Saints Row IV - People glitching

How to reproduce

Certain areas and or missions, the screen shots are from the island with the statue off the coast. While the other is from a defend a point mission

Description

Notice the model deformities. In the second picture one of the models is upside down



Personal Notes

Now I cant really say that the Saints Row games have been the best of games, they are however enjoyable. Saints Row 4 however... is still to be decided. The premise is that you are now in a computer simulated world and need to cause havoc to help bring the world down. Which is all good and fun and you get to level you "Super Human" abilities with how much code ( -_- ) you pick up. However when ever you go on another mission to save someone or do a side mission you lose all your abilities. Its like saying, "Hey did you enjoy being awesome ? and how you spent all those points in those abilities ? Well tough you don't get to use them on missions or on anything that matters"

That really irritated me. The other thing is, due to how the world is now one big computer simulation, and you main aim is to bring it down in a heap with bugs. Actually glitches happen, so .. are these "glitches" or actually glitches ...

I hate playing a game, that is a game of me playing in a game. Game-ception ...

Max Payne 3 - Light shaft too vibrant

How to Reproduce
- The how to reproduce steps for this is hard. As this has to do with  light shafts  in particular areas and even then I'm not sure if it isnt a visual setting to do with my laptop
Description
The light shafts are too vibrant to the point where you can see what it is lighting

Personal Notes
I've haven't been playing many games recently.. Actually that is a lie, I've been playing more "Alpha" or "Early Release" games of late, and they come with a heap of bugs themselves to the point where it frustrates me play. However with the Steam summer sales on recently, and the my new gaming laptop for Christmas, I've been getting back into the gaming. So here is the first one.
Now this bug to me normally wouldn't mean much, and in most first person shooters where the aim is to clear a room and move on. However in Max Payne where there is a lot of cues from the the game to direct the persons attention to parts of the story this was particularly annoying. Like previous Max Payne games there is a lot of motifs and visual cues to direct the players attention to certain things. A lot of games now a days are doing this to help tell the story instead of just, go here - kill stuff - cut scene. But when you get a bug like this it makes it really hard to follow the story sometimes and I've had to guess at why these guys are bad, it makes the game more interesting if you understand why you are doing these things. In the end I did enjoy the game. Apart from Max's overly whiny(?) attitude, but the poor guy just couldn't catch a break

Stronghold 3; Positive stats gives you negative happiness

How to Reproduce
- Start Stronghold3
- Play 4th mission of Economic Campaign
- Place flowers around the area to give yourself more happiness
Description

In the screen shot you will notice that a plague of rats is giving me happiness



Personal Notes

I have been unable to recreate this bug. If I do while playing I will update it further. However when something else came along like another plague or something the stats would then right itself. However it would then go back to being broken again after the event.

I've played all the previous Stronghold and like them. Not for the story, oh god not the story, but for the game mechanics and how it works and plays. Every building is needed and does something and works along side another building. Put a couple of buildings too far apart, the supply and demand is skewed. Your granary is too far from your farms? Then you will run out of food before it can be restocked. It is quite a simple yet complex and interesting game. Ahhh Steam how I love/hate you for the ease it is for me to get cheap good games. Seriously if more companies make it this easy (and cheap) to be legit, I'm sure more people would.

BioShock Infinite; Elizabeth gets stuck on a Sky Rail

How to Reproduce

- Start BioShock Infinite
- Load a level where there are ride-able Skyrails
- Ride a Skyrail all the way to the end of one (ensure Elizabeth is following you)
- When you reach the end and stopped moving. Jump off
Description
Elizabeth gets stuck on the Skyrail.

This hasn't happened to me all the time, and most of the time the AI for her is great and it works fine. However in the midst of battle where you are jumping from 1 rail to another. She sometimes gets lost.



Personal Notes

So I really liked Bioshock Infinite. The scenes were beautiful, the story was compelling and complex, and Elizabeth is awesome. I have played quite a few games, and some of them where you go around with an AI companion. They usually get lost, or stuck against some environmental object. But not Elizabeth. She follows you easily (until she gets stuck on a Skyrail) but most of the time she follows you easily enough. Throws ammo, health, salts, money at you. What more could a gamer want in an AI Companion! She even brings you back from the death which the animation for is also amazing. It really makes you feel for Her. In one part of the game where you lost her. I went crazy, must get her back as quickly as possible and I died so often. I do have 1 problem though.

So I bought this game on Steam in Australia. It cost me AU$80. However the same game in America is only USD$60. Please explain? Am I getting some kind of AU only version of Bioshock? or does it cost more to send the game via the tubes. Please explain? I know this is also an issue with other things apart from games. But come on!

Minecraft; Shadows are incorrect when placing half blocks on ceiling.

How to Reproduce

• Start Minecraft


• Using half blocks build a ceiling

Description

When you build the ceiling notice that the shadows on the corner blocks, even though they are half blocks, are full block shadows



Personal Notes

So me and my partner have been playing a lot of Minecraft. I still remember the day I first heard about this game and was not sure what the hype was all about.

Its a game about building blocks and stuff? Why is it so popular

Anyways after a couple of years this game has grown a lot. There is now so much more you can do. Me and my friends found a village and then We were like "Lets make it into a city!" .. So we did.. There have been a couple of other similar games (Terrira) which I have also played and are also quite popular. However they have all come and gone. Only Minecraft have stayed. I think it was the creepers .... scary little green things ....

Torchlight2; You cant equip an item if you have negative stat

How to Reproduce
- Start game
- Drink potion that lowers your stat
- Keep drinking till negative stat
- Ensure other stats are correct for item equip requirements
Description
You are unable to equip the item even though the other stats might match the requirements to equip said item

NOTE: I usually would have a screen shot but I think there is something wrong with torchlight+prtsrn     ED: Might have to write a bug report on that XD

Personal Notes

Ok, so maybe I was trying to power game and get my stats the way I want it. And yes this probably is a very minor bug because people shouldn't really be doing tweaking their stats like that. So I can understand why this bug was left. However on other side, maybe this is an actual feature to stop people from cheating? I can kinda guess how the conversation went with the devs

Dev: Ok so we've made it so people can drink this stuff and tweak their stats if they really want to.

Tester: Bug! I can't use this item anymore even though I met the per-reqs!?

Dev: Huh? Oh ! You have a negative stat. You were trying to cheat and it stopped you. That's not a bug, that's a feature!

Or maybe this really is a feature....

So I'm learning batch ...

So I'm starting to learn batch from scratch( yes .. even though I do have a Comp Sci degree .. terrible aren't I) Its just been so long since I've done anything like this and I thought I have to start somewhere.. I'm also going to have to have a way to get to it easily away from my home computer, then an idea struck me. Why not here.

So to my fellow readers (mainly my partner and friends) prepare to be shocked ...

Dropping attached Sql Database

Here is the first one I made this week at work, nothing fancy just drops an attached database. I got sick and tired of constantly doing it and I did it infrequently enough that I forgot the syntax, but frequently enough for it to annoy me.

First you need to have the command in an .sql file

drop table Tablename

go

Then you need the actual batch file to run it

@echo off      <--ED: Still no idea what this line actually does but all batch examples I've seen have them

sqlcmd -i Filename

Thats it. Simple right? but it saves me so much time.

Setting a local environment variable

So where I work you need to set environment variables to allow for fancy dev functions. However once they are set you never really need to bother with them again. Unless you reinstall your working environment. That is where I came up with the idea for the other one

@echo off

setx Variable value

Once again very simple, but its a start.

Torchlight 2; Able to have negative stats

How to Reproduce
- Start game
- Drink potion that allows you to lower a stat
- Drink a lot of said potion

Description
If you drink enough of said potion to lower a stat into the negative you will notice that nothing really happens, and you are able to use those points in another stat as per normal



Personal Notes

OK, so I haven't really been updating as much as I would like but I have been busy playing games, mainly Minecraft. If/when I find something good in that I'll make a post about that. In the mean time I've been playing Torchlight2.

I bought Torchlight2 quite a while ago, I think when it first came out on Steam. However like all Steam games you buy, you play for a little bit then move on (curse you Steam!). Recently I saw the sale and thought hey I want that, whoops already have that. So I played it for a bit and really enjoyed it. The action is simple and cartoony (I like that kind of style), while still actiony enough to make it look visually pleasing. The story was simple but engaging enough to not make it dull, but then again I wasn't really playing this for its story. Overall I recommend this game, it does have some re-playability, but I probably wont go back to it for a while so I can get a new sense of newness again.

Hotline Miami; Finishing off enemy in a corner makes you invulnerable

How to reproduce
- Start Game
- On a level, knock out a guy in a corner
- Jump on him to finish him off



Description

Notice that the enemy now try and kill you with guns. However no matter how much they shoot. They cant kill you



Personal Notes

This game has many issues. So far none that I have found are big issues, so they were probably prioritised lower, and from what I have played so far the game quality has not diminished even if there are these issues. Actually it makes the game harder and more fun when you try and exploit these things.

Example. Two guys with guns behind a door and another guy around the corner with a crowbar. What to do?

1. Run in and throw someone at bottom guy with gun, knocking him down


2. Run and hit the second guy with gun, knocking him down


3. Turn around and smack the guy with crowbar down, then proceed to finish him off


4. By this time the first guy would've gotten up, but you will have enough time to grab the crowbar and charge him. If you do are fast enough the bullets will spawn behind you so you can smack him dead


5. Then proceed to finish off the last guy


6. Then get killed by another guy with a shotgun/baseball bat ........

This game is strangely fun. Has most of the things a tester would like in a game. Quick restart time. Relatively fixed variables (the bad guys and their weapons are the same, but their path isn't). This with the weird mindless violence and retro top-down-GTA look. It has to be one of the weirder games out there. I mean what is with the weird trips to the pizza/video/etc stores .. and those masks ....

Hotline Miami; Able to avoid bullets if you are close enough to theenemy

How to reproduce
- Start game-
- Charge straight at an enemy and try and get in front of them

Description
When the enemy starts shooting the bullets appear behind you and you are not killed. As you can see in the screen shot the enemy is shooting at me and I'm standing just in front of the gun and not being hit.



Personal notes

This game is hard. 1 hit death. That is kinda frustrating, however with the fact that you can retry straight away (like Super Meat Boy) and the fact that the "death" doesn't really cost you anything except for time, makes it less painful and more leaning towards the fun crazy side. You can retry things (like getting this screen shot) over and over very quickly. This makes it quite a fun and simple game. Well worth the $$ and on another note full of bugs.