Things in games that need to stop.

[ScottyMuser]

snip

Being someone that has never played Assassin's Creed, that totally confuses me. See why this is a bad thing to an outside observer? And really, since the beginning of time? Woah.

Sorry for the sarcasm, was exagerrating a bit there. And, no, I don't see why it is a bad thing - again, because of the whole mythos of the story Assassins Creed means that the developers want to tell the story a certain way, and want gamers to understand this (and all the reviews would/shouldhave pointed this out).
As for games which do have words rather then just numbers, there are plenty which seem to be fairly random - the new Call of Duty games (although I understand why), and the Halo games (which the names *are* utterly silly) for instance may seem confusing. But again, it's an artistic decision for the developers to use tsomething that could describe what happens. Much like the sequel to Alien wasn't Alien 2, but Aliens, the sequel to Die Hard is Die Harder, etc

 

[The Unworthy Gentleman]

Big budgets.

Gaming should focus on ways to minimize costs in gaming rather than inflating them.

If we can reduce costs necessary to make a game, we can introduce more risky ideas without the risk of a massive downfall.

I disagree. If we minimize the costs then we may also end up with a cheap, poorly made game. It would be far better to do things to their best degree so that the game brings in a tidy profit.

OT: Stop being cunts to the developers. This goes for projecy managers and publishers. Every time you're a dick to your developers you reduce their moral which means that they're far more likely to fuck up the game. As for publishers, stop trying to bring the game out on a specific date, bring it out when it's ready. No, it's not ideal for the marketing department or for many other things, but if you want a steady stream of high quality games that people enjoy that actually reach those ridiculous review scores that you demand then you need to make some fucking leeway for the devs to work with.

Indie developing has all these things, that's why you rarely see rushed indie games. Learn from the indie kids.

 

[OniSuika]

Swearing in videogames. It annoys me that writers think that an M game needs to have a ton of F-Bombs in order to be seen as "mature" Seriously is there any real need for it? Let's look at Resident Evil 5 as an example, it has an F-Bomb totally out of nowhere and wasn't needed at all.

Reading this I looked back at Mass Effect a series full of violence, some graphic gore, overall a lot of mature themes, and to my memory no one ever swears.

Dunno if this got pointed out, but they do. At least Aria definitely does.

But yes, your point still stands, Swearing is very rare in it, and it doesn't make the game any less mature. Sometimes, swearing is needed in dialogue to enforce a sense of realism, as it's not like no-one ever swears in real life, but swearing every other word like many games like to is a good way of making the dialogue feel even more forced.

Anyway, I think games need to stop being rushed out. Too many games have been pushed out the door with lacklustre campaigns and less single player enjoyment time than you can get for £10 at the cinema, games like Brink that could have been so much better with the time to actually finish them, and fighters being released with hardly a single heed given to balance. Here's lookin' at you Marvel Vs Capcom 3. I know a lot of the time it isn't realistic for games to have had that extra time in development, but it would be better none the less.

 

[Fenra]

2 kinda linked things....

1) A personal, selfish gripe first, stop making exclusives!!!, I don't want to have to buy everything of X generation to play the games I want, not to mention, companies think for a second, you sell to one console, you get X ammount of people to sell to, you sell to every playform, you get 3-4 times that ammount!

2) When making things multiformat, dont make the PC version just a console port, I'm tired of seeing promts turn up on screen as Xbox or Playstation controller buttons when I'm playing on my PC!


oh n just thought of another along the exclusives line, stop with the timed exclusives, I'm looking at you Microsoft, with your "look we have the shiney demo on xbox live before everyone else, oooooo! thats right, follow the carrot on the stick silly consumers!", just no!

 

[madchatter92]

Obviously there are some exceptions but, at the risk of being heavily criticized, a lot of DLC, expansions, and the lot are really annoying to me. I mean I already paid upwards of 50 or 60 bucks for a game and you want me to buy MORE stuff for something I just bought? When I spend my money on a game I'd like to have the ENTIRE game please.

 

[BanicRhys]

6: Bury Duke Nukem, forever

Fixed that for you.

I agree with most of the OP's points except for number 5. I enjoy it when the enemy is an actual country because it makes the game feel like it could have actually happened. It can also cover up shitty writing because they can just draw from actual events.

I personally hate DLC when it's something other than cosmetic stuff like hats or mounts, it makes the game you're playing feel cheap because you know you don't actually have the whole game.

I also hate the fact that newly released games usually cost 100-120 dollars in Australia despite our dollar being stronger than the US's, that needs to change.

 

[Dexiro]

The only people that complain about CoD clones are the people that go out and buy ALL of the freaking CoD clones.

When I see that the CoD game is just copy and paste or a clone of CoD I stop right there, I don't buy it and complain afterwards.

 

[drh1975]

Pre-order exclusives need to go. Everyone should have access to all extra content in new games. Why should I, for example, get DLC for inFamous 2 or any other game just because I ordered it early?

 

[Kiereek]

And how many games is the American Government the bad guy?

Name one. I can only think of games were the Americans were dicks, like C&C Generals, or Red Alert 3.

 

[Dexiro]

Big budgets.

Gaming should focus on ways to minimize costs in gaming rather than inflating them.

If we can reduce costs necessary to make a game, we can introduce more risky ideas without the risk of a massive downfall.

I disagree. If we minimize the costs then we may also end up with a cheap, poorly made game. It would be far better to do things to their best degree so that the game brings in a tidy profit.

Indie developing has all these things, that's why you rarely see rushed indie games. Learn from the indie kids.

I think you're misunderstanding this a little bit. By cutting costs he means putting money where it matters, currently the game industry pours so much money into making everything realistic and marketing the hell out of it. We need to pour more money into every other aspect and make graphics a lower priority.

You'd be surprised how good things can turn out when developers have limited budgets or toolsets, you can take 8-bit tunes and indie games as a solid example. Not to mention having a low budget puts less at risk, and means more risky games can be created.

Also indie games are largely well-developed because they're not in it for the money. There's no higher ups holding their paychecks and saying "we need this game in X weeks and just how we like it". And because little or no money is at stake they can make their ideas as risky as they want - again the benefit of lower budgets.

 

[Twilight_guy]

I feel like I've heard this argument before, its almost as if these are the same arguments that everyone else in the forums has been making for the past few years. Oh well.

I'd just like to see people stop giving games numerical rankings. I don't believe in such a rarification of games into a single omni-value. I don't support it in any medium actually. I know that a full review mighty be a bit much to read for every game but can we at least get a panel of scores and values and not just one ultimate number here?

 

[Epona]

Also, start making PC games actually have super high requirements. I don't game on PC just for the controls, I do it for the raw power. The last game that actually seemed to care about that was Crysis in 2007.

If you want cheap gaming buy a console instead

Also, sad attempts at realism. If you're not pursuing realism like ArmA or OFP, then don't even bother with the quasi-realistic bullshit. I've only enjoyed 1 FPS that was somewhat realistic, all the rest I loved for being just the opposite

Yes, that way even fewer people buy PC games and fewer games are released for PC, brilliant!

 

[Layzor]

Stop making me have to look directly into someone's eyes to hear what they're saying Valve, it's bloody annoying.

 

[FuktLogik]

Motion controls, static huds, 3D, static control schemes, permanent subtitles.

 

[zehydra]

Hey, you know what? I actually LIKE 3D, and consider it to add to an immersive experience.

I also LIKE motion controls rather than joystick because they give a more realistic feel to what I'm doing (when done right of course).

I don't care if you think they're gimmicks, I enjoy them, and I'm not going to be able to enjoy them because everyone now believes that motion controls = casual gaming, or motion controls = terrible game titles.

These associations with motion controls is because of Nintendo's terrible marketing, which they have thankfully begun to ditch.


There is nothing glorious about a game controller, and I long for the day when we can do full virtual reality simulation games.


It's pretty funny actually. When it comes to politics on this forum, this forum leans very much liberal (relative to US politics), but when it comes to Video games? This is one of the most conservative video game sites I've ever come across (with regards to the userbase, not the magazine content).

 

[Epona]

- stop escort quests
- stop unskippable tutorials (this kills replay value, who wants to waste an hour or two at the beginning of every playthrough on tutorials you can't skip?).
- stop unskippable cutscenes
- stop DLC. I like DLC sometimes but not enough to excuse day 1 DLC (or Day 8/15 DLC that was delayed for a week or two to avoid day 1 DLC criticism).
-

 

[Flutterguy]

I think they need to stop trying to appeal to a large demographic, but instead have teams that actually synergize together and agree on a direction the game should go, for example the new Alice game has a unique style to it, and the gameplay just works really well for the scenery/story.

 

[Togs]

Stop with the blatant pandering, I dont need an ego massage to enjoy a game- in fact it can often harm my enjoyment of it when Im constantly being told every 5 minutes how awesome I am.

This comes from recently replaying ME2 when absoluetly every character sucks up so hard to Shepard its cringeworthy (in fact RPG's seem to be the most guilty of this crime).

 

[moretwocents]

SEQUELS!
Yeah, I'm with Yahtzee on this one. We'd miss some good ones, but I get more and more cynical every E3 that passes where all the hit games are Modern Warfare 3, Uncharted 3, another Tomb Raider, another Zelda, Street Fighter AND Tekken, about a hundred "accidentally" pre-released Halo reveals!
Yes! They're good games! And you know what can happen in a sequel? You could screw up the entire series by, let's say, telling us "that fight that we finished in Halo 3 isn't over. Whoops!" Or the Bishock complaint, where the only reason Bioshock 2 was bad was because it was compared to Bioshock 1!
Give me some new IPs! Give me The Last Guardian! Give me Journey!
GIVE ME SOMETHING!

I really do like sequels, but there's too many of them. Really too many. (Final Fantasy XIII-2, for example. WHAT DOES THAT EVEN MEAN? IS IT FINAL FANTASY 15? JUST NAME IT 14!OH WAIT! YOU ALREADY DID THAT FOR AN MMO THAT HAS ENOUGH PLAYERS TO COUNT ON ONE HAND! SUCKS FOR YOU!)

 

[William MacKay]

making a game, having a system which works well and people like it, then deciding to create an entirely new system because 'we're trying something new k?' no. its not k. people liked the FFX combat system, then Square Enix had to balls it up in XII, and slightly repair it in XIII (ok, i'll admit, i actually liked FFXIIIs as much as FFX's, but they should have gone straight to that.)
also, this is players, dont treat games in beta as if it were the full game.
as well as that, can you focus on creating an actual character backstory that does just get handed to you, mostly, at the start. RPGs are the worst: they seem to want you to create a backstory for your character but you cant. give me a pre-set character and tell me about him, then reveal more as we go along. one of the best character-centric games ive played: FFVIII. not only was there the whole main plotline, but there was the relationships between all of the characters that evolved. more of that is needed, not just 'heres a guy make him look like whatever the fuck you want and make shit up as you go along.'
and finally, Escort Quest AIs. i understand that coding an AI is difficult, but can you not make the character you have to escort through a dangerous zone such a wimp that they run off and hide and then get themselves stuck behind rocks. that can break an entire quest and piss off the player.