BrokenSymmetry
Member
I really enjoyed the game, but still I have to say Tomb Raider 2013. Fat too much killing, collectibles, XP, weapon upgrading, etc. All completely unnecessary.
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Is there a game that just epitomizes everything that's wrong with gaming for you?
- Thread starter Alphahawk
- Start date
The saddest thing is that it was developed by Starbreeze, who create some of the best story driven games in the industry.
A massive disappointment. It's a shame they couldn't do the series justice.
Multiplayer Coop on the other hand is great.
Chinpoko_Master
Member
Assassin's Creed. Automated "hold down two buttons to climb a building" gameplay that requires no actual skill or meaningful input from the user. It's meant to make the player feel like a badass for doing absolutely nothing. That's exactly why it's popular and also why it's complete garbage.
It's such an awful game. I don't understand why it gets so much praise. So linear, god-awful writing, but the worst is really the whole over-gamification and collectible/upgrading bullshit, whereby Lara sits at campfires and can buy/upgrade her weapons, when the whole game tries so hard to be "realistic" and survival-focused. Absolutely ridiculous. Not to mention the HUD messages like "Hidden tomb nearby". I mean, just let that one sink in for a minute.
What the shit. Terrible game. In all fairness Uncharted is guilty of much of the same but at least it tries to be fun, no angsty emo shit.
NullPointer
Member
It really should have been the entire game. Just a fully fleshed out co-op.
Loved every bit of my time with co-op, except for the escort-the-robot objectives on the harder difficulties. But man the core movement shooting, the intensity of the fights, and the layers to the progression system were all top notch and addictive as hell.
ComputerMKII
Banned
The new Tomb Raider. Zero originality whatsoever.
JAY the BIRD
Neo Member
Assassin's Creed III.
Unpolished, messy, down right broken mission design.
Depthless and pathetically easy combat (when it actually works).
Convoluted narrative built up on a foundation of nonsense.
Unlikeable main character.
Extremely poor PC port. Good luck getting 60 fps in the city on ANY setting. (7970 for me)
Fucking U-Play.
And this is coming from someone that actually liked Brotherhood and Revelations (aside from that god-awful tower defense mode and some down right silly missions.
Unpolished, messy, down right broken mission design.
Depthless and pathetically easy combat (when it actually works).
Convoluted narrative built up on a foundation of nonsense.
Unlikeable main character.
Extremely poor PC port. Good luck getting 60 fps in the city on ANY setting. (7970 for me)
Fucking U-Play.
And this is coming from someone that actually liked Brotherhood and Revelations (aside from that god-awful tower defense mode and some down right silly missions.
ComputerMKII
Banned
Another good candidate.
Velcro Fly
Member
Assassin's Creed the topic
- Yearly franchise
- Shallow gameplay
- buggy as hell in quite a few games
- tons of DLC, even if some of it is actually really good
- the dreaded season pass with the new one
- available on 10 different platforms (some of the photoshops from that other thread were fantastic)
- crappy handheld iterations (really didn't like the vita game)
It's a textbook example of how to take something fun and sorta unique and run it into the ground before a full generation has passed.
- Yearly franchise
- Shallow gameplay
- buggy as hell in quite a few games
- tons of DLC, even if some of it is actually really good
- the dreaded season pass with the new one
- available on 10 different platforms (some of the photoshops from that other thread were fantastic)
- crappy handheld iterations (really didn't like the vita game)
It's a textbook example of how to take something fun and sorta unique and run it into the ground before a full generation has passed.
hardcastlemccormick
Banned
I think I would point to Spec Ops: The Line.
It's got some really great setpieces and some really excellent narrative, but the sloppy cover mechanics are the very antithesis of fun. The game's so busy trying to get you to the next amazing, thought provoking segment, but it stuffs the rest of the game full of these generic linear shooter segments that do nothing interesting mechanically.
The game would have been thematically stronger if it had been fun to play, but I was actively cursing how terrible the shooting is. It distracts from the strengths of the game and weakens the whole package. And this seems to be a pattern across all genres and budgets, including indie games.
EDIT: What it epitomizes is that cool story ideas are happening in games while gameplay mechanics become actively worse.
It's got some really great setpieces and some really excellent narrative, but the sloppy cover mechanics are the very antithesis of fun. The game's so busy trying to get you to the next amazing, thought provoking segment, but it stuffs the rest of the game full of these generic linear shooter segments that do nothing interesting mechanically.
The game would have been thematically stronger if it had been fun to play, but I was actively cursing how terrible the shooting is. It distracts from the strengths of the game and weakens the whole package. And this seems to be a pattern across all genres and budgets, including indie games.
EDIT: What it epitomizes is that cool story ideas are happening in games while gameplay mechanics become actively worse.
Monumental
Banned
Uncharted 3, Tomb Raider, Call of Duty
Basically cinematic gameplay over sandbox gameplay design.
Basically cinematic gameplay over sandbox gameplay design.
Add Hitman Absolution to this list and we are good.
God of War III
this game is the definition of adolescent male power fantasy. It's incredibly crass and tasteless, and the gameplay isn't all that hot either. I remember most of the encounters being checkpointed so that you would have to fight a few waves of really insignificant minions before fighting the real threat, and then have to do it all over again if the real threat killed you. Super annoying. Why even have those minions there if they're going to be so pointless? Just a time waster IMO. That's bad design.
this game is the definition of adolescent male power fantasy. It's incredibly crass and tasteless, and the gameplay isn't all that hot either. I remember most of the encounters being checkpointed so that you would have to fight a few waves of really insignificant minions before fighting the real threat, and then have to do it all over again if the real threat killed you. Super annoying. Why even have those minions there if they're going to be so pointless? Just a time waster IMO. That's bad design.
Stealthcobra
Member
any multiplatform game that made the 360 need multiple disc, in my mind severly changed how the game would probably play out.
CrimsonCrescendo
Banned
Final Fantasy XIII-2:
-People has criticisms of the first game? Rather than improve on anything, we'll just chuck the entire thing out. Original story line? To hell with it! Throw in time travel, paradoxes, and loony crap and nobody will care! Original cast? Cameos for the unpopular ones (everyone but Lightning and Hope), exposition role for the semi-popular one (Hope), and fanservice the shit out of the popular character (Lightning) without giving them any meaningful development or screen time! Upgrading system? Chuck it! Eidolons? Chuck em!
-Add in shit tons of QTE's in the effort to be cinematic.
-Look to other popular games to add in half-assed mechanics like a dialogue tree that has no effect on the actual story; QTE's that don't punish for failure; alternate endings that are basically non-sequiters; add in a horribly unbalanced monster hunter mechanic that act as more glorified QTE's; and crank down the difficultly so that you don't even have to watch the screen to win since that's what everyone else is doing nowadays.
-Add in a poorly designed, completely superfluous platforming section because "people complained about not being able to jump around freely"
-Haphazardly add back in all of the stuff you took out with as little effort as possible. Seriously, it's like they had a laundry list they were just checking off.
-Pad the game as much as possible with shit tons of backtracking.
-Cash in with as much DLC as possible with over $70 worth of DLC in under 5 months.
-And while were at it, we'll break shit we did right the first time around: throw out all semblance of gameplay balance; difficulty; cohesive set pieces; etc! And let's actually engage in some of the most criticize aspects TEN FOLD! MORE RELIANCE ON THE DATALOG AND OUTSIDE MATERIAL FOR EVERYONE!
-Churn this game out a quickly as possible (well under two years... they actually had to chop entire game mechanics because they didn't allow themselves enough time)!
-Oh, and while we're at it: Let's make Serah Farron the goddamn "protagonist".
Words cannot express how much I loathed this game.
-People has criticisms of the first game? Rather than improve on anything, we'll just chuck the entire thing out. Original story line? To hell with it! Throw in time travel, paradoxes, and loony crap and nobody will care! Original cast? Cameos for the unpopular ones (everyone but Lightning and Hope), exposition role for the semi-popular one (Hope), and fanservice the shit out of the popular character (Lightning) without giving them any meaningful development or screen time! Upgrading system? Chuck it! Eidolons? Chuck em!
-Add in shit tons of QTE's in the effort to be cinematic.
-Look to other popular games to add in half-assed mechanics like a dialogue tree that has no effect on the actual story; QTE's that don't punish for failure; alternate endings that are basically non-sequiters; add in a horribly unbalanced monster hunter mechanic that act as more glorified QTE's; and crank down the difficultly so that you don't even have to watch the screen to win since that's what everyone else is doing nowadays.
-Add in a poorly designed, completely superfluous platforming section because "people complained about not being able to jump around freely"
-Haphazardly add back in all of the stuff you took out with as little effort as possible. Seriously, it's like they had a laundry list they were just checking off.
-Pad the game as much as possible with shit tons of backtracking.
-Cash in with as much DLC as possible with over $70 worth of DLC in under 5 months.
-And while were at it, we'll break shit we did right the first time around: throw out all semblance of gameplay balance; difficulty; cohesive set pieces; etc! And let's actually engage in some of the most criticize aspects TEN FOLD! MORE RELIANCE ON THE DATALOG AND OUTSIDE MATERIAL FOR EVERYONE!
-Churn this game out a quickly as possible (well under two years... they actually had to chop entire game mechanics because they didn't allow themselves enough time)!
-Oh, and while we're at it: Let's make Serah Farron the goddamn "protagonist".
Words cannot express how much I loathed this game.
Sandy Nipples
Banned
Sim fucking City 2013. $60 I paid for "Come play with me, m'Lord" dynamics and as stable as a crack whore, EA and Maxis can go gobble on a knob.
honestly, most of this gen has been pretty much a money grab from every single major player.
There are still great devs out there. But lots of them are doing some/all of the above. And I find big publishers (EA, Activision) are the worst offenders.
- if you put out a yearly sequel (cod 2011, cod 2012, cod 2013, madden 2011, madden 2012, etc etc)....
- if you force players to download/unlock things and spend more money after the original purchase (street fighter x tekken).....
- if you copy already existing franchises (Playstation All-Stars) and exploit psychological defects of the brain for the sake of earning more dlc sales (Zynga shit/Farmville; nostalgia, pay2win bullshit)...........
- to a lesser extent, remakes/fan service titles to prey on nostalgia alone (some Nintendo titles come to mind, Duke Nukem is a key example).........
- punishing legit customers by limiting what they can do with your product (hi, EA-Sim City, Ubi-everything)........
- if you make the game super easy to play -- with no thought required on behalf of the player --- especially on-rails shit (Tomb Raider, Uncharted).......
There are still great devs out there. But lots of them are doing some/all of the above. And I find big publishers (EA, Activision) are the worst offenders.
Mass Effect 3. I liked a lot about the game, but they also did a loooooottt of things poorly:
CoD: Black Ops campaign.
The tenth time you lose control into a scripted sequence where:
- Dumb down all the mechanics in the series to make it more accessible.
- About half a dozen actions all grouped into the same button, leading to super clunky combat.
- Dumb down the plot. This situation is hopeless! Oh wait, I just found the solution!
- Shoehorn villains. Cerberus! Kai Leng! Oh wait, they're not good villains? Too bad - here are dozens of scenes where you are fighting them instead of the Reapers anyway.
- Shoehorn someone from IGN as an in-game character! Why?
- Running around collecting things as "sidequests" for padding.
- Throwing in incredibly lazy multiplayer maps full of enemies and try to pass them off as sidequests.
- And of course, the ending and how it was handled.
CoD: Black Ops campaign.
The tenth time you lose control into a scripted sequence where:
- a bomb explodes near you, you fly off your feet, time slows down and your ears ring
- you lose your balance and fall/slide somewhere, land hard near enemies and have to grab a nearby weapon to defend yourself until someone saves you at the last second
- have to do needless QTEs like "press Mouse 1 to take off"
- lose consciousness due to someone hitting you or something exploding
- get into a vehicle and shoot people as you rush into or out of danger
- have to do a running jump to grab on to something or someone
Please elaborate on this nonsense.
Quantum theory. It takes everything that's awesome about a good shooter and pretends that they don't exist, puts in a cover mechanic that is clunky, the difficulty in the game is all over the place even on lower difficulty settings, and wraps it up with a shitty anime JRPG story. Oh, and while I love shooters we really don't need a pepe trying to make one if they aren't committed to it which is the current state of games right now. Cookie cutter shooters that aren't even trying a little seething to separate themselves from the glut of other shooters.
Not necessarily gaming as a whole, but this generation of consoles in general.
Grand Theft Auto IV - Good game when playing the campaign, after you're done with it... nothing absolutely fuck all to do in the game, they took out the police missions or changed it beyond recognition, they axed the ambulance missions, no casino to mess around with, it's like they gutted out all the fun extra stuff you could do in GTA San Andreas and released a barebones game content wise, and this isn't the first game to do this compared to it's previous generation counterparts. Honorable mention goes to Final Fantasy XIII.
Need for Speed Most Wanted/Dragon Age... basically EA - Here's an in-game NPC with a side quest with actual dialogue that you read through then at the end of the text BAM you can't activate the actual quest until you pay for the DLC... same with NFSMW and certain cars planted all over the map fffffuuuuuuu--
Bayonetta - Brilliant game... QTE's during cutscenes where you need faster reflexes than The Flash to get first time... really!? (and this is coming from someone who doesn't mind God Of War's QTE's).
RE5/6 - A prime example of the single player game getting shittied up by virtue of the game being centered around co-op... don't get me wrong, both games are a load more fun when playing co-op... and that's the problem when going solo...
Call of Duty - because everyone is now chasing the golden elixir of sales and you can feel the waves felt in other games (Irony being GTA III's open world influence on gaming was a positive one).
Grand Theft Auto IV - Good game when playing the campaign, after you're done with it... nothing absolutely fuck all to do in the game, they took out the police missions or changed it beyond recognition, they axed the ambulance missions, no casino to mess around with, it's like they gutted out all the fun extra stuff you could do in GTA San Andreas and released a barebones game content wise, and this isn't the first game to do this compared to it's previous generation counterparts. Honorable mention goes to Final Fantasy XIII.
Need for Speed Most Wanted/Dragon Age... basically EA - Here's an in-game NPC with a side quest with actual dialogue that you read through then at the end of the text BAM you can't activate the actual quest until you pay for the DLC... same with NFSMW and certain cars planted all over the map fffffuuuuuuu--
Bayonetta - Brilliant game... QTE's during cutscenes where you need faster reflexes than The Flash to get first time... really!? (and this is coming from someone who doesn't mind God Of War's QTE's).
RE5/6 - A prime example of the single player game getting shittied up by virtue of the game being centered around co-op... don't get me wrong, both games are a load more fun when playing co-op... and that's the problem when going solo...
Call of Duty - because everyone is now chasing the golden elixir of sales and you can feel the waves felt in other games (Irony being GTA III's open world influence on gaming was a positive one).
For me, there are two games this gen that greatly define what is wrong with modern game development.
One of them is Uncharted 2, and the other is Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (since the initial game).
I wrote up a bit on it in another topic:
There is also a lot to be said about what going down the path of games like this means for the fucked up economics of game development and the desire to emulate hollywood even though it's extremely out of their league (as a business model and as a pure talent/competency issue), but this is a good start.
One of them is Uncharted 2, and the other is Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (since the initial game).
I wrote up a bit on it in another topic:
Amir0x said:
There is also a lot to be said about what going down the path of games like this means for the fucked up economics of game development and the desire to emulate hollywood even though it's extremely out of their league (as a business model and as a pure talent/competency issue), but this is a good start.
In no way did I ever think "being a criminal is awesome" while playing GTAIV.
Freshmaker
I am Korean.
Double Dragon Neon.
Miss the point, and run hard with it.
Miss the point, and run hard with it.
D
Deleted member 8095
Unconfirmed Member
I wish people posting things like Uncharted and TLoU would explain why.
Dead Island
- Full of (gamebreaking) bugs
- Repetitive gameplay
- Lazy porting
- No/bad quality check (stuff like trees floating in the air instead of attached to ground)
- Broken gameplay (kicking = god mode)
- Misleading trailer
- Constant re-use of assets (sewer level that just loops)
- Stupid stuff like releasing the Dev Build instead of the normal game
- Feminist Whore
I could go on... Still finished the game. I'll never get those 20 hours back.
- Full of (gamebreaking) bugs
- Repetitive gameplay
- Lazy porting
- No/bad quality check (stuff like trees floating in the air instead of attached to ground)
- Broken gameplay (kicking = god mode)
- Misleading trailer
- Constant re-use of assets (sewer level that just loops)
- Stupid stuff like releasing the Dev Build instead of the normal game
- Feminist Whore
I could go on... Still finished the game. I'll never get those 20 hours back.
ThoughtsOfSpeaking
Banned
While I totally agree, I believe we need to go deeper for the source of the problem there. That was all aping game design from games which already staked the claim to 'everything wrong with this generation'
AndrewDean84xX
Banned
Just about every Indie game. Give me good visuals.
Lol, it's not even out yet and you have no idea what the final product will be like. Posts like this are ridiculous and make you look ridiculous.
Most recently, Ryse. If that doesn't count, Gears of War (series) where all it really is is cover, shoot, cover, shoot, cover, shoot, and then we put a pretty bow on it.
All the NPCs fighting and all the shit going on around you, and all that really mattered was the waypoint icon telling you to ignore all the other shit. And then there were the QTEs, but that's secondary to the problem I have with modern (triple-A) gaming.
So much time and attention goes into making these games look like movies but the end result is that with so many of these things you can just swap the skin and get anything else. If you took away the visual flair and looked at the actual mechanics of what's going on it'd be the most boring, pathetic thing imaginable. There isn't enough attention being paid to the systems and mechanics of these games. There isn't enough attention being paid to the ways in which we actually interact. It's why I've been playing so much 3DS lately, because the technical budget isn't there to waste resources on this superfluous glam and instead attention is directed toward the gameplay.
All the NPCs fighting and all the shit going on around you, and all that really mattered was the waypoint icon telling you to ignore all the other shit. And then there were the QTEs, but that's secondary to the problem I have with modern (triple-A) gaming.
So much time and attention goes into making these games look like movies but the end result is that with so many of these things you can just swap the skin and get anything else. If you took away the visual flair and looked at the actual mechanics of what's going on it'd be the most boring, pathetic thing imaginable. There isn't enough attention being paid to the systems and mechanics of these games. There isn't enough attention being paid to the ways in which we actually interact. It's why I've been playing so much 3DS lately, because the technical budget isn't there to waste resources on this superfluous glam and instead attention is directed toward the gameplay.
NullPointer
Member
Haha, this is a good point. But I'd argue its worse in the case of Tomb Raider. Uncharted is what it is and always has been. Tomb Raider literally shed what made it unique in order to make itself an even *better* Uncharted clone.While I totally agree, I believe we need to go deeper for the source of the problem there. That was all aping game design from games which already staked the claim to 'everything wrong with this generation'
That's just so wrong on so many levels.