BasicReality
Banned
Far Cry 2 was the first thing that popped into my head, it was a game I really loved, but the respawning enemies was just ridiculesly annoying to no end.
Good games with surprising bad design choices
- Thread starter ronito
- Start date
Castle Doctrine
Member
Liara T'Soni said:
I know. You scout a guard post, take care of all the enemies, use half your friggin ammo, and even burn the place down for good measure. It pretty fun. But then you leave and come back fifteen minutes later and everyone is back walking around like nothing happened!
Ugh it just absolutely kills your sense of accomplishment. And in a game where you have to travel huge distances just to get to a mission, or god forbid get a new gun, it makes the game just tedious. What Ubisoft thinking I have no idea.
Even with all that though I still really liked it. Just a gorgeous game and once I got used to the stealth I had good times sneaking around.
gutter_trash
Banned
Metal Gear Solid Portable Opps
-capturing soldiers via wi-fi connectivity
LOL!
this became dangerous while driving.
yeah, I drove around suburbia trying to capture soldiers via random wi-fi connections from various homes
I do not recomend to drive and capture soldiers at the same time
-capturing soldiers via wi-fi connectivity
LOL!
this became dangerous while driving.
yeah, I drove around suburbia trying to capture soldiers via random wi-fi connections from various homes
I do not recomend to drive and capture soldiers at the same time
Seraphis Cain said:
Considering how awesome the driving stages are, I suppose they could've been a LOT worse, yeah.
I was thinking of another Monolith Soft game that had an annoying design choice though. Baten Kaitos Origins and that annoying as fuck trial bullshit you have to do in that miner village. Spent like an hour and a half on that section and it's just so early in the game and so damn boring I almost gave up on it. Ugh.
TuSeiSkeefoso
Member
Here's a mandatory tip for developers. You should never, EVER, die in an on-rails sequence.
I don't care what difficulty it's on. Make it mandatory to pass that part. The story section you're trying to convey in that sequence gets old after you have to redo it like 10 times....*cough* Gears of War II *cough*.
Here's another one. Don't throw collectibles in games for the sake of making it longer if you have a fast paced or important story to tell. Ghostbusters is one game that really didn't need collectibles. Neither did Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood for that matter.
Thank you. Pay me later.
I don't care what difficulty it's on. Make it mandatory to pass that part. The story section you're trying to convey in that sequence gets old after you have to redo it like 10 times....*cough* Gears of War II *cough*.
Here's another one. Don't throw collectibles in games for the sake of making it longer if you have a fast paced or important story to tell. Ghostbusters is one game that really didn't need collectibles. Neither did Call of Juarez: Bound in Blood for that matter.
Thank you. Pay me later.
Commanche Raisin Toast
Member
Aeris130 said:
FUCKING THIS.
ANY game that does this. omg. i thought i was just an idiot for falling prey to that but now i know other people get it...
Mass Effect
Unchartered worlds/MAKO driving sections - sorry, ME may be one of my favourite all time games, but this was a silly move IMO. Boring, repetive and an annoyance to drive.
Bioshock
Vita chambers - removed the whole purpose of survival instincts. I know you can turn them off NOW, but I don't think you could on its day of release when I played it. Anger.
Oblivion
Character diologue. Great concept with interacting NPCs, VERY poorly executed. How to break immersion in one easy fell swoop - have the same voice actor talk about the same thing I heard 30 seconds ago whilst talking to his own voice!
UT 2004/UT3
World scaling and character models. Since when did UT99 have super skinny girls, dudes dressed in a car for armour, but jumped around in a world so much bigger than they are?! I swear Epic don't have a real clue as to why the original UT was such a great success that lasted years...
Gears of War 2
Smoke grenades. I learnt to use them, but they are still stupid in how they knock the characters down. An addition that was not needed.
Assassins Creed
Side missions. Boring as fuck, repetitive to the extreme, seemed more as a filler to make the game last longer. I bought this game to assassinate and run my ass off afterwards, not to do some rubbish intel missions that required no preparation or perfect execution.
That will be all for now......
Unchartered worlds/MAKO driving sections - sorry, ME may be one of my favourite all time games, but this was a silly move IMO. Boring, repetive and an annoyance to drive.
Bioshock
Vita chambers - removed the whole purpose of survival instincts. I know you can turn them off NOW, but I don't think you could on its day of release when I played it. Anger.
Oblivion
Character diologue. Great concept with interacting NPCs, VERY poorly executed. How to break immersion in one easy fell swoop - have the same voice actor talk about the same thing I heard 30 seconds ago whilst talking to his own voice!
UT 2004/UT3
World scaling and character models. Since when did UT99 have super skinny girls, dudes dressed in a car for armour, but jumped around in a world so much bigger than they are?! I swear Epic don't have a real clue as to why the original UT was such a great success that lasted years...
Gears of War 2
Smoke grenades. I learnt to use them, but they are still stupid in how they knock the characters down. An addition that was not needed.
Assassins Creed
Side missions. Boring as fuck, repetitive to the extreme, seemed more as a filler to make the game last longer. I bought this game to assassinate and run my ass off afterwards, not to do some rubbish intel missions that required no preparation or perfect execution.
That will be all for now......
sadaiyappan
Member
The update system in GT5P is horrible. You have to keep restarting the game to update it and you don't know how much progress you have left. Also, another poor choice is not explaining how the clutch works and when you do learn how to use clutch you see that they implement it poorly (they have you press a button during the rolling start to activate clutch -- they should have made it an option in the options screen before the race).
Red Faction G : Drab outdoor Mars setting
Sure it's accurate to mars, and that's all the more reason not to set your game in the martian outback.
Here's an easy one Volition, 'Red Faction 3 : We fight our way to earth'
;P
*I don't think RF:G is a bad game, and plan on buying it for PC.
Sure it's accurate to mars, and that's all the more reason not to set your game in the martian outback.
Here's an easy one Volition, 'Red Faction 3 : We fight our way to earth'
;P
*I don't think RF:G is a bad game, and plan on buying it for PC.
AndrewG009
Member
fily said:You guys are missing the absolutely worst design choice ever made!
The clouds and the bushes are the same sprite!
:lol :lol
baultista said:
IIRC, it was four times. One time too many for you? I dunno, I love Legendary Solo on the Library, but that's just me. Even Cortana I like. But most of the H2 Flood campaigns on the other hand..
Halo 3: Not allowing us to set Player Model as a Custom Game option. This would have made SWAT so much better.
Halo 3: ODST: Why no Elites =(
All Halo games from Halo 2 onwards: No "Wort wort wort!" Just a tiny detail that was missing IMO. Maybe I'm just being too nostalgic :lol
Call of Duty: 4 No AI, MP is only worth it on XBL (no custom classes for LAN-play = fail =( )
From what I've played recently, I'd have to nominate the Riddick games for this. Both of them, especially Butcher Bay, started out great as cinematic stealth/adventure games. Unfortunately, around halfway through both games someone decided that most of the stealth should be dropped for straight FPS combat, which was mediocre to begin with. The shooting mechanics were so boring and frustrating that I couldn't finish either of the games, even though I enjoyed the hell out of them initially.
cornontheCoD
Neo Member
I would say that repeating boss battles in Okami and Veiwtiful Joe was pretty annoying. I hope they don't do it in Bayonetta.
kinoki
Illness is the doctor to whom we pay most heed; to kindness, to knowledge, we make promise only; pain we obey.
Final Fantasy XII for not making a propper mana-system. Don't feel like ranting too long about it just say one thing: MANA. I've never played a high-quality RPG that has failed at making a functioning mana-system--apart from FFXII that is. Mana is really simple. They even got it right in FF1, don't fix what isn't broken. It should be a scarce resource, but it doesn't mean that you should have 3 or 4 sets of abilities all using the same resource.
iconoclast
Member
Street Fighter 4 - no quarter match
Devil May Cry 4 - backtracking, shitty puzzles, the dice
Ninja Gaiden 2 - poorly conceived scoring system, water levels, loads of poorly designed bosses
Prince of Persia 2008 - forced collecting
Lost Planet - too heavy a focus on mechs
Far Cry 2 - respawning checkpoints, getting chased by enemies in a jeep every 2 minutes, rusty guns, AIDS
No More Heroes - grinding money in order to play the next level
Sonic Unleashed (360) - forced collecting, too heavy a focus on the werehog
Hatsune Miku Project Diva - no autosave (goddamn it)
Space Giraffe - everything about the graphics
Alien Hominid (and maybe Castle Crashers too) - foreground art that gets in the way
Devil May Cry 4 - backtracking, shitty puzzles, the dice
Ninja Gaiden 2 - poorly conceived scoring system, water levels, loads of poorly designed bosses
Prince of Persia 2008 - forced collecting
Lost Planet - too heavy a focus on mechs
Far Cry 2 - respawning checkpoints, getting chased by enemies in a jeep every 2 minutes, rusty guns, AIDS
No More Heroes - grinding money in order to play the next level
Sonic Unleashed (360) - forced collecting, too heavy a focus on the werehog
Hatsune Miku Project Diva - no autosave (goddamn it)
Space Giraffe - everything about the graphics
Alien Hominid (and maybe Castle Crashers too) - foreground art that gets in the way
Burnout Paradise - open world
DangerousDave
Member
GTA IV: Checkpoints, or lack of them.
MGS4: Lack of Codec (I'll change easily half of cinematics, and the breafing, for the same information with codec).
InFamous: Nothing to do after finishing the game, except collecting. Give me more enemies!
Killzone: Plot and characters.
Rock Band 2: Not being able to edit the NPC band members, also using the same singer for all the songs, even if you linked a Megadeth one with a Blondie one. But their greatest mistake is not offering preset famous characters from bands and singers, clothes and other extras as DLC.
MGS4: Lack of Codec (I'll change easily half of cinematics, and the breafing, for the same information with codec).
InFamous: Nothing to do after finishing the game, except collecting. Give me more enemies!
Killzone: Plot and characters.
Rock Band 2: Not being able to edit the NPC band members, also using the same singer for all the songs, even if you linked a Megadeth one with a Blondie one. But their greatest mistake is not offering preset famous characters from bands and singers, clothes and other extras as DLC.
bonesmccoy
Banned
Let's see...
Killzone 2: No offline or online co-op, short SP campaign, too much swearing.
LBP: No major incorporations of other IP's until 3/4 months after release. This game would have benefited from having a MGS, GTA, Spyro, etc mission packs available from the get go.
GTA4: Obvious, but the entire buddy/gf system was poor from the get go. I was surprised they made this a focal point.
Red Alert 3: Going for outrageous camp when a return to pseudo-realism would have suited the current market far better.
The Godfather 2: The entire game, from beginning to end, is a series of awful design choices. Proof that some developers hit the rock.
SF4: SETH
ArmA 2: Very poor testing and optimization. Sad, because the game itself is the best sandbox FPS/military sim available.
Empire Total War: Releasing the game with a handicapped AI. The computer will not ever, never, just won't, refuses, is diametrically opposed to sea-based invasions. Game breaking if you're playing as an island country (Britain) or a coastal country with a few geographical bottlenecks on your landlocked side.
Fallout 3: All the Oblivion errors apply, as well as the blatantly -let's force DLC on our customers!- bad decision to cap the levels at 20.
Killzone 2: No offline or online co-op, short SP campaign, too much swearing.
LBP: No major incorporations of other IP's until 3/4 months after release. This game would have benefited from having a MGS, GTA, Spyro, etc mission packs available from the get go.
GTA4: Obvious, but the entire buddy/gf system was poor from the get go. I was surprised they made this a focal point.
Red Alert 3: Going for outrageous camp when a return to pseudo-realism would have suited the current market far better.
The Godfather 2: The entire game, from beginning to end, is a series of awful design choices. Proof that some developers hit the rock.
SF4: SETH
ArmA 2: Very poor testing and optimization. Sad, because the game itself is the best sandbox FPS/military sim available.
Empire Total War: Releasing the game with a handicapped AI. The computer will not ever, never, just won't, refuses, is diametrically opposed to sea-based invasions. Game breaking if you're playing as an island country (Britain) or a coastal country with a few geographical bottlenecks on your landlocked side.
Fallout 3: All the Oblivion errors apply, as well as the blatantly -let's force DLC on our customers!- bad decision to cap the levels at 20.
Cold-Steel
Member
Killzone 2
Reason: The controls (lag delay) from day one.
I honestly believe that had the game launched with the updated precision control scheme that this game would have fared far better at retail. Instead, against a very vocal community, Guerrilla Games decided to stick with their decision up until the point where the community literally forced them to release an update.
In my opinion, this design choice may have cost them sales in the long run. Sure, the game is a hit and has sold 3 million copies (or something like that) but it could have been a much larger number.
I know many first adopters who simply did not get into the game or its multiplayer simply due to the controls. While many people have come back to it post-patch, it makes you wonder how many people simply didn't come back or would have been late-adopters.
Reason: The controls (lag delay) from day one.
I honestly believe that had the game launched with the updated precision control scheme that this game would have fared far better at retail. Instead, against a very vocal community, Guerrilla Games decided to stick with their decision up until the point where the community literally forced them to release an update.
In my opinion, this design choice may have cost them sales in the long run. Sure, the game is a hit and has sold 3 million copies (or something like that) but it could have been a much larger number.
I know many first adopters who simply did not get into the game or its multiplayer simply due to the controls. While many people have come back to it post-patch, it makes you wonder how many people simply didn't come back or would have been late-adopters.
Green Mamba
Member
Halo 3 -- Setting over half the campaign on Earth. The proper Halo environments are beautiful, why do we have to putz around in a bunch of brown and gray corridors and ruined cities?
Majora's Mask -- The Town Shooting Gallery is just sadistically difficult.
Super Paper Mario -- Only Mario is able to flip dimensions? Seriously? You have to do that like every five seconds. The other characters, outside of Bowser for boss fights, are practically useless because of this.
Dead Rising -- Bad enough that Otis feels he needs to call you in the middle of a zombie hoard, but do you really expect me to be able to read that text?
Final Fantasy X -- Pretty much everything related to getting the Celestial Weapons. Dodging lightning 200 times in a row, the Chocobo racing, Butterfly touching. . .
Majora's Mask -- The Town Shooting Gallery is just sadistically difficult.
Super Paper Mario -- Only Mario is able to flip dimensions? Seriously? You have to do that like every five seconds. The other characters, outside of Bowser for boss fights, are practically useless because of this.
Dead Rising -- Bad enough that Otis feels he needs to call you in the middle of a zombie hoard, but do you really expect me to be able to read that text?
Final Fantasy X -- Pretty much everything related to getting the Celestial Weapons. Dodging lightning 200 times in a row, the Chocobo racing, Butterfly touching. . .
Mass Effect:
Pretty much everything.
1) Shitty level design then cutting and pasting the same shitty level design for planets that pretended to be "different"
2) Shitty exploration amounted to looking for fucking garbage, like some stupid fucktard with a metal-detector on a beach looking for pennies
3) Shitty Mako controls
4) Shitty shooting mechanics including shitty reticle, shitty overheating mechanic instead of having reload, shitty cover mechanic without the ability to switch shoulders
5) Shitty companion AI
6) Shitty enemy AI
7) Pathetic elevator mechanic to hide loading
8) Shitty character design outside of a handful of main characters, human characters look plasticky with make up on
9) Shitty galaxy mechanic
10) Shitty inventory system
Pretty much everything.
1) Shitty level design then cutting and pasting the same shitty level design for planets that pretended to be "different"
2) Shitty exploration amounted to looking for fucking garbage, like some stupid fucktard with a metal-detector on a beach looking for pennies
3) Shitty Mako controls
4) Shitty shooting mechanics including shitty reticle, shitty overheating mechanic instead of having reload, shitty cover mechanic without the ability to switch shoulders
5) Shitty companion AI
6) Shitty enemy AI
7) Pathetic elevator mechanic to hide loading
8) Shitty character design outside of a handful of main characters, human characters look plasticky with make up on
9) Shitty galaxy mechanic
10) Shitty inventory system
Combichristoffersen
Combovers don't work when there is no hair
God of War - Blades of Hades.
Goddamn.
Goddamn.
NullPointer
Member
Farcry 2 - Malaria is fine. Jammed weapons are fine. But insta-respawning checkpoints just isn't fucking cool. Otherwise one of the most overlooked games this gen.
Battlefield Bad Company - No co-op. Enemy AI is too damn psychic and their aim too perfect for whats otherwise a pretty damn good single-player campaign.
KillZone 2 - No co-op. No xp in custom games.
Too Human - Art, animation, UI, controls, camera, enemy variation, level variation, 2 player co-op max, overabundance of lewtstuffs. Besides that stuff the game is fuck awesome.
Battlefield Bad Company - No co-op. Enemy AI is too damn psychic and their aim too perfect for whats otherwise a pretty damn good single-player campaign.
KillZone 2 - No co-op. No xp in custom games.
Too Human - Art, animation, UI, controls, camera, enemy variation, level variation, 2 player co-op max, overabundance of lewtstuffs. Besides that stuff the game is fuck awesome.
Is the casino in Dragon Quest VIII also tradition?
Because having to reset my way to the best whip was not fun. Also, it was made doubly frustrating by the fact that (as far as I could tell) there was no soft reset, so every time I lost money twice in a row I had to wait on my PS2 to boot and reread the game data.
Blue Dragon - Boss gauntlet (toughest bosses of the game so far) in an area where the last save with access to the open world was about 2 hours ago. At least you can respawn a single robo mecha in a hallway to mine for skill points, so that's a little help.
Dark Cloud 2 - Limits on the number of items you can bond to a weapon mean that you'll have to waste your time leveling up a dummy weapon, then losing half your work when you bond it to your main weapon. So much tedium.
Also, was there any way to know what you were supposed to take a picture of so you could invent? I gave up and started FAQing through that pretty early.
Odin Sphere - Play through a mildly entertaining action game with beautiful graphics and a corny, unengaging story. Now play through the same game 5 more times with superficially different protagonists.
Because having to reset my way to the best whip was not fun. Also, it was made doubly frustrating by the fact that (as far as I could tell) there was no soft reset, so every time I lost money twice in a row I had to wait on my PS2 to boot and reread the game data.
Blue Dragon - Boss gauntlet (toughest bosses of the game so far) in an area where the last save with access to the open world was about 2 hours ago. At least you can respawn a single robo mecha in a hallway to mine for skill points, so that's a little help.
Dark Cloud 2 - Limits on the number of items you can bond to a weapon mean that you'll have to waste your time leveling up a dummy weapon, then losing half your work when you bond it to your main weapon. So much tedium.
Also, was there any way to know what you were supposed to take a picture of so you could invent? I gave up and started FAQing through that pretty early.
Odin Sphere - Play through a mildly entertaining action game with beautiful graphics and a corny, unengaging story. Now play through the same game 5 more times with superficially different protagonists.
bigdaddygamebot said:
This is the first thing I thought of. If you're going to throw something like this into the game for the sake of variety, don't jack up the difficulty as well. It wasn't fun, it wasn't exciting, it wasn't a refreshing change of pace - it was a tremendously frustrating pain in the ass that disrupted the flow of the game.
Super Street Fighter II Turbo HD Remix. Setting aside the horrible initial bugs that the patch has since mitigated, making ranked lobbies not show the opponent's name and having a blind character select was a great idea for avoiding the usual character selecting antics, but then they effectively tossed that out the window by allowing people to just quit in the middle of matches with no penalty. A manual disconnection should have been an immediate loss for the guy quitting. So now you have asshats out there who have mastered the special move of selecting quit from the pause menu right in the middle of the combo that's going to take off their last bit of health in the final round. :/
And honestly, even though I couldn't get into SF4, I'd be a lot better disposed towards it if it didn't have the Ultras. Getting your face beat in badly shouldn't reward you with a super move that can turn the tables. It's like kart racing rubberband logic for fighting games. :|
And honestly, even though I couldn't get into SF4, I'd be a lot better disposed towards it if it didn't have the Ultras. Getting your face beat in badly shouldn't reward you with a super move that can turn the tables. It's like kart racing rubberband logic for fighting games. :|
Looks like everyone covered Far Cry 2. The respawning enemies KILLED the game for me. Couldn't enjoy it at all.
STALKER is up there as are so many little design decisions that bothered me which eventually added up to something I could not enjoy.
Bionic Commando - The loading. The game is fun to play and has some great ideas, but holy shit, the constant barrage of load screens killed the game. I literally could not enjoy what was there as a result of the constant loading screens. I never finished it as a result. If they had simply figured out how to stream level data properly the game would have been saved (for me).
STALKER is up there as are so many little design decisions that bothered me which eventually added up to something I could not enjoy.
Bionic Commando - The loading. The game is fun to play and has some great ideas, but holy shit, the constant barrage of load screens killed the game. I literally could not enjoy what was there as a result of the constant loading screens. I never finished it as a result. If they had simply figured out how to stream level data properly the game would have been saved (for me).
Net_Wrecker
Member
Far Cry 2 really is the PERFECT answer for this gen. I just couldn't enjoy the world they created with a storm of bullets coming at me every 3 minutes.
ALSO:
Any openworld game with an "end" is completely annoying IMO. I'm looking at Mass Effect, Zelda etc. etc. If the game is open for exploration before the end, let me keep going post final boss.
ALSO:
Any openworld game with an "end" is completely annoying IMO. I'm looking at Mass Effect, Zelda etc. etc. If the game is open for exploration before the end, let me keep going post final boss.
NameGenerated
Who paid you to grab Dr. Pavel?
The Submarine one was just pointless.
NullPointer
Member
Net_Wrecker said:
I am actually having way too much fun with that game. Ever wanted to play an open world sniper game on the console? FarCry 2 is your best answer. Get the camo suit, a silenced pistol, and the starter sniper rifle and go nuts in stealth combat glory. The stealth mechanics get flack, but those players were doing it wrong. But just to be safe, I'd also advise keeping a PKM handy in case you make too much of a ruckus. Don't use vehicles near checkpoints, and either avoid checkpoints entirely or wipe them out at range and resupply.
That's what I was looking for in the game, and I sure as hell got my wish. I've loved every bit of it.
The hovercraft sections of Half-Life 2 weren't initially terrible, but well overstayed their welcome. In an otherwise well-paced adventure, those vehicle sections just rubbed me the wrong way. Oddly, Episode Two was able to work in the car in such a way that I enjoyed myself. Can't quite put my finger on what was different that made it a more enjoyable experience, but as in most cases, I suspect it had something to do with having a companion to listen to along the way, rather than silence.
Macho Madness
Member
Toooooooooooooooo looooooooooooooooooooooooooong leeeeeeeeeeeeeevels.
I'm looking at you, Too Human. I liked the game otherwise.
I'm looking at you, Too Human. I liked the game otherwise.
Funchameleon
Banned
Ninja Gaiden 2 is the epitome of this. It remains fun in spite of enough flaws, ugly design decisions and frustrations to sink any number of other, lesser games.
If Sigma 2 can fix even half of them it might be the finest action game ever made.
If Sigma 2 can fix even half of them it might be the finest action game ever made.