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["God's Beard!"]

Deus Ex - The aiming system is horrendous.

Virtua Fighter 5 - getting rid of the incredible VF4 training and AI modes

Street Fighter IV - forgetting to include Q.

 

[anandxxx]

Any game with random encounters.

Oh, sorry. Those are bad games.

Any good PC game that enables quickloaders.

 

[Dougald]

Crysis - I was playing a nice jungle-shooter fighting North Koreans, then suddenly I'm fighting Aliens with incredibly poor AI. Seriously?

 

[Dead Man Typing]

Doesn't disabling the vita-chambers more or less accomplish this?

Whoops, a little editing issue there.

The patch to turn them off was very welcome.

"Them" was refering to the vita-chambers. Badly written and poorly edited, I should be reviewing games for a website.

 

[cartman414]

The original Metroid NES' lack of a map.

That was the least of the original's problems.

You guys are missing the absolutely worst design choice ever made!

The clouds and the bushes are the same sprite!

Lol. Forget that. A few of the later stages are duplicates with more/tougher enemies!

Link's Awakening/The Oracles, with their tedious item switching and a world seemingly designed specifically to exacerbate the problem.

No more than other games. The problem was the limited button config on the hardware they were on.

Speaking of Metroid, I would add Metroid Fusion and its decision to go linear.

 

[Dandy]

Last Remnant - Loading screens everywhere, disgusting long turn based battles, horrible dungeons, terrible town design. Actually it is not a good game.

 

[protonion]

Elite Beat Agents-Spinners

Kingdom Hearts-Gummi ship

 

[mjolnirsbane]

Neverwinter Nights 2.

The combat engine was so poorly designed over the first version that you had to wonder who in their right mind would have allowed this to happen. Where the action in NWN1 was fun to interact with and the UI was pig simple, NWN2 brought us choppy camera's and choppy combat gameplay.

This game should have been an almost infinitely replayable and moddable concept but because of all the bric-a-brac and issues it is a largely undeveloped game by the community that avidly wanted to support it.

 

[Zombie James]

Half-Life 2 - Vehicle sections.

 

[PIMPBYBLUD]

You guys are missing the absolutely worst design choice ever made!

The clouds and the bushes are the same sprite!

And yet most people didn't even notice it for years. IMO that is genius and you are wrong.

 

[DarthButcher]

Infamous
No New Game + or fuckall to do in the city after beating the story besides collectathon bullshit.

Please explain how this would work, AT ALL??

For me, it is

Gears of War 2

The ease of just pummeling the final boss into oblivion(in about 20 seconds) versus other bosses that actually required strategy, and that fight as a whole was just complete WTF?

 

[Xrenity]

This, totally.

Half-Life 2 - Vehicle sections.

Hmm don't remember them being annoying.

 

[Zeouterlimits]

Halo 3.
Shortening the cutscenes and politics for the masses.

 

[JMC]

Fixed.

True. :lol

 

[MehsterChief]

Far Cry 1 - no quicksave combined with the horrible difficulty as soon as the mutants attakc made the game pretty much unplayable for me.

I haven't played Crysis yet but I can't believe that once again they replaced intelligent human enemies with dumb supernatural thingies halfway throughout the game.

 

[soldat7]

No personal MP3 player in Crackdown. Sitting in a car just to listen to the incredible soundtrack stinks.

 

[poppabk]

Forgot a really bad one.
HOTD:Overkill - money and guns earned in regular mode do not transfer to directors cut, but the completed goals required for earning money do, making it almost impossible to get guns in directors cut without making a new save and deliberately playing badly through a replay of the original mode.

 

[Macmanus]

Half-Life 2 - Vehicle sections.

More specifically the pacing of the vehicle sections. The controls were meh, but tolerable. The length of time you were on that damned air boat though really got frustrating.

 

[Houston3000]

I can't agree more with Oblivion's setting. Morrowind had a really awesome world, I remember spending hours simply exploring and getting lost in the huge deserts and canyons, finding huge sprawling caves on the coast, exploring the underwater landscapes beneath the cities, dredging the swamps with the weird trees, and climbing around the crazy funky buildings in some of the towns. In Oblivion everything was so amazingly generic fantasy, big fields, forests, hills, and medieval architecture everywhere.

I had the PC version so the auto-leveling was really only a slight annoyance on my first character... soon after fixed by mods. Still, the environment and setting didn't capture me like Morrowind did.

 

[Kabouter]

any flying vehicules in any GTA game. I have no idea how they manage to screw it up all the time, to the point of being unfun and feeling broken.

Flying in SA was completely awesome. I loved all the flying missions.

 

[malingenie]

Pokemon Platinum: (And others probably, but this is the only Pokemon I've played)

Making the overworld powers (Cut, Bash Rocks, and such) assigned to one of your four slots for Pokemons AND only be able to assign them to particular Pokemons.

Caused enough backpedaling to break the game for me.

 

[Mdk7]

Bionic Commando.

Its a great game ruined by bizarre design choices such as the blue radiation fog, loading between each small environment and not having red haired retro Spencer as the default model.

And the fugly checkpoints more than anything.

 

[Geeker]

Titan Quest, no battle.net like online infrastructure.

 

[MDSLKTR]

Half-Life 2 - Ravenholm

fixed

 

[Castle Doctrine]

Far Cry 2. Respawning guard posts.

 

[Reno7728]

Little kings story - while I'm sure there is a reason, I just can't see why they chose anologue over pointer controls. It seemed like an easy fit but became slightly annoying to move and to aim. Still a great game though.

 

[Tenks]

Deus Ex - The aiming system is horrendous.

You did increase your pistol/rifle skill, right? The game was an FPSRPG the aiming was supposed to suck until you master the gun classes.

 

[djtiesto]

Avalon Code - terrible interface, going through the book to find the codes you need... very slow paced and drags down the flow of the game

 

[djtiesto]

Lost Odyssey and it's 1994 turn based battle system. It would have received much better reviews had it been designed with a more modern battle system.

Considering some of the best games ever came out around 1994, there's nothing wrong with the battle system being from that era too. What would make it more "modern"? A half-assed action/FPS based system that is the norm in American rpgs nowadays?

 

[jtb]

You did increase your pistol/rifle skill, right? The game was an FPSRPG the aiming was supposed to suck until you master the gun classes.

Seriously. I thought the whole crappy-shooting things was one of the best thing about the game because it forced you to rethink the first couple of areas until you got better aiming.

Considering some of the best games ever came out around 1994, there's nothing wrong with the battle system being from that era too. What would make it more "modern"? A half-assed action/FPS based system that is the norm in American rpgs nowadays?

While I agree with you, I am dissapointed they didn't incoporate a lot of Blue Dragon's improvements in the battle system. I mean, being able to see (and choose) your enemies, the whole timer thing at the top that determined which moves went when, were great, and really made the game feel fresh (for a dragon quest clone). If Lost Odyssey had those.... it would have gotten the exact same reviews, but I would have liked it just a tad bit more.

 

[bigdaddygamebot]

"Shoot the asteroids" in Dead Space.

From some of the tightest controls ever in a third person shooter to floaty and unresponsive.

It was like the level was made during "Bring Your Kid To Work Day" at Redwood studios.

 

[PantherLotus]

Age of Empires III - is it really not possible to select all units of a particular type? CIV IV does this well. Why can't AoE3?

 

[flintstryker]

fixed

you trying to be funny?

Zelda Majora's mask - I fucking hate time limit in non platforming games.

 

[Speevy]

Uncharted endgame.

What.

 

[jtb]

Age of Empires III - is it really not possible to select all units of a particular type? CIV IV does this well. Why can't AoE3?

That reminds me of Starcraft, where you can only select 12 units at a time, and you cannot select multiple buildings. I get that it came out in 1998, but, when I play on B.net, it's still frustrating.

 

[Killzig]

Fallout 3 - no social stealth/ the whole end game for MQ.

Fallout 1 - I was able to don the robes/use dialog, blend in enough to reach the master and finally talk him into killing himself/taking the mutant threat with him.

Fallout 2 - I could use enclave armor/dialog to sneak into both navarro and through the oil rig at the end then talk the pres into offing himself.

Fallout 3 - WATCH AS A GIANT ROBOT DOES AWESOME STUFF. Seriously? Can't I at least control the big mech? And now you want me to suicide too?

 

[feel]

Half-Life 2 - Vehicle sections.

I loved them. Stopping by random creepy abandoned houses on the coast, to check out what's inside, was a very memorable gaming moment for me. I was totally immersed in the experience.

"Shoot the asteroids" in Dead Space.

From some of the tightest controls ever in a third person shooter to floaty and unresponsive.

It was like the level was made during "Bring Your Kid To Work Day" at Redwood studios.

Ugh yeah. Those were horrible on hard.

 

[traveler]

The decision to include RPG-esque randomization in TF2.

 

[XiaNaphryz]

You guys are missing the absolutely worst design choice ever made!

The clouds and the bushes are the same sprite!

I know this is a joke, but this was a technical design choice and not an aesthetic one.

 

[Asmodai]

Pretty much any Ubisoft Montreal game.

Prince of Persia 2008, Assassin's Creed, Far Cry 2. They all do so many things well, but make you do the same uninspired repetitive tasks over and over and over.

It's surprising that their games are still so good with that flaw. Makes me wonder how good they'd be without the repetition.

Oh, and others mentioned it earlier, the ridiculously long vehicle sections in Half-Life 2. That airboat one made me feel like I was going in circles for an entire hour. Personally I think Half-Life 2 was at least twice as long as it should've been, so much filler everywhere. (that includes the tedious Ravenholm) The first hour or so of HL2 was so much more action packed and had a better narrative than the rest of it combined.

 

[jmdajr]

I cant believe they still have games where you cant skip cut scenes.
I was playing that wolverine origins game and that crap pisses me off.

 

[Davidion]

King's Bounty - There's a fetch/combat quest where you have to go into to an area to fight a couple of high-level enemies in order to get an item. Here's the catch: if you leave the area but don't engage the enemy, you can't go back into said area and you effectively fail the quest or just will never complete it. There's no mention of said quest restriction.

Nothing earth-shattering, but it's this small thing that bugged the crap out of me recently.

 

[Giolon]

Deus Ex - The aiming system is horrendous.

Whoa, party foul! An RPG in an FPS shell, where your aim improves as you raise your weapon skill or stand still to take a moment to aim? Simply ludicrous...

 

[Jin]

Any level where you got to swim. Why do they do this?.

GTA4's lack of checkpoint. The last mission was one of the most frustrating missions in the series. I wanted to strangle the developer who made it.

 

[conman]

mirrors edge combat

Yup. Would have been a perfect game with a better (more forgiving) combat system.

I don't expect to be able to fire a weapon, but I do expect to be able to have a chance in hell of fighting without one! Otherwise, this game has the best environments, level designs, and control mechanics of just about any game out there.

 

[ripsa]

Fable II.

Not being able to manage your own save states. So when the game glitches out or you do something wrong you can't just reload from the last good save point, you have to restart from the begining and spend the next several hours getting back to where you were..

 

[Freyjadour]

Dragon Quest VIII

You want to save? Well you better listen to the minute and a half of dialogue that is mandatory EVERY FUCKING TIME you want to save because, guess what? YOU CAN ONLY SAVE IN CHURCHES.

You want to know how many EXP you need to level up a party member and determine if staying and grinding for five minutes is worth it? Well, better walk all the way to the previous town and find the church so I can ask somebody how many more EXP I need.

Want to know how many more skill points you need before you get the next ability? Well you better go all the back to Port motherfucking Prospect.

And yet Dragon Quest has no Game Overs, so saving isn't really necessary outside of turning off the game. Never had any issues with finding out how many EXP I needed either as I could generally keep track of that sort of thing without a lot of effort.

It's not like traveling is ever hard in DQ games though.

But yeah, complaining about things that are DQ traditions is kind of like complaining about your action move having action in it. It's probably just not for you.

 

[Kodiak]

It really annoys me how fighting games just expect you to learn the game by digging through menus and using bare-bones training modes.

Pretty much every single strategy game has a campaign that eases you into all the concepts of the gameplay, why the fuck don't Fighting Games do this in any way?

For some reason, Japanese designers of fighting games still think they are making games for an Arcade-going audience made up of 15 year olds.

Ugh.

Don't make me have to learn your game that I want to learn by making me feel like I have to put in hours of training just take part. Your game isn't that good!

 

[RurouniZel]

Lunar dragon song. I very much like the game, and can look past some stuff...........But MY GOD............. Behold the travesty of bad design.

I couldn't agree more! If it weren't for dumb decisions like not being able to chose a target or losing HP to run, it'd be a really good game.

 

[baultista]

Resident Evil 4 and 5:
"Oh a horde of zombie-like things are coming at me... let me STOP DEAD IN MY TRACKS AND SLOWLY LINE UP MY SHOT!". I wouldn't mind moving SLOWLY with reduced accuracy while shooting, but the fact that you have to stand PERFECTLY STILL makes the game really frustrating.

Half Life 2:
Sandtraps.

Halo:
The library missions. Every floor looked EXACTLY THE SAME and the gameplay became excruciatingly formulaic:
- Listen to annoying orb
- Kill wave of flood
- NEXT FLOOR! Rinse, repeat.
If they made us do it 2 or 3 times I would have been okay with it, but at the end I felt like I had replayed the same thing 40 times.

GTA IV:
Removing the ability to car surf.

Doom 3, FEAR 2 et al:
Revealing key pieces of the main story through obnoxiously long written e-mails/PDA data packets/etc. If I wanted to read something that long I'd crack open a book, idiots.

Spoiler

I would have never known that my entire team was considered in Project Harbinger had I not stumbled on that data packet thing towards the end of the game. That pretty much explains why that other guy was lured towards Alma and then rejected. Also, RAPE!

"Shoot the asteroids" in Dead Space.

From some of the tightest controls ever in a third person shooter to floaty and unresponsive.

It was like the level was made during "Bring Your Kid To Work Day" at Redwood studios.

The controls in Dead Space were NOT tight and responsive. They were acceptable with a console controller, but the keyboard/mouse setup was atrocious.