You know, I still like a lot new games, but...

[TheMann]

I am still surprised that Half Life 2 manages to have better FPS mechanics then 90% of shooters released in the last 8 years.

I was pissed when they showed the bioshock 3 gameplay and it had a fing two weapon limit, the first one didn't, WHY did they change it? WWWWHHHHYYYY?

I fully agree about Half Life 2. Some people don't understand that this is the reason why a lot of us are so rabid about Half Life 3/HL2: Ep. 3 being released. It was awesome and we want more of that.

As far as Bioshock Infinite, there is actually a very good reason why they went with the two weapon system. Ken Levine actually discussed it in-depth as many people were confused about this choice. Basically, the problem he and Irrational noticed while watching gameplay of Bioshock, was that players were falling victim to Complacent Gaming Syndrome. [http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ComplacentGamingSyndrome] (Please don't kill me for linking to tvtropes.) Basically they found that when the player character had access to all the weapons and ammunition types, players would upgrade one weapon and use that almost exclusively for the rest of the game, while the devs intended for gamers to get creative with weapon and plasmid use.

Spoiler: This webcomic sums it up, even using Bioshock as the example.

Irrational changed this to make it so the players will have to think on their feet regarding the weapons they have available in the environment. Even the plasmids now have limited usage before they're just gone, so you'll have to be judicious with their use depending on the situation at hand. Maybe I'm biased because I'm practically drooling in anticipation over this game, but I think it'll work in this particular scenario.

I think that the worst recent implementation of the two-weapon system might be Duke Nukem Forever. Remember how cool Duke 3D was? You had your staple weapons like the shotgun, chaingun and rocket launcher, but you also had fun situational weapons like the shrink and freeze ray. These were impractical to use en-mass, but it was great to whip it out now and again to squash or shatter a baddie. In DNF, if you want to use a fun weapon, you're forced to abandon one of your more practical ones. Duke should be able to carry 50 guns if he wants to because, well, he's Duke. Even the PC version expanding it to four weapons didn't help with the game's un-Duke-y feel. (Oh, and Captain Obvious is telling me it kinda sucked anyway.)

I like how Borderlands does it. You can only equip 2-4 weapons depending on your level, but you can carry a shitload of them and swap them out as necessary.

Oh, and I can't stand waist high barriers that keep me in the playing area. I understand that developers can't make infinite levels, but when the "wall" is a concrete divider that's not even as tall as my character, and I know that in real life I could easily hop over the thing, it feels like bullshit and annoys me quite a bit.

 

[newdarkcloud]

This is the stupidest thing ever, but I hate when games throw me in dark places for no good reason. Not because I'm afraid of the dark, but because I just can't fucking navigate when the game does that. This goes double for when the dark area in question looks homogeneous. Very few things in video games cause me to flip my shit in quite the same way.

 

[Angry_squirrel]

Multiplayer when it really isn't necessary.
Cod clones

 

[octafish]

Achievements. Fine, I get that some people, soft headed fools mostly, seem to like them. I don't, how about letting me turn that shit off in the options ok?

I... what? Turn them off in the options? Achievements are by their very nature optional, unless they're the story achievements that you unlock simply by progressing through the game. And "soft headed fools?" Really? For enjoying side challenges?

I don't care if they are there or not, just stop telling me about them. They are annoying, distracting, and immersion killers.

 

[Sean Hollyman]

I hate motion blur, unskippable cutscenes, and more

 

[dessertmonkeyjk]

I know it looks cool but it's not like every single video game character in existance wears/has a camera on them.

 

[Beautiful End]

That most games today have the screen get either
A) Red
B) Dark
C) Covered in splashes of red Kool-aid or
D) All of the above

When you're about to die.

Oh god. That Kool-Aid part made me spit my Dr. Pepper all over my keyboard. Props to you, sir.

-Tiny font. Seriously, developers. There are still people out there with 32 in. SDTVs out there. Believe me, it's not a myth.

Have you played Prototype? The menu font's unreadable even on an HDTV. Yeah, it's tiny, which should be corrected when playing in an HD resolution, but it's made even worse because it's DARK RED TEXT ON A FUCKING BLACK BACKGROUND. Seriously, if I wasn't playing on an HDTV that was 2 feet from my face, I would barely be able to read that shit. I've played in SD on a 50 inch TV at one point, too. It really is as bad as I'm making it out to be.

OT: I also hate games like CoD, not only for their obvious health regen or weapon limit problems, but also for a zoomed sniper rifle swaying naturally unless you steady it using L3 or some shit. There are a number of problems with this:

First, I'm a heavy sniper rifle user in most FPS games I play, including some classic FPSs. I need pinpoint aim with that thing if the game is fast paced like Unreal Tournament (thankfully, UT has never actually used this mechanic). Yeah, no-scoping works just fine, but at long range it becomes extremely ineffective for a one-hit kill solution.

Second, L3 is a ***** to press if I'm playing a console FPS like CoD. I remember one time when I played against my brother in Black Ops, and he wrecked my shit with the sniper rifle while I had trouble holding down L3 while lining up my shot. It just seems so unnatural and counter-intuitive to have to hold down a stick/button that doesn't see much use in the first place.

FFFFF-- well, I guess I'll never play Prototype. :l

Yeah, I recall Dragon Age doing that to me. The first offender was Modnation Racers. I always thought it was the game's fault (And it kinda is), but then I realized it happened with every game. I mean, we're not asking for font size 48 in Helvetica. Just something more legible.

And that sniper rifle stabilizer with L3? Not even. I know which one you're talking about. I remember trying that and then my finger would slip because I was trying to both press L3 and aim at the guy's head. So when my finger slid off, I'd end up shooting at the sky, over and over again.

 

[Beautiful End]

Achievements. Fine, I get that some people, soft headed fools mostly, seem to like them. I don't, how about letting me turn that shit off in the options ok?

I... what? Turn them off in the options? Achievements are by their very nature optional, unless they're the story achievements that you unlock simply by progressing through the game. And "soft headed fools?" Really? For enjoying side challenges?

I don't care if they are there or not, just stop telling me about them. They are annoying, distracting, and immersion killers.

Ehh...I kinda agree with this. I get achievements are optional and all by default. But they're supposed to be like some sort of side quests. You finished the game? Did you collect all pieces of that mysterious puzzle? No? Well, you could do that too. You finished that? How about starting the game again on a higher difficulty? It could be quite the challenge.
I get all that. But I personally dislike is when you get trophies for...I don't know, turning on the console? Watching a cutscene? Jumping? How is that challenging? How is that a reward? I didn't even do anything special yet.

The perfect achievement/trophy would only pop up when you do something amazing, something you wouldn't normally do, something that perhaps the game doesn't require you to do but you went out of your league in order to accomplish it. When you ACHIEVE a challenge, like he said.
The other day, I was playing Gotham City Impostors and I killed like 10 people in a row without dying the entire match. I had never done that before. I was proud. I was even more happy when I got a trophy for it. That is what I wanna see. I don't want games to patronize me by just giving achievements/trophies away. I want to feel challenged.

Loading Screens (I like how Max Payne 3 did it, but show a progress bar at least)

Yeah, this is very minimal but I'd like to see that too. I've had games that usually take a moderate amount of time to load/save. When said game freezes for whatever reason, I can't tell if it's loading or not...and should I turn it off right now? Or wait? Because, you know, you can't turn it off while it's saving? But did it stop saving already or what? if it had a bar, at least I could tell it's either done saving or loading reaaaaaally slow. Then I could either be more patient or reset the game.

Yeah, great point.

 

[BreakfastMan]

Dumbing down, hand holding (you could make another list from these 2 alone), graphics over gameplay, QTEs, over use of cinematics, choices without true consequences, lack of challenge, EMOTIONAL ENGAGEMENTS..

Next time you post in a thread, can you read the OP and actually make a post related to the discussion at hand? Common courtesy and all that? kthnxbai

 

[NerfedFalcon]

While I agree in coop games, MOBA and TDM are NOT coop games. They are competitive games. As such teamwork isn't all that important. Murderizing anyone not on your team is.

Trust me - without at least saying "bot MIA" once in a while, you're never going to win a single game of League.

 

[Colodomoko]

I remember back in the day when everything was so simple and video games were video games. Each one had their own unique genre and, good or bad, most were still a lot of fun to play. Nowadays the mainstream market is over-saturated with painfully average sequels and remakes of games that have not reason being remade that all either resemble mere shadows of their former selves, blatantly rip off from other bland games, and/or blend together into some multi-genre mess with no identity falsely trying to be something it's not. The main reason for this is money, pure and simple greed plaguing most publishers and even some developers, in fact they probably have so much of it that it's the only reason we are seeing games like this, even some that nobody wanted in the first place. That is not to say however that we are without our fun games; most indie developers are starting to shine and there are still some dedicated developers out there either under the radar, in the mainstream, and even in between that still make games that are either good or bad, but none the less still fun. That said I think games nowadays are over priced and even those developers who have games that are worth getting deserve at most $40 dollars for a one in a thousand some-what original game depending on story, game-play, and however many hours I spend playing it and/or if there is replay-ability. As for those pointlessly average cash-cows I have decided to boycott them, don't care if I'm the only person who is doing this, but someone has to take a stand.

All that said, I would like to ask if anybody thinks it's a good idea to start up a boycott thread? Everyone can list off the companies they want to boycott and why.

 

[bafrali]

Worst offender for me is dumbing down previously deep and complex franchises for a wider audience.It is like making summary of a classic for retards to read.

 

[TrevHead]

Bad pacing and flow in games, if I had to pick a game that to me typifies bad game design imo it would have to be Gears of War to be specific the 2nd game, i've no intention of playing the others, life is too short.

Nearly every enemy is a bullet sponge not just bosses, mid bosses and elites
AI that ducks behind cover a bit too much
Crap weapons that have a wide bullet spread so it feels ineffective, made worse with no headshots
Slow movement which in itself is annoying but imo breaks the very idea of melee speed kills.

Another pacing issue I have trouble with is many battle systems in JRPGs and the reason I tend to detest playing so many of them especially the traditional JRPG battle system. Its just so needlessly slow, with long transitions, PCs and especially the enemies that enact their moves in a painfully slow manor.

In fact anything that needlessly wastes my time and slows down the game makes me want to kill kittens. Like FF13's menu system which I had to use all the time to rebalance my team when the battles get harder (I liked the battle system btw)

Unskippable cutscenes - I've just finished Star Ocean 4 and having to listen to Edge make his vomit inducing speeches wasn't fun


Non rebindable controls especially in console games. I have an arcade stick it would be nice if I could use it with more games. Castle Crashers springs to mind, block is RT and there's a slight delay between pressing the trigger button and it registering, not ideal because the enemy attacks are fast and aren't telegraphed like Bayonetta which has black mappped to RT aswell

Also add just how badly most games scale difficulty which makes a game that can be well paced and balanced but sadly too easy affair, to be badly balanced and paced game that's just frustrating and tedious or cheap

 

[Irridium]

Head bobbing. It does not add to the game, it does not make me feel more connected to the character, it does not improve immersion at all.

It's fucking annoying, and it really needs to stop being put in games. Or at the very least give the option to turn it the fuck off.

 

[Lugbzurg]

Have you played Prototype? The menu font's unreadable even on an HDTV. Yeah, it's tiny, which should be corrected when playing in an HD resolution, but it's made even worse because it's DARK RED TEXT ON A FUCKING BLACK BACKGROUND.

I've got it on PC, with a smaller screen, and I have never had any such problem.
This is either a problem with the console version, or your setup.

Anyway, I have to say that I really rather dislike constant cutscenes that do not entertain, nor, move the story along, and, instead, just take their sweet time pointing out something that was right in front of you that could have just done whatever while the gameplay was still running!

I hate that! I'm also getting annoyed with how it's taking longer and longer to start a game. You have to go through menus, logins, warnings, loadings, credits, and all this stuff, before you can even get to the main menu. What once about took five seconds takes around five minutes.

There's games telling you to "Buy DLC" (and actually use those words exactly like that), and slapping in quick-time events with no warning, whatsoever (despite the fact that they're so much disliked), I'm tired of regenerating health, random cover systems, characters blowing the F-Bomb every 20 seconds like it's on their word-of-the-day calendar (and EVERYONE is using the exact same calendar), the protagonist treating everyone around him like dirt and being so angry all the time for no reason while everyone around him just puts up with it, severe lack of diversity (in more ways than one), infinite lives, infinite ammo, programming that has the game actually play itself for you, badly-placed realism and dedgyark styles, doing the same thing and having so many things look the same as other things by other companies, DRM, most motion controls, cameras that take way too long to turn around, cameras that automagically point at something happening since the animators want you to know they made whatever, jiggle physics, sex armor, lack of customization and content filters, all-brown or all-gray environments, trying to "broaden the demographic" by putting in stupid things that the target audience doesn't even like, that less and less interaction often comes into view, jump-out-boo stuff somehow qualifying as "horror", stiff NPCs, so-called "low-res" graphics settings still not low enough for a Windows 7 computer that wasn't built specifically for high-end game-playing, only being able to carry two guns (which isn't just under-powering, but, also, unrealistic), foolish takedown/cut-throat competitions between developers out to do the same exact thing, and just an overall lack of fun. Seriously, we're at the point where "Fun" seems to be a rare selling-point for videogames.

 

[ultrachicken]

Unskippable cutscenes. There is absolutely no reason whatsoever for these to exist. All they do is hamper replayability. Bonus points if they're placed right before a tough fight.

So much this. It's one of the many reasons why I gave up on Halo ODST. On top of the levels alternating between irritating and boring, half of them were fetch quests in pitch dark. So on top of hardly being able to see anyway because of the dark, when I get shot, my screen turns progressively darker and darker red, so I can see even less. So annoying.

You do know that you had a night vision mode that also highlighted enemies, right?

 

[scorptatious]

Film Grain.

Who really wants their HD game to look grainy?

I actually liked film grain in the Mass Effect games. Especially in the first one. I felt it added to the game's atmosphere.

OT: Probably small text. Not everyone has an HD TV you know!