What is Your Biggest Pet Peeve with the Gaming Industy?
 

For all the talk of revolution at E3, it is apparent that a lot crap still stays the same. Here are some of my pet peeves that still continue on:


Mind Numbing, Enrage Inducing Save Systems


There is just absolutely no excuse for this design decision. Case in point, Ninja Blade. The game looks gorgeous, the action is fun. Camera is good. The main flaw? No in mission save!! I discovered this the hard way when I played 40 minutes into the first mission, got tired, and clicked save. When I started the game later, I was dismayed to see that my saved game took me back to the very start.

Some of these missions can last over an hour which echoes back to the NES days when you left your machine on all day desperate to beat that last boss and not have to start all over.

The argument that it creates a challenging experience is so lame. Give users the option to turn save checkpoints on and off. Half Life 2 had an excellent save system which kept the game moving and not frustrating.

I can't stand games that make you hunt around for the save checkpoint. Tales of Vesperia is like this. In one frustrating case, I had to fight through 30 battles, 20 minutes of cutscenes before I finally was allowed to save!!


Hyping a Game that Get Canceled


This is just a big slap to gaming fans. I realize that it is unavoidable sometimes, but gaming companies should never hype a game that isn't 100% coming out. Duke Nukem Forever is the worst offender.

When watching the E3 2004, Blizzard had huge booths set up for Starcraft Ghost. True Fantasy Online was really pimped by MS but never saw the light of day.

Re: What is Your Biggest Pet Peeve with the Gaming Industy?
 

Space Marines (Halo, Gears, Killzone, Conduit, Resistance, etc.)

Bleak gray and/or brown first/third person shooters with characters that are completely unlikable shooting enemies with no personality.

Blech.

Re: What is Your Biggest Pet Peeve with the Gaming Industy?
 

Too many *GOOD* games released in the last quarter of the year. Not enough *GOOD* in the summer.

Re: What is Your Biggest Pet Peeve with the Gaming Industy?
 

I definitely agree. At least, Bioshock was such a breath of fresh air from the norm with colorful environments and interesting enemies. It's the only game where I enjoy just looking around at the decor.

Re: What is Your Biggest Pet Peeve with the Gaming Industy?
 

Honestly I have not played an FPS since Unreal Tournament or Quake 3.

So what has really changed in these games since then?

Re: What is Your Biggest Pet Peeve with the Gaming Industy?
 

How about Digital Rights Management? So frustrating.

Re: What is Your Biggest Pet Peeve with the Gaming Industy?
 

If you make it so I can't skip your montage of game company logos at the beginning, I kind of start to hate you.

If you make it so I can't skip your cutscenes, I really start to hate you.

If you make it so I can't skip your cutscenes that I've already watched, I consider murdering you.

Re: What is Your Biggest Pet Peeve with the Gaming Industy?
 

Speaking of Bioshock...the PS3 version must have 10 logos, and they probably take a full minute and a half to get through. :mad:

I agree that it's a refreshing game though...and I'd add Half-Life as well (very bleak, but with a variety of characters and environments.

Re: What is Your Biggest Pet Peeve with the Gaming Industy?
 

this is my biggest deal. sure, christmas games sell because of that reason. but tons of games have been released in the rest of the year that have gone on to be best sellers.

Re: What is Your Biggest Pet Peeve with the Gaming Industy?
 

Careful. I made the same complaint about another game in this forum and was accused of wanted an "I Win" button.

My addition to what already's been said would be adding things to your game with the sole purpose of selling strategy guides. Usually these are of the "find 100 _____ throughout the game world" treasure hunt task variety.

My other gripe would be putting things in the strategy guide that should have been in the manual. Manuals are basically a pamphlet nowadays that gives information on how to turn on your console (gee thanks) and seizure warnings.

Re: What is Your Biggest Pet Peeve with the Gaming Industy?
 

Personally, I hate quick-time events. It's so counter-immersive to ask me to hit some random buttons like LB+RT at the same time or whatever.

:up: It's especially bad when they do it on PSP games. What's the point of a portable game when it takes me 5-10 minutes to go from turning on the system to actually playing the game?

Re: What is Your Biggest Pet Peeve with the Gaming Industy?
 

:up::up:

They're all the same.

I'll add: If your life bar doesn't automatically refill. I've played enough Rainbow Six to know sitting around the corner will make you feel better.

I'd also prefer a universal button configuration for FPS. The trigger fires the gun, but sometimes A is duck, sometimes it's clicking RS. I think the companies need to agree upon a set configuration.

Re: What is Your Biggest Pet Peeve with the Gaming Industy?
 

Especially when they are thrown at you several minutes into a cutscene.

Re: What is Your Biggest Pet Peeve with the Gaming Industy?
 

There seems to be more flexibility these days, but the whole starting price point of all games as $50 was getting old by 1988.

Re: What is Your Biggest Pet Peeve with the Gaming Industy?
 

Invisible walls really get under my skin. There are bigger issues with the industry as a whole, but this is probably my number one when it comes to game design. Wolverine was the most recent example I can think of. If you can kill guys by throwing them off cliffs, there shouldn't be areas of the game where they just stop mid-air and then fall back down to you. Also, if you're supposed to explore the environment for collecting purposes, there shouldn't be invisible walls stopping you from going into an otherwise wide-open area.

Re: What is Your Biggest Pet Peeve with the Gaming Industy?
 

Quicktime events
Invisible walls
Lack of "save anywhere"

Re: What is Your Biggest Pet Peeve with the Gaming Industy?
 

I hope the trend of easy games ends soon. I've played through UFC, Red Faction, Damnation, Fuel, Infamous, Velvet Assassin, Wolverine, Mad World, Battlestations: Pacific and some others lately and all were far too easy. I tend to play the hardest difficulty level, but even that now is pretty cake. I would love to see more games add a true "insane" mode that pushes you to use your skills to win, even if that means suicide. Call of Duty and Gears (solo, co-op is pretty easy even on Insane) both have rather hard campaigns on the highest levels, all games should offer this kind of challenge, or even harder ones. So leave easy and medium there for the kids or new players, but give a suicide level of difficulty also.

Re: What is Your Biggest Pet Peeve with the Gaming Industy?
 

I'm the exact opposite. I'm tired of games that are frustratingly difficult or overly punishing. This is made worse by sparsley placed checkpoints or save points. I don't want to repeat a 30 minute section of game multiple times (where I've mastered the first 29 minutes), just because the developer arbitrarily decided to place the next checkpoint after an incredibly difficult section. Repeating sections of a game multiple times is the fastest way for me to lose my immersion in a game. Henry Hatsworth is a recent game that went from satisfyingly challenging to unnecessarily frustrating.

Re: What is Your Biggest Pet Peeve with the Gaming Industy?
 

That's why I threw the towel in on Mad World. Spent about 20-30 minutes getting to a boss only to have my ass handed to me, so I have to redo the entire level just to get another crack at the boss? Fuck that.

Re: What is Your Biggest Pet Peeve with the Gaming Industy?
 

Personally, I feel the whole "hardcore or casual" market has gone so far out of control with the media. Take a shot every time those 2 words are said on an average video game podcast (1UP for example) and you will be drunk before the 30 minute mark.

I also have games are pad out the running time. I know i'm in the minority, but I have no problem paying for an excellent 6 hour game, rather then slush through a 10-12 hour game that got old halfway through. I like to finish all the games I start, but when they wear out their welcome after a couple hours, I get annoyed.

I also hate how every game seems to need an online portion these days. I would rather the developers focus 100% on single player, rather then use time and money on something that might have an online audience during release week, but soon after will be as empty and depressing as my sex life as they quickly move back to COD or Halo.

Re: What is Your Biggest Pet Peeve with the Gaming Industy?
 

EA getting complacent with their sports game and just releasing the yearly versions with minimum gameplay changes and mostly updated rosters.

Companies that change good gameplay formulas for no apparent reason and care more about graphics and than gamplay. THQ is famous for doing this in their WWE games.

Companies releasing video games with glitches or issues that then need a patch or update as soon as you insert the disc in the system.

Nintendo offering a great selection of games in their Virtual Console, but still not releasing a hard drive to store them in.

Re: What is Your Biggest Pet Peeve with the Gaming Industy?
 

This is a minor issue, but I don't understand why many online instruction manuals are black and white. I get that they don't want to spend the money for color ink in the printed manual, if they bother to print a manual at all, but why can't the PDF be in color? And it's not as if it was created in black and white either. At least let the online version be in color.

Re: What is Your Biggest Pet Peeve with the Gaming Industy?
 

My Pet Peeves:

-Final Boss Blobs with Tentacles. (Done over and over again)
-Cars in games that are difficult to control. (Challenge my ass, you guys didn't do it right)
-Bad Cameras (cheap way of making game harder)
-No Choice in 1st person and 3rd person views. (some games do this)
-No way to map your controller that way you want 100%

Re: What is Your Biggest Pet Peeve with the Gaming Industy?
 

Peter Molyneux.

Re: What is Your Biggest Pet Peeve with the Gaming Industy?
 

No one plans to make a game that won't come out. Sometimes the funding dries up, sometimes the publisher pulls the plug, sometimes the game just sucks and the company decides not to release a crap product. If we only got news on games guaranteed to come out, we'd only see ads for the latest EA sports titles.

I find this to be a hilarious complaint. Games never had an automatic life refill until last gen (that I can remember), and I always thought it felt like cheating. Now you can't find a game that has some sort of life replenishment system that isn't automatic. Whether it be mushrooms or a health pack, I miss finding those items for health. It made you think a little more about what you were doing.

I agree with Robo, I would like to be able to configure the buttons on the controllers 100%. I'm sick of PS3 games using the front bumpers for firing. The rear bumpers feel so much more natural.