I'm sure that this list could be a lot longer, but I'm going to
focus on six issues that really piss me off when I'm playing video
games. If games happen to have more than 2 or 3 of these traits they
tend to collect dust in my game cases very quickly, or they will do the
same at your local game store. So, without further adieu:
- Not being able to skip cut scenes
Sometimes, gamers just want to jump into the action. Yes, I know that
designers have spent grueling hours working in their wonderful plot
into the game, and skipping cut scenes may mean that the gamer will
miss out on crucial story elements and possibly even essential game
hints. Well, that's just too bad, and sometimes I don't mind taking
that kind of chance. Perhaps I just need to vent a bit by blowing up
some aliens or lighting a few people on fire. Another gripe I have with
this is that some games don't make the option apparent if it is
available at all during a cut scene. Please make them optional. I beg
you. One game I played recently that either I couldn't skip or couldn't
figure out how to skip was Metroid Prime 3: Corruption. It's now
collecting dust in my cd case.
- Bad artificial intelligence
This one is probably hated by most gamers, and we've all seen it. The
AI runs enemy monsters or units into a wall, they can't figure out how
to path correctly to follow you, or perhaps the designer of the game
just didn't test the AI in the way that you think it should work. Well,
it pretty much sucks when this happens. Rarely though is it a reason to
stop playing a game, but when the AI is good it's easy to tell, and in
some cases it's actually frightening.
- Hard to use menus
This is a killer when you're trying to get things done fast. One might
think that this kind of behavior is a no brainer and should be somewhat
of an industry standard by now, but sometimes game designers absolutely
fail at the 2D portions of the UI. One example I love is simple and
definitely proven are any of Valve's game menus. They are somewhat of a
convention in Valve's games and they present easy options first for
beginner users while also allowing more experienced users to easily
whip through menu choices. Crappy menus and other UI options are very
easy to spot. One of the worse things you can do is slow down a user as
they're going through the menus. Warcraft 3 does this with the stupid
chain menu system, which I've grown to loathe. Sometimes games can fail
completely in both usability and readability, the biggest example of
this I can think of is Dead Rising. I couldn't even read the menus
since the text was horrible and it was laid out poorly. Ugh.
- Collect-a-thons
When I was 10, I used be able to stand running around various
platformer worlds gathering every last bit that games could offer me.
Hell, I even got 101% in Donkey Kong 64, but I wasn't hardcore enough
to get all the stars in Super Mario 64 or all of the golden skulltulas
in Ocarina of Time. Now however, I absolutely can't stand it. Games can
get by without them just fine, but for some reason developers continue
to inject these endless quests. World of Warcraft could even be
considered one giant collect-a-thon. I guess that this mentality
appeals to some gamers, but I'm over it. And yes, I did beat Super
Mario Galaxy, just with the minimum amount of stars.
- Voice chat
Ah, the bane and boon of online gaming. I've become somewhat jaded to
this miracle of modern technology, and now I'm absolutely sick of it.
If I'm playing an FPS, I'm there to snipe someone's head off or lay a
trap to waste them with, and not to listen how their day went or who in
pop culture is ridiculously hot and said nerd doesn't have a chance
with. I don't want to hear about how someone is cheating, hacking, or
just being a bag of douche in the game. Get over yourself, and shut up.
One of the first things I'll do with games that have voice chat
embedded is turn it off immediately. I'd rather leave voice chat to
external programs that can be dedicated to the sole purpose of
transmitting voice instead of having to build all of that extra
functionality into the game.
What things tick you off about video games? I'm sure there's irksome
moments that occur on a daily basis for any gamer, and here's your
chance to rant about it.