Criticisms of video games you are tired of hearing

Goliath100

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SKBPinkie said:
"Brown / gray military shooters"

This just means that you have an issue with the game being a military shooter. It not having color is a bullshit "argument", because you never hear that complaint when it comes to games like Fallout, Skyrim, GTA IV, etc. Especially Fallout, what with its muddy tetures and vomit-inducing color palet.
You are miss a couple of words. Namely "overly linear and script". Also, "Grey/ Brown" is code for "no need/ justification for the realism aesthetic". Basicly it get down to how well the world building is done.
 

Bad Jim

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Elijin said:
Framerate and resolution.

Obviously not the valid complaints like 'This game runs at 5 fps and is nigh unplayable.'

Im talking the high end stuff, with the same people coming back to tell us we should be offended by one framerate, and another perfectly playable framerate is unplayable, etc etc.
Framerate counts, even at the high end. An action oriented game is generally playable at 30 fps, but it will feel better at 60 fps, and will generally feel even better at 120 fps. The controls will feel less floaty, and more responsive. You'll notice yourself playing better at higher framerates. Not everyone can see it, but you can feel it.

Before you write me off as a PC gamer who takes the 'master race' thing seriously, I don't think it's an inherent problem with consoles. It's a design decision. When a game is designed to run at 30 fps, the designers sacrifice playability for the superficial delights of more polygons and fancier lighting effects. They don't even save money, on the contrary they spend more due to the higher detail.

I do not think it is a huge coincidence that COD has dominated the military fps market while also being one of the few franchises that has pushed for 60 fps. Once people start playing, COD will feel better than its' 30 fps rivals. Players won't know why, but they will enjoy the game more.

I'm not really concerned about resolution though, unless there is significant emphasis placed on seeing small/distant objects, eg when sniping. I will not hesitate to lower my res if I need more fps.
 

Objectable

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"The plot of this game is too much like this other game!"

So what? What does that prove? With sufficiently perverse phrasing, I can make The Silence of the Lambs sound like Care Bears: A New Generation.

"An ambitious young woman, desiring to overcome the skepticism of her peers and excel in her chosen field, seeks out the assistance of a man with a monstrous reputation. He demands quid pro quo in return for his help; though put off by his unsettling demeanor, she agrees. Her initial victories are short-lived, however, when it transpires that her new mentor is simply manipulating her in order to pursue revenge against an older authority figure who?s been watching over her. In the end, all possible allies having been taken out of the picture by a wild goose chase orchestrated by her ostensible benefactor, our heroine must confront a terrifying enemy in an underground lair where he imprisons the innocent for his own twisted amusement."
 

Easton Dark

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Jasper van Heycop said:
You may have a point with resolution, though try playing a game at the wrong aspect ratio because the developer can't be arsed to include your native resolution in the options, and suddenly the complaint becomes more valid.
What the hell is with these black bars in Assassin's Whaling 4, Ubisoft? No other game does this, not even ones made by you.
 

Jacco

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I don't have a criticism that annoys so me much as an attitude.

And that attitude that just pisses me off is "if you don't like x, dont do/play/watch/etc x."

No. Fuck you. If something is legit shitty, it needs to be called on being shitty. I'm looking at you, GTA:O.
 

theSovietConnection

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There are a couple that really bug me.

One is an argument I constantly hear from one of my friends about sports games, but hearing it from anyone about any genre really bugs me, and that argument is, "I don't like [insert genre here], so they should styop making them because they're not really games."

It's a highly elitist position, in my opinion. Believing that an entire genre of games has no right to exist solely due to the fact that you don't like it makes you an asshole. Yet he will immediately begin bashing anyone that dare say a game or genre he likes shouldn't exist.

The other "criticism" that really bugs me is when people who clearly did not even touch a game make bad reviews for it. The most recent example I can think of is Final Fantasy XIII. I'm not speaking for anyone on here's opinion of the game, as I have been away from here for a couple years, but I have seen many reviews for it where it is clear to me the person never even touched the game, and if they did, they probably played it for all of about 15 minutes. I can understand why people dislike the game, and take no issue with those who don't like it, but if you didn't play it, don't write a review for it.
 

ShinyCharizard

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One recent one in particular that pertains specifically to Titanfall.

"It's just COD with Mechs"

No.... No it isn't. But by all means keep playing it like COD, all the more easy kills for me.
 
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ShogunGino said:
Cecilthedarkknight_234 said:
Sack of Cheese said:
Linearity.
A linear game is not necessary bad, it just means your experience is manually crafted by the developers. A well-crafted adventure can be just as fun as an open-world sandbox one.
I truly don't care if a game is linear or not due in part that I'm a huge retro gamer. Most nes, snes, sega master system, sega genesis and turbo grafx 16 where very linear but still fun to play aside from a few expectations. What Upsets me is when they take a series like metroid which is known for it's exploration, back tracking and weapon upgrades and dumb it down. Such an example would be the heaping disaster we all know as Other M, which took away everything we grew to love about the series and squashed it.
I find it a little funny that you say that you don't care if a game is linear, and yet Metroid fans seem to be the most vocal when anything dares to make a Metroid game a little more linear.

I hate to use you as an example, because I don't want to make it seems like I'm picking on you in particular, but I am tired of the criticism that when a certain series that tries to be particularly different with its gameplay and story in a new game is always a bad thing, and I find Metroid fans to be particularly guilty of this. Their complaints about linearity are second in my book of "Complaints about a particular game that I am sick of hearing" right behind the Mass Effect 3 ending.

There are multiple ways to look at it, though. First off, I was never a big Metroid fan. I didn't grow up with Super Metroid, and I wasn't very good at Metroid Prime, and it took me a lot of use from walkthroughs to make it through it. I get that its fans love it for particular reasons, and that Other M took a different route, similar to Metroid Fusion, with more focus on a plot, which tends to make games more linear. I also see that Fusion gets a lot of flak for that reason. I watch SpeedDemosArchives' videos of speedruns, and in one of their recent charity Twitch events, Metroid Fusion was one of the games that was being played, and some people in the room with them would just NOT SHUT UP about Adam, and when it reached one point late-game where you aren't being guided because of plot reasons, someone actually said "This is point where it actually becomes, you know, a Metroid game!"

I just hate that, when they say that X game is "not an X game" because it tries to be different. It all just reeks of "I don't like change!! Never change anything!!" to me. Personally, I'm fine if a series tries to mix things up. I'm never too attached to one gameplay style that I can't bear to see it altered in any way. In that sense, I was fine with the gameplay style of Other M, a little less exploration, and a larger focus on story, because I thought it was an interesting change. All I ask is that the changes hold up the game well. I thought Other M's gameplay could use some tweaking, but I thought its style was fine. (I really would have preferred to use the nunchuck's control stick rather than the Wiimote D-pad, that would be the first tweak for me)

As a Zelda fan, I frequently see this a new game is released. Fans always seem to hate it compared to the previous major release when it comes out, but a few years later, they like it enough to hate the new one for being different than it. It's very frustrating cycle.

-You will notice that I haven't brought up Other M's story and characterization yet. Mostly because I didn't like them either for pretty much all the same reasons as the fans, but it takes a lot for a game to make me truly mad, and Other M didn't make me mad. I just think the game is 'okay'.-
Listen I get where you're coming from on to a certain degree. It get's old, tedious and very boring to play new entries in the franchise after awhile. However metriod to me has always been about exploring, guiding samus along making her stronger and not following a linear route. I will even admit fusion broke away a bit but it didn't hurt the game, just breathed new life and made samus more of person, not a walking suit of metal who kills everything on site. Other M however went to far for my taste because the story played a major role in where you could explore, what weapons you could use and even what doors you could unlock. To me that tarnished what was good about the series to begin with and I will fully understand if you still disagree with me.
 

ShogunGino

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Cecilthedarkknight_234 said:
Listen I get where you're coming from on to a certain degree. It get's old, tedious and very boring to play new entries in the franchise after awhile. However metriod to me has always been about exploring, guiding samus along making her stronger and not following a linear route. I will even admit fusion broke away a bit but it didn't hurt the game, just breathed new life and made samus more of person, not a walking suit of metal who kills everything on site. Other M however went to far for my taste because the story played a major role in where you could explore, what weapons you could use and even what doors you could unlock. To me that tarnished what was good about the series to begin with and I will fully understand if you still disagree with me.
To me, the way you word it, its as if you think a Metroid game can't be good unless there's no plot guidance. "The story played a major role in where you could explore, what weapons you could use and even what doors you could unlock. To me that tarnished what was good about the series to begin with"

Who is to say that a story can't be structured and detailed in a way that even though it does play a big role in pointing you where you can go, it can still be a strong title? True, I don't think Other M's story complemented this idea too well, but still, saying that a rather strict story-focused Metroid game 'tarnishes' the series, it feels like you're not open to the possibility that something different to the norm will be good.

Again, I don't mean to pick on you, you sound like a reasonable person, but just to rephrase, I really don't like it when people start referring to things that are different as inherently 'bad', or 'tarnishing' what made them good. To me, something shouldn't be bad because its different, even vastly different, it should be bad because the differences aren't solid enough to make the game good despite them. I think Other M can fall under this category because, being plot heavy as one of the big differences, I didn't feel the plot was presented or executed well enough to make up for its differences, resulting in just an 'okay' game for me.
 

TomWiley

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Sack of Cheese said:
Linearity.
A linear game is not necessary bad, it just means your experience is manually crafted by the developers. A well-crafted adventure can be just as fun as an open-world sandbox one.
This.

Half Life is a perfect example of this.
 

TheMigrantSoldier

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ShinyCharizard said:
One recent one in particular that pertains specifically to Titanfall.

"It's just COD with Mechs"

No.... No it isn't. But by all means keep playing it like COD, all the more easy kills for me.
Oh, yes. THIS one. That or it's generic. I could easily come up with tons of ideas that looked like they went into Titanfall like "Crysis meets Attack on Titan". Titanfall doesn't come off as "generic" or "modern military FPS" in the slightest.
 

Fox12

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The gameplay was too scripted/softcore.

I hear these complaints thrown at games like The Last of Us and Mass Effect a lot. In fact I'd say it's one of the primary criticism. Frankly, this is ridiculous. I loved Mass Effect 1, but if you honestly think that the gameplay was better, then there's something wrong with you. I also find it strange that people then praise Dark Souls for its gameplay, even though it isn't any more complicated.

I find that the Nintendo fans throw this complaint out the most, which leads me to believe that this is the result of a schism in game design philosophy. On the one hand you have more technical minded gamers, like Total Biscuit and Nintendo, who pay more attention to the technical design and layout of a game, but who couldn't care less about the story. Then you have artistic story driven studios like Naughty Dog, Bioware, and Telltale, who try to create interactive drama because they know that your more invested in a story that your involved in. This allows games like Mass Effect and Spec Ops to actually make the player question their own beliefs in a way that movies can't. Both sides tend to label the other as "shallow."

Personally I fall into camp two, but I think both philosophies are valid. I wish the sense of smug superiority would stop from both sides.
 

PoolCleaningRobot

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Given the recent Evil Within trailer, games aren't scary if your protagonist can defend them self. It makes no sense to me. Its an interesting concept that's given us some cool games but how is being armed in slightest stop a game from being scary? The most terrifying game I've played is probably Cry of Fear and you're pretty well armed in that game. I think it can be less scary when you can just outrun any monster in the game. Horror games with combat make you face those horrible monsters head on rather than beat them scripted events, puzzles, or track star legs

Pink Gregory said:
Not so much a criticism, but how it's communicated: people seem to think that hyperbole actually improves the legitimacy of their criticism.

I see some folk try to go the whole 'cynical' angle without the self-deprecating elements which allow me to still appreciate Yahtzee (for example), and it just comes off as arrogance; which is just tiresome.

It doesn't necessarily invalidate the criticism, it just means that I'm less likely to listen to them, roll my eyes and say 'here we go again...'. That's why I'm forever seeking out things that are written/said with the intention of actually being positive. Surprisingly, people like TotalBiscuit, AngryJoe et al seem to do that quite well.

But an actual criticism? There's an odd dichotomy between people who complain about shorter game length (though I hold probably an unpopular opinion on that) and then people who complain about things being repetitive. Though these are probably different people.
Definitely. The edge factor is easily this site's biggest problem. When it comes to Yahtzee, until the last year or so every game he's shat on was still based on legitimate criticisms. With others its just the derivative complaints parroted over and over. This game is a movie. Game has too much focus on shiny graphics. This game is too easy. Since some don't want to explain why a certain criticism applies to a certain game, it basically sounds like people think there's only one way to make a game. I'm starting think some people's wet dream is some kind of cross between Thomas was Alone and Dark Souls
 

Dirty Hipsters

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JediMB said:
Jasper van Heycop said:
I understand 30 fps on last generation consoles, as they're prehistoric in terms of tech, but on current gen consoles or the PC it is simply inexcusable.
Man, I've been hearing this argument since the Gamecube/PS2/Xbox generation. People were saying that current-gen games shouldn't be running at 30 fps, but it was understandable that it was done on the PS1 and N64.

Apparently the industry at large prefers something fancy-looking over a smooth framerate, no matter what generation we're currently on.
It's because of promotional material. It's easier to sell someone on a pretty screenshot than to have to explain to them that the reason the game doesn't have god-rays and 18 different kinds of particle effects is because they wanted to have a bigger draw distance and higher frame-rate. It's harder to show someone that the game FEELS better to play than it is to show someone that the game LOOKS pretty.
 

Kilt'd

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I don't feel the hate for QTEs. I think in the right context they work well, you just need to commit to building your game around them to pull it off.

I love the story of Beyond: Two Souls. I don't think it's perfect, but I appreciate what it did achieve and what it attempted. The argument that it's somehow invalid as a game because of it's control scheme isn't one that I can get behind. In a way, I see games like the ones that Quantic Dream makes as a different branch of the medium - games that are designed with a narrative focus and are built to tell an engaging story instead of deliver engaging gameplay. For those games, mechanics are a simple means to the end of allowing the player to interact with the story. The mechanics there aren't the focus like they are in games with highly polished, engaging mechanics (like, in my opinion, Call of Duty). To me, criticizing a game like Heavy Rain or Beyond: Two Souls for it's gameplay misses the point of the games themselves.

To me, a game can be many things. I don't think we should pretend that the possibilities for games should be limited to specific stories or mechanics, and I don't like to see beautiful expressions medium undermined. We have mechanic focused experiences like CoD MW2 four player split-screen, narrative focused games like Beyond: Two Souls, and excellent combinations of both like The Last of Us (Where I think the mechanics aren't as tight and there isn't the same level of story focus, but the overall game is close to perfect). By having this variety we have the best of all possible worlds, where the games exist and people can play them as they choose. Let's just accept that and avoid throwing bile at games because they do something differently.
 

PoolCleaningRobot

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MrHide-Patten said:
That's what it feels like. At the end of the day it just makes primary PC players look like smug assholes.
So true. One of my bosses at my job could be the poster boy of the pc master race. Computer expert, has 3 separate networks in his house and runs his own gaming server off one, owns 7 computers including gaming laptops and a monster rig, uses a Linux OS to manage all the Internet traffic in his house, and has logged over 1,000 hours in FT2 and only plays classic style fps's and Valve games. You know what he asked me? Which of the new consoles would be right for his son. Its amazing how the Internet completely ruin a person's empathy to point where can't understand why someone would want a different gaming device

Jasper van Heycop said:
That's just like... your opinion man.

I definitely see the difference between 60 fps and 30 fps, 30 fps is choppy and makes it look like the game is lagging, to me. I understand 30 fps on last generation consoles, as they're prehistoric in terms of tech, but on current gen consoles or the PC it is simply inexcusable.
I won't argue that there's a difference, but face it: you only know the difference because 60 fps games have spoiled you. I was playing dungeon defenders at friend's house and we were using a good pc for the dungeon master and a kind of good pc on tv for everyone else. My friend was complaining that frame rate on the tv wasn't good enough and I didn't understand until I was the dungeon master and used his good 60 fps computer. Then the difference was night and day. But that was one day and hasn't stopped me from playing games on my ps3 and pc with lower frame rates. 60 fps won't be necessary until a lot of people use it. Hell, most movies are still 30 fps
 

NuclearKangaroo

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"its too linear!"

yeah guess wnat Mr. Video Game Connossieur, so is Half-Life 2, linearity isnt really wrong in any way, hand holding is
 

Snotnarok

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Over hyped- who cares, if you're saying this you've likely not played it but you 'saw enough' in the teaser trailer to know the game isn't good.

Not realistic- good, I'm tired of every game looking and being realistic. Even Final Fantasy is this realistic anime hybrid mix in visual style that just puts me off.

Cartoonish- There's a lot of cartoonish things that can be taken seriously, but even if it's a lack of seriousness, there's nothing wrong with cartoons. I'm sure this is a case of immature people avoiding cartoons to look more mature with other game types.

Linear- That's not a bad thing- yes there are some exceptions like Battlefield 3 which felt more like a series of hallway tours and turret sections and LOOK AT THIS IMPRESSIVE THING. I mean it was to the point where the jet section was less engaging than a light gun game.

Oversimplified- This is a bit more specific- like Skyrim, Mass Effect 2 & 3 I felt like many of the changes were just fat trimming. The equipment in ME1 was so cluttered, unvaried and needless when 2 came around the guns actually FELT different. Just because there isn't inventory sorting doesn't mean the game is less fun. Skyrim I felt was better as well, oblivion had you running and jumping to level certain stats, so you'd be bunny rabbit hopping everywhere and avoiding quick travel otherwise you were losing out.

"It's just like [game x]"- So what? It's not directly copying it, the good examples are do things different even just having their own style.
 

KazeAizen

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This is a nitpick for me of 2 reviews from a few years ago but still I think it might apply somewhere. When a con of a game is part of the way its marketed. Let me explain. A few years ago Sonic Generations came out. Sonic fans around the world leapt for joy as it was one of the best Sonic games ever made and a fantastic tribute to the blue blur. It was his 20th anniversary game and SEGA marketed it as such. A nostalgia trip for Sonic fans who had stuck with him through thick and thin. Revisiting old levels from recent and old games in both their new Hedgehog engine and a more classic side scrolling Sonic style engine. Yet when the game was released IGN and Xplay reviewed the game and over all gave it a decent score. However one of the cons both reviews shared baffled me. A "con" was "rehashed versions of old levels".....NO **** THE LEVELS ARE REDONE! ITS NOT LIKE THEY WERE MARKETING IT AS A TRIP THROUGH SONIC'S HISTORY THEREFORE IMPLYING VISITING LEVELS WE PLAYED YEARS AGO! They were totally trying to sell us a Sonic nostalgia trip that had nothing but new levels that we have played before in any Sonic games.

Ok rant over but I think you get the point. When a game is marketed as something but loses points for fulfilling that marketing promise that is just stupid. That'd be like a Naruto game trying to appeal to the Naruto fanbase outside Japan and being marketed as such but losing points for not trying to open its doors to new fans when it was never trying to do that in the first place.
 

Dragonlayer

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SKBPinkie said:
"Brown / gray military shooters"

This just means that you have an issue with the game being a military shooter. It not having color is a bullshit "argument", because you never hear that complaint when it comes to games like Fallout, Skyrim, GTA IV, etc. Especially Fallout, what with its muddy tetures and vomit-inducing color palet.

I don't like most military shooters either, but there are actual, legitimate problems with their pacing, mechanics and other gameplay elements that contribute to that opinion.
While I acknowledge there are perfectly legitimate criticisms of modern shooters, I think a lot of them are "Follow the leader" complaints that don't actually have much merit beyond parrotting what their prefered leader has said - I see it a lot on this website with "Spunkgargleweewee shooter" whining (which is also a term that needs to fuck off). I also can't stand the heavy implication with most complaints that liking modern shooters makes you an idiot with racist tendencies, because people have decided that Yatzhee's word is law on this subject.

Kneejerk shouts of "This is sexist!" and "I didn't like ME3's ending so Bioware is ruined for all eternity!" also induce a hefty amount of face-palming and eye-rolling in me.