Game mechanics you hate

[GloatingSwine]

One more for the road:

Limited numbers of lives in games where there is no penalty for running out of lives. Seriously, what is the point?

Biggest offender is Mario 64, because if you lose one life you get kicked out of the level anyway, meaning that the penalty for losing all your lives, being kicked out of the level and back to the title screen, is so trivially different from losing just one that it boggles the mind that no-one noticed and thought "why are we even bothering with lives?".

Mario Galaxy is the same, because although it has in-level checkpoints, the levels are all really short, and any vaguely tricky bit will have at least one 1-up mushroom on it somewhere. A particularly fiendish bit earlier caused me to gain about 15 lives because there were 2 1-up mushrooms before the bit I kept dying on.

 

[Katana314]

Yeah, the lives system doesn't work with modern games. One may wonder if it was really such a good idea back in the old days either.

I just finished playing Resident Evil 4 and there's one thing I hate. Half-Life 2 had the right idea about drawing attention with subtle methods. In order to show an interesting scripted sequence that's happening near you, a soldier will shoot at you from behind, so you'll turn around to look at it. In order to show that enemies are coming after you, a nearby monitor will show some soldiers breaking down the door of the building you're in.
But any game that shows enemies with CUTSCENES is utter FAIL. I was just playing a section where you drop into an area with a lava pit in the middle...Ashley says "Hey! Look, there's a gate over there." Then, a door opens and enemies run out. When the cutscene is over, there are now 6 enemies standing RIGHT FUCKING IN FRONT OF YOU.
Now, what if I wanted to shoot them before they came through the door? What if I wanted to run away in the chance I could? What if, BEFORE I CAN FREAKING SHOOT ANY OF THEM, one of them could attack me and KILL ME? (as was the case with the last try before I just turned off the game, not even caring where my last save was)
I just felt this part was utterly ridiculous. Attract the player's attention with appropriate sounds and other such things. Gears of War had a great idea with the "Hey! Look at this interesting thing!" button. But taking control away from the player, and leaving you in a situation where you can't react places all blame of death on the hands of the game mechanics.

 

[raankh]

My pet peeve game mechanic would be first-person navigation with a gamepad. Any FPS on a console is a no-buy for me.

 

[soladrin]

My pet peeve game mechanic would be first-person navigation with a gamepad. Any FPS on a console is a no-buy for me.

i really cant understand this with people... im not trying to be a troll or flame bait, but it often just comes off that people are just saying this because A they suck at it, or B just follow the band wagon.

Dont get me wrong, i know there are people with good reasons too, but when people just hop in screaming it without any reasons why they think so im gonna be skeptic about it.

 

[xbeaker]

What I am trying to figure out, is why is these ?Simon games? are such a pain, and detract so much from what would otherwise be a good game. Why is Guitar Hero and it?s ilk so popular? All they are is extended Simon sequences put to music.

?Ooh.. but you are playing a guitar? Sorry, you are holding a controller, dancing on a controller, shaking a controller, etc.. Would it be ok for God of War to have these sequences if it sold for $90 and came packaged with Blades of Chaos controllers (yes, I would pay $90 for that too.. that isn?t the point)

It is the same mechanic used as an entire game. The fact that it is in a different context seems to make it ok though. Why is that?

For the record, I don?t actually mind the simon mini-games. It adds a little interactivity to what would otherwise be a cut-scene.

Now forced stealth, and escort missions.. they need to go!

 

[Copter400]

Mark of Kri style stealth. For anyone who hasn't played Mark of Kri, over the course of the game you recieve a sword, a bow, a spear and an axe. Despite this, a lot of the time is spent sneaking past unfairly powered soldiers who call out for more unfairly powered soldiers when they see you.

In conclusion, I don't like stealth-type things where you have a lot of firepower but the game makes you sneak around.

 

[soladrin]

i dont mind escort, in some games, but i hate to escort retard npc's... i didnt mind escort missions in games like armored core

 

[hooliganyouth]

Here's one: click and hold L3 to run. Maybe it's just me and my years of heavy alcohol comsumption but I find this to be a very awkward way of doing things.

 

[xbeaker]

CLick and Hold L3 for ANYTHING. Even in Half-Life is screws me up as I end up ducking a lot when I just meant to move backwards quickly. And since you move slower when ducking.. gah!

I put a curse on the house of Sony for coming up with the stupid L3 button.

 

[propertyofcobra]

What I am trying to figure out, is why is these ?Simon games? are such a pain, and detract so much from what would otherwise be a good game.

I believe the reason for this is very simply that it feels like YOU'RE not doing anything cool, but the character surviving is based in YOUR hands nonetheless. The best part of videogames compared to other media, to me at least, is that YOU control it. You're making your little dude run around and hit stuff until the stuff stops twitching and starts dropping powerups, not anyone else.
Movies, books, theater, etc, all other media are not controlled by you, the best you can do is root for someone, or yell out what should be painfully obvious to them. "JUST STEP TO THE SIDE YOU STEAMING PILE OF STUPID!". In videogames, you can actually step to the side.

Simon Says Button Mashing Sequences on the other hand removes your control of the character entirely and completely, aside that they will freaking die if you don't press X right now.
And no, guitar hero is not exactly a long simon says button mashing game. Dragon's Lair, the first game to ever use it (and one of those rare games that replace actually controlling the game with it), is.
Play Dragon's Lair for about, oh, five minutes, then you'll see why people dislike Simon Says God of etc.etc.

 

[beoweasel]

Things I hate:

Timed events in games. I hate being rushed, like in Mass Effect or any other game where you have to complete x-number of objectives in under this amount of time. Its bad enough I'm fighting for my life against horrible odds, and you want to saddle me with an instant game-over countdown? Sheesh.

Oh, and forced stealth is always a pain in the ass, I thought we outgrew those?

 

[soladrin]

i agree with beoweasel, timers in games suck, their made to make it more "exciting" and that kind of stuff, but every single time its either piss easy or REALY frustrating. And i dont really notice the simon says stuff since i dont bother touching action adventure games, nor stupid shit that shouldnt even be referred to as a game, like guitar hero, thats stuff for karaoke bars, nothing more.

 

[Final_Assassin_42]

Escorts, definitely. Either work on the NPC A.I. or GTFO.

And puzzles. I can't tell you how many times I've logged onto GameFAQs because of some puzzle in RE4.

 

[propertyofcobra]

And puzzles. I can't tell you how many times I've logged onto GameFAQs because of some puzzle in RE4.

Now, Resident Evil is a franchise where puzzles have ALWAYS played a big part, besides, aside one or two puzzles mid-early in the game (Before you find Ashley), all of the puzzles are extremely easy in RE4, the only puzzle I could never figure out (the three-or-four rotation thing with the gem) is non-mandatory anyway.
So, yeah, if you don't want puzzles in a game, you might consider not buying games from a long-lasting series famous for zombies and puzzles. (RE4 only had one of the two anyway)

 

[Count_de_Monet]

I hate the Rainbow 6 style of lean. It's useful, it helps add a little more depth to fighting, however, it's ridiculous that movement options have been whittled down to the bare minimum when so many games have pushed the envelope. I haven't seen a good roll in a while, a lean that didn't remind me of paintball, no decent peeking, vaulting, or anything else that is even vaguely realistic. How many FPS's can be made that give you stand, crouch, prone (if you're lucky), and if you're even luckier lean?

You can be damn sure if someone was shooting at me I wouldn't just run while standing straight up and then stop behind something to go prone and hide behind it. It would be more like a crouching/leaning-way-forward run that turns into a headfirst baseball slide and then hiding behind something while I wait for my piss-stained pants to dry. Gears of War showed that we can do more with the environment than bunny hop, hell it even had blind firing.

 

[capcom_konami]

One mechanic I really hate: remaining still while aiming (ex: Metal Gear Solid 2 and 3, Goldeneye). There are some great games that have this, but that doesn't take away from the annoyance. Instead of using that to add a layer of challenge, why not just have harder enemies? Or in Metal Gear Solid, stealth would be next to impossible in first person aiming mode, and bosses and gunfights are made very difficult due to the fact that you remain still while aiming in first-person, so why not just have a button to toggle between First-Person for gunfights and Third-Person for stealth?

Another thing I hate: special moves that involve pressing a sequence of attack buttons (ex: square + square + triangle + circle + quarter circle left). in any type of game. I like the Devil May Cry special move system (one button + direction + context = special move) far better. In fact, that is the main reason that I dislike fighting games. These are always hard to pull off for me, and never feel very responsive.

Forced minigames (ex: Bully). I like to play minigames for high score and quick entertainment, and they make good unlockables. I don't like to play them to progress in the game. They are nothing but a poor, shallow excuse for "mission variety". Instead, why not just have varied game mechanics? Take Jak II for example. The hoverboarding, the platforming, and the hovercar missions all were varied and exciting; it didn't have to cram minigames down your throat because the game had great variety.

 

[thebobmaster_v1legacy]

1) 90% of escort quests. (RE4 did it right, have not played HL2, everything else did it wrong)

2) Idiotic ally AI. (the enemy is over there! Stop shooting the $#$@#$ wall!)

3) Enemy generators. (Where did you buy a clone machine? I want one?)

4) Stealth sequences in non-stealth games. (Syphon Filter, this means you.)

 

[Kaminobob]

i too have a great deal of outright RAGE for many of the horrid things mentioned here.
enemy-generating "clone-o-matic" buildings,
pants-on-head retarded friendly AI
fake innaccuracy (at least Halo let the sniper rifle not drift. though honestly, the Chief could probably pick up and aim a light tank at you before he started to lose accuracy.)
escort quests
and everything else.

i DO, however have one particular hatred that i don't believe has come up yet...
the RPG standard issue 'save my kitten' sidequest.
you know, the quest where some mental incompetent NPC has lost X (thingy they like) due to Y (usually their fault), and you have to go to Z (5-500000 feet away) to retrieve it, with little to no reward, no plot value, and your only option is to be the shiny nice retard and hunt down the exact location of the furred mcguffin, or be a total dick about it and dropkick the crying 10 year old quest giver. here's a thought: if you want to keep Mr. Fluffykins, STOP PUTTING HIM IN CATAPULTS. (modify that to fit whatever game you're playing, by the way.)

 

[raankh]

i really cant understand this with people... im not trying to be a troll or flame bait, but it often just comes off that people are just saying this because A they suck at it, or B just follow the band wagon.
[snip]

Bit of a long response, but I'd like to motivate my rather brief comment.

It just doesn't suit me. I'm not particularly "bad" with it, but really, game designers have to reduce the number of enemies and difficulty in order to accommodate the less reactive control scheme (Halo is a good example of that). That's fine in my book, there are any number of such considerations in various parts of game design. I just don't like it, feels clunky and unresponsive compared to a mouse in my opinion. I do however much prefer to move with an analog stick than the discrete states of wasd and shift buttons. Perhaps the Wii's nunchuck would hit my sweet-spot, but I haven't played enough with it to tell.

In particular, if you just move the camera perspective to 3rd person, my gripe almost goes away. Almost. As a counter example I found Prince of Persia: Sands of Time almost unplayable on console, but still consider it to be one of the most successful control schemes to date with a mouse.

With an analog controller I like snap controls (ie it recentres with the stick), but that's pretty hard to pull off without getting a sort of rail-gunning feel. Lost Planet managed pretty well, and I consider that game a decent shooter although in the end ... well, not the best of games. Again, IMO.

I played the GTA Vice City with a gamepad, but as soon as I switched to first-person I grabbed the mouse. My biggest gripe with GTA:SA was that they removed that possibility (EITHER mouse or gamepad, not both!).

I don't suck at it and I wasn't aware there was such a band wagon, I just don't like it. It's on the level that I didn't complete Metroid Prime because I didn't like the controls; aiming in Splinter Cell had me rolling my eyes and putting the game aside, sure I was getting my kills but to me it felt like aiming one-handed with a sledge or something.

EDIT: Woo! Now I'm a paperboy (that's an awesome game, with an awesome soundtrack, btw).