Tiny Diggers – An iPad Construction Truck Game for Kids Age 2-5

I was happy about Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction hitting retail earlier than the October 30th launch date but now I’m not so sure. It looks like the QA team missed something in the bit of code that determines if you have enough space free on your hard drive to cache game data to it before playing for the first time. If your hard drive has unspecified yet specific amounts of space free the game might tell you you don’t have enough free space to do the install. Confused? So is the installer, but there is a workaround.

Oh and the game is getting stellar reviews. But first about the bug and its workaround.

Adding or removing about 500 Megs of data from the hard drive will tip the bytes-free number enough so the buggy math brain in the installer will understand you do have enough space and let you do the install. It sounds like a lot, but that can easily be a single demo you’re done with or can re-download later, or you can add or remove some videos, images, or music, so it’s not hard to do.

While I fully expect Insomniac to remaster the disc and make future runs of the game installer bug-free and I expect them to offer a disc exchange to get the PR-headache and support-headache versions out of circulation, no such announcement has been made.

I also expect to see this kind of “Oh hey we made it through QC really fast this time!” situation not happen again. This kind of bug, while probably not the easiest thing to detect, is a pretty bad black eye.

As for the reviews, the vast majority are high scoring ones. Allow me to pour the tall glass of scores for the game here.

1UP – 8.5
EGM 9.0 (8.5, 9.5, 9.0)
Gamepro – 5 out of 5
GamerNode – 9.5
Games Radar – 9.0
Gamespot – 7.5
GameTrailers (HD) – 9.0
GameZone – 9.3
Gaming Age – A- (90%)
IGN – 9.4
Play Magazine – 10 out of 10
Pro-G – 9.0
PSExtreme – 9.0
PSM Magazine – 9.5
PSM UK – 93/100

The obvious question is what didn’t Gamespot like? The reviewer’s biggest criticism seems to be — listen up CheapyD — that the game is too easy. He also says the story is uninteresting even if the core platforming and shooting mechanics are as solid as ever, so “it’s still a very good game”. Given Gamespot’s clear review criteria — no I’m not being sarcastic — a 7.x rating does seem to fit his complaints. As a big fan of the series, however, I’m taking it with a raritanium-asteroid-sized grain of salt.

Glitch noted by Shacknews, linked to by Joystiq; review list from EvilAvatar.