Dick Moves in Gaming

[Krantos]

I did a search for this, but the thread that came up was 3 years old, and I'm not familiar with The Escapist's stance on thread Necromancy.

Anyway, the best way I can describe what I'm talking about is moments in games where the developers do something that is completely needless, pointless, and yes, dickish. To use the example Yahtzee does in his Braid review: 1 key, 2 doors, one breaks the key making you start the level over, no way to tell which is which.

The example that prompted this thread is the Landsmeet in Dragon Age: Origins. You spend numerous hour just prior to the Landsmeet gathering evidence to turn the nobles against Loghain. However, once you get into the Landsmeet if you mention Loghain's daughter, the sequence jumps forward and won't let you present any more evidence. There is no indication that this will happen, no warning, and no way to go back and present more evidence. They jump to the vote, and if you didn't present enough evidence the Nobles side against you. Dick Move.

To make matters worse, you need to make sure you saved the game manually before entering. If you've been relying on autosave, you're screwed because the game autosaves immediately after this happens. If you win, however, Loghain challenges you to a duel, but the game doesn't autosave. Meaning, if you lose you have to do it over again. Dick Move.

In short: It's possible to lose by unintentionally jumping the scene forward to the vote (no indication) and not be able to reload. However, if you win, you might have to do it all over anyway. Fantastic.

Any other Dick Moves in recent gaming Escapists?

 

[Salad Is Murder]

Final Fantasy XI: Absolute Virtue. Game developer dickery at its best.

 

[Pandabearparade]

Dragon Age 2. The entire game. Bioware should be ashamed of itself for that turd.

 

[Gindil]

How can anything get more dickish than this?

 

[deleted+78381]

DELETED

 

[The K-man]

I have to agree about the landsmeet in DA, and also add a couple others from it. There are several options going through the story where a response can be read multiple ways, and if you dont read it the same way as the developers, you get screwed.

My first time at the circle of magi for example, i tried to tell the templar at the top that i would see what was going on, and kill the mages if needed. Wynne apparently took this as a declaration of slaughter and proceeded to fight me.

I remember several other times where i misinterpreted what a statement was intended to mean, and got unfavorable outcomes in return.

I cant honestly think of any other times ive come across a "dick" move, but i believe its because the vast majority of games dont have a choice system like dragon age and mass effect do. When choices are presented that can change events within the game, they need to be very clear in their intent, and the player must be informed when an option will push them forward in the story and leave the other options unexplored.

 

[Hungry Donner]

I did a search for this, but the thread that came up was 3 years old, and I'm not familiar with The Escapist's stance on thread Necromancy.

In three years I hope I remember this thread and I'm able to bump it

I really hate it when developers drop support of a platform. Sometimes they have a good reason for this but it's still a slap to their fans. At the very least they should consider a later port - although on that note I'd also like to add poorly done ports to this list.

Funny enough I can't think of any games I've wanted that migrated platforms, so while I consider it a crappy thing to do I don't believe it's affected me personally. As for poorly made ports, those are far more common - it's a real shame when a game is ported to PC and no thought is given to proper keyboard+mouse support.

 

[Mr. Gency]

I'm just gonna leave this here. (Skip to 5 for a dick move on the dev's part)

 

[Testosticore]

Biggest dick move? In Fable 3 where the days drop from 150 to 1 out of freakin no where, causing me to lose literally 5.5 million of the 6.5 million citizens of Albion.

 

[xemnahort]

Final bosses in fighting games I mean seriously some can teleport, negate damage, getting stronger the more you hurt them, insta-counter everything, twice your speed, damage, and size. You can't make a bigger dick move than make a final boss in a fighting game. Period.

 

[Baneat]

Fucking Seth in SF IV

The whole thing.

 

[tippy2k2]

Biggest dick move? In Fable 3 where the days drop from 150 to 1 out of freakin no where, causing me to lose literally 5.5 million of the 6.5 million citizens of Albion.

Not to mention it auto-saves right after! Seriously...what the hell King? Did you go into a 150-day coma and forgot about the giant tentacle monster about to rape your city?

 

[C2Ultima]

A reasonable dick move was a recent L4D2 mutation called Lone Gunman. No special infected except boomers, and only a magnum. That would have been fine if they hadn't jacked up the infected damage.

On expert, one hit from a zombie did 100 damage. What. The. Hell. Valve?

 

[Aris Khandr]

Final bosses in fighting games I mean seriously some can teleport, negate damage, getting stronger the more you hurt them, insta-counter everything, twice your speed, damage, and size. You can't make a bigger dick move than make a final boss in a fighting game. Period.

Fucking Seth in SF IV

The whole thing.

Agreed. Boss fights in fighting games are just the developers being jerks.

 

[Testosticore]

Another thing I found nut crushingly unbearable is the last boss of Hunted: The Demon's Forge. He fires damn near invisible skulls that insta kill you and tosses great green glowing gobs of whateverthefudgeitis into the air, all the while skeletons are attacking you. Not to mention that everytime you knock down one of his healy pillars it makes you watch the stupid cinematic of it tipping over while the skeletons are still gnawing on your ass because you cant move. Most. Frusterating. Boss fight. Ever.

 

[neonsword13-ops]

Water Temple. Ocarina of Time.

Enough said.

 

[Lilani]

Final Fantasy XI: Absolute Virtue. Game developer dickery at its best.

Ahahaha. So true. A few have been able to beat AV, though. But I still don't know if anyone has beat the Pandemonium Warden, especially after the 2 hour despawn timer.

What I love the most is that when SE put the despawn timer onto those mobs, all they told the community was "You're just doing it wrong, morons. It's not that hard." I find that quite funny. I mean, in a gaming world where difficulty curves are getting lower and bosses are getting easier, it's nice to see someone sticking to the "They'll figure it out eventually" theory of gameplay.

 

[triggrhappy94]

First thing to come to mind: how housing condition drops over time in Fable 3, fuck that. It took me an hour to search every inch of your shitt-illy designed maps to find every propert, I'm not doing it again every 30 minutes, just to spent MORE money

Also, the guys over at Lions Head need to go back to Boy Scout camp and re-earn their orientairing merit badge. I could've a made better map.

EDIT:
Another thing about Fable 3. About an hour into the game, my character not a FAT ugly scar square in the middle of his forhead. It looked like a giant mole, it was discusting. I ended up just wearing clothes that completely covered it up, but until you get enough money for the only real suit of armor in the game, you'll have to wear som ungly clothes.