Ported games: Are they worth playing?

This has been an issue in the industry quite some time, but after trying Forgotten Realms: Demon Stone from Atari, this humble blogger has to step up and verbally bitch slap somebody. Now, I will say up front that I am a D&D whore. I will play almost anything that has slapped the Wizards of the Coast trademarked franchise on it. I've played, and still own the Gold box games. I was ecstatic and absolutely giddy when I first played Baldur's Gate. I think Neverwinter Nights is one of the best games I've ever played. And I am enjoying Demon Stone, but it is so painfully a port of a console game, it practically shoves a console down your pants and forces its joystick in your mouth.

Now, I'm not sure how it is for the rest of the game-playing universe, but I really enjoy tweaking graphics options. I enjoy finding which secret combination of resolutions, shaders, and detail quality will maximize my experience. But I do not enjoy having to quit to tweak them. Since consoles have none of these options, the graphics menu is a simple menu in the launcher. That's right. With none of the video options being available in-game, you have to restart the game to tweak every little detail. Also, what is the first key you hit when you try to skip the intro splash screens of various developers and publishers (it's the ESC key, right? If it's not, pretend it is)? That's right, the ESC key. However, because the enter button is the port of whatever joypad button skips these screens, that is the key you have to use. The controls are a bit clunky as well, but bearable so far. The graphics are really nice, but while they upped pretty much everything important, the little life bar section for your party looks like it just came out of a sewer. The contrast is so disgusting it's bothersome. They spent how long enhancing the 3D models and they couldn't improve this simple sprite map? I really can't imagine what gamers have done to deserve this half-assed effort.

There are a couple of other annoyances (such as not being able to quit right to the desktop from most parts of the game), but all in all it is pretty much a D&D version of the Lord of the Rings: the Two Towers game. Defeat monsters, buy new special moves and combos, buy new equipment, etc. The characters seem different enough to be interesting but I've only played two levels so far (a full review to come later).

Who do I blame for this? Atari. The whole job of a publisher is to ensure that the game is a polished product. They should make sure that gamers have what they need to fully enjoy the game. They are in charge of quality control and should not take their reputation lightly. Because Hasbro could really take their Neverwinter Nights franchise elsewhere, and Hasbro should threaten to do so if they keep seeing ports like this. I would like to say that we as gaming consumers should not buy the products, but that would probably just mean we'll get no ports at all. They'll never correlate the drop in sales to poor product quality.