A bug has been discovered in Assassin’s Creed 2 that can cripple your saved game (via 1up). There is an autosave after the end of chapter 11 that loads into an empty level with no NPCs or exits. With no interactive elements, it is impossible to advance the game from that autosave. If that happens to be your only saved game, then you’ll have to restart from the beginning. At present Ubisoft hasn’t commented on the bug, so the only workaround is to wait until the next autosave event before quitting.

Games are complex information systems, so show-stopping bugs are more common than anyone would like. However, Ubisoft has delivered a noteable number of corrupted saves, lost interactivity, and broken level design show-stoppers over the years. Some even go unacknowledged and must be fixed by the community.

Where’s the AAA polish?

It’s not every day that one of the pillars underlying a franchise outright disappears, but Akira Yamaoka left Konami today (via originalsoundversion.com). Yamaoka contributed compositions to every game in the Silent Hill series. The atmospheric survival horror franchise has been critically acclaimed for excellence in sound and music design. Neither Konami nor Yamaoka have commented [...]