I understand that making a good game must be realy, realy, realy hard. But sometimes some design choices totaly puzzles me. How anyone can think that these things could even be remotely fun is beyond me. So I thought I might start a thread about things that always suck in games: a hate list.
Here are some general things:
Bad checkpoint/save system. (Devil may cry: a limited number of continuies. Dying on the first boss is a bad idea because you will realy need those yellow orbs on the third boss. How about that for ruining the flow of the game? Black: inconsitent checkpointsystem. Sometimes you have to play for an hour before you get a checkpoint. And if you have to turn off your system half way throu a level, well...bad luck cause you have to start the level from the begining the next time. No midlevel saving...yeah, sounds like a great idea. Frustrating the player is good. Splinter cell 1 & 2: scarce checkpoints in games that are about trial and error, and were 90% of the playing time is waiting in the shadows. Well, this list could go on forever)
Respawning/endlessly respawning enemies. This makes strategic play worthless, and it totaly ruins the imersion. The illusion of a living gameworld just falls apart. Hope they skip the respawning enemies in COD5.
On rail shooting. Sure, on rail shooting segments can create a little variation, and as long as they arent too hard they can work as a nice litle diversion. But for some reason on rail shooting segments are often combined with crappy controls, and are waaay to difficult (graw1, sly cooper 2). And the only thing the player can do is shoot. You cant try a different strategy, or dodge incoming missiles.
Bosses in first personen shooters. BOSSES.IN.FIRST.PERSON.SHOOTERS.ALWAYS.SUCK. Always have, always will. Any developer who thinks about putting a boss in a fps game should kill themselves, then quit their job.
Escort missions. Having to protect some idiot who always runs into the line of fire is never fun. Never. Often it is enough have to stay alive your self, having to watch some moron who you would rather shoot is only frustrating. And it ruins any stratetic play.
Enemies who without any warning, and without any reason spawn behind you. That makes trial and error gameplay wich is not fun.
Some more speficic:
Playing as the arbiter. Why would i wanna play as a stupid frog? It breaks up the immersion. Why turn the coolest enemy you got into a BFF? And it sucked playing like raiden in mgs2 so why would it work here??
Any developer who are guilty of any of these design choices should kill them selfs, and those who dont should be put to death. Im totaly serial!
Here are some general things:
Bad checkpoint/save system. (Devil may cry: a limited number of continuies. Dying on the first boss is a bad idea because you will realy need those yellow orbs on the third boss. How about that for ruining the flow of the game? Black: inconsitent checkpointsystem. Sometimes you have to play for an hour before you get a checkpoint. And if you have to turn off your system half way throu a level, well...bad luck cause you have to start the level from the begining the next time. No midlevel saving...yeah, sounds like a great idea. Frustrating the player is good. Splinter cell 1 & 2: scarce checkpoints in games that are about trial and error, and were 90% of the playing time is waiting in the shadows. Well, this list could go on forever)
Respawning/endlessly respawning enemies. This makes strategic play worthless, and it totaly ruins the imersion. The illusion of a living gameworld just falls apart. Hope they skip the respawning enemies in COD5.
On rail shooting. Sure, on rail shooting segments can create a little variation, and as long as they arent too hard they can work as a nice litle diversion. But for some reason on rail shooting segments are often combined with crappy controls, and are waaay to difficult (graw1, sly cooper 2). And the only thing the player can do is shoot. You cant try a different strategy, or dodge incoming missiles.
Bosses in first personen shooters. BOSSES.IN.FIRST.PERSON.SHOOTERS.ALWAYS.SUCK. Always have, always will. Any developer who thinks about putting a boss in a fps game should kill themselves, then quit their job.
Escort missions. Having to protect some idiot who always runs into the line of fire is never fun. Never. Often it is enough have to stay alive your self, having to watch some moron who you would rather shoot is only frustrating. And it ruins any stratetic play.
Enemies who without any warning, and without any reason spawn behind you. That makes trial and error gameplay wich is not fun.
Some more speficic:
Playing as the arbiter. Why would i wanna play as a stupid frog? It breaks up the immersion. Why turn the coolest enemy you got into a BFF? And it sucked playing like raiden in mgs2 so why would it work here??
Any developer who are guilty of any of these design choices should kill them selfs, and those who dont should be put to death. Im totaly serial!
