The "How is this still a thing?" Thread

[Monkey D. Lars]

Me still sucking at Guitar Hero. WY??!?!?!?!? WHY!!!!!!!!!

[Baddar]

Noticed this one earlier when starting up FIFA...

"Press X" - so instead of the game loading to the main menu automatically, you're forced to press a button before anything will load. Just don't get it. I'd understand if you were starting up a new game for the first time and the Press X was there prior to a cut scene so you don't miss anything, but there's literally no point in it. It happens in The Golf Club too, and other games I don't remember off hand.

[Benji]

Lack of backwards compatibility is one I experienced yesterday I get why it happens, I just hate that it is.

[Rich]

20 minutes ago, Baddar said:

Noticed this one earlier when starting up FIFA...

"Press X" - so instead of the game loading to the main menu automatically, you're forced to press a button before anything will load. Just don't get it. I'd understand if you were starting up a new game for the first time and the Press X was there prior to a cut scene so you don't miss anything, but there's literally no point in it. It happens in The Golf Club too, and other games I don't remember off hand.

Happens on Fallout 4 too, with the "Press any key to continue" bollocks where all it does is keep the same screen and load the menu

[Vamp]

I always used to assume that's so that Game shops or whoever could whack the disc in a console, rig it up to the telly safe in the knowledge that when they don't press x the game trailer will play but presumably they just send a dvd or a download or something... 

There'll be some horrible product design reason about how pressing x to advance to the main menu reminds people of childhoods spent in arcades or means they're invested more into the product or something. 

[King Ellis]

Press X to pay respects to the menu screen

[KevinStorm]

2K Sports has been releasing sports games with awesome career modes for years but EA Sports still can't be bothered to actually do it with Madden.

[Benji]

People who play online with a mic on when they're not playing with friends.

[Quom]

8 hours ago, Mad Jack said:

Also rechargeable controllers not being the industry standard.

They aren't? Does the XBone not have one? The Wii U pad thing is, the PS4 pad is. I guess the Steam Controller isn't, but I thought that was an outlier.

7 minutes ago, Benji said:

People who play online with a mic on when they're not playing with friends.

It depends what they're doing, I hate playing online for 2 reasons, mainly because I'm shit. But also because games that generally have good multiplayer are generally enhanced (or designed) to be played with communication. It's like there is an impasse between devs and consumers where devs get that multiplayer could be so much more if people were willing to communicate and help each other and gamers are too anti-social to ever do so.

It especially annoys me when they remove couch co-op from games to instead have online multiplayer since people in a room together will actually play a game the way it was designed and have fun doing so (provided the game is fun to begin with).

[The Lusophone]

The Xbone does have one, but it seems its not packaged as standard in some markets or some packages. The amount of YouTubers and streamers I've seen have to scramble around for batteries is ridiculus.

[Lint]

Read this in a post about FO4 on Kotaku but...why do a lot of PC games still make you quit to the main menu, then quit to desktop?  Just lemme quit the game from right there while I"m playing, not back out to another menu

[Draevyn]

"Are you sure you want to quit? All unsaved data will be lost" ......how about you just save my damn game from the point that I choose to stop? Some people don't have time to find the next checkpoint or save point in order to save their game.

[Benji]

12 hours ago, Quom said:

It depends what they're doing

99% of the time it's eating crisps with their mouths open, talking/yelling at/to their very loud children, or listening to very loud music. I've never encountered a random who plays online with their mic on and wasn't a noise gobbling annoyance, and instead actually used their mic to be helpful. If I'm playing with a friend it's a different thing, they can make all the noise in the world for all I care, but I don't want to hear some strangers' background noise.

[Quom]

It has been ages since I even bothered playing online. Last time was one of the Battlefield games. Some of the random mic people would be helpful, well more like bossy. But it did make it easier.

but there was plenty of screaming 10 year olds and terrible music to counter act it.

[Benji]

One thing that has died a death and I am glad of - the concept of "lives" without save points to return to. They always felt like a punishment for not being good at one specific part of the game to me, and you couldn't practice them because you ran out of lives to do so.

[MDK]

55 minutes ago, Benji said:

One thing that has died a death and I am glad of - the concept of "lives" without save points to return to. They always felt like a punishment for not being good at one specific part of the game to me, and you couldn't practice them because you ran out of lives to do so.

Yeah, I tried to play an old SNES game. No tutorial, don't tell you the buttons, I didn't even finish the first level. I've been spoiled by modern gaming. Games back in the day we're hard as fuck.

[Benji]

Health being indicated by splatter on the screen. It was a novel idea at first, but really it's just an annoyance. I find myself wasting health packs in games just to get rid of the tiniest indication of that damage because it annoys me.

[apsham]

There's permanent versions of that verses other methods that I'm fine with - and I guess that really means you have to be okay with regenerating health too. The Gears games for instance will bloody up your screen until you find some cover.

[Benji]

Yeah, that kind is solid by me, it adds to the effect of feeling under fire too. It's the kind that stays on the screen that irks me.

[apsham]

I was trying to think of a game that did that - and I thought of something else that annoys the shit out of me. Low health warning noises. Not the ones that tell you "hey man, you're low on health" but the ones that are like "HEY YOUR HEALTH IS LOW! HEY YOUR HEALTH IS LOW! HEY YOUR HEALTH IS LOW! HEY YOUR HEALTH IS LOW! HEY YOUR HEALTH IS LOW! HEY YOUR HEALTH IS LOW!"

I'm looking at you, Zelda.