I don't mean to keep this going unnecessarily, but I figured I would try to clarify my position a bit.
You guys might be looking too deeply into the word, but Vanquish PC
is broken. The game was designed and balanced around certain expectations --
"enemies do this amount of damage" -- and if you run it above 30fps you don't get that. The game's design is fundamentally broken. This isn't the actual Vanquish game anymore. Some people might prefer that, just like
Broken Street Fighter 2 has its fans, and that's perfectly fine, but this game wasn't sold to us as Broken Vanquish.
I do probably care about playing a game how it's intended/designed more than most gamers do, that's definitely true. (I also recognize how murky the issue can get, that I could be accused of hypocrisy for being cool with higher resolutions and framerate, but I feel I can see a reasonably solid, consistent line there.) But I truly don't understand how anybody can seriously defend a game that isn't working on a basic, mathematical level. These games aren't free, why don't all of us expect them to properly work just like we'd expect any non-game product we buy to work?
Obviously if you're having fun that's great, honest, and I don't mean to come across as trying to censor your fun. But I just feel gaming would be in a much better place if this sort of thing wasn't given such a wide pass. Having games function as designed isn't too much to ask for from publishers.
Hopefully this damage issue will be fixed in a manner of days and my absurdly emotional ranting here will just be a dumb historical footnote. I even hope they include a command line option for those of you who prefer Broken Vanquish!
(For the record I don't consider Bayonetta PC a broken port, though it definitely had some bizarre issues at launch. [I'm still unconvinced the torture attacks are working as intended, but that's ultimately fairly minor.] I was referencing Nier Automata as Platinum's other broken port this year.)
I don't think Platinum is completely undeserving of blame when they release buggy software. Surely their contracts suggest they'll release fully functional software, right? But it's unclear how much they actually worked on this Vanquish port, or whether they even had the power to tell Sega the port is broken and they shouldn't release it in this state. Maybe they did warn Sega!
My problems with Platinum here come down more to their more zealous lovers on GAF. I suspect if the Crash Bandicoot remakes come to PC and all of the hitboxes are double their intended size, people would be howling for Activision's blood.
