Little things that bug you

[gooch3008]

I am curious if other people are slightly irked/annoyed about stuff that goes on in video games. My favorite example is from Contra for NES.

 

On the label art there are two tough looking dudes with bigass guns.

 

Your sprite in game is pretty badass looking too. He looks like he can handle himself.

 

BUT NO.

 

He didn't count on ENEMY SOLDIERS OUT FOR A JOG.

 

The first bad guy you see is just a dude, and he is jogging. He clearly isnt brandishing a weapon that I can see. If you just stand there, he should just run right past you, no harm, no foul. But what happens??? Your character does a backflip and dies while a dramatic sound effect plays. Try it, just concentrate on the "interaction" between you and the bad guy, and try not to laugh.

 

Seriously, like the first 3 seconds of the game lets you experience this phenomenon. And this is not the only game guilty of this weirdness.

 

It just bugs me.

 

Anyone else care to share something like this that bugs the hell out of you?

[raskar42]

frogs/turtles/ducks who can't swim

[Nukey Shay]

Characters that cannot jump or climb (even 1 inch). Devs that put unusable ladders in a game should be shot without trial.

[DickNixonArisen]

I don't know, when I play contra I usually just Win. Then again *puffs up chest* I have done a perfect run before...

 

 

The usual list of things that bug people; invisible walls, repetetive scenery, unusuable anything that looks like it should work, kills that feel cheap, misleading level design, uneven difficulty curves, bad enemy AI, clunky menu hierarchies with oft-used items buried deep down... infinite combos and no-lose boss strategies that favor the player are usually accidental but dont tick most people off (like Link's shadow in Zelda 2, etc)

 

but devs still put that stuff in, or let it stay in, rather.

[DickNixonArisen]

oh yeah, about ducks and turtles that can't swim, that's pretty bad, but how about the NES swamp thing game... he definitely dies when he falls in the swamp. He is called Swamp Thing. The swamp should not hurt him. In fact, he IS the swamp, and if the game was anything like the comic he would simply transfer his consciousness to the end of the level rather than jump and punch his way through it, and regrow a couple of bodies there.

[tz101]

Secret doors that don't open. See Rolling Thunder.

 

Monotonous in-game music. See Super Mario Bros.

 

Power ups that are spaced insanely too far apart. See most any 8-bit platformer.

 

Cars that have no traction in curves. See too many racing games to mention.

 

 

Those are just a few...

[tz101]

Another one comes to mind:

 

Invisible boundaries in 3D roaming games. I want to explore to my hearts content, and there always seem to be these invisible fences keeping me back.

 

See any of the Metal Gear games.

[A_Locomotive]

One thing that always bugs me is coming across a hill or series of rocks my character can't climb over that I know I'd be able to easily in real life, which I guess falls under invisible boundaries.

[AtariLeaf]

Basically anything thats been covered in an average "AVGN" video

[TwinChargers]

Easily its rubber banding in racing games. I'd much rather they ramp up the difficulty level, than having the computer play cheap and cheat.

[jaybird3rd]

I'll quote a post I wrote in an earlier thread on this subject:

 

I dislike platform games that require pixel-perfect precision when walking, jumping, falling, etc. Spelunker is one example of the "fall one pixel and you die" school of design: the game shouldn't kill me if I walk off the edge of a tiny little hill in the middle of the floor!

 

Jumpman was another unforgiving game when it came to falling: walking off the edge of that mound at the bottom will kill you, but jumping off of it won't. Why?!?!?!?! Shouldn't these video game characters know how to step down?!

 

(I'm aware that the obvious answer to my question is "like, duhhh ... it's JUMPman!", but that still doesn't excuse it.)

[Cebus Capucinis]

Hey, you wanna play FALLman, play Man Goes Down on 2600.

[the.golden.ax]

Three words:

 

Adult 3do Games

 

 

AX

[Tr3vor]

Three words:

 

Adult 3do Games

 

 

AX

 

you just reminded me of "Plumbers Don't Wear Ties"

[BassGuitari]

frogs/turtles/ducks who can't swim

 

I instantly thought of how Frogger dies when falling in water. Dumb.

 

I definitely agree about the jumping thing. Particularly in games like Donkey Kong and Kangaroo. In fact, falling from heights shorter than my character is tall, and dying for it, is one of the reasons I never enjoyed Kangaroo.

 

[AtariLeaf]

 

 

I instantly thought of how Frogger dies when falling in water. Dumb.

 

 

 

And yet in Frogger II, he's UNDERWATER.

[Rik]

That 1st post is similar in the way Atari and other 3rd party makers marketed their games.The box art always gave you high expectations no matter what with the spectacular art work.Pop the game in and those cool evil looking monsters/characters look like Gingerbread Men or stick figures.

[mbd30]

Maybe the water in "Frogger" is heavily polluted and that's why your frog dies.

[Nukey Shay]

IIRC, it was "river currents"...which doesn't really figure since the turtles have no problem swimming upstream.

[BassGuitari]

That 1st post is similar in the way Atari and other 3rd party makers marketed their games.The box art always gave you high expectations no matter what with the spectacular art work.Pop the game in and those cool evil looking monsters/characters look like Gingerbread Men or stick figures.

 

They're just encouraging you to use your imagination.

 

[jaybird3rd]

That 1st post is similar in the way Atari and other 3rd party makers marketed their games.The box art always gave you high expectations no matter what with the spectacular art work.Pop the game in and those cool evil looking monsters/characters look like Gingerbread Men or stick figures.

They're just encouraging you to use your imagination.

Yes, definitely. As I've said elsewhere, the dramatic "montage" paintings that Atari used on their packaging and in the manuals gave me powerful mental images that I always enjoyed superimposing onto the games as I played them. The best game graphics I've seen since still can't measure up to the visuals that I saw in my imagination. My favorite Atari artwork of all was the Missile Command cover, which I scanned and posted in another thread.

[BydoEmpire]

Modern games where the menu option doesn't default to "continue your saved game." Little thing, but it's annoying.

[Cynicaster]

That 1st post is similar in the way Atari and other 3rd party makers marketed their games.The box art always gave you high expectations no matter what with the spectacular art work.Pop the game in and those cool evil looking monsters/characters look like Gingerbread Men or stick figures.

They're just encouraging you to use your imagination.

Yes, definitely. As I've said elsewhere, the dramatic "montage" paintings that Atari used on their packaging and in the manuals gave me powerful mental images that I always enjoyed superimposing onto the games as I played them. The best game graphics I've seen since still can't measure up to the visuals that I saw in my imagination. My favorite Atari artwork of all was the Missile Command cover, which I scanned and posted in another thread.

 

I know what you're saying. I used to imagine myself on the court playing a rousing game of Buzz Aldrin Space Rainbow Tennis.

[HatefulGravey]

Save points. I thought they were a thing of the past but I was wrong. I save my game and play for another half hour, now I have to go somewhere but I can't save my game right now. I have to either play another 30 min to get to a save point or replay the last 30 min of the game. Terrible.

 

Character customization in single player only games. Not that I hate it really, but why does it have to be so damn in depth? There are no other characters around to see that I spent 45 min working on the correct shape and skin color for my character, and it doesn't have an effect of the game. I just want to play, step aside stupid plastic surgery mini game. Obilivion has FAR more customization then WOW, and in WOW it would actually be a ton cooler as you could show off your great custom job on your character.

 

Achievements or trophies that only 2% of the world will ever get. I know you should get something for completing the entire game without taking a point of damage, but is anyone actually going to do it? Why spend your time programming something people just can't really do? Again, it makes no difference in game play, but it would be cool if I could complete all the challenges. There is an achievement in Trials HD I'll bet not more then 100 people in the world have. Whats the point?

[Pixelboy]

Plenty of the above points annoy me as well, but I have another one to add, although this applies more to today's games: Texts printed in tiny little fonts, like dialogs or status updates at the bottom of the TV screen. It's like the programmers couldn't fathom that we'd be sitting some distance away from our TVs and that not all of us have 20-20 vision. I've seen this in some PC games as well.