Criticise your favourite games...

[BlumiereBleck]

Animal Crossing. The only thing i have to criticize is that there is little customization for the character, other than that perfect. But Wild World fixed that but took away way to much...then the only good part of the city one was the city. Yeah. Animal Crossing 1 ftw!!! The closest thing to a perfect game.

i love the character depth and epic storyline

Some times a game doesn't need more then the story line of help capitalism.

 

[DivineBeastLink]

Metroid Prime

Why the hell are Chozo Ghosts spawning in almost EVERY ROOM in the Chozo Ruins area by the end of the game? And why must they spawn every single time I walk into the room instead of just appearing once and then stop appearing after I kill them all once?

 

[bassdrum]

Red Dead Redemption

The controls can be a bit hard to wrangle with in the midst of action-heavy sequences where you need to do something FAST. You have no idea how many times I've gotten into a fight... and anded up swinging a lasso around until I'd been filled with bullets and not so much as given one of my enemies a headache. Also, a few times my horse has spontaneously died--I'm not sure if it's a glitch or if it's intentional, but either way it's annoying as hell.

Mass Effect 2

This really applies to ALL Bioware games: none of the slums actually look/feel like slums. Supposedly, Omega is a downtrodden space station ruled by criminals--it's the sort of place you wouldn't want to go at night, let alone live on it thousands of miles from anywhere safer. However, in the game, the streets don't actually look all that dirty or dangerous. Hell, even the seedy nightclub looks like a reasonably nice place. In fact, there's only a handful of times that the game tries to remind you that this is supposed to be the bad part of the galaxy, but each time it just came across as a bit weak (the speech system that lets you instantly convince people if you've got enough nice guy or bad guy points doesn't really help here).

Call of Duty 4

I suppose that I don't really have much against this game, but it spawned a bunch of cheap knockoff sequels, each of which gets more and more bogged down with new features and panders more and more to its inane and obnoxious fan-base. CoD used to be one of my favorite games to play in my free time; now I can't stand to play more than a few minutes of it.

BioShock

Hacking.

 

[badgersprite]

Oddworld: Abe's Exoddus

Much of the challenge in the puzzles and platforming comes from the controls being designed to screw you over. And Mudokons are quite possibly the stupidest sentient video game species since the Lemmings of old.

 

[Tim_Buoy]

the entire megaman series was just the same frustrating level and boss fight over and over agian

 

[putowtin]

Assassin's Creed (series)

They End

(Ok and using eagle vision gives me a headache)

 

[Mark Flanagan]

Enslaved:OttW
Combat is far to easy, The challenge drops away after buying a few upgrades and the platforming is simple to the point of the hand holds glow.

Mass Effect 2
Planet mining was tedious, everything was too shiny, All the Mercs where the same just in different coloured uniforms.

Black and White
Molyneux over hype.

 

[Steppin Razor]

The hitboxes on some of the zeds' heads in Killing Floor, most notably the Scrake, are borked at times. The perk system, combined with the difficulty curve being as high as it is, also leads to a lot of frustration when new players join and don't quite realise that Hard difficulty is actually hard at first, and nigh impossible without leveled perks.

 

[Lagslayer]

Ocarina of Time: I love you, but in retrospect, a lot of your landscape seems really empty. It is most apparent in Hyrule Field.

Majora's Mask on the other hand, still looks beautiful today, thanks to utilizing the expansion pack. The textures are fuller and the landscapes are full of objects.

 

[Kevlar Eater]

STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl
This gem of a game does not ease the player into the mechanics on how things work in the Zone. Being able to only carry 60kg sucked, especially when one was strapped for cash. The player is always strapped for cash since jobs pay too little, as ammo, guns and armor costs too much, making the player rely on scavenging literally everything but armor. The only way for one to earn enough money to afford good armor (weapons in good condition are a dime a dozen) is to go back and forth collecting ammo and weapons the player has no plans of using and then selling. And the cherry on top of all that is the way the game looks: very dated and dreary. Thankfully, there's a mod that addresses most of my qualms with the game while breathing life into it and making the enemy/ally AI competent. Still, I love the game.

The Witcher
The voice acting is incredibly wooden, Geralt runs like he is trying to use his ass cheeks to grip a stick... screw those parts. The combat was annoying (click, wait until sword was on fire, click again, ad nauseam) the UI is unfriendly, and the choices are more black and white than grey (newsflash: knights are asshats, vampires/werewolves/other intelligent monsters are good). And for god's sake, will Geralt bone anyone that isn't a redhead (not that I have a problem with redheads in general, I'm just saying a little variety is nice)?

Borderlands
There's too much focus on multiplayer in this game, and I like single-player in games. Certain quests nearly require more than one player, since one nearly can't do it alone (prime example: Moxxi's Underdome). Speaking of that DLC, it was boring and difficult, since my shields can be taken away at any time (try fighting a tough boss while your health is draining and without shields). Plus, I was not told about there being DRM on two of the DLC's, so I'm a little pissed off about that.

Guild Wars
Arenanet could not balance PvP to save their lives, instead they shake up the metagame a little bit every now and then (look at how stupidly overpowered the dervish currently is). Oh, about the game? Most skills and builds suck major ass, leaving just a handful of each to be the staple in nearly everyone's build bars. A slight change in metagame can render an entire profession useless. High-end PvP is on its last gasps of breath; no one except a select few can play the places, let alone win or join a decent team due to rank discrimination. And any new blood that dips their toes into the world that is Guild vs Guild gets beaten down by higher-ranked players since there is literally no other low-ranked guilds to fight against, making the GvG playerbase stagnant. Primary PvE players noticed this and has let high-end PvP rot away.

Bayonetta
Any difficulty higher than normal and regular dodging becomes slow, as enemies can hit you while you are rolling and flipping around. The only way to survive is to learn to counter every attack from all angles, even while surrounded, and that requires a specific item in the game that is very expensive. Last but not least, the story is very confusing, but then again, Platinum Games isn't known for making games with understandable storylines, they exist to make short, balls-to-the-wall action games with high replayability.

 

[Feralcentaur]

Killing Floor: The game seems to follow the idea that http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RealIsBrown yeah, I just linked you to Tvtropes, see ya in a few hours...

Saints Row 2:... I... just can't.... it's too... wonderful... okay the multiplayer isn't so great...

Mount and Blade: Warband: The Graphics are pretty bad.

 

[Quazimofo]

Halo: Master Chief doesn't have much personality, the multiplayer is full of dicks (though no worse than CoD), the science is a little soft and there isn't anything particularly revolutionary about it.

Mass Effect: (first game) uncharted world side missions were all too similar, too many copy pasted underground bunkers, by the time you got past level 30 the amount of equipment you were constantly tripping over and having to manage got ridiculous, and the ending where dead Saren morphs into a robot just because of some neural implants Sovereign gave him made no sense.
(second game) a bit too cover based (although the mechanics worked better than many other examples), not much sense of progression for an RPG, a bit too many squad mates to know what to do with at times, selling story content as dlc.

Assassin's Creed: First game had too much repetition and not enough weapons/fighting moves (but they've sorted that out now), enemies were too easy in the second (but again, thats sorted now) main story in brotherhood a bit too short, multi-player in brotherhood takes ages to load games, Desmond is at best bland and at worst annoying, and even after three games we still know very little about the pieces of eden, who the hell these pre-human god type people are, what the impending apocalypse they are warning us about will be, and what is behind some of Desmond/Altair/Ezio's near super human abilities.

However, when compared to all the things I like, nay love, about these games, I could not give the tiniest shit.

Adding to Halo, while it was revolutionary at the time of the first one, it really didnt change its main game mechanics, just added a new gimmick each time. also, they kinda shat on canon for reach in the name of a new game mechanic (which i do love, but i maintain that reach would have been better if it was more like the book version, but just do some meh excuse of new experimental armor or something to add the new mechanic). also, there was little story to speak of in the games itself. the books are good and make the universe seem more full (as does Halo Wars, which is different enough to warrant separation from the generalizations...mostly)

Adding to Mass Effect: first game, saren actually was turned into a robot mostly after virmire (something about he started to doubt the reapers, so he got EVEN MORE implants in the form of basically a new body). but a number of the side quests were tedious and pointless, (but the Rpg lover in me says they helped make the world seem fuller, as there really are random tedious things to do in the future, no matter how cool it is), the mako could have used better controls. a couple more squad members would have been nice and a progress bar so you can tell what the "majority" of the game is (for those damn achievements and subsequent bonuses, which i liked but i digress), and needed better squad controls.

Second Game, .... not much besides what you said really. the universe seemed less fleshed out, because at least in the first game you could land on planets and see, instead of just strip mine them. mining was annoying as shit. not enough variety when it came to combat, universal cooldowns were a *****, non universal universal ammo (Makes NO SENSE AT ALL!!! combat worked fine in the first with infinite ammo! but now they made a crappy excuse for ammo. BLAH!). not enough side quests, really not enough RPG elements to be considered an RPG. just needed more variety/complexity. and dialogue with Kasumi, Zaeed, Liara? (didnt get shadow broker yet), and garrus. in short, more character development for each individual character, since in the old game each one had a new story to tell after every other planetfall, not just the story missions. ok i guess i did have a few complaints, and i really did like mass effect 2 quite a lot, just not as much as 1, not enough to play it twice... until 3 comes out and is hopefully more like 1.

Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War 2: Retribution
Minor Lack of Diversity amongst purchased units. Shamelessly Copy-Pasted Campaign, so all difficulty is gone after 1 playthrough, though the different dialogue almost makes it noticeably different. very linear campaign, almost no side missions unlike the First Dawn of War 2, lack of depth when customizing hero units (lower level cap, fewer skills to choose from, simplified skill system). No Tau, though i can understand why they have absolutely nothing with the subsector. still, i hope they make another one which fixes these. Also, Copy pasted campaign means incredibly similar plot, only real difference is opening, ending, and dialogue throughout the game. lack of diversity in multiplayer. Not much character development. so yeah, basically just angrily simpler version of first DOW 2, which had irksomely less plot than DOW 1, which had irksomely less plot in its final 2 expansions.

Uhhh, cant think of any other games i really like at the moment somehow. perhaps ill come back and add to this

They didn't actually do away with the canon for Halo Reach. The idea is that what happened in the books still happened, your just following a different squad of Spartans, but there are still like over 30 others at different locations on the planet at different times during the battle. In regards to the armor your squad was probably field testing it before the covenant showed up, on the assumption that everyone would get it if it worked.

I've found a way to get round the planet scanning in ME2. The first few systems you visit (explore the early Cerburus missions asap btw) have loads of really rich planets. All you need to do is comb about a third of them dry early on and then as long as you take care to pick up minerals on mission wherever you can get them, you can end up with enough minerals to afford every ship upgrade and quite a few others too after only having to scan less than 10 planets in total.

I think I made sense of the whole ammo issue too. It is a more realistic feel than infinite ammo and does add another reason to explore environments, and takes away the overheating issue which was a problem with the first game when you still didn't have the more advanced weapons. Also, when you pick up ammo it does add ammo to any weapon that isn't at full capacity, so it is universal. However, the reason there is a different ammo capacity for different weapons is because all the thermal clips a gun uses are stored inside it rather than separately, it just only has one absorbing heat at each time. This is why when you reload you don't see a new clip being put in, just an old one being rejected. So if ammo is always stored inside the guns rather than on your person, it makes sense that you wouldn't be able to use it universally (I can be a meticulous nerd at times can't I)

i counter your arguments
the books stated, as i remember, that the spartan 3s were secret. they were always deployed together in their large groups and only on suicide missions, they never were on reach, only the 30 ish spartan 2s were there, and there was a much larger space battle/land battle surrounding reach. so the canon was shat on, and it could've been quite a bit more fun IMHO, but im not bungie, so i didn't get a say.

the fact that you need a work around to avoid a headache in a core game mechanic just illustrates that there really is a problem. and it is still a major pain in the arse, if you want decent later game upgrades.

if the clips are universal, and you can grab ones you can pick up and put them in your gun, you can eject them unused from a different gun and place them in the one you wish to use. and so, with a tiny bit of creativity, you still should logically be able to distribute your thermal clips as you see fit amongst your weapons. and yes it would be a bit tedious/impractical in battle, but if you can absorb clips through your feet, you should be able to eject them from a gun and put em in another easily.

 

[eschermond]

Eternal Darkness: Sanity's Requiem - The only fault is that there hasn't been a sequel.

Psychonauts - ...pretty much the same thing.

 

[Scissors61]

Final Fantasy X: The protagonist looks like he dresses himself in the dark while hungover, Auron's glasses never break even though he gets the crap beat out of him, the Lulu/Waka romance seems rushed, Rikku is annoying,the final boss is a floating beetle, and it whored itself out for an pointless sequel.

Marvel vs Capcom 2: The tier list is incredibly unbalanced, 95% of the sprites are copy pasted, the backgrounds make absolutely no sense, and HO HO HO ROCKET PAWNCH HYPER VIPER.

Driv3r: This is the worst potrayal of Michael Madsen ever, it is a GTA clone, and it was made by Atari.

Resident Evil: Worst acting ever, incomprehensible plot, tank controls, six item spaces, Chris doesn't have roid rage, and Wesker isn't a trenchcoat badass.

Pokemon Yellow: This guy does it better- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kKSWRkFuyT4

I could go on but I'm stuck on Super Mario 64 and Half-Life 2, the design is too impeccable.

Props to DBZ Budokai Tenachi 2,Timesplitters 2, Fallout 3, SOTC, Freedom Fighters and God Hand for either being too bland to criticize or not forefront enough to be my favs. There you go.

Edit: Special props to Tenkaichi for me not even spelling it right.

 

[Austin Howe]

Final Fantasy VIII

Some of the events were real curveballs, and not in a good way, and for a romantic love interest opposite the main perspective character, Rinoa needed more development, as did the setting. In addition, only being able to draw 9 spells at a time really sucked at a cap of 100.

 

[Monty McDougal]

Metal Arms(xbox):middle was a little boring, over use of slapstick humor with the evil minions.
still though, PLAY THIS GAME!!!!

Assassin's creed one: I have no idea why i love this game. The plot was boring and had an obvious ending. It was extremely repetitive and you COULDN'T SWIM. BUT I STILL LOVE THIS GAME.

Star Wars Battlefront: the first one didn't have a campaign and the game was based on a movie.
no one ever takes these kind of game seriously. But it is still one of the most kick ass games ever.

 

[Lightning Delight]

In Bioshock, the final boss was too easy. I used 3 health kits and didn't need a weapon other than the shotgun and tommy gun. Also, I got the bad ending for harvesing one measly Little Sister. I expected there was some middle ground to the moral choice system. And that one part of the game where you have to dress up as a Big Daddy didn't really make sense to me. Why did you have to do it? Also:

Spoiler: Spoiler

Shouldn't Andrew Ryan still be alive? I can't tell you how many times those Vita-Chambers revived me, yet they didn't work on him. The only reason they work on you is because they work on Ryan and you are his son and share his genetic code. Why is he dead?

 

[trooper6]

*Still Life*
I loved that game. Loved the art direction, loved the music...great puzzles. Awesome game. Perfect in every way. Some people didn't like the ending...but I even loved that.

But what didn't I love? The random, I assume, Canadian they got to voice the black guys...was...really offensive. The first black cop you meet at the very beginning of the game...in Chigaco? Sounded like some crazy minstrelsy Uncle Tom. Oh, it was bad. And the sound designer didn't incorporate any wild sound or reverb or anything when recording the voices...so all the characters sounded like they were speaking in a room...which was okay when the scene was in a room...not so good when it was on the streets of Prague.

*KotOR2*
Awesome game. Deeper and more shades of gray. Small tweaks to improve gameplay. Great. Until they end...which is infamously truncated due to Lucasarts cutting short the development time.

*True Crime: Streets of LA*
So much fun in that game. Loved the driving and the Brawling. Loved that I could use the game to help me learn my way around Los Angeles. Loved the voice acting. Loved the plot...

until...

the end.

North Korea? Really? That was lacking.

*Indigo Prophecy*
I had a lot of fun with that game. I even really enjoyed the Track and Field style trigger mashing. I thought it was a real innovated game...and then, like True Crime...the ending...The internet? Really? That was lacking.

 

[-Drifter-]

RED DEAD REDEMPTION.

I really enjoyed it when I first played it, but the longer I think about it the more apparent its many flaws become. Truly and honestly, I think Red Dead Redemption is only good because it's set in beautiful sandbox with lots of shit to do, because from a gameplay and narrative standpoint, it's pretty weak. The shooting/cover mechanics are sloppy, the enemy AI is practically non-existent, and the difficulty comes mostly in the form of the awful controls because John has a ton of regenerating health and is more or less a walking armoury.

As for the plot, it's highly repetitive and often doesn't make sense (not in a Metal Gear Solid way, but in a "why the hell is he doing this" way,) and tends to conflict with the gameplay. Just doing story missions alone, John will kill easily over 300 men, yet we're expected to believe he couldn't take on a bunch of guys outside his barn?

And a whole bunch of other things, too.