Game cliches you hate

[Flight]

Women as white mages and damsels in distress. Sure, there are exceptions to the rule, but it's obnoxious whenever I get a "save the princess" moment, especially when said "princess" has previously been established as being capable of defending herself. Also, why is there an unspoken rule in most games that guys can't be healers?

 

[II2]

- Backtracking and backtracking 'inverted' or 'parallel' or 'shadow' versions of the same level. Unless they change it up SIGNIFICANTLY or do something really clever, it's just padding.

- Deus Ex Machina kidnap / lose all your weapons - invetory. I can understand the usefulness of this from a narrative perspective and gameplay perspective, but especially in RPGs and the like, it FUCKS your sense of ryhthm with your character's inventory. It could just be my own personal idiosyncrasies talking, but I find having to search for and find the inevitable chest/locker/vault with all your belongings in it stressful and annoying in a meta-game sense that feels SORTA similar to 'losing progress'.

- Lengthy dream sequences where you are trapped and have to plod through just to get back to the actual "real" game. (I mean this for games where it's not a central thing like Catherine, but maybe happens just once in the story)

- Boss Monsters as stock enemies in later levels. (small grievance)

- Unlocking core class functions in multiplayer.

 

[surg3n]

Enemies that refuse to fear me, no matter how efficiently I dispose of them.

That should definitely be the next step in game AI. You're outnumbered so you fight like a demon because you think you're gonna die, and once you've killed four or five badguys the others take the hint and start scrambling over each other to escape. Stand back and let them go or hunt them down like dogs? Instant, organic roleplaying choice. I WANT TO PLAY THAT GAME NOW!

It would need to work like real AI. Splinter Cell: Conviction had the same kind ov idea with the way enemies track you. When an enemy sees you, he heads to the place he saw you (a ghost of yourself is left in that spot so you know where hes going and can sneak around him) and that seems like a good idea until you actually play the game and find out that it actually betrays their intelligence because they blindly move to wherever they last saw you no matter what the circumstances.

The situation you described would have to be something that worked fluently in the game and like in real life. There could't be some rule in the game where if you kill four people all the others start running, your enemy would need some type of morale gauge (invisible to the player) and the enemy acts differently depending on where that morale gauge is. Every individual enemy would have their own morale gauge that is affected by everything that goes on around them. When they start to get scared (if they havent seen you yet, but you scared them because they heard shots or found bodies or saw your shadow) they may whisper to their companions terrified, or they may run and barricade themselves in a corner for you to either leave alone or hunt down in any number of ways.

This idea has so many possibilities of done correctly.

Assassin's Creed Brotherhood does this.... some guards will just turn tail and run if you turn up the awesome....

ACB does do this, but not in the manner I described. Besides, they aren't the same type of game, if ACB did do it in the manner surg3n and I were speaking of, it wouldn't work well.

Honestly, I wish they didn't turn and run because it makes it hard for me to get the killstreak challenges when they keep running away.

Totally. If enemies pulled back, found better cover, waited on reinforcements - then that would suit me. It's just annoying having to chase an enemy for miles. I thought the Aliens AI in AVP was pretty interesting, they seem to sculk around and try and flank you. It's let down by the Human AI though.

 

[cmdrstele]

Main characters who die in RPG's, but nobody decides to ress them. How many times in ff7 did you have to use a phoenix down? and yet when Aerith dies nobody thinks to use a phoenix down on her?! Also... annoyingly long monologues when characters die, just die already!

 

[ShindoL Shill]

Rusty's razor for anything detective related. (for those not on Disk 2 of LA Noire, 'blame the guy who's banging her'
plus guards who always seem to know all the crimes youve committed since you were last arrested (ie Oblivion guards know crimes you committed in a completely different city with no witnesses. thank god thats getting removed in Skyrim)

 

[Robert Ewing]

I hate that you have to pick 'x' good, 'y' evil, or 'z' alternative. I want to be chaotic neutral. I want to be impartial to conflicts, and accept that both sides have good qualities and bad, I don't want to be dragged into them and be expected to chose which ones I want to fight for.

 

[Coldflame727]

All the guards of places who stop to taunt you half a second before death. *Cough, Imperial legion, cough.*
Also, Princess Peach.

 

[Black Arrow Officer]

1. Doors. Every single one in every single game is locked. If finally find the key, "Whoops! The key broke in the lock. Guess I'll have to find another way around..."

2. A.I with hive mind, especially in stealth games. Even if the guard that spotted you hasn't said a word or fired a shot every single guard in the area starts rushing to you. The first Splinter Cell Games had this problem the worst, but in Conviction the guards had a short "Panic" time before they fired and alerted their friends.

3. "Chosen One" games. How come every single other person in the world does nothing about the marauding beasts in their land? Why am I the only warrior fighting everything? How come there are plenty of guards standing around towns but all they can do is talk to me? Because the prophecy said some kid from some village would save the world? I hate the Zelda games because of this.

4. Games that try to cover up bad graphics with pointless effects. Call of Duty is the worst offender. Mud isn't plastic, nor are guns chrome. Sun rays are not that bright and visible through trees no matter how "pretty" it looks. Also, I've yet to see a game that can make a correct sky without looking grainy or the clouds made of paper.

Those are the ones I hate the most, but I can think of plenty more.

 

[Coldflame727]

How pretty much every female character is amazing at hacking, and can easily decode alien technology. Also, health packs. They're too unrealistic for my liking.

Would you rather have even more games where you grow back missing organs because you haven't lost any MORE for five seconds?

 

[Hides His Eyes]

Main characters who die in RPG's, but nobody decides to ress them. How many times in ff7 did you have to use a phoenix down? and yet when Aerith dies nobody thinks to use a phoenix down on her?! Also... annoyingly long monologues when characters die, just die already!

Pheonix down doesn't bring people back to life, it brings them back from being incapacitated (it cures the "K.O." status). The reason it's game over if all three party members get incapacitated is that there's no one left to use pheonix down. When Aeris got killed she was actually killed outright.

 

[Gallium]

Jumping Puzzles.

I better qualify that... yes, jumping puzzles are fine if it is your core mechanic (platformers). The second they start appearing in a FPS etc. it just breaks game flow. Half-life, I'm looking at you. "Oh, I just mowed down an entire army of horrors and bad guys, but the world is going to end if I don't jump carefully across this section of well laid out cliff ledges!". When have you ever had to jump for anything in your life? They are a video gaming historical anachronism that should be left to die.

Oh, slider puzzles can also rot in hell. They are the bane of Adventure games. Who in their right mind would ever install such a thing on a door? Come on people, it just screams "We needed to extend play length!".

But my biggest bugbear. A trait that appears in almost every game:

The "Level designer lost the will to live!" level.

You know the ones I mean. The Thief Guild Maze in Baldur's Gate. The "Now go back the way you came!". The "Where has everybody/stuff gone" feeling you get. Copy-pasted textures. The entire of Halo. The sad thing is these levels normally come late in the game, the tension is usually running high and comes as a huge let down... I really do hate that Thief Guild Maze.

Turns out I have a lot of hate...

 

[cmdrstele]

I so totally agree, also love how in many games your running around with a shotgun/grenades/rocket launcher etc, but a locked wooden door totally stumps you!

Doors. What the hell is up with doors in videogames?

In Silent Hill 90% of them were broken so you couldn't open them.

In Elder Scrolls IV they would cause serious hilarity if you managed to trap someone in them while it closed.

In GTA 3 they weren't really doors, they were just painted squares that kind of looked like doors. Like some kind of extra-bloody Wile Coyote cartoon.

And that's just "manual" doors. Automatic doors have their issues too, especially on elevators. I remember in Halo: Reach I phased through the door with my magical glitching powers and fell 10 storeys to my death.

I can't think of any other examples off the top of my head right now, but you know what I mean. I bet you've come across some pretty stupid doors as well. Seriously. What the hell is up with doors?

 

[Fishyash]

Scripted scenes, especially in FPS games.

Hello? I'd like to acctually play the game now? Oh! Here we go, some shooting action! Oh wait, that only lasted for 5 seconds until a scripted explosion happened. Now I have to trot slowly through the scripted event with a bloody/smokey screen...

 

[D-Pad]

>Really unconventional weapons ("HAH! Your Semi-Automatic is NO MATCH for my incredible SOUL SHATTERING SWORD RIFLE OF DEAAAAAAAAATH!!)

>Hyper Haircuts

>Really stupid clothes / totally worthless armor. 'Cause you know, who needs protection nowadays?

>Super-silent-stoic-superheroes. However, Gordon and Chell seem to make this work somehow.

>Character development? Sorry, I'm too busy BROODING.

>YOU?! YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO BE DEAD!!

>Yeah, we found a continuity error so we're gonna have a time-travel subplot instead of just dismissing it (thank god for Valve just letting it go in Portal 2)

>"Hey guys! I was thinking, wouldn't it strike fear into our enemies if we built a SUPER HUEG GIANT TOWER in the middle of the world? Obvious? No no no, it'll be fine..."

>"If you want to beat the bad guy, you'll need these super secret sandals lost to the world in a great battle over 999999999 years ago. Go find it. No I don't know where it is, why would you ask that?"

>Super elaborate death traps. See Austin Powers for the correct response to these. "What, are you feeding him? Why don't you just shoot him already? I have a gun in my room, we could do it together, it would be fun!"


I think that's about it.

 

[Jovip]

When for no justified reason you need to do things in blantantly stupid and pointless ways. i mean i love puzzles and such but lets make it realistic.
ok, heres an example.

Resident evil 4.

Hunnigan: Leon you need to get into that church but it's locked by an awkwardly illusive key miles away from here while every other creature rat and soccor mom apparently can just waltz in.

Leon: oh ok, i'll just go look for them in a random direction and hope it works. (that church has windows...i have grenades and guns...hell this building is like 10000 years old i can just blow the wall up)

Hunnigan : alright, i'm going to be completly useless and not send in hordes of troops and missle strikes on this little area with no political repercussions. did i mention ashley fucking grahm? right. get her. (yes Leon, blow the building down, we shall send air support to make sure you get here safely.)

 

[Esotera]

How pretty much every female character is amazing at hacking, and can easily decode alien technology. Also, health packs. They're too unrealistic for my liking.

Would you rather have even more games where you grow back missing organs because you haven't lost any MORE for five seconds?

Well that too. I'm still waiting for a decent mainstream game to just give you a certain amount of health, and if you get injured, tough luck. You stay like that throughout the entire game.

 

[cmdrstele]

Well that is true to an extent, but you could throw a phoenix down at undead enemies which would kill them by bringing them to life (like that big dragon thing in FFX 2nd time round) and it would seem strange that the game ends with you being knocked out, wait 2mins and you'll wake back up! The problem of the KO status means that all your characters are super hard nuts that can take anything Ultima/ruby/'add crazy powerful boss character here' can dish out, the worst thing to happen is to get knocked out.. thats not actually that bad to be honest!

 

[Jovip]

How pretty much every female character is amazing at hacking, and can easily decode alien technology. Also, health packs. They're too unrealistic for my liking.

I agree. i want a game where if i get shot in the leg i fall to the ground drop all my weapons and start screaming fevioushly in pain while the enemy ties me up brings me to a pow camp strips me of all my clothes beats me, rapes me, forces me to do terrible things in front of cameras then finally after months of dehumanizing torture (which would be played out in useless qte's aka press x to make a slightly louder scream) i would be released from my prison when the place is bombed but i am shot by some frisky marines because i yelled at them.
gosh. that would just be awesome.

(meant as a joke, i do agree with you. but you'd need a good hook to take out healing kits/stims/potions/etc

 

[Sperium 3000]

Gameplay and Story Segregation, which, for those who do not know TV Tropes lingo, is when the game's plot and gameplay go along completely separated from one another. You know why Finfal Fantasy VII: Dirge Of Cerberus was a flop? Because Vincent could do incredibly, mind-blowing acrobacies and skillshots... In cutscenes only, while in actual gameplay he could barely jump. That's Gameplay and Story Segregation.

EDIT: Also, shaky camera, specially in First-Person games. Yes, I know it's meant to look realistic as the character is walking so his sight is shaking as he walk, but just because it's realistic doesn't mean it's a good idea. Two words: "Motion", and "Sickness". I'm so glad I paid full price for Mirror's Edge only for not being able to finish due to fear of throwing up.

 

[D-Pad]

How pretty much every female character is amazing at hacking, and can easily decode alien technology. Also, health packs. They're too unrealistic for my liking.

Would you rather have even more games where you grow back missing organs because you haven't lost any MORE for five seconds?

Well that too. I'm still waiting for a decent mainstream game to just give you a certain amount of health, and if you get injured, tough luck. You stay like that throughout the entire game.

That can be seen as just as unrealistic as a Health Pack. In real life, you get shot, you die.

I kind of like the way that the Fable series handles it. You're the hero, so it's made glaringly apparent that you can't die no matter how hard you want to, but you still get disfigured to mark the occasion.