# Badly conceived or implemented elements of otherwise great games **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [December 21, 2006, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/badly-conceived-or-implemented-elements-of-otherwise-great-games/385070 "2006-12-21T15:28:02Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Einmon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b9bd4f/32.png) [@Einmon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Einmon)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2006, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/badly-conceived-or-implemented-elements-of-otherwise-great-games/385070/41 "2006-12-22T14:38:50Z")
In Prince of Persia 3, the darn chariot race nearly put me off finishing the game. The game also has set save points, and after one helluva long level they put a chariot race BEFORE the save point. Which required you to keep going without touching stuff about 15 minutes. Where your chariot explodes (with no chance of repair in between) if you touch stuff three times. And the chariot does not really respond to your steering efforts. I had my PS2 running for a week straight as I did not want to complete the previous level again, and completed it through sheer luck when I was just about to give up. That game also had the one sequence where you could not skip the movie before the fight and you had to watch it OVER AND OVER AGAIN when you failed. Did not help that the fight had a fun level equal to the chariot race and basically required some luck to stand in the right place at the right time or be killed. [in-game reference]Speed Kills! Nyah! Hate![/in-game reference] ---
**Author:** ![Ethilrist](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ethilrist/32/4604_2.png) [@Ethilrist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ethilrist)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2006, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/badly-conceived-or-implemented-elements-of-otherwise-great-games/385070/42 "2006-12-22T14:42:26Z")
In _X-Wing,_ your wingmen were about as useful as a bucket of warm spit. As you progressed through the game, if they survived, they got some experience and became better pilots. Still useless. If you bought one of the expansion packs, it came with a Top Ace wingman file that you could copy (and then, the fun became the naming of all your wingmen; “Fnorky” was my favorite). Still useless, by the game designers own admission: they said that the Top Ace pilots could usually be counted on to take out the occasional TIE bomber. Which is a good thing, I guess, because the TIE bomber was one of the mission-killers, along with the shuttles and transports that would show up and fire torpedoes at the ship you were trying to protect, and blow it out of the sky before you even knew they were there. Anyway. The TIE bomber was the slowest ship in the Imperial fleet, had no shields, almost no armor, and it flew in a straight line towards its target, and the TOP ACE pilot could only be counted on to blow one out of the sky “occasionally?” I adopted the strategy suggested on one website: at the beginning of each mission, send all your wingmen home so they didn’t get in your way, and kill everything all by yourself. ---
**Author:** ![CandidGamera](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/candidgamera/32/2878_2.png) [@CandidGamera](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CandidGamera)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2006, 2:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/badly-conceived-or-implemented-elements-of-otherwise-great-games/385070/43 "2006-12-22T14:44:45Z")
I don’t remember Torment having quite so much exposed skin, but it’s been a while. X-Men Legends, I’m finally getting around to finishing, and there are two problems : 1. Loooooooooooooooong missions. Sometimes two in a row without a chance to pop back to the Mansion. 2. Some areas which, as far as I can tell, are completely inaccessible. Solid, non-breakable walls all around. And yet, I can see stuff inside. Frustrating! ---
**Author:** ![drachillix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/48db29/32.png) [@drachillix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drachillix)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2006, 9:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/badly-conceived-or-implemented-elements-of-otherwise-great-games/385070/44 "2006-12-24T09:24:46Z")
[QUOTE=Ethilrist] In _X-Wing,_ your wingmen were about as useful as a bucket of warm spit. As you progressed through the game, if they survived, they got some experience and became better pilots. [/QUOTE] The star mates in the old mechwarrior 2 were equally useless as they never pushed their heat at all. I finally solved the problem by making custom mechs for my star mates, usually massive missle platforms with only a couple laser weapons. Autocannons were worthless because they would burn all their ammo in the first engagement. ---
**Author:** ![wolfman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/a8b319/32.png) [@wolfman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfman)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2006, 10:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/badly-conceived-or-implemented-elements-of-otherwise-great-games/385070/45 "2006-12-24T10:17:26Z")
Here is one for the OP and one counter to the OP in the Same game. EA Hockey 1997 for the PC: They upgraded the graphics and the motion. But they couldn’t get the Defensive AI up to the smoothness. They figured that out before they let it ship, so they just made every goalie a _Golden God_. If you knew what they were doing you could get 50+ breakaways in a 5 minute per period game. After one full game(60 minutes, 20 minute periods) in which I had 517 shots on goal with one goal I finally figured out that if you make a pass to the opposing goalie you have a 2% chance that he will miss the pass and you will score, but if you shoot you have less then a .5% chance against any goalie. One time I had Fedorov, Yzerman, and Kozlov all in the crease trying to put it in, and the Goalie(I think Richter) blocked 15 shots while he was lying outside the crease poking his stick in to block every one. ---
**Author:** ![appleciders](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85f322/32.png) [@appleciders](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/appleciders)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2006, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/badly-conceived-or-implemented-elements-of-otherwise-great-games/385070/46 "2006-12-24T19:30:08Z")
Blanking on the name of the game, but it was a military helicopter sim, where I wound up having to shoot down my own wingman at the start of every mission. Stupid thing would line up behind me so as not to get in my way when I started shooting, then he’d notice someone directly in front of me and open up with his cannon. Mind-numbing. ---
**Author:** ![Revenant\_Threshold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@Revenant\_Threshold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revenant_Threshold)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2006, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/badly-conceived-or-implemented-elements-of-otherwise-great-games/385070/47 "2006-12-24T20:00:36Z")
[QUOTE=CandidGamera] 2) Some areas which, as far as I can tell, are completely inaccessible. Solid, non-breakable walls all around. And yet, I can see stuff inside. Frustrating! [/QUOTE] Have you tried using Nightcrawler to bamf in there? I ended up taking him on every mission, since you could solve pretty much every power-needing problem (except the longer flight ones and actually getting \*rid \* of fire) with just him. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2006, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/badly-conceived-or-implemented-elements-of-otherwise-great-games/385070/48 "2006-12-24T20:05:31Z")
I was replaying Betrayal at Krondor recently (a fantasy RPG from the early 90s released as freeware by the company). It’s pretty fun in many ways, but my got, the inventory system. You have a very limited amount of stuff you can carry. You have to carry various tools to repair the stuff you carry. Shops in the game only purchase certain items–you can’t sell armor at the archery store, for example. And there’s no way, short of keeping a detailed paper record, to know where the shops are that will buy the gear you have: most towns have one or two shops,a nd most of those sell things like food, not things like armor or weapons. I spent about five times as much time trying to track down where I could sell loot to get much-needed cash as I spent doing the fun parts of the game. I’m so happy that RPG designers have realized that realism is NOT a good game-design principle. Give me the jeweler who buys leather armor any day! Daniel ---
**Author:** ![ivylass](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/9de053/32.png) [@ivylass](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivylass)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2006, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/badly-conceived-or-implemented-elements-of-otherwise-great-games/385070/49 "2006-12-24T20:49:44Z")
Speaking of Sid Meier, his latest **Pirates** game has added dancing with the governor’s daughter. That slows things down a whole bunch. ---
**Author:** ![Least\_Original\_User\_Name\_Ever](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e480ec/32.png) [@Least\_Original\_User\_Name\_Ever](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Least_Original_User_Name_Ever)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2006, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/badly-conceived-or-implemented-elements-of-otherwise-great-games/385070/50 "2006-12-24T21:34:41Z")
[QUOTE=asterion] It’d have to be Sim City 2000 or later as Sim City Classic (and the only version I really like) didn’t have a water system. [/QUOTE] Hm. It’s not Sim City 4, because they’ve done a good job of showing the water in the underground mode. Additionally, you dont’ even NEED water in your city for a while. You can hit a plateau before you make that jump and settle some of your finances. ---
**Author:** ![Least\_Original\_User\_Name\_Ever](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e480ec/32.png) [@Least\_Original\_User\_Name\_Ever](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Least_Original_User_Name_Ever)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2006, 9:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/badly-conceived-or-implemented-elements-of-otherwise-great-games/385070/51 "2006-12-24T21:37:36Z")
[QUOTE=Sage Rat] Maybe on PC, but on the X-Box it was a one shot kill if you hit the head. Twitch players can successfully get the head shot every time, even if: 1. You’re far enough away that your head is only a single pixel on your opponents screen. 2. You’re running in zig zags. 3. You’re ducking in and out of columns. 4. 1-3 are all true. Believe me. Our entire office went from playing for an hour every day to playing zilch over the course of a week when one of the guys we hired from digipen figured out that it was a one-shot. The game was over for us all. [/QUOTE] Never played Halo on PC. You might have had shields off? A headshot with no shields will kill you, that’s for certain. I’ve played some Halo and Halo 2. It doesn’t take one shot to the head to kill you with the pistol. The auto-aim was a little strong on the original pistol, but that’s another video game argument. ---
**Author:** ![Least\_Original\_User\_Name\_Ever](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e480ec/32.png) [@Least\_Original\_User\_Name\_Ever](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Least_Original_User_Name_Ever)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2006, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/badly-conceived-or-implemented-elements-of-otherwise-great-games/385070/52 "2006-12-24T21:40:18Z")
[QUOTE=Trunk] Sim City 3000. The hints say that if you put pipes under the roads, you can water your areas effectively, but still. . .all that means is that everytime you build a road, you need to go back over the exact same area with pipes. And, it’s never obvious how much water an area is going to use. You might put up 3 water towers (which, for starters, is unsightly) and then realize later on that the people are using more. So, now, if you didn’t plan for more room where your other towers are, you need to demolish 4 squares to put up a new tower, and usually that means pausing the game so the little pecker heads don’t throw something up so quickly that you need to demolish it again. At worst, they still don’t get enough water. And you need to do it again. At best, you’ve ruined the aesthetics of your nice residential or commercial area. [/QUOTE] Ooh. Been many moons since I played this one. I remember the “no water” zots and how much of a pain they’d get to be. I feel your pain, though. They do simplify the system in Sim City 4, if that’s any consolation. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2006, 9:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/badly-conceived-or-implemented-elements-of-otherwise-great-games/385070/53 "2006-12-24T21:41:55Z")
[QUOTE=CandidGamera] I don’t remember Torment having quite so much exposed skin, but it’s been a while. [/QUOTE] Likewise. At least, not a whole lot more compared to other RPGs of the time. Compared to the current game market? It’s like watching the “Mrs. Riyadh” beauty pageant. ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2006, 10:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/badly-conceived-or-implemented-elements-of-otherwise-great-games/385070/54 "2006-12-24T22:48:34Z")
[QUOTE=Dinaroozie] Well, it’s not really a mechanical thing, but Planescape: Torment was very nearly ruined for me because of the ludicrous scantily-clad-ness of basically every female in the game. It was bad even by video game standards. Besides that, it was one of the most mature games around, but the softcore porn lurking around every corner made it hard for me to tolerate. [/quote] It’s been a while since I played but aside from the various prostitutes standing around the city were the rest scantily clad? Marc ---
**Author:** ![John\_DiFool](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_difool/32/19543_2.png) [@John\_DiFool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_DiFool)\ **Post date:** [December 24, 2006, 11:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/badly-conceived-or-implemented-elements-of-otherwise-great-games/385070/55 "2006-12-24T23:15:22Z")
[QUOTE=wolfman] Here is one for the OP and one counter to the OP in the Same game. EA Hockey 1997 for the PC: They upgraded the graphics and the motion. But they couldn’t get the Defensive AI up to the smoothness. They figured that out before they let it ship, so they just made every goalie a _Golden God_. If you knew what they were doing you could get 50+ breakaways in a 5 minute per period game. After one full game(60 minutes, 20 minute periods) in which I had 517 shots on goal with one goal I finally figured out that if you make a pass to the opposing goalie you have a 2% chance that he will miss the pass and you will score, but if you shoot you have less then a .5% chance against any goalie. One time I had Fedorov, Yzerman, and Kozlov all in the crease trying to put it in, and the Goalie(I think Richter) blocked 15 shots while he was lying outside the crease poking his stick in to block every one. [/QUOTE] The Supergoalie Syndrome has plagued many a hockey game where the designers couldn’t figure out how/couldn’t be bothered to design decent defenseman algorithms. To be fair playing D at the level of the NHL is certainly an intricate and often-subtle art, but these Supergoalies certainly get under your skin after awhile. I heard EA has improved this somewhat but I dunno because I’m not ever going to buy another sports game from them. ---
**Author:** ![Anaamika](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5f9b8f/32.png) [@Anaamika](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Anaamika)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2006, 4:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/badly-conceived-or-implemented-elements-of-otherwise-great-games/385070/56 "2006-12-25T04:18:07Z")
[QUOTE=Dinaroozie] Well, it’s not really a mechanical thing, but Planescape: Torment was very nearly ruined for me because of the ludicrous scantily-clad-ness of basically every female in the game. It was bad even by video game standards. Besides that, it was one of the most mature games around, but the softcore porn lurking around every corner made it hard for me to tolerate. I’ve never really known what caused the disconnect between the artists and the writers for that one. The advertising department, possibly? Another one: I’ve never really gotten into Final Fantasy, but a non-gamer (or, less of a gamer than me at least) friend of mine once asked me to give them a hand with something in Final Fantasy X. It seems that in order to get some ultimate weapon, you’re required to win in some chocobo race minigame - does that sound right? I can’t remember playing a more ridiculous and obnoxious thing. I suspect I just stumbled across the worst possible part of any Final Fantasy game, because they seem to be well-loved, but seriously, that section was just beyond the pale. Any FF fans know what I’m talking about? [/QUOTE] I’m a girl but I never had Planescape come across to me that way. I loved that game. As for FF, yes, you came across one of the worst moments in that game. Since you say it was for the ultimate weapon, it was FF X, and indeed, you have to get a score of 0.0 (IIRC) in the racing game. I never accomplished it. Barring that, that is one of the sweetest and mature stories in a FF ever, with a character you can really like a wonderfully dear female lead. My entry can beat the socks out of all of you. ANy of you games remember Wasteland? Well, the deal with Wasteland was you had a party of…I think 4. Doesn’t matter. Each person had x amounts of slots for inventory and that was it. The really bizarre thing was, even if a party member died, you could still keep him in your party AND USE HIS INVENTORY SLOTS. That’s right, it was apparently easier to tow around a dead body and keep his pockets full rather than carrying an extra backpack or something. Sheesh! ---
**Author:** ![H3Knuckles](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/ba8739/32.png) [@H3Knuckles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/H3Knuckles)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2006, 4:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/badly-conceived-or-implemented-elements-of-otherwise-great-games/385070/57 "2006-12-25T04:35:36Z")
The “Super Goalie” tactic doesn’t just apply to Hockey games, and is, in my opinion, the ultimate poorly conceived element in any great game. For example, how many fighting games default to giving unfairly boosted stats and capabilities (often ridiculously so) to the bosses at the end, rather than devising ways to have a better scaling-difficulty for the AI? my recent example of this is “boss-mode” I-no as I was re-playing Guilty-Gear (-XX Reloaded for Xbox) the other day. Or how about real-time strategy games where the enemy is often exempt from tech tree limitations, unit caps, and other requirements (such as Dawn of Wars’ PC-enemies not needing to have a relic to access those oh-so-uber units) in order to make them sufficiently difficult? Basically, the reason we still have fairly limited AI in games is because programmers keep taking the easy way(s) out rather than solving the real problem. That’s why I’m really psyched by last E3’s BioShock presentation, even though I have no real interest in the game itself; complex, dynamic AI interaction and adaptability? About time. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2006, 6:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/badly-conceived-or-implemented-elements-of-otherwise-great-games/385070/58 "2006-12-25T06:28:23Z")
[QUOTE=Anaamika] My entry can beat the socks out of all of you. Any of you games remember Wasteland? Well, the deal with Wasteland was you had a party of…I think 4. Doesn’t matter. Each person had x amounts of slots for inventory and that was it. The really bizarre thing was, even if a party member died, you could still keep him in your party AND USE HIS INVENTORY SLOTS. That’s right, it was apparently easier to tow around a dead body and keep his pockets full rather than carrying an extra backpack or something. Sheesh! [/QUOTE] _Baldur’s Gate_ did it the opposite way. If a character died, he dropped all his gear, and you had to portion it out among the rest of your party. (Good luck with that if you’ve just reached the end of a long dungeon crawl!) Even if you raised him on the spot, you still had to gather it all up and re-equip him. Apparently, death makes all your clothes instantly fall off. Just as unrealistic as _Wasteland_, but ten times as annoying. ---
**Author:** ![tirial](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ac91a4/32.png) [@tirial](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tirial)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2006, 12:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/badly-conceived-or-implemented-elements-of-otherwise-great-games/385070/59 "2006-12-25T12:16:42Z")
Hmm…Lots of complaints about the chocobo racing in FFX: Did no one have the problem with the Lightning dodging minigame? That drove me mad (got up to 183 dodges and my flatmate’s sister walked in front of the screen. And didn’t understand why I swore.) ---
**Author:** ![Xan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/x/ac8455/32.png) [@Xan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Xan)\ **Post date:** [December 25, 2006, 1:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/badly-conceived-or-implemented-elements-of-otherwise-great-games/385070/60 "2006-12-25T13:10:26Z")
Morrowind: Cliff racers. Twilight Princess: Cliff racer wannabes. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/badly-conceived-or-implemented-elements-of-otherwise-great-games/385070.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/badly-conceived-or-implemented-elements-of-otherwise-great-games/385070.md?page=4)