Stuff you hate in games

When it's not good

Ohhhh, grinding. I forgot about grinding.

flubbernugget said:

Ohhhh, grinding. I forgot about grinding.

I'm fine with grinding. I grew up on the original Dragon Quest. The problem with RPGs is that you'll always be able to beat them.... with enough grinding. A lot of people have a problem with enemy battles every 3 steps like the old Dragon Quest games. I think its a balance between how long battles take and how long the dungeon is vs battles per steps.

Then there are games like Knights of Pen and Paper that make you grind without wandering. Its just instant combat.... unless you want to pay $5 for in game gold.

Which is now why I should bring up microtransactions. In game currencies like bullshit currency vs real currency. TF2, the bullshit currency is ref that is given for free vs real currency like keys that you need to pay $2.50 for that is basically legalized gambling for loot. Simpsons online has dollars, which is the bullshit currency vs doughnuts which actually costs real money, but at least with doughnuts its not a gamble.

Oh yeah. Comedy or parody games. See DLC Quest and Evoland.

Difficulty levels where the only difference is less health and aimbots a la Call of Duty 4 and onwards.

Getsu Fune said:

I immediately thought of "Playing Judas" from Freespace when I saw this, even if it isn't necessarily "whole gauntlet".

Heh. I first tried to do how it was described in briefing, but after a while, I said "Fuck it", targeted what cargo containers were in there, put all in engines, hit afterburners (oh wait that piece of slag heap Dragon didn't have afterburners working) and get in there and do the job. It was a pretty memorable when Lucifer jumped in, and got almost rammed to death by it. :P

Also, put another hate points for DRM bullshit and must-to-download shit. I am giving up for buying DVDs since I gotta have to use internet for playing... Single Player? Though the offline mode in Steam works, so I shouldn't complain?

Overly bloated casual mobile games, including ones for classic phones. Simple games like block-breakers which start with long splash screens and forced cutscenes, and they're still demos which require payment for the simplest features (more than 30 seconds of play).

Pointless tutorial levels, long cutscenes you have to watch again if you fail after them in game, escort missions, repetitive music, sudden quicktime events during cutscenes, dlc, water levels with awkward swimming mechanics

I usually always play the tutorial levels even if they're optional, and have played through the game multiple times before.

When the game goes completely fucking mental right at the end and compromises its integrity with a final boss/fight/mission that's conceptually wildly different from its gameplay style up to that point.

All of us are familiar with the crappy timed rocket shot from Doom 2 map30, but there are worse, much worse. Project IGI, a rather ponderous and sneak-oriented FPS, ended with you protecting your handler who's hacking a nuke while enemy soldiers invade the room, spawning unceremoniously at several entry points. Any subtlety is violently thrown out of the window and you play whack-a-mole with the Pancor Jackhammer, because the girl sits motionlessly in the middle of the room with zero cover and goes down almost immediatelly. Did I mention it's at the end of a lengthy, quite difficult corridor crawl full of the toughest enemies and the game doesn't feature ingame saving? I did replay it twice before raging out and just watching the outro in the FMV folder, heh.

The most insanely idiotic final level design award goes to X-Wing Alliance though. The game is a lovely traditional freespace sim with its own decent plot, but then they just have to shoehorn in the Millenium Falcon's fucking coolant tunnel slalom through the second Death Star. "Because we love prescripted arcade shooter segments," said no X-Wing fan ever. Not only the game changes genres for its great finale, not only it delivers dull, uninspired fanservice when not needed nor wanted, it's also frustrating and simply BAD even for arcade shooters, because the engine wasn't built for that sort of abuse.

Game developers, please don't finish off your reasonably complex games with dumbed down minigames. The aftertaste spoils the entire meal.

dew said:

The most insanely idiotic final level design award goes to X-Wing Alliance though. The game is a lovely traditional freespace sim with its own decent plot, but then they just have to shoehorn in the Millenium Falcon's fucking coolant tunnel slalom through the second Death Star.

I know. Wtf.
I thought the mission by itself was decent, but they robbed us of the resolution of the plot. We were one character all the way through the game with our own story (which was in my opinion one of the best SW stories told. Not because the story itself was brilliance on screen, but rather because for once you had the opportunity of being some guy in the sw universe and not SPACE JESUS). Then out of nowhere for the last missions we're suddenly Lando for some reason??

Games with stealth sequences nuff said

Here is a long list of shit I don't like:

Single player:

Somebody who you couldn't give a flying fuck about dying in some attempt at emotion, normally I wouldn't care but when the shit drags on it just gets retarded.

There is a bomb, it must be disarmed but your seemingly stupid ass can't do shit! Better get that guy on the other end of the map to do it for you in the next 10 seconds or we all die.

Boss battles that revolve around one puny human being that appears to have titanium skin and his brain consists of a lone T-1000 in there.

That A.I who is supposedly your team mate but is probably more programmed to shoot you and get in your way only for it to complain when you shoot him.

A.I team mates who last about 3 seconds (Marines from Halo last about 2 seconds on any difficulty above easy).

Clunky ass vehicle sections where physics decided to take the day off at the same time you were thrown into a semi movable buttered brick.

Unfunny/reppetitive NPC's/protagonists who do not shut the hell up (Saying the same thing over and over again in response to blowing something up is not entertaining).

Being set on fire/being poisoned with no way of putting it out/no cure for it, especially when your guy decides he should grunt every five seconds (and make himself sound like he is having a shit of epic proportions).

Turrets, being in one and being shot by one.

Online games:

Shit map design like getting stuck in the floor, impassible 20 foot wide openings, meaningless clutter blocking me (Like cardboard boxes that are like walking into a tiny brick wall), invisible walls, kill zones (return to the battlefield NOW) and just basic fucking retarded shit like that in most map designs (I call dying to bullshit map quirks "Being EA'ed").

Shit hit detection (When you shoot a guy in the nuts and kill the shit out of the wall behind him).

Vehicles that are a bitch to take out, they kill you fast enough so you can't get a shot on it and are the most maneuverable vehicle in the set. Just basically the perfect vehicle that for some reason exists in some games and all that comes of it is some prick sitting in it going 90-0 all game.

The feeling that you are indeed the only human on your team, I seem to get entire teams consisting of what can only be compared to poorly programmed bots that serve only the purpose of violently attacking the nearest wall or floor and wrecking/giving over all your teams equipment whilst the enemy team appears to be a pissed off squad of tactical geniuses with more firepower than all of China.

I hate how my (somehow) extremely high K/D gives me the great ability to be paired with last years MLG champions and an abundance of adult diaper doritos enthusiasts who for some reason have developed the ability to place a billboard on my head saying "free ass here, come get it!".

That final kill cam where you got 5 people including the ceiling, the floor, 2 walls and one random guy who you were apparently not aiming at making you look like a complete moron (And you achieved said kill cam as a reaction of shock when he burst in the room).

That guy in game chat who enjoys playing music down his headset only for it to sound like a garbled transmission from Mars involving gateways and evil.

People in the lobby who like to tell you literally everything that just happened, ones that involve screaming things like "OOOOH I JUST GOT A TRIPLE KILL" are usually great fun for my ears.

Not so much "hate", but I find racing and sports games with licensed soundtracks usually seem to curate for people who aren't me and also give you maybe an hour of music for a game that will be played for much, much longer. Rockstar are usually not as bad for this as they tend to supply both a larger amount and a greater variety.

When you're introduced to a beautiful fantasy world with fantastic creatures, beautiful scenery and shit and then you're immediately sent to fight in dungeons, sewers, etc. That's not what I came for, give me wonderful nature with fairies and elves instead.

Diversions disguised as games. Such as Incredipede.

Clonehunter said:

Difficulty levels where the only difference is less health and aimbots a la Call of Duty 4 and onwards.

Man I forgot about this, however some older games did similar things, for example Jedi Outcast and Jedi Academy's last difficulty level simply cuts the max health amount in half via a handicap setting.

Lots of tedious skillless (3 l's? Whatever) 'going through the motions' stuff. I want to get right to the heart of gameplay. Most people like zelda SNES but I hated it for example, walk over here, light this torch, move this block. Every time I played I was like 'sigh, what do I have to do now'. Only the boss fights were kinda fun. With doom and a good hard map, you're just immediately playing in an environment that quickly slides off the initial conditions into unique gameplay each replay. When you die, press spacebar and boom you're immediately playing again, controlling doomguy with precise control like playing a piano or something, strafe, shoot, use turn, move. Not just like 2 buttons and you have to press start and waste time on a menu switching from a boomerang to a torch just to change weapons. Every enemy in zelda is a simple moving block, some have shields. There's all this cumbersome 'higher level' walkways blocking your view in dungeons and puzzly boolean on off stuff to keep track of (am I in the stupid bunny world or not, did I hit the switch red or blue) In doom pain elementals spawn other monsters, viles resurrect, hitscanners, projectiles, its just a rich varied in your face immediate almost menu-free gameplay experience. Ok so it gives me tourette's syndrome, it has 1 flaw.

I hate super shiny floors. I dont mind if your outside with the sun shining and there is a slight reflection, but If the floor practically blinds me, then that's no good!

Missions in online games that are fun and/or popular for grinding being arbitrarily made more difficult/complicated by the devs in order to discourage grinding/fun and encourage microtransactions (Rockstar, I'm looking disdainfully in your direction).

Avoozl said:

DRM/SteamDRM, senseless streamlining, regenhealth, two weapon limit, no modability nor map editors, unskippable cutscenes.

This.

I'm playing Rayman Forever ATM and it's basically my ideal game to hate. It has limited lives, continues (also limited) and ridiculously precise platforming from a very early stage. I've been struggling pretty much since the second group of levels (as in, second place on the overworld rather than as soon as I started Band Land) and have decided to take the lives system out of the equation using the lives cheat, as I'd burnt through 40-odd lives before even getting past Band Land. It uses a wealth of gimmicks, so each level finds a new way to fuck you over and either needs endless trial-and-error (as I've been doing) or to learn the maps inside out. I can't tell if it's just the combination of very, very difficult game play coupled with the limited lives, or if the limited field of view (even more so in that one cave level where you get given a fire fly) and fact that you'll be making plenty of leaps into the unknown with your fingers crossed that makes it worse for me. The controls seem a bit slow to respond sometimes, although it's more irritating that holding down the punch button when you've hit a ring to swing off of just makes him instantly re-punch, meaning yet another fall to your death. If it wasn't for the boss fights, you might as well have it so that everything that damages you is an instant kill, as you're usually knocked onto spikes, into water or an endless drop with each hit anyway.

This definitely feels like an example of how far we've moved on since the early 90s... Or at least I hope I'll be able to say that when I'm playing Rayman Origins after this.

When a game is made that wants to make a statement for the genre or whatever the hell they're doing nowadays. I'm quite tired of video games that fail to be fun, also.

Let's just all agree that video games are shit and shouldn't exist

I've been playing lots of Goodgame Empire by Greedy Studios I mean, Goodgame Studios. It's a fun game, but the recruiting gets real tiresome. Well, a lot of aspects of the game get tiresome. Would be nice if you could set all the recruiting stuff to be automatic: allocate certain percentages of your resources to recruiting tools and then set what percentage of each tool type to recruit. Set also the percentage of which soldiers to recruit. Be able to do this for all your castles. And tweak it as need be. Would be so nice.

mrthejoshmon said:

Unfunny/reppetitive NPC's/protagonists who do not shut the hell up (Saying the same thing over and over again in response to blowing something up is not entertaining)

CoD Zombies was so, so, SO bad about this. After hearing "Do you know how to say owned in Russian? OWNT!" for the 6,926,745,895th time, I was wondering why Duke Nukem had so many more quotes that were so much funnier and more interesting 15 years earlier.

And there is one more thing that pisses me off:STEAM!
Every pc game that i see in the stores says that i need Steam account and internet connection for Dlc and automatic updates from Steam, man fuck that.
That is forcing you to download a stupid app that the game companies demand you to have, because of the money, in conclusion:Greedy Bastards.

Doomkid said:

CoD Zombies was so, so, SO bad about this. After hearing "Do you know how to say owned in Russian? OWNT!" for the 6,926,745,895th time, I was wondering why Duke Nukem had so many more quotes that were so much funnier and more interesting 15 years earlier.

Because he was the first one to say them in games. There was one line Duke had in Duke Forever that I found legitimately funny that wasn't one of his one liners from 15 years ago (or Evil Dead). But really funny things are just things you don't expect to happen. Watching Family Guy should prove that.

I'm a little surprised store games have you download Steam. I know they did that for Windows Live back with GTA 4 and people hated that.

Old games:

Platform jumps that take too much precision
Passwords are too long, no save feature, or not enough, or no continues
Not enough music - every level except maybe the boss fights have the same song
Expected to have every copy of Nintendo Power on hand to solve the game

Mid era games, mid to late 90's.

Camera is awkward and makes 3D platforming too difficult
Controls are not intuitive with so many functions, so I have to reprogram them all to get comfortable.
No FPS games are better than DOOM 1, 2
Too many fucking RTS games for the PC to make your head spin!
Everyone geeks out over every Star Wars game regardless of quality

2000's to present

Haven't we played this before?
Haven't we played this before?
Haven't we played this before?
Video game music is replaced by boring real scores
Realism becomes more important than fun
Doom 3 sucks a fat one
Screw you guys, I'm hooking up my NES!
;)

I hate a lot of games because very few of them really stimulate my brain. I really enjoy having my reaction time, situational awareness, time management, and creative problem solving tested, and in many games, this simply doesn't happen. I really have a strong attraction to shooters among other genres, but many of them have simplified really challenging, complicated, arduous, and heroic tasks by binding them to a single button or only apply in a pre-defined circumstance, and don't require any skills that can be learned through practice.

I initially didn't know how to post in this thread without splitting hairs and incrementally berating every "idea" that got implemented in more than one game and in turn pumping out a 10,000 word post, but I think this is the best summary I can come up with.

I also have to say I relate most to what gggmork says, in that there are very few games I can play that don't put any sort of delay directly between starting the game and getting to the part of it that I want to play. i.e. in Doom, within a few mere seconds of starting the game you can quickly get into fierce and strategic gun combat with explosions and gore with no expenses such as loading times, cinematics, being on rails, reading dialogue, respawn times, navigating a complicated UI, customizing things, tutotials, training missions, practice shooting, or anything.

1. Start Game.
2. The Good Part.
3. Quit when I feel like it.

Doomkid said:

CoD Zombies was so, so, SO bad about this. After hearing "Do you know how to say owned in Russian? OWNT!" for the 6,926,745,895th time, I was wondering why Duke Nukem had so many more quotes that were so much funnier and more interesting 15 years earlier.

And it sucks too because muting the voices in the options menu would also mute the zombie sounds, which took away from the tension and atmosphere. World at War zombies did a bit better job than Black Ops as the comments were more generic like "Get owned!" and less about trying to tell a joke that ISN'T FUNNY.