Game mechanics you hate

[Panzeh]

2, Artificial level limits. Of the stupid variety.
I do not think I can count how many times I have heard something like "Get back in the war soldier! (insert timer here)" when I still well within range of the bad guys. After seeing so many games pull of well designed levels which give you all the options you need to deal with a problem. Running into an invisible wall or hearing some REMF call you over the radio to tell you something like that is simply annoying. It just feels like the developers where lazy and coulden't be botherd with considering any other options than simple run and gun, CS style play.

Well, the alternatives are most certainly less palatable, however. You could either go heavy with the blatant invisible walls, 2 foot high insurmountable fences, or you could set every level in some sort of constricted valley. Even in the wide-open Flashpoint games if you went off the map all it would do is wrap around to the map again this time minus every object.

Nothing with this solution of map design necessitates run and gun type play.

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

Unholykrumpe
I hate difficulty sliders all it dose is give you less damage and health, I would prefer to just lower the players def/health and make things more interesting,for quake 4 I played around with some stats in the def files lowered health up'd armor some I also added 20-40% more damage to most of the weapons and altered them alil along with ammo caps...I died more but damn it was more fun.

What I hate most about hard is rising the health of enemies to high,I'd rather health be untouched with more damages all around.


It would be nice if the AI got more cheaper or meaner on hard+ mode but theyahve enough trouble doing AI as it is LOL

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

2, Artificial level limits. Of the stupid variety.
I do not think I can count how many times I have heard something like "Get back in the war soldier! (insert timer here)" when I still well within range of the bad guys. After seeing so many games pull of well designed levels which give you all the options you need to deal with a problem. Running into an invisible wall or hearing some REMF call you over the radio to tell you something like that is simply annoying. It just feels like the developers where lazy and coulden't be botherd with considering any other options than simple run and gun, CS style play.

Well, the alternatives are most certainly less palatable, however. You could either go heavy with the blatant invisible walls, 2 foot high insurmountable fences, or you could set every level in some sort of constricted valley. Even in the wide-open Flashpoint games if you went off the map all it would do is wrap around to the map again this time minus every object.

Nothing with this solution of map design necessitates run and gun type play.

Oh? When you have invisable walls forcing you to 40% of what you can see and what you see winds up to be corridors'R'us thats pretty much a gun and run setup

Doom3,Quake 4,Infernal,Unreal 2,Halo 2(in parts),Red Faction 2 small secret/nook-less single pathed hallway filed map designs is pretty much the foundation for gun and run titles.


UT3 has a interesting take on map design on the larger maps you just hit a invisi wall for that 10-15% of the map you can see but not travel to,I dont understand why they would waste time rendering it but not let you go there....if they put up a force filed I wouldn't gripe on them for it being a lack in design.

Still the UT3 demo is hot I jsut hope they don't Nerf the weapons by launch!

 

[Panzeh]

2, Artificial level limits. Of the stupid variety.
I do not think I can count how many times I have heard something like "Get back in the war soldier! (insert timer here)" when I still well within range of the bad guys. After seeing so many games pull of well designed levels which give you all the options you need to deal with a problem. Running into an invisible wall or hearing some REMF call you over the radio to tell you something like that is simply annoying. It just feels like the developers where lazy and coulden't be botherd with considering any other options than simple run and gun, CS style play.

Well, the alternatives are most certainly less palatable, however. You could either go heavy with the blatant invisible walls, 2 foot high insurmountable fences, or you could set every level in some sort of constricted valley. Even in the wide-open Flashpoint games if you went off the map all it would do is wrap around to the map again this time minus every object.

Nothing with this solution of map design necessitates run and gun type play.

Oh? When you have invisable walls forcing you to 40% of what you can see and what you see winds up to be corridors'R'us thats pretty much a gun and run setup

Doom3,Quake 4,Infernal,Unreal 2,Halo 2(in parts),Red Faction 2 small secret/nook-less single pathed hallway filed map designs is pretty much the foundation for gun and run titles.


UT3 has a interesting take on map design on the larger maps you just hit a invisi wall for that 10-15% of the map you can see but not travel to,I dont understand why they would waste time rendering it but not let you go there....if they put up a force filed I wouldn't gripe on them for it being a lack in design.

Still the UT3 demo is hot I jsut hope they don't Nerf the weapons by launch!

I don't see how a visible 'force field' encasing the entire level is any less arbritrary than an invisible wall. You can fault doom 3 for its really samey environs(which weren't much different from doom 1+2) but free roam is not really appropriate for that type of game, and faulting those games for being run and gun shooters is like faulting a Mario game for being a platformer.

 

[ComradeJim270]

Wow, I had to register as soon as I saw this, because I have a lot to say... here we go...

The first thing that comes to mind right now, thanks to recent time spent playing Killzone: Liberation, is boss fights which are an order of magnitude more difficult than every other part of the game. I can go through the rest of that game on the highest difficulty level, but when the boss fights come, I'm hard-pressed to beat them even on the easiest. If the rest of the game was so masochistic in difficulty, it would be expected, and acceptable in my eyes, but done like this, it's ridiculous. Mechassault 2 is another good example, especially since I don't think it's as good on the whole. The difficulty curve makes things challenging but managable for the whole game, until the last level, which may as well cause a foot to pop out of your Xbox and kick you in the balls.

Bioshock has been mentioned, so I must now bring up vita-chambers, or any other game mechanic which makes it more or less impossible to genuinely fail. You could just load whenever you die, but I shouldn't have to take an action like that in order to artificially increase the difficulty level to something less than laughable. I can say wit a fair amount of confidence that I have had bowel movements more challenging than Bioshock (bad dietary decisions...) I like games which I can actually lose. In fact, even in multi-player I get bored with a game quickly if I find I almost never lose. The adrenaline just doesn't flow when that happens.

In contrast to what some people have mentioned, memories of Far Cry Instincts prompt me to bring up levels in which enemies DO see friendly NPCs, and proceed to slaughter them mercilessly, leading to failure. I gave up on Doyle and just used the level unlocking cheat on that one, since the part of the game in question was at the end of a level.

How about jumping puzzles when you can't see your feet? I'm looking at you, Valve. If the Source engine can't pull off showing me my feet, you need to come out with a new version of it, or stop doing jumping puzzles, because they're just frustrating.

Another thing that bugs me are 'sandbox' games which are only non-linear when you aren't doing a quest. Bethesda harped about freedom in Oblivion, but this usually comes down to 'Yes, I'll help' or 'Maybe later.' I shudder to think that these people are making Fallout 3, because they haven't demonstrated that they can make a quest worthy of Fallout. Hell, even Fallout Tactics gave you a few different options on how to accomplish a clearly defined and non-negotiable objective. In Fallout and Fallout 2, many quests could end in different ways, or at least play out in different ways. I realize Fallout games are not sandbox, but the quests in them are often less restrictive than those in supposed 'sandbox' games.

While we're talking about Oblivion, how about NPCs I can attack but can't kill? If I stab or shoot someone, it should hurt them. Doesn't HL2 kinda do this as well? Would it be that hard to simply make it so that the player character will not use their weapon if it's aimed at a friend? This would also solve the problem on children in violent games, or at lease lessen the problem.

Hm, more on Oblivion... level scaling. They said, in Oblivion, it would mean things would remain challenging, but given the simplistic combat and easily exploited magic system in the game, it really just means they never are. It also breaks immersion, of course. I liked in Morrowind how I could get my ass kicked easily if I was not ready for an opponent, but if I came back later I'd mop the floor with them. Being able to sneak past or outsmart enemies for a fantastic reward is also good.

Also present in the astoundingly disappointing train wreck that is Oblivion, are NPCs to whom you can say multiple things, each of which gets an identical or nearly identical response. Patrick Stewart was apparently delighted to voice the emperor, I don't think it would have been hard to get a few more lines out of him.

Forced stealth missions. I was very relieved to find Rainbow Six Vegas didn't have one, like most of its predecessors. I understand the reasoning behind them in the R6 games ("If you knock people out, the bad guys will get suspicious and may find the bug you planted"), but most games don't have solid reason for this annoyance.

NPC soldiers who you are supposedly leading but can't actually give orders to. The idiotic marines in Halo 3, who struck me as significantly more retarded than those in Halo 2, remind me of this. When did HL2, a wildly successful game, come out? 2004? In HL2 you can tell your NPC buddies where to go, at least. They aren't especially bright, themselves, but you can make up for this by making decisions on their behalf. Bungie could have learned from this. Maybe it is a deviation from the feel of the first two games, but it would not have been a drastic one if done well.

Games that use the same aiming system for grenades as for guns, requiring an unrealistic and irritating amount of guesswork for their effective use. This is not believable or fun. I was baffled when Splinter Cell: Double Agent did away with the wonderful grenade throwing system of its predcessor, Chaos Theory. This is a common problem, and the reason I almost never use grenades in any shooter (the 'sticky' grenades in Halo are an exception due to their unique nature).

The so-called 'no-scope'. Most rifles built for sniping lack any built-in aiming devices. Why should people still get a reticule when using something like that without the scope? I like the TF2 way of doing this.

I have to agree with the 'Simon' crap, although it did give me a good laugh while haging around a Gamestop. An attempt at playing the Heavenly Sword demo ended abruptly because I was *gasp* actually trying to pay attention to what my button pressing was causing to happen in the game, and I apparently hit the wrong button. God forbid people should want to focus on the character they're controlling instead of big ugly pictures of gamepad buttons. What's the point of making the cool sort of scenes this stuff usually accompanies if people are forced to focus on the 'Simon' game?

Oh, there's more, too, but I want to get my thoughts organized before continuing.

 

[L4Y Duke]

I haven't read every post in this thread, but I'm sure that someone else has already mentioned random encounters. They really do suck. Although, the ones in Wild Arms 3 were somewhat less sucking as you got some warning as to when they were coming up, during which time you could prevent it.

I also especially hate forced level-crunching. It may not be intentional, but it is a real pain in the ass. Having to go around and kill X peons in order to get to level Y to take on boss Z? None of that for me, thanks.

 

[MrCIA]

I would like to expand upon my annoyance concerning Artificial level limits to give a better idea of what I meant. In one particularly glaring instance in Delta Force - Blackhawk Down you are tasked with protecting some civilians who are getting food at an aid station (the "River Crossing" level for you who have the game). You are of course attacked by a whole bunch of bad guys. I have earlier noticed a largish hill the baddies must move around to attack the civilians. I move towards the hill with the intent of delivering a few dussin highspeed chunks of metal into their flank while my teammates take care of the close in protection. I make it maybe half the way up the hill before I get a message to turn back immediatly. Now this makes no sense what so ever. Flanking the enemy is a tactic used by the military since Babylon. But my commanders (the level designers) seem to have forgetten it's use. I object to being forced to accept an inferior position when there is another position that is simple for the level designers to allow for, logical in the situation that pertains at the time or is just plain old stupidity/lazyness.

In the games that ZippyDSMlee mentioned and I have actually played I can not think of a single instance where I felt artificially limited by poor level design. If the enemy is infront of me I am not going to go 5km back just to find an artillery unit I can use to remove the sentry by the door. As long as the levels make sense I don't care how much I imitate a train and stick to the rails placed down. As long as it makes some kind of sense.

I also want to add another annoying "feature" in alot of games. Unstable aiming points. To give a sense of why I loath this particular b*llsh*t method of game balance let me give you some idea of my personal history. I have used firearms for the past 20+ years. I have fired everything from small "hold out" handguns to large caliber sniper rifles. I am an avid airsofter so I am well aware of the effects of extreme amounts of adrenaline on my body and my stability. And I have never ever heard of, seen or experienced any phenomena even close to the random figure 8 movements of my sight that many developers use to make games more challenging to the player. The closest would be when you are taking a shot with a scope over atleast 100m, and then it is simply a very predictable up and down motion from my body's unreasonable demand for oxygen. The motion does tend to be more pronounced when one is standing or the weapon is to heavy for the shooters strength. But you are still able to put rounds into a human sized target while standing at 300 meters.

Rant two completed

 

[GloatingSwine]

What's the point of making the cool sort of scenes this stuff usually accompanies if people are forced to focus on the 'Simon' game

Dragon's Lair Syndrome. It's supposed to be cool to watch, so you sucker people in who are watching someone do it, without actually needing to be fun in itself.

 

[The Irrelevant Gamer]

Wow. This thread has blown up while I was away. I was hoping to reply to everyone who posted, but I'm not sure that is going to happen. I do, however, have to agree wholeheartedly with the following.

I also want to add another annoying "feature" in alot of games. Unstable aiming points. To give a sense of why I loath this particular b*llsh*t method of game balance let me give you some idea of my personal history. I have used firearms for the past 20+ years. I have fired everything from small "hold out" handguns to large caliber sniper rifles. I am an avid airsofter so I am well aware of the effects of extreme amounts of adrenaline on my body and my stability. And I have never ever heard of, seen or experienced any phenomena even close to the random figure 8 movements of my sight that many developers use to make games more challenging to the player. The closest would be when you are taking a shot with a scope over atleast 100m, and then it is simply a very predictable up and down motion from my body's unreasonable demand for oxygen. The motion does tend to be more pronounced when one is standing or the weapon is to heavy for the shooters strength. But you are still able to put rounds into a human sized target while standing at 300 meters.

I forgot about that particular feature, but hate it with a white hot fury. The problem I have with it is that in most games that use you're supposed to be playing someone extremely good at this sort of thing. I am personally a terrible shot with real firearms, not having had a lot of practice, but the legendary hitman 47? I think he could hold the rifle reasonably still.

EDIT:

Once again I'm not too sure about the wizard's options, but it could be a mixture of both of these things depending on spell selection, and personal preference.

Engage the evil wizard in a magical duel on some astral plane, and then, when his mind is destroyed, waltz in and take the gem.

I also wanted to say this is a super awesome idea.

 

[Count_de_Monet]

ooo, I like this thread.

Overly simplistic fighting sequences and, of course, I'm pointing at Oblivion. Sure, sword battles are better than in Morrowind (God I hated that fighting system) but they didn't push the envelope. It's just click to swing, click to parry, use a somewhat stronger hit every once in a while and bam, done. The same goes for spellcasting. One type of spell that shoots a little bit of fire, one that shoots a big ball of fire, another that summons some kind of beastie, and all they do is create different models and assign different amounts of power for each spell. Let me hit different body parts, let ice slow a guy down and fire do some damage over time, etc.

While I'm on Oblivion I'll bring up another pet peeve of mine that pops up constantly: you're in a different location that is pretty much the same as the place you just came from but has different texturing. Do devs really think we can't notice that we are running through the same maze with stone walls instead of dirt ones? I call shenanigans on Oblivion, Half-Life, Halo, Quake (the kind of this particular annoyance), and (to some degree) Guild Wars.

Gun recoil that doesn't match the bullet pattern. I think the most jarring example of this was the switch from Counter-Strike 1.6 to Counter-Strike Source. Original CS had fairly decent parity between the gun recoil and bullet patterns. If the gun kicked up you shot up but for some reason CS:S chose to do it's own thing and make it so when the model kicks left bullets magically appear on the right and when it kicks up bullets are somehow shot down. It's not constant but definitely noticeable and if you are looking for it I guarantee you'll see it in other games.

Casting times instead of spell casting has become a staple of RPG's (particularly MMO's) which I think needs to be done away with. Spellcasting needs to take some skill for it to mean anything as games become more intricate. Just like you need quick reactions in a FPS to defeat an opponent you should need to move those fingers adeptly to cast a spell. Whether it's button mashing on a console or clicking a series of lesser "runes" to achieve a specific effect something needs to be done. For those of you dorky enough to get this, I think a system similar to ninja abilities in Naruto (the anime) could be administered so you have to weave a spell instead of clicking on a single icon.

Invisible encounters are getting so very old, look to Final Fantasy, and viewed encounters like Sword of Mana in 3/4 or top view are just cheesy. I think the future of RPG's is in Oblivionesque gameplay with a similar encounter style. I'd even like to see more games blatantly steal Star Ocean 2's fighting setup (but upgrade it a bit) where you are fighting enemies without turn based or timed combat just straight up melee.

I know it's been said but it's time we got past the shiny new physics engines and stopped making see-saw's out of every plank of wood in HL2. We understand you're proud of your creation but seriously, unless I'm dropping a washing machine onto the wood so I can launch myself onto an adjacent building I really can't force myself to care anymore (now that would be damn cool).

Speaking of HL2 and lumping in Halo, and, well, every FPS ever made can we please have some model variety? It was cute when developers had no other options but there is just as much unit variety in Doom as in Half-Life 2. There was the zombie with white shirt, zombine, combine soldier, uber combine soldier (basically regular with a white outfit), headcrab, other headcrab, helicopter, walking spider doohickey. Shove some different faces in there, shirts that aren't white, khakis instead of jeans, boots instead of sneakers, maybe some of the zombies could be missing arms or overweight (seriously, a fat zombie would be great, you could just use it to plug up a doorway).

Boring questing. For this I blame WoW entirely. I realize it probably isn't the original culprit but it certainly is the most popular offender and some of it's companions are no better such as EQ2 which feels like a re-skinned version of WoW. Why in God's name does someone need eight trillion wolf teeth? I realize the quests in EQ1 were generally ignored but this new fad of cookie cutter questing is so ridiculously boring I can't believe people play it, then I remember there are about a thousand different grind-fests like Priston Tale which don't even include little luxuries like stupid quests and people actually pay to play them. Sure, I collected bones and turned them in for exp at low levels in EQ1 but I also eventually did my epic quest which was challenging, complicated and had different goals for each stage not "Get me fifteen aviak wings" then "Pick me twenty-two flowers" followed by "Pat your head and rub your tummy while playing Mozart with your feet accompanied by the harmonica".

I think I'll stop there for the night, but you get the idea...

 

[Count_de_Monet]

Just read up and I have to second, third, or whatever the unstable sight. I'm no crack shot but I just started playing Crysis and those special forces dudes must all have Parkinson's. If you have a suit that makes you ridiculously strong, are lying prone on the ground with your gun resting on a rock, and are close enough to read an enemy's facial features you should be able to keep your sight still... I shouldn't have to memorize the swaying pattern to get a headshot at medium range. Oh, and I love how useless my lovely sniper rifle is when I have pull the trigger and pray I get a headshot every single time I pop one off. It really hurts the whole stealth aspect of that game when I miss the head hitbox three times out of four and they have a chance to raise the alarm...

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

So this would be the thread that finally got me to register so that I could comment.

I'm primarily an FPS player, so of course that's where the majority of my gripes come from, but as I dabble in other types of games as well I have a lot of hate to go around. Here we go!

- Weapons whose purpose or manner of use are not apparent. (i.e. "What's this gun do?" syndrome) Has anyone played the "Painkiller: Overdose" demo? My God, I hope not. All else (terrible voice acting, recycled gameplay, cluttered areas) aside, my primary gripe was that I couldn't figure out how half the weapons (the ones that weren't outright recycled from the original Painkiller) operated. I've got a knife that doesn't stab things, a weird-looking egg of some kind, and a moving severed head. Honestly, I expected to be able to throw the head.

- Weapons that don't behave how you expect them to. I'm looking squarely at Halo 1's Assault Rifle here. An eight-foot-tall, half-ton supersoldier carrying around 650 years' worth of firearms refinement- and yet firing a three-round burst at a wall ten feet (3,3m) away gave me a bullet spread I could drive a Warthog through. Honorable mention goes to FEAR's grenades and the bizarre way they would bounce off of flat surfaces at angles that just quite frankly shouldn't happen.

- Friendlies that are stupid (i.e. "The Sentry Bot Situation"). I've named this after the sentry bot in Doom 3, because of its loving propensity for shooting THROUGH me to get at the 85th demon teleporting into a dark corridor. I have simply lost count of how many times I've either taken a bullet from, or put a bullet in, some "teammate" who went the wrong way at the wrong time. Though, admittedly this also happens in multiplayer games, but you can't program away human stupidity.

- Enemies who are "artificially smart". This still happens sometimes- I will crawl on my belly to flank an enemy only to have them know, without seeing me, where I've gone. So many games have gotten enemy awareness right that there's just no excuse for it anymore.

- Forced stealth in a game without an established stealth mechanic. I'll peg "Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth" as the worst offender here, as Jack loses his weapons no less than three times, and has to sneak out of heavily-guarded areas at least twice. Only the game grants no perceivable way to tell if you're "being sneaky", and successfully eluding enemies seems to depend more on not crossing invisible lines than keeping to shadows and moving slowly.

- Shoddy gameplay mechanics. Quite possibly the worst letdown I've suffered in recent gaming history was the "Land of the Dead: Road To Fiddler's Green" game. I expected hordes of zombies shuffling towards me while I had to carefully place each shot for maximum effect. What I was presented with instead were three or four zombies at a time that took as much damage from five .22 rounds to the right big toe as they did from five .22 rounds straight to the noggin. Eventually I just picked up a fire axe and whacked at anything shambling towards me (and yet amazingly never got tired).

- Enemy generators. I'm looking at you, Call of Duty series. I'd like to believe that if I keep shooting guys coming out of a building, they'll eventually run out of guys, but no- tangos keep pouring through the door like the place is some sort of bizarre clown car. What's the birth rate around here, anyway?

I could go on- there's the "Space Ace" button-mashing, terrible camera controls, unchanging objectives, "lather-rinse-repeat" gameplay- but I'm tired and want to go to bed.

 

[Saskwach]

- Enemy generators. I'm looking at you, Call of Duty series. I'd like to believe that if I keep shooting guys coming out of a building, they'll eventually run out of guys, but no- tangos keep pouring through the door like the place is some sort of bizarre clown car. What's the birth rate around here, anyway?

Tell me about it. Thanks to a particular aggravating section of COD 3 in which a house contained an entire platoon of Germans I diagnosed the real reason for WW2: over-population.

 

[LusikkaMage]

I agree with Bubba on #9 the most, we have consoles and PCs that can handle having items dropped by everything on screen, so why not get rid of the disappearing thing? Or at least make it a lot longer time period!

I don't really like turn-based RPGs, either. I beat the boss in Final Fantasy 2 (on GBA) in five minutes, because I had a tendency to, while doing other things, moving "left right left right" on the overworld until the battle music started, then holding A until the winning music played. Leveling is brainless as heck, but it's better in later Final Fantasies (but I still hate RPGs with such a basic system)
Is why I really like the Mana series (or, at least, up until the last three games for DS and PS2) =P
Same with random battles and not being able to see the monsters on the map.

And lastly, what MMORPG have you played that wasn't essentially like every other MMORPG? I don't get what is so great about WoW ("oh, the game gets really fun when you're max level!", well why not develop the game to be fun during the whole freaking experience?!). There just needs to be more than "kill x monsters" and "deliver x to y" quests. :/

 

[The Irrelevant Gamer]

I believe the reason for WoW's popularity is that it brought the crack cocaine addiction of MMORPGs to the masses. Personally I think it is a grindtastic failure of a game that takes all of the worsts parts of an MMORPG, and polishes them to a mirror shine. It embodies everything I think is wrong with MMORPGs, but when a game has 9.3 million players it is hard to argue it is a steaming pile of crap without sounding like an elitist prick.

 

[Anton P. Nym]

The "boss battle" that violates all the play mechanics of the rest of the game; please, kill it with fire. I don't mind fighting a tough villain, but one that forces me to throw out everything I've learned in the rest of the game in order to defeat kicks me right out of the game immersion. To thieve examples from Halo 2, the Scarab boss battle worked because it fought like the rest of the game turned to "11", while the Tartarus fight didn't because all of a sudden invulnerability pops up for the first time in the last level of the game.

Even when done well the mechanic screams "tacked on". And when done poorly, it's a game-buster.

-- Steve

 

[MrCIA]

When a game has 9.3 million players the need to ba an elitist prick is greater than for a game with only 5 players.

I would also like to note how grenades work in many games. Doom 3 comes to mind when thinking about poor use of grenades. I actually tried to get any object I could find in real life to behave like the grenades in that game. Result? total failure.

 

[MrCIA]

When a game has 9.3 million players the need to be an elitist prick is greater than for a game with only 5 players.

I would also like to note how grenades work in many games. Doom 3 comes to mind when thinking about poor use of grenades. I actually tried to get any object I could find in real life to behave like the grenades in that game. Result? total failure.

 

[Unholykrumpet]

I hate the lack of invention when it comes to magic in games. Psychic powers, magic, plasmids, and whatever the hell mass effect calls magic all usually have the same moves. Pick stuff up and throw it without touching it, setting stuff on fire, freezing stuff, shooting fireballs. An exception to this is the enrage plasmid and the bee attack plasmid, both of which were fairly (loose sense) innovative. I may not be a game dev, but I'm pretty sure I could come up with some new and innovative moves other than the mainstream magic junk. I just feel like I'm playing Psi Ops all over again when magic is usually involved (Psi ops: mindgate conspiracy was an awesome game that deserved more hype than it actually recieved)

 

[Kronopticon]

ahh, reminiscing back to the one time i ever played D&D, i remember we played a very abstract version, we used dice, but the dungeon master just randomly decided if they hit or not, and we created infinately random ways of going about problems, our mission was something to do with eventually going to kill some duck called brian, after several attempts at his life, we got insane, and started using odd powers, one of which was supposed to cause all of his feathers to explode, upon realising he has +100 magic resistance? i dont know either. anyway. nothing could ever beat that.

4. Health points... Deus Ex almost blew away health points all together with their health per body section display, but now, all these years later, we're still relying on a health meter to tell us if we're in fighting condition. Shooting someone in the finger will eventually drain someone's health points to 0 in a game, rather than destroy the finger and it's function like it would in real life. I simply find this system overly basic and annoying, particularly when we know that we can do better.

dear god i love you, Deus Ex. Possibly the best game ever.