Universally shit things in games

[Consignia]

mandatory driving/vehicle levels in games of another genre.

Fucking Yakuza 5. You even have to obey traffic laws and engage in small talk with your passenger or you have to do it again.

[DAZZA DIRTBOLLOCK]

I hate trophies. I am not a trophy hunter and never will be. I find them an irritating distraction. Fucking stupid pop-ups telling me I've been awarded a trophy for completing a tutorial level, all with some clever-clever smug pun, uuuuuuuuuuggghhhh. I wish there was a system setting to outright disable those things.

When you try to play a game in a particular manner, but that manner is made unnecessarily long-winded by the game refusing to remember my item/weapon configurations thanks to cutscenes that demand my character hold a particular weapon to look like a bad-ass, even though he doesn't bother to use that weapon at all. So after every cutscene I have to wade through my inventory all over again just to make things how I want them. And again. And again. The MGS series was painful for this much as I loved the earlier games.

[MojoJojo]

I hate trophies. I am not a trophy hunter and never will be. I find them an irritating distraction. Fucking stupid pop-ups telling me I've been awarded a trophy for completing a tutorial level,

Trophies/achievements for simply progressing the plot are shit.

But in general I think they are an OK idea.

[DAZZA DIRTBOLLOCK]

It's quite reasonable to want to disable them though. Unless you're a trophy hunter to some degree then they are just meaningless crap that yields no reward or influence on your experience of the game. Unless you are a trophy hunter then you are experiencing pop-ups that serve precisely zero purpose. If you're okay with them then fine but I should still be able to disable them. I also find them very off-putting in tournaments which is a good reason for being able to disable them.

Or if not disable trophies then just the silly pop-ups. I don't care. Just make it so I never have to put up with a stupid distracting window appearing for no good reason at all.

[KLG-7B]

There is an XBox option to disable those.

[DAZZA DIRTBOLLOCK]

Brilliant, cheers matey. I frequent PS3 95% of the time and hadn't gotten around to checking 360 yet. Thanks to you I leave this thread a 5% happier person.

[Dark Sky]

Playing Crash Bandicoot 3 reminded me of one that's similar to the above - mandatory driving/vehicle levels in games of another genre.  There's a nonsensical motorbike level in Crash 3 that you HAVE to complete, it's nightmarishly tough.  I don't pick up Crash Bandicoot to drive a bike!  I pick it up to jump on boxes!

See also: Tony Hawk's Underground (FUCKING CAR LEVELS, REALLY?), Spyro the Dragon 3 (FUCKING SKATEBOARDING LEVELS, REALLY?).

Exception: Jak II/III.  That was a good balance.

Urgh, Half Life 2.

[Thursday]

The driving sections in Half Life 2 were fine, it's just they each lasted about 15 minutes too long. If you were editing a film you'd think "we could really trim this down a bit" And seeing as Valve actually do tend to playtest things a lot and cut out bits that aren't fun, it's odd how long they let these bits go on.

Trophies popping up at inopportune moments are the worst. When there's some really dramatic plot twist or emotional cut-scene and suddenly it's undercut by trophy popping up to remind you, you're playing a game.

[Jerzy Bondov]

"My wife... dead... how... who could have... why... why... WHY?!?!!!!"

*bleep bloop* 50G My Wife She Is Dead

[Still Not George]

Urgh, Half Life 2.

FOCKING BOOT LIVIL

edit: Actually, there's a general entry: Boat levels (fucking or otherwise).

[Thursday]

The boat level in Tomb Raider 2 was quite exciting to me at the time I recall.

I went to Venice once and just saw everything in terms of the Tomb Raider levels.

[Hangthebuggers]

Not just boat levels, but levels with water often fill me with dread. Does anyone remember the water temple from Ocarina of time? As soon as an oxygen meter appears on my screen, I get all anxious and weird.

[Zetetic]

You certainly better be damn sure that your level design is good enough to sustain simultaneously reducing the visibility (and often colour cues) and introducing a death-timer if you're going to have that sort of section.

I liked Half-Life 2's boat section, sorry.

[lazarou]

Fucking Mafia.

That could be the nastiest case of the bunch. It was patched afterwards to make it more manageable (I think it also adds the option to skip it entirely, which says a lot), but the original released version was gruelling. I ended up having to get a more racing-proficient friend to play it through for me, and even they struggled with it.

Enter the Matrix wasn't a great game at any point, but some of the driving sections were particularly terrible, though in more of a 'I can't believe they kept this shit in' way.

[Lyfjaberg]

Fucking Yakuza 5. You even have to obey traffic laws and engage in small talk with your passenger or you have to do it again.

Press X to 'Jason Donovan?'

[Dark Sky]

I liked Half-Life 2's boat section, sorry.

Boat, car, both were awful.

RAGE had some terrible car bits as well, which is a shame considering it's meant to be half a racing game.

[chand]

Not just boat levels, but levels with water often fill me with dread. Does anyone remember the water temple from Ocarina of time? As soon as an oxygen meter appears on my screen, I get all anxious and weird.

The drowning music from Labyrinth Zone in Sonic still fills me with terror.

[Big Jack McBastard]

I quite liked the vehicle/travelling bits in HL2, gave it a definite sense of leaving a place behind and moving on, plus all the wee abandoned places filled with dormant horror (or left over scraps) by the side of the road or on the shores along way were irresistible.

Oh yes I was wrong about the hair clipping thing, that's not entirely universal as Max Payne 3 did some nice work on that front.

[lazyhour]

All the 3D Zelda games show how enforced genre-change sections should be done. They can be frustratingly difficult - the Goron race in Majora's Mask springs to mind - but they help to create a game-world where you genuinely don't know what kind of task or area might pop up next. I love that about the Zelda games, and it makes me forgive the occasional difficulty spikes that the genre-shifts can create.

I bloody love the Legend of Zelda.

[eluc55]

All the 3D Zelda games show how enforced genre-change sections should be done. They can be frustratingly difficult - the Goron race in Majora's Mask springs to mind - but they help to create a game-world where you genuinely don't know what kind of task or area might pop up next. I love that about the Zelda games, and it makes me forgive the occasional difficulty spikes that the genre-shifts can create.

I bloody love the Legend of Zelda.

That's a really good point, actually. Those sections are quite often amongst the best bit in the Zelda games, quite the opposite of the examples above. Snowboarding against the Abominable Snowman in LOZ:TP, horse racing in LOZ: OOT... 3D Mario games have similar sections, like penguin racing and bird flying which are great fun, too. Surfing squids was easily the best bit in Mario Sunshine. 

[syntaxerror]

Not just boat levels, but levels with water often fill me with dread. Does anyone remember the water temple from Ocarina of time? As soon as an oxygen meter appears on my screen, I get all anxious and weird.

On a similar theme I would like to put forward any game character who can't swim, and drowns the second they come into the tiniest bit of water. Its lazy. (and people who can't swim are pathetic)

[The Βoston Crab]

One of the best things about Far Cry 3 is diving off some cliff to evade a tiger and plunging into the sea, only this time you swim up to the shore, get out and keep on having the most fun you've ever had in a FPS or sandbox. Bonus points for bodying a fucking shark mate.

[Jemble Fred]

Aw, Quick Time Events...

https://soundcloud.com/jemblefred/aw-qte

[Unoriginal]

Collision detection on Pro Wrestling video games. NO STOP RUNNING THROUGH THE RING NO WHY ARE YOU UNDER THE RAMP NO HOW THE FUCK DID YOU GET IN THE CROWD WHY DON'T YOU STOP STANDING ON TOP OF THE TABLE I DON'T KNOW HOW YOU GOT THERE AW FOR FUCKS SAKE GET OUT OF THE LADDER.

One day they must sort this out. It must happen. Surely. Why is it so fucking hard?

Not universally shit I know but needs to be mentioned.

[glitch]

Skill trees which you can only view by unlocking skills in them. I want to know what the top-tier skills are so I can work out if I should go down that skill tree at all, instead of only finding out once I've spunked my points into them. All games should offer a "are you sure" confirmation dialogue so you can cancel out you upgrade too.

[Phil_A]

On a similar theme I would like to put forward any game character who can't swim, and drowns the second they come into the tiniest bit of water. Its lazy. (and people who can't swim are pathetic)

This was one of the more irritating aspects of Thief: Deadly Shadows. In the earlier Thief games, Garrett has no problems swimming underwater for extended periods of time, but in TDS he instantly drowns the second he steps into any water higher than his ankles.

[Junglist]

Skill trees which you can only view by unlocking skills in them. I want to know what the top-tier skills are so I can work out if I should go down that skill tree at all, instead of only finding out once I've spunked my points into them. All games should offer a "are you sure" confirmation dialogue so you can cancel out you upgrade too.

Borderlands and Borderlands 2 is superb for this. See everything, and even if you respec wrong you can reset your skill points for a very small in game price.

[madhair60]

- When Cross/A isn't the "confirm" button

- When Circle/B isn't the "back" button

I get why this is, in Japanese games, but it's alway such a fucker.

[madhair60]

Oh, and also when there's no "Confirm Load" and "Confirm Save" when you choose to do either.  Accidentally loaded instead of saved my Crash Bandicoot 2 game yesterday after one of the hardest levels.  Aaargh.

[madhair60]

oh, and lastly, eight or nine company logos, each on a seperate screen, followed by "Checking Downloadable Content".