Criticize Your All Time Favorite Game...HARSHLY

[Zeraki]

Mass Effect

-The Mako sections are ridiculously tedious and get old really really fast. It makes replaying the game a major chore.

-Texture popping... though that adds some kind of strange charm to the game, it does kind of ruin really epic moments.

-Liara's romance is so hilariously badly written. "We've known each other for maybe two hours since you saved me on Therum, and I'm the daughter of one of your arch nemeses... but I love you!"

-The inventory... that bloated inventory padded the game out almost as much as the Mako sections did. You spend more time micromanaging and driving around one of five copy pasted planet textures than actually progressing with the main plot. It's nice of Saren to wait for you to finish all your side quests before he decides to go to Illos. So much for a "race against time".

-A lot of the characters are kind of shallow when you go back and play through the game. It's especially noticeable with Tali, who is basically just a walking codex entry on Quarians. Liara is mostly just a walking codex on Asari and Protheans and doesn't get much development aside from when Benezia dies and her kind of forced romance.


-The combat is awful, and is another thing that really makes the game a chore in replays. The idea behind Mass Effect was something I had wanted to see for a really long time... a third person tactical based RPG/Shooter, and as such I hated the cover system. I thought it would have benefited the game greatly if it had a similar cover system to Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter or even Gears of War with a more tactical twist(which they eventually started to emulate in ME2/3). I did really like the cooldown feature in the guns though.

-Never ending stun locks when fighting against Biotic enemies. As soon as combat starts you can pretty much just get stuck plastered to the floor when knocked down by Biotics... and you can't do anything about it. It is especially frustrating on higher difficulty levels. "Oh hello Mr. Sniper. Why of course you can one shot kill me whilst I'm laying helplessly on the floor unable to defend myself thanks to your Biotic buddies!"

-"I will destroy you!" "Go go go go!" "You must die!" "Enemies everywhere!" "Gogogogo!" "Enemies everywhere!" "You must die!" "I will destroy you!" "Gogogogogo!" ARRRAAAAAAGGGGHHHH!

Spoiler

 

[The Sanctifier]

Would it be a little too easy if I picked Minecraft?

- Every update seems to introduce twice as many bugs as it fixes.
- The textures are glitchy as hell. Whenever new chunks are loaded up half the terrain is see-through.
- You can't actually explore that far until the game eats up memory and processing power by the gallon.
- Really sensitive compatibility issues with certain computer specs.
- Lost one of my worlds due to the fact (which has been fixed now) that its really easy to delete one of your save files.

And worst of all, I ended up losing my massive 50,000 cobblestone castle due to my main go suddenly slowing down to a complete halt.

Actually the worst part is the fact that this didn't even make me end up hating the game. Makes me feel like that one guy in Greek mythology who had to constantly carry a boulder up a hill in Hades only to have it fall down again.

 

[m19]

Planescape Torment is a good story but a shitty game.

 

[unindexedsearchengine]

Assassin's Creed II
Weird-ass ragdoll bugs
The people's hands looked ridiculous,seriously, Deus Ex had more convincing hands.
It's-a me, Mario!!! ( seriously, fuck that guy)

But the biggest problem is that the game overall is too good.It is doubtful that i will have as much fun and enjoyment with any other game ever. (haven't played 3 yet, since ubi support can't solve my CD-key issue, so screw that)

 

[Icyheart]

I don't have a single favorite out of these two, but...
Jak II: Story is practically nonexistent. Yeah, there's the whole revenge thing against Praxis and there's the Metal-Head invasion and some big monster thing in the beginning, but after the first few levels you start to forget why you're doing what you're doing, and even though the whole game is supposed to be centered around getting revenge on Praxis and the game is supposed to paint him as a ruthless tyrant who oppresses the masses, the game fails to explain exactly why he's so bad and there's very little oppression to be seen and this sentence is going on for a really long time and I should stop writing now.
Jak 3: The combat was a lot more fun with twelve guns instead of four and a Dark Jak mode you could turn off and on at will and a whole new set of locations to visit, and walking through the city fending off Metal-Heads and the KG Robots was a nice touch to add some color to Jak II's boring commute (and the citizens in Spargus shot you if you hit them). But, the story was so far-gone there were several moments I had to stop and think about exactly what the hell was going on. How did this whole KG thing start? Why are they working with the Metal-Heads? Why Errol, of all people? Why the role-change between Kira and Ashlen? (I'd go on but too many would spoil the plot)

 

[Shocksplicer]

Alan Wake

-Some of Alan's animations, like jumping and sprinting, are a bit silly.

-While the voice acting is almost universally excellent, the actress who played Alice Wake was pretty terrible. Fortunately she isn't in it much...

-Episode 6 is the only episode without any quiet spots where you can interact with other characters, being entirely made up of repeated action sequences

-Facial animations? What are those? Doesn't everyone just open and close their mouths repeatedly when talking, occaisionally forgetting to shut one's mouth when one stops talking?
.

 

[prophecy2514]

Metal Gear Solid 3

-Having to change camoflauge regularly enough to become a chore. Similar to the water temple iron boots switchup annoyance in zelda OoT

- Silly gun firing mechanics on PS2...Hold down L1 for first person, push square lightly to draw gun, push square hard and release to shoot. Seems silly. but its rather annoying and takes time to get used to, I'm glad this changed up in MGS4. Similar arguments to be made with CQC and the circle button, but meh explaining that.

-The usual wordy and unnecessarily long infamous MGS cutscenes are alive and well in snake eater, especially during virtuous mission.

- Injury/sickness items and their abundance. I love the injury system, but wow, naked snake can sure carry a lot of meds splints bandages, suture kits burn ointments etc, even at extreme difficulty. Same with the food, snake can carry around a ZOO in his backpack.

-another menu annoyance on the ps2. circle to enter, and x to cancel. Majority of games on ps2, circle is universally the cancel button. again its minor but its cumbersome getting used to menu control, becuse believe me you'll be going into the backpack menu lots.

-The mosin nagant can't be silenced...damn it...

MGS3
-The End, provided your fighting him properly (i.e. not shooting him prematurely or letting him simply die of old age), takes too bloody long.

But...but...but...it's such an epic struggle. the battle with the end is one of my favourite all time gaming experiences...

 

[MiracleOfSound]

Okami.

It's already a rather long game, it wasn't really necessary to have a room devoted to fighting all the bosses again to pad it out -_-


...

...

That's all I can think of

Dude... unskippable dialogue! Half of Okami is wonderful perfect gaming heaven, the other half is BLURGLE BLOO BLEEGLE BLURGLE BLOO BLEEGLE BLOO

 

[Daystar Clarion]

Okami.

It's already a rather long game, it wasn't really necessary to have a room devoted to fighting all the bosses again to pad it out -_-


...

...

That's all I can think of

Dude... unskippable dialogue! Half of Okami is wonderful perfect gaming heaven, the other half is BLURGLE BLOO BLEEGLE BLURGLE BLOO BLEEGLE BLOO

I notice it when I haven't played it in a while, but really, I just tune it out, so it's not even annoying

 

[MiracleOfSound]

Okami.

It's already a rather long game, it wasn't really necessary to have a room devoted to fighting all the bosses again to pad it out -_-


...

...

That's all I can think of

Dude... unskippable dialogue! Half of Okami is wonderful perfect gaming heaven, the other half is BLURGLE BLOO BLEEGLE BLURGLE BLOO BLEEGLE BLOO

I notice it when I haven't played it in a while, but really, I just tune it out, so it's not even annoying

Wish I could do that. If Okami had skippable dialogue I'd be on my third playthrough right now.

 

[sageoftruth]

Thief 2
- all the annoying mechanical robots that i had to waste water arrows to immobilize
-the metal cameras of which only some had off switches
-the final mission being about building some device instead of really using much sneaking
-some of the levels seemed way too long, i especially hated the submarine base mission it seemed more like a fan made one instead of a official one due to how ugly and uninspired the stage design was
-Victoria Dying
-Karras's laughable voice which makes it hard to believe that he was able to get a major following in the first place for his heretic version of the hammer temple

Also, the unreliability of getting around. Mantling didn't always work (and often punished you for failing) and getting on/off ladders was a chore that was easy to mess up at parts.

 

[Daystar Clarion]

Okami.

It's already a rather long game, it wasn't really necessary to have a room devoted to fighting all the bosses again to pad it out -_-


...

...

That's all I can think of

Dude... unskippable dialogue! Half of Okami is wonderful perfect gaming heaven, the other half is BLURGLE BLOO BLEEGLE BLURGLE BLOO BLEEGLE BLOO

I notice it when I haven't played it in a while, but really, I just tune it out, so it's not even annoying

Wish I could do that. If Okami had skippable dialogue I'd be on my third playthrough right now.

[HEADING=1]Your Kung Fu is weak![/HEADING]

You lack the discipline, young Gavin.

Very disappointing.

 

[Kekkonen1]

Suikoden 2:

-The game is REALLY long!
-Missable characters. In a game where the "best" ending hinges on recruiting 108 characters, they should not be missable!
-Slow opening. It does take a while to really get going
-The tactical battles could be MUCH better, they are the only part of the game that really feels like a game from the 90s
-Random encounters can be REALLY irritating when you are at level 60 and continually get attacked by level 5 bunnies
-Not something that is bad with the game per se, but GODDAMMIT Konami release it on PSN in US/Europe NOW!

Omg this hurt, I just cant think of anymore. The game is close to flawless!

Final Fantasy 8 (Yeah I know, people roast this game all the time, but i LOVE it):

-Yeeaaah, the Draw-system is perhaps not as thought out as it could be. When a game basically forces you to make a contraption where you weigh down the confirm-button on your controller and then start reading a book or doing dishes while you're drawing, its simply not a very good system.
-Last boss kind of comes from nowhere. You should generally not introduce the main villain in the last fourth of the game.
-Early PS1 3D-graphics looks absolute crap today (although the FMV-sequences hold up surprisingly well even today).
-A bit too easy! Beating Omega Weapon is simply too easy, and then there is nothing left to do. Square learned their lesson with FFX and the monster arena, but a bit too late for FF8.
-Yeah, the dialogue can get a bit cheesy and the translation is perhaps not really 100%
-Long unskippable summons that becomes completely useless after the first disc anyway

Ok I'm out. I know alot of people complain about Squall being emo or about the love story, but I love those parts so kind of hard for me to complain about that.

 

[bug_of_war]

Mass Effect 3 broke me worse than any real person ever could

Fuck you mass Effect 3....I LOVED YOU DAMMIT!

I refuse to download the Extended Cut because unlike most ME fans I got the ending. I was a soldier, I told everybody from game 1 I would do anything to stop the Reapers, and in the end I did. NOW, before you say "CHOICES WERE DISMISSED" or "You know what was Deus Ex Machina", no they weren't. Here's why:

HUGE SPOILERS ARE BELOW, Sorry don't know how to do the spoiler tag.

While choices seemed to boil down to numbers, they really did effect the ending you got. Think about it, you have to choose either Krogan or Salarian over the other (unless you do a very specific ME1 and 2 playthrough), Explore random planets, Attempt to save both Geth and Quarians etc. Depending on what you did in these scenarios effected how much oomph you have for your army. Screw up too much, and everything is gonna die. Do okay, All machines are going down, but organic life will live. Do good, you have the option to kill the Synthetics, or control the Reapers. Do better than expected, same options as before, PLUS the option to change the entire universe from the atom. These are quite different when you use your imagination and look to the future and see how the ending wasn't all the same. The developers left some ambiguity to allow players to imagine the possibilities.

Ok, now on to the Crucible. Firstly, it is NOT a Deus Ex Machina. From the begining of ME3 we are told of the Crucible and how the Protheans (and previous cycles) believed that it would somehow stop the Reapers. Since we know of the Crucible of the begining of the game, AND the fact that we know it will "somehow stop" the Reapers (emphasis on stop), it is not a Deus Ex Machina. DEM's come from nowhere at the end of the story and have a magical "end all problems button" without them, or the power they use to stop whatever it is EVER being mentioned. Also, saying that Destroy and Control are DEM's is also stupid because Shepard has proven that Reapers can be destroyed, and Illusive Man has always wanted to controlthe machines, and seeing how the Reapers ARE machines, it can be reasoned that they can be re-programmed. And what was a big theme of ME3? Unison of all species to face a threat. The Synthesis ending is literally unifying EVERYTHING in the galaxy. So lets look back. Crucible introduction: begining of game. Method to stop enemy: Shepard shows in the first game that Reapers are killable (Destroy is the first option the god child gives you). Second game Illusive Man believed that the Reapers could be controlled (Control being the second option given). And in the third game Shepard can unify Krogan and Turians (Pretty much enemies), Quarian and Geth (Organic and Synthetic) and everyone else whom have a common enemy (Synthesis, unifiying the whole universe, introduced in game 3). ME3's ending is basically a huge summary of the entire series and focuses on the idea of fear and time.

What do I mean by fear and time? When you first meet the Reapers they are practically imcomprehendable. Organics fear what they do not understand, and through fear we hate and want to destroy. In the second game, we've killed one Reaper and halted their invasion, we also begin to learn more about them and those such as Illusive Man begin to think they can be reasoned with or even tamed. The third game, we know even more, they are no longer the big bad hidden dark monster, they are a thing, they can be understood.
Want an easier example to follow? ok, remember how Vampires use to be scary way back in our history. Then we started to understand what a vampire was, and that we could beat them. We learnt to control them in some way. And now, people are starting to want to be Vampires. THAT is basically the ending.

Basically, while choices did not effect HOW you got to the end, they effected your options on how to deal with the Reapers IN the end. While we did not get the Casey Hudson "16 different endings" we did get different options at the end, and if you were able to understand that the ending was ambiguous, you would realise that that is the biggest choice of all. The devs were giving you the option to imagine how your choice would effect the future. Also, the Crucible was not a Deus Ex Machina as it actually summed up the entire trilogy beautifully. 1st game/ending DESTROY(admiting you fear the beast), 2nd - Control (Understanding the enemy and controlling their outcome), 3rd - Synthesis (unifiying enemies in a time of horror).

THIS^ is why I will defend EA and Bioware. THIS is why I loved and still do love ME3. I understood the ending and because I do I refuse to accept the Extended Cut as it takes away everything pure from the ending and the games theme of choice and says "This is what happens in the future". And it's because of this, that I find the thousands of people spitting in the direction of Bioware and EA disgusting, immature and stupid.

 

[Scarim Coral]

Xenoblade Chronicle-

The quest givers are a nightmare to locate and quest invole finding someone are worse as they only appear as a tiny red dot on the screen. This is even worse due to the day and night time clock meaning they only appear on certain time.

Guild Wars 2-
It is a total grind house when you are after materials epecially the ones that drop from foes (that is if you are using the crafting system in the game). Getting three for 6 pieces armours is fine but for mater armours, it's 8 not 5.

Sure it's a nice touch for assing the jumping puzzle in the game but some puzzle are hard to navigate if you're a Charr or Norn (the big guys).

The dye should of remain account bound not soul bound since there are estimately 400 dyes total in the game so it will still take a while to get them all.

 

[Jeremy Skitz]

Dragon age Origins:

Pros:
.Good story
.Great Characters and development
.Morrigan...
.Having so much control on both future events and what the other characters become.
.Spell variety
.Decapitations
.Hilarious
.Race
.Different origin stories with different ways that people respond to your character.
.ENCHANTMENT!
. Bosses, like the High Dragon or Broodmother.

Cons:
.Character creation. Human characters especially have terrible presets thus it is difficult to make character look how you want them to no matter what you do. Beards destroy cheek structure you spent all that time changing.
.All NPC's and sometimes companions look the same as each other.
.Terrible DLC, (apart from awakening.) I haven't played it yet but I hear Witch hunt is the worst, witch is a shame because that is morrigans finale.
.Setting tactics is a long and boring process, though that could just be because I am an impatient fool.
.Feast day gifts... WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK? Stupid waste of money EA.
.Outdated Graphics. Normally wouldn't be a problem for me if they had diverted resources to make a much bigger/ colourful and more diverse world.
.Darkspawn are hardly badass looking, murdering monsters. They are more like "General fantasy dark army no.363"
.The fade, despite being the realm of dreams, is bland and boring.

Still a fucking great game though! xD

 

[CAPTCHA]

CiV

Spoiler

It's really hard to say because I don't think I've ever pinned down a "favorite" game or even game series. After some thinking, I concluded that Civilization is probably my favorite series and the latest installment (5) is my favorite of the series. I'm a political science post-graduate focusing on third world development and comparative politics, so the game is right up my alley. It just has a certain magic that no other game has yet to capture (with the exception of the flawed but brilliant Crusader Kings 2). However, I could criticize it all day.

- The end of large games just become so tedious to manage that I'll often quit games and declare myself the winner if it's looking like it will go that way. I spent almost two hours on a mere 10 turns playing Civ with a huge map near the end of the game (as the dominant military force on the map), it was pure drudgery.
- The civilization bonuses are just so out of whack, some define the play-style of a given player while others are just neat little bonuses. The same goes for civ-specific buildings and units.
- I dislike a lot of their choices for civilizations and leaders. I wish there were more - in Civ 4 you could be the same civilization under the rule of a different leader. I thought that was really cool, I was disappointed it didn't make a reappearance.
- What's up with the religion being gone from Civ 5? No, adding in DLC that reintroduces a feature you already had in a previous game (that was wildly popular) is not the same thing.

EDIT: - I forgot to mention the diplomacy. In the real world, even nations that people despise can earn their objectives through use of carrots and sticks. America and its involvement in Asia and the Middle East are prime examples of this. In Civ 5, the computer will completely avoid trade with you even if it overwhelmingly favors them. They'll refuse to set up make-shit alliances to conquer common foes if they already dislike you. Often times AI decisions seem whimsical. There's a lot of room for cool stuff when it comes to diplomacy in a strategy game focused on the building of empires, but it just isn't there.


At least the stack is gone from Civ 5. It feels like a real strategy game now when it comes to military conflict, as opposed to "who can produce the most units and then shove them as far up the enemy's... capital as they can." That alone makes it superior to all of its previous iterations by a great deal.

To add to the above...

The tech tree paths often don't make sense. A big part of this is due to how they had to change it up to prevent exploits and preserve balance, but over-all it's just becoming more and more mangled with each update.

Patches are always one step forward, one step back.

Victory conditions are not equal and leaves you no real adaptability as the game proceeeds.

The AI is just completely broken and no fun to play. It cheats so much that you might as well be playing a different game than the AI. Thanks to this I can't play the game single player anymore without rage quiting within the first 100 turns and stick to multiplayer instead.

On that note who the hell came up with the idea for how the multiplayer works. Everyone goes at the same time in a massive click fest. Queing moves to happen at the end of a turn so you it becomes a waiting game for who clicks next turn first. You have to play a full run of a long-ass game in a single sitting. The only way to get the full experience of the game is to use a third party app that lets you play via email. The official answer to this app (pitboss) has been in development for over a year now and 2K are about as forthcoming with information on the matter as Valve are about Halflife 3.

 

[CrimsonBlaze]

Sonic & Knuckles for the Sega Genesis.

* Essentially half of a full game (Sonic 3 & Knuckles) and not even the better half
* Serious lack of Tails (Sonic and Tails duo or single Tails play is unavailable)
* No save files, multiplayer, or stage select
* Need to own previous titles to unlock extra goodies
* Michael Jackson was not involved with any of the composed music

Still my favorite game of all time and awesome for all that it can do.

 

[White-Death]

Mass Effect 1:
Ridiculous Texture pop in
Enemy difficulty is just their health bar size.Nothing else,they just become bullet sponges.
Awful combat
Character animation is terrible
Mako handles like shit
Awful and poorly designed inventory
Armor and weapons limited to color and damage number,nothing else.
Upgrade system not noticeable.
Facial animations are neatly fitted in the uncanny valley.

Mass effect 2 and 3:
Horrible stories.
Lackluster shooting gallery
facial animations still horrific.
Character animation is terrible.
no inventory
Almost non existent RPG aspects
Weapons all feel the same
Almost no side missions.
Games feel cut and overall poorly made.
Horribly written endings.
(I actually really don't like 2 and 3 just wanted to shove it in anyway)

 

[Madara XIII]

Okami.

It's already a rather long game, it wasn't really necessary to have a room devoted to fighting all the bosses again to pad it out -_-


...

...

That's all I can think of

Dude... unskippable dialogue! Half of Okami is wonderful perfect gaming heaven, the other half is BLURGLE BLOO BLEEGLE BLURGLE BLOO BLEEGLE BLOO

Hehehe, I'm guessing certain dialogue like that can be a deal breaker for some gamers. Although I kinda liked that element of Okami in that it reminded me of Banjo Kazooie what with the gibberish sounds to go with the dialogue....but at least in Banjo Kazooie you could skip dialogue