Taken from the oxm site
You know those moments in gaming.
Moments where you've come across something so obvious, so uninspired or so incredibly dumb that you genuinely wonder to yourself - what were they thinking?
It's never a good sign when you wonder why a programmer did something a certain way and you find it impossible to even come up with a single reason to justify it. And so, we present to you, the Worst Bits Of Games Design.
Ammo Just Before Boss
You know how it goes. You've been playing ammo management for the last half-hour, turning the game into a weird playground chase where you lead all the enemies back to a narrow corridor so you try whacking them to death with a crowbar so no ammo is wasted. Then suddenly, you're forced through a room full of ammo crates, grenades, mines, RPGs, small arms, medkits and a flamethrower. Hmmm, I wonder what would be coming up?
Quick-Time Events
They were cool in Shenmue. Sega's adventure would dip into frantic cutscenes that saw you pressing buttons along with onscreen prompts to duck, dive and duke your way out of trouble. Now, they're used for everything from chainsaw battles with Skorge to Lara tying her shoelaces, as atmospheric cutscenes are ruined by giant, glowing A buttons hovering around in the middle of the screen.
'Forced' Walking Sections
It used to be that you would receive text messages in game, with a small envelope in the corner
Now you clear a room and run forward when suddenly, your character sticks his finger to his ear and starts walking while your commanding officer tells you how much you suck and what mission to do next.
Reloading After Failing
The game loads. You enter a new room. You don't notice the turret gun in the corner and you die. The game then seems to get caught by surprise, as it decides to reload EVERY SINGLE THING FROM SCRATCH AGAIN even though it's already in front of you. Listen in horror to your game disc whirring for 30 seconds as the entire room loads again, and the enemies, and the music, and your character, and that gun turret. And then die. Again. Sigh.
Games That Won't Let You Choose Your Buttons
Rare is the game nowadays that doesn't let you change your buttons but some of them still do. You can choose between layout A, B, C or D on the options menu. What if you want shoot on the face buttons and jump on the triggers? No sir. Sorry. If it's not in our layouts, you can't do it. DON'T BE SO RADICAL DAMMIT, with your fancy customised controls.
Unskippable Cutscenes
We don't even need to explain.
Boss Battles
In and of themselves, they aren't a problem. Some games need a villain for you to hate and to chase throughout the game before getting your revenge. That, we understand. What we don't understand is how a mere human who is tagged with the 'boss' label can suddently withstand rockets, mini-gun fire, grenades and flames while every enemy in the game dies if you so much as swear at them. Still, that's wh you need all the ammo in the room just before the boss, right? Right?! Sigh.
Is there any others that get on your nerves?
'Forced' Walking Sections
Probably one of my biggest pet-peeves. Probably the most frustrating incarnation was the pointless 'Cortana' scenes in the Halo 3 campaign. SOOOO frustrating!
Games That Won't Let You Choose Your Buttons
It seems like it would actually be easier for the developers to just let players assign their own control scheme, than to pre-program a number of variants. I love that Street Fighter IV allows this. Every game should.
Something that I'd like to add to the list ...
Useless Items
Some games are very in-depth story oriented. Some games require thorough exploration and discovery of the game's world in order to accomplish specific goals. Some games think it's funny when they give you an item that serves no purpose other than to make you constantly ask yourself "What is this for?" while playing the entire game.
2 games I've recently played are guilty of this. Silent Hill 5: Homecoming, and The Darkness. You run around the world, collecting items, completing missions, and solving puzzles. Then there's always that 1 (or more) items in your inventory that just sit there, taunting you throughout the entire game. I'm left doubting myself, thinking I've missed something. But no! It's just the game developers abusing my obsessive-compulsive tendencies.
It's a shame i couldn't watch the Resi 5 cutscenes in their glory because i was too busy waiting for a fecking button to pop.
QTE's worked well in Bourne Conspiracy though.
Quote from: Failed on July 08, 2009, 07:32:07 PM
QTE's worked well in Bourne Conspiracy though.
I agree