Pet Peeves of Gaming or DAMN YOU GAME DEVS!

mauve · 10-23-2012, 07:35 PM

Plot elements that go absolutely nowhere. The story will set up a character or a weapon/object to make you expect some kind of grand revelation in the plot, and then when you work your ass off trying to get to the point where the "great secret" should be revealed, it turns out to just be just underwhelmingly boring crap. ("What's that? A member of your party has some sort of connection to the main villain but doesn't want to talk about it? This theme repeats itself several times across the plot? Oh man, there must be some seriously heavy plot stuff there.....wait, wait, no, he just apparently met the villain once and kinda dislikes him cuz he's evil. No major conflict, no moral quandaries, no reason to care? No? Okay. That's cool. I'll just go back to not giving a damn about any of my party now.")

Puzzles or extra missions that need you to use abilities or controls that are NEVER EXPLAINED OR UTILIZED ANYWHERE ELSE IN THE GAME. I'm looking at you, Riddler Trophies in Batman: Arkham City. (What? I never told you that zooming in on individual explosive gels makes it so you can set them off one at a time instead of all at once like every other time in the game? Coulda sworn I did...might've been for like ten seconds while you were too busy ignoring the special combo instructions that never leave your HUD until you do it correctly sixty times. Oh well.)

Random logic puzzles that show up suddenly in games that don't seem to need them. You're running from zombies/demons/monsters/armed thugs? Welp, you're gonna have to stop to solve this Rubix cube/make a pattern out of matchsticks/ answer this random npc's stupid riddle/"hack" this "security console" with this convenient GUI program that looks like an 8-bit target shooting game before you can get through this door! Not to say the occasional puzzle is a bad thing, but if it doesn't fit the tone or style of the game, or if there are too many, it bothers me.

10-23-2012, 07:35 PM	#11
mauve So Dreamy Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: Someplace magical Posts: 6,863	Plot elements that go absolutely nowhere. The story will set up a character or a weapon/object to make you expect some kind of grand revelation in the plot, and then when you work your ass off trying to get to the point where the "great secret" should be revealed, it turns out to just be just underwhelmingly boring crap. ("What's that? A member of your party has some sort of connection to the main villain but doesn't want to talk about it? This theme repeats itself several times across the plot? Oh man, there must be some seriously heavy plot stuff there.....wait, wait, no, he just apparently met the villain once and kinda dislikes him cuz he's evil. No major conflict, no moral quandaries, no reason to care? No? Okay. That's cool. I'll just go back to not giving a damn about any of my party now.") Puzzles or extra missions that need you to use abilities or controls that are NEVER EXPLAINED OR UTILIZED ANYWHERE ELSE IN THE GAME. I'm looking at you, Riddler Trophies in Batman: Arkham City. (What? I never told you that zooming in on individual explosive gels makes it so you can set them off one at a time instead of all at once like every other time in the game? Coulda sworn I did...might've been for like ten seconds while you were too busy ignoring the special combo instructions that never leave your HUD until you do it correctly sixty times. Oh well.) Random logic puzzles that show up suddenly in games that don't seem to need them. You're running from zombies/demons/monsters/armed thugs? Welp, you're gonna have to stop to solve this Rubix cube/make a pattern out of matchsticks/ answer this random npc's stupid riddle/"hack" this "security console" with this convenient GUI program that looks like an 8-bit target shooting game before you can get through this door! Not to say the occasional puzzle is a bad thing, but if it doesn't fit the tone or style of the game, or if there are too many, it bothers me. __________________ Yoo Hoo!