Aspects of games you dislike

[Sousa]

I think a more general problem is that a lot of companies forget that games are supposed to be fun.

I don't want to be subjected to some daft moralistic story - because let's face it, if you make games for a living you're going to have a very rudimentary grasp on socio-political concepts and you should avoid trying to educate the gamer or subject them to a boring as hell parable.

I am so on board with this. So many games that people play for the "story" are an absolute shit show. 99% of the games in the Final Fantasy series come to mind--they hit it from time to time, but even the one I like the most (VI) gets by mostly on a good cast and a hilarious villain.

God of War was another one. If they'd stopped at "guy beats up bad guys and looks pretty cool" I'd have probably been more on board, but every five seconds I was having to sit through another terrible act of butchery on Greek mythology, with all of the nuance of the culture giving way to such bullshit. "AND THEN PANDORA CHAINED HER TEMPLE TO THE BACK OF CRONUS AND HAD HIM WANDER AROUND THE DESERT." The worst part at the time was how many game reviewers fapped themselves dry over how Kratos was a "complex character" or whatever because he killed his family and got their ashes grafted to him because... yeah. Again, just have the army guy tell me where the President is.

I think that's why I play more Civ than anything. Of course it doesn't make sense that Atilla the Hun is sending his tanks into the Iroquois Nation, but at least I don't have to sit through a 30-minute cut scene where Hiawatha hand-wrings about the incoming wrath of the king and his wife is stuffed in a goddamn freezer.

[apsham]

I fully acknowledge that this is just the way I play games, but I hate games that don't end when the story does. When I play a game, I want to emotionally invest myself in my character, be he a soldier, a wizard trying to slay Diablo, or the next great NBA point guard, get my payoff for winning the game, and then end the game.

What I hate, and the GTA's of the past are the absolute worst for it as far as i'm concerned - you win the game, get a cutscene and the game seems to just dump you back in the world where you triggered the cutscene and you can...drive around some more and cause more carnage? Er, great. I guess. If that's your thing...

And it's really simple - just send me back to the main menu. Then I know the game is over. If the in-game world still functions without the main storyline, that's fantastic - I can go back into it if I want. but for me, I need the game to tell me "Hey. You won."

I don't need grade A storytelling. I don't need a perfect ending. But I need the "end" in "ending" to mean something.

I absolutely DESPISE it when a game doesn't let you go back to the standard roaming after a certain point. It's one of the most common questions I see in topics on here when an open world thing pops up - "is there a point where the game will tell me that this is the end? do all my stuff?" and "can I go back to roaming after the credits" are like.. two of the most important things to me. But then again I'm obsessive and want to collect everything. Not even for achievements.

[Mick]

I hate games that require you to be online to play; Starcraft II and Diablo III, I am looking at you.

I shouldn't have to be playing alone, enjoying it, and die because of server lag. There should be a fucking offline mode. If you wanted to play online with Diablo or Diablo II, you should go through Battle.net's servers, not force me to be online even though I just want to sit back and enjoy the damn game .

[Plubby]

I fully acknowledge that this is just the way I play games, but I hate games that don't end when the story does. When I play a game, I want to emotionally invest myself in my character, be he a soldier, a wizard trying to slay Diablo, or the next great NBA point guard, get my payoff for winning the game, and then end the game.

What I hate, and the GTA's of the past are the absolute worst for it as far as i'm concerned - you win the game, get a cutscene and the game seems to just dump you back in the world where you triggered the cutscene and you can...drive around some more and cause more carnage? Er, great. I guess. If that's your thing...

And it's really simple - just send me back to the main menu. Then I know the game is over. If the in-game world still functions without the main storyline, that's fantastic - I can go back into it if I want. but for me, I need the game to tell me "Hey. You won."

I don't need grade A storytelling. I don't need a perfect ending. But I need the "end" in "ending" to mean something.

I absolutely DESPISE it when a game doesn't let you go back to the standard roaming after a certain point. It's one of the most common questions I see in topics on here when an open world thing pops up - "is there a point where the game will tell me that this is the end? do all my stuff?" and "can I go back to roaming after the credits" are like.. two of the most important things to me. But then again I'm obsessive and want to collect everything. Not even for achievements.

I don't have a problem with a game that allows you to play it after the story is completed - I just want that closure, to be taken OUT of the game (so to speak) to know that i'm done, and to have the option to go back in if I want to collect stuff (which I normally don't).

[ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster]

Oh man I got ridiculously furious the first time I tried to play Empire Total War without an internet connection. WHAT DO YOU MEAN I'M NOT ALLOWED TO PLAY THE GAME?! I BOUGHT IT! IT'S MINE! HOW DARE YOU NOT LET ME PLAY IT!

[Mick]

Oh man I got ridiculously furious the first time I tried to play Empire Total War without an internet connection. WHAT DO YOU MEAN I'M NOT ALLOWED TO PLAY THE GAME?! I BOUGHT IT! IT'S MINE! HOW DARE YOU NOT LET ME PLAY IT!

This

[Bobfoc]

Binary moral choice systems tend to annoy me. They're usually so polarised that neither of them seem to fit with the context in which they appear. In Mass Effect, for example, we're supposed to think carefully about the moral implications of each choice, but we know full well that the blue text represents a good choice, and the red text represents an evil choice, and it's the same every time. They'll try to frame the evil choice as the more practical one, but it'll almost always be the case that the supposedly riskier good choice ends up working out perfectly, yet the evil, yet more practical choice ends up backfiring and making you look like a dick.

Then there's Bioshock, in which you're regularly given the option to either bring demonic girls back to their human form or murder them for slightly more in-game money (ADAM). That might be a heart-wrenching quandary if said money was hard to come by, but you can buy all the best power-ups and still have plenty of it left to spare, so the only reason you'd pick the latter option would be to see the alternative ending, in which you're scolded about how much of a turd you've been.

The worst thing about these systems is the fact that, more often than not, the power-ups you receive throughout a game are usually based around your character's morality 'score', with certain powers only being accessible if you've reached a certain stage of either the "good" or "evil" ladder. What that means is that you're forced to be either entirely good or entirely evil to access the best powers, and any form of role-playing goes right out of the window. Infamous is particularly guilty of this as you're basically given the choice of being either the gallant saviour of the land or Jeffrey Dahmer, with any middle-grounders being punished with an underpowered character.

The Walking Dead managed to get around this issue particularly well because it skipped the whole good/evil meter and instead gave you a selection of morally ambiguous options, most of which you had to pick in the heat of the moment. Everything you do is 'wrong' in the eyes of some of your fellow characters, but others might praise you for what you've done, and the refreshing thing is that the decisions are always placed in a random order in the 'tree' from which you pick them, avoiding Mass Effect Syndrome. If more games did something like that, I'd be happy, but otherwise, in a non-RPG, like Bioshock or Infamous, I'd much rather they didn't bother with this sort of thing at all and instead told a more focused, coherent story.

[TKz]

Stealth games that require you to play different ways to get everything. Hitman: Absolution was the worst for this. So stupid. You beat the level and it treats it like "Well, hey, you did kind of okay. But what about these 60 collectibles? And doing it this way as well?". No, fuck that, I beat the level. Don't tell me I didn't because I didn't pick up a Chef's Hat and kill a guy with a pair of scissors.

Mark of the Ninja does this so well. You play however you want and get rewarded for each play style. You get points for avoiding a guy AND killing a guy in one level, rather than being punished for not doing the level one specific way.

[Baddar]

I do love the Uncharted series, but it did get to a point where there were puzzles for the sake of having puzzles.

Hopefully any PS4 version will be more like its Vita counterpart. That one had a perfect balance, I think.

[ZJ Penn]

The worst aspect of Uncharted, for me anyway, is the ranged combat.

Apart from the dumb waves of soldiers in an unexplored area thing, the actual mechanics of it are just terrible.

[R.W.]

Two things I hate:

- Online achievements / trophies. I hate online gaming mainly - games like FIFA or WWE where people just quit if they're losing. Have online leaderboards, rankings etc, but don't put trophies on it. Let me get my platinum without having to waste time with rage-quitters, gltichers and exploiters.

- Collectibles that are there for the sake of it. "Hey, find 120 of these hidden relics. Just because!". No, go fuck yourself. Collectibles should at least lead to something, like the Batman games,

[Baddar]

I think the collectibles in Far Cry 3 actually benefited you, so that's why I didn't mind getting them.

[ChrisSteeleAteMyHamster]

The worst aspect of Uncharted, for me anyway, is the ranged combat.

Apart from the dumb waves of soldiers in an unexplored area thing, the actual mechanics of it are just terrible.

Ugh, I think I've mentioned that before too. There was a part in Uncharted 3 where you sneak into a building and go down a big hole in the ground to explore. No-one saw you go in to the hole but suddenly on your way back out THERE ARE LOADS OF ENEMIES THERE WAITING FOR YOU! How ridiculous.

Similar to how you might be climbing around ridiculously high walls, giant bells and craggy statues, get to your goal, grab what you need to grab and suddenly there are dozens of stupid goons who apparently either followed you or came in via "another" entrance. I understand the purpose of it for the game but it's cheap and I hate games that use cheap tactics.

I think the collectibles in Far Cry 3 actually benefited you, so that's why I didn't mind getting them.

At their very worst, everything you collect, or hunt, or craft gives you XP which levels you up to give you new special abilities.

[Baddar]

I didn't mind the volume of enemies, but some of the situations you found them in was a tad silly, I agree.

[JasonM]

I have so much stuff that I absolutely hate, I am sure I could rant up a good post.

First one...

On-Disc/Day-1 DLC: For one I hate DLC to begin with, because I come from the ''ye olde days'' where you got everything that was advertised on the tin and that cool sword/gun/car/character/hamburger was actually available to you without having to drop another buck to be able to play it. Real ''updates'' where few and far between, and sometimes the dev felt bored enough to give you one or two maps for free, out of the kindness of their hearts. And for the rest, we relied on modders to create their own maps.

At one point in the last decade some ''genius'' thought they could strip shit out of the finished product and pay it to people for an added price, and well... I fucking hate it with a passion. And there are but a few devs left that don't go with scammy-DLC schemes as a part of their business plan.

And sure, I bought Undead Nightmare and well... I loved it through and through, and it's one of the few DLC things that you really get something out of. But when I see 9/10 other companies run around selling me additional guns, characters and whatnot, something that gives me nothing in terms of actual story or a real added gameplay feature, then I completely switch off and more often than not, I simply pirate the shit out of the DLC.

And for the DLC that actually strips something VERY story related out of the game, well that is even worse because it directly affects your gameplay.

Oversimplification..

I understand that devs need to make their money somewhere, and to have your game be available for the biggest possible demographic is THE way to have a popular game very fast. Slap a known franchise name to the game and well, you got the potential for fat-loot all around.

Plenty of examples out there too, ranging from Dragon Age and Mass Effect to Splinter Cell and Fable. Every popular brandname videogame tends to be thrown into that wringer bar maybe a few games that live on a really die-hard fanbase (Civ).

And well, I don't like it for all the obvious reasons. It turns an otherwise good series with an interesting premise into one that just isn't the same as it's predecessor. And whilst Mass Effect still has a glorious story (with a crap ending) and the gameplay is slicker than ever, it just misses... ''something''.

An easier example is Splinter Cell, the first 3-4 games of the series was all about stealth action, getting in and out of a map without anyone ever knowing you where there, that was the fucking bomb right there and it gave you all the tools at disposal and actively encouraged you to do it... Then came Conviction, and suddenly most of the stealth is thrown out of the window to give you a ''sleeker and actionpacked'' experience. So basically you are forced to gun down enemies or at best punch their brains in to get to your target.

Luckily with the newest game Blacklist they decided to bring the best of both worlds, but my frustration at times makes it obvious that the game still actively promotes you to go ''Jason Bourne'' instead of ''Sam Fisher'' on a lot of missions...

And the original Splinter Cell wasn't even THAT hard to begin with, you only had to crouch past people and get to places by using vents, pipes and other conveniently placed obstacles. There wasn't a goofy XP system, and you didn't have to level up your characters or upgrade your guns, all that mattered was finishing the mission, as silently as possible...

Brain-dead collectible hunting:

Other people have told this in this thread, so I will be as quick about it as possible. I don't mind collectible hunting, but the devs have gone absolutely bonkers with the whole concept of it. Littering the world with thousands of collectibles that may or may not have an effect on your game. And whilst it's a thing of the ages with almost every game known to man having them. They don't exactly envoke bliss in me when I want to complete a game 100% and I need to grind away 3-4 more hours just to get those collectibles. It's a cheap trick to add ''replayability'' to a game, and if it wasn't in a game I wouldn't miss it one bit.

Fucking Sewer Levels:

Do I even need to explain this one?

Microtransactions:

Best, thing, ever!

I don't want to pay for fucking throwaway DLC, let alone pay a few bucks just to get a (throwaway) quest over with. And I also don't want to pay a couple of bucks just to have that awesome blaster rifle that makes me better than every other player in the server. It's a cheap and disgusting cash grab, and there are always people stupid enough to drop their cash on that shit, making it a ''viable'' option for developers.

It's a system that killed Facebook games and it mires you in crap just long enough that you go ''I want this shit over with, I am gonna drop a buck''. And before you know it, you have done it 60 times already. And of course, the farther you get in the game the slower and more mired the gameplay becomes, almost forcing you to drop cash each and every time they give you a ridiculous task you must complete for that lovely puke-green garden chair!

You need to be connected to play this single-player game!
Oh boy, this one has become a thing really fast and it's one of the worst things in gaming right now, even higher than the DLC thing for me.
So I want to play that nice Singleplayer game, with no online capabilities... Well fuck me, I can't play because I need to be logged into Steam/Uplay/Origin to play this glorious game!

So what if I go on holiday and I want to play some games in my hotel room, I will probably have to stick with Patience for the coming 3 weeks because Electronic Arts wants me to be online 24/7 just to Simcity or whateverthefuck.

What if I live in an area with intermittent network loss, well that's not their problem and my 60 dollar/euro/pound game is useless for most of the time, and don't even think about saving your progress because the moment the connection drops, I am fucked in the asshole.

When it's Battlefield 3, Call of Duty: 52 or another game that revolves around online play and is truly built as an online game, sure I understand being connected to play online (Makes sense, non?). But when I play a game that doesn't even have online capabilities or some real throwaway stuff that doesn't/hardly affects offline gameplay, then it gets on my fucking nerves. If I want to play ETW/Diablo3/Simcity etc. offline, they should allow me to play it offline.

But it's totally to stop pirates from pirating the game right? No it doesn't, 2 days post-release there is a crack on the internet and all the pirates are merrilly playing the game offline whilst I am still fucking around with idiotic tacked-on always-on DRM.

And that gift just keeps on giving, because with the Xbox One being the newest step in that process we can be sure that the future is bright for Always-On DRM. At least there is one company that at least minimally thinks about it's demographic, but I am sure the PS4 will have some shit under the surface that will get us all riled up nice and good again.

I can conjure up more ranting, but I am going to leave it at this ragefest.

[Vamp]

I didn't mind the volume of enemies, but some of the situations you found them in was a tad silly, I agree.

I like the volume and the situations, because I see them as being part of the genre they're trying to recreate. Sort of like adventure serials where things just suddenly happen to make an excitign scene sometimes with little logic.

The big problem I had with Uncharted 3 were the cheap almost invincible bosses.

I'm not a fan of a lot of really long games. Some games seem to go on forever and a day. I'm fine with it in certain cases, Skyrim and the like should be epic and sprawling, but then you get games which are like the Nolan Batman films where you think "didn't this already end?"

Edited August 28, 2013 by Vamp

[TKz]

The worst aspect of Uncharted, for me anyway, is the ranged combat.

Apart from the dumb waves of soldiers in an unexplored area thing, the actual mechanics of it are just terrible.

God, this. Uncharted combat is so weak! It was great at the time, but it feels so dated and boring now.

[R.W.]

I think the collectibles in Far Cry 3 actually benefited you, so that's why I didn't mind getting them.

They do up to a point. But I've finished the game, maxed out the character, got all the other trophies (except the co-op ones. Bah.), and there are still 30 odd relics to find before that trophy pops (and even then, the trophy is for finding half the relics in the game, which means really there's 90 odd useless ones out there)

[Sweet Holy Moses]

Everything Jason said? That.

It's all about the mad profits, yo. As soon as something gets highly profitable, more and more business-people jump on board. We get more bullshit DLC and pay-to-win schemes, and less honest-to-God gaming goodness. Let the gamers, artists and storytellers create the games, not the focus groups. The more business-type people are involved, the more generic, bland, terrible and (offensively) inoffensive games become. There's a reason a lot of the better games (as in high quality, not high-selling) are made by some of the smaller developers these days.

[SRN]

Pointless grinding. You know, all Final Fantasy games.