What Ruins a Game For You?

[Johann610]

Sudden gameplay changes: In Super Paper Mario, you experience a block-puzzle (okay) that can only be solved with a typing simulator! In Wild 9, you have to "carry something fragile"! In Return to Castle Wolfenstein (and No One Lives Forever*), it's instant-fail stealth levels! In Mystical Ninja 64, it's Impact, the glitchy bug-ridden FP-fisticuffs robot!
If I spent the game developing a style of play, why the hell are you taking it away and making me re-learn, from scratch, how to play!

*Technically does not count, because I just cheated and moved on.

Any grind of repetitive, pointless action over 3 days long: The reason Zynga can F.O.A.D.

 

[marobidoux]

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.

This. I always end up following a little dot on the map or compass instead of exploring and enjoying the scenery...

For the same reason, I think Fast Travel kinda ruins the game for me. Just having the option to teleport from quest to quest ruins my experience.

I never, EVER understood this. If you don't like it...

DON'T USE IT

Like I said earlier, I'm not against all forms of fast travel. It's just that I'd prefer it to be integrated to the game world instead of simply being a teleport button to anywhere. Also, I don't mind showing major quest locations with a marker on the map, but if I'm supposed to search for something or someone in a medieval or low-tech environment, I don't expect to be assisted by UAVs and laser targetting.

I'd love to turn off the compass, but unfortunately I can't. So I'm stuck playing hide and seek with a GPS telling me where everybody is, whether I like it or not.

 

[ThePenguinKnight]

Grinding.
Lack of story.
Forced love interest.

 

[Nazulu]

Millions of things can go wrong. Most common I've found is crappy controls, poor dialogue, too much dialogue or too many cinematics, lack of different challenges and not challenging enough.

 

[DeathSwitch109]

Under...water...levels...

Unless it has this song

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7boeDmPBZX8

Then I'm getting mad while listening to a relaxing score...kind of counter intuitive. =P

Edit: Oh and escort quests. RE4 felt like one big escort quest but it was fitting, a cheap way to add suspense but it made sense. Plus you can tell Ashley to hide in a dumpster.

 

[malestrithe]

Not knowing where the story is. That was my problem with Oblivion and Skyrim. I kept playing, but often times I seem to skip parts of the story.

 

[Clive Howlitzer]

The number 1 thing that will put me off a game before anything else is poor controls and the inability to rebind controls to whatever I want. No matter how good everything else is, I have to use those controls ALL game and even something tiny is going to eventually drive me insane. This most often comes up with lazy ports to PC that bind 30 things to 1 key and won't let me change it.

 

[arnoldthebird]

Poor game play. If I don't like what I am doing, I have no interest in everything around me.

And PC games that don't allow you to reassign keys, what is the point if you can't personalise?

 

[Grivahri]

Skyrim

Boring characters that you don't care about.