Game design choices that completely ruin the game?

[Razzie.P]

A couple of years ago, I was playing Mario Party (Wii U) with my 2 kids.   We were all having a blast, especially my daughter (around 8 at the time) who was winning.   Near the end of the game, she rolled the dice and landed on a space 1 or 2 spots from the end of the game board that gives a “random effect.”  The random effect in this case was – Bowser took all of her stars, sending her from first place to last.     I could see the tears about to flow, and it completely ruined the game for her.   Even the rest of the players had a "yeah... that really cheapens the whole thing" vibe at that moment, so none of us enjoyed it.  To this date, neither kid has wanted to play it again.

 

I can understand some randomly generated negatives over the course of a game when you have a chance to bounce back.  But a game mechanic that simply says “you lose” near the end pretty much kills any reason to play.  Might as well have been a game breaking bug.

 

A couple of days ago, the blue shell in Mario Kart (Switch) almost had the same impact as we kept having great races ruined by a blue shell taking out the lead racer a few feet before the finish, but at least those matches are short enough to just move on.   I’ve always felt that the Blue Shell needs to be removed entirely, or have an option to simply disable it.

 

These made me wonder – you guys think of any other gameplay mechanics/design choices that, in your opinion, completely ruins what could have been a good game?

 

 

[+Cafeman]

I hate that kind of thing!   I'd have to think for a while to give a similar concrete example, but one thing that kills the fun is when the difficulty maxes out and the levels keep repeating. I'm sure some enjoy this, because then it becomes an endurance session of how long you can play and how high a score you can get.  But I hate endurance sessions!!!  No way I am playing a game for 5 hours just to see !!! for example.  Another thing I hate is when a game gives the player 'busy work' levels just to pad the experience. 

 

Okay I thought of a recent example as I typed this. I've been in a Tomb Raider mood, I played a bunch of TR1 and then started a new game of PS2 Tomb Raider Anniversary. Overall TRA is pretty cool and a bit more fair and easier in most locations, especially because Lara now grabs a ledge automatically, and she doesn't catch fire and die if a flame grazes here in Anniversary.   All good right? NO!   There is a mechanic where you wall-run with a grappling hook, and sometimes you need to jump off the wall to grab a ledge.  The problem is that the camera is constantly changing and the game won't recognize you pressed 'back' to jump back OFF the wall.   There were 2 instances I ran into this. The problem is this 1 move needed in the Damocles room almost ruined the game for me, as nothing I did with the stick could get Lara to jump OFF the Wall instead of jumping forward at the end of the swing (and dying each time).  I spent hours on this one place.   Eventually I realized I needed to try something new, and by jiggling the stick left / right / left again, it recognized the proper direction and I did the jump.      But then in a later level, I had to do it again, and it took several tries due to my prior experience, and not a few hours thankfully. 

 

BUT then ... at the end, I'm in the final pyramid level trying to climb up the inner chamber and I hit another very poorly designed area.  I read some discussion of this series of timed jumps and grapples , tried a few more times, but it defeated me and I quit.  Every time you die, you need to battle the same 2 bat creatures first, which will knock you off the shrinking ledge Lara stands on if they hit you with a fireball.    So, I simply watched a YT play of the rest of the  game instead of wasting more time trying to do the sequence of jumps.  

 

In summary, based on various forums, YT video comments, and Reddits, MANY MANY gamers had the same frustrating problems in these grapple controls and in the pyramid chamber. Poor testing pretty much stopped me from playing.  90% of the game may be cool and rewarding fun, but if there are a couple things like that, it ruins it.   (nowadays they can push online fixes to modern games, good thing too because every one of them would otherwise have game-ruining problems!). 

 

[/Rant off] 

[youxia]

Blue Shell actually sounds like an interesting mechanic. It's not really random, being fired by other players, and maybe it's possible for the lead player to anticipate it and have some strategy to negate its existence. I say maybe because I've only played MK few times in my life. Though perhaps it's a bit too much for a family game and indeed they could've included an option to switch it off.

 

It's been a few years since I was playing modern games, so I don't remember all of my many gripes, which were mostly related to bigger design decisions than some singular things. One which springs to mind though is how they have made cars in GTA V virtually indestructible. What is the point of playing a game where car chases and movement are an essential part, when you can survive even the most ridiculous crashes?

 

Elite Dangerous is overall a good game, but the incredibly long travel times when you basically can't do nothing but stare at the screen eventually wore me out. Again, I played it long ago so maybe it was solved somehow but I do remember it being a common complaint.

[Tanooki]

2 hours ago, Razzie.P said:

A couple of years ago, I was playing Mario Party (Wii U) with my 2 kids.   We were all having a blast, especially my daughter (around 8 at the time) who was winning.   Near the end of the game, she rolled the dice and landed on a space 1 or 2 spots from the end of the game board that gives a “random effect.”  The random effect in this case was – Bowser took all of her stars, sending her from first place to last.     I could see the tears about to flow, and it completely ruined the game for her.   Even the rest of the players had a "yeah... that really cheapens the whole thing" vibe at that moment, so none of us enjoyed it.  To this date, neither kid has wanted to play it again.

 

These made me wonder – you guys think of any other gameplay mechanics/design choices that, in your opinion, completely ruins what could have been a good game?

I feel for your kid, the SAME thing exactly happened to me with the original Mario Party on the N64 when it was new.  And my bad luck came in trifecta format over a spread of a few years.  It screwed me TWICE in a row being first to last with a star sucking stunt and I barely touched it for a stretch after as I'd sell nothing off at the time, and eventually years later after getting rid of it, got it and the sequel and the same shit happened again so I sold them quick.  The series can choke as far as i'm concerned and I won't introduce it to my daughter either as she has issues and I'd hate to live the fall out.

 

Another, earlier yet, SNES Actraiser 2.  They remove the SIM city elements, they remove the battery, the remove the freedom the game had to explore and do various areas early on, and worse they break some of the most vital gameplay mechanics it has, the double jump.  Anytime you do it, the Angel spreads his wings and he's incapable of landing.  When he touches down his slips and flutters a few body lengths along making sticking a platform or avoiding weird shots basically impossible.  Again, didn't sell games until around 2004-05 when I was forced, it like Mario party was first to go.

 

A third one, the mix of the blue shell and online ruining Mario Kart.  Used to enjoy how a lot of well done driving AND item use was used to win the game.  Now it's Mario Party on wheels, where good driving is severely punished and being crap gets you all the items to make other people suffer.  It forced this asinine style of middle of the road driving, holding hopefully an item (another won't swap or cancel out) until the last seconds of a race to grease everyone else first (before they do the pack in) to just inch across into 1st place both against AI on 150CC or better, and/or humans.  I can't stand the franchise anymore and won't buy the games, MK7 is passable fun on 100CC at most, but that's not worth the price of admission.  I prefer the earlier balance SNES, N64 and GBA, even GC had (even with some having that shell it wasn't all bad.)

[IntelliMission]

The Playstation version of Abe's Oddysee let players save anywhere they want, but they return to the latest checkpoint when they restore the game.

 

"So what?" You would probably ask. "Just a normal game, right?" Well, not only the checkpoints are too far away from each other, but the players don't receive any indication of when they have reached a checkpoint.

 

This was corrected in Abe's Exodus and was not game breaking for me, but I know it was game breaking for some people. And while I know the PC version "fixes this", I don't know how they do it: I guess they added more checkpoints.

 

Perhaps there is a workaround for this: 22 years have passed, but I remember the saved games had some thumbnails with a screenshot and maybe you can go to the restore menu to see if your last saved game has changed the screenshot.

 

It's a shame, because the Playstation controller is perfect for this game.

[Mikebloke]

Mario Karts blue shell is a big one, because in most games its virtually unstoppable. In fact it's sometimes better to slow down to also hit people behind you so you both start at 0mph. It's not just online it ruins, it ruins single player too. Some of the MK games has such strong requirements to getting new stuff unlocked that getting 2nd in one race prevents you getting the top points awarded (looking at you, mario kart 8).

 

Anything total reversal in mario party is equally sucky. I wouldn't be happy with that either. I find they were always poorly optimised for pal as well (not an issue these days but back on gamecube..) 

 

Command and conquer 4 limiting number of units and following dawn of war style capture points mechanics. Destroyed the franchise, only just been partially recovered with the remaster of TD and RA1. 

[Steven Pendleton]

Lack of a functional anti-cheat completely broke Battlefield V for me and the game is literally unplayable. Every single match had some guy with MG42 + aimbot + insta-kill. I distinctly remember being headshotted by a sniper through the damn terrain + through a house once. If they'd designed an anti-cheat that actually works, the game would still be a pile of trash because it wasn't designed correctly to begin with, but because they didn't, it's a pile of trash that was infested with cheaters the last time I played it.

 

Also, that stupid blue shell in Mario Kart, as already mentioned. That thing used to be fairly difficult to get and it basically only ever showed up when someone got one of the two boxes in MK64 that guaranteed that you'd get it, but now it's not possible to play the newer games without getting hit by it at least twice per race. I imagine this started in MKDS, which I have never played, since it wasn't in 64, Double Dash, or Super Circuit. It's definitely there in Wii and 7, though, and 8 and 8 Deluxe are considerably less fun than they should be because of it because it seems to happen even more in 8 and 8D than in 7.

[Magmavision2000]

I can't really comment on bad game design in games since when I mess up, it's 99% of the time my fault. Bu I partially agree about the blue shell.

The problem with it for me is that sometimes when I get hit by it, I'm in 2nd place (It was activated while I was in 1st, but started to chase me when I was in 2nd instead of going after the other person), this pisses me off to a great extent since this should've been fixed when they first introduced the blue shell!

[Tanooki]

15 hours ago, Steven Pendleton said:

Also, that stupid blue shell in Mario Kart, as already mentioned. That thing used to be fairly difficult to get and it basically only ever showed up when someone got one of the two boxes in MK64 that guaranteed that you'd get it, but now it's not possible to play the newer games without getting hit by it at least twice per race. I imagine this started in MKDS, which I have never played, since it wasn't in 64, Double Dash, or Super Circuit. It's definitely there in Wii and 7, though, and 8 and 8 Deluxe are considerably less fun than they should be because of it because it seems to happen even more in 8 and 8D than in 7.

Pretty sure I'm thinking it was the DS version.  But since we're crapping on Mario Kart franchise dumb design changes, and since you brought up the game I want to throw it under the bus because between yours and the post before ripping on how single player was made really not fun, the DS game is the king of the cock punch type stunts Nintendo ever pulled in regard to single player AI.

 

It's not 50 or 100cc they're fun/manageable just fine, but 150CC what the hell?  I'm sure many here are aware of the AI routines single player has or even 1-2P with the rest AI.  First player gets attacked pretty fairly consistently with stuff fired from the back, usually mines (bananas etc) that spin you out, but also the random projectiles as well.  Cars 2-8 rarely take pot shots at each other, unless it's an immediate whack to the back to move up a space, that's really it.  We've known of it, it's been there since SNES, it's that rubber banding AI to keep it challenging at the upper tier.  The DS game though it decides instead to just insult and taunt, disrespect you entirely.  You are not allowed to have 1st place, and if you somehow manage it, good luck having it kept.

 

The standard 150CC layout is as follows for MS DS which is why it fits this topic. Kart #1 is the AI that's kind of your rival.  #2 is YOU.  #3-Last AI.  Logically with MK you and the others aside from trying to just pop up one spot randomly should all be trying to take down the lead.  Instead the AI IGNORES #1 and attacks place #2 (YOU) relentlessly through every lap of the track without any real breaks in between the strikes.  If you nail you hard enough you'll fall back to something else, and it then goes on to ignore you more or less, until you're fairly quickly back to #2 again -- and it continues.  On top of that the #1 cart will drop any behind shots on you, nothing else strategically smart.  So yeah Mario Kart DS can go to hell, bad design all around.  That one game broke my trust in the franchise, combine the stupidity of the Wii game, and most later entries with all the punishing of good driving and spamming abusive stuff while over emphasizing online instead of single player the franchise is more or less dead to me.  I won't buy them at all, definitely not new anymore.  (Smash Bros is the same for similar reasons on emphasis, not cheap AI.)

[+davidcalgary29]

There's a horrible sequence in Broderbund's Mask of the Sun (for the A8 and other platforms), where a sequence of jumps is required to clear a lava field. Unfortunately, the pattern is completely random, and it took me HOURS to clear the field, and even with constant saves. 

 

Hotline Miami's controls on the Vita are horriblly exacting and finicky, and make the game much more difficult than it has to be. I die constantly because I just can't find the precise angle of attack, which you'd think wouldn't be a big issue with a crowbar or baseball bat.

[Austin]

The new Battletoads is a fantastic example: Puzzle-platforming sections with no action... in an action game.. and you don't even play as a Battletoad during them. Shooter sections where everything takes ages to kill, and you have to play three of them back to back in a short timespan, where one would have been more than enough. Quick-time event games that don't belong in the game. Not to mention all sorts of pacing issues that ruins the flow of the game (beat 'em up sections for instance are front-loaded in the first few levels, while all the other junk fills out the rest of the game until the final level).

[cimerians]

The last Mario Party game on Wii and the one on Wii U....horrible design. A boardgame on Wii called Dokapon Kingdom, iirc pre determined dice rolls combined with exact count spaces etc. Also literally just before beating the game there's a chance, possibly predetermined that something will come down destroy your weapons and armor adding on another dozen or so grinding hours to find/build those back up again. Quite possibly the worst (intentionally?) designed game ever. 

 

There's so many out there that I played in my life, there's one game released a few years back where you're a viking which is  trying to be like that old arcade game Rygar, you die a lot and restart the whole piss poor designed levels, I liked Rygar in the arcade (which had better level design) but the problem is arcade games were meant to take your money so dying and restarting was part of the deal. So these guys made the game the same way, I even made the mistake of helping kick-start it,  I was so annoyed to say the least. Hate that game. That game taught me not to kickstart 90% of anything anymore.

 

Or how about: showing a cutscene, and then switching back to gameplay just to have you walk 5 feet and press a button to load another cut scene.

Edited August 24, 2020 by cimerians

[Tanooki]

Mega Man Anniversary Collection, only the Gamecube version though.  Capcom I guess released this one in those periods where they go between helping Nintendo and doing nice things, and just giving them the finger and doing spiteful stupid stuff or ignoring them outright.  GC release -- the NES B & A button alignment for all 6 classics were reversed rendering the games basically uncomfortable for newbies to them and unplayable for anyone who had memory/muscle memory of the original cartridges on the NES.  PS2 version = Option screen had button configuration options.  Yeah, screw you Crapcom.

[Steven Pendleton]

On 8/23/2020 at 10:17 AM, Tanooki said:

Pretty sure I'm thinking it was the DS version.  But since we're crapping on Mario Kart franchise dumb design changes, and since you brought up the game I want to throw it under the bus because between yours and the post before ripping on how single player was made really not fun, the DS game is the king of the cock punch type stunts Nintendo ever pulled in regard to single player AI.

 

It's not 50 or 100cc they're fun/manageable just fine, but 150CC what the hell?  I'm sure many here are aware of the AI routines single player has or even 1-2P with the rest AI.  First player gets attacked pretty fairly consistently with stuff fired from the back, usually mines (bananas etc) that spin you out, but also the random projectiles as well.  Cars 2-8 rarely take pot shots at each other, unless it's an immediate whack to the back to move up a space, that's really it.  We've known of it, it's been there since SNES, it's that rubber banding AI to keep it challenging at the upper tier.  The DS game though it decides instead to just insult and taunt, disrespect you entirely.  You are not allowed to have 1st place, and if you somehow manage it, good luck having it kept.

 

The standard 150CC layout is as follows for MS DS which is why it fits this topic. Kart #1 is the AI that's kind of your rival.  #2 is YOU.  #3-Last AI.  Logically with MK you and the others aside from trying to just pop up one spot randomly should all be trying to take down the lead.  Instead the AI IGNORES #1 and attacks place #2 (YOU) relentlessly through every lap of the track without any real breaks in between the strikes.  If you nail you hard enough you'll fall back to something else, and it then goes on to ignore you more or less, until you're fairly quickly back to #2 again -- and it continues.  On top of that the #1 cart will drop any behind shots on you, nothing else strategically smart.  So yeah Mario Kart DS can go to hell, bad design all around.  That one game broke my trust in the franchise, combine the stupidity of the Wii game, and most later entries with all the punishing of good driving and spamming abusive stuff while over emphasizing online instead of single player the franchise is more or less dead to me.  I won't buy them at all, definitely not new anymore.  (Smash Bros is the same for similar reasons on emphasis, not cheap AI.)

lol is it really that bad? Most of the comments I see online about Mario Kart DS are praise, so it's always interesting to read something different.

 

I never had a DS until after I bought a 3DS, so I missed out on basically the whole DS library. The 3DS had a very weak launch library in the US, so I decided to get a DS Lite eventually because of its way longer battery life than the 3DS since I managed to pick up quite a few DS games. I figured I might as well pay the $50 or whatever really low price it was to get triple the battery life. I didn't get Mario Kart DS, though, because I already had 7 and figured that since 7 was the newest Mario Kart, it would basically be an improvement over DS.

 

I might not have missed too much with MKDS, it seems!

Edited August 25, 2020 by Steven Pendleton

[Tanooki]

10 minutes ago, Steven Pendleton said:

lol is it really that bad? Most of the comments I see online about Mario Kart DS are praise, so it's always interesting to read something different.

 

I never had a DS until after I bought a 3DS, so I missed out on basically the whole DS library. The 3DS had a very weak launch library in the US, so I decided to get a DS Lite eventually because of its way longer battery life than the 3DS since I managed to pick up quite a few DS games. I figured I might as well pay the $50 or whatever really low price it was to get triple the battery life. I didn't get Mario Kart DS, though, because I already had 7 and figured that since 7 was the newest Mario Kart, it would basically be an improvement over DS.

 

I might not have missed too much with MKDS, it seems!

Many comments online are praising Mario Kart DS, but if you dig into them a vast amount are about the competitive and well made track designs of the online multiplayer, little is said other than how the tracks are nice and good racers etc for single, it's an after thought compared.  I dislike online gaming on most genres, so I don't play that one online, did a little but mostly not, so most my experience was wrapped into many hours on 50-150cc courses so my experience turned sour with 150cc for those reasons you quoted from my last post.  As a single player game, if you don't stop at 100cc it's infuriating and shitty all around with really bad design for fake challenge through spiteful AI abuse.  MKDS also has a lot of bitching online about multiplayer too, Nintendo screwed up in designing it and allowed a feature they even went as far as begging people online NOT to do since DS was before having download repair patches to fix, and that's the 'snaking.'  You basically if you can time it well can mini turbo through every single course without fail one after another, it turned online into a mix of it being ruined for many, and a pissing contest of who can snake the fastest with least faults for the rest with items being of almost little to no use since you could just boost blast the entire course in seconds compared to minutes.

 

MK since introduced then not just the classic turbo drift boost from N64 forward, but then the 2-3 speeds of mini boosts to full boost depending how you wiggle it and made the items more varied and aggressive to stop that crap, plus with the next systems from there, they then had the infrastructure to patch any issues with space on those systems or just server ban cheating idiots if they chose to so no begging to be nice was needed.  MK7 was the preferred handheld MK game and still is considering MK8 despite the nature of the Switch is considered a console version.  MK7 had more fun characters, courses, and both single and multiplayer balance.

 

Really though in the end, as you said 3DS started weak, but if you look at total library compared to the DS it has always been relatively weak.  Slow start, hard price cut(and ambassador program for early buyers like me), then got some really good steady releaes for like 2 years or so, then it went into a trickle, some re-hash and a few farts in the wind so it went out in a slow 1-2 year long whimper too.  DS if anything, lots of filler aside, was pretty solidly consistent compared so I don't blame you at all.

[Steven Pendleton]

12 minutes ago, Tanooki said:

Many comments online are praising Mario Kart DS, but if you dig into them a vast amount are about the competitive and well made track designs of the online multiplayer, little is said other than how the tracks are nice and good racers etc for single, it's an after thought compared.  I dislike online gaming on most genres, so I don't play that one online, did a little but mostly not, so most my experience was wrapped into many hours on 50-150cc courses so my experience turned sour with 150cc for those reasons you quoted from my last post.  As a single player game, if you don't stop at 100cc it's infuriating and shitty all around with really bad design for fake challenge through spiteful AI abuse.  MKDS also has a lot of bitching online about multiplayer too, Nintendo screwed up in designing it and allowed a feature they even went as far as begging people online NOT to do since DS was before having download repair patches to fix, and that's the 'snaking.'  You basically if you can time it well can mini turbo through every single course without fail one after another, it turned online into a mix of it being ruined for many, and a pissing contest of who can snake the fastest with least faults for the rest with items being of almost little to no use since you could just boost blast the entire course in seconds compared to minutes.

 

MK since introduced then not just the classic turbo drift boost from N64 forward, but then the 2-3 speeds of mini boosts to full boost depending how you wiggle it and made the items more varied and aggressive to stop that crap, plus with the next systems from there, they then had the infrastructure to patch any issues with space on those systems or just server ban cheating idiots if they chose to so no begging to be nice was needed.  MK7 was the preferred handheld MK game and still is considering MK8 despite the nature of the Switch is considered a console version.  MK7 had more fun characters, courses, and both single and multiplayer balance.

 

Really though in the end, as you said 3DS started weak, but if you look at total library compared to the DS it has always been relatively weak.  Slow start, hard price cut(and ambassador program for early buyers like me), then got some really good steady releaes for like 2 years or so, then it went into a trickle, some re-hash and a few farts in the wind so it went out in a slow 1-2 year long whimper too.  DS if anything, lots of filler aside, was pretty solidly consistent compared so I don't blame you at all.

Yeah, I mentioned the 3DS basically vanishing around 2015~2017 somewhere else. It does have my favourite game of the past decade, Shin Megami Tensei IV, though! I did get my 3DS not long after its US launch, so I also have the Ambassador thingy going on as well. It's nice to have Metroid Fusion on my 3DS. I wish it was Zero Mission instead, but Fusion is still a fun game with great music. I bought another GBA SP and Zero Mission very shortly after I moved to Tokyo since I left my childhood ones in the USA like a fool, too, so it's not like I can't play Zero Mission. I actually played it about 2 weeks ago!

 

Anyway, I am of mixed feelings about the past few Mario Karts, at least in single player mode. Like most multiplayer games, they become a lot better when you get your friends together and play Mario Kart in the same room. I'd still have to say that 64 is probably my favourite, although I'm sure that's partially because I spent a lot of time playing it on my neighbour's N64 when I was young. It seems that I definitely didn't miss much with DS, though, if online is the only good thing about it.

 

If I hadn't left my N64 in the USA and actually had a copy of Mario Kart 64, I'd love to play it again. I might have to try it on an emulator and see if the game is as enjoyable as I remember it being. I certainly hope so, because that means that I liked it not because I was young and stupid but because it's a great game. We'll see, though. 64 did introduce the blue shell that everyone hates, but as I mentioned earlier, it's extremely unlikely that you will see it, and I don't think the AI can use it anyway. The AI in that game does not have access to all of the weapons, and I think that's one of the weapons that it can't use. I haven't played the game for at least 10 years, though, so maybe I'm wrong.

Edited August 25, 2020 by Steven Pendleton

[Lost Dragon]

Abandoned The Warriors on PSP early on, as with large hands, i struggled with the analog nub sections-went and played it on classic Xbox instead ?

 

The random battles on DC Skies Of Arcadia killed the game (and i am ashamed to say the Dreamcast itself, after i lost my sh#t with it big time) and I later picked up the GC version of it. 

 

There was an awful period where game designers put Stealth sections into games because they were vogue and these sections had awful scripted A. I or just broken A. I. 

 

 

Abandoned Family Guy on Xbox and Shadow Of Rome on PS2, as unwilling to play through the stealth sections. 

 

 

Hated the scripted Xeno A. I in Alien Isolation, though completed that on PS3 and bought again on PS4. 

 

Abandoned Outlast on PS4 for same reason. 

 

 

Jaws on PS2 - If only the camera system had been worked on, potential for much fun, completely ruined from the off ?

 

Dreamcast Stsrlancer, near final or maybe final? Mission, Ion Cannon should of given some graphical indication it was about to fire, as it is, you rely on your co-pilot warning you it's locked on and about to fire, so you need to cloak, but it's bugged, so your given the warning at the wrong time. 

 

 

 

I completed it and can appreciate they were going for realism, but the cold killing you in The Thing on Xbox, coupled with such a heavily flawed trust mechanic A. I system made it a tough love. 

 

 

Cannon Fodder to this day remains hideously over rated and nigh on unplayable once you reach Artic level where your wading through water and getting hit by RPG's fired off screen. 

 

 

Game becomes more luck than judgment. 

 

 

Notiable contenders also include:

 

The Last V8 and Red Max on C64 and Atari 8-bit.

 

Far too hard and it was a bitter pill to swallow on A8 after loading from cassette, not to get much game time from The Last V8 especially. 

 

 

Fade To Black Playstation, escorting the ptofessor, slow down, I'm just an old man.. no a slow moving, huge bullet sponge more like. 

 

In fact escort missions in countless games, Drophip PS2, Goldeneye N64, that Apache Helicopter sim on PS3 i was really enjoying until hit that wall, seem to remember escort mission in Jaguar I. S, but been years since i played it. 

 

Escort missions in games suck as much as throwing stealth stuff in, just to add variety. 

[roots.genoa]

4 hours ago, Steven Pendleton said:

The 3DS had a very weak launch library in the US

Yes, but in terms of quality rather than quantity (not unlike the PS2 launch), and there was a great underrated game, Ghost Recon: Shadow Wars by the creator of XCOM. Before Resident Evil Revelations, that was my most played game on the 3DS (50+ hours iirc).

[Steven Pendleton]

1 minute ago, roots.genoa said:

Yes, but in terms of quality rather than quantity (not unlike the PS2 launch), and there was a great underrated game, Ghost Recon: Shadow Wars by the creator of XCOM. Before Resident Evil Revelations, that was my most played game on the 3DS (50+ hours iirc).

Yeah, I heard that Ghost Recon game is awesome! Unfortunately, I only heard this a few years ago, and at the time of the 3DS launch the only experience I had with Ghost Recon was the original Ghost Recon on the GameCube... definitely not a great first impression. My 3DS is still lacking a battery and a functional d-pad right now, but maybe I'll see about finding a copy now that you've reminded me that it exists!

 

I might see about sending it to Nintendo to fix it, though, since I couldn't figure out what the problem with my d-pad is after opening it and giving it a good cleaning. It would also be nice to get a new back plate, since the swollen battery in my 3DS caused it to crack.

[Lost Dragon]

Thought of a few more.. 

 

The driving test you had to pass to prove yourself at the start of Driver on the Playstation and the final mission, both very frustrating. 

 

And sorry Jeff, but  some of your design choices killed interest in your titles from the off for myself. 

 

 

Mouse control and the lightning gun in Defender II on the ST... 

 

 

But the worse offenders were the amount of visual clutter you threw at the player in both Space Giraffe on the 360 and Tempest 4000 on the PS4. 

 

 

Whilst i can appreciate you intend for the player to look for the visual gameplay clues and were keen to experiment with the hardware, i fear you fell into the same trap the Bitmap Bros did with Xenon on the ST and Amiga. 

 

You put so many hours into developing your skills during the development of the games, you forget a lot of us have limited time and appetites for games these days and if a game doesn't click, we bin it off and find something that does. 

[Steven Pendleton]

I thought of one generic one just now, which is when you have to be standing at the extreme edge of the screen in order for it to scroll. This doesn't really affect modern games that I've seen so maybe I shouldn't mention it, but too late.

 

Anyway, I hate when you have to stand so close to the edge of the screen to get it to scroll that it makes it much more difficult to avoid stuff in general. This is terrible game design. One example that I can think of is in Shinobi on the rare occasion in which you have to go to the left instead of to the right.

 

Sonic CD literally solved this problem perfectly in 1993, and I can't think of many games that have this problem that released after Sonic CD, but even most games released after Sonic CD didn't do it as well as Sonic CD did, at least that I have personally seen. Even Sonic 3 (with optional Knuckles) didn't incorporate Sonic CD's camera, sadly. They were made by completely different development teams, though.

 

Interestingly, Sonic CD's own remake ditched this camera unless you use the original Sonic CD spin dash setting for some strange reason. You could say that it doesn't have as much of an impact since the game is in 16:9 now, but it's still weird that they decided to have the camera depend on your spin dash setting.

Edited August 25, 2020 by Steven Pendleton

[Razzie.P]

10 hours ago, Lost Dragon said:

In fact escort missions in countless games

 

 

 

Yes!  Completely forgot about these.   They wouldn't be so bad if the character(s) being escorted were't programmed to blindly run into danger.  How hard would it be to say, "wait here a moment while I make the path ahead a bit more safe?"  A few games do that, and it's completely fine.

[jhd]

On 8/24/2020 at 8:37 AM, cimerians said:

The last Mario Party game on Wii and the one on Wii U....horrible design. A boardgame on Wii called Dokapon Kingdom, iirc pre determined dice rolls combined with exact count spaces etc. Also literally just before beating the game there's a chance, possibly predetermined that something will come down destroy your weapons and armor adding on another dozen or so grinding hours to find/build those back up again. Quite possibly the worst (intentionally?) designed game ever. 

 

That title also appeared on the PS 2 in North America. It was described as having RPG elements, so that is why I bought it. I played once or twice, but the AI cheated so badly that I just gave-up. 

 

What really frustrates me are mandatory action sequences in RPG games. I do not care for action games, or I would play that genre. Final Fantasy VII has such a sequence (must jump over rolling barrels; requires precise timing), as does Breath of Fire IV (I do not recall the specific details anymore). I used a Gameshark to get through the former, and I just abandoned the latter.  

[Lost Dragon]

5 hours ago, Steven Pendleton said:

I thought of one generic one just now, which is when you have to be standing at the extreme edge of the screen in order for it to scroll. This doesn't really affect modern games that I've seen so maybe I shouldn't mention it, but too late.

 

Anyway, I hate when you have to stand so close to the edge of the screen to get it to scroll that it makes it much more difficult to avoid stuff in general. This is terrible game design. One example that I can think of is in Shinobi on the rare occasion in which you have to go to the left instead of to the right.

 

Sonic CD literally solved this problem perfectly in 1993, and I can't think of many games that have this problem that released after Sonic CD, but even most games released after Sonic CD didn't do it as well as Sonic CD did, at least that I have personally seen. Even Sonic 3 (with optional Knuckles) didn't incorporate Sonic CD's camera, sadly. They were made by completely different development teams, though.

 

Interestingly, Sonic CD's own remake ditched this camera unless you use the original Sonic CD spin dash setting for some strange reason. You could say that it doesn't have as much of an impact since the game is in 16:9 now, but it's still weird that they decided to have the camera depend on your spin dash setting.

As an ST owner at the time, having owned a C64 and Atari 800XL prior, push scrolling caused a lot of frustrations in games. ☹️

[Lost Dragon]

14 minutes ago, Razzie.P said:

 

Yes!  Completely forgot about these.   They wouldn't be so bad if the character(s) being escorted were't programmed to blindly run into danger.  How hard would it be to say, "wait here a moment while I make the path ahead a bit more safe?"  A few games do that, and it's completely fine.

Exactly. 

 

 

You should of been able to act as a Recon unit for whoever/whatever you were escorting, you'd go ahead, scout out an area and destroy any hostile, before telling your person or vechile it was now safe to proceed. 

 

Would of made games so much less frustrating.