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Little things that ruin otherwise good games

Timmo

By Timmo
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Timmo

Timmo

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Posted

Tell me to shut my big fat stupid face before kicking me in the balls, piledriving me through a table, punching me in the neck, picking me up then throwing me off a dam if this has been done before, but I'm not aware of it.

I'm talking about little things, small parts... that magnify and grate and ruin - or almost ruin - an otherwise lovely game. A couple from me and then we can all start arguing and it'll keep going until someone cries or it falls of the page or whatever.

God of War

I'm not a huge fan of God of War, but I definitely enjoyed it for the most part. It was damn... slick, you know what I mean? The battles were so dynamic. You could feel Kratos' power. Now I'm not going to talk about the infamous bit at the end with the poles or something - heck I didn't even get that far. I'm going to talk about a couple of the awful "puzzley" sections that I did see. Kicking a box towards a wall so you can climb up, only for it to be repeatedly destroyed by enemies. Freezing an enemy over a button in order to progress, only for the door to be slightly further away than the freeze time. Then - the bit I gave up on - pushing a man up a hill whilst being repeatedly attacked by respawning enemies. Just get lost, God of War. "Design Brief: Let's make a great combat game and to bulk it out a bit let's put infuriating sections in that take loads of tries."

F.E.A.R.

Not game ruining, but a stupid decision if you ask me. It's showing its age, but F.E.A.R. is an atmospheric, solid shooter. The A.I. is great and I never seem to get bored of shooting the same enemies. So what am I referring to? The health/reflex boosters. Wholly unnecessary, the game can easily be completed without getting a single of either. But what player wouldn't go out their way to find them? F.E.A.R. is as on rails as these games get, and yet it chooses to have these boosters hidden away, causing the player to look in every nook and cranny, distracting greatly from the atmosphere. There are obvious arguments: don't get them then, they're good for a second playthrough etc. but for me they break the atmosphere and fluidity an absurd amount.

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Cyhwuhx

Cyhwuhx

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Tell me to shut my big fat stupid face before kicking me in the balls, piledriving me through a table, punching me in the neck, picking me up then throwing me off a dam if this has been done before, but I'm not aware of it.

I'm talking about little things, small parts... that magnify and grate and ruin - or almost ruin - an otherwise lovely game. A couple from me and then we can all start arguing and it'll keep going until someone cries or it falls of the page or whatever.

God of War

I'm not a huge fan of God of War, but I definitely enjoyed it for the most part. It was damn... slick, you know what I mean? The battles were so dynamic. You could feel Kratos' power. Now I'm not going to talk about the infamous bit at the end with the poles or something - heck I didn't even get that far. I'm going to talk about a couple of the awful "puzzley" sections that I did see. Kicking a box towards a wall so you can climb up, only for it to be repeatedly destroyed by enemies. Freezing an enemy over a button in order to progress, only for the door to be slightly further away than the freeze time. Then - the bit I gave up on - pushing a man up a hill whilst being repeatedly attacked by respawning enemies. Just get lost, God of War. "Design Brief: Let's make a great combat game and to bulk it out a bit let's put infuriating sections in that take loads of tries."

F.E.A.R.

Not game ruining, but a stupid decision if you ask me. It's showing its age, but F.E.A.R. is an atmospheric, solid shooter. The A.I. is great and I never seem to get bored of shooting the same enemies. So what am I referring to? The health/reflex boosters. Wholly unnecessary, the game can easily be completed without getting a single of either. But what player wouldn't go out their way to find them? F.E.A.R. is as on rails as these games get, and yet it chooses to have these boosters hidden away, causing the player to look in every nook and cranny, distracting greatly from the atmosphere. There are obvious arguments: don't get them then, they're good for a second playthrough etc. but for me they break the atmosphere and fluidity an absurd amount.

.::: You must so not play God of War II.

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meatbin

meatbin

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Test Drive Unlimited

Great game - however the multiplayer instant challenge races should allow me to put bet my car rather than just 10,000 credits. The risk of losing my modded Maclaren SLK in a two minute race would make the races oh so much better.

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Eighthours

Eighthours

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Test Drive Unlimited

Great game - however the multiplayer instant challenge races should allow me to put bet my car rather than just 10,000 credits. The risk of losing my modded Maclaren SLK in a two minute race would make the races oh so much better.

Test Drive Unlimited

Potentially the best online racer ever, frustratingly marred by continual problems that have variously broken every feature of the online game in turn since its launch. The single player's wonderful (surprisingly), but the Live modes have been cocked up royally, with features not working, some functionality never quite getting patched enough, etc. I hope that the sequel (when it comes) will show that lessons have been learned.

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Monkeyspill

Monkeyspill

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Psychonauts - Meat Circus: Great idea for a level, but far, far too irritating. I don't mind difficult games (I'm not a pansy!) But it was a huuuuge difficulty spike, with no build up. Unfair too as you couldn't avoid being killed in some sections. It was a case of trial and error mixed with luck. Trying to make complicated jumps from a difficult awkward 3D angle on tightropes while some git fires fireballs that you can't avoid! So annoying. I still liked the game though - just slightly less so.

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Ferine

Ferine

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BioShock

Limiting the player to two Plasmid slots until they buy more was a bad move, in my opinion. Fair enough for Gene Tonics as they are passive 'buffs', but I found that not having access to all the Plasmids I'd acquired stifled combat creativity: there would be situations where a certain skill would have been perfect but as I didn't have it equipped I'd have to make do with what I had.

Shadowrun

If this had been released at a budget price — like the game I'm going to mention next — I think it could have been a huge success. As is the price has staved potential players off, which is a real shame.

Warhawk

All the network issues have really marred this great game. Still, hopefully this is something that can be rectified fairly swiftly.

Oblivion

Is there anyone that actually liked the 'adaptive' levelling system? What's the point of levelling if some random enemy lurking by a road is as liable to kill you at any point? Also, it forces the player to suffer really boring looking equipment for ages: I far preferred Morrowind where I hatched a cunning plan to steal an uber-weapon I could barely carry.

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Rudderless

Rudderless

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There's one bit in MP3: Corruption, where you have to pull three levers while respawning Aero Pirates put them back up again. You get two down, then you're about to grapple the third and one of the basts replaces the one you've just done. I broke out the swears quite a few times at that bit.

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fatoy.japa

fatoy.japa

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The loading times in PGR3 should get a mention here. So frustrating to play through the career mode when compared to PGR2's instant restarts.

Absolutely this.

I adored PGR3 during my intial play-through, aiming for silver medals; but the gold / platinum challenges require such focus and having a thirty-second break between each attempt completely ruins your chances of keeping that going.

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Timmo

Timmo

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More about things that ruined - or almost ruined - otherwise good games, please. The Psychonauts one was good. A lot of this stuff you can overlook or get past without too much effort. The Bioshock ones are hardly close to game-breaking, are they.

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Ferine

Ferine

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The Bioshock ones are hardly close to game-breaking, are they.

I don't think the Plasmid slot 'issue' is game-breaking per se, but I do think it undermines the point of the combat and is a large part of the reason some people stick to the "one-two punch" for most of the game. I simply don't see any benefit to limiting the player in such a fashion; it seems something of a concession to 'depth' rather than fun.

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Wiper

Wiper

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Command and Conquer

The repetitive single-player levels almost ruined the great B-Movie C&C was born to be.

Deus Ex, Thief and Thief II

Are literally unplayable on laptops which can't be set not to optimise their speed. Somewhat ruins them for me.

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Timmo

Timmo

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I don't think the Plasmid slot 'issue' is game-breaking per se, but I do think it undermines the point of the combat and is a large part of the reason some people stick to the "one-two punch" for most of the game. I simply don't see any benefit to limiting the player in such a fashion; it seems something of a concession to 'depth' rather than fun.

I'm not really bothered, I just wanted to see how it felt to be a thread nazi. Next stage - kill jew.

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Colonel Panic

Colonel Panic

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There's one bit in MP3: Corruption, where you have to pull three levers while respawning Aero Pirates put them back up again. You get two down, then you're about to grapple the third and one of the basts replaces the one you've just done. I broke out the swears quite a few times at that bit.

Aye, that bit was NOT COOL. :)

I didn't initially see that one of the Aero Pirates was making their way back to a level as I moved on to the next one. Once I twigged that it was still a bit frustrating tbh, but I will admit that I punched the air when I got it (and watches Samus spaz out due to moving the remote off screen).

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Chicknstu

Chicknstu

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Is there anyone that actually liked the 'adaptive' levelling system?

I did. It meant you could go off and explore anywhere witout fear that you were wandering into a zone where you were going to get your ass kicked, and consiquently helped with the non-linearness of the game.

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poppa_f

poppa_f

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Command and Conquer

The repetitive single-player levels almost ruined the great B-Movie C&C was born to be.

Deus Ex, Thief and Thief II

Are literally unplayable on laptops which can't be set not to optimise their speed. Somewhat ruins them for me.

I've had that problem with Deus Ex.

There is a way to fix it, can't remember off the top of my head, maybe something to do with config files.

Google Deus Ex Laptop Speed and something should come up...

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