Remember a time gone by when you’d buy a game on release day, and it just ‘worked’? I know, it was a long time ago. But it did happen, I promise.

I foolishly ventured out at midnight for the release of Black Ops – I was so disappointed to find the multiplayer wasn’t playable at all, and the single player only *just* ran with all the settings turned down.

It seems like these days a game is released in an unfinished state, and its often a .1 or a .2 version iteration before the game is near finished or working. Some might say we’re benefting from additional (and continual) development time, but I don’t agree.  I feel for the poor guy (or girl) who eagerly buys a game on release day, and plays through it before the game is patched.

They’re getting a sub-par experience to the guy who buys the game in a steam sale 8 months after release.   That’s not good for anyone!

Considering the Xbox version of most games come out in a far better state than the PC port of the same game, my question is – would you rather wait for a delayed release of a ‘working’ game, or should be just accept that we’ll be beta testing big releases from now on?

That’s right, 7 days from release date a group called ‘xbox360iso’ claim to have released a download of Call Of Duty: Black Ops.
Shame on anyone who downloads it, and hopefully they have programmed in something which backfires for the player who has an illegal copy (much like Arkham Asylum!)

That’s quite enough console-based news for this month.

New video showing a game mode called ‘wager mode’ – looks to be a fun take on the predictable online first-person shooter series, however encouraging a ‘credit’ system will surely be a target for ‘boosters’ and hackers. . Here’s hoping that’s not the case!