An ongoing list of the game’s technical shortcomings, ones that may reduce you to crying or controller throwing, is being regularly updated at Gearbox Software’s forums. Many of them appear to be tied to the game’s multiplayer cooperative mode, with incidents of players losing skills, weapon proficiencies and loot, but it’s the “Save file is corrupted” issue that you should watch out for.

Gearbox has also listed a few performance hiccups that can be corrected using workarounds, should you be experiencing issues. For everyone else who has yet to jump into Borderlands and is planning on doing so, keep an eye on this thread, and tread carefully.

Known Issues Status Update [Gearbox Forums]

THQ’s latest grappler, WWE Smackdown Vs. Raw 2010 looks like it may have a glitch that could leave your WWE superstar embarrassingly pantsless, as shown in the above, potentially NSFW video that features virtual ladies sans underthings.

Reader Nathan was on the unfortunate receiving end of that glitch, resulting in a user created WWE “diva” whose outfit is clearly not fit for primetime. Nathan’s experience with WWE Smackdown Vs. Raw 2010’s create a wrestler mode is more unfortunate, in that this particular instance of wrestler nakedness was borne of a game ending lock up.

As you can probably expect, this sort of bare bottom polygonal action is probably not safe for watching while in a cubicle. It’s also potentially offensive to anyone disturbed by the sight of a pantsless Barbie doll. You have been warned!

We’ve reached out to THQ to see just how widespread this shocking digital nudity really is…

“This could be the most embarrassing fail of all,” posits enigmax at Freakbits.

When navigating menus today while connected to Xbox Live the game suddenly crashed again. When my rage had subsided and I got a better look at the screen, I was pretty shocked at what I saw.

Was my Xbox 360 version of Need for Speed Shift really trying to access the Playstation Store? Microsoft are not going to be happy about this.

Is the console really trying to get to the PlayStation Store? Or is it just stray code left over? Either are plenty embarrassing, of course, as that’s a Sony logo in a Microsoft game version.

I don’t have Need for Speed: Shift, so I can’t replicate what he’s talking about. If any reader comes across anything that confirms this bug or indicates it’s fixed, please do email me or comment below and I’ll update up here.

Meantime I’ve emailed the EA contact for NFS to ask WTF. If I hear anything, it too will be updated here.

Xbox 360 Crashes Accessing PlayStation Store? [Freakbits]

Cheshirec_the_cat posted a thread on September 4th in the official Eidos forums for Batman: Arkham Asylum, requesting help with a peculiar problem with the PC version of the game.

I’ve got a problem when it’s time to use Batman’s glide in the game. When I hold , like it’s said to jump from one platform to another, Batman tries to open his wings again and again instead of gliding. So he fels down in a poisoning gas. If somebody could tel me, what should I do there.

As another forum poster points out, the game isn’t out until the 15th, so the question is a bit suspect right off the bat, no pun intended.

Eidos admin Keir responded to the thread before closing it, explaining that the glitch wasn’t so much of a glitch.

The problem you have encountered is a hook in the copy protection, to catch out people who try and download cracked versions of the game for free.

It’s not a bug in the game’s code, it’s a bug in your moral code.

Ouch. Brilliantly done, Rocksteady! Applause all ’round!

Eidos plays trick on Batman: Arkham Asylum pirates [Afterdawn.com]

SNK’s hand-drawn 2D fighter The King of Fighters XII hasn’t only suffered from lag issues, but also buggy glitch issues as well.

This clip is of fighter Raiden and glitching it up at around the 1:10 mark while doing a Critical Counter combo. To be fair, this is the PS3 version, which has gotten patched, which hopefully fixes this problem (and other problems as well).

The Xbox 360 version still has yet to be patched.

Microsoft flipped Xbox Live’s on switch late last night, and while the snazzy new look of the Xbox.com website distracted many of us for a spell, various technical issues have been becoming more and more apparent as the day drags on. For starters, last week’s Sega Vintage Collection 2 seems to have disappeared from the Xbox Live Marketplace altogether, and those games that are still available, including the three new releases, seem to be available for purchase but unavailable for download. I tried to download Magic: The Gathering myself, and was greeted by the screen you see here.

Another rampant issue seems to be the failure of pre-order codes for the Xbox 360 version of Ghostbusters. While owners of the PlayStation 3 version are reporting successful redemption, 360 owners aren’t able to get their hands on their early-adapter bonus swag.

We’ve reached out to Microsoft for a status update on the issues, and are eagerly awaiting some sort of response. In the meantime, the Xbox.com support page has been updated with the following message:

Users may experience difficulties when attempting to use Marketplace and/or making purchases. We are aware of the problem and working to resolve the technical issues. We apologise for any inconvenience this may cause and thank you for your patience.

At least we know they are aware of the problem. I’m just hoping they fix things soon, as I am starting to feel the shakes of pre-emptive Magic withdrawal.

The early release and subsequent rampant piracy of Gas Powered Games’ action real-time strategy title were just the beginning of the networking problems that Demigod has been plagued with since release. Some bad networking decisions and assumptions on Stardock’s part caused the issues to drag on for weeks. It seems the way they had things set up initially caused far too many sockets to try to open at once, due to a late 2008 decision to have the network library hand off sockets to the game, rather than have all the connections handled by one source. Wardell’s example almost makes it understandable.

…on launch day, Alice would host a game. Tom would be connected to Alice by the network library and then that socket would be handed to Demigod. Then, Alice and Tom would open a new socket to listen for more players to join in. As a result, a user might end up using a half dozen ports and sockets which some routers didn’t like and it just made things incredibly complex to connect people and put a lot of strain on the servers to manage all those connections.

So what was happening? When I tried to play, two or three players would connect successfully and then the slow, agonising wait would kick in. Brad explains why:

Alice hosts a game. In doing so, she sends a message to the NAT server (as well as our servers). Tom wants to join so Tom clicks join and it tells the NAT server to begin connecting them. But, it turned out that a relatively small number of people online at once would quickly result in a huge delay in messages being sent back and forth. For instance, when Tom clicks join it sends a message to the server to tell it to start connecting Tom and Alice. But Alice might not get that message for 30 or 40 seconds. That means, for that entire time, Tom and Alice are “attempting to connect” but haven’t even really started because Alice hasn’t even gotten the message. As more people tried to join the game, that delay could get worse and worse. If someone left the game, it could take that amount of time for the server to realise that player had left (meanwhile it was trying to connect them).

At this point, the people inside the room waiting for the game to start will have resorted to cannibalism, and most of them weren’t even hungry. It’s just that frustrating.

Brad goes on to detail the changes that have been made and will be made as they continue to polish the network experience, plans for downloadable content, and an eventual demo, but most importantly, his post leaves us with the important lesson Stardock learned from releasing Demigod.

We’ve learned that you can’t treat networking as just another thing to plug in like you would a sound library or even a 3D engine. It’s a whole different animal. With Elemental (our next game), it’s single-player focused but its MP will be server based (and I mean we literally host the game). After Demigod, I don’t ever want to hear the words “socket” or “port” again.

Demigod: So what the hell happened? [Brad Wardell's Impulse Blog]

Retailers in Europe do not have to give refunds on bug-killing games, and currently licensed software is exempt from EU legislation that requires companies to offer “a minimum 2-year guarantee on tangible movable consumer goods”. The new proposal would encompass game software.

The concern is that this proposal could “stifle” creativity and video games and make developers overly cautious. According to the Business Software Alliance, which represents software companies like Apple and Microsoft, “Digital content is not a tangible good and should not be subject to the same liability rules as toasters.” And patches, don’t forget about the post launch game patches — buttery toast, too, don’t forget that!

EU proposal could ’stifle’ games [BBC Thanks, Lyndon]

If it seemed like the oft-delayed console version of Ascaron’s action role-playing game was still a bit rushed, that’s only because it was. Xbox 360 owners who pre-ordered the game from GameStop found that the redemption codes for their promised carrier imp bonus were not working, while PlayStation 3 users discovered that local co-operative game play couldn’t be taken online as promised. CDV is currently actively working to fix these issues, according to updates scattered across their website and forums.

On top of these issues, over at Team Xbox, Sacred 2 community team management member Christiane assures forum-goers that a patch to implement a trading feature in live co-op will be implemented soon as well.

Sounds to me like the game wasn’t quite finished when it shipped. Luckily we live in a time where console games are patched as easily if not easier than PC titles. Thanks to Paul for keeping us updated on the incoming fixes!

As we reported previously, PC users who downloaded the Broken Steel downloadable content via Games for Windows Live this morning were treated to a “cryptographic message is not formatted correctly” error. We contacted Bethesda’s Pete Hines, who explained that the error is related to Games for Windows Live.

We’re seeing the same error folks have reported, which is a Games for Windows Live DRM install error. Microsoft is working on fixing it, and we’ll let everyone know once we’ve verified it.

Hopefully this won’t take too long to fix. In the meantime, Xbox 360 users seem to be doing just fine, so the PC players who laughed at the Xbox 360 issues with the Pitt downloadable content are now getting a healthy dose of karmic retribution.