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[DodgyGeezerFella]

Dead Space - Music blaring when monsters appear. It should be the sounds of whats going on around me that make me shit my pants.

Gears of War 2 - Going all serious. Boo hoo Dom get over it.

 

[corrosivefrost]

Mass Effect

Unchartered worlds/MAKO driving sections - sorry, ME may be one of my favourite all time games, but this was a silly move IMO. Boring, repetive and an annoyance to drive.

Bioshock

Vita chambers - removed the whole purpose of survival instincts. I know you can turn them off NOW, but I don't think you could on its day of release when I played it. Anger.

Oblivion

Character diologue. Great concept with interacting NPCs, VERY poorly executed. How to break immersion in one easy fell swoop - have the same voice actor talk about the same thing I heard 30 seconds ago whilst talking to his own voice!

Gears of War 2

Smoke grenades. I learnt to use them, but they are still stupid in how they knock the characters down. An addition that was not needed.

That will be all for now......

I agree with most of this.

 

[PBalfredo]

Bionic Commando. Collectibles combined with the quick-death radioactive fog as the game's boundaries.

"We want you to explore and find the collectibles.

But don't explore too much. Or else you'll die"

 

[KilledByBill]

This may seem kind of old school, but how about missions in older RTS games (like the original C&C Red Alert, Age of Empires, Starcraft, and Warcraft III) where you're given only a handful of units and have to navigate them through a maze or puzzle like map without losing them all or the "hero unit."

I don't mind some of the sneaking around if it's part of a larger mission but it's cheap filler when you don't end up actually building or controling a base. Starcraft & Broodwar had a bunch of these where you're running around inside some generic installation/science station/abandoned lab and had to get Raynor/Kerrigan/Tassadar to a series of check points.

 

[usea]

FF12's shop menu. Deciding what equipment to buy is very tedious, and the problem is compounded due to equipment not always having the stats you'd expect. You have to save your game, buy stuff, try it on, decide what you want to keep, load your game and then buy it for real. So dumb.

 

[Alex]

Gears of War 2 - Going all serious. Boo hoo Dom get over it.

It didn't get very serious, just a little melodrama and I loved the story. It was ridiculous and fun and awkwardly memorable. Gears has this great goofy plotline and cast that's like that one summer movie you can't get out of your head.

I hate the multiplayer in Gears so much, it's total trash to me but it's campaign work and co-op is fucking flawless for what I personally want nowadays.

If I could have my perfect console shooter-type this generation, it would be to ram Killzone 2 and Gears of War 2 right down the middle. Gears campaign, co-op, etc and Killzone multiplayer. Lovely, lovely multiplayer.

 

[Woo-Fu]

Mass Effect(360 version) - no hard disk caching.

 

[ZealousD]

Halo: Combat Evolved - Level design.

Shit tons of copy-paste corridors and areas. Entire levels are reused.

 

[viciouskillersquirrel]

Freshly-Picked Tingle's Rosy Rupeeland - The bartering mechanic. It's fun at first, but not having any idea of how many rupees to pay for anything gets frustrating really quickly and the fact that you lose all the rupees you offered turns soft-resetting into a game mechanic >:-(

It would have been better if each action had an asking price allowing you to haggle. Yeah, have you lose rupees when you're cheap, but don't make that be your entire offer.

 

[Sqorgar]

The Godfather 2: The entire game, from beginning to end, is a series of awful design choices. Proof that some developers hit the rock.

This game was awesome. The sheer amount of topless nudity is a bit curious though.

Fallout 3: All the Oblivion errors apply, as well as the blatantly -let's force DLC on our customers!- bad decision to cap the levels at 20.

Nobody is forcing you to get the DLC. The level cap in the first Fallout was, I think, 21. They balanced the game for a 20 level experience. Only after the DLC which extends the game past the ending does the need for more levels present itself (which is why it's the only DLC which does it).

Is the casino in Dragon Quest VIII also tradition?

Because having to reset my way to the best whip was not fun. Also, it was made doubly frustrating by the fact that (as far as I could tell) there was no soft reset, so every time I lost money twice in a row I had to wait on my PS2 to boot and reread the game data.

Yes, it is tradition. And no, I don't think the point of the casino is to reset your machine when you lose. I don't know if you are allowed to get upset when a game makes it more difficult to cheat. If it's like the other DQ games, there are more appropriate ways to win at the casino.

 

[2 Minutes Turkish]

Wind Waker was the first to spring to mind. Endless sailing just fucked that game. Only 3D Zelda I haven't played to completion.

Killzone 2's controls. Prevented the game from reaching true greatness.

Gears 1/2 online. Broken is the only word to describe.

 

[DevilWillcry]

God of War I, that spire/tower/whatever you had to climb while avoiding the spikes

OMG FUCK that part. How did that get past play testing?

 

[Bam Bam Baklava]

Arma II: Makes you think they didn't even beta test the game. Most missions are easily unplayable due to bugs.

Prey: You can die as many times as you want and just come back to life after some weird minigame

Mass Effect: Elevator load times.

Fuel: No sense of purpose or direction through the game and lack of variety in gameplay.

Far Cry2: No easy means of travel. Malaria and weapon maintenance was annoying.

Dead Rising: Worst save system ever.

RE5: Controls are just way too ancient for 2009.

 

[Curufinwe]

Odin Sphere - Play through a mildly entertaining action game with beautiful graphics and a corny, unengaging story. Now play through the same game 5 more times with superficially different protagonists.

Bizarre. Odin Sphere's story is very well done fairy tale with a hard, tragic edge, and playing thru as different protagonists lets you see it from a variety of perspectives.

 

[the_painted_bird]

MGSOOPS

:lol

 

[mrgone]

Bizarre. Odin Sphere's story is very well done fairy tale with a hard, tragic edge, and playing thru as different protagonists lets you see it from a variety of perspectives.

Yeah, my problem with Odin Sphere was the frustratingly unresponsive controls, not the story

 

[boiled goose]

just remembered a big one:

Brawl: tripping

 

[haircut]

Yes, it is tradition. And no, I don't think the point of the casino is to reset your machine when you lose. I don't know if you are allowed to get upset when a game makes it more difficult to cheat. If it's like the other DQ games, there are more appropriate ways to win at the casino.

Eh. The prizes are way too expensive to just save your gold and buy tokens, and I haven't read of any ways to tilt the odds in your favor at the casino. There might be one slot machine that is a little broken (from what I've read, nothing definitive), but it maxes out at such a low number of tokens that even if that made for an effective strategy you'd still end up needing to play for a very long time.

Normally I wouldn't mind it being difficult to cheat, but this seemed to me like a setup where cheating was really the only way to go about it. Roulette is the only game with a high payout, and roulette odds are always in favor of the house.

 

[MvmntInGrn]

Mirror's Edge combat, everything flows so well in this game save the combat.

A quick QTE would be a much better option, no enemies wouldn't be so bad (though I do think there needs to be some type of enemy). Anything other than what is there now.

 

[DevilWillcry]

MGS4: Please wait while MGS4 installs >:S.

MGS2: Who the fuck is this guy and where is Snake? Do not rike, Kojima!

Jak II: I don't have a problem with the darker setting and the "badass" talking Jak. What I do have a problem with is the switch out of quality platforming with repetitive gun play and frustrating vehicle segments. Overall I still greatly enjoy Jak II though. I just wish it stuck to its roots a little more.

 

[Iknos]

Metal Gear Solid 3: The whole camera system

 

[haircut]

Bizarre. Odin Sphere's story is very well done fairy tale with a hard, tragic edge, and playing thru as different protagonists lets you see it from a variety of perspectives.

I guess you could look at it that way. Or you could see it as heavyhanded, boring, and overly serious.

"I know father hexed me to fall in love with my most hated enemy, but I don't care that it's just a spell! Watch as I spend 3 acts/chapters/whatever proving how much I love him!"

EDIT: I guess that's getting off topic though. As far as the design choice of playing through the game multiple times, it seemed like a terrible decision to me as nothing is added except new bits of story and characters with slightly different movesets. Since every level is already the same circle with enemies running around it basically amounts to doing the same thing way too many times. It was tolerable as a single character because the leveling element gave a small sense of progress, but switching characters to repeat the cycle did not work for me.

Grim Grimoire had a similar scheme where you played through the same 5 days over and over, seeing them from different perspectives, but it was engaging because every level had a different setup and Lillet consistently gained new runes throughout the game. Also, the story was better suited to my taste and the characters were better written and more relatable IMO.

 

[.GqueB.]

Pretty much everything from Prince of Persia last year.

Water levels in any game ever.

 

[I should be doing hw]

Not sure if it has been mentioned but inFamous had one which I hated. The sewer levels as a whole I thought were terrible. The first one was okay, then every one after that was the same thing with more annoying shit thrown in, half the time I couldn't see where to jump so I ended up making leaps of faith until I latched on to something.
The moving pipes where my bane though, the camera inside the sewer is crap because its enclosed and it gets stuck on everything, so I couldn't get an angle to see the right perspective of the moving pipes ever, so I'd constantly hover over into nothing but water.
Oh and the way the Blast Shards where handled was crap too, finding that last one is nigh impossible without constantly spamming R3 and running through every nook and cranny of the map.
Still haven't found the last one yet :l

Good game despite that though.

 

[BlisterBrown]

Jet Force Gemini - Having to go through EVERY level and find EVERY god damned teddybear/furby thing to get to the last level.

 

[tanod]

FFXII - Randomly spawning chests

 

[hellclerk]

Rune Factory Frontier - no lock on for combat. always confused me, and made combat a bit more of a chore.

 

[The Librarian]

I loved them. Stopping by random creepy abandoned houses on the coast, to check out what's inside, was a very memorable gaming moment for me. I was totally immersed in the experience.

That was the best part of the vehicle sections. However, the driving controls are really bad and it doesn't leave a good impression of the sections.

 

[OchreHand]

LittleBigPlanet i <3 this game but circling around a planet to find your favorite bookmarked levels is a bit annoying, especially when you've favorited a huge volume of stuff. couldn't scrolling through a list suffice?

Mario Kart Wii I know rubberbanding AI is part of the series but the Wii version was absolutely infuriating.

Quake IV I haven't touched Quake4 for years now but I remember it shipped with all sorts of bugs or "design choices" that stayed there months after its release. lack of autodownload from server was one of them! nm, the topic says "good games"

 

[tanod]

MGS4 - 10 minute loads between chapters

Mirror's Edge - Unforgiving Combat, Bad placement of checkpoints

Dead Space - space rock shooting

Resistance 2 - Glitchy AI, lack of weapon wheel, Low health bar

 

[Freedom = $1.05]

SF4 on the PS3 - No forced installation. It's super annoying to have to wait an additional 15 seconds per match 'cause Captain_Bollocks93 didn't install the game manually. Let's not get into the broken "Quick Match", either. Bah.

 

[corrosivefrost]

Nobody is forcing you to get the DLC. The level cap in the first Fallout was, I think, 21. They balanced the game for a 20 level experience. Only after the DLC which extends the game past the ending does the need for more levels present itself (which is why it's the only DLC which does it).

I was maxed out at level 20 before I finished all the side quests and, for me, it ruined the last parts of the game. Combat became repetitive and no longer had a reward for winning fights. I don't know, I just didn't find it fun anymore... everything was a chore at that point. I refused to play the first two DLC offerings because there was no level cap increase -- and my fear is, once I get the Brotherhood DLC and start playing, I'll max out at 30 before I handle all of the new DLC content making me want to stop playing again. :|

The level cap would've benefited from being a free patch separate from the Brotherhood offering.

 

[mysticstylez]

Bad Design Choices in some or all of the Ratchet and Clank series.


Weapons you start off with are worth dick towards the end of the game.

Flying levels.

Races.

All gadgets that you use for some form of puzzle or mini game.

 

[BowieZ]

Mario Kart Wii I know rubberbanding AI is part of the series but the Wii version was absolutely infuriating.

When you're in the middle of making a coffee or something when the race starts, end up picking up your controller and you can sit back and let a giant bullet propel you to first place (with the help of a little luck), you know something's not quite right.

On the other hand, hiring Asuka Ohta for the soundtrack? Excellent design choice

 

[stupei]

Before getting my 360 and actually playing it, I thought the idea of Dead Rising's save system sounded like an at least interesting attempt at some innovation. I didn't want to be one of those people who complains about a very deliberate design element that I knew full well would be there going in, and I really thought it would grow on me...

But holy shit, those respawnig convicts make it hard. The convicts + the save system = too many headaches.

 

[bonesmccoy]

This game was awesome. The sheer amount of topless nudity is a bit curious though.

Sarcasm? For both comments? The game had it's one or two moments sure, but that was it. The nudity was just a shameless way to try in draw in the young male gaming crowd, 12-17, for whom boobs are tantalizing regardless which side of a screen they're on.

Nobody is forcing you to get the DLC. The level cap in the first Fallout was, I think, 21. They balanced the game for a 20 level experience. Only after the DLC which extends the game past the ending does the need for more levels present itself (which is why it's the only DLC which does it).

Sure, you can say that about any DLC packet, but you and I both know that's not really what DLC is designed for. It is first and foremost a pretty shallow way of drawing more duckets from the consumer's pocket. Which itself is fine; I'm not harping on DLC per se, only when it is so obviously designed to handicap the experience as to necessitate a purchase (as in, every other previous BS game didn't have a level cap as low as 20) for most players.

 

[FishSquared]

Infinite Undiscovery

I really didn't like that the game didn't pause when you opened up the menu.

EH? I love Infinite Undiscovery... explanation?

 

[epmode]

So did anyone else beat the asteroid shooting level (Dead Space) on their first try or am I just that awesome? All I really remember about that part is how rad the giant ammo rounds looked as they loaded into the guns.

 

[Mr_Appleby]

console rpg's with tons of loot and no sort functions make me sad.

 

[bonesmccoy]

console rpg's with tons of loot and no sort functions make me sad.

This, and RPG's with inventory limits. Games with this always end up being menu sort-fests.

 

[AniHawk]

Okami: Boss rush mode and fighting Orochi three times I mean for fuck's sake Capcom or Kamiya, whoever made it happen: it's an action-adventure game, not an action game.

 

[mrgone]

just remembered a big one:

Brawl: tripping

Oh crap, yes. I'm still in awe of that decision. I havn't played Brawl yet, so I have no idea about the frequency or impact of it, but still blows my mind that something like this made it into the game.

 

[thebaroness]

Let's see...

The Godfather 2: The entire game, from beginning to end, is a series of awful design choices. Proof that some developers hit the rock.

I was under the impression this thread was about "good games" with a few flaws here and there, not calling something out because you didn't like it.

For me, I'm currently playing Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts. I really want to like this game. I appreciate Rare trying something completely new and switch up their old formula a bit, but I feel the focus is SO HEAVY on vehicle creation that I don't get any of the team platforming I loved. Why is Kazooie used so little? I just wish they had blended the gameplay a little more, because it ruins what is otherwise a really good game.

 

[Gazunta]

TY The Tasmanian Tiger 2 GBA: There's no progression indicator on the main map screen, which means you had to enter each level in order to find out what items you haven't collected yet in order to get 100%. What the hell, man?

TY The Tasmanian Tiger 3 GBA: The levels are too big and split up into confusing chunks. Should have just made the levels smaller and tighter packed. Jerk.

The Legend of Spyro: A New Beginning: Ugh, how come each level was so freaking long and save points so few and far between? Genius.

The Legend of Spyro: The Eternal Night: Getting hit again while you're down on the ground just after being attacked? Pfffft. Laaame. What, too busy eating fudge brownies to notice that one?

Viva Pinata: Party Animals: Why isn't there more weapons in the races OMG YOU DUNCE but hey thanks for the 40 million gamerpoints I earned for playing for like 3 seconds.

Spoiler

the next game has absolutely no bad design choices

 

[GrotesqueBeauty]

It blows my mind that button mapping is not an across the board industry standard in this day and age. I can't tell you how many good games I've been soured on by counter intuitive control schemes and a lack of options. Tomba 2 was awesome, but did away with my preferred set up from the original (wtf, why would you actually go out of your way to remove standard options in a sequel?). Devil May Cry was another culprit.

Is it so fucking hard to let players customize their buttons?

 

[Sqorgar]

Sarcasm? For both comments? The game had it's one or two moments sure, but that was it. The nudity was just a shameless way to try in draw in the young male gaming crowd, 12-17, for whom boobs are tantalizing regardless which side of a screen they're on.

I really enjoyed Godfather 2. Not joking. I liked the strategy aspect of it very much. Between taking over the businesses and the assassinations, I found it to be an extremely fun experience. It wasn't perfect, by a long shot, but I like open worlds with few missions and the ability to decide for myself how to progress. Viking: The Battle For Asgard was similarly awesome in this way.

Concerning the nudity, I once turned it on after a patch and all the topless women were gone. I thought the patch had done it, maybe as a moment of sanity on EA's part in realizing that the movie didn't actually have nudity in it. But the next time I turned on the game, they were all back. I guess the game just ran out of mammary. :lol

 

[RockmanWhore]

Resistance 2 - Glitchy AI, lack of weapon wheel, Low health bar

If you're referring to the big chimera getting stuck on walls it has been corrected :lol

Little Big Planet : making the standard level so awesome that no amateur will ever match the quality, which make the level creator and sharing concept obsolete. Also, laggy online when the game is a lot more fun with friends

 

[revanrules]

just remembered a big one:

Brawl: tripping

Yes.

Also, while its more of a story design choice rather than game design choice: Indigo Prophecy. The last third. What the hell? I really enjoyed that game, but then the clan wars thing comes up and the story just died for me.

 

[scitek]

Gears of War: The pump station where the Torque Bow is introduced. All of my teammates go down within a minute and every Theron Guard zeros in on me with their torque bows. I play like 10 minutes, get to the last one or two guys and one just launches a shot into me, killing me in one blow. The nearest checkpoint is BEFORE mandatory dialogue that you have to watch every single fucking time, not to mention the two minute march back to the pump station. Pure trash.

 

[Funchameleon]

Tripping in Brawl is HILARIOUS and instantly elevated my opinion of Nintendo after months of suffering through all the "pro" "tournament" SSB players' speculation and bitching leading up to release.