Things in video games you hate

Cafe Society
1

For some reason, every video game has common elements. No matter where or when the video game takes place, they always share something. For example:

1.) Crates/barrels
2.) Jumping puzzles
3.) Part where you lose all your weapons and have to start your collection over again.

For me, I hate jumping puzzles with a passion. I don’t have a fear of heights in real life, but put me in a virtual situation and stick me 50 feet above on a cliff, where I have to jump from platform to platform, and I tense up, get sweaty palms, the works. This isnt’ even new. Back in Mario, I could never play the aerial world. I’d always have my sister take the controler and get me through that part. Nowdays, I just enable noclip and ‘fly’ through those parts.

So what are your greatest video game fears?

2

lava

3

Sometimes I wake up in the middle of the night all sweaty and anxious 'cause I had another one of my lag nightmares.

I fear lag.

4

things I fear in video games are
threads titled “things in video games you hate”
when the op clearly asks “So what are your greatest video game fears?”

it makes me all confused…of course that could be the niquil talking

5

Really dark places where, no matter how much I turn up the brightness, I still can’t see a damn thing. So it reverts to an old text adventure game.

Step forward
step forward
*you can’t *
turn right
step forward
you can’t
turn left
turn left
step forward
you died

6

First person anything.

7

Games which try to pad the time it takes to finish it by making you run across the friggin’ world for one part of a quest, then run all the way back for the next. Obviously MMORPGs are what comes immediately to mind, but there are plenty of traditional RPGs and console RPGs that are guilty of this as well.

8

Not being able to save anywhere you want (thought mostly a product of past console games).

9

When there’s a whole bunch of stuff that you missed the first time around because you couldn’t possibly know about it without consulting a game guide. I like games with special stuff but I hate it if you can’t fairly easily go back to it later.

10

Unskippable CGI, especially in battles. It reared its ugly head in the summoning spells in FFVII, got even worse in FFVIII (my easy-peasy strategy for beating Sepiroth was always W-Summon Knights of the Round, Mime, Mime, make a sandwich, W-Summon KotR again, Mime, Mime, and get another sandwich for the 15 minute ending as Sephy was going down somewhere after six KotRs for sure) and I don’t know if they ever really fixed it in the series. Even worse was Orphen. Now, I’ll admit I don’t know anybody else who liked it, but all those unskippable cutscenes before very hard battles was very annoying. I think for one boss you literally had to wait for five minutes worth of cutscenes just to get your ass beat yet again by a giant spider.

11

I hate getting lost in non-descript type areas because you can’t tell if you’ve covered that area yet.

I also hate little evil creatures that attack you and cause damage before you even see them.

I also hate having been without a decent computer for over a year and not being able to play any games. I miss my Neverwinter Nights and my Sims!

12

Escort missions. Nobody likes escort missions. I mean, NOBODY likes escort missions. In fact, I’m pretty sure everyone utterly hates escort missions. Game designers, please stop making escort missions. Now.

Resident Evil controls. As I said in a past thread on a similar topic, Capcom designed the controls for Resident Evil specifically to suck because they were too lazy to think of a better way to make their game harder. In general, if your primary goal in having created something was to maximize how much it sucks, it is considered a bad idea to make that particular thing the basis for every single game in or connected to that genre for the rest of eternity.

The nightmare that haunts my gaming dreams: a remake of Ico (aka Escort Mission: The Game) with an R.E. control scheme. shudder

13

Laser beam puzzles. If I should announce I have to go rough up someone I know who put said puzzles in his game, does anyone want to come with me?

14

I’m with you. I’ve suffered many a lag death, and lost many friends to lag death.

Hold me.

15

why haven’t our phone companies just given us the best internet connections that technilogy can afford us yet?

…oh yeah…they don’t make 100 million dollars…merely 85 million…now i remember
grumbles on an expletive-laced tirade

16

Things I hate in videogames:
Poorly disguised fetch quests - with an exception for the pencil eraser and related quests from Earthbound, because they just crack me up. Random encounters that do nothing meaningful besides eat up your time. Games that are based around a particular mechanic or control scheme, and then change it on you towards the end (bonus points if the final boss is fought using skills not needed for any other part of the game).

Things I fear in videogames:
Puzzle-laden dungeons that you do in one sitting. Zelda series, I’m looking right at you. The Great Bay Temple and Snowhead from Majora’s Mask are among the worst offenders here - some combination of the isolation, the maziness, and the music just makes me despair (certainly this isn’t a bad thing - they are some of my fondest gaming memories).

Also, regenerators (from Resident Evil 4). God damn.

Roland Orzabal: RE4 was the first of the series that I played - from what I’ve heard, they picked up the controls quite a bit in the fourth. All I can say is, they must have been close to unbearable in the earlier versions, because the controls in RE4 are struggling to attain the classification ‘mediocre’. Good game, though. Even the escort missions are… okay, they’re annoying, but less so than they are in most games.

~ Isaac

17

Huge chasm’s ,typically in starwars games.

Escort missions seconded

I really hated Xwing for that , all transports had to get away , like fer cripes sake.

Asteroid belts , way denser than should be in real life.

Weapons in Halo 2 on xbox live , always makes me think I am using a water pistol instead of a firearm.

Declan

18

Most “door gunner” levels. Good ones leave you feeling like you’re actually helping blast your way through enemy forces. But most of them feel like you’re playing Galaga on a conveyer belt.

Flipping switches to get ahead in a FPS map. Which, for me, usually means “slog through the traps and enemies…find blocked door. Search room for a switch. Search surrounding rooms for a switch. Spend 45 minutes searching dank, corpse-strewn dungeon for a switch. Use noclip to check on ledges for switch. Finally find out that the door switch was either in a dark corner in my blind spot, or that the door only opened for ten seconds while I was fighting a boss, and that I have to restart from a saved game if I want to try it again.”

Germans with MP40s. I’m not saying they’re inaccurate, or a design flaw, or that they keep the game from being fun to play…I just hate those guys. Lousy krauts—lets see how the like getting a .30-06 through the face. Try spraying me with full auto now!

19

Jumping puzzles always get me. I’m getting close to 50, and my reflexes aren’t what they used to be. Hell, they never were that good anyway, but they’ve deteriorated. I had to quit playing Threads of Fate because I couldn’t get through a jumping puzzle. For that matter, let’s put any insanely hard reflex skill under “jumping puzzles”. I managed to get through the Lightning Jump quest in FFX, but I think I’m completely burned out on this sort of thing forever now.

Pixel hunts, especially when combined with Arien’s complaint about stuff you’ll miss without a freaking game guide. Having a few Easter eggs here and there is good, I like that in a game. However, putting the EEs in places where your character is supposedly in a life-or-death situation, and expecting the gamer to search every pixel in the area? Not good. Especially when the area is only available for one time.

Insanely complicated mazes. Does anyone, anywhere like these? I know I’m directionally challenged (I have gotten lost in a two-room area, the exit was most cleverly concealed), but I’ve been in places where the GMs could not find the exit.

Games that are more movie than game. I like some cutscenes, but I don’t like playing for 5 minutes, then watching a movie for 20 minutes. If I wanted to watch a movie, I’d make some popcorn and put in a movie!

Games that make up for short playing time by having the player run all over the place, in slow motion. Parasite Eve stands out in my mind because Aya, even while running, took forever to cross the screen.

Mascots. The Final Fantasies are particularly bad about this. No, I don’t find the little kid character absolutely adorable, I want to KILL HER. DEAD. Unfortunately, she (it’s usually a girl) has skills/abilities/part of the storyline that I MUST have in order to complete the game. I’d still rather not play with her in my group, though.

Dying is too easy at the beginning of the game, and too hard at the end. I actually enjoy levelling up to a point, it extends my playing time and I enjoy getting the new powers or skills or just plain loot. However, I don’t think that one should have to grind at levelling up.

20

Gaaaaaaaah! Escort missions!

That and small objects that hinder your movement in FPSes. Little things that you or I would simply slide past in real life grab your FPS character and punish him/her for being anywhere near them…