Games Whose Minigames Sucked the Fun Out of the Rest of the Game

[RJ 17]

The Five-Finger Fillet mini game from Rage. I spent so much time trying to get through all the levels of that! So much pain caused to my character!

there's a way to cheat in that game to get the last round (the one that's completely random) done: simply pause the game after every stab. Since it doesn't take you to a menu and just kinda fades out the game screen a bit you can easily tell where the next "target" is going to be. :3

 

[WickedSkin]

All those Job ones in Fable games. In all honesty it's light-crap the games in general but the minigames were especially shitty.

 

[TheTJackson]

The mini games from Red Dead Redemption, especially Five Finger Fillet and Horseshoes. I'm horrible at both and both are needed for getting costumes and the 100% completion.

 

[Zantos]

Blitzball in Final Fantasy X.
The opening cutscene made it look super awesome.

But when I actually played it.... uuurgh. I wanted it to end so badly.

I think my FFX save is about 50% blitzball, can't get enough of it! Though I suppose lucky for some most of that was optional, I only remember one match that you had to play.

OT: Ratchet and Clank. The hacking minigames got really out of hand. I think some of the hacking puzzles in 2 and 3 were harder than the bloody final bosses! Just thinking about the R&C3 trespasser mini-game makes me angry.

 

[Ultress]

The Command boards and Fruit ball from Birth By Sleep.Fruit ball isn't as bad as you only have to do it once with Aqua but the command boards are required to complete the arena,get a hidden D-Link and get some new commands.The boards aren't bad just tedious.

 

[Denamic]

As much as I love the Fallout 3/New Vegas games computer hacking really is quite stupid and non-fun. Word games irritate the shit out of me.

I always mod that so they only present a single word choice, basically guaranteeing success.
I'm not even ashamed.

 

[sanquin]

Actually the term 'streamline' is a misnomer in this context (having been proliferated by one smarmy psuedo-intlectual but very entertaining asshole who shall not be named). To 'streamline' something is to get rid of the stuff that didn't work while keeping what was inherently fun (see games like Assasin's Creed 2, Ultima VII, or for me personally Mass Effect 2). The term you are looking for is 'dumb down'. This is when a game trys to impersonate other genres to pander to a larger audience (see Splinter Cell Conviction and Mass Effect 3).

You misunderstood. I actually meant what you said. I meant that bioware 'said' they wanted to streamline the game, but what they actually did was dumb things down. It's what game companies seem to do more and more often these days. Dumbing down their sequels with the excuse of wanting to 'streamline' it.

 

[purf]

Ctrl+F 'Bioshock'...

What? Only three mentions? Fucking copypasted '89 Pipe Mania every couple of minutes?!

 

[Crazy Zaul]

ME2 door hacking after the 1st playthrough.

 

[Dark Prophet]

Planet scanning in ME3, I think that is what gamer hell is like.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

Any game with a slot machine mini-game where it's required in order to get some really awesome item. Pokemon, I'm looking at you.

 

[Myndnix]

Any minigame. Any of them.
I think it's a hatred-spawned rule toward players that all minigames must be at least five times more difficult than the rest of the game combined.
At least, that's the pattern I've noticed over the years.

 

[Mordekaien]

*cough* *cough* persuasion mini game from Oblivion.
That cake feeding thing was horrendous.

 

[RonHiler]

Oh come on, people, why is no one talking about the king of all crap mini-games, GTA IV?

Cousin, let's go bowling (and yes, you actually had to play all 10 frikkin frames)
Cousin, let's play darts
Cousin, let's go drinking
etc, etc, etc, ad naseum

Oh my god, it was like having to play the Wii.

You know what mini game I wanted to play in GTA IV?

"Cousin, let's shoot the fat cousin in the face with my 9mm until he stops twitching, then shove his stupid cell phone down his throat as a lesson to anyone else that wants to call me every two minutes to do some stupid Wii game."

That's a mini game I could have gotten into

 

[The_Waspman]

Well, you cant really say they sucked the fun out of it, since the game was a long boring grind anyway, but I also vote for Rage. The five finger fillet was done infinitely better in Red Dead (where it actually took skill), the Magic: The Gathering minigame which you had to find cards for in stupid places during the game - most of which you couldn't go back to - and all the fucking car racing. When the cars have twin stick controls. *facepalm* Also, the are...

Y'know what? Just arena games in general. It seems to be the done thing now to stick fucking arena matches in everything, just to pad out the playtime. Rage did it. Borderlands did it. Fuck, Borderlands had a whole dlc that was ONLY this. Amalur did it. I dont mind going round killing lots of things in the face, but when you literally stop the game for hours on end, it gets tedious.

I second the chocobo races and the fucking slot machines in FF XIII-2. Again, fair do's, if its just extra stuff that you dont need, then more power to ya, but the slot machines give you one of the fragments. And it is entirely luck based. Yeah, thanks for that.

 

[kickyourass]

I'm not sure if it strictly counts as a mini-game, but in the first Mass Effect that fucking Towers of Hanoi puzzle on Noveria. I've actually grown to kinda like the puzzle itself, but it's in such an inconvenient place in the game and it's MANDETORY to progress the story so it just gets irritating if you're going for repeat playthroughs.

The only thing in that game that took me longer was the boss battle at the END of Noveria because I kept glitching out so that I couldn't move or even turn.

 

[Atmos Duality]

*cough* *cough* persuasion mini game from Oblivion.
That cake feeding thing was horrendous.

Yeah, that one was pretty ridiculous.
It was a piss easy, waste of time.

My pick were the minigames in the Zelda games.
Specifically, in Oracle of Ages and Oracle of Seasons.
You know what's really fucking obnoxious? Trying to play an audio version of Simon Says while in transit on a Game Boy Advance (or color, take your pick).

And it's a MANDATORY mini-game in Ages; along with a handful of others.

Fucking kills the pacing of the game for about 30 minutes. Kills it dead.