What is the worst thing a game can do?

[-Dragmire-]

QTEs and bad cliffhanger endings.


On a brighter note, more games need a similar new game plus feature that Chrono Cross had; a fast forward button.

 

[Johann610]

The worst thing a COMPUTER game can do is erase your hard drive. Some erase the "temporary" files they create for installation. Skip a semicolon in there, and your hard drive is kaput. It HAS happened--but not to me.
The worst thing a CARTRIDGE can do is get that rusty-contact condition where your console won't even START, and you think your console or the FX chip is broken, and you go buy more of them, when all you REALLY NEEDED was some freakin alcohol and cotton swabs to clean the corroded CONTACTS! Freaking N64 cost me a bundle before I learned this.
The worst thing a DISK can do is deliver a boring game. But you knew that already.

 

[Sunrider]

The worst thing a game can do?

Spawn fanboys.

Seriously.

 

[Fiz_The_Toaster]

Boring me to tears, and the story be so half-assed that it gives me zero motivation to care about the characters and why I'm even doing a mission.

Also, escort missions, especially where the escortee has their own health bar and their condition determines either future actions or the ending. I'm sorry Silent Hill 4, but I will never forgive you for that bullshit move.

 

[pegi989]

1 not working taking for example the pc version black ops (still does not work for me)
2 too much on rails , i can take it if it is on rails but don,t go overboard on it
3 concentrating on the view to much i like seeing pretty places in games but i really hate it when the game suffers for it
4 endeless conversations , the beginning of deux ex human revolution is a good example they just talk on and on AND ON about the same freaking thing i got it the first time you said it now you are just wasting my time.

but this is just my eye on it

oh and way to big of a drm but that´s not the games fault but the maker of the game

 

[Bostur]

A few things that I often encounter:

- Inaccurate controls, or controls unsuitable for the type of gameplay in the game. The Witcher 2 had the potential for some amazing combat, but ruined it with sluggish controls.

- QTEs. I don't think it helps immersion being shown a controller/keyboard button on the sceen and having to spam it to get into the flying chopper. It just reminds me that there is no chopper.

- Level layout that makes no sense. I thought we had reached a technological level where it was unnecessary to make corridors that turn back on themselves.

- Options that doesn't do anything.

- Bloated stat syndrome. Or said in a technical way, an interface that is more complex than the model it is supposed to influence. If we have 10 stats but only 2 ways to interact with the world, most of those 10 stats are bound to have very little effect. Tweaking those stats in the sequel won't help either.

- Level scaling with the sole purpose that games must look like RPGs for some reason. If levels don't make sense in your game just leave them out.

 

[TheYellowCellPhone]

The worst thing a game can do huh?

"Not work"

This.

Or, give a horseshitted error message of why it didn't work, or not even give an error message at all.

 

[Of-the-Lion]

Dropping a well thought out visual aesthetic in favor of one that "tested better". I'm looking at you Golden Sun. The quasi-claymation players and enemies with stretching and warping sprites gave the first two games such a nice storybook feel. The third ditched it for poorly drawn, polygonal, chibi abominations that turn into full-size people only in combat. These large-eyed dwarves somehow have LESS ability to express emotion than the previous installments, in which expression was left up to a small picture of the character next to the dialogue window and consisted only of about four expressions (neutral, angry, sad).

Captcha: ppictut successive
as in
Make your art-styles consistent

 

[snagli]

Reviving a character that nobody really cared about, even though he clearly died in the last game, and then giving him a leading role in the story. Stupid Anders.

 

[Racecarlock]

The worst thing? Be boring AND frustrating. There's nothing worse than a game that actually makes your boredom worse and put you in a bad mood. Looking at you, NFS Prostreet.

 

[TheLoneBeet]

Be forgettable. If I can't remember the names of characters or the events that took place in a game only a short time after playing it.. I just think it's garbage.

 

[Orinon]

Being boring, lazy desing, be an obvious cash in.
Though the worst is to
Willfully Misinform your audience
see Call of Juarez The Cartel

 

[RuralGamer]

I'm actually really surprised no one's mentioned this yet.

http://penny-arcade.com/patv/episode/call-of-juarez-the-cartel

That. is. the. WORST. POSSIBLE. THING. a game to do. EVERRRRRRRRRRRRR. Seriously. I've had the unfortunate "pleasure" of playing this game.

DO. NOT. PLAY. THIS.

Having never played it, I was actually shocked at the stuff pointed out to be blatantly wrong/insensitive/racist in it; definitely not playing it now. I'm amazed no one started calling it out earlier.

OT: Bugs which make the game unplayable/crash the game completely.

Bad AI who are too simple to be of any ability other than running at you/running away from you in straight lines (strangely too many games still seem to rely on this). Alternatively AI who are unrealistically hard, insta-killing you with perfect shots launched from positions you'd never see them through cover and always know exactly where you are.

 

[johnstamos]

suck and be proud of it

 

[TerribleAssassin]

It can add Catwoman sections.

[sup]I hate you Catwoman. With every fibre of my being, I hate you.[/sup]

I love those sections!

And not be Batman: Arkham City. Cardinal sin of gaming.

 

[BlazeRaider]

Having a cutscene that consists of rapidly alternating red and blue screens, inducing seizures in a significant percentage of the population just ruins a game for me.

 

[Slim-Shot]

I look at Just Cause 2 to see some of the worst things a game can do.

- Respawning enemies. Criminal. It gets really silly trying to clear a village when 3 attack choppers spawn every 30 goddamn seconds.

- Escort missions where the AI is clearly retarded - that dude in the gambling house had me nigh in tears of rage.

- Uninteresting and generic weaponry

But perhaps worst of all, is creating a brilliant game, only to hamstring it with pants on head retardation, such as that mentioned above.

 

[2fish]

Fuck with the camera. I am fine jumping a platform, until the camera sees a wall that it loves and takes control away from me and I get to make a leap of faith jump.

So I guess it comes down to not messing up your core system. I do not want to use subjective things her elike being boring but I will agree that being broekn, buggy, or having a messed up core system destroys your game.

 

[ninetails593]

mute protagonist.