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Turn the power back on missions

I'm playing NBA 2k23 and the monetization is just absurd. But I get it, that's how they make money. However because of that monetization, they lock progression of myplayer characters to some insane or boring fetch quests which is just ridiculous. Like at one point in the "story" you have to beat some random guy in a free throw contest to move on. You have to do selfies with some 12 year old internet influencer. You have to skateboard all around town for these two grafitti artists who have some pull. You have to answer fashion questions for these two women waiting outside of a shoe store for it to open (and I'm pretty sure everyone just looks the answers up). I realize I'm now old and out of touch but is this really what young people want in a basketball game?

After a handful of them, I just tried to skip through almost everything the main bad guys rambled on about. The ones where I was forced to go through the bunker and kill people was really irritating, with Faith's slow-walking a close second.
edit: Just realized I was thinking of Far Cry 5.

Which is one of my main complaints in games. When I'm forced to walk at a slow speed to get somewhere, typically because of some other NPC's exposition. Horizon Forbidden West is pretty good about this most of the time. The characters keep up with Aloy, and the locations are far enough away that they can finish their story by the time we get there, even when running. I think it was Far Cry 5 where the NPCs would pick their stories back up if you ended up in a firefight or something. "So anyway, as I was saying...."

At this point in my life, I don't like anything that isn't gameplay.

It starts with cutscenes, but the "slow the character down to walk through the town" trend along with dream sequences and hallucinations are really the same thing. That's why I like WoW so much - you can skip all the cutscenes and you can hit something with a sword within minutes of starting that thing. The times it does slow down and makes me watch something or have a long interaction with an NPC is infuriating.

I really think something like Serious Sam is the pinnacle of game design - no tutorial, dialogue trees or big setups, you are just in it and shooting things within a few minutes of starting the game.

Yeah, having just finished Metro Exodus, the cutscenes were a real slog to get through. Looking at HowLongToBeat.com, the main story is approx 15 hours. It felt like at least 1/3 of that is cutscenes.

Agreed with other comments that hallucinatory and swimming sequences are tedious. In Metro Exodus the swimming sequences were even more annoying, as you didn't actually swim. If you fell in the water, there were mostly pre-rendered sequences after which you either died, or crawled back onto the land. Just a time waster, since you couldn't skip those, either.

Another complaint is health scarcity. I always play on normal/default difficulty. For about the last 1.5 or 2 hours of gameplay, I had minimal health, and there was never an opportunity to regain it. That resulted in me dying many times, as any hit from an enemy meant death.

I could understand it being that scarce if you're playing on a higher difficulty level or if you actually regenerated, to some extent, but it was just a PITA.

Back tracking without a quick way of doing it, whether it be for the main story or even for side quests. Absolutely love RPGs that are full of content to find but you better have a quick way of me getting from one side to the other. Fallen order was a huge offender of this. Thankfully it looks like Survivor has fixed it.

Not sure if it's been mentioned, but escort quests or quests when you have to follow an NPC and its walking speed is faster than your walking speed, but slower than your running speed. So you have to play this run/walk game to keep up. And bonus points for if you run too far away and the NPC stops because you're now "out of range."

Lack of manual saving.

Lol. Speaking of slow walking, how about slow crawling? I'm looking at you, Metal Gear Solid V.

I agree sometimes cut scenes can be blah and drag on, but I'll just read ahead and make it faster. I see people say they just skip cut scenes entirely and I shake my head. Unless you've played the game already, you're missing out on a lot. That's like getting to the finale of a movie, and the protagonist saying "boring, let's fight."

And yes I thought of W fighting Abraham Lincoln in Robot Chicken.

Mazes. Labyrinths. Basically any gimmicky area made to make you feel lost. I hate that feeling in real life why would I want that feeling in a video game? Playing through BotW and even though its better then most I hate the labyrinth areas and the lost forest where it's completely dark. It's not that bad because the game designers are competent and put in some good way finding mechanics but it still sucks. Especially when the key to the maze is one tiny thing that is easily missable in a 3D environment.

Boss battles, I've had enough. They use to be really tense and crazy and now there just beyond boring.

Resident Evil 4 remake is one of the best games I've ever played and I don't say that lightly and I haven't even completed it yet (one or two chapters left) and it knows how to handle the boss battle problem. The boss battles in this one are somewhat fun and they definitely don't last that long.

Hallucinations/dream sequences are annoying as hell. But, what I truly dislike is when an open world game suddenly says "you have 1.5 minutes to get to the destination." And if you don't, then it resets and you have to try again. I'd skip those every time.

Not being able to save at any time.

When they make you adjust the brightness where the logo needs to be barely visible in one box, not visible in another box, etc. I already calibrated my fucking TV. It's your job to make it look right.

Trying to avoid falling to your death while navigating solid trails of floating blood while listening to the cries of your dead baby has gotten so old.

Yeah, not my favorite.

I automatically turn it all the way to the right and it always works.

Tons of people can't calibrate for shit, or have terrible viewing locations. I appreciate the option being there. FWIW, I never really need to make any changes.

My TV room gets a lot of sunlight, meaning I can’t see shit in nighttime/cave scenes.

If you already calibrated your tv then you can just skip over that, right?

Yep - one of the biggest dislikes for sure.