Tiny, insignificant details in games that really bother you

[Dalisclock]

Military stuff that's just blatantly wrong. Particularly Navy stuff being a Navy vet.

My favorite examples:
-Crysis. To start off with, the Aircraft Carrier is named the USS Constitution, which is possibly the worst name they could have picked because that name is already in use by another ship and is likely to be for the indefinite future. The uniforms on the sailors are completely wrong(except for the flight deck crew) and the interior is just bizarre looking. Even Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 did a better job.

-Prototype. The Aircraft Carrier shown at the end of the game is way too close to shore when there's no reason to(Naval Aircraft have 100+ mile ranges and New York Harbor is kinda crowded), not moving which means it can't launch aircraft and worst of all, it's launching Apache Helicopters and F-22 Lightning fighter jets, which are used by the Army and Air Force respectively and thus are very unlikely to be seen on an Aircraft Carrier(The Navy has it's own aircraft and doesn't like to share flight deck space, though they'll make an exception for the marines).

 

[SilentPony]

SNIP

Can carriers not launch stationary? How does the movement add to launches? Not arguing, straight up curious.

 

[Dalisclock]

Can carriers not launch stationary? How does the movement add to launches? Not arguing, straight up curious.

Aircraft carriers launch their aircraft into the wind and will often use the ship speed to compensate for wind speed (or lack of it). The catapults can technically do it on their own added to ship movement but it adds a lot more stress to the catapults and the reactor system(Not so much the reactor itself but rather the required steam/water).

There's like a complex calcation done by the tower to determine all this stuff but normally more wind is better(excluding storms and hurricanes, obviously)

 

[Worgen]

One thing that always bugs me narratively is when there is supposed to be something special about your character, like they are doing something that no one else can do. But really their main power is just being good with a gun and guns are decidedly not a super power, anyone can use a gun. The main two that are coming to mind that do this are Duke and Doom, especially Doom 2016, Doom Eternal at least gave you some additional powers, still nothing that really screams super human but its something I guess.

 

[BrawlMan]

• Whenever one party member out of 3 or 4 die and it's instant game over. Always hated that. Luckily, Onechanbara Z2: Chaos avoids that.
• Weird priorty animations that can get in the way of gameplay or makes things unnecessarily difficult. RE3Remake has this weird animation Jill does when she bumps up against the wall, and slows her down. Do not let realism get in the way of game play when it is detrimental to the experience. See also any of the Uncharted games too.
• Red Dead 2's horse testicles! What the fuck Rockstar? No ones wants to see that!
• DmC's platforming while the best in the franchise, it overly easy and is borderline on rails.
• I never like not being able to move and shoot at the same time in older Resident Evil titles. By 4 & 5, it way beyond wore out its welcome. Especially when many other games copying or inspired by it, allowed to move and shoot at the same time. I know it's an intentional design choice, but that does not make it scary or more tense.
• Everything in an open-world Ubisoft game post Far Cry 3 & Assassin's Creed Brotherhood.
• Platinum Games never bothering with customizable controls. The best you're going to get is 2-4 different control types depending on the game. I know why they do this: hint, hint. QTEs and Action Commands. At this point, either tone it down, or get rid of them to have full customizable controls like in DMC. Capcom and many other 3rd person action games (that did not follow God of War) had this problem figured out since DMC3. What is your excuse?

 

[SilentPony]

One thing that always bugs me narratively is when there is supposed to be something special about your character, like they are doing something that no one else can do. But really their main power is just being good with a gun and guns are decidedly not a super power, anyone can use a gun. The main two that are coming to mind that do this are Duke and Doom, especially Doom 2016, Doom Eternal at least gave you some additional powers, still nothing that really screams super human but its something I guess.

Well in the full continuity of the Duke Nukem series isn't he a time traveling super soldier from the future? Or do the non-FPS games not count?

 

[BrawlMan]

Or do the non-FPS games not count?

All console spin-offs and 3rd person shooters are non-canon. And the whole soldier from the future is Serious Sam's backstory. I know he started as a Duke clone (irony), but that changed and they added more to his personality starting with 2nd encounter.

 

[Worgen]

Well in the full continuity of the Duke Nukem series isn't he a time traveling super soldier from the future? Or do the non-FPS games not count?

If he is then you would think his abilities would go beyond using guns good and sexual harassment.

 

[Gordon_4]

Military stuff that's just blatantly wrong. Particularly Navy stuff being a Navy vet.

My favorite examples:
-Crysis. To start off with, the Aircraft Carrier is named the USS Constitution, which is possibly the worst name they could have picked because that name is already in use by another ship and is likely to be for the indefinite future. The uniforms on the sailors are completely wrong(except for the flight deck crew) and the interior is just bizarre looking. Even Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 did a better job.

-Prototype. The Aircraft Carrier shown at the end of the game is way too close to shore when there's no reason to, not moving which means it can't launch aircraft and worst of all, it's launching Apache Helicopters and F-22 Lightning fighter jets, which are used by the Army and Air Force respectively and thus are very unlikely to be seen on an Aircraft Carrier(The Navy has it's own aircraft and doesn't like to share flight deck space, though they'll make an exception for the marines).

I thought the F35-Lightning was being developed for carrier launch, or am I confusing it with the STO/VOL variant?

 

[Dalisclock]

I thought the F35-Lightning was being developed for carrier launch, or am I confusing it with the STO/VOL variant?

Sorry, I messed up the codename. I meant the F22 Raptor. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_F-22_Raptor
I'd briefly forgotten the F35 is the Lightning, which has a VTOL variant(for the Marines) and a carrier variant(for the Navy) aside from the Air Force variant.

 

[Thaluikhain]

In Vampire: The Masquerade: Bloodlines, that you can't swap ammo between weapons, even if it's explicitly stated to use the same ammo. Your pump action shotgun with the internal magazine and your shotgun with the detachable magazines are both 12 gauges, IIRC you had semi-auto pistols, machine pistols and SMGs all using the same 9mm ammo, but with different magazines. Take out some loose rounds and put them in magazines, you can totally do that.

I blame Shakespeare, to be honest. People hear how people talk in Shakespeare plays and decided that was an accurate record of how people actually talked back then because....I realize common conversations weren't really recorded until fairly recently so nobody really knows how people talked day to day but theater tends towards the dramatic while letters tend to be formal.

And even in Shakespeare, sure you get a lot of people making speeches at each other, but a lot of casual conversation and the odd dirty joke as well.

 

[meiam]

Sorry, I messed up the codename. I meant the F22 Raptor. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockheed_Martin_F-22_Raptor
I'd briefly forgotten the F35 is the Lightning, which has a VTOL variant(for the Marines) and a carrier variant(for the Navy) aside from the Air Force variant.

I doubt the F-22 can even launch from carrier. Also is the VTOL for the F35 finally ready? Last I heard it was one of the many variant that was still not really done.

 

[Dalisclock]

I doubt the F-22 can even launch from carrier. Also is the VTOL for the F35 finally ready? Last I heard it was one of the many variant that was still not really done.

It couldn't. Carrier launched/recovered aircraft have to be specially designed to do so and the pilots have to train for carrier landings(due to very short runway). The F22 was designed with longer ground based runways in mind.

I haven't followed it for a bit but last I read the F-35 program was a still a bit of a mess but the Defense Department is buying them anyway, probably due a lack of other options. It's a plane that was designed to replace a number of others fighters, all of which are getting rather old and.....yeah.

 

[SckizoBoy]

Military stuff that's just blatantly wrong. Particularly Navy stuff being a Navy vet.

So what's you're opinion on CoD:MW3's Delta force New York Bay mission?(!) Gotta love it when that sub strolls along overhead >.>

 

[Agema]

Nothing comes to mind at the moment, but this I will point out: in British English, both singular and plural is 'dice' and Terry Cavanagh being a London-based Irishman, it makes perfect sense for him to use this 'standard' lexicography.

I can quite assure you as a Briton that in British English the singular form of "dice" is supposed to be "die"; for instance the famous translation of Julius Caesar's "alea jacta est" is and always has been "The die is cast".

"Dice" as the singular is a misuse that has become sufficiently common over the years that it has eventually become recognised as valid, but it definitely is not "standard".

 

[SckizoBoy]

I can quite assure you as a Briton that in British English the singular form of "dice" is supposed to be "die"; for instance the famous translation of Julius Caesar's "alea jacta est" is and always has been "The die is cast".

"Dice" as the singular is a misuse that has become sufficiently common over the years that it has eventually become recognised as valid, but it definitely is not "standard".

Knew I should've used 'vernacular'. -.-

 

[Phoenixmgs]

There's tons of little things I hate in games whether it's just about everything little in the new God of War that Matthewmatosis talks about it all in his video like the move assist where you as Kratos or the enemies slide towards each other to land hits. I hate how Max Payne's animations in MP3 take precedence over your inputs making moving and shooting feel just a touch off. I hate how the shield controls in Dark Souls where your character turns around when holding block and then pressing back on the left stick. Like that Simpsons episode with Hank Scorpio, it's all about the little things.

To add, 3rd person shooters with no shoulder swap but a very intimate camera, such as resi evil remakes and evil withins. Also xcom 2 has this habit of blinding the shit out of my retinas every time I go to the control room when it does that earth hologram whole-screen whiteout. I like to play in darkness, but not for that.
Shadow of the tomb raider has like a thousand tiny annoyances I can never remember but always grate in the moment. At least it has shoulder swap though.

I especially hate that in online 3rd-person shooters when you can't switch shoulders because then anyone moving to their left is at a disadvantage due to the controls. The Uncharted games allow shoulder swapping, however it always defaults to the right shoulder instead of just remembering the last shoulder you shot off. They finally fixed that in UC4 I believe.

• Platinum Games never bothering with customizable controls. The best you're going to get is 2-4 different control types depending on the game. I know why they do this: hint, hint. QTEs and Action Commands. At this point, either tone it down, or get rid of them to have full customizable controls like in DMC. Capcom and many other 3rd person action games (that did not follow God of War) had this problem figured out since DMC3. What is your excuse?

If you have the Bayo/Vanquish remasters on PS4 you can change the controls via accessibility options.

 

[Agema]

Knew I should've used 'vernacular'. -.-

Actually, when I was a younger child, I thought "The die is cast" was a metalworking metaphor - a "die" being a tool (e.g. for stamping coins) and "cast" to refer to creating metal objects with a mould. It seemed to make sense to me because the intended metaphor still worked: what's done is done, just have to work with it. Then I found out "jacta" means thrown in Latin as a teenager, and the mental cogs turned...

 

[BrawlMan]

If you have the Bayo/Vanquish remasters on PS4 you can change the controls via accessibility options.

I've seen the control options in those versions, but that is not 100% customization. Those are presets (or Control Types as the games calls them) with changes in control, but the player has no choice in the matter. For example, compare the customization options in the DMC games post 3, where you can assign the buttons how ever you want (button remapping), and not given a bunch of presets where the choice is practically made for you, or barely changes a few things. Transformers Devastation and Nier: Automata do the same thing with the Control Type styles instead 100% cutsomization.

 

[SckizoBoy]

Actually, when I was a younger child, I thought "The die is cast" was a metalworking metaphor - a "die" being a tool (e.g. for stamping coins) and "cast" to refer to creating metal objects with a mould. It seemed to make sense to me because the intended metaphor still worked: what's done is done, just have to work with it. Then I found out "jacta" means thrown in Latin as a teenager, and the mental cogs turned...

I was thinking of mentioning that because that's my first thought when hearing 'die' used as a noun. That lead to the sudden thought of wondering if that was how dice were made before modern manufacturing methods as a go-between after the days of manual carving(!)

With regards to the Caesar quote, along with veni, vidi, vici I completely misinterpreted them in terms of when/where he said them (and for a while made little effort to verify it), thinking both made little contextual sense, then getting disabused of the misconception in rather humorous fashion.