What Ruins a Game For You?

[Proverbial Jon]

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.

Remedy talked about this a few times saying that the mo-cap actor Ilkka Vili and the voice actor Matthew poretta had really hard time getting the character "together" so to say. they never even met in person or anything.

But yeah AW had crap lipsync

Suomi on mutten vaikee kieli että älä siinä syyttele.

I don't know anything about the technical side of Alan Wake's animation so perhaps I was being a little unfair. Besides, AW isn't the first (or last) game to have poor lipsync it was just the first one I pulled out the bag! Being a current gen game I was just surprised they let it ship when the sync still looked so poor. Surely there must have been some sort of manual tweaks they could have performed that would have helped.

Halo 3 was another one that shocked me, there was some truly awful lip movement in that game, especially for Commander Miranda Keyes.

I also meant no offence to the people of Finland!

 

[Truniron]

- Getting to little or none information about my next destination.
- Too many puzzles.
- Gaming communities (no, seriously)
- Too easy games.

 

[zeit]

Peter Molyneux.

 

[krazykidd]

Honestly? Nothing . No gamplay elements grind my gears to the point that i will stop playing it half way. Sure there are things i dislike , but unless the entire game is bad , i persevere .

 

[darkcalling]

There's never been any one thing that turned me off a game halfway through. Couple things have come close though. Like the moment I realized Dead Island was never balanced for single player.

Any game that touts "realism" either in art style or gameplay as a selling point often loses my interest quickly. I get enough realism in my real life thanks.

Boring combat. I'm looking at you Skyrim. Great game. Interesting world to explore. Combat that brings dull to new levels. Hack slash block, fireball, shout, repeat.

No combat. Hate to say it and I'm sure I'm missing out on some great stuff but I play games to destress and for that I need some kind of physical challenge. Unless it's something like Tetris.

 

[Mad Maniac with axe-firing chainsaw]

Anything which involves stumbling around not knowing where the heck I am supposed to go. I'm not a fan of mindless searching for what to do next. So needless to say Silent Hill isn't my cup of tea, even with the excellent storytelling. Sandbox games are also a pain in this sense depending on the game; Saints Row 2 concentrates it enough that I'm always occupied and can find something new to do. Oblivion just made me feel lost.

Random elements. No I do not want to see my magnificent army I built up carefully in Heroes of Might and Magic 2 get eviscerated by some mage who stumbled upon the chain lightning spell. That makes me want to burn things. Specifically, my game disc. I love HOMM, but there are moments where I feel like the game has stepped on me in a very mean-spirited fashion.

Dull and dreary landscapes. Call me childish if you like, but I prefer bright and shiny worlds. It doesn't have to be cartoon-land; I love games like Total War and Halo. But don't present me with dreary environments. Nothing sucks the life out of a game like walking around in a colourless world devoid of variety.

 

[Grey Day for Elcia]

[HEADING=2]Bad controls.[/HEADING]​

No matter how amazing the game is supposed to be, bad controls that I can't change cause me to immediately exit out and uninstall.

 

[gigastar]

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.

Pretty much this. Also you could try playing in offline mode, or if you want to stay online you could just exit the game whenever someone invades your world.

 

[Starik20X6]

I don't play many RPGs. But when I do, I seem to always hit a wall that stops me from playing. It's usually a boss fight that's too powerful for me to beat, but was so difficult to reach that I don't want to leave and go level grinding.

It doesn't ruin the game for me, but it always is the point where my otherwise unbroken streak of playing that one game comes to an abrupt and lengthy halt.

 

[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.

Pretty much this. Also you could try playing in offline mode, or if you want to stay online you could just exit the game whenever someone invades your world.

It's not that I get invaded all the time it's that I can't do it. I thought it could be a really cool feature but I pretty much cannot use it at all since everyone has just gotten some end game weapon. I was hoping to play a little bit of it as I play through but it seems that I need to complete the game then look up guides on how to not have fun online before I can even try PvP.

 

[gigastar]

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.

Pretty much this. Also you could try playing in offline mode, or if you want to stay online you could just exit the game whenever someone invades your world.

It's not that I get invaded all the time it's that I can't do it. I thought it could be a really cool feature but I pretty much cannot use it at all since everyone has just gotten some end game weapon. I was hoping to play a little bit of it as I play through but it seems that I need to complete the game then look up guides on how to not have fun online before I can even try PvP.

Possibly you could try joining the Gravelord Servant [http://darksoulswiki.wikispaces.com/Gravelord+Servant] covenant, its not especially late-game and it brings people to you, meaning you get a home advantage. Plus you get quite a nice sword from it too.

 

[Griever]

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.

Yes exactly! Someone read the post haha xD

 

[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.

Pretty much this. Also you could try playing in offline mode, or if you want to stay online you could just exit the game whenever someone invades your world.

It's not that I get invaded all the time it's that I can't do it. I thought it could be a really cool feature but I pretty much cannot use it at all since everyone has just gotten some end game weapon. I was hoping to play a little bit of it as I play through but it seems that I need to complete the game then look up guides on how to not have fun online before I can even try PvP.

Possibly you could try joining the Gravelord Servant [http://darksoulswiki.wikispaces.com/Gravelord+Servant] covenant, its not especially late-game and it brings people to you, meaning you get a home advantage. Plus you get quite a nice sword from it too.

I don't think im far enough. Im still in Andor Londo, I got annoyed at the gargoyle things and the archers and decided to give the game a small break. However I then started enjoying Skyrim again, as well as playing more League of legends so I haven't gone back to it yet. I will eventully but I doubt i'll even bother with PvP, it just seemed like such a crappy griefing fest.

 

[johnnnny guitar]

Hmmm well if the plot of a game is something I find laughably bad i.e. killzone 2 then I will not even bother finishing the campain.

Useless fucking gameplay editions I found this while playing the turret sections on mass effect 3 my god there was even this one bit where you hope in a turret for no reason when trying to escape a reaper and you don't even have to shoot a single fucking bullet what is the point I mean the chase lasted about 30 seconds did shooting help bring in the "Call of Duty audience" engagement into the scene.

Annoying characters my fucking god I'm not going to bring up Killzone 2 again (it had horrible Protaginist BTW) but another example would be pretty much anyone of the characters in dragon age 2 (except kinda varric) but my god I had the brother party member and had to be one of the most annoying people ever in a bioware game right next to jessica chobots charater my god did they just get her to stand in a room and read lines like a 6 year old on purpose terrible never let her set foot on the ship.

 

[gigastar]

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.

Pretty much this. Also you could try playing in offline mode, or if you want to stay online you could just exit the game whenever someone invades your world.

It's not that I get invaded all the time it's that I can't do it. I thought it could be a really cool feature but I pretty much cannot use it at all since everyone has just gotten some end game weapon. I was hoping to play a little bit of it as I play through but it seems that I need to complete the game then look up guides on how to not have fun online before I can even try PvP.

Possibly you could try joining the Gravelord Servant [http://darksoulswiki.wikispaces.com/Gravelord+Servant] covenant, its not especially late-game and it brings people to you, meaning you get a home advantage. Plus you get quite a nice sword from it too.

I don't think im far enough. Im still in Andor Londo, I got annoyed at the gargoyle things and the archers and decided to give the game a small break. However I then started enjoying Skyrim again, as well as playing more League of legends so I haven't gone back to it yet. I will eventully but I doubt i'll even bother with PvP, it just seemed like such a crappy griefing fest.

On the contrary if youve reached Anor Londo then with a decent divine weapon then you can nearly breeze to joining the covenant.

And if PvP isnt your cup of tea after all, theres always the option of joining the Sunbro's and engaging in some jolly cooperation.

 

[Evil Alpaca]

Starcraft II ruined the last mission for me because they decided to up the difficulty by making Kerrigan just spam her overpowered skills. I get that its the final level and she should be tough, but her instant-kill any unit in one hit spell means that you don't build any of the higher tier units. It kinda sucks when you have been building up your forces the whole game and then in order to beat the last mission, you don't use any of the battlecruisers, siege tanks, or thors against her.

What makes it particularly upsetting is that there already was a survival mission done with the protoss (its an optional mission) that did that sort of mission right. You had access to the whole Protoss build spectrum and you had build a wide selection of units to win.

While it didn't ruin the game, it did mean that when I beat it, I didn't feel a sense of accomplishment

Spoiler: My strategy

My winning strategy was to build planetary fortresses as your main defense since they are immune to most of kerrigan's abilities.

I felt like I won because I exploited a game mechanic rather than actually employing a real strategy.

 

[Bato]

A stupid premise.

So there I am, enjoying the shit out of Condemned Criminal Origins. Then over skype one of my buddies says

Spoiler

"You know that the second half of the second game is nothing but cultists and evil magic right?"

I tried playing the game over the next level but the thought of the overarching plot just bothered the crap out of me. They removed all mystery from the game, and explained it in a stupid way. No matter what you do you can never explain these sorts of things in a way that will live up to our imagination.
I couldn't play it anymore.

 

[Shoggoth2588]

For the OP: I hated The Flood. ODST and, Reach are my favorite Halo titles because of their complete lack of Flood.

For whatever reason, it took me a long while to get through Dragon Age 2. It turned into a hack-n-slash and while I generally like those kinds of games, it felt really weird for me. Maybe it was because it was so heavily marketed as a hardcore RPG but Dragon Age 2 just didn't feel or, play like an RPG to me. Also it annoyed me that only 2 of the characters you could have in your party were genuinely likable and one of them was sent away for being a mage.

Saint's Row the Third doing the computer mission. NEVER USE LAG AS A GAME-PLAY MECHANIC YOU FUCKERS. Also the QTE fighting sections were bull-crap as for many of them you don't have enough time to see what needs to be pressed and some time the game doesn't recognize that you tapped one of the buttons.

edit for more grievances

As many have stated: bad controls. Predator on the NES has some shitty platforming but the controls are loose enough so as to make the game challenging in a cheap way. I beat that one out of spite (and to ride da scorpion). As many others have stated: bad camera. This is mainly why I'm having trouble getting into Super Mario 64 and other N64 platformers.

The big thing for me though that made me come back is when a game will be advertised with something but once it's out, you discover that thing is locked behind an online pass. Arkham City trumped up Catwoman as a playable character in the PS3 and 360 version for a few weeks or, months before release but right before release it was discovered that you had to put in an online pass to use her at all. I can get online fine with my PC but my systems really can't connect to the internet so this struck me as a slap in the face and I know people who primarily buy used must have also felt a bit pissed by that revelation.