I am 3 hours into chrono-trigger. What a great game! Really glad I gave it a chance with the boring beginning. 

Effort to make a game, if your heart's not in it then its a lacklustre result.

Making the game load properly, have a decent frontend, be bug free and without flaws in the gameplay logic are all things that happen when the team is motivated, and pride motivates better than cash. 

I'm merely doubting that long load times = shit design, or shit game, or uninterested coders :p
Technical issues can just be unavoidable, no matter how much people try. It's unfair to say that a technical problem shows some kind of character weakness in the team that made it. I'd leave that judgement down to uninspiring gameplay.

Crysis has its fair share of bugs (the physics mainly) and pretty long load times. But I wouldn't say that Crytek didn't inject creativity and love into the game.
Actually the further back you go the more examples pop up. I don't know whether this shows that technical standards are getting better or that I just don't like modern games as much.

But as an example: Thief 1 and 2. *awful* UIs, kinda buggy in places, dodgy engine. But Looking Glass weren't a team you could call money driven :P 

What is your games design background again? 

Sometimes its just bad luck, or bad management - 'that sounds like a great way to make a game! It's not, we tried it. Do it anyway.'

And the endless tug of war between producers, IP holders and dev teams.

Being inexperienced as well affects things - though I place less credence in this since it just means they weren't putting in the extra hours to get it right.

Spose what I was trying to say is that a lack of overall care usually tells a lot about the dev team more than anything else. 

I have a copy of portal that I got when i preordered portal 2, and since i already own another copy, i can give the new one away.

So, who wants it? 

You can't really measure load times as a sign of quality, you just can't.

I could go out and buy a SSD today, and suddenly any shit game is good cos it loads in 3 seconds? Really?

Crysis is a great example, it takes a buttload of time to load, but I would say Crytek poured their souls into it like they do with all their titles, there's just a lot of stuff to load for each map.

If a game takes forever to load a map for no conceivable reason then sure something is wrong, but you would have to go on a case by case basis, I don't think blanket statements work here or are fair. 

if no one else wants it. Not sure its my type of game but free is free :) 

What's your steam name? 

n_gulati should be it. 

I can't believe some of you haven't played it... You should be ashamed of yourselves. 

steam wants your email address >.> 

n_gulati at hotmail dot com. 

 

I haven't played Portal (or HL2 for that matter).
Portal looks like ugly box rooms. I'll give it a shot one day though. 

yes, portal is ugly box rooms. that said, it's somewhat necessary for the puzzles and it's a consistent theme of the game. 

:p

The test chambers are boxxy, but it's the puzzles and GLaDOS' personality that really make portal a fun game. 

The rooms are boxy, but I wouldn't say the are ugly. It's minimalist and fits with the rest of the game, they are believable, nothing ever seemed ugly to me as I played it.
Portal 2 looks gorgeous. 

Portal is a beautiful game :) 

much appreciated. I might finally play it. Although I still havent played HL 2, and sleepy gifted me that years ago :) 

Is a massive temptation.

Portal1 is well worth the effort, it last about an hour and is very well realised. 

Yeah I know, I was being more general in the statement. Good games generally have a level of polish to them that bad games don't - and thats on art/design/tech. 

is a massive disappointment.

Portal is nice! 

Tomb Raider: Underworld.

Yay or Nay?