What Ruins a Game For You?

[Scarim Coral]

It's usually two things- unconvincing story and characters that you don't care about.
Example I stop playing Advance Wars because I didn't like the story. Yes I get that they made it alot darker but I couldn't exactly relate to how they feel and the characters were just unappealing.

 

[nerd killer247]

fans, sometimes they are so retarded they have to protect their game by swearing and dising other games. like COD and battlefield or how they do some random stuff.

 

[marobidoux]

Objective compasses. I can't stand them! It seems like just every game to come out these days uses them, too. This really hurt Skyrim for me. Human Revolution, too, although there were... other things wrong with that game, which I won't go into now.

This. I always end up following a little dot on the map or compass instead of exploring and enjoying the scenery...

For the same reason, I think Fast Travel kinda ruins the game for me. Just having the option to teleport from quest to quest ruins my experience.

 

[Austin Howe]

Stupid "plot twists"....

You know the one....

You're playing a game, you have someone helping you somehow or telling you what to do and then it turns out they betray you/work with the enemy....

This isn't a "plot twist", we saw it coming the minute they started twirling their tache at the start of the game. The big flashing badge they wore saying "later on, i'm going to be evil".

Stop doing it. It's predictable.

Or . . . what if the Bionic Arm you were using the whole time . . . is your dead wife?! Eh?!

 

[Austin Howe]

Objective compasses. I can't stand them! It seems like just every game to come out these days uses them, too. This really hurt Skyrim for me. Human Revolution, too, although there were... other things wrong with that game, which I won't go into now.

This. I always end up following a little dot on the map or compass instead of exploring and enjoying the scenery...

For the same reason, I think Fast Travel kinda ruins the game for me. Just having the option to teleport from quest to quest ruins my experience.

And not having it ruins mine.

 

[Austin Howe]

Difficult platform sections. It makes me instantly mad. Don't get me wrong, I love games like Tomb Raider, but I already know that difficult jumps are part of its game-play, afterall it's what TR is famous for, but don't throw on me a load of platforming in the middle of Metal Gear Solid 2.

Psh! The difference between TR and Metal Gear is that the latter has CONTROLS. That part wasn't hard at all.

 

[Elamdri]

Spoiler: snip

Have you ever been really enjoying a particular game until something happens as part of the game that just completely ruins it for you? I'm sure everyone has experienced this at least once, I know I have. A serious pet peeve of mine is when a game feels like it has to jump on the band wagon and use an element of gameplay that has been popular recently but to the point where it gets boring.

The first example of this that springs to mind is the original Prince of Persia: Sands of Time. I was really enjoying the concept and gameplay of the game, fighting guards/soldiers for once instead of zombies all the time. But then, guess what? Sand zombies....COME ON! It just completely put me off the game, if i want to kill zombies i'll play Resident Evil or Left 4 Dead which, don't get me wrong, i love. Every now and then I want to play something different for god's sake, this is the main reason i preferred Warrior Within to Sands of Time. More examples of this would be Halo & Crysis. Loved the first games, was really enjoying the game in it's entirety until the flood for Halo, and the 'aliens' for Crysis. The covenant was enough for me in Halo and I was enjoying it, for Crysis it felt good to be fighting actual humans again without the restrictions of 'realistic' shooters.

I think if a game contains this kind of aspect from the beginning it isn't as annoying, simply because it is what you expect. Twists in games are great for the most part, although i could name examples where they aren't so great, but sometimes it just feels like the developers get to a certain point and can't think of anything new so they throw in something old. The same could be said for endings that completely bring the game to a stop, other than the obvious 'this is the end' part, i mean more along the lines of the storyline and your immertion into the game's universe. The most notable for me recently would be Deus Ex: Human Revolution, not much of spoiler but don't read on if you haven't completed the game yet - the ending consists of a machine with 4 buttons giving different endings with the pretty much the same outcome, I didn't want to mention this but no doubt someone will after reading the Deus Ex part...but ME3 as well. That's all i'll say on that ending.

So if you're really enjoying a game, what can/does the game do to ruin the experience for you?

For me, what ruins a game is games that are too buggy or just unplayable. Bethesda is the worst offender here. I have never finished Oblivion, Fallout 3, Fallout: New Vegas or Skyrim cause in each game I ended up encountering a catastrophic game bug that would have forced me to pretty much restart my playthrough.

 

[Tazzy da Devil]

First person perspective. I just can't enjoy a game if I can't see my character.

Also, the game's soundtrack can make or break a game for me. When I got to the Sky Temple in Zelda: Twilight Princess, I almost quit right there. I swear that's the track that's playing on repeat in hell.

 

[marobidoux]

Objective compasses. I can't stand them! It seems like just every game to come out these days uses them, too. This really hurt Skyrim for me. Human Revolution, too, although there were... other things wrong with that game, which I won't go into now.

This. I always end up following a little dot on the map or compass instead of exploring and enjoying the scenery...

For the same reason, I think Fast Travel kinda ruins the game for me. Just having the option to teleport from quest to quest ruins my experience.

And not having it ruins mine.

I'm not saying there shouldn't be any way of travelling quickly in a game world. In Morrowind you could fast-travel in various ways, just not as soon as you put a foot outdoors. It's just that having the capacity to teleport at will breaks the immersion for me.

Unlimited fast-travel, coupled with an objective compass that makes you beeline to the specific place you need to be without ever having to search a little, can quickly transform games like Oblivion and Fallout 3 into a boring list of chores instead of the deep, immersive experience they're supposed to provide. At least, that's what happened to me.

Captcha : lumpy gravy, mmm tasty...

 

[Rheinmetall]

Difficult platform sections. It makes me instantly mad. Don't get me wrong, I love games like Tomb Raider, but I already know that difficult jumps are part of its game-play, afterall it's what TR is famous for, but don't throw on me a load of platforming in the middle of Metal Gear Solid 2.

Psh! The difference between TR and Metal Gear is that the latter has CONTROLS. That part wasn't hard at all.

From what I can remember Tomb Raider had a very accurate control system too.

 

[Rheinmetall]

First person perspective. I just can't enjoy a game if I can't see my character.

Same here. The only first person view game that I truly enjoyed was Bioshock, because other than that it was excellent.

 

[The_Waspman]

And one thing that I remind myself of whenever I start a new game in the Mass Effect series is that at some point, I have to put up with Ali Hillis's bad portrayal of Liara T'Soni. And the sad thing is that as a character, she's far more appealing to me than Ashley Williams, whom I kill every time I play the first game (and am generally impatient to do so). And then I continue the romance with her in Mass Effect 2 because Jack annoys me, I friend-zone Tali, and I don't romance Miranda on principle due to her being walking fan-service (though I give Bioware points for basically making sure that her characterization is a commentary on highly attractive, supercilious, bad-ass women in games).

I haven't played Mass Effect 3 yet, so once my Xbox is fixed, we'll see if Hillis's voice acting has improved... ah, who am I kidding?

Well, small consolation, but in my opinion, her voice acting improves a lot, especially in the second half of the game. Its strange when she plays Liara, because her delivery is flat and repetative, yet her portrayal of Lightning in FF XIII (who is a much flatter character) has more life to it. Maybe because in FF she has to deliver a lot of long droning monologues, while in ME she's supposed to be interacting with other people (and its obvious she's recorded her lines in a sound booth, alone.)

OT, what can really take me out of a game is hitting a brink wall in terms of progress. In some games I can deal with it (Dark Souls for example, because its designed that way) but things like that god awful asteriods section in Dead Space, or there was one jump I was incapable of making in Mirrors Edge in chapter... 4, I think. Made me leave both games alone for months.

 

[DigitalAtlas]

Bad design choices in a quality product.

For instance, getting the Gaea armor piece in Dark Dizzy's stage in Mega Man X5.

Anyone who's done that, say with me: WTF WERE THEY THINKING?!?!

 

[mrpropal]

1) Lack of challenge, I like to learn something from a beating.

2) Art direction.

3) Prompts on screen.

 

[Shavon513]

If it has a boring story, or impossible boss battles. Give me a classic rpg, please!

 

[Jaeke]

Repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition.

Get it? It's repetition.

 

[Jaeke]

Objective compasses. I can't stand them! It seems like just every game to come out these days uses them, too. This really hurt Skyrim for me. Human Revolution, too, although there were... other things wrong with that game, which I won't go into now.

This. I always end up following a little dot on the map or compass instead of exploring and enjoying the scenery...

For the same reason, I think Fast Travel kinda ruins the game for me. Just having the option to teleport from quest to quest ruins my experience.

I never, EVER understood this. If you don't like it...

DON'T USE IT

 

[SeanSeanston]

For me, it's that feeling of really having to consult external sources to properly understand the game or get the most out of it.

Granted, maybe a few secrets and whatnot are good but... I don't like feeling obligated to do "research" on a game beforehand in case I miss something I couldn't reasonably have discovered myself, or do something that prevents me from obtaining something or what have you.

Another example but from a different angle is something like Street Fighter IV where there's no tutorial and you basically have to study the game online for a while to know what's really going on. I just wish you could sit down with the game and it could run through all the stuff and then you could sit there practicing until you feel comfortable. I played SFIV and took the time to understand it reasonably, then when I got SSFIVAE much later, I was being destroyed by a Normal CPU on the 4th or so fight. I just know there's no point playing the game on its own, I'll have to go studying for this really sharp difficulty curve. True, I can look in the manual but some moves are hard to know when to use and whatnot and it's all a bit hard to take in at once when it's just controls and descriptive text.

 

[Twilight_guy]

The players. In games with multiplayer the other players generally piss me off. As always, for every good guy there are 3 assholes being douches.

As for the actual game itself... nothing. The game might do well, it might fail, but both are useful for potential learning experiences in the end.

 

[217not237]

A bad story. I don't even notice the gameplay, story is all that matters. That is why my favorite games are Silent Hill 2, Metal Gear Solid 3, 2 JRPGs, and a visual novel.