Miscellaneous video game rants

[JoeBentley]

1. Quick time events - Stop it. Just stop. I mean seriously stop it. How on earth these lazy, non-immersive, flow breaking excuses for a form of gameplay took over the industry is beyond me but really just stop it. Stop turning my 300 dollar Xbox 360 into a goddamn Simon game. There's a difference between a video game and machinima you have to press buttons to watch.

2. Loading Screens - Listen I have a little bit of programming background, so I understand that pulling hundreds of megs of data off of a multi-gigabyte optical storage discs is going to take time. But it can be done. None of the 1st party games on the Gamecube had loading screens. Halo 2, one of the most graphically and level size advanced games on the original Xbox didn't have in level loading screens. At the very least some of these multiple minute loading screens are just sloppy programming.

3. Time to play - If took about 10 seconds to boot up an Atari 2600 and get to the point where you could control your character and start playing. It took a Nintendo Entertainment system maybe 15, a Sega Genesis maybe 20, so forth. However now I have to sit through roughly a Ben-Hur's worth of developer splash screens, copyright protection notices, cinemantics, etc before I can play a current generation title.

For a particularly bad example of points 2 and 3:



4. Installing Console Games - Not a terrible idea. I've installed several games on my Xbox 360 and it does reduce load times and silences the 360's horrible whining screaming DVD drive. But it can be taking too far. Installation for a console game should never be mandatory simply to play the game. Which brings me to...

5. Patching Console Games - Listen to me Microsoft and Sony you guys are getting dangerously close to going down the same road that almost killed PC gaming a few years back. You simply cannot get into the habit of releasing rushed, buggy, broken games and counting on the ability to patch them later. The first 3 or 4 months worth of players for your games are not unpaid Beta Testers. Points 4 and 5 are the big things a lot of people left PC gaming for.

6. Microtransactions and Expansion Packs - Okay games cost 60 bucks these days. Don't withhold half the content for them and make us buy them later as expansion packs (I'm looking your direction EA. How many Sims expansion packs exist? One for each flake of snow on the Yukon?) or downloadable content. And to completely counter this point...

7. Sequels that add nothing. - EA Sports, Rock Band, Guitar Hero... Seriously if all your going to do is update the team roster or another band's catalog of songs, then that's the perfect time for downloadable content! Practically every EA sports game is only created once in a console generation and then just slightly updated. There is nothing in Madden 10 that wasn't in Madden 06, 07, 08, and 09 that couldn't of been added via DLC.

[Hyper Squirrel]

I hate unskippable cutscenes. When you're playing a game for the first time, sure, you want to know the story. By the fifth playthrough you usually don't want to watch every single scene again. Also, if you're going to have a long cutscene before a boss battle, give a friggin' save point or make it skippable! I love RPGs, but there are times I've had to take long breaks because I'm sick of watching the same scene before that one boss I can't beat.

This one isn't directed at video games in particular, but to video game retailers. I can't buy an M rated game because I do not have a state ID due to my lack of driver's license/permit. I have both my old high school ID and my college ID, but this is not acceptable by their policies. Basically I still need a parent with me if I want to buy a game I've legally been allowed to buy for over a year. Equally annoying when I want to sell a game and need to bring a parent.

One last thing. Tony Hawk, your games used to be great. I love and still play Underground 1 and 2. You slipped a bit with American Wasteland, but it had its moments, mainly because of the fun of its sheer implausibility. I mean, you blow up the Hollywood sign and take it to your new 'skate ranch' where you put it on display and NO ONE NOTICES. Seriously? That's kinda awesome. But then Project Eight came out. That got resold back to Gamestop fast. Practically all the new games are rehashes of the same tired formula. It's getting old, give it a break.

[Notebook]

2. Loading Screens - Listen I have a little bit of programming background, so I understand that pulling hundreds of megs of data off of a multi-gigabyte optical storage discs is going to take time. But it can be done. None of the 1st party games on the Gamecube had loading screens. Halo 2, one of the most graphically and level size advanced games on the original Xbox didn't have in level loading screens. At the very least some of these multiple minute loading screens are just sloppy programming.

I remember reading on some message boards that the games for the Gamecube, for some reason due to either how it was built, the size of the discs, or both, in generally had really fast loading times. Of course, that didn't mean all games on it had it. Even so, it seems to come down to how well the developers know the hardware I guess--I've played a lot of games on the PS2 that had minimal loading times. I've also played games on the same console which had... not so much long loading times but very, very frequent loading times or stuttering. Again, I'm talking from a perspective of someone who has no experience in programming so yeah, loading times are annoying.

As for rants myself I have, they mostly apply to the video gaming community itself, but that's another story I think.

ETA: I also hate unskippable cutscenes, especially in RPGs. Although to be fair a lot of them have added the feature to skip them over the years.

[Hyper Squirrel]

Originally Posted by Notebook

I remember reading on some message boards that the games for the Gamecube, for some reason due to either how it was built, the size of the discs, or both, in generally had really fast loading times. Of course, that didn't mean all games on it had it. Even so, it seems to come down to how well the developers know the hardware I guess--I've played a lot of games on the PS2 that had minimal loading times. I've also played games on the same console which had... not so much long loading times but very, very frequent loading times or stuttering. Again, I'm talking from a perspective of someone who has no experience in programming so yeah, loading times are annoying.

As for rants myself I have, they mostly apply to the video gaming community themselves, but that's another story I think.

Yeah, I've always found that the Gamecube discs load really quickly, much faster than 360 games.

[JoeBentley]

Originally Posted by Notebook

As for rants myself I have, they mostly apply to the video gaming community itself, but that's another story I think.

I had several points about the gaming community but my post was getting long. I'll sum my main complaint up thusly:

Link (Contains foul language) http://www.ctrlaltdel-online.com/comics/20060821.jpg

[Suiren]

Joe, that video you linked to is hilarious. I saw it about a year ago and still think about it when I have my own loading times. Nowadays if I'm in a bad mood I pull it up just to hear Yakity Sax while I'm playing a game and it's really hard not to laugh.

[ARubberChickenWithAPulley]

Originally Posted by JoeBentley

5. Patching Console Games - Listen to me Microsoft and Sony you guys are getting dangerously close to going down the same road that almost killed PC gaming a few years back. You simply cannot get into the habit of releasing rushed, buggy, broken games and counting on the ability to patch them later. The first 3 or 4 months worth of players for your games are not unpaid Beta Testers. Points 4 and 5 are the big things a lot of people left PC gaming for.

I agree to an extent. I do like that they can patch games on consoles now (or do things like roster updates and so-forth), but when they come to rely on those to constantly fix games that shouldn't have been broken -- then I agree, it's a bad thing. It's a double-edged sword.

Originally Posted by JoeBentley

6. Microtransactions and Expansion Packs - Okay games cost 60 bucks these days. Don't withhold half the content for them and make us buy them later as expansion packs (I'm looking your direction EA. How many Sims expansion packs exist? One for each flake of snow on the Yukon?) or downloadable content. And to completely counter this point...

I agree to an extent here too. But I don't have a problem with reasonably-priced downloadable content that adds to an already large game.

I thought Fallout 3, for example, had several high-quality DLCs that were well worth the 10-15 bucks (Operation Anchorage and Mothership Zeta were kind of lame, but the rest were great).

[Amigone201]

I'm on a budget right now, so my latest purchase was Final Fantasy III for the DS. Not a terrible game, but would it really kill you to have

1) Something to restore my magic points while in battle?
2) Dead characters revive when you sleep at an inn?

I know, it's a VERY old game, with graphics updated for the DS. I know. That's why there isn't much characterization or plot either.

[Gibbie]

Originally Posted by Hyper Squirrel

This one isn't directed at video games in particular, but to video game retailers. I can't buy an M rated game because I do not have a state ID due to my lack of driver's license/permit. I have both my old high school ID and my college ID, but this is not acceptable by their policies. Basically I still need a parent with me if I want to buy a game I've legally been allowed to buy for over a year. Equally annoying when I want to sell a game and need to bring a parent.

Side point, you can get an state issued non-driver's id. You should probably spend the hassle to get one. Will make your life easier.

Gibbie

[Insensible Crier]

Originally Posted by JoeBentley

2. Loading Screens - Listen I have a little bit of programming background, so I understand that pulling hundreds of megs of data off of a multi-gigabyte optical storage discs is going to take time. But it can be done. None of the 1st party games on the Gamecube had loading screens. Halo 2, one of the most graphically and level size advanced games on the original Xbox didn't have in level loading screens. At the very least some of these multiple minute loading screens are just sloppy programming.

Gamecube discs hold 1.5 GB with a max read of 3.125 MB/sec. That means it can read the whole disc in 8 minutes. The Xbox 360 discs hold 7 GB with a max read of 15.85 MB/s. So it can read the whole disc in 7.36 minutes.

It's not a data transfer issue. I think your last sentence is the answer.

[JoeBentley]

Originally Posted by ARubberChickenWithAPulley

I agree to an extent. I do like that they can patch games on consoles now (or do things like roster updates and so-forth), but when they come to rely on those to constantly fix games that shouldn't have been broken -- then I agree, it's a bad thing. It's a double-edged sword.

I agree to an extent here too. But I don't have a problem with reasonably-priced downloadable content that adds to an already large game.

I thought Fallout 3, for example, had several high-quality DLCs that were well worth the 10-15 bucks (Operation Anchorage and Mothership Zeta were kind of lame, but the rest were great).

And in defense almost everything I mentioned can potentially be a positive. Patching games is great if its used to fix problems you shouldn't reasonably be expected to have caught during even basic quality control, DLC gives developers a wonderful way to add content to their games without having to create a whole new sequel, etc.

But some of it is obvious moneygrabbing. The amount of content available in the basic off the shelf copy of Sims 3 vice Sims 2 (and that's even without the 2 gazillion add-ons) is striking and simply cannot exist for any reason other then EA deliberately holding back content to sell later.

On the topic of money grabbing a guess a word needs to be said about product placement. Oddly enough I also see a potential upside to this. The use of real world products can add a wonderful sense of the reason I play games in the first place... immersion. Nothing breaks you out of the reality of a game more then your character drinking a Pipsi while watching his Sorny TV. So licensed products can create a more realistic game world and are pretty much essential for any good racing or sports game.

But as always there is a dark underbelly and its the same thing that can happen in any other media as well, the product placing being obvious and clearly out of place. Why in the last Ghost Recon game while fighting a civil war in Mexico did I spent the entire game crouched car after car that all came from a single American manufacturer?

And while we're on the topic listen car designers let your cars be damaged in the games. I don't get why you think it's going to make your product look bad. We understand that you really can't drive a Chevy Corvette into a brick wall at 220 mph and have it just bounce off with nothing but a time penalty. We're okay with that. Trust me no one is putting off buying a new car because of damage physics in video games.

Originally Posted by Insensible Crier

Gamecube discs hold 1.5 GB with a max read of 3.125 MB/sec. That means it can read the whole disc in 8 minutes. The Xbox 360 discs hold 7 GB with a max read of 15.85 MB/s. So it can read the whole disc in 7.36 minutes.

It's not a data transfer issue. I think your last sentence is the answer.

Ironically I blame the system designers more so then the programmers. Why? Because round about the time the Playstation took off the video game industry on-mass decided that it was monumentally important that their video game systems were able to do things other then play video games.

I'm not exactly sure why the decided this. Video game systems had been chugging along very nicely doing their thing but at some point it was decided that they had to be able to play music, watch movies, surf the web, make grilled cheese sandwiches, perform kidney dialysis and launch lunar rover missions.

So in doing so video games locked themselves into using the same media format as the music and movie industry. Problem is movies and music are linear, video games are not. So optical storage discs like CDs, DVDs, and Blu-Rays are perfect for movies, but shite for games. You never saw a single loading screen on a cartridge based console from the Fairchild II to to Nintendo 64. You don't see them on the DS despite it being roughly as powerful as some early CD based game systems. We wouldn't be seeing a 10th of the loading screens we do now if systems were still using cartridges, which exist in both storage capacity and transfer speed many times higher then even Blu-Ray.

I'm hoping downloaded games start bucking this trend a little bit, but since an entire generation of gamers exist now for whom staring at the word "Loading..." for 9 hours per 10 hours of gameplay is just another part of gaming, there probably isn't any real pressure to get rid of them.

[effo5231]

Originally Posted by JoeBentley

There is nothing in Madden 10 that wasn't in Madden 06, 07, 08, and 09 that couldn't of been added via DLC.

I have to pick a slight nit here... Madden 10 introduced a completely different animation system, tackling system, and CPU AI. The graphics were also improved, both in terms of player detail (Troy Polamalu finally has big hair!) and crowd detail.

If you wrote this sentence last year about Madden 9 not having anything that wasn't in Madden 6 7 or 8 I'd agree... but Madden 10 was a significant improvement on last year's game.

[crocoduck_hunter]

In addition to all of the original points (which I'm in complete agreement with), here's another:

Save Points.

Seriously, these things are archaic relics from back when we were playing cartridge games with tiny batteries installed in them on the Super Nintendo. There is absolutely no point to having them now other than to irritate people who have something they need to do and must either turn off the game and lose several hours of progress or waste more time trying to find a save point.

Games should allow you to save in any non-combat situation and start up right where you left off.

[ARubberChickenWithAPulley]

Originally Posted by effo5231

I have to pick a slight nit here... Madden 10 introduced a completely different animation system, tackling system, and CPU AI. The graphics were also improved, both in terms of player detail (Troy Polamalu finally has big hair!) and crowd detail.

If you wrote this sentence last year about Madden 9 not having anything that wasn't in Madden 6 7 or 8 I'd agree... but Madden 10 was a significant improvement on last year's game.

I agree there - Madden 10 is a pretty big step forward (though the All-Pro series had gang tackling years ago).

But I agree with the basic premise (as you note below): EA has a pattern of going through 4 or 5 years of repackaging the same Madden game with a few tiny improvements or gimmicks, and then selling it for 60 bucks each time, when really we're just paying for a new roster. And every year they heavily advertise one of those tiny improvements as if it's a huge development (Madden 09 had the "Madden IQ" and its accompanying training/evaluation system which was annoying and pointless. And let's not forget the passing cone from a few years back. Ugh!). Then eventually after those 4-5 years they do make some significant improvements. Then rinse and repeat.

[ARubberChickenWithAPulley]

The Madden discussion does bring up one other video game pet peeve to add (if I may add to Joe's original list): Exclusive third-party licensing arrangements.

2K's All-Pro series was great competition to the Madden series. Both had their ups and downs, but were both solid titles. Then EA Sports was granted exclusivity to the NFL license. Bye bye All-Pro Football.

EA and 2K both made great MLB games (EA had the MVP Baseball Series, which was outstanding. 2K has the MLB 2K series). 2K was granted exclusivity to the MLB license. Bye bye MVP Baseball (Sony, as a first-party distributor, has provided a good alternative to 2K, but only for PS3).

And thus, EA gets away with the above Madden shenanigans. If you want an NFL-licensed game, that's your only choice.

[Psihala]

I'm going to use Battlefield: Bad Company and Halo 3 for mine, because between them these two games contain my biggest peeves.

1. Unnecessary or annoying chatter: Halo 3 is the biggest offender I have in this regard. No one in this game can shut up for longer than five minutes at a stretch, and when they do speak its usually along the lines of; "C'mon, Chief! Move it! We gotta do so and so!"

Halo 1 and 2 were known for giving the player some freedom in how they approached a battle. In Halo 3, the Master Chief can't cross the frickin' street without someone telling him he's not moving fast enough.

And don't even get me started on those annoying little interruptions from Cortana. ("I have defied gods... and demons!" What did you do... talk them to death? In slow motion, no less?)

2. Inept AI (or its opposite, unnaturally precise AI): This one is mostly aimed at BF: Bad Company.... In one of the reviews, they touted the fact that the weapons didn't seem unnaturally precise as in some other FPS --- that can't be said for the enemy AI, who can see through walls, or hit you from ridiculous distances (they aren't even visible to the player in some cases).

I'm convinced the "Bad" in "Bad Company" is a reference to the friendly AI - these guys couldn't hit the broad side of a barn if they were standing in front of it. I understand giving the player a challenge, but when the AI is dumbed down to the point where they won't shoot at an enemy they are standing right next to --- do me a favor and just leave them out of the game entirely.

3. Lapses in continuity or logic: Both Halo 3 and Bad Company are guilty of this. Bungie completely changed the physics of the warthog for the last level.... they did this in Halo 1, too, by giving it trampoline-like suspension so that if the Arbiter should so much as sneeze, he'll tip the damned thing over. It doesn't handle like that anywhere else in the game. And it gets worse at higher difficulty settings.

On one level in Bad company, you can methodically clear out an entire area - leaving no one alive and no place for an enemy to hide, only to have two or three suddenly spawn out of nowhere at a critical moment. I'm convinced the developers did this just to piss the players off ... I can't see any other reason for it.

In another level, the whole point of the mission is to get rid of communications equipment in order to cover your movements. "Can't track what you can't see," says one of the characters. Bulls***t!

(On the flip side, enemies you killed in Bad Company stay dead even when you die and go back to the last save point -- which was my only saving grace in this game,)

~Psihala

[Chinchy]

The one thing that drives me crazy about every Zelda game is the constant beeping to remind you that you're down to a single heart or less. I understand that the game is trying to warn you that you're about to die, but I just can't stand it. First of all, if I'm down to a single heart, I'm probably already on edge and the beeping just aggravates me further. Second of all, it's distracting. Third of all...dammit, it's just an annoying sound! I think it would be a lot more tolerable if it just chimed once, or every so often, but no, the game is so worried about your well-being that it won't stop nagging you until you restore your health.

I generally love the Zelda games, but once I get down to one heart...that's when I grab the remote to mute the TV and/or starting swearing about "that NFBSKing beeping noise"...

(I'm not trying to pick on the Zelda games here; if there are other games that do this and I just don't know about them, I'm sure they'd piss me off, too.)

[Tantei Kid]

Originally Posted by Amigone201

I'm on a budget right now, so my latest purchase was Final Fantasy III for the DS. Not a terrible game, but would it really kill you to have

1) Something to restore my magic points while in battle?
2) Dead characters revive when you sleep at an inn?

I know, it's a VERY old game, with graphics updated for the DS. I know. That's why there isn't much characterization or plot either.

Oh, but if they had updated those things then the purists would be howling for their blood!

[crocoduck_hunter]

Originally Posted by Psihala

(On the flip side, enemies you killed in Bad Company stay dead even when you die and go back to the last save point -- which was my only saving grace in this game,)

~Psihala

I disliked that part- combined with the infinite use healing item it meant that the game was largely devoid of any need to use tactics, you could simply charge straight up the middle or pull out the iPod of Death, excuse me, Mortar Beacon and simply blow everything that moves back to the Stone Age.

[JoeBentley]

Several major games have been released in the current console generation that don't really have death in the gameplay sense. Prey and Bioshock come to mind.

In Prey if you character is killed your character goes into a quick spirit realm mini game where you shoot a bunch of evil spirits and are then plunked down back where you died, none the worst for wear. In Bioshock the underwater city of Rapture has "Life Restoration Chambers" scattered about, so dying is more of a momentary annoyance as you have to walk the, at most, minute or so back to whatever you were doing whenever you died.

I'm of two minds about it. On one hand to a large extent its simply an in-universe rationale for a tried and true gameplay function, quickloading and quicksaving. From a gameplay perspective it doesn't really make any difference if your in-universe character is aware of his continuing resurrections or not.

From a story and immersion perspective it could go either way whether its better to have your ability to try again set inside or outside the game's universe.

In his review of Bioshock Yahtzee tore into Bioshock's Life Restoration Chambers, saying they killed any sense of challenge or dread. I'm not sure if I agree. Again in practically every game this generation you can try any single challenger over and over until you get it right, we've pretty much moved beyond the concept of a Life System at this point, so its not like it makes a difference difficulty wise whether your in-universe character is aware of it or not.