What gameplay feature can ruin a game within 1 hr?

[Et3rnalLegend64]

Escort missions. They are a terribly idea. I hate them, always have hated them, and always will; I have never, ever, found a single escort mission I enjoyed. NPCs simply are not smart enough to be escorted safely. Best case scenario the AI is smart enough to go run behind me, sit behind a wall, and not move until the fighting is over.

Games with only one way to do things. This is why I'll play Deus Ex (the first one) until the end of time; I can do anything almost any way I can imagine, without one way being massively impractical or downright impossible. If I'm set up for it, I can run in and just shoot everybody, if not I can sneak around without firing a single shot, but neither way is absolutely "better."

Resident Evil 4 did it rather well. Ashley would duck if she was in your line of fire, which sometimes gets in the way of leg-shots but that's not a massive problem. If she's behind you then she'd cling to your back while you shoot things to death. There were areas where you could hide her in a trash bin and forget about her until everything was dead. The only thing you consistently can't do when she's around is chuck high explosives to save her.

 

[RuralGamer]

Ridiculously long loading times.
Mandatory tutorials or prologues that last for obnoxiously long periods of times; the Mass Effect 2 one really annoys me.
Ridiculously good AI that make the game start at the top of its difficulty curve and stay there.

 

[Alknix]

Cutscenes in RPGs that make the PC look like a complete retard and/or wimp. Case in point: "Deus Ex: Human Revolution". Every. Fucking. Last cutscene is like this. Why do I have to engage the terrorist leader in a conversation instead of lobbing a stun grenade from around the corner? Why can't I attack him the after I talk him into letting the hostage go? Why am I letting a corrupt cop go, after he promises to deliver the bribe he offered to me to my appartement - am I 5-year old? Why do I allow a huge armored brute to sneak up to me from behind? Why does the same ***** dupe me twice (!) in a row. Answer: Cutscene Incompetence.

QTEs, when the buttons to press are random and unrelated to the usual controls. I don't mind the moments in Arkham City, when you need to perform some specific action ro progress, like block an opponent or throw a batarang, because these things you do all the time, and they are intuitive. But when the game presents you with a nonsensical sequence of buttons for no reason than to piss you off, well, it succeeds.

Heroes of Might and Magic 6 was ruined by the lack of Auto Fight option. I know, absense of a feature is probably not fair (no limit for perfection), after HoMM5 it was like being stripped of Ctr+C/Ctr+V and having to input every goddamned last thing from scratch.

 

[Warachia]

Skyrim. Went to Markarth for the first time a few days ago. It was a brand new character. Was in Understone Keep talking to people and then all of a sudden the guards started attacking. I just ignored them and went outside, everything was calm so I figured I just worked around a bug but then a few minutes later the townspeople started attacking me. The guards weren't but the townspeople were.

I turned it off and haven't turned it on since. If that was a bug, that's BS. If it wasn't, then that's bad game design.

That's actually part of a quest, I thought my game was bugged at first as well, and nobody in the game will ever comment on that, later the quest throws you into an unwinnable battle where enemies constantly spawn, and to finish the quest, you MUST release this evil guy from a prison, with no option at any point to kill him.

In essence, what ruins a game for me is when roleplaying games don't let you ROLEPLAY. That's why I play them in the first place.

You can finish that quest by killing that guy. I did.

Spoiler

You are talking about the Forsworn Conspiracy, right?

Yes, for some reason though, he was completely immune to everything I did. Must have been another bug, like Skyrim doesn't have enough of those.

 

[Carl The Manicorn]

I won't play Skyrim because of my Oblivion experiences. While playing Oblivion, I became a vampire. It was cool at first, but then I didn't like it so much. So when I went to the one lady, she was all "Oh yeah, just bring me some soul gems. Don't worry, it's cool bro." Well, I didn't know what the hell soul gems were, or even how to get them, so I was screwed.

Another is if saving is a chore. If they don't have good save points or checkpoints, then forget about it. I had to renavigate my way through a dungeon because a rat hit me after I got swarmed by bad guys. It took me an extra hour to do the quest.

Also, lock-picking. When you lose all of your lockpicks and the ONLY way to get past the door and continue with the quest is to lockpick through the door, this infuriates me so damn much. To hell with you Oblivion.

 

[CRRPGMykael]

Kane & Lynch 2. It has so many elements that instantly ruin the game. The way it looks, the cover-based shooting, the fucking camera that can't stay still FOR ATLEAST ONE FUCKING SECOND. Don't ever try running in this game. If you're gonna fucking play it at all. Fuck.