Working as Intended
2009-10-05
Last night, I finished my quest for a difficult Xbox Live achievement in Bejewelled 2. You know, the one I've been chasing for ages, and which by the look of it around a thousand people in the world are demonstrably good enough to get. Well, the point wasn't to boast (it's not like it's a transferable skill*).
Anyway, I was going somewhere with this.
Without any achieving done, Bejewelled 2 has four game modes, arranged in a menu where each has a big globe at a corner of the screen, and left/right/up/down move a highlighting glow to indicate which you want. When you unlock extra modes a big button appears across the bottom letting you switch to a second menu of the same layout.
I had already unlocked the bottom-left bonus mode, and last night got me the top-right one. The bottom-left (unlocked with puzzle mode) seems just like puzzle mode, which is dull and awful, but I was eager to try the new top-right mode.
I can't.
On this menu screen, the locked menu entries aren't valid resting places for the focus glow. I can move it between the bottom-left mode and the big button across the bottom (which goes back to the main modes). Moving up from the bottom button goes to the bottom-right mode, moving down from there goes back, and moving any other direction is blocked either by a locked sphere or the edge of the screen.
I've tried everything I can. The Xbox 360 controller is only a 14-button device (or thereabouts) so it didn't take me masses of time to establish that nothing did what I needed. I literally cannot play that game type without unlocking one of the others, both of which are likely to be even harder.
I can barely believe it, still. Someone coded this and signed off on it without checking that it worked, then a QA technician of some kind didn't notice that quite reasonable combinations of circumstances deny access to big chunks of game.
I console myself with the fact that the mode I can't play probably sucks anyway.
* Well, maybe it is transferable, but only as far as Puzzle Quest, the bilging and treasure hauling puzzles in Puzzle Pirates, and any number of other games using similar mechanics.
Anyway, I was going somewhere with this.
Without any achieving done, Bejewelled 2 has four game modes, arranged in a menu where each has a big globe at a corner of the screen, and left/right/up/down move a highlighting glow to indicate which you want. When you unlock extra modes a big button appears across the bottom letting you switch to a second menu of the same layout.
I had already unlocked the bottom-left bonus mode, and last night got me the top-right one. The bottom-left (unlocked with puzzle mode) seems just like puzzle mode, which is dull and awful, but I was eager to try the new top-right mode.
I can't.
On this menu screen, the locked menu entries aren't valid resting places for the focus glow. I can move it between the bottom-left mode and the big button across the bottom (which goes back to the main modes). Moving up from the bottom button goes to the bottom-right mode, moving down from there goes back, and moving any other direction is blocked either by a locked sphere or the edge of the screen.
I've tried everything I can. The Xbox 360 controller is only a 14-button device (or thereabouts) so it didn't take me masses of time to establish that nothing did what I needed. I literally cannot play that game type without unlocking one of the others, both of which are likely to be even harder.
I can barely believe it, still. Someone coded this and signed off on it without checking that it worked, then a QA technician of some kind didn't notice that quite reasonable combinations of circumstances deny access to big chunks of game.
I console myself with the fact that the mode I can't play probably sucks anyway.
* Well, maybe it is transferable, but only as far as Puzzle Quest, the bilging and treasure hauling puzzles in Puzzle Pirates, and any number of other games using similar mechanics.
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