TannisRoot on 29/9/2016 at 17:39
Having played Deus Ex 1 for the first time this year I must agree it's a good leveling system (ability XP buy). I'm shocked it never caught on.
froghawk on 29/9/2016 at 17:46
I hate boss battles in just about everything. There are exceptions (Deus Ex 1 where they're easily avoided, or Mr. Freeze in Arkham City was cleverly done), but for the most part they tend to break the pace of the game for me and get awfully tedious. The only times I don't mind them are when they're absurdly easy (like in Manky).
Renault on 29/9/2016 at 17:58
Another vote against boss battles - HATE them with a passion. I've quit games just because I don't want to bother with them. And it's always the same thing - learn the patterns, dodge the secondary threat, aim for the weak spots on the primary threat. Maybe if devs got a little more creative with them, they wouldn't be so bad.
Sulphur on 29/9/2016 at 18:29
I love boss battles when they're done right. See: MGS 1-3, bits of MGS4, the MGS 5 bit that recalls the fight with The End, DMC3, various portions of Dark Souls, Shadow of the Colossus, etc. The lazy ones tend to do the whole rinse and repeat three times format, which grates after a while. The good battles tend to be more creative, or mask the pattern with interesting switch-ups in mechanics/approaches required either by you or the boss.
icemann on 29/9/2016 at 18:48
To use an obvious one:
I hated the boss battles in Deus Ex: Human Revolution, because they clashed with the style of the rest of the game. For all other parts you could go lethal or non lethal, or ghost it (get past without being seen). The boss battles however were only do-able 1 way. Killing.
And yes I know they apparently "fixed" this later on, but I'm talking about the release version of the game.
For another:
I HATED the voiced battle cries in Baldurs Gate 1 & 2. More Minsc specifically. It's a shame too as he kicked supreme ass in combat. If the game had had the option to turn those off I'd have been all good, but nope there wasn't. Eventually got rid of him due to it. Grrrr.
Nameless Voice on 29/9/2016 at 19:09
"Go for the eyes, Boo! GO FOR THE EYES! RAAAAARGH!!!"
Agreeing on everyone mentioning QTEs. Any game that has them, they are the thing I hated in an otherwise good game. Glad that Rise of the Tomb Raider silently did away from the things after they were everywhere in the first game.
In the first category: Alpha Protocol
Its gameplay is, frankly, terrible. Awful mechanics, awful systems, poorly-chosen checkpoints, you name it. The writing / and character interaction was really great, though, and kept me playing it despite all its flaws.
Also, since thinking of AP reminded me of it, badly-done checkpoints, in any game which has them. You all know the ones, where the checkpoint is before a long unskippable cutscene before a really difficult boss fight where you are guaranteed to die a few dozen times.
Interfaces and control systems that were clearly designed for consoles and are atrocious on PC, or at best don't make proper use of the availability of a keyboard.
Those last two are things that always makes me think "so, no one ever actually play-tested this game at all, did they? Or, if they did, they developers ignored them."
marbleman on 29/9/2016 at 20:18
One thing I absolutely hate was perfectly described in a video "Thief vs AAA" by Dom Giuca. I'm talking about a mismatch between a player and a charater they play as. He gives an example of Arkham Asylum, where you only have to press two buttons, but on the screen, Batman jumps all over the place. I've never actually played Arkham Asylum, but I played other games with similar mechanics. I'd add combos to this. Press a sequence of buttons in a correct order and suddenly your character does some amazing stunt. It literally ruins the game for me. And it just so happens, that a lot of modern games are like that. Not all of them, but a lot.
Boss fights, on the other hand, I absolutely love... when they're done properly. Poor boss fight design is when a boss is just a huge pile of health with unavoidable attacks, through which the player has to heal through.
I really wanted to enjoy Dark Souls games, because boss fights are fantastic there. But I hated the controls with combos and all that stuff...
Al_B on 29/9/2016 at 20:21
The combat system in Anachronox was extremely frustrating due to the repetitive animations that played after every action. I loved the game anyway but wouldn't play it again without the later patch that allows you to speed through them.
Renault on 29/9/2016 at 20:26
Points of no return. Nothing like closing off parts of a level to kill the exploration aspect of it.
faetal on 29/9/2016 at 20:40
One thing which gets me is game elements which side-track you in lieu of something more important - best examples are RPGs. Despite the fact that side quests are amazing fun and everything, I find it continually creates dissonance when I'm in a scenario whereby some great evil which only I can prevent is bent on destroying the world, and part of my sequence of events in being the ultimate saviour is running through a cave network somewhere finding herbs for a geriatric alchemist or whatever. I'm conflicted, because I don't think the games would be as fun overall if you removed either the urgency of the overall plot or the variety and tone of the side quests, but there it is.
