What do you think makes a bad game?
- Thread starter brodie21
- Start date
Recommended Videos
Games that take them selves too seriously are usually terrible. Also, anything without story or depth is usually not very great, unless it's not even attempting to appear as though it has depth. (Tetris, Galaga. These are good games.) I'm usually an RPG fan. Most Bethesda games are great. Things like Ninja Gaiden 2 are awful. (No offense to Ninja Gaiden fans.)
Games with poor controls are always a repellant for me, along with an unreasonable difficulty curve. I hardly ever finish games though (I just can't stick to one game long enough!), so if I suddenly get stuck on one point for a while I tend to lose interest fast. Not to say difficulty is BAD. If I know what to do, but it's difficult TO do it, that's a fun challenge, but standing around thinking "what now?" for an hour is not fun. At all. Even if it has nice graphics to look at.
I've also got an interest in plot and characters, if they're the same old "wit"-spewing cliches, I just cringe at the game and have to turn it off to save it embarassing itself. Also, overly-"realistic" graphics, ie, you'd see brown if the lighting wasn't so pathetic. Honestly, I prefer bright grames with shiny eye-candy graphics as opposed to a big brown-o-fest with a hint of grey for variety.
I recently got Fallout 3 and I loved it from the moment I started walking around the Vault smashing in the heads of my fellow Vault-dwellers... but once I reached the first town it was so frustratingly dark I'd often myself stuck walking on the spot and not even noticing that I wasn't going anywhere. I've always meant to start playing it again because the outside world looked really interesting but the lighting was just so... off-putting.
P.S. I'm not saying Fallout 3 is a bad game because I must have played a total of 40 minutes of it and can't judge. From what I've heard, it's a great game and I'd love to play it but the world they live in doesn't appear to have a sun.
EDIT: And, obviously, as the people above me reminded me, if I'm not actually having fun then the game can't be that good.
I've also got an interest in plot and characters, if they're the same old "wit"-spewing cliches, I just cringe at the game and have to turn it off to save it embarassing itself. Also, overly-"realistic" graphics, ie, you'd see brown if the lighting wasn't so pathetic. Honestly, I prefer bright grames with shiny eye-candy graphics as opposed to a big brown-o-fest with a hint of grey for variety.
I recently got Fallout 3 and I loved it from the moment I started walking around the Vault smashing in the heads of my fellow Vault-dwellers... but once I reached the first town it was so frustratingly dark I'd often myself stuck walking on the spot and not even noticing that I wasn't going anywhere. I've always meant to start playing it again because the outside world looked really interesting but the lighting was just so... off-putting.
P.S. I'm not saying Fallout 3 is a bad game because I must have played a total of 40 minutes of it and can't judge. From what I've heard, it's a great game and I'd love to play it but the world they live in doesn't appear to have a sun.
EDIT: And, obviously, as the people above me reminded me, if I'm not actually having fun then the game can't be that good.
if games go too casual. Also aint very fun if games go too hardcore. Poor graphics can be forgiven.
Worst sin a game can make in my eyes is poor gameplay. Devil May Cry on the pc is the best example....might be a good game on console, but never got anywhere on pc.
Worst sin a game can make in my eyes is poor gameplay. Devil May Cry on the pc is the best example....might be a good game on console, but never got anywhere on pc.
Any game that isn't fun is a bad game. It really all boils down to that, all other faults are manifestations of its level of fun. No fun, no game.
The first two I don't really mind, because I can adapt to controls and laugh at poor voice acting. The rest are right, though. I hate boring characters, and while having a super-powerful team may sound fun, it ruins any form of challenge.MaxTheReaper said:
It's easier to start with those flaws which DON'T make a bad game:
1. I've learned to live with cheesy, cliched stories. It's a bit worse to have this in a RPG, but usually I can simply ignore this.
2. Dated graphics isn't bad, especially if the art direction is still okay.
3. Bad music, so I'll listen to my own music instead. Music can make a huge difference in the positive sense, but when it's bad, you can simply turn it off.
Bad:
1. too much repetition
2. bugs
3. unresponsive controls
4. too easy
5. dangers you cannot avoid without foreknowledge (save/reload)
6. poor game balance between teams/classes/units/weapons
1. I've learned to live with cheesy, cliched stories. It's a bit worse to have this in a RPG, but usually I can simply ignore this.
2. Dated graphics isn't bad, especially if the art direction is still okay.
3. Bad music, so I'll listen to my own music instead. Music can make a huge difference in the positive sense, but when it's bad, you can simply turn it off.
Bad:
1. too much repetition
2. bugs
3. unresponsive controls
4. too easy
5. dangers you cannot avoid without foreknowledge (save/reload)
6. poor game balance between teams/classes/units/weapons
Yeah, trolling.Christemo said:
Go play Henry Hatsworth and Mirror's Edge, and then come back and tell me they're "the same shit".
Also, Dead Space may not be innovative, but it is new IP for EA, and it's still (in my opinion) a very good game.
But yeah, they (a while ago) remade games so many times without actually changing much, and that was what gained them the badge of bad developer.
Though, they made this thing called "new EA", that tries to make new and innovative games.
They have succeeded on some level, but right when they started making new and fresh games, and not remaking every franchise they had, they posted a $300 million loss in profit, which is a shame.
Asking what makes something *bad* is kind of pointless because the list is literally endless. Being bad is the *default* state--what is interesting is what makes something *good*.
Jared Diamond called this the Anna Karenina principle: "All happy marriages are the same. Every unhappy one is unhappy in its own way."
Jared Diamond called this the Anna Karenina principle: "All happy marriages are the same. Every unhappy one is unhappy in its own way."