Things that instantly kill your interest in a game

[Davidm4]

Up until I played Deus Ex, if I saw the publisher was Squeenix - I'd give that game a very wide berth. I still feel the same way about anything by Capcom, too. I guess I'm just not fond of Japanese games. They're a little too strange for my tastes.

But gameplay wise - the escort mission. The minute I hear "please escort..." I roll my eyes.

Square Enix owns all of Eidos now, and has shown very little influence in their development. So, don't be turned off by their name on the box of an Western developed game.

I have learned my lesson with Deus Ex. Though it's reassuring to know that Squeenix takes a hands off approach to the artistic process. Now that I played the near Godliness that is Deus Ex, I can't wait to see what other little gems Squeenix will help create.

Looking forward to Quantum Conundrum?

OT: If a reviewer mentions the word "repetitive" then I've lost interest. A mechanic should only be used a few times or spread out so it doesn't get worn out. If a game only has a few ideas, then it should be shorter in length. MMO's are too grindy and the "social" side is the only thing that seems to hold it together.Fighting games can't hold my interest as a single player experience. RTS's are something that I struggle with and can't help but feel that you need to memorise hotkeys, number of resource gatherers and set building orders and any time spent deviating will be the difference. That said, even if you master an RTS, you generally play the same maps and similar strategies over and over, but I respect it for its depth.

Trial and error gameplay should be avoided, but if a game does have it, then the player shouldn't be punished for it.

Games should provide a logical and fair challange. A game without challenge would make me zone out and feel like im just moving from one cutscene to the next. I prefer gameplay over story, but to each their own.

 

[sheah1]

if game too difficult like with demon's souls and because it was too hard i will not be buying Dark Souls because of that and that alone.

Are you.... being ironic? Sarcastic?

 

[SuperNova221]

DLC. RPG elements. Anything with a fantasy setting. j(x). Always on DRM.

 

[Strife2GFAQs]

I'm a JRPG/Anime Fantasy Adventure connoisseur. Even in that genre, there are things that instantly get my goat. Random battles in any game made after 2000. I somehow managed to replay BoF3, but I can't even stand replaying the old FF games now. Random encounters are the bane of my existence, especially when I'm only trying to speed through a level. Same goes for unskippable cutscenes. Not just CG/Anime, but actual dialogue spots. Look at Radiant Historia: they allowed you to skip everything, even plot dialogue until the decisions needed to be made. It made for a streamlined experience. Silent protagonists piss me off because they do nothing to merit attention, but can be forgiven if the game around them (Persona) shines bright.

Here are other random red flags:

First-Person Perspective (I'm never good at them)

Strategy (RTS, SRPGs, don't care, worst are RPGs that clunk up slow TB-combat with even slower strategy elements)

Fighting Games

Slow paced turn based combat (All RPGs should be fast/auto pilot battles or done in real time..unless this happens

Active Battle System (Final Fantasy developers have the great real time systems (KH/Star Ocean) at their fingertips, but they insist on using dumbed-down, pseudo-turn based fence straddling)

First party Nintendo games (Another bloody is right...MOVE ON ALREADY)!

Motion Controls

Reserved, shy, pathetic, weak, inept, socially-awkward loser protagonists (not just Hope, but he should have died after five seconds)

"misunderstood" brooding, anti-social, "badass" protagonists who "change" thanks to "sweet, bubbly (and ANNOYING) sycophantic young girls" (project to your audiences fantasies much, do you Japan?)

VERY low budget JRPG graphics (Cross Edge wouldn't be caught dead on the PS1, it's sad that most of the genre tend to lag a generation behind)

That's plenty

 

[Daftie]

No ragdolls.

True story.

This. It was tolerable in Halo but in any other game it bugs the hell out of me.

Also no option to change look sensitivity (looking at you BLACK) or to invert looking up and down.

 

[CarlMin]

1. all women in the game are stupid or helpless
2. war, war, war and more war (don't we get enough on the nightly news?!)
3. cat people
4. dialog in-game outweighs play time (final fantasy, blarg)
5. you must endure an hour of cut scenes before getting to play
6. no female characters in a game that touts massive character customization options (Brink)
7. Only on console, must use a controller (carpal tunnel problems = controller is a no-go)
8. Cold, callous characters who are on a rampage for no particular reason
9. Being "on a rail" and not given the opportunity to explore the game world and go on tangents
10. arriving at a level or boss that is for no reason 100 times harder than anything you had experienced to that point in the game, and having to try over and over again to beat it. (aka having to memorize a sequence from a walk-through online and then execute it quickly and perfectly to beat it)


?and just to put a little positive spin on this thread - things that instantly make me want to play or finish a game:

1. powerful female characters whose dominant feature can't be described by a single letter.
2. someone took the time to make the characters lovable, a la Pixar
3. cheeky humor that makes you laugh out loud (Grim Fandango, Psychonauts, Portal)
4. games that allow non-hardcore gamers an easy/story mode and a chance to have a great experience in the game without being a master of keyboard controls (Thank you Fallout!)
5. good user interface! If the game looks great, put the polish on the UI bits, tutorials, online forums, websites, documentation, etc too please, these are part of the game experience.
6. games that build and support a community of happy players
7. a community of people in the game that is positive, encouraging and makes your experience awesome, especially when you come in as a newb.

I agree with every point you make. Especially regarding female characters in games. (Only exception I can think of is that I can't think of one single lovable character I've seen in a Pixar film. They are either all too ugly, or too boring or just too plastic.)

 

[OldGus]

MMO.

Yup, that's it. I hate MMO's, and when people try to recommend that Borderlands become an MMO in my presence, hell is going to break loose.

I agree with MMO, but disagree with Borderlands. I think there, people just got a little confused (between MMO and RPG). I intensely dislike Massively Multiplayer anything. My ideal multiplayer game is played with me and some of my friends from real life, preferably in the same room, and most definitely not thousands and thousands of people I don't know.

Granted, I'll occasionally play the online FPS, and used to do two free online ones fairly often. But in both of those, I was introduced by a friend, and regularly played with said friend.

But what really, really gets my goat? "Subscription."

 

[Fidelias]

When they stress how impressive the visuals are. Usually that means they couldn't find anything else to praise.

Hey, if I wanted to buy something for visuals, I'd buy Avatar for half the price.

Edit: Also, I'm getting real sick of all the modern fps's out there. I don't know, it's just become BORING, mostly because they use real world stuff to make a crappy story.

That being said, I want some Modern-fantasy stuff! It's the new craze in books (I love The Dresden Files!) but there's almost no games with this setting.

 

[Canadamus Prime]

MMO.

Yup, that's it. I hate MMO's, and when people try to recommend that Borderlands become an MMO in my presence, hell is going to break loose.

This! I also hate MMOs. ...although did give Champions Online a shot since it's now free, and it's kinda fun.

 

[spartandude]

Origin exclusiveness.

Could not have said it better myself

 

[miketehmage]

When "Game X 3" removes the commander unit it had in "Game X 2", meaning that squads are only lead by squad leaders and as such there is no coordination between squads, only within them. I won't forgive you for this EA/Dice.

 

[xplosive59]

Videogames need to have an atmospheric soundtrack to really pull you in. Games such as MGS, Mass Effect or Final Fantasy would lose all immersion to me if I heard Iron Maiden in the background. If the game is based around the Music then fine eg Brutal Legend or Guitar Hero but other games have to have the same kind of soundtrack as a good movie.

also... FPS's (unless it has other elements) and games witha really short storylines, also bad stories are also a turn off 'cause i frankly don't care if the gameplays good if the story is terrible.

 

[dessertmonkeyjk]

Health regeneration with no context of any kind backing it up. How many games have done that so far?

Co-op in which one of you dies which forces you to start over. If my partner sucks at the game in general then... uh... you can guess what happens.

Difficulty being much harder/easier than it actually tells you. Happened to me with a platformer once.

Pointless collectables. Why get an achievement for 200 thingamajigs when there are about 15 others + more fun ones to get?

Tons of enemies and little equipment/health/ammo. Time for some quick-save scrubbing!

Finding out your actions in one scenario doesn't affect you in another. The rachni from Mass Effect 1 for example.

10 second demos... oh dear lord. The one of Guitar Hero on the Android Market was just a rip-off.

Long-term grinding. I can understand having to level up from 7 to 10 but from 10 to 45?!

Turn-based combat. Really? It's 2011 and we're still simulating D&D card games in a 3D virtual environment?

FPS surplus with little difference BESIDES GRAPHICS!!!

 

[Firia]

Dead Island won my interest with a wonderful initial ad that promissed intrigue, depth, and zombies. That was immediately dashed with the words, "it's not like that at all; it's more like Boarderlands with zombies." =\

Whomever made that ad was both at once a success and a failure. They succeeded in delivering interest in a game, and making what was not known suddenly well known. But then failure because they made the game out to be what it was not. It was misrepresented by the motion designer, and that's unfortunate. However, maybe someone out there that makes games, knows people with big pockets, and was paying attention to what that intrigue-related interested did in the gaming community....

 

[AnotherBrowncoat]

Anything Japanese.

I genuinely can't stand anime and the like, and the way Japanese games usually try to show a western influence by having a protagonist who doesn't necessarily look Asian. It doesn't fool anyone, and all we end up with is either extreme angst that would put a 13 year old emo kid to shame, or a bizarre creation that just looks and sounds ridiculous.

I read a review of Catherine, and was intrigued by it. Then I realised quite how Japanese it is and instantly lost all interest.

 

[floppylobster]

DLC, Online Multi-player.

Then when I'm playing if I could across too much repetition, I'm out.

Also any game that starts with a long cut scene, or inserts long cut-scenes before I've earned them or give a shit about the game. Cut scenes are rewards for gameplay, not chances to foist your half-assed story on to me.

 

[rmb1983]

RPG's that "Close doors behind you" so to speak, like if it has a stat growth system that requires you to be in this place wearing this item or something at a certain point, and just screws you if you didnt, or in a more literal sense, RPG's that just dont ever let you backtrack for stuff, that one chance and one chance only thing always makes me feel like Im constantly missing important stuff that Im going to wish i had later, and it drives me crazy.

It's why my favorite kinds of RPG's now are MMO's, sandboxes, and diablo style ones, because those all allow you to either repeat a mission, go back there again, or in the case of diablo, it doesnt matter if you missed something because its all randomly generated anyways.

You could say im horribly OCD about RPG's, I just hate knowing I can't go back and get things I missed.

This.

OT: I generally give a fairly lenient chance to most games, even those I wouldn't think I'd be interested in. I am a bit notorious on my "Do everything, see everything, kill everything." game ideology, though, so if a game punishes you at some point for missing something earlier on (obscure or not, though the former is a lot more annoying), I'll typically put it down right then and there.
Seriously, how do developers think this is a good idea, on any level?
Missing hidden gems is one thing; not being able to progress or complete a task (side-quest/etc. or not) because of improperly labeled items or just hiding something somewhere it'd be easily missed is absurd.

 

[Firia]

if game too difficult like with demon's souls and because it was too hard i will not be buying Dark Souls because of that and that alone.

Are you.... being ironic? Sarcastic?

Butting in here; based on what you've quoted, I do not see any hint of irony or sarcasm. A person can be turned off by to much challenge while others revel in it.

 

[gery900]

I don't really READ the "selling points", if I'm really interested, I probably heard it from some post, or guy, or friend, and I'm not going to look at "back of the box" stuff.
I read some video reviews, or GoG comments, that kinda stuff...

 

[Get Off My Lawn]

1. Attempts to put sex appeal in a game. Sex games are a genre of their own. Keep it over there, please. Leave it out of other genres.
Which brings me to...
2. Female protagonists who's main selling point is sex appeal and nothing else. That disgusts me. Mostly because it takes no effort to do, and the game designers just want to cash in. It also largely takes away from the character's personality that -COULD- have had potential if they didn't turn them into some bimbo.

3. Overly realistic gore in a video game. It unnerves me. I'd prefer for it to be more cartoony.
4. Bad voice acting. This is the worst and it instantly makes me uninterested in whatever they have to say. (Fallout: NV had a couple of obvious ones...)