Bad Game Elements

[Valiance]

One more- first person swimming. Has it EVER been executed well??

Duke Nukem 3D?

[HEADING=2]"Save Anywhere."[/HEADING]

So true. Save anywhere has even retroactively sabatoged good old games. Its like credit feeding in a run and gun, it takes all the fun out of it.

You know, just because you "can" save anywhere doesn't mean the game requires you to "cheat" with saves.

Some people challenge themselves to beat games without saved games, or without anything but auto-save from the start of a level, or whatever. Nothing is requiring a player to "abuse" it. It just encourages people who get frustrated with repetition to not have to do half the level again when they die.

(Also, I could be a little biased since I have like 300 Fallout 3 saves, but I also play Roguelikes (without savescumming, mind you) where when you die, you start the entire game over.)

That said, to get on topic my least favorite element of a game is distracting visuals. I know this sounds weird, but if a game has visuals designed to be aggravating or obstructing, I have no reason to not turn the graphics down. For example, BFBC2 has a ridiculous amount of dust/smoke clouds impeding view, and I guess that's sort of the point, but it's just sorta frustrating.

Bloom can look great in, say, Mirror's Edge, but as soon as I'm trying to actually shoot something, it gets annoying. The opposite is even worse, like if a game is too dark or textures are similar and sloppy, or the environment is just very "busy" like in UT3, making it difficult to tell the actors from the scenery...

I'm not the kind of person who needs to play Quake Live with Picmip on, but some things like smoke coming out of guns or extensive shadows that people can hide in or something just don't work well for me in a multi-player "competitive" experience.

(That said, I think it's wonderful for single-player survival horror and the like, and atmosphere, etc.)

TL;DR: I turn graphics down to do better at games where smoke would make me aim worse.

 

[phenity]

I hate all timed elements in gameplay. I strongly dislike speed running just because I feel rushed and start performing sloppily. The Speed run stars in Super Mario Galaxy 2 are a good example of this, although the experience is much more fun with a friend taking care of the enemies while you focus on moving ahead. The optional races in Assassin's Creed II were actually okay, but that's only because I'm pretty good at free-running in that game.

I also hate levels with auto-scroll. This is a complaint I pretty much only reserve for platforming games. Like "The Tower" and "The Final Challenge" in VVVVVV. Those two levels made me RAGE (even though these levels' intense difficulty is almost solely based on the fact that they do auto-scroll). It's also particularly annoying if the level auto-scrolls way too slow.

This is something that I alone seem to hate, but I despise aiming down iron-sights in games that aren't CoD4. It felt so out of place and pace-breaking in Borderlands, so much so that in most cases I simply never aimed down my sights unless I had a scope. If developers are going to force us to aim down the sights at least implement optional red dot sights or simple scopes that are reticule like that you can choose to add on to your gun (an attachment feature, now that I think of it, would have been really cool in Borderlands anyway). I just hate using stupid metal nubs to aim my gun unless the game is slower paced or more realistic.

Lastly, I hate any and all artificial difficulty. The inescapable grab attacks, and the attacks that stagger you in Ninja Gaiden II are a prime example of this. Basically, bullshit. If a game is trying to be hard it should be hard by design or because the enemies are tougher to kill because of better, more confident and competent AI or (less acceptably) because they simply take more attacks to kill; not because there are tons of heavy hitting attacks that take reflexes of steel to avoid.

 

[monkey_man]

i think quicktime events can be done good, like say RE4, and the god of war series. they make the "just go and kill things by shooting it in the face 20 times" tactic disappear (work for your kills mister, WORK FOR THEM)
but for most games, respawning midgame is just bad. like COD WM2, and others. the only game i know which does it properly is tf2