Games - Your Biggest Irks

[Cormeh]

So, I'm playing through Gun and F.E.A.R right now, and whilst both are solid games, Gun has brought to my attention my most hated aspect of video games.

This actually reaches back to my days playing Goldeney 007 on the N64, but I've only just realised how many developers have included this task in their games, and managed to make it far more irksome.

I hate protection missions.

You all know, the missions which ask you to protect either: a stationary object whether it's a building, or an object of value, or a vehicle; OR you have to protect a person. Some dim-witted fool, who would rather stray into the line of hellfire and napalm that sit still to live. I like to call it "Natalya Syndrome".

A lot of these games will have you fight battalion after legion after army of enemies who are hell bent on destroying that which you protect, and most of the time the game will have messages flash on screen about, how your protectee is being wasted, when your in the middle of trying to defeat a handful of bad guys that have been giving you grief since you started. Got that gets on my nerves.

Bah. I just hate this type pf gameplay. I've got a few others, but first - what really irks you when it comes to games?

 

[Lucid]

I also loathe protection missions... Except the ones in CoD or MoH, those were rather fun.

Hm, biggest irk though?... Bad voice acting.

 

[Mr-Fusion]

The lonewolf missions in the rainbow6 series where you can't use your gun. Heartbeat sensors only.

 

[Sparta]

Bad storylines, or great storylines that go completely bonkers at the end (Fahrenheit)

 

[Beerdude26]

Sucky gameplay in general.

 

[Steven]

What I hate is when some pathetically programmed NPC says "I'll help you." and he/she dies straight away because he/she ran right up to the enemys gun plus when he/she dies you lose.

 

[Gray Fox]

I hate protectios to. But most of all I hate bad exuces for something to happen or soemone to do, in games. Then I'm all, for crying out loud.

 

[StardogChampion]

Guns feeling weak like toy models - Deus Ex 2

 

[Dalamari]

Weak looking/sounding guns, gathering missions, protection missions, timed missions, the ****ing stealth levels in R6, action levels in Splinter Cell (bum rushed by enemies, have to empty your ammo at them) train missions, bad jokes in the middle of battle (Perfect Dark Zero)

 

[Cormeh]

Hm, biggest irk though?... Bad voice acting.

Aye, sometimes poor voice acting can really get you. For what I've played of Perfect Dark Zero, some parts of that were god awful in voices.

great storylines that go completely bonkers at the end (Fahrenheit)

KoTOR II anyone?

Sucky gameplay in general.

C'mon Beery, you can do better than that.

Guns feeling weak like toy models - Deus Ex 2

Good point. There's nothing worse than trying to kill armoured enemies with what fells like and sounds like a pea-shooter. Most of the weapons in Jedi Knight 2 were like that for me.

Although this is definetly human error but still annoys me, is when platform jumping is required, and you try to get as much of a run as possible to perform a jump, but ALWAYS time it wrong so all your character does is run off the end. God I hate that.

 

[StardogChampion]

On-rails missions where you're in the back of a vehicle with a gun-turret and have to fire endlessly at bad guys that pop-out for about 10 minutes.

 

[Warbie]

Guns feeling weak like toy models - Deus Ex 2

Agreed - this was one of the reasons I didnt like FEAR. Terrible models that sound and feel weak. Bah!

On-rails missions where you're in the back of a vehicle with a gun-turret and have to fire endlessly at bad guys that pop-out for about 10 minutes.

Damn right. These are always, always awful.

At the moment i'm loving PDZ, however, in a few levels they've stuck some of these evil vehicle scetions. Why?!

 

[VirusType2]

what really irks you when it comes to games?

A great game with a glaring flaw that could be so easily fixed like unchangeable control scheme, or some simple gameplay thing. its like You dumb ****s! you ruined a perfect game!


but bad sound effects, voice overs or music really annoys me. Just bad sound in general.

As much as I love beatiful graphics, the sound is HALF the game if not more IMO

50% graphics 50% sound = 100% of the experience (well, in most games. vibration controllers and such excluded) :thumbs:


you can take a good game with slightly bad graphics, add the best sounds you've ever heard, and suddenly the game is superb

 

[Fishlore]

The following is strictly my opinion.

I hate games that have wonderful graphics and derivative gameplay. I hate games on rails. I'm growing to hate all the main genres of games too. FPS games for example are all starting to seem the same underneath the hood to me. Bullet time, a melee kick, a gravity gun, sci-fi/western/wwii/ textures slapped on to an existing engine are all pathetic attempts in my opinion to create interest in a stale genre. I hate the emphasis on graphics, graphics, graphics.

I could probably go on for hours. I guess the above reasons are why I don't buy or play games that much anymore.

 

[Cormeh]

I hate when games, not mention Ultimate Spider-man names, have unlockables for completing certain aspects of the game, but only give the goods when theres absolutely nothing left to do.

 

[Beerdude26]

Waaaay too hard RPG games that are based off the actual D&D rules.

"You rolled a 5. You die."
*reloads*
"You rolled a 6. You die."
*reloads*
"You rolled an 8. You die."
*reloads*

"You rolled a 20. You attack the enemy."
Me: YES!!!!
"The enemy dodges your attack. You die."

D:

 

[Apocalypse89]

Lemme see...I have quite a few:

Escort missions:
Most of the time, the problem is that your escortee is either stupid, weak, unarmed, or a combination of the above. It's not that hard to give an NPC lots of health and a big gun(like in HL2). And if your AI programmers are too lazy to give them a decent sense of self-preservation, you can do it the MGS way and allow the player to indirectly control the NPC and keep them out of harm's way.

Underwater missions:
Most of the time, these have horrible controls and level design, causing the player to become very disoriented. This frustration is multiplied if the water is inhabited by annoying enemies, or if the player is given a short oxygen timer which he must constantly replenish.

Mandatory tutorials/training missions:
I know that there's a possibility that the person playing your game has never touched a video/computer game before, but is it that hard putting a seperate training level in the main menu? Or asking the player if it's his first time through the game? I don't want to learn how to use the WASD buttons/control pad on my third playthrough, thank you.

'Prison Escape' missions:
Your character is captured, he is stripped of all weapons and armor and thrown into a jail cell. However, something occurs and he manages to escape and obtain a simple weapon! Except now you have to fight(or even worse, sneak. See below.) your way through a massive fortress brimming with guards, soldiers, and probably other nasties with nothing but you and your newly acquired wooden stick. I only tolerate these missions if you regain all your weapons and equipment soon after escaping.

Stealth in non-stealth games:
You're a badass action hero who blasts his way through thousands of evil minions, but now you're suddenly afraid of a single lowly guard spotting you? Not only do these crappy sequences usually make little sense, but you usually have to do them with action-oriented controls, and often they're even more unforgiving than games which actually stress stealth! These sometimes go hand-in-hand with prison escape sequences.

Things such as graphics or sound don't bother me unless they're a genuine health threat to my eyes or ears. My gripes are mainly with gameplay.

 

[PickledGecko]

My most hated levels are the ones where, if you kill anyone or are spotted by anyone or trip an alarm it means an instant mission failure. No chance to recover just straight to the loading screen. These levels are even more infuriating when they appear in a game with no quick save and terribly spaced out auto saves.

Now if you have a level like that in a game that does away with any kind of mid mission saving then I’ll just uninstall it. That sort of game could send Ghandi into a mass murdering rage.

 

[CptStern]

corridor crawls ...sick to death of corridor crawls, kept me away from D3 and Fear

I also hate protection mission and timed missions.

respawning enemies that continously spawn till you've reached some unseen trigger

uber-elite AI with magical aiming ability

inability to jump small barriers

cut scenes ..please developers either improve the quality of acting in cut scenes or just dont bother ..I skip through 95% of cutscenes because they're either extremely cheesy or have next to nothing to do with the plot and are a waste of time ..Hl2 did it right



stupid plots ...please, there's only so many times I want to visit a lab where "a horrible genetic experiment has gone wrong" ..at this point I'm just as likely to kill the survivors for being idiots as well as the "horrible genetic experiment that has gone wrong"

 

[Warbie]

corridor crawls ...sick to death of corridor crawls, kept me away from D3 and Fear

I also hate protection mission and timed missions.

respawning enemies that continously spawn till you've reached some unseen trigger

uber-elite AI with magical aiming ability

inability to jump small barriers

cut scenes ..please developers either improve the quality of acting in cut scenes or just dont bother ..I skip through 95% of cutscenes because they're either extremely cheesy or have next to nothing to do with the plot and are a waste of time ..Hl2 did it right



stupid plots ...please, there's only so many times I want to visit a lab where "a horrible genetic experiment has gone wrong" ..at this point I'm just as likely to kill the survivors for being idiots as well as the "horrible genetic experiment that has gone wrong"

You should avoid PDZ like the plague! - it is guilty of everything you just mentioned

(I love it though)

 

[Cormeh]

Nice, a lot of people have the same gripe with protection missions as I do.

Another thing I hate is racing in games. Mostly the new GTA style of games. Although it makes sense in some games, I just hate it when you're pitted against someone when you'd rather be shooting stuff/exploring areas etc.

 

[CptStern]

that's really a shame (not that I planned to buy the xbox360 anytime soon) and it doesnt seem that developers have gameplay or immersiveness in mind when creating next gen games ..ok that's a bit of a generalization cuz it's one game ..but I have little faith in gaming that's motivated by the financial bottom line


I really hate HL2 ..it ruined me for other fps sp games ..at least when it had cliche elements it wasnt overwhelmingly apparent and didnt break your suspension of disbelief.

 

[Warbie]

It's because so many games do protection, defend, timed, vehicle etc sections so poorly that people dislike them. There's nothing wrong with the idea behind them.

Unfortunately, most often it's the developers trying to tic another box in order to promote their game.

 

[StardogChampion]

RTS's that are all just the same as each other. Build buildings, build units, attack enemy. Boring.

Sequels that are more like expansions since they play exactly the same. (I guess Rome: TW, AoEmpires). Although the Caesar/Pharoah/Zeus city-builder games just rule regardless of being exactly the same.

 

[knut]

While recently playing through Half-Life 2 on my X-Box, I realised that after completly obliviating a table, a couple of chairs, several shelfs and lots of other items, including the bodies of some 4 Combine soldiers, with a grenade, that the door was still on its hinges. Not just that though, but surely in Half-Life 2 at some point I must of shot a rocket at a door or badly thrown a grenade at one and nothing has happened. For a game like Half-Life 2, I was somewhat disapointed that nothing had been done about it. Its a minor detail, but it adds alot of un-realism to a game.

Blood in games can get to me, too. I want to see a body slump backwards against a wall and slide down, a trail of blood following him down the back of the wall. Soldiers in games like Call of Duty, huddled up in a trench clutching their guts, sitting in a pool of their own blood. I know excessive gore isn't really an essential thing, but in war games, it adds alot to its realism.

Oh, and those really cliche ''man the gun postion'' scenes, when you just KNOW as soon as you man the mounted weapon a whole stream of enemies are going to appear. Fun, maybe, but a little boring

And in Brothers In Arms, the way that Cpt. whatshisface, the guy with the radio guy, always buggers off before the mission, but then re-appears at the end of the mission from the same direction of where a whole squad of German infantry troops have just come from. And the convienient little walls of mud that just happen to be behind, to the side or in front of a enemy postion.

 

[Crushenator 500]

timed im not fond of, i like to take my time :E

 

[Glirk Dient]

I don't really mind protect missions unless what it is you protect dies really really fast. Often times when you have to protect and NPC they die if you don't watch them every milisecond. Then you have to restart and it is pretty lame.

 

[ríomhaire]

I usualy hate protecting too, but it's OK in HL2 because the main characters can handle themselves(except that one bit with Alyx.

 

[$kelet0r]

timed missions piss me off no end
i usually throw a game away if it gives me an asinine timed challenge - like get from point a to b in the straightest line possible or kill 100 enemies in 1 minute
GTA you've alot to answer for

 

[Axyon]

You should avoid PDZ like the plague! - it is guilty of everything you just mentioned

(I love it though)

Yeah, but I like to tell myself that they're just revisiting the older days of gaming - GE/PD on the N64, and it's some sort of elaborate parody. Listening to Jonathan's voice in PDZ actually makes me want to stab things, though. Still, the gameplay more than makes up for everything else.

 

[Warbie]

Agreed.

I much prefer this style of fps - it's all about the combat, learning the levels and weapons.

The voice acting and story is rather stupid - but who cares when you can spin a bad guy around with the shot to the shoulder, shoot him in the arse, and watch him hop into the air in pain? I love the exagerated flinches as each bullet hits home, how they double up when shot in the stomache, or gurgle as a bullet hits in the neck. No other fps makes you feel as though you're shooting the enemy as much as PDZ.

The gunplay is second to none. I've finished some encounters that would put John Woo to shame.

 

[ríomhaire]

When you meet the bad guy and you have the perfect opertunity to plug him in the head but you have to watch a f*cking cutscene. If I was in that situation the guy would be dead before the first cheesy pun.

 

[Axyon]

Agreed.

I much prefer this style of fps - it's all about the combat, learning the levels and weapons.

The voice acting and story is rather stupid - but who cares when you can spin a bad guy around with the shot to the shoulder, shoot him in the arse, and watch him hop into the air in pain? I love the exagerated flinches as each bullet hits home, how they double up when shot in the stomache, or gurgle as a bullet hits in the neck. No other fps makes you feel as though you're shooting the enemy as much as PDZ.

The gunplay is second to none. I've finished some encounters that would put John Woo to shame.

Absolutely. They've taken 2 steps back in terms of originality, but as a result they walk a mile forward with fun-factor. The blending together of death animations and ragdoll makes me salivate profusely every time I play. I will never get bored of shooting a guard a couple of times in the shoulder, then smacking him with the butt of my gun and watching as he ever-so-slowly falls forward and crumples on the floor.

 

[xcellerate]

anything obviously fake. Doom3 is a perfect example, i throw a greande behind a colum--nothing. I take 2 steps forward suddenly a guy come out from behind the colum right where my grenade was!

The good 'ol days where there would be a closed wooden door, and no matter what grenade, or c4, or RPG you threw it at, this wooden door would stand it's ground!

 

[Asuka]

Timed missions
Checkpoint saves

 

[Tollbooth Willie]

Games like King Kong, which IMHO was one of the best games ever made, but has such a short ass length. Start time: 9: 00, evening. Ending time: 1:46, night time. And one comment on Gun..... What the Hell? All this waiting to play, and its just another short, stale game. I had high hopes for it, but it just gets repetitive after 2 hours.

They should be more like Area 51 and The Thing.... Long as Hell, although Area 51 wasn't that long...

 

[Loke]

- Missions were you have to protect a certain important character, especially if he's incredible stupid and dies just from a couple of bullets. One example is the mission in Max Payne 2 which you play as Mona Sax and got to protect Max Payne with a Dragunov sniper rifle.
Although it can be pretty good sometimes if you got control over the NPC. Say that if you need to go over to an area that is filled with enemies, you can just tell the NPC to stay and wait here until you have cleared the area. Conflict: Global Terror did this very well, you could tell the NPC to stay put, and IF he/she got killed, you could just use on of your med packs and revive him/her.

- Timed missions are really my most hated part in games. Especially if they are timed so that you must complete the mission perfectly without one single mistake. Jak 2 had some type of timed missions at certain areas and they were so goddamn frustrating that you could almost puke all over the floor.
I want to have fun playing a game, I want to take my time playing it, not ****ing rush through it!

- Framerate issues. Not really a bad thing with PC games (but still pretty boring if it's too low) imo, but I'm extremely finicky when it comes to console games. You lose the gameplay feeling when the framerate starts to jump from 50+ to 5.

- Sparse with checkpoint saves. Not an issue with PC games as a good amount of PC games you can save whenever you want (quick saves in other words). But they hardly exist on console games, so a game with hardly any checkpoint saves (see Jak 2... Ugh!) can get very frustrating, especially if it's a challenging game. How fun is it to start over from a mission that you spent over 10 minutes with?

- Stealth missions. Pretty okay SO LONG it's not "MISSION FAILED!" whenever you are spotted.

 

[Reaktor4]

exploits and low resolution textures
edit: also cheating ai and even the way games are made in general.. in 10-20 years when we have some decent hardware things will be soooo different

 

[Beerdude26]

exploits and low resolution textures

Which reminds me that Halo 2's maps are chock full of map exploits

Take THAT, you underaged nutblets!

 

[ríomhaire]

When developers make a game that only a shiny new NASA computer can run.