Gaming Dealbreakers

[Bob_McMillan]

Basically, something that automatically saps all your interest in a game.

Mine would be zombies. Definitely zombies.

Dude, play Left 4 Dead!

Nah, no thanks, I'm not that into zombies.

Man, you gotta try CoD Zombies!

I'll pass.

Dead Space is awesome bro!

No.

Last of Us is totes GOTY, you gotta play it!

Fuck off!

I dont know why. Maybe its because I have a big family, chances are that if we have a zombie apocalypse, I would be forced to kill (re-kill?) one of my siblings or parents, if I myself don't turn into a zombie. Also, I'm a complete wimp at anything that is remotely scary.

A close second would be if the control scheme for a shooter doesnt have R2/L2 or LMB/RMB for Shoot and Aim. Why, WHY would you change it to something else? Looking at you Deus Ex HR

Edit: I changed the title. On reflection its sounded awkward to me. I really ought to learn how to make nice sounding titles.

 

[Vendor-Lazarus]

Of the top of my head.

Cramped/forced camera.
I might just be that I'm used to certain camera perspectives and angles, but certain in-game cameras makes me feel cramped and appears rather forced.

Timed events.
I don't do stress. I want to play the game in my own time thank you very much.

Quicktime events.
No, just no. I want to play the game, the the game the interactive movie.

Cut content.
I already payed once, and want a complete experience.
That said, if you sell me an expansion later I wont mind.
Well, as long you the expansion is..you know what?

Expansions
I like expansions. I just want to know if I'm supposed to start over or continue old save or..whatever the deal is.
Too often these things are taken for granted and never really elaborated upon.

DLC everywhere.
See Cut Content, Expansions for intro.
I know you want my money, just don't be so freaking desperate ok?
I need it for rent and food as well you know.

DRM
You don't want my money? Oh, you do, but only if you can monitor my every move and treat me as a criminal?
PASS.

 

[Hairless Mammoth]

You guys already hit every major dealbreaker I've got. I certainly agree with Bob on the zombies, for all media. I watched the Dawn of the Dead remake when it came to theaters in 2004, enjoyed some matches in Nazi Zombies and love Zombieland, but the craze is getting damned ridiculous, (even before Zombieland). It's even worse when the "don't use the z word" and try to use a mutant strain of a real life disease to try to be different. It hard for those concepts to stand out because every zombie story adopted them. If the main threat in a story is shambling, semi-intelligent living dead, I can't even try to enjoy the creative work.

I guess I can add some more to the list.

Expensive peripherals (especially for multiplayer)
Ever wanted to play something with friends, but they need more that the basic controller? I hate that. Never liked music games, like Rock Band. I really wanted to play LoZ: Four Swords Adventures and Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicals with my friends in high school, but, as soon as the player number went over 1, you needed a $10 cable and a $100+ GBA, on top of the $50 disc and $150 Gamecube, for everyone to play. No one else I knew even had a GBA. It's become a moot point, with the next issue below, but now the basic controllers are getting pricey, too.

Lack of split screen co-op/multiplayer
Got a friend over or live with another gamer and what to check out the fun 2+ player content? Well, you need 2 consoles and another copy of the game. I hated when they started doing this, back in the 7th gen, for games with big multiplayer followings. Even for local/lan games, they first limited the per console player count to 2, then 1. This killed LAN console gaming for everyone I knew and also killed my interest in multiplayer, online or not.

 

[visiblenoise]

Uplay. Origin to a lesser degree, because I had already used it for Battlefield 3. So I guess I'm unfairly picking on Ubisoft when I should be lambasting the both of them for being absolutely pointless.

 

[DocJ]

OP or spammable abilities

I can't stand it if there's just one thing I can do for the entire game and it makes me win. Why use an assault rifle or sniper when my infinite ammo, very powerful, accurate to a kilometer pistol is better? And in fighting games. Nothing gets me more aggravated when I can't even move because my friend keeps spamming wall bounce moves and wins because he chips me down and I can't move to perform my combos because everytime I unblock I get thrown and knocked to the ground. And nothing makes me more irritated than pressing one button over and over to win.

I'm looking squarely at you, Final Fantasy XIII.

 

[Pyrian]

I'm... Not sure I have a dealbreaker. I've played a lot of games with features or styles I don't care for. I can get over almost any single thing if the rest is good.

 

[Signa]

Always online DRM in a non-MMO game. I will not gamble more than $5 on a game that I might not be able to play in the future when its creators decide they don't want to keep hosting servers for the game, and even then it would be an iffy transaction.

Also: MMOs. I just don't really want to play them, but the reasons aren't really tied to being online all the time. It stems back to the subscription fees, but most MMOs still have a bit too much grind or travel time, and I have way too many games to put that kind of time into just one of them.

 

[JohnZ117]

Zombie games are a dealbreaker for me, too, but for mostly different reasons. First, there's the glut of them. Nothing more to be said about that.

Second, there is the believability of them. Zombies, to me, would only be a short term threat because Nature Knows How To Deal With Dead Things. From vultures to fungi to bacteria, there are all sorts of things perfectly able to turn these (mostly) defenseless corpses into nutrients.

Finally, if a developer makes a game a "zombie game," it says to me that they want to put as little effort into the antagonist characters as they can get away with. They don't want to try to make a well-rounded villain. They don't want to craft an involving story. They just want the path of least resistance to your wallet.


Another dealbreaker. If a game has "aliens" (i.e. those of a race or species that isn't the same as the p.c.'s) then they can't all be evil. For example, in Mass Effect, (spoiler warning) Saren, for most of the game, is the main antagonist, but Garrus(same species as Saren) is on your side. Having them all be the same screams xenophobic propaganda to me. Having all aliens be evil is also similar to my third point on zombie games.

 

[thoughtwrangler]

In RPG's it's the awful combination of semi-complex puzzles and random encounter rates. Of if the dungeons are labarynthine in nature but also feature repetitive looking areas. It's like you're navigating your way and then DING DONG! Attacked by a monster who for some reason was invisible, despite being a ravenous squirrel the size of a Buick. By the time the battle is over, you have no idea which way you were going, so you unintentionally wander back the way you came and then DING DONG! all over again.

Pass.

 

[Pete Oddly]

Thematic dealbreakers are, for me, few and far between. Even something as overdone as zombies cannot ruin a game, unless the game built around them is shit. As a person who loves zombies, even I am getting sick of them being in everything, and yet The Last of Us is still in my top five favourite games.

I think the only thematic aspects which stop me dead are anything marketed mainly to children and anything Japanese, and there are exceptions to both.

Why children-targeted games don't appeal to me is pretty self explanatory. As for Japanese games, I spent a LOT of my youth playing JRPGs and watching boatloads of anime, and I have to say I'm pretty sick of it all. I recently started playing Legend of Dragoon for the first time (it slipped under my radar all those years ago), and it is sad how eye-rollingly predictable the plot and characters are. I think my main problem is that so much nuance gets lost in translation that it becomes difficult for me to fully relate to any of the characters. Even so, I'm still playing Dragoon, so I guess it's not much of a dealbreaker after all.

That being said, mechanics can be a dealbreaker right off the bat.

Rhythm games? Nope. RTS games? I suck so bad at 'em, they just aren't fun. Sports games? Boring. Dating sims? *retch*

Also; rail shooters and QTE-based games can suck my salty manpurse(unless the narrative is excellent, then I'll give 'em a pass).

 

[freaper]

QTE's in general and more specifically QTE's that completely change the input for an action you had been using a different button for throughout the game, e.g.: if I've been using Ctrl to crouch, don't make me press E during a QTE sequence when my character is motioning to duck.

 

[ffronw]

One of the biggest ones for me is when developers don't allow you to remap controls. I've been playing PC games with the same basic control layout since shooters began. I don't want to use your default controls. Just because Bob on the design team thinks that grenades should be mapped to the Q key doesn't mean he's not a moron.

Take a few minutes, code an interface for remapping controls, and make a lot of people happy.

 

[Solkard]

One more, collectables.

 

[Shoggoth2588]

No single player option?

No thanks.

That. To an even greater degree, forced online. 99% of the games I play are single-player and the games that I do play that have multiplayer are decent enough to have split-screen. I don't like getting online to download a patch, I don't like having to get online to download new content (unless it's really freaking good content) and I sure as Hell don't like going online to play my single-player game. I kinda wish Microsoft was up-front about that before I downloaded games onto my 360...my XBLA-library is useless at this point. On the plus side, it's also tiny.

---

Pay-to-Win or any other game that pokes, prods and, irritates players into buying in-game currency.

Bad controls. I wouldn't allow Skyward Sword to beat me but other games on the Wii frustrated me to no end because of the mandatory motion-controls. I haven't even considered trying the Kinect...at least the Wii gives you a controller.

This doesn't happen often but in FFXIII, I feel like I'm either able to murder the monsters ahead of me effortlessly or, blow them butterfly kisses...in the same area...at the same power-level...It's a really weird feeling; like I'm simultaniously overpowered AND underpowered. It hasn't been a deal-breaker in that I'm determined to beat that game. There's also Halo 4 wherein all of the weapons felt like they fired wadded up bits of paper and bloom-lighting unless you were in a vehicle.

 

[Spider RedNight]

Timed events and escort quests

Seriously, it's not hard to NOT have those in a game. I haaaate timed trials and escort quests are almost worse because not only are they also timed to an extent AND you have to babysit someone/thing and it's not just you. At least I'M pretty much the only one responsible for failing a timed quest and not because the AI is shoddy and doesn't wanna go where I tell it to go.

Granted, that hasn't kept me from playing games. So I guess this would an "ALMOST gaming deal breaker"

captcha: "Save today" - yeah, like save the game and do this stupid timed mission over and over because you'll never succeed you loser.

 

[Rebel_Raven]

A time limit to beat the game? Nope. Not doing that. I gotta be able to faff.

If I can't play as a woman, it'd better be something fucking spectacular as far as the protagonist goes, or the world had better be incredibly appealing, or something to make it stand above the rest, and that's just stupid rare. John Marston, Batman (especially with Kevin Conroy's voice), uhm... that'd be about it off the top of my head.

Do I gotta play multiplayer? Maybe in an MMO, but otherwise, no.

Does the game keep track of time? No. I learned my lesson with Animal Crossing, and to a lesser extent Tomodachi Life. I just don't have the time I would like to devote.

That's about it.

 

[laggyteabag]

Bad optimisation -
If your game runs like ass, you can be sure as hell that I won't want to play it. Make sure that your game runs properly before you release it.

Always online -
If I am in a singleplayer zone, doing singleplayer things when my internet poops out, i would really appreciate it if the game didnt just boot me out.

Bad checkpoints -
It would be so much easier if every game came with manual saving too, but I have no time for games with awful checkpoints. Ever started to run across Skyrim, only to get blindsided by some dragon that you didn't see coming, then the next thing you know, you are back at the enterence to that cave you came out of 30 minutes ago? Then you know what i mean. It is just a frustrating and needless waste of time.

No rebindable keys-
I play with a very odd, yet very specific keybind setup, so if I am then told to play a game (particularly shooters) with the default keys, it is like using a keyboard for the first time all over again.

 

[The Wykydtron]

Too much reliance on In Medias Res or worse, any flashforwards at all. Oh because I want to know the ending before anything else, clearly. It can completely sap my interest in a game.

I almost gave up on the newest Ace Attorney game because they did that shit in a MYSTERY game, thank your lucky stars the series has so much goodwill built up on the first trilogy or it would have been dropped so hard. Flashforwards on who the killer is all the way up to Case 4 and Case 4 is a mini case solely used to build up to case 5 which is also something I hate about case by case games.

I still have a trouble with Case 3 too, it's obviously trying to be Persona 4: The Case but if you're going for Persona 4, Jesus Christ you're aiming far too high. Reach exceeds grasp and such. Persona 4 had 50+ hours to build on its themes on truth, friendship and bloody murder and you're trying to imitate it in like 5 hours max? Did you expect it to NOT fall flat on its face in comparison? It's still an enjoyable case but Ace Attorney doesn't have to fullscale imitate another series in the slightest to be good is my point and attempting to do so cheapens both games.

I had my suspicions about whether they were intentionally going for a Persona 4 vibe for a while then Athena quotes the words "reach out to the truth"

Fuckin' knew it.

Anyway something that actually broke The Witcher 2 for me was the fucking dreariness and constant depressing shit going on with absolutely zero self awareness or subtlety. It's a fucking child waving it's arms in the air going "AM I GRIMDARK ENOUGH YET? HANG ON, LET ME THROW A FEW MORE CASUAL MURDER REFERENCES IN THERE LOL! OH TITS! OH SEX SCENES! I'M A REAL MATURE GAME GUYS! WOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"

It's not that I dislike dark things, I like them. It's the fact that there is nothing, nothing to balance out the grimdark with some comic relief or anything even slightly lighthearted. Yes I know there was probably something Witcher 2 would like to think was comic relief in some scenes in a pub but that just depressed me further. Oh look, Gerald went on a bender and got fuckin' rekt. How hilarious.

Do you remember that old Jimquistion episode about Final Fantasy 9(?) where the darker parts were made so much more effective because of the happy parts beforehand? Take that as an example.

 

[EyeReaper]

Easily my biggest db is Early Access. I honestly can't comprehend how we gamers can simultaneously ***** about games seeming unfinished while also actively going out and purchasing unfinished games. Hell, I can accept it for little, 5-or-less indie games, but when people are paying 100+ dollars to be glorified beta testers(looking at you, archeage), it makes me think that it isn't that surprising when the industry thinks they can just walk all over the consumers.

In other news, pretty much any RPG outside of the SMT series where you can't create your own character. Because honestly, if you want me to feel like I'm playing a role in the story, I'm going to have to have at least some hand in crafting my hero. Not a complete dealbreaker though, but it'll take a lot of convincing otherwise.

Oh, and, uh, and don't hate me for this guys, but more often then not, If I can't use a controller, I won't play it. I will note this only applies for games outside of turn based anything. In a real time environment I just can't get comfortable enough with k/m to play very efficiently.