Gaming Gripes

[Benji]

What things piss you off the most about games?

Games that don't let you turn off/skip tutorials. Games that put an arbritrary limit on the amount you can carry. Water levels. Games that are vague about an end point and go on long past what would have been a logical conclusion. Games that pretend to give you an option, but it's actually just a vaguely different text response you'll get.

[stokeriño]

Games that put an arbritrary limit on the amount you can carry.

Given that some games allow a single guy to carry around 3 trucks' worth of gear in his back pocket, you can hardly gripe about others being slightly less silly.

[Skummy]

A false sense of choice is a big one for me. Final Fantasy loves that shit.

I hate anything cheap. Anything that ends with you dying because you couldn't possibly know what to do - blind leaps of faith, bad camerawork, unresponsive controls...anything where the game design results in you dying is a big, big no-no. I can replay the same section in New Super Mario Bros Wii over and over again, losing a hundred lives if I have to, because I know that it's me fucking up. I don't mind losing because I'm not good enough, but when the game forces me to...that's when I just give up and lose my temper.

Also - slippy-slippy ice world levels and minecart levels, though I'm starting to warm to them as a nostalgic thing. Arbitrary "stealth" sections in games that don't require them.

I'm sure I'll be back posting in this thread a lot as more things occur to me.

[Benji]

Games that put an arbritrary limit on the amount you can carry.

Given that some games allow a single guy to carry around 3 trucks' worth of gear in his back pocket, you can hardly gripe about others being slightly less silly.

It's not hard to have regular pickups, some kind of technology/magic or something to explain it. Personally, I think the only game that's ever really done it truly well is Resident Evil 4. I loved the attache case concept for that. I just don't like it being so utterly random.

[Herr Matzat]

I think in days were online multiplayer are a big part of the longlivety of games the multiplayer modes should be a lot more balance and more heavily patched against bug using and cheap tackticks. Also a ladder system that seeds you with oponents that are somewhat on your level of play. StarCraft 2 would be the obvius example of how to do it better than most (all?) other games i know.

A lot of times multiplayer feels like something that has only been slaped onto the offline game.

[Gazz]

This phrase on FM, when about an opposition player...

____________ continues to suffer a goal drought, having not scored in ____ minutes.

You know whats coming. (N)

[Timmoru Suzuki]

Levels in which you have to keep an NPC alive to pass; since 99% of the time either the NPC is a blithering retard, happily waltzing around in front of mortal danger, or because the game is coded so enemies focus all their attacks on the NPC, never on you regardless of how much of a threat YOU might be to them.

And, continuing from what Skummy said about happily failing levels if he knows it's because he isn't good enough; sports games where you get the sense that you fail to win because the CPU has decided that you're not winning; rather than you not being good enough to win. AKA Pro Evolution Soccer syndrome, although some of those titles are much worse for it than others.

The sense towards the end of an RPG where you feel the story is being continued longer to make the game longer, not because the story actually need be any bigger. I think that's in the same ball-park as what Benji was talking about. Or, having to go to a guy for something, but he'll only give you said item/help you in whatever way if you do him a favour. Only, to complete favour you have to go to another guy, and he'll only help you if you do him a favour, and.... etc. The odd time is fair enough but some RPG's seem to make up 80% of their play-time through that method.

Finally, games where they developers haven't thought out every possible way you might be able to complete a task. To better explain this, there was a section on X-Men Legends II in which you have to attain an item that you can't reach; it's across a chasm or some such gap. I tried using Iceman to build an ice-bridge across, no go. Tried using Magneto to build me a metal bridge across, but no. Tried using Nightcrawler to teleport across, no. Turns out I was *only* able to use a flying character to fly across. Its a fair enough solution but I don't see why it had to be the ONLY way to do it.

That's not intended so much as a gripe with that particular game, moreso similar situations in games in general.

[Twist]

Region locks. Fuck Microsoft for that shit.

[Timmoru Suzuki]

One more. Racing games where you have to finish in a certain position, usually top 3 to progress and yet drivers who finish below you end up progressing anyway.

[Bobfoc]

I find games that don't have solid checkpoint systems annoying. I'm mainly talking about the Grand Theft Auto games, in which, upon failing a mission, you have to drive halfway across the city just to restart the mission. Thankfully, Red Dead Redemption had a better checkpoint system, so I'm hopeful that the next GTA instalment will follow suit.

[King Ellis]

Region locks. Fuck Microsoft for that shit.

Actually, I think on 360 it's down to publishers if their game is region coded or not. Some games are fine, some aren't. I agree though, it is pretty odd. NCAA, for example, by all means don't give that a release in Europe because that market is going to be insanely niche but what's wrong with someone importing it?

[Twist]

Region locks. Fuck Microsoft for that shit.

Actually, I think on 360 it's down to publishers if their game is region coded or not. Some games are fine, some aren't. I agree though, it is pretty odd. NCAA, for example, by all means don't give that a release in Europe because that market is going to be insanely niche but what's wrong with someone importing it?

That makes more sense. Fuck EA.

[R.W.]

Not so much a gaming gripe, but I hate games that have online components with trophies attached.

You want a Platinum for this game? lol, good luck winning 100 matches against glitching, cheating, quitting kids.

Trophies / Achievements should be offline only!

[Toe]

I hate when you cannot skip cut scenes. I always watch them the first time through, but I don't care the second or third time through.

I also hate shooting games like Battlefiend: Bad Company where it feels like you have to hit each enemy X amount of times as if they have a health bar.

[Shona B]

I hate fighting games like street fighter's single player modes where you can kick any characters ass until suddenly the game decides "NO! NO MORE" and will beat you once or twice even though you did the exact same thing worst offender:

an embarrassment of a mortal kombat game MK Vs DC i'll give you an example I can beat every character including superman with flawless victories on the hardest difficulty and Captain Marvell will kick my ass for no apparent reason the rematch 2 flawless victories to me.

Does that make sense to you?

[Liam]

Benji hit the nail on the head in the first post. Water levels. Seriously, they can fuck off. Hated them since the days of Sonic on the Mega Drive, and they are always a load of balls.

[EWB's Best Poster.]

online additions to games that dont need online. Bioshock 2, for example.

Dialogue in RPG's that goes on for 15 minutes when I stopped reading after 8.

[jrhodes]

I mainly play RPGs so most of my complaints are about that genre.

Games that don't know that the story should have ended earlier.

Any game that pretty much forces you to use a walkthrough to complete a section of the game or sidequest.

This one's been said before but not being able to skip cutscenes sucks. At the same time though it should be a case of pressing start and then a button rather than just one button where you can accidently skip a cutscene.

Games where you often have a gap of about an hour in between save points.

Overly long FMV/talking sequences...this is mainly Square Enix made RPGs. I enjoyed Star Ocean for the PS3 but on at least three occasions you are left just watching the screen for thirty minutes or more. I want a game, not an anime series!

Every RPG game I seem to play has a section where you're in a cave/sewer/dungeon where everything looks the same and you're constantly bombarded with fights to the point where you can't remember which way you were headed and which way you've been. Coincidentally this if often the section where I lose interest in a game and never play it again.

RPGs where you get the 'game over' screen when the main character/party leader dies...even though there's still other party members alive who could toss them a healing item or cast a life spell.

Poorly designed menus. I was just playing Madden 11 and at the end of the game a menu pops up allowing you to look at game stats and such like. When you go to quit the first option that actually pops up is 'restart game' meaning if you accidently click that then you've just wasted thirty minutes of your time and have to play the game over.

Basically I don't like anything where I feel like my time is being wasted.

[OctoberRaven]

Games with a story that is less than 20 hours long beginning to end.

Racing games where you have literally no margin of error, or are happy to punish you for things that were not your fault. GTA IV's race levels were such bullshit, because some dick in traffic could just cut you off and you go from fist to last just like that. Also, WaveRace 64, where the waves always seemed to conspire against you by shoving you just on the wrong part of the slalom. Fuck that shit.

Sports games where increased difficulty doesn't mean smarter AI but rather stacking the deck against you. SvR does this to a point (though still failing to make things actually harder), but Madden is the biggest offender here. You get a good lead going, then the opposition manages to break away for 90 yard touchdowns then follows up with a 70 yard interception TD or such bullshit. Meanwhile the AI throws into triple coverage and hits their target every time, but when you DO get an interception, nope, one of your guys gets called for facemasking.

Oh, and SvR games locking content on the disc with no way to get them except by hacking.

[Baddar]

Forza is a cunt for that, ORO - however far ahead you are, the slightest bump will make you lose all control of the car, right up until the other 7 cars pass you. :/