Gaming deal-breakers

[Cerys]

I suspect we've all been there - a game piques your interest, so you give it a go.  But something - something is wrong.  Something that makes you give up on the game, alluring as it might be, before you've even logged ten minutes of play time.

For me, it's the inability to invert the Y-axis.  It doesn't matter how fantastic a game is - if I don't have the option to fiddle with that Y-axis setting, I just know I'm not going to enjoy it.

Please tell me I'm not alone in this.  Not least because if you do then I'm liable to call you a cunt.

[RetroRobot]

Too many and too long cutscenes that aren't in an RPG

Narrative driven games that are praised to high heavens for having a story marginally better written than most games but still soap opera tier

[RetroRobot]

Too many and too long cutscenes that aren't in an RPG

Narrative driven games that are praised to high heavens for having a story marginally better written than most games but still soap opera tier

Gonna add to this and sound like a twat, The Last of Us is a better TV show than it is a game. Sorry lads. And even then I'd still rather play Earthbound or Live A Live or Undertale over watching it as their narratives and writing are fun and their plots really do feel like they'd only ever work in a game.

[weaseldust]

agreed, i wanted to replay wind waker recently and the y-axis was all wrong. i'm so used to using it to steer the character in skyrim etc

personally i hate anything with a time limit. ocarina of time is my favourite game ever but i couldn't get into majora's mask because the time limit element stresses me out. i want to relax and bimble around in zelda world

[Egyptian Feast]

Too many and too long cutscenes that aren't in an RPG

More so when you can't skip them, even after you've already seen it.

personally i hate anything with a time limit.

Fuck time limits. I have to rush around enough of the time, I don't need that shite when I'm trying to relax.

[bgmnts]

Too many and too long cutscenes that aren't in an RPG

Narrative driven games that are praised to high heavens for having a story marginally better written than most games but still soap opera tier

Gaming really is the bottom of the barrel for writing.

My favourite part of Limmy livestreaming is his constant mentioning that your kid is of course going to still be a baby. Cracks me up.

But yeah I'd actually put cutscenes up there for any genre. A nice cutscene here and there so I can have a little break and a cup of tea but video games trying to distance themselves from the fact that they're video games is depressing. The one thing they can offer is INTERACTIVE narrative. Story should always be told within gameplay.

[Shaxberd]

I enjoy playing heavily narrative-driven games like Firewatch or the various Telltale products to relax, the same way I might chill with a book or a film in the evening. It's a shame "visual novel" already refers to a very specific genre as that might be a better name for them.

[dontpaintyourteeth]

quick time events

[Mister Six]

Fuck time limits. I have to rush around enough of the time, I don't need that shite when I'm trying to relax.

God yes. I've always hated time pressure in games, especially when it's long-term pressure. I can handle a little timer on a Mario level or something, but the thought of spending hours of my life almost completing a game only to crap out at the end because I spent too much time exploring and having fun drives me nuts.

Similarly, games with missable scheduled events. It's why I gave up on Dead Rising - a game that invites you to run around a shopping mall, making improvised weapons and finding Easter eggs, but then ties you to a schedule of events that will render the game impossible to complete if you miss just one.

There was a pretty good point 'n' click adventure game called KGB (also released as Conspiracy, I think) that had a similar thing - the world carried on with its business whether you were there or not, and if you (say) didn't set up the bug on the park bench at the right time to catch a conversation, you were buggered.

Add to which: games that have a non-fatal fail state, where the player can bumble around for ages unaware that they'll never finish the game because they slipped up hours before.

Sierra were absolute bastards for this. My first-ever PC came with a copy of one of the King's Quest games (V?) and there was a bit where you'd stumble across a starving vulture up a mountain. Following the logic of most games - help the needy animal and it will help you in the future (hello, Clocktower!) - I fed it the raw meat I'd been carrying around. It gobbled up the meat and flew off - meaning there was no way to get around the hungry wolves later on.

Think about that! They went to the trouble of programming an otherwise useless character, down to animating it eating food, just to fuck with the player. Openly hostile game design! It was ridiculous.

I tried playing again, this time with a solution - rendering the game itself pointless - only for it to crap out with a conventional memory error in the final conflict with the witch. Cheers, Sierra!

Cunts.

[bgmnts]

Similarly, games with missable scheduled events. It's why I gave up on Dead Rising - a game that invites you to run around a shopping mall, making improvised weapons and finding Easter eggs, but then ties you to a schedule of events that will render the game impossible to complete if you miss just one.

See I find this is what makes games scary to play. Dead Rising is as much a comedy game as a zombie horror but games are only truly scary when there are scary obstacles like a time limit or tough enemies that fuck you up. Atmosphere and the like won't come close.

I find that Dead Rising becomes very repayable. You can play the normal story but then spend the next playthrouh fucking abut and mincing fuck out of the undead.

[Brundle-Fly]

Cheeky sidekick characters with shrill voices.

Restarts that put you too far back in the level.

Overcomplicated gameplay and bosses who are impossible to kill.

Yeah, yeah, Ok Boomer Gen-Xer

[Memorex MP3]

Basically any puzzle I know how to get to the answer but to get there I have to do a load of bullshit
e.g. puzzles in the witness where you had to do several in a row and getting one wrong put you back to the start. I imagine it's in there so you become intuitively aware of that approach to future more complex puzzles but I couldn't be arsed at all

[beanheadmcginty]

Having to travel to a specific location in order to save the game.

[Mister Six]

See I find this is what makes games scary to play. Dead Rising is as much a comedy game as a zombie horror but games are only truly scary when there are scary obstacles like a time limit or tough enemies that fuck you up. Atmosphere and the like won't come close.

I find that Dead Rising becomes very repayable. You can play the normal story but then spend the next playthrouh fucking abut and mincing fuck out of the undead.

Dead Rising isn't a scary game, though. It's a "fuck about and mash up loads of zombies" game. Except it's also a "desperately try to keep to the schedule and hope you don't lose a weapon that's necessary to kill the next boss" game. It's a confused mess of systems and ideas.

[bgmnts]

Dead Rising isn't a scary game, though. It's a "fuck about and mash up loads of zombies" game. Except it's also a "desperately try to keep to the schedule and hope you don't lose a weapon that's necessary to kill the next boss" game. It's a confused mess of systems and ideas.

I dunno I'm usually scared to fuck when I run into a psychopath in those games.

I think it works though even on those terms.

[Mobius]

When your character finds a guitar and plays the entirety of Take On Me

Not quite a deal-braker but if it happens again...

[Cerys]

I've always hated time pressure in games

Right with you on that.  Timed puzzles are the worst thing ever as far as I'm concerned.

Also unskippable cut scenes with things that can kill you immediately afterwards.  I have never completed the original Resident Evil for that very reason.  All my focus on the game was snatched away from me by repeated viewings of the cut-scene run-up to the final boss.

[Mister Six]

There's another one, @Cerys - poor checkpointing that makes you plod through loads of wilderness/watch the same cutscenes over and over whenever a boss kills you.

[Cerys]

Yup, that's another that robbed me of completing a game.  In this case Tomb Raider Anniversary.  I'm planning on trying that again, in the hope that the XBox edition is kinder.

[Claude the Racecar Driving Rockstar Super Sleuth]

"visual novel"

As opposed to Braille?

[madhair60]

not saying this out of any misplaced superiority but it fascinates me that what people dislike, i actively revel in. i love time limits. i love "fuck you" missables. i love save points and checkpointing.

i strongly dislike it when there's an enormous time between starting a game and actually getting to move around. I don't mind a good cutscene, but when I start a new game I wanna get in there. Even Dead Space, one of my favourite games, makes you sit around at the start for about 10-15 minutes, unskippable

[Kelvin]

Games which do a terrible job of explaining their core mechanics, or make no effort to do so whatever. Maybe the only game I've ever bought and dropped immediately was a survival game where you had to raft down a river (I forget its name, it was on Switch), and I just had no idea what I was meant to do or how I was meant to play it. I don't doubt people who play a lot of games like that would have picked it up more easily, and I could obviously have done some research online and worked it out for myself, but it fundamentally pissed me off that it was so opaque. I don't want to have to research my games, read wikis and watch videos to understand the basics, I want them to unfold as I play them.   

[Video Game Fan 2000]

Too many and too long cutscenes that aren't in an RPG

Narrative driven games that are praised to high heavens for having a story marginally better written than most games but still soap opera tier

yeah

especially hate interactive but scene peppered parts early on in a game that are deliberately designed to look like it gets you right into the action when it doesnt. its not a game until theres gameplay, otherwise youre just fucking me about with an in-engine menu

persona and yakuza do this to effect, but loads of acclaimed games do it and its rare ill play past it. (Doom 2016 did it and got praised for it - as did Witcher 3) i'd honestly just prefer 45 min of a mediocre tv show than pissing in my eye and telling me its raining

[Thursday]

"Directed by David Cage"

[Cold Meat Platter]

Hitmarkers, damage numbers pissing out of enemies and other UI bullshit happening right in the middle of the screen where I'm trying to see what's fucking going on.

[Kelvin]

Hitmarkers, damage numbers pissing out of enemies and other UI bullshit happening right in the middle of the screen where I'm trying to see what's fucking going on.

Xenoblade 3 has the worst UI I've ever seen, at times you literally cannot see the characters because of the junk onscreen.

[RetroRobot]

not saying this out of any misplaced superiority but it fascinates me that what people dislike, i actively revel in. i love time limits. i love "fuck you" missables. i love save points and checkpointing.

i strongly dislike it when there's an enormous time between starting a game and actually getting to move around. I don't mind a good cutscene, but when I start a new game I wanna get in there. Even Dead Space, one of my favourite games, makes you sit around at the start for about 10-15 minutes, unskippable

Oddworld is all about fuck you missables and without them the games entire point wouldn't work!

[RetroRobot]

Games credits ending with a shitty pop song that has nothing to do with the game like the credits of a kids movie.

Looking at you Pokemon Scarlet and Violet with your Ed Sheeran jumpscare.

Oddworld: New and Tasty was worse with this, as like a lot of other changes in that remake of Oddyssee it actively detracts from the tone the original worked so hard to keep throughout!

[Huxleys Babkins]

Those, usually, indie games where they've had a great sliver of an idea and a nice art style, but don't have the budget to properly flesh it out so they just pad it out with crafting and survival busywork.

Also, games that don't respect your time. The people who justify Hollow Knight's checkpointing as "getting to the boss is part of the boss fight" can fuck right off.

[Pink Gregory]

Those, usually, indie games where they've had a great sliver of an idea and a nice art style, but don't have the budget to properly flesh it out so they just pad it out with crafting and survival busywork.

Also, games that don't respect your time. The people who justify Hollow Knight's checkpointing as "getting to the boss is part of the boss fight" can fuck right off.

In Hollow Knight's defence, you do get an ability that allows you to set a summon/recall checkpoint