When you lost the 'willing' part from willing suspension of disbelief

[Avalanche91]

Dragon Age 2: Why are all these murderers so suicidal that they'd attempt to take down a guy who killed the fucking Arishok in single combat? You KNOW this guy killed stronger foes then you before breakfast, so why even bother?

It may not seem like a big deal, but by the third act it really got on my tits

Legend of Zelda; Skyward Sword: To prove that I am the fucking hero of legend, you have me swim in a submerged forest collecting fish.........

 

[The Wykydtron]

Well I found the character of Nathan Drake to be absolutely ridiculous towards the end of Uncharted 3. He survives so much shit that should have killed him hours ago. He escapes a sinking ship while fighting dudes, gets ONE hour of sleep, falls out of a plane while fighting dudes, trecks through a desert without water for ages then fights more dudes on horseback. It's just STUPID!

I'm all for people surviving stuff when it fits with the game but Drake is not fucking Master Chief for fucks sake! The entire game is built around humans being ordinary humans but more athletic and that's fine but randomly giving Drake the God Mode hack is silly and out of place

You are aware that there are humans out there who have survived shit like that, and have endured much more physically demanding things right?

There are people who have escaped a sinking ship while getting shot and beaten up, fallen out of a plane (while getting shot again) then immediately go on a huge desert trek with zero water to speak of all within the same 24 hours? Wow that's some feat Mister God Mode!

Sorry but I don't buy it, Drake doesn't strike me as the kind of guy who has that proper never die mentality or indeed character trait in general. Yet it happens anyway.

Anyway, why is that relevant? This is a video game right? I can poke holes in a game's extremely unlikely coincidences and character actions all I want thank you very much. I dunno why real life people have to be factored into it.

 

[bificommander]

Hah, yeah, silent protagonists can get weird. My personal pet pieve is actually one of the best liked examples, Half Life 2. Most of the story progression and dialogue is acceptable. But when by the end of vanilla HL2 Alyx was just so obviously falling for you, it got weird. Alyx was actually the one who made the "you're a man of few words, aren't you" gag, so we know Gordon isn't like Link where it's implied that he really is speaking. Alyx was a cool character, and it just took me right out of the story when she developed a massive crush on a guy who hasn't said a word to her.

 

[TrulyBritish]

Another example would be Bioshock... Why aren't any of the NPCs or regular enemies resurrected by the Vita Chambers?

There's an audio log (that I guess you didn't find) where Dr. Suchong was talking about how IMPOSSIBLE it is to bring a man back from the dead but he still has to test it because it's his job and the log ends with Suchong saying that the Vita-Chambers will be tuned to Andrew Ryan's DNA for the testing.
The idea was that the character you played was Ryan's illegitimate son.

Oh! Well there you have it then. This is a very good reason why it dosen't pay to let yourself get worked up by these kinds of issues because it's always highly likely there was perfectly good explanation all along that that you just happened to miss.

Doesn't that mean that Andrew Ryan should have been resurrected as well though?

Oh, heh, I never thought of that, that's a good point.
The best I can think of is that Fontaine sabotaged the Vita-Chambers to bring JUST YOU back to life. He was trying to steal the city from Ryan and YOU were the instrument for doing so, after all.
Yeah, that doesn't sound THAT good but that's the best I got.

The supposed reason they give for Ryan not coming back to life is that apparently the Vita Chamber in his office was switched off (Presumably as Ryan was trying to destroy his own city he switched it off himself or whatever) and because he wasn't near a Vita Chamber when he died he can't be resurrected.
Still pretty loose.

 

[Epic Fail 1977]

Each of these games have multiple facedesk moments but in each case I've simply listed the first one (you never forget the first one).

Mass Effect 2
The Lazarus Project. Nuff said.

Skyrim
Balgruuf: I need your help again my friend. I want you to go with Irileth and help fight this dragon. You survived Helgen, so you have more experience with dragons than anyone else here.
Me: Er, listen "friend", we only just met an hour ago. An hour before that I owned nothing but some rags. I can barely take on a wolf let alone a fucking dragon. I have "more experience than anyone else here" at running away from dragons.

Tomb Raider (2013)
Me: Um, Lara? You have a hole in your colon. Just sayin.

Bioshock
Hey what's this glowing syringe for? I've no idea, so I'll inject it straight into my bloodstream and see what happens!

Dead Space
Hammond: Isaac, go check the control panel in the next room.
Me: [walks into room] Oh wow, this room is drenched in blood! Isaac I think you should tell your colleagues. Isaac?
Oh. Silent protagonist.
/facedesk

Dishonored
Lord Regent: Yes! He's killed the Empress!
Me: Say you didn't. Tell them what happened Corvo. Corvo?
Oh. Silent protagonist.
/facedesk

 

[snappydog]

Another example would be Bioshock... Why aren't any of the NPCs or regular enemies resurrected by the Vita Chambers?

The idea was that the character you played was Ryan's illegitimate son.

Doesn't that mean that Andrew Ryan should have been resurrected as well though?

Oh, heh, I never thought of that, that's a good point.
The best I can think of is that Fontaine sabotaged the Vita-Chambers to bring JUST YOU back to life. He was trying to steal the city from Ryan and YOU were the instrument for doing so, after all.
Yeah, that doesn't sound THAT good but that's the best I got.

The Vita-Chamber in Ryan's office is switched off, which according to the wiki he did intentionally. I call bullshit though, why not just revive at the nearest one outside his office?

EDIT: Got ninja'd on that one. If you can call missing a post from an hour ago getting ninja'd.

OP: Much as I love Kingdom Hearts, Sora being able to slice through skyscrapers with a tap of Triangle but not do anything similar during non-Reaction gameplay was a 'huh?' moment.

 

[idarkphoenixi]

I'm willing to give games a lot more leeway than movies. If it's a game I like I will do my best to suspend my disbelief.

The problem mostly comes when the developer starts prodding me for more money, regardless of if I paid for the damn game already. Unsurprisingly, EA has been a big culprit.

Tried playing ToR and I couldn't even use the species I wanted with the character class I wanted without paying them even more money (this is regardless of being a subscriber or not). I paid for the fucking species but then I wanted to give the RP servers a try - well guess what? - You need to pay for that species AGAIN if you move to another server. Other than the constant money-grubbing ToR was a good game.

Dragon Age was also a ***** to get into. Remember that guy hanging around your camp who's only purpose is to flog DLC at you? How about when you finish ME3 only to get a small message prompting you to pay for more adventures?

I would say that glitches do it too but I'm usually very forgiving when it comes to that stuff. Unless it's particularly bad.

 

[Vault Citizen]

Another example would be Bioshock... Why aren't any of the NPCs or regular enemies resurrected by the Vita Chambers?

There's an audio log (that I guess you didn't find) where Dr. Suchong was talking about how IMPOSSIBLE it is to bring a man back from the dead but he still has to test it because it's his job and the log ends with Suchong saying that the Vita-Chambers will be tuned to Andrew Ryan's DNA for the testing.
The idea was that the character you played was Ryan's illegitimate son.

Oh! Well there you have it then. This is a very good reason why it dosen't pay to let yourself get worked up by these kinds of issues because it's always highly likely there was perfectly good explanation all along that that you just happened to miss.

Doesn't that mean that Andrew Ryan should have been resurrected as well though?

I can't remember my source for thinking this so ale it with a pinch of salt but I think that Andrew Ryan turned his vita chamber off.

 

[Darquenaut]

A lot of Darksiders 2, really. I mean, I'm playing as DEATH. As in, the four horsemen DEATH. And apparently Death is incapable of certain tasks like scaling a wall that is literally six inches above his head or squeezing through iron bars that he should easily be able to do with minimal effort.

Also, for some reason I really couldn't stand the natives in Far Cry 3, esp. after I clear a base. Spend fifteen minutes hiding on a cliffside taking out guards with a sniper rifle without raising an alarm, and then the natives roll in, going all "Who's the man? ME?!" No, you're the asshat that was sitting in a car down the road eating a goddamn sandwich. Make sure to protect this place from the Emus, okay?

And of course, the Assassin's Creed games, if only for the fact that I'm supposed to be some kind of stealthy assassin and yet I'm the only person in the entire city (whether it be Rome, Florence, Constantinople, of the colonies) running around in a white, hooded number. Sure.

 

[Vegosiux]

Dragon Age 2: Why are all these murderers so suicidal that they'd attempt to take down a guy who killed the fucking Arishok in single combat? You KNOW this guy killed stronger foes then you before breakfast, so why even bother?

Least this one gets lampshaded a game earlier. "And people attack you voluntarily? What are they, stupid, or something?"

The new Tomb Raider game.

After about the 10th time that whatever Lara's standing on decides to go "fuck you" and collapse, setting in motion a series of events that serve NO purpose whatsoever other than to BEAT THE LIVING SHIT out of Ms. Croft, I kind of got to the point where I was going "wow, a whole ten minutes without me jumping at something and it collapsing!"

Ah yes, "convenient inconvenience". We cannot dismiss that claim. It's all too prevalent and serves only to annoy.

 

[J Tyran]

How people live in Tamriel in The Elder Scrolls, its just such a lethal place to live. Want to visit you family in the next village? No chance, you are going to be bitten by a vampire, half eaten by trolls and a necromancer is going to make off with your nekkid corpse (bandits took your clothes).

Well, to be fair, if you're some low level chump you'll somehow only get attacked by wolves, goblins and bandits, which is perfectly reasonable and not strange in any way whatsoever. (Going by Oblivion here, never played Skyrim)

So, on that note, the way enemies scaled to you in Oblivion. Suddenly every 2 bit bandit is rockin ebony armour and weapons and goblins are tougher than daedra.

Maybe if they'd put some story elements into it I could have ignored it, say the bandits were loosely organised rather than individual groups and had managed to hijack a shipment of armour & weapons or some other in world justification for it, IDK, being supplied by agents of the Mythic Dawn in order to cause trouble. Get sent on a quest to stop it and bandits lose their fancy equipment when they re spawn after being killed, something like that. Super goblins are utter bullshit to me though.

Same happened in Skyrim to an extent, you ended up having to fight super Drauger death master lords that did more DPS and had more HP than Dragons.

Mass Effect 2
The Lazarus Project. Nuff said.

That was the lowest point in the series for me, even worse than the Star Child. There where so many other things they could have done to take Shep out of the picture for a bit before reintroducing him. He could have been very badly wounded picked up by the Collectors but managed to escape and got found by the Illusive man, he could have got into an escape pod but got captured by pirates and rescued by Cerberus. They could even have had it that the Normandy got attacked and destroyed and then Shep lost patience with the Council and Alliance and was approached by Cerberus after being ignored again because they refused to believe the Collectors where a threat.