Has something happened to you in a game that broke the immersion?

[Rathy]

When the game reminds you that you are playing a game. Example: Metal Gear Solid 1, when Ocelot warns you not to use a auto-fire controller.

I actually was a fan of how MGS handled those parts, if only because it was scripted in an amusing way to me.

My biggest issue is short areas, resulting in frequent loading screens. Loading screens are fine, small areas on occasion can be fine, but the longer I go without loading, the more immersed I feel while playing.

Good first person also helps a lot.

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

I actually just had one of these happen to me while playing STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl with the Oblivion Lost Mod.

I'd made it to the end of the first underground laboratory, where you're supposed to pick up the documents. Since OL replaces the weird "fire elemental" creature with a custom Dwarf, you don't see an enemy until you go up into the room where the documents are. I threw a grenade into the room to do some damage, then finally brought him down... only to find that I'd blown the documents clear out of the map.

I had to go back to the autosave the game created when I first entered the labs. Ragequit. Grr.

 

[Spongeguardian]

Edit: Also, as people said before, Oblivion. What does it for me is listening to conversations.

"Hello!"
"Hi!"
"Goodbye!"
"Awful lot o' mud crabs, aren't there?"
"How are you!"
"People have been saying there's a murderer about!"
"Goodbye!"
"Bye!"
/repeat when encountering another NPC 5 steps down the road.

This 100 times over.

Hello.
How are you?
Good day.
Saw a Mudcrab the other day.
Nasty creatures.
Have you heard any news from Morrowind?
Goodbye.
Indeed.

 

[The_Deleted]

Loading...

 

[theultimateend]

Fallout 3 freezing repeatedly so you have to reboot, that tends to break immersion a tad.

Playing anything by Bethesda. Or anytime I get the "Press Y to *Action.*"

Getting stuck on rock geometry in Bethesda games.

Whenever the textures don't load on an Unreal engine game, I can hear the immersion break like a twig.

Happens a lot in BioShock. :/

OP: The strange glitches that can be found in every Bethesda game are huge immersion breakers.

The best part is that everytime you bring up the issue to Bethesda it is your systems fault. Even if you are on a console.

Bethesda games are bitter sweet.

In theory they are so fucking good. But in practice they crash more frequently than Courtney Love.

Their games know EXACTLY when I'm in the zone. Because the second I'm immersed the world comes crashing in. Or I get an errorless CTD.

Then I sit there and look. I look at two dozen games. Two dozen installed games and only one set of them crashes like this. All of them from the same company.

I then ask myself why I keep buying them. I sit there like a victim of domestic abuse...unable to answer.

Woo...melodramatic there. Off to bed with me.

 

[The_Deleted]

Most recently, because it just happened to me today...I was doing the horse race side mission in Assassin's Creed 2 where you race around Forli/Romagna. Don't really think it's a spoiler but still...

Spoiler

The girl screws you...just for winning a fricking horse race?!?!? What the frell!!! I know the game isn't really historically accurate, but really?!?!

Take it were you can get it, I reckon.

 

[begone]

In one of my saves in Fallout 3, I opted for Tenpenny Towers to experience life at the hotel. While I don't think this is part of the problem, it might be related: After realizing how boring the rich life was, I murdered the residents of the hotel, looted their goods, and proclaimed myself king of the wastes.

After returning from scavenging the wastes for more junk, I found that every time I went to the top floor, the game would crash. I checked my other saves and they seemed. I was forced to delete it, all the effort I put into that save was now wasted. Maybe I'm being punished for nuking Megaton...Really wasn't worth it after all.

 

[SturmDolch]

giga-snip

Yes, I agree with you there. Oblivion worked for a time on my old PC, then randomly stopped. All my other games were fine, I even tried mounting the CD to no avail. Even tried after a computer re-format, nothing. It also worked strange on my friend's computer after a while of playing.

So I bought it on 360 since I really loved it, and my saves ended up getting corrupted...

Now, I have a new gaming laptop and Oblivion still refuses to run on it. Bah. I'm glad I never had this problem with Fallout 3.

 

[Kaltazraza]

Running into the tank while walking down a not so wide hallway.

 

[MiracleOfSound]

[
The best part is that everytime you bring up the issue to Bethesda it is your systems fault. Even if you are on a console.

Bethesda games are bitter sweet.

In theory they are so fucking good. But in practice they crash more frequently than Courtney Love.

Their games know EXACTLY when I'm in the zone. Because the second I'm immersed the world comes crashing in. Or I get an errorless CTD.

Then I sit there and look. I look at two dozen games. Two dozen installed games and only one set of them crashes like this. All of them from the same company.

I then ask myself why I keep buying them. I sit there like a victim of domestic abuse...unable to answer.

Woo...melodramatic there. Off to bed with me.

The ones you love the most hurt you the worst.

 

[DracoSuave]

Anytime I'm on a scavenger hunt in a video game and I can't find one of the things I'm looking for. It;'s worse when you have a little marker indicating where the object is, but it's not there. Scrambling around for minutes looking for something I should be able to find in seconds always kills immersion for me.

Which is happening to me right now in Borderlands.

Are you looking for a piece of a revolver by any chance?

No, a Sniper rifle. I think it fell out of the map, since the area it told me to look in was a small nook behind a hut. One that I could easily get myself stuck in.

Don't look at the green dot, that just gives you a rough guestimate.

Look at the loot icon, the white treasurebag thing on your compass.

Never fails.

 

[Gyrefalcon]

while playing world of warcraft at 9:00 am having your boss ring you to ask why you not in work =)

That is an awesome answer! Ha ha ha ha!

Bad voice acting.
Oh God.

This. Bad voice acting or a limited number of voice actors so that every shopkeeper, beggar, monk, and guard sound alike. Kind of kills the feeling of being in a world of "unique snowflakes".

 

[Ben7]

When it crashes....

 

[TransMando]

In Borderlands sometimes after you travel to a new place the textures take a while to 'get with the program'. If I have been playing for at least an hour it really takes me out of it, but it might be a good thing that games give you moments that define that they are games!

Another good example (I found this a lot in the Borne Conspiracy) is when characters die and the 'rag doll' effect doesn't crumple right and the character is left twitching or splayed in an impossible position.

 

[Evil Tim]

In Borderlands sometimes after you travel to a new place the textures take a while to 'get with the program'.

The term is 'draw-in.' The ambulance at the end of MW2's airport level has a tendency to do that too, at least on the PS3 version. 'Oh hi guys, I bought textures!'

 

[[Insert Name Here]]

Loading screens and when things get framey.

 

[atol]

Most games don't even try to be immersive, and the ones that do always have loose wires and cardboard cut-outs to see.

 

[ThisNewGuy]

When you can jump the snowmobile across a cliff in MW2. That was a real immersion breaker.

 

[Cuacuani]

In Assassin's Creed 2 (or the first one, they both have the same problem), when various NPCs yell the same predesignated sound clip at you.

Though to be fair, while this does break immersion like a knife to butter, it's usually too funny to warrant any complaining. It's just been happening so often lately.

And to be even more fair, the Assassin's Creed games aren't the only ones with the problem.

The most amusing of these I had on AC2 was when climbing a ladder to get to the rooftops. There was a group of thieves at the top and upon reaching the rooftops after my rather easy ascent, I was greeted with 'Wow! How did you do that? You make it look so easy!'

 

[Ophiuchus]

I've never been particularly inclined to get immersed in games... it just doesn't really happen. All it takes to break what little immersion I have is something like an achievement popping up or a friend signing in.

I've been playing Assassin's Creed 2 a lot over the past couple of days, there's no immersion in it at all... but lack of immersion isn't really a bad thing for me. I know I'm playing a game and I'm quite content with that. If anything it helps to get slapped back into reality when I'm really getting into it, otherwise I'd end up playing for far too long and eventually die of hunger.