Bad Trends Spawned From Good Games?

[DrunkOnEstus]

I'd have to go with GTA 3. It was a great game, but now there's too many games that use the "you're in a city, there's your minimap with a letter symbolizing your next mission, now fuck around or get to that letter" approach. Hell, until Max Payne 3 I thought Rockstar as developers would take that level design to their graves.

 

[Shoggoth2588]

Personally, I think Halo holds quite a bit of responsibility for the trend of faceless space marines in power armor, used only as a means of moving you from one shooting location to another. One thing that the knock-offs lack, however, is Halo's interesting world, lore, and mythology. I didn't mind so much in Halo that Master Chief didn't show much personality or any of his face, because the world was actually interesting, and I wanted to find out more about it.

I also dislike how Halo introduced the 2-weapon limit and it seems like every other game has jumped onto that band wagon.

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I imagine a lot of people will have a go at CoD4 and regenerating health.

I think Halo did regenerating health first...more Halo 2 than Halo CE but they were both on the Xbox, before the 360 and before Modern Warfare.

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Everything needs multiplayer now. So rather than simply having a fun single player experience we get half-assed games expected to survive on a strong online community, which is generally made up of obnoxious teenagers that apparently need to express themselves in memes and epithets.

Can't say when this became a thing, but there you go. Halo 3 will be my example. That game was more multiplayer than single player, and the single player was weak so it clearly wanted to depend more on multiplayer, which took even less effort to slap together by the developers. Borderlands is another good example, but I can't say which good game helped really popularize this crap.

For this one, I think it was Halo 2 that made Xbox Live really profitable. Gears of War 2 introduced Bot Matches but I think that was too-little too-late because I can't think of any other current gen game that has a strong multiplayer leaning but no bot-option. If 360-Orange Box TF2 had bot matches I would be playing that right now with no idea what a Portal is.

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I feel like I want to blame Halo for taking boss fights out of first person shooters. To date I only really remember Bulletstorm having actual fucking BOSSES and first-person gameplay. Halo 2 seemed like it wanted to maybe try having a boss fight (Heretic Leader and, Regret) but Halo CE, Halo 3, ODST and, Reach had nothing boss worthy. The COD games (admittedly, I only played MW and MW2) didn't have anything resembling a boss fight (because QTEs do not a boss make). Duke Nukem Forever had bosses! Not perfect but actual bosses. I want to see more bosses in FPS games...

 

[Occams_Razor]

Early sandbox games, like GTA 3 and Morrowind(yes, I know there are probably earlier examples) that succeeded, and then spawned an influx of open world games with nothing to do in them. Sandboxes aren't nearly as interesting if there is no point to explore, and nothing to do in them.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

Whatever game it was that spawned the idea that EVERYTHING has to have multiplayer. I think it was Halo.

 

[Snowblindblitz]

No one said QTEs yet? I swear it seems like the cool thing to hate on is shooters anymore.

Anyways, I believe God of War popularized QTEs, and now they get shoved into cinemas at weird times (Hello Resident Evil, please let me know if I need to do something in the video, or just watch, rather then occasionally ream me during an un-skippable "cinema"), and replaced boss fights in games entirely for awhile.

Gets old seeing a big, awesome bad guy and, rather then an epic, Dark Souls style battle, you see:

O O O [] X ^

AND CAN'T EVEN PAY ATTENTION TO WHAT'S GOING ON JUST TO AVOID WATCHING THE SAME THING OVER AND OVER!

 

[SonOfMethuselah]

I don't know what game started it, (the first one I remember seeing it in is Final Fantasy VII), but I hate games where the cinematics are rendered in a higher quality than the actual game. I have nothing against cutscenes in general, but when they're done in that fashion, they ruin the immersion so hard.

 

[natster43]

Halo made the limited weapons and regenerating health popular.
Gears made ever third person game need a cover system.
Call of Duty has made it so most shooters have to have a multiplayer, as well as those multiplayers being on small paintball fields, also very linear single player campaigns.
Resident Evil 4 and God of War made Quick Time Events a thing.

 

[GiglameshSoulEater]

Whatever game it was that spawned the idea that EVERYTHING has to have multiplayer. I think it was Halo.

The original halo only had local multiplayer. I don't thin kit started there. I think that can't really be blamed on any particular game or series: certainly a lot of games are focused on multiplayer to the detriment of the campaign, but I think that is more the thought processes of EA and such that resulted in this multiplayer cancer.

I imagine a lot of people will have a go at CoD4 and regenerating health.

I thought it was Halo which had the regenerating health before CoD ?

I think the first had Regenerating shields, and you could get health back at health stations. The only one to not do that was Halo 3, which had full regen, if I remember correctly.

Halo: CE had a health bar that was refilled by health packs in addition to the sheild.
Halo 2 and 3 had no health bar, just shields.
Halo ODST had a quasi health bar: take too much damage, and it would be reduced, but it also could regenerate from light wounds. It also had a shield, though it was called 'stamina'.
Halo Reach had a similiar system to ODST.

I haven't played Halo 4, so I couldn't say on that one.

 

[TrevHead]

God of War and to a lesser degree Batman Arkham Asylum for dumbing down the hack and slash genre.

World of Warcraft for making MMOs of that type so goddam popular and for the fact it was MMO addiction that was the first real skinner box that was popular. With publishers nowadays trying to do the same with traditional games. Eg Facebook social games, Activision with subs and micro transactions in CoD and Diablo 3, the ever increasing number of traditional games with MMO gameplay elements like leveling to keep ppl playing forever.

CoD and TF2 for been so big that nobody can compete with them and every new PC MP shooter is now F2P.

Castle Crashers for the fact it has crappy dumbed down instant attacks gameplay and was the first beat em up to be released and is now the only beat em up that ppl play online.

Halo for making console FPS games popular that PC gamers saw nothing but crappy console FPS ports for years which just aren't fun with a m&k

 

[Canadamus Prime]

Whatever game it was that spawned the idea that EVERYTHING has to have multiplayer. I think it was Halo.

The original halo only had local multiplayer. I don't thin kit started there. I think that can't really be blamed on any particular game or series: certainly a lot of games are focused on multiplayer to the detriment of the campaign, but I think that is more the thought processes of EA and such that resulted in this multiplayer cancer.

I said I think it was Halo, I don't know for sure. All I do know for sure is that Halo is more fondly remembered for it's mutliplayer than it's story. But what game actually led to this trend? I don't know, I could've been Goldeneye on the N64 for all I know.

 

[DrunkOnEstus]

Resident Evil 4 and God of War made Quick Time Events a thing.

If I remember right I'm almost positive it was Shenmue on the Dreamcast that made QTE a thing, but back then we weren't used to see it all over the place and we appreciated how it allowed us to "do" things that the engine couldn't ever allow.