficient at reading real music. For example, when I learned 'Plug In Baby' by Muse, it was from a tab book with timings written clearly in the stave above. On Rocksmith there's a very very unclear timing guide and the notes on harder songs are laid out like a bewildering onslaught of multicoloured squares that, if you're a serious musician, the only way to really figure out is to actually painstakingly work through them with GuitarPro or a similar program, converting them all into standard tab.

2) There is no way to turn up the guitar track you are supposed to be learning, or to listen to it in isolation. An intensely irritating example of this would be 'Live Forever' by Oasis, where in the original track, the lead guitar parts are virtually inaudible in the mix. When learning the song on the hardest setting, not only do you have to endure the at times indecipherable rocksmith guitar notation (which is great if you're a beginner and a nightmare if you're not) but you can't even listen to it to figure out the timings! In the end I had to go on youtube and watch people playing the piece perfectly so that i could actually hear the lead part!!!!! very much not ideal. This issue occurs in lots of songs and could easily be remedied by allowing the player to turn up the individual guitar part, or listen to it in isolation.

3) The game requires you to hook the audio outputs of your system to an external speaker using analogue connectors to reduce the audio/video lag. This works just fine. However, there is STILL a lag when playing the game on 'score attack' mode - and the lag exists between the playing of the guitar and the game processing the notes. What this means in real terms, is the game will only tell you you have hit a 'perfect' note if you actually hit the note a millisecond too early. And on the more difficult songs, this amounts to having to retrain yourself to actually play out of time if you want the game to register a perfect performance. Of all the issues, this one is the most glaring, frustrating, and seemingly ignored by the makers, Ubisoft. It means the leaderboards are also a bit of a farce - the people who score the high marks who have the time and inclination to relearn how to play guitar a split second too fast - and what on earth is the real-world application or point of a skill like that? Give me a break.

If these issues were fixed - tabs, adjustable volume levels for guitar parts completely buried in the mix, and fixing that hideous hideous processing lag, this game would be utterly indispensable as a guitar teaching tool worldwide. As it is, it is a very good idea that has, unfortunately, been imperfectly executed. If they fix these things, I will take it all back.
11333
It is now evident to me that Bethesda is so eager to sell their software that they NEVER adequately debug their products. The larger the game the greater the chances that you will run into a game killing bug. Some quests become IMPOSSIBLE if you activate one of the bugs ... um features .... in the software. Many of the crashes resemble memory leaks.  If it were not for the buggy performance I would have given the product 5 stars. The software crashes have the same effect as being absorbed into a compelling movie and having the house lights suddenly flipped on. Some jerk then shouts, "Oh sorry! My bad" and turns the lights back off and the movie back on. Bethesda's buggy software is obviously a project management problem and NOT a coding problem. If you have written software you know what I mean. The game is "playable" but frustrating.
4440600
Okay there are still a lot of bugs in the game.  A lot of stuff doesn't work the way the in game descriptions say it will work.  Expect it to crash more and more frequently as you get farther along in the game.  I am on turn 200 in a multiplayer game with my brother and it crashes every other turn at least.

Since there isn't much out there in the way of 4x space empire games with multi-player capability, buy this game if you want. Just be ready to spend alot of time figuring things out.  Documentation is poor.  Community support is scarce.  And its a fairly slow paced game so figuring out things yourself will take a while. Steam said I had played the game for 200 hours before I had figured out enough work around tricks to bump my review up from a one star to a three.  Once that is done however, if you like this type of game you will be having fun.

The most recent work around I figured out was that the host of a game can use a battle manager button that is normally blocked for payers during multi-player games.  If they do this, then it bugs the battle out and causes the other players in the battle to be unable to see the hosts ships resulting in a easy win for the host.  For the first several battles my friends and I didn't know what was causing the invisible ships bug and we were loading the game any time this happened.  It was horrible.  Once we learned to avoid the bug, the game was much more fun.
4305539
Empire Total War and the overpriced Special Forces Edition are essentially a very fun game.

The graphics are really top notch, although there are minor graphical glitches like flickering shadows and some LOD issues with models textures.

The sound effects are pretty well done and work great in the unpatched version of the game (further explanation below)

But, overall, the overwhelming amount of bugs make it nothing but a mess to weed through. I forced myself to play through a majority of the Prussian campaign for about 1 month. I have nothing but crashes to desktop and "video out of memory" errors. On Mar 25 and Mar 30th Creative Assembly released two patches to address crashes and sound issues. Since that time my sound within the game has been working intermittently or not at all and the crashes have not been fixed. People that had previously not crashed are now experiencing consistent crashes.

Some individuals complain about the AI not doing Naval Invasions or minor gameplay bugs such as pathing or siege placement issues... but I consider that minor and addressable by patching. The bugs I and numerous other ETW purchasers are experiencing are absolute game breakers.

Buyer beware, the Special Forces Edition is a complete ripoff as the contents nowhere add up to the additional $20. The map is a black and white line drawing that doesn't even compare to the maps in the previous Total War releases. There are no pullouts and no tech trees. The "Art book" is just a little cd cover sized booklet showing you the loading screens from the game. People that have just done a pre-pay get special units that individuals who purchased the SFE for $75 do NOT get. So, I recommend not buying the SFE.

If buyers have any question purchasing this product, I highly recommend going to the forums at:

[...]
[...]

and make your own choice. This game HAD great potential. But with one month already passed after release and each patch making the game worse so far, does not bode well for a quick resolution of all the issues and there will NEVER be a GUARANTEE that the game will be fixed.

Just for System Specs:
QX9650 - 780i SLI - 8GB 6400C5DHX - 2x GTX280 - 1KW PSU - X-Fi Platinum - Vista Ultimate 64bit

Plays the following maxed at 1680x1050 without crashes and overclocked: Company of Heroes, Call of Duty 4&5, Stalker (both), Crysis & C. Warhead, Farcry 2, Assassins Creed, and numerous other demanding games.
3350624
Our family owns most of the LEGO games for the PC so we've come to expect some minor tech issues but LEGO Harry Potter is ridiculously bug-ridden. I can't recommend this game because of the lack of quality control and TT's categorical refusal to issue any patches. The game was released nearly half a year ago and they don't even address the issue on their site much less offer any fixes. If you plan to play this game to completion, expect to spend at least 3 times longer than necessary due to the number of times you'll have to restart the program after encountering the many (entirely fixable if TT cared) bugs.
1130511
This game would be good (not great, but at least amusing), but it has far too many bugs in it. As of patch 1.22.9, this game is crippled beyond repair. Everything will run fine at first, but after enough time has passed, Sims begin to vanish, turn invisible, or worse, vanish from the world forever. I have personally started over six times, and it always ends the same. One day, Sims in your household disappear, then reappear somewhere else on the lot. One of my Sims was taking a shower, another was sleeping, and the other was at work. The Sim in the shower disappeared and popped out of the shower, still completely naked, and started walking around. His "shower" action was cancelled. The Sim at work popped out of his rabbit hole job and was standing outside, and then decided to go home. He was missing work and losing job performance, so I had to force him to go back and finish the work day. The Sim in bed immediately appeared outside the house, then passed out from exhaustion (his energy bar never filled). From this point on, this will continue until you give up. No Sim will carry on with any action you assign to them. They will just cancel it, vanish, then reappear somewhere else on the lot like magic. And this crippling bug is just the tip of the iceberg for Sims 3. I tried to "Edit Town" and change the music station on a dance club's speakers, and when I came back into "Live" mode, every Sim in the Town was gone. The interface was gone, and there were cars just frozen in the streets. It was like an H-Bomb landed on Sunset Valley. The game was completely trashed.
Do yourself a favor and stop buying anything with "EA" on it. They don't care about the customer. Once they have your money, they ignore you. You will only get a form letter if you report a bug, and nothing will ever be done to fix this game. It is crippled beyond repair.
739070
The game itself is awesome WHEN it worked. However, the game doesn't load properly and it is a defect in the coding in the game, not a disk or Xbox issue. Google "Far Cry 4 loading issue" and you'll see a host of posts on gaming boards about the same issue I've experienced. Resetting/unplugging my Xbox each time I want to play the game is not a solution. Not to mention that often it does not recall your progress. An absolute waste of $$. What is even worse is that since it's a video game I can't return it for a refund.
3231780
I downloaded and played the Demo.. I thought great, what a kicka$$ game.. The storyline is great, the graphics are awesome if your video card is compatible or Recognized by the game(Radeon 9700 is not).. If not MAJOR BUGS from slow windows inside the game to rough game play!!! It only took 15hrs to beat single player mode, Multi-player [smells].. You have to restart a new character every time you play or change servers..You lose your money and ship!!! SO much for progress.. My system XP2500+ Nforce 2 Radeon 9700 1GB 333DDR.. Save your money for something else!!!...
3598259
The original NWN was buggy on release, but this game is so buggy you may not even be able to install it.

Wait a couple months (or more) for the game to be fixed is my recommendation. The recommended minimal requirements are no where even close to what you'll actually need to run this game at an acceptable level, so consider getting it after next years hardware upgrade.

The game will certainly be worth purchasing in a couple months, but stay away for now and help force the devs to fix it. I'm shelving it and will update my review once it's fixed enough to play.
285301
Don't buy this game. The parts that work are fun, but there are so many hang ups, freezes, and blank screens that the fun quickly becomes pure frustration. Not too far into the game, you simply cannot proceed.  Aspyr informed me that they were aware of the problems and were working on fixes. They also said this was "mostly" a problem with OS 9 users.
3564175
This game is still just as buggy, crash happy, and broken as it was upon initial release.  It's amazing to me that the creators of such amazing games as Oblivion and Morrowind would keep re-selling the same broken game and broken add on's with out fixing it.  Buy at your own risk, once outside the vault it's virtually unplayable due to the crashes, bugs and glitches.  I have twice the requirements needed to play this game and run it flawlessly on high quality settings.  How the hell are you supposed to enjoy and immerse yourself in a game like this when you play the same first part of the game 100 times due to the game randomly crashing before you can save or do anything.

Same broken game, with the the all new bug ridden add on's.  Buy at your own risk.
3286804
Sioryline moves to slow, as well as the in game schematic puzzles get annoying after the first two when patching a line to 'snoop' around. Could have been a awesome game, but far too many glitches.
4245015
With Disney's name and image attached to this game, I assumed the best and made a quick Christmas gift purchase for my daughter. I realize now that I should have researched a bit more before buying.  What was intended to be a relaxing evening in-between bowl games turned into a heartbreaking experience due to this game's very poor Kinect software integration.  The interplay is hand gesture-driven, yet the game falls flat on just this single, critical feature.  Which is surprising, seeing how the game was designed by Frontier Developments for Microsoft release.  Frontier also built Kinectimals and otherwise has a pretty nice track record with respect to Microsoft projects.

I've read several similar commentaries regarding how the tedious and aggravating hand gesture interface adversely affects game play.  I'm convinced that the problem lies with the game design and software, and not with Kinect. We couldn't even get through character creation because the interface totally failed to register my 8-year-old daughter's hand movements.  It registered well prior to that screen, but during character creation, the game stranded her totally.  Wouldn't even display the hand silhouette.  What's worse is that if she extends her left arm toward the floor, it recognizes her gesturing for the menu screen with no delay.  Within that screen (which is part of the system's design, not the game's) she can navigate and track with no problems as well.  Only during game play does it fail to properly register and track her hand motions.  It's infuriating.  She had been SO looking forward to checking out the virtual Disneyland park.

It's gratifying to know that Disney seriously cares about their customer experience and may be inclined to take some action, seeing how many similar reviews exist.  If we were at a Disney property, and my daughter was, say, brought to tears by an inconsiderate and offensive actor, I know full well that there would be serious repercussions for the employee and my daughter's experience would take a quick and magnificent turn for the better.  Perhaps if they understand that this game literally brought my 8-year-old daughter to tears (and several other families to similar endings over what is apparently a design flaw) ought to bear some consequences for the game developer.  Would a downloadable patch be out of the question?

Since most people who write negative reviews tend to check back from time to time, I hope they'll read this and take a few moments to forward their comments directly to Disney and Frontier so that there will be at least an opportunity for accountability.
2095668
Game was good. But had tons of bugs. Worst of which would corrupt your saves and you'd have to go back and play from old saves losing tons of progress.  Though that may have been patched by now.
1735184
I have been playing since the launch of this game.  Its one of the best games Id ever played, however the premature launch of the new Combat Upgrade has brought thousands of its players to tears.  Its horribly hindered by the bugs and coding errors thus making the game hard to play and understand.  Also because this new upgrade doesnt even have an online manual(tells you that its still being tested) your questions go unanswered.  I would recommend that you wait until they have finished the Live server testing of this game before you waste your money.
3731450
Let me start by saying that Gears of War is an outstanding game.  It is very well polished with no major glitches and excellent graphics.  I can say with a high degree of confidence that most people will find it to be worth their while.  Please excuse my gratuitous comparisons to Halo in terms of quality.

That said, I was disappointed in several departments.  The much flouted cover function can seem almost broken quite often; since the A-button is entirely context sensitive, most people will find themselves getting killed in horribly frustrating incidents.  For example, (and this has happened to me) a player might try to roll away from an enemy only find their character slam himself behind a piece of cover and get killed.  Other aspects of the gameplay, such as the chainsaw bayonet, can prove equally frustrating, since a single hit will stun your character while he is revving his chainsaw.  At its best, the Gears single player campaign approaches the brilliance of Halo.  Unfortunately, these types of moments have the player shouting at the screen and throwing his or her controller just as often as they have the player dropping their jaw in amazement.

Overall, however, the single player is tremendous.  Unfortunately, and counter intuitively, it's no fun to play by oneself.  The horrible ally AI limits the player to the lower difficulty levels, so unless you have either an XBOX Live account or a good friend to play with the campaign is no good.  Once you add that second person, however, the game really takes off.  I have finished this game once on the easiest difficulty setting, once on the medium difficulty setting, and am now almost done with it on the highest difficulty setting.  This game entices the player to go back and try it on a harder difficulty, since (at least for me) it is a slow game to learn.  I can honestly say that this is one of the most satisfying single player experiences on the market.

For me, the multiplayer is sub-par.  It feels far less precise than Halo 2 did on XBL, and the matchmaking system in miles behind Halo 2.  This is an often mentioned complaint, but i figure i might as well say it again.  Now, I am terrible at Gears multiplayer, so please take my assessment of it with a grain of salt.  Practically everyone I know who has played it enjoys it, so even if I don't recommend it I'm willing to wager that you will.

Overall, Gears of War is a solid game marred by some of the annoyances I mentioned here as well as myriad others that can simply drive a gamer crazy.  I hate having to sit through dialogue every time I die in campaign without being able to skip it, and the one vehicle portion is a bit of a mess.  These complaints don't make me regret owning it, however, and if I were to pick a list of the top five games for XBOX 360 there is no doubt that this would be on my list.  I just wanted to warn prospective buyers that while Gears maintains a consistent level of excellence, it is the most constantly frustrating game I have ever played.  So please, don't let this article dissuade you from buying it, and don't expect yourself to have the same complaints as I have.  Just be warned, despite what many might be saying, this probably isn't the best game on XBOX 360.