What breaks video game immersion for you?

[Vault101]

Cinematics in games. When I'm trapsing down a corridor happy as can be and hit the trigger for the next cutscene only to have the game wrestle control away from me and tell me, "oh, you don't get to interact with your interactive medium anymore, time to turn your game into a movie *****!", it hurls me out of the experience like a fucking catapult. Thankfully I think more designers are starting to realize this, but a game should never show you doing something when you could actually be doing it. I'm playing a game because I want to interact with it, if I wanted to sit back and watch I would just watch a movie.

I don think cutscenes are all bad, especially if used well, I mean sure they can be abused but I dont think the half life 2method would work with every game

Third person perspective. I know some people dont think that is counter immersive. But to me it is the single most counter immersive thing that can happen to a game. I cannot feel like I am submerged into a world if I am looking at my own back. Regardless of the technological limitations of lacking peripherial vision, to not see through the eyes of the toon you are playing destroys any and all possibility to feel like you are fully enveloped and submerged in a world.

I find a massive disconnect in third person because its more like playing god, than it is like playing your char.

I still say... improve the technology... dont make half assed shortcuts by using 3rd person perspective.

soo...are you saying all games should be in first person? somhow I cant quite imagine assasins creed being as good

3rd person is not a half assed short cut its a design choice, and with the amount of FPS around its a very welcome one for me (if I had to choose between 3rd and first Ill always go 3rd)

also open world games I find are less tedious to roam around in with 3rd person, like personally I wouldnt like fallout as much if I had to play in first person, I like to see my charachter

anyway OT: for me its when I start noticing palette swaps or being presented wtih walls of text, or when the game just isnt very engaging

EDIT: and when a charachter is needlessly blank or silent (Oblivion, F.E.A.R. 2)

 

[Vault101]

Just about every aspect of Oblivion.

Seriously for me that game was trying way too hard to be as un-immersive as possible.

oh agreeed so much

thats an example of hwo NOT to do it and it pretty much killed the game for me

 

[deafbudy]

for me putting the game in first person perspective

 

[Polarity27]

Getting lost. I don't have a very high frustration tolerance in games and I have terrible direction sense, so if I'm wandering around for ages trying to figure out where I'm supposed to go next, it throws me right out of the game.

Also, metagaming inventory management. If I get to the point where I feel like I need a statistical spreadsheet to decide if a drop is an upgrade or not, it completely breaks immersion. And annoys the crap out of me.

 

[Haydyn]

When a character starts telling me which buttons to push on my controller.

That's pretty much my biggest immersion breaker. In real life I don't tell people to press X to turn on a light switch.

 

[Ryengu]

This may sound petty, but: When the physics don't work the way I expect them to.

For example, when it looks like there's a clear path to jump over something, but there's an invisible wall, even though I'm getting more height than needed to clear the object. When I sometimes stop dead at drop edges, but other times just go gliding over. When I have a horrible amount of fall control in a platform game, especially when a double jump barely does anything. When the camera seems to get stuck on walls, oftentimes rebelling against even recenter-camera inputs, despite supposedly not being a physical object in the game environment.
I could probably go on XP

 

[Tourmeta]

Please change the disc.

 

[ThisIsSnake]

bugs, glitches, bad controls, awkward camera and non loading textures.

 

[Creator002]

I rarely get immersed in games. The most recent (and almost only) example was Fallout: New Vegas. Even with the levelling up screen popping up every hour or so, I still find a way to get back into the game.
Things that actually broke my immersion: People walk in, I have to answer a call of nature or my computer/console crashes/freezes.

 

[TxMxRonin]

When weaker character can push you. Take Halo 3 for example. Master Chief a seven foot tall augmented soldier that weighs about a half-ton fully armored can be pushed out of position by the stupid ass AI.

EDIT: And auto-targeting. I can't stand it when I can't turn it off.

 

[Griphphin]

The biggest immersion breaker for me has got to be when something is challenging for a stupid, non-game-related reason. I can play a single level on Super Meat Boy for upwards of an hour if I'm going for a good leaderboard position (as long as I've got friends to talk to on xbl so it doesn't get too tedious ), but that is a straightforward, clear challenge that I can see and work towards. I could perfect my movements and do better in due time.

There was an area in God of War (love that game btw, just an example of when this happened) that, after taking a break from the game for a week for finals, I had completely forgottten how and where to traverse. I was at it for a good twenty minutes before I called it a day and looked up a walkthrough for that part. But that was a challenge that wasn't laid out in a challenging way, it was a product of bad circumstances that resulted in me being frustrated for a good while and killing my enjoyment.

 

[monken8]

the only thing that really unemerses me is the moment that i hear that little sound que you know the one that says "your health is low do you have any potions or food" (or some veriation like the wah wah or flashing red) not that i do like the little warning its just that i always get a little wire kicked in the back of my skull that starts the "wait why does this guy here nosies whenever he gets mortally wounded (thats why cods red jelly is what i think a warning should be like.

 

[AndrewF022]

Stretched textures, bad clipping, bad AI pathfinding (an NPC getting stuck on a wall or in a doorway instantly does it for me).. ohh, and stiff facial animations, but thats only an issue in RPGs where you spend half the game staring at someones face.

 

[The Apothecarry]

Accidentally hitting the chat button during Killing Floor when I'm trying to reload. Nothing breaks immersion like seeing "wwwwwddddddrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrarrarrsrrrrrarw" pop up on your screen.

 

[hazabaza1]

CAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAATS!
Bastards. Plus, basic human bodily functions, and all that jazz.