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  • Subject: Annoying things in games
Subject: Annoying things in games
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I was wondering what everyone considers bad features that commonly reoccur over different games. For me it's-

Not being able to skip cut scenes. If something happens to my character right after the scene ends and I have to go through it again, I would really like to skip it. Having this happen right before a boss in a game is especially grating.

Objects in a game for no reason. Would a bunch of wooden crates really be in the middle of a military base corridor? Really, think hard now...if you said no, you would be right. Large businesses and military bases have storage rooms for a reason. You would never find half of the things you do in levels based on reality.

Collecting X amount of objects to do something. I could see how having to find one hundred bananas to unlock a door might seem like a great idea, but if that's the jist of the game, I won't bother playing. There's a fine line between fun and tedious, and collecting a bunch of little things to do something gets un fun very quickly.

Repetitive sound effects. When you're running around in a game, everything should make a different noise. If I punch one of my friends in the face, and then punch a chair, I'm doubtful it will make the same noise on impact. This used to be excusable but nowadays sound is just as important as graphics.

Bad controls. Simpleness is bliss, especially when it comes to control schemes. Whenever I play a game, I don't want to press a hundred different buttons for one action. Keep it simple so that when I'm in-game I spend more time interacting and less time fumbling with the controls. Completely customizable controls, instead of control scheme A, and control scheme B never hurts either.

Changing up gameplay at the end of the game - Oh, what's this!? My wonderful Action/Adventure game has turned into a top down space shooter at the last level; thus voiding everything I've learned and all the skills I've developed so far. SUPER! The only game to ever actually do this right in the history of games is The Oregon Trail, and even it gave you the option to avoid it.

Fetch Quests. It's suprising how many games fill in space by having you do some random gather mission. Of course you have 50 hours of gameplay when I have to walk all the way back to the beginning of the game to get some little, stupid, trinket and then run it all the way back to the person who needed it. It really just seems like a waste of space in games. You could always be doing something more fun.

Timed missions are just as guilty as fetch quests. Having to do certain tasks before time runs out is always a downer. It always dulls the atmosphere because instead of enjoying the game I'm worrying about getting through the stage fast enough. No time to stop and smell the roses now character X, you have to get the magic crystal to the reactor core before the earth explodes!

Escort missions are the worst of all. Fetch quests and timed missions are excusable on some instances, but I never, ever want to do another escort mission. There has never been anything fun about them, except when I get so pissed off I kill the person I have to escort for relief. Usually the person I'm escorting has horrible A.I. anyway, so they run around and get hurt while I have to retread my steps hoping they'll follow me.

Oh no! the peasant who I'm supposed to lead to a castle got stuck on a rock thirty feet back, now I have to go get him unstuck, and walk all the way back to where I am now. God forbid the game has a ladder they have to climb.

Places in the game being blocked off for no reason. If I am trucking along in a game and I decide I want to go into a house, there better be a good reason why I can't go into said house. It's always frustrating when I'm playing and I run up to a door but can't get inside for no reason at all. Give me a [LOCKED] message or something. ANYTHING!

Boring level design. One out of every five games I play has a level involving water, or a level involving sewers. Is it really necessary every time I play a game to be unable to breath, or covered in human waste? If you seriously think it's a good idea for a level, I want to hurt you. Hurt you horribly. Also, enough with the dark/damp industrial type designs already.

Ooohhhhh a spooky metal underground place, never been here before! I demand more bright, colorful levels. This is also why I never found Ice/Snow levels appealing either. Too much white, not enough color, it makes me get sick of a level very quickly.

Taking away all of my weapons. I realize that game developers want me to have a handicap later on in the game to make it more interesting, but it isn't necessary to take away all the fun toys they've given me. Instead of disarming me, or me being captured and my weapons removed, how about making the game itself harder? Introduce some new powerful enemies or have the current ones appear in bigger numbers.

So what are the little things in games that make you mad?

  • 08.07.2004 2:33 AM PDT
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That was a long post.

I don't like boss battles in FPS games. Its stupid.

Yeah, I don't have much to support my views.

  • 08.07.2004 2:55 AM PDT
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I agree on some points.
But for things that shouldn't be kept in corridors but are stored in corridors, would you rather like an empty "pipe" with nowhere to hide, so that all the nemies needs to is to shoot. No matter what you do, you get hit. Where's the skill in that? I prefer unlogical object placements instead of a tube of doom.

As for the boss battles in fps games, I too think it's supid. But instead of having a boss, there could be a 'end battle' or something where there are extremely much enemies. That's fun.

One thing I think is very annoying, is when the voice actors in a game are bad. Like if someone says "We're doomed" and it sound like it's nothing special, that it happens every day and doesn't need any emotion when saying it.


  • 08.07.2004 3:47 AM PDT
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Yes, i don't like boss battles in fps's either. I'd prefer just having a much harder situation instead at the end of the game.

Also, i hate it when games require you to shoot an enemy 15 times to kill it for no reason. In Halo it's understandable, they have sheild and armor. But, i hate it when you're fighting normal humans in a game and they don't go down in 2-3 shots. It's just not realistic. Put a 3 round burst from a high powered rifle into a guy's chest and he isn't getting back up.

  • 08.07.2004 8:31 AM PDT
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Posted by: DaElAlTH2
One thing I think is very annoying, is when the voice actors in a game are bad. Like if someone says "We're doomed" and it sound like it's nothing special, that it happens every day and doesn't need any emotion when saying it.

Like David Duchovny's voice-work in XIII. He was not very good, to say the least.

  • 08.07.2004 8:36 AM PDT

It was a cold day near the southern base in Blood Gulch. Cortana and I were relaxing over a game of Go Fish, WHEN OUT OF NO WHERE 700 BANSHEES CAME FLYING IN!!! I GRABED MY SPARTAN LASER AND LET HELL REIGN DOWN UPON THEM. I HOPPED IN THE NEAREST WARTHOG AND TOLD CORTANA TO GET IN.

Timed missions are just as guilty as fetch quests. Having to do certain tasks before time runs out is always a downer. It always dulls the atmosphere because instead of enjoying the game I'm worrying about getting through the stage fast enough. No time to stop and smell the roses now character X, you have to get the magic crystal to the reactor core before the earth explodes!

I can't totally agree... The end of the maw is one of my favorite parts in the Halo game. I totally agree about colorfulness though. We have all these amazing graphics... so lets make it all bright and colorful so you can actually appreciate it! Not black so you cant see a damn thing

  • 08.07.2004 10:58 AM PDT
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Posted by: DaElAlTH2
I agree on some points.
As for the boss battles in fps games, I too think it's supid. But instead of having a boss, there could be a 'end battle' or something where there are extremely much enemies. That's fun.


My thoughts exactly.

I also hate escort missions. The one in Halo isn't that bad, I never really thought like I was babysitting anyone (like most escort missions) and the Captain has only died on me twice. So it wasn't as frustrating as other ones where the person you're escorting act stupidly and gets killed all the time.

[Edited on 8/7/2004 11:24:11 AM]

  • 08.07.2004 11:20 AM PDT
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LOL, the first post described morrowind quite well, and i agree with the water level and stuff.

WHat the hell is up with dungeons? they have never been fun, they never will be fun and they never had the potential to be fun. The existance of dungeons made me use the stupid wall trick, (you all know what i'm talking about). Follow one wall until you get out of the -blam!- place. Agreed on escort missions, -blam!-est escort mission ever---> the control on 007. Natalya is a bullet magnet. Her hobbies are running into walls and typing with her fists.

Another big issue is restrictions, i hate how in vice city and GTA 3 you can't swim! and on all games, there's an invisible wall!

Biggest problem with video games today
see below-

when you look on the box and it says 2-4 players simultaneous! and then you find out that you need to buy a second x-box with the special controller adaption port that lets you have enough memory on your gameboy to keep the lag down on your wireless router which keeps disconnecting you because your Live subscription hasn't been activated and the other 3 x-boxes haven't shown up yet, and when they do your friends don't have copies of the game you want to play, so when you buy copies for everyone, you find out that you need 4 x boxes hooked up for 1 person to play, so you mod the machines and get the special connector cables that let you play with your X-box control on your Ps2, but the gameboy needs to be charged now, and 2 weeks and 500+ dollars later everything is set up, and you and your friends are ready to play, but you find out that what they meant by 2-4 players was that you all can take turns one after another at completing the level. so your friends get their gameboys and cables and extra x-boxes and copies of the -blam!- game you were trying to play and heap it on a pile and burn it with holy fire.

if you couldn't tell, the games i were talking about here are final fantasy crystal chronicles, splinter cell pandora tomarrow, whacked, mech assault, and phantasy star online.

then you all can finally take a deep breath, and start playing some 6 on 6 halo without any -blam!-.

And don't even get me started on PC games. any of these satanic messages ring a bell?

1. FATAL ERROR!
2. ILLEGAL OPERATION!
3. YOUR VIDEO CARD IS A PIECO OF -blam!-!
4. YOU WERE DISCONNECTED!
Or how about these gaming fun fun times!
5. LLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA AAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG
6. your keyboard acts like -blam!- compared to your controller.
7. could not install. check the error report? error report----> 0.21312412.3402893688
8. BLUE SCREEN OF DEATH

and finally i leave you with this warcraft 3 instance that just happened

Stikk: hey, what's up?
SNiperWolfsniper Mcsniperson the MAdsniper[clan azn]:yo
stikk: so it's 2v2 and i'm kicking the -blam!- out of you
SNiperWolfsniper Mcsniperson the MAdsniper[clan azn]: ya, i kinda suck...
Stikk: well gg i guess

YOUR -blam!- TEAMMATE THAT NEVER TALKS HAS LEFT THE GAME!

Stikk: ...
SNiperWolfsniper Mcsniperson the MAdsniper[clan azn]: WOOT! i'm so leetxors!!!!!!!!11111111
Stikk: Hmm.... my forces seem to be insufficient to take on 2 blamming GUYS!

YOU HAVE BEEN DISCONNECTED!

  • 08.07.2004 11:52 AM PDT
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wow, is that the longest post ever or what?

  • 08.07.2004 11:53 AM PDT

Posted by: Peck
wow, is that the longest post ever or what?


Actually, it's about 7th on my list. The longest post ever was "The History of The Universe" written by Zk315. That thing had to have been ten pages long.

  • 08.07.2004 11:58 AM PDT
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i didn't write all that just so banshee baron could say his part, respond people!

  • 08.07.2004 1:02 PM PDT
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I agree with you on the stuff about Vice City. If you're one of the toughest gangsters in the world you shouldn't die by drowning in a 4 foot puddle. I also agree with the error messages. If a company is going to spend all that time on a game they should at least make sure it works right before they ship it out.

[Edited on 8/7/2004 3:43:32 PM]

  • 08.07.2004 3:42 PM PDT