Game mechanics that piss you off or are just missing

[Alchemyst]

Endlessly respawning enemies in a shooter bug me. It's not enough that I can murder every enemy on the battlefield? I really, absolutely have to run to point B and plant C4 or kick down a door or do whatever other arbitrary objective the devs came up with to progress? Maybe it's because I grew up on a steady diet of PC shooters when I was younger, but I like to think that my actions actually have an effect on the world; if I mow down a roomful of opponents, I don't expect to have the room fill right back up in the 3 seconds I duck behind cover to reload because I'm still ten feet away from the objective point. Call me crazy, but I tend to like thinning the herd a bit before I try to run out into the open and plant C4 on a tank; but that perfectly valid strategy is rendered useless in CoD and other games like it because the herd just keeps coming back.

We have similar play styles, alot of games nowadays don't give you the sense that your actually making a difference.

 

[Brainiac 8]

Hey man, blame Shenmue for starting it, not GoW.

Sorry, doesn't work. They didn't become a staple of the action genre until stupid GoW made lots of money and made QTE popular.

If I was going to blame someone for starting them, I'd probably point to Dragon's Lair Arcade instead of Shenmue though.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

Hey man, blame Shenmue for starting it, not GoW.

Shenmue may have been the first (or one of the very first, at least) to do it, but GoW definitely popularized it to the level that a lot of other devs started wanting to copy it. It's a cheap, easy way to do elaborate set pieces and still call them 'interactive' instead of the self-indulgent, glorified cutscenes they are.

Then again, I'm not really a fan of taking my control of the character away in the first place. Even cutscenes tend to bore me because they're grafting film tropes onto games, which can and should have their own, more interactive tropes. That's why, love 'em or hate 'em, I will always applaud stuff like Half-Life's 100% first-person presentation and Heavy Rain's attempt to literally get you inside the characters' heads. Anything that further evolves games' ability to convey a narrative in their own unique way rather than borrowing elements from film or TV or even novels back in the text-based days. Innovation =

 

[TheCorpulent1]

Just recalled another one from finally starting the Telltale Sam & Max series last night: Adventure games that basically leave you clueless. The specific example I'm talking about is in episode one of Sam & Max, where you have to knock three dudes out. I figured out the first two pretty easily, but I got to the third and was completely lost. I knew he was a massive perfectionist and that's about it. So I spent like an hour bumbling around, returning to places I'd visited before, basically trying to guess what exactly the devs wanted me to do because they didn't give me much of an indication of how I was supposed to knock this dude out.

I finally give up and go online for a walkthrough, and it turns out there was a can of spray paint sitting on a car somewhere in the middle of nowhere that I'm supposed to get, vandalize one of the guy's bits of graffiti so his perfectionist nature forces him to correct it, and then run upstairs to my office and drop a bowling ball on his head from the window. Because that's the obvious thing that would spring to mind in just such a situation.

 

[Havok83]

How about racing games which are nearly impossible to win. I hear that the upcoming Split Second has this issue. I remember it was something that aggravated me with Midnight Club 2 on the PS2. You can do fine during a race but for some reason in the final lap, the other characters get super aggresive and if you make ocne mistake, you lose your 1st place status and it becomes near impossible to get it bak bc the CPU's cars are running faster, taking all the shortcuts, bumping into your car, etc... Unbalanced racers like this are so annoying and can ruin an otherwise great game

 

[TheCorpulent1]

Aw, no, Split/Second does that? I hate that mechanic but I was really looking forward to Split/Second.

 

[Havok83]

Aw, no, Split/Second does that? I hate that mechanic but I was really looking forward to Split/Second.

Yeah IGN, noted it in their review of the game

This is indicative of Split/Second's only real failings. There are a few issues that have plagued arcade racers for years, and Split/Second demonstrates the worst of them. There will never be a race in Split/second's campaign where the AI fails to keep right on your tail, but there will be plenty of times where you're hopelessly outmatched and destined to finish in third or fourth - you're either winning a close race or getting completely destroyed.

http://ps3.ign.com/articles/108/1089982p1.html

 

[TheCorpulent1]

Nuts. I'm not particularly good at racing games either, so I imagine I'll be getting destroyed a lot. They should've gone to Criterion for some pointers on solid racing mechanics. I've always found the Burnout races competitive without being overwhelming.

 

[Alchemyst]

Ok, so I just finished Army of Two: The 40th Day and noticed a couple things that bug the hell out of me. For one, when you aim the crosshair on there heads, it doesn't change the cursor to red indicating that you are able to achieve a headshot. I hate having to rely on my partners comments to let me know that I got a headshot. The AI absolutely punishes you, there is not one time where they are shooting from all directions, its like all of them are sharpshooters. I also hate that when you are wounded, it takes your AI partner forever to get you to safety

 

[Havok83]

Nuts. I'm not particularly good at racing games either, so I imagine I'll be getting destroyed a lot. They should've gone to Criterion for some pointers on solid racing mechanics. I've always found the Burnout races competitive without being overwhelming.

Yeah same here. Burnout is my favorite racing series and I feel that they pretty much keep things fair. Hopefully the developers release a patch to reblance the gamee and adjust the AI after the game is release bc a game should be challenging without being downright frustrating

Another one that annoys me has to do with checkpoints. A game should always place checkpoints before and after 1. Boss fights, 2. A long/difficult battle with enemies, 3. A difficult platforming section. Its beyond annoying when they do not do this. You make it up to one of these points, only to die and have to replay an entire long segment just to get up to it again where you may be likely to die again. On the flipside, its just as annoying when there is no checkpoint after, so you have to redo that difficult section all over again if you do die.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

I know exactly what you mean about checkpoints. I started playing Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time again and, although I remembered it fondly, all of the little flaws are starting to return. A really big one is the fact that you have to manually save at save points. They're pretty good about placing the save points well, but I just recently had a fight immediately after completing a really long puzzle that I would've had to go all the way through again if I'd died in that fight. I barely managed to survive, but just the thought of the game being obnoxious like that with the save points was enough to really pissed me off.

 

[Alchemyst]

I hate when a game has some form of currency that allows you to purchase upgrades, but all of the upgrades are expensive as all hell leaving you broke.

 

[Soapy]

Enemies that heal themselves. This seems to be a staple of RPGs. There's always one enemy type that can heal itself and I find it super annoying.

I hate when a game has some form of currency that allows you to purchase upgrades, but all of the upgrades are expensive as all hell leaving you broke.

What would be the point if they just gave them away? You would be overly powerful too early and the game wouldn't be very challenging.

 

[Alchemyst]

Enemies that heal themselves. This seems to be a staple of RPGs. There's always one enemy type that can heal itself and I find it super annoying.




What would be the point if they just gave them away? You would be overly powerful too early and the game wouldn't be very challenging.

I'm not saying they should be free, but they shouldnt be that expensive, forcing u to go thru a game with maybe 2 weapons doesnt give that much of a chance to test out other upgrades

 

[ProjectPat2280]

I hate when a game has some form of currency that allows you to purchase upgrades, but all of the upgrades are expensive as all hell leaving you broke.

Im the opposite. I don't like when you quickly earn enough money to buy everything in the game. You shouldn't be given 500 pieces of gold or whatever for finishing X quest, unless that quest or mission specifically called for you to get a reward. I hated in Red Dead Redemption the fact that i got 25 bux every time i saved some poor hobo. It made the economy system feel useless.

 

[Alchemyst]

I only buy upgrades when its utmost necessary, playing through Dark Sector showed that I need a few ammo upgrades and damage upgrades, but they were expensive as hell

 

[Soapy]

Im the opposite. I don't like when you quickly earn enough money to buy everything in the game. You shouldn't be given 500 pieces of gold or whatever for finishing X quest, unless that quest or mission specifically called for you to get a reward. I hated in Red Dead Redemption the fact that i got 25 bux every time i saved some poor hobo.

Yeah, I agree. And this...

It made the economy system feel useless.

...really gets to the core of the issue.

The currency in most games becomes utterly worthless at some point when you have so much of it.

In Oblivion for example, I owned and bought every upgrade for every house in the game, and like...I wasn't even trying to get that rich. It just naturally happened over the course of the game. And Fable II is just broken in that regard. I shudder to think how much money I would have if I put the disk in tonight.

 

[amazingfantasy15]

Yeah, I agree. And this...

...really gets to the core of the issue.

The currency in most games becomes utterly worthless at some point when you have so much of it.

In Oblivion for example, I owned and bought every upgrade for every house in the game, and like...I wasn't even trying to get that rich. It just naturally happened over the course of the game. And Fable II is just broken in that regard. I shudder to think how much money I would have if I put the disk in tonight.

That was one of the biggest complaints I had about GTA4, since they took the buying properties element out of the game, money was basically useless. I always had a huge amount of money because all you really needed or felt you needed to buy was ammo and/or guns.

Another element that really pisses me off, that I've mostly only encountered in Resident Evil is bullet resistent enemies. I've emptied entire clips of amount into the head of an enemy to only have it keep coming at me, aren't head shots supposed to kill zombies?

 

[Soapy]

Yeah, bullet sponge enemies are irritating too.

 

[jacobed]

I hated that in Alan Wake there isn't a melee. I get it that you can run and what not but c'mon no melee at all really sucks when playing nightmare difficulty.

 

[Alchemyst]

I hated that in Alan Wake there isn't a melee. I get it that you can run and what not but c'mon no melee at all really sucks when playing nightmare difficulty.

I also hate when enemies surround you and the camera is fixed, not allowing you to see the enemies placement. Alan Wake was good for that

 

[Hush]

As for the hate on QTE's I really like them and i find them fun but i suppose im in the minority. What I do hate its Cut Scenes that cannot be skipped. Like you watch it and then you have your boss fight after but you die and have to go at it again but you have to ****ing watch that damn cutscene again.

 

[TheCorpulent1]

I also hate when enemies surround you and the camera is fixed, not allowing you to see the enemies placement. Alan Wake was good for that

Alan Wake also had the save problem I mentioned earlier. Checkpoint-only saves are extremely irritating. It gets really bad in the DLC, where they jack the difficulty up really high.

Oddly enough, I played Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands afterward and now I'm on Alpha Protocol. Guess which feature is common to all three.

 

[Alchemyst]

Alan Wake also had the save problem I mentioned earlier. Checkpoint-only saves are extremely irritating. It gets really bad in the DLC, where they jack the difficulty up really high.

Oddly enough, I played Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands afterward and now I'm on Alpha Protocol. Guess which feature is common to all three.

Man I can't wait to get my hands on that DLC. I can't stand that Alan Wake didn't have a melee attack. Please dont tell me he's that terrified that he cannot engage in hand to hand combat

 

[TheCorpulent1]

Well, the darkness seemed to change anyone it touched directly into a Taken. I think the flares are supposed to be your melee attack, in a sense. If you're swarmed, you can crack a flare (when the controls decide they want to respond, which I had a lot of problems with, especially regarding flares) and it'll drive everyone away from you.