What Ruins a Game For You?

[Griever]

Have you ever been really enjoying a particular game until something happens as part of the game that just completely ruins it for you? I'm sure everyone has experienced this at least once, I know I have. A serious pet peeve of mine is when a game feels like it has to jump on the band wagon and use an element of gameplay that has been popular recently but to the point where it gets boring.

The first example of this that springs to mind is the original Prince of Persia: Sands of Time. I was really enjoying the concept and gameplay of the game, fighting guards/soldiers for once instead of zombies all the time. But then, guess what? Sand zombies....COME ON! It just completely put me off the game, if i want to kill zombies i'll play Resident Evil or Left 4 Dead which, don't get me wrong, i love. Every now and then I want to play something different for god's sake, this is the main reason i preferred Warrior Within to Sands of Time. More examples of this would be Halo & Crysis. Loved the first games, was really enjoying the game in it's entirety until the flood for Halo, and the 'aliens' for Crysis. The covenant was enough for me in Halo and I was enjoying it, for Crysis it felt good to be fighting actual humans again without the restrictions of 'realistic' shooters.

I think if a game contains this kind of aspect from the beginning it isn't as annoying, simply because it is what you expect. Twists in games are great for the most part, although i could name examples where they aren't so great, but sometimes it just feels like the developers get to a certain point and can't think of anything new so they throw in something old. The same could be said for endings that completely bring the game to a stop, other than the obvious 'this is the end' part, i mean more along the lines of the storyline and your immertion into the game's universe. The most notable for me recently would be Deus Ex: Human Revolution, not much of spoiler but don't read on if you haven't completed the game yet - the ending consists of a machine with 4 buttons giving different endings with the pretty much the same outcome, I didn't want to mention this but no doubt someone will after reading the Deus Ex part...but ME3 as well. That's all i'll say on that ending.

So if you're really enjoying a game, what can/does the game do to ruin the experience for you?

 

[Vault101]

bad camera

no story or lack-thereoff

insultingly short

an uninsteresting setting (granted thats highly subjective)

 

[Indecipherable]

Prince of Persia had undead from the very beginning so I don't know why you got up in arms about zombies when it's been doing that since 1989.

ME3 - 'nough said.

Not much else has 'ruined' a game for me. I usually filter them out in the first hour or two of gameplay and just abandon them if they don't do it for me.

 

[Forgetitnow344]

Well to be fair, the flood in Halo is hardly your traditional zombie... It's also the largest overarching enemy... It's the reason the Halo rings even exist. Not exactly a forced twist.

I hate when a game builds up your excitement for something and then lets you down when you realize it's nowhere near as cool as it could have been (usually pertaining to story). Some examples include...

Spoiler: Mass Effect 3

The infamous ending which didn't have any of those Volus or Elcor (etc) which I went out of my way to save for some reason.

Spoiler: Fallout: New Vegas

When I wanted an independent New Vegas with an NCR military backing, but it turns out you only get a handful of options. This also lead to a story which became very predictable and lackluster as soon as you kill Mr. House.

Spoiler: Oblivion

Definitely my favorite game of all time, but I fucking hate how at the end of the main quest, all you get to do is watch a poorly scripted fight between Mehrunes Dagon and Martin Septim in Beast Mode. No epic boss fight or anything.

The opposite of this...

Spoiler: Halo 1 and 3

Holy shit, man. Cortana tells you the Pillar of Autumn/The Ark is about to explode... With you on it! Now you only have minutes to escape! Get in a warthog and GUN IT! Backed by a universally acclaimed score, driving through both of those collapsing environments definitely make my top ten gaming moments independently.

Seriously, when you're wrapping up a game's story, you really should look at it like a gamer would and make sure it kicks all kinds of ass.

 

[dimensional]

Terrible controls
Bad camera
Ridiculous difficulty curve/spikes

Thats probably it if its a terrible story ill just ignore it if the rest of the game is topnotch (like Bayonetta) but if the controls are atrocious it could be the best story in the world I still wont play it because its unplayable.

Stupid design choices can ruin it as well eventually i.e the lives system in mario galaxy and its sequel (well actually it only ruined the sequel for me) its just so tedious collecting new lives every time you come back to the game so you dont lose your progress after the checkpoints.

 

[NerfedFalcon]

Stupid design choices can ruin it as well eventually i.e the lives system in mario galaxy and its sequel (well actually it only ruined the sequel for me) its just so tedious collecting new lives every time you come back to the game so you dont lose your progress after the checkpoints.

Know what I want to see? A lives system that only applies to each stage. Here's how it would work:

-Enter stage, have three lives
-Get hit a bunch of times, lose a life but come back to the start of the fight, health and ammo completely refilled (not just to "where they were"), but one less life
-Lose all your lives, THEN you have to restart the whole level
-Beat level, go to next, have three lives again

Serious Sam 2 came close, but forgot the "refill health and ammo" part - meaning if you came into a fight with 1HP, you might as well restart the level yourself rather than waiting for your lives to run out. Bastion actually does this, complete with option to "restart without idols" if you picked one difficulty modifier too many.

OT: A terrible story in a game, IF it's trying to have a good story. So really old games get a pass, but newer stuff like the more recent Call of Duty games don't.

 

[poisonedcon]

No believable NPCs in the game.

I can't just have myself wandering around in a world filled with mannequins, can I?

 

[Vanitas likes Bubbles]

An uninteresting setting, I have the most awesome idea for a setting but I aint telling you guys because it's just too awesome.

Bad story... nuff said

Decent and flawed characters. I can't stress this enough, I can't relate to someone that is a generic fucking steroid beef junky!!!

Also, although it doesn't really ruin a game, the disappearence of a well written romance sub-plot.... just because I'm sappy and one of those romantic types.

 

[wintercoat]

Tedious combat. It's one of the reasons I stopped playing Fallout. Love the premise, love the atmosphere, love the setting, hate the combat. Same goes for most Bioware games.

 

[Sixcess]

1. Linearity in MMOs. I love the feeling of being in a vast open world that MMOs can do so well, and hate it when linear zone design pushes me down a single path. I greatly dislike SWTOR's endless success of box canyon 'worlds', and the revamped Azeroth of WoW: Cataclysm (which gives you more freedom of movement than SWTOR, but frequently links every quest in a zone to a single linear storyline.)

2. Drastic changes in gameplay. The first half of Crysis is great, then the second half abandons the free roaming and drags you from one set piece to another, while throwing enemies at you that are virtually invulnerable to most of your weapons. Warhead did a much better job in that respect.

3. Quick Time Events. No, I do not want to press X to not die. Prototype is a particular offender since it only introduces QTEs late in the game, used against one type of suddenly very commonly encountered enemy.

 

[Dandark]

I was enjoying Dark souls. I really liked the game and I enjoyed the multiplayer aspect, I thought it was really cool. However the crap that is PvP ruined it for me, I tried to play it but the whole thing is just people with completely OP end game items killing me through my block in one hit with lightning spears or something.
Just ruined the multiplayer aspect of the game for me and I eventully got bored of playing. I plan to go back to it to finish the game at some point but I have other games to play for now.

 

[Zeema]

i want a PLOTand a fun filled action suspenseful awesomeness

 

[Schaaka]

I think everyone has misunderstood Griever's post. He didnt ask what makes a bad game, he asked what turns you off in a good game. As in, you are enjoying the game and then BAM! something happened and you lost your boner. Things like bad chronic camera angles, ill chosen controls or uncreative settings are all something that define a game as you start it, not something you find out half way through.

For me, id say when a game stops being challenging. Skyrim is a recent example for me. I was lovin' it when I was under Lev5 and bandits were formidable and random caves were a life or death adventure. With 90+ crafting and enchanting, even moded 'improved AI' dragons are nothing more than a nuisance. I had intended to beat the main story line but I just stopped.

 

[Ectoplasmicz]

One thing that tends to bug me dearly is lack of re-playability in games. I love being able to replay a game once I've finished, so if there is nothing to bring me back it sort of tarnishes the experience. Yes, I still love the game regardless, but I feel some games can go from good to great if they had more re-playability value.

An example of this is LA Noire. Enjoyed the game, thought it was a great example on how to play games differently, a new experience. The whole game was a lot of fun, but then I finished it (suffering through an insufferable ending) and found myself lost as to what to do. I finished all of those mini-crimes in an hour, and then what? All I had left was to walk around or try to 'discover' every car in the game. I had no inclination to play through again, because there was nothing else I could gain from it.

I don't immediately hate games if they have no re-playability, but it does somewhat tarnish the experience.

Fin.

Also, terrible controls and quick time events, as have been mentioned.

 

[Proverbial Jon]

No believable NPCs in the game.

I can't just have myself wandering around in a world filled with mannequins, can I?

You must hate The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion then!

OT: Poor lip synchronisation kills a game instantly for me. I'm looking at YOU Alan Wake. Seriously Remedy, you spent what, 7 years on this game? And you can't actually articulate the character's mouths properly? I know you speak another language over there in Finland but that's no excuse! You can hire the best voice actors in the business but when the characters move their lips like they've got a mouth full of sawdust I can hardly invest myself, can I?

Even Oblivion, which has literally hundreds of characters and thousands of lines of spoken dialogue did better. And that's saying something.

 

[TheGreatAndPowerfulZOG]

Objective compasses. I can't stand them! It seems like just every game to come out these days uses them, too. This really hurt Skyrim for me. Human Revolution, too, although there were... other things wrong with that game, which I won't go into now.

 

[mechalynx]

"But thou must" - being forced into doing something boring and tedious when there is some other very obvious solution staring you in the face.

"This is a no jumping game" - need to cross the road? Too bad there's a 1ft tall fence in the way.