kms_md

review embargoes until day of or after release (i'm looking at you prototype).

WMAangel

I only have two (current) complaints:
1 - Nintendo getting lazy as hell with the Virtual Console....seriously, you have ten platforms to support but you only release 1 game a week?? I guess you can be that lame when you're in first place and keep having truckloads of cash dumped on your lap from your "actual" console (and handheld) sales....still, isn't the point of business to make the MOST money possible?
2 - the never-ending parade of Guitar Hero titles.....as I mentioned in another thread, I wouldn't care about all these separate disc releases if they were just importable into one nice catalog (basically, the Rock Band model).....but alas, they are not, and now you need to keep a spreadsheet with the tracklist to each game just to know where the hell to find "No Excuses" the next time a friend wants to jam to Alice In Chains....

fumanstan

Some of the fans that assume they know everything about development. Don't get me wrong, there's a bunch of terrible game mechanics like the many mentioned here, ones that haven't been fixed in multiple generations, but the whole "devs are being lazy" or whatever always makes me laugh.

msdmoney

fmian

Having one stupid game mechanic that stops me from progressing any further.
The airplane through hoops missions in some of the Grand Theft Auto games, and the music note puzzle in Myst stopped me dead from playing the games further. Never bothered to go back and finish them.

PopcornTreeCt

Bad controls and bad camera angles shouldn't be adding to the difficulty. That is crap.

TheBigDave

I agree 100%.

I play games to have fun, not to get frustrated. I still haven't finished Killzone 2, because there's one section I wasn't able to get past.

I would love to have an option to temporarily drop down to a lower difficulty level. Or after a couple deaths, you could skip ahead to the next checkpoint.

dvdsteve2000

EA monopolizing the NFL licensed games...I miss you 2K football!!!!! NFL 2K5 is the best football game for the 360, and it's not even a 360 game.

I also agree about the control/camera issues...yeah, I'm looking at you, "Alone in the Dark"!! Worst controls ever.

Movies made into games, especially kid movies. Cars (& Mater-National), Madagascar, Kung Fu Panda, Monster House, The Bee Movie, Monsters vs. Aliens, Spiderman (except Spiderman 2), Superman, etc... Most of the time the game is just garbage. I think the idea is good, but the games rarely have any kind of 'depth'. If you're gonna develop a movie-game, put some time into it.

1970's-style-Saturday-morning-cartoon graphics. I know..."graphics don't make a game ggood", but I guess I'm in the minority since I like a game to look stunning. Viva Pinata's, Mario games, and my biggest offender, WariWare. It's like playing a second grade art show.

kms_md

i felt the same way about the helicopter missions / activities in saints row 2. i almost put the game away because of it. i just was not very good at maneuvering the aircraft.

Michael Corvin

IIRC, I think Stranglehold did this. If you die more than a few times in a row it asks you if you want to drop down.

Obviously we watched different cartoons in the 70's. Viva Pinata & Super Mario Galaxy look amazing. Fat Albert, Scooby-Doo and Hannah Barbara, these are not.

jeffbase34

You must have a lot of free time on your hands. Was Ninja Gaiden too easy for ya too?

jeffbase34

Only one big game coming out next month. On 9/1, there are like 5 or 6 high profile games coming out. WHY?!?!! Why can't these idiot publishers spread out the releases.

Granted, it has improved some. I remember a few years ago where the only big title between Jan - July was The Darkness.

boredsilly

I think this is bad for developers, because it could lead to more rentals, but I absolutely prefer the short concentrated experience, versus that of pointless grinding and padding. I think 10 hours isn't a bad length for a game, but something like Portal really shows you how short and sweet can be the most perfect thing ever.

Also, I absolutely abhor quick time events. They aren't fun or clever, just tedious. I can understand people building games around them now, and that's fine, but why they are put in games with good controls (God of War, RE4, countless others) is beyond me. Show me your cut scene if you want, but don't make me press random buttons while you do it.

K&AJones

They cannot make good movie base games (hint...Ahnold)

story

This.

lordwow

I agree with quite a few things in here already:

- VC Laziness
- NFL/MLB exclusivity.
- Control mapping

A few other things that annoy me recently:

- Achievements. I love achievements like most, but some of them are terrible.
First off, achievements that don't unlock lower level difficulty = inexcusable, especially now that everyone has figured it out.
Second, achievements for mutliplayer kills... on shitty games. I call these "Don't flatter yourself" achievements, because no one is going to play your shitty game that long.
Thirdly, don't make achievements for stuff you wouldn't do yourself devs. I enjoy the challenging achievements as much as anyone, but there are seriously achievements out there that no one has been able to get. Be realistic about your challenges.

- Patches/Broken games - For a long time PC games had the edge over console games because if something didn't work correctly you could fix it in a patch. For many "great" console games, this meant doing extensive QA testing before release. Now that games have gotten more complex & patchable, games seem to come out in a beta-build, which normally would have ruined any chance of a profit for the game once word got out. Now we sit around for a month or two waiting for the next patch to fix whatever it is. Stuff like Mr. Driller Online not working ONLINE is completely ridiculous and inexcusable at launch.

orangecrush

I find this to be the single most annoying thing about the industry. Sadly, it seems this will be more common in the future.

Michael Corvin

Collecting done right: Crackdown, Bioshock
Collecting done wrong: Assassin's Creed, Banjo Kazooie

Seriously, there were 800 of those fucking orbs in Crackdown and it was just as fun to hunt for those as play the main game.

dvdsteve2000

GTA: IV was horrible too with the pigeons.

lordwow

While AC was pretty bad in terms of how they did it, I found it to be pretty easy, especially with some of the superb guides online.

fumanstan

I'm playing RE5 right now and thought it was silly that those BSAA emblems are everywhere.

Draven

Devil May Cry does this too.

For probably all of these complaints, there are games that have figured out how to do it correctly. I always wonder...why are some of these things still broken? Hell, just steal what the other people did.

JasonF

Coincidentally, I was just trading e-mails with a friend in the industry who mentioned Singularity, which I hadn't heard of. So I looked it up on wikipedia and saw this:

(It actually sounds like a pretty cool game and I'm looking forward to picking it up this fall).

JasonF

I found the mechanics of collecting in Crackdown and Assassin's Creed to be indistinguishable. Looking for a jillion little orbs was no easier or more difficult than looking for a jillion little flags (for the record, I enjoyed both).

Another pet peeve: games -- especially platformers -- with flying cameras I can't control. It's so frustrating when I need to jump from here to there and I have to fight with the camera to figure out which direction I'm supposed to be pushing on the stick.

Anubis2005X

Putting in backtracking sections just to extend the gameplay, zzzzzzz....