Are Bethesda Games Too Buggy?

Following the issues that have plagued virtually every one of Fallout 3’s DLC packages and the new Canadian save game incompatibility problem in the GotY Edition, The Examiner has finally been driven to publish an editorial about Bethesda’s apparent lack of QA.

The post-apocalyptic role playing game has been widely enjoyed in Europe, North America and recently, has stunned aficionados of the RPG genre by actually cracking a recent Japanese poll of best RPGs of all time, an unheard of feat for a western RPG. It is also, sadly, a game that is riddled with glitches, bugs and other defects across all platforms. The fan/knowledge-base site wikia has a Fallout 3 section with numerous documented bugs and glitches for every version of the game. Everything from the game slowing down, freezing, crashing and missions not correctly playing out despite required objectives being completed have been noted by gamers since the game went on sale. In some cases, these errors and bugs have been fixed by the numerous patches that have gone on-line subsequent to the game’s release. In other cases, these errors remain within the game to this very day.

Recently a new bug has put Canadian PS3 owners in particular in a very difficult place. On October 13th, Bethesda released Fallout 3: Game of the Year Edition to all major retailers. This is a reissue of the original Fallout 3 with the addition of the expansions that are now available for purchase on-line to add more playable content to the game. With five expansions selling at $10 each on-line, it’s actually cheaper for most Canadians with the original Fallout 3 title to simply sell their existing copy and purchase the newer GOTY edition, rather than pay $50 to buy each expansion on-line. The manual for the new version also states that old Fallout 3 saves will work with the GOTY edition, in anticipation of such a purchase, since this precedent was well established for earlier games such as the Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion GOTY edition released previously.

However, for Canadian PS3 fans, the “GOTY” edition of the Fallout 3 is not compatible with older Fallout 3 game saves.

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At this point it has been over two weeks since Canadian PS3 gamers have found themselves locked out of their old Fallout 3 game saves and no solution is in sight. Some have simply written off the loss, tried to sell their game off, or, in the case of a few far sighted individuals, simply returned their games immediately before the problem became widely known to retailers and exchanged it for another title. For the rest, some continue ask for updates on the official Bethesda forums, others have given up, and still others patiently wait, hoping that a patch or some other solution will be forthcoming that will allow them to finally access the added content the way other gamers around the world can.