While we cannot fault developers for creating games on multiple platforms, we can fault them at porting the game to a PC (You know, the main system it’s designed on) and doing it… badly. Here’s eight games that were ported over in the most lazy possible fashion.
Halo
Halo – This game was just aweful in every possible way on the PC. I think they just added a port simply to say it finally came to the PC. But, like Superman64 for the Nintendo 64 or [a href=”https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E.T._the_Extra-Terrestrial_(video_game)”]E.T. for Atari 2600[/a], this one should be avoided at all costs on the PC. It’s just.. ugh. Don’t waste precious time by dignifying this game with any sort of attention.
Rage
Rage was a game that pioneered Id Software’s IdTech5 engine, which was supposed to be the latest and greatest engine that utilized OpenGL instead of DirectX. Instead of using smaller, repetitive textures for terrain, it used super-high resolution textures called “mega-textures” to give a more realistic look to the landscape. Smaller textures use a lower resolution and are only really effective on larger areas but can lead to a boring look to a game. Id wanted to try something different and used large images that covered large areas of the terrain with few texture files. They also added an option to drastically lower the texture resolution while it fully loads so the gameplay doesn’t suffer. However, it was quickly discovered that the engine couldn’t fully compensate for this change and any movement meant we saw the textures constantly changing from low to high, making the game look ridculous. It also didn’t help that there were large amounts of other texture issues that plagued the game at launch. Few patches were released for the game and it seems as though Id kind of gave up on the title with the latest patch for the PC being a true slap in the face. As it didn’t even bother changing the control scheme from the controller settings to that of a keyboard and mouse.
Skyrim
Even though Skyrim is most widely recognized now as a game found on the PC, it wasn’t always the case. The default control scheme is, to this day, designed to work best with a controller and very frustrating to those who use a keyboard and mouse to play. As with most things, however, the modding community made Skyrim their own even before the construction kit was released allowing folks to “fix” issues with the game when it first came out. For most of the interface fixes, you can download SkyUI and get a far superior interface. For me, it’s an absolute requirement.
Batman: Arkham Knight
The launch of Rocksteady’s final game in their Batman trilogy was so bad it had to be pulled from Steam so it could be fixed. It launched with a 30fps cap, something that the PC gaming community HATES given our hardware can almost always support much higher framerates for smoother gameplay. But with Arkham Knight, even those with the most powerful of gaming hardware were having a tough time keeping the game running at even 30fps. That’s not to say the game was that demanding on a systems hardware, but that the game was so poorly coded it couldn’t even maintain a consistant framerate. Rocksteady, in their announcement recognizing the issues surrounding the title on the PC mentioned that they used an external company to create the PC port. Perhaps they shouldn’t use them again.
Dark Souls
Dark Souls is one of the most unforgiving RPGs you can play. In order to play it properly and have at least a little bit of fun, you need to have controls that are sensitive enough to react as quickly as you can to avoid those hits that will no doubt kill you in short order. The only real way to play this game properly on the PC is through the use of two modifications DSfix and DScfix that “fix” some of the control issues that will have. As a PC Gamer, we’re used to mods. We love mods. Mods are great. But, we don’t want to have to use a mod to simply play the game properly. That should be up to the developer to fix, not the community, as it is right now. Let’s not forget that the game originally could only be played in 720p… on a PC.
Street Fighter V
Okay, I know. It’s a fighting game and these are generally a console-centric genre. But, if you’re going to port it to the PC, at least put some effort into it. It seems they just did the bare minimum so a computer would recognize this game as a PC game left it alone, something like an afterthought. With horrible latency issues in online matchmaking and even just the reaction time between hitting a button and your character actually performing the action, it’s no where near the level that most Street Fighter fans demand of a new title (or any real gamer for that matter).
Watch_Dogs
E3 2012 – we were introduced to Ubisoft’s open-world title based on technology and hacking. The visuals were amazing. The weather looked realistic, they talked about new technology that made it look even better. It looked like a variation on Rockstar’s Grant Theft Auto series and the outlook for a competitor to the titan of open world mayhem looked great. Then, as the game was nearly upon us, we discovered that those effects that were advertised to be in the game at E3 were all but gone, at least that’s what we thought. It turns out, Ubisoft just disabled these features for whatever reason. It wasn’t until a modder discovered them in the game code and re-enabled them using a mod to turn them back on. Even with these features disabled, the game ran terrible. Signifigant FPS issues with drops to 10fps or more with little changing that would cause it. The textures are aweful and the control scheme is less than to be desired for a PC game.
Need for Speed: Rivals
Older PC Gamers remember the days of the original Need for Speed games on the PC platform and how amazing they were. They were simplistic, but still a lot of fun to play. While it was a lot more fun to play with a steering wheel or controller with a tophat, it was still quite playable with a keyboard. The point is, there’s no reason for this travesty of a game to be the way it is. From unskippable cutscenes to a required 30 fps lock or else the game is almost unplayable (60fps doubles the gamespeed), this one should be avoided on the PC. Don’t waste your money.
