Things That Bother You About Gaming

[Spark Of Spirit]

For me it would be gamers like this who feel that gaming should be nothing but Dudebro shooters and "mature" storytelling as that's what gaming needs to be to be considered "grown up" and "respectable".

Anyone who thinks Infamous is an evolution of Sly Cooper needs their gamer tag taken away post haste. Games are meant to be fun, not an interactive version of poorly written action films.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Sly and Infamous aren't even in the same genre....

Anyways, I don't mind if people want a deeper narrative in their games or even prefer those games to classic styled games, but it ticks me off when people judge all other games based on their narratives and think that all games somehow need to have a great story and focus more on being cinematic than....you know, being an actual fucking GAME, since to me gameplay is still all I really care about when it comes to my gaming, at the end of the day. I can easily look past a badly done story or even no story at all as long as I have a fun game to play. If I couldn't do that then I wouldn't be such a big fan of the Ninja Gaiden games.

I especially hate it when a game becomes popular and EVERY critic out there or snobby gamer sees fit to compare every other game in the same genre to it just because its their favorite. There was a review that REALLY ticked me off for NG2, not even because the guy complained about it being too hard or anything like that (I was already used to seeing that criticism all too often, so it didn't even phase me anymore), but because he kept comparing to God of War to highlight what he thought were its faults, which in other words was the fact that it wasn't a God of War game....oh the horror.

Look, I get it, games like God of War and Uncharted are really popular because they have big set-pieces amazing graphics and great voice acting and all that stuff. Great. If a lot of people like it, I can understand why and I have no problem with that. My issue is with dumb-asses who suddenly think that every other game has to follow in their footsteps, not understanding that some games are purposely different because they cater to a different crowd. Ninja Gaiden isn't about the huge sprawling environments or atmosphere, and its even less about a well-told story. It has always been a pure gameplay game with its level design being a throwback to old-school adventure game design and its primary focus is action and challenging gameplay. It shouldn't be considered inferior to another game just because it doesn't cater to the same mainstream crowd. And if it is held down by that, it should at the very least be praised for what it does better than what its being compared to, which in NG's case is having a far superior combat system and enemies that are actually a threat to you.

Also, to be honest, I find that the narrative in a lot of games get highly overrated and praised way more than they should. For instance, Assassin's Creed's story was really really poorly written garbage (at least for the 1st game, since I never bothered to play any of the sequels). People were fooled into thinking that it was some deep provocative tale with a message, but all it really was was a clueless guy who couldn't see the obvious going around killing guys blindly and then discovering that they had their own reasons for doing what they were doing and may not have been any more good or evil than he was. It was the same thing for each single assassination target and it was completely predictable. In other words its completely pretentious and somehow a bunch of critics and dumb-asses bought into it. Also, I have to admit that while I enjoyed Batman: Arkham Asylum, I found its story to the far below the standards of what Paul Dini has proven himself to be capable of with BTAS and other works that he has done, as the story was serviceable enough for a game but was also really predictable and far from being as great as so many people claimed it was. Also, don't even get me started on what I really think of God of War's story....

Other than that, my only other major gripe is when people seem to consider graphics a key element to what makes some games better than others. I love a game with great graphics, but if its average its still fine by me as long as it actually has interesting level design, and even if it doesn't if the gameplay is good enough than I still couldn't care less.

[gunswordfist]

In gaming or do you mean the gamers? I don't really pay attention to the gamers. Not to be "kewl", I just don't.

The obvious:
Motion Sensoring
QTEs
Hack 'n Slashers not evolving
Lack of beat em ups
IPs being shelved for too long

And what I haven't really talked about:
New IPs failing (I hear Brink is the latest victim)
Great games being cancelled (Killing Day....yeah, I said it. )
Overall lack of variety in games
Short games (Wish games average 15+ hours, not 8)
Overuse of DLC
TOO MUCH FOCUS ON MULTIPLAYER! I actually like campaign only games. More focus on single player only games would mean we'd get longer campaigns)
Lack of fragfests (Think modern day Doom like games)
Good turn based RPGs (Honestly, are there even any on 360? Seriously?)
Great teams being killed off (EA Chicago, Grin, Free Radical...sorry that I couldn't think of any others)

[Spark Of Spirit]

Replaying Live A Live got me thinking.

In response to the topic title, I present Square.

Live A Live is probably a 20 hour game altogether compared to FF13's... what? 40? Yet it offers non-linear gameplay and story, multiple endings, 9 completely different stories (all in different time periods and genres) with vastly different characters that are fleshed out really well, and a unique presentation that screams "Square".

Final Fantasy XIII has a completely linear gameplay and story, horrible writing, no dungeons or towns, one boring ass world, and is more or less a movie game.

How the fuck can one game made almost 20 years ago be so superior than a current gen game to outclass it in every respect? How did Square go from the king of RPGs (Live A Live was something they put out between Chrono Trigger and FFVI ffs) to such a joke?

So yeah, Square is one of the things I hate about gaming. You can't go over a decade and a half making classic after classic then start making generic shit and get away with it. I know the talent has long since left, but that's no excuse. How do you go from employing the guy who wrote Tactics Ogre to the guy who wrote Final Fantasy XIII? Raise your standards you're killing the genre, you hacks.

[gunswordfist]

I still need to play that.

It seems like just about every game company is going downhill.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Live A Live is probably a 20 hour game altogether compared to FF13's... what? 40? Yet it offers non-linear gameplay and story, multiple endings, 9 completely different stories (all in different time periods and genres) with vastly different characters that are fleshed out really well, and a unique presentation that screams "Square".

Oddly enough when my friend finished the game he clocked in over 100 hours....though that's probably because he spent time trying to get all of the achievements which of course annoyed the hell out of me since he played the game for about 40 more hours after already beating it once (it took about 60 hours before he finished the final boss for the first time, I believe, but I don't really care to remember exactly how long it took since most of the time I was multitasking and trying to get some studying done).

Final Fantasy XIII has a completely linear gameplay and story, horrible writing, no dungeons or towns, one boring ass world, and is more or less a movie game.

The combat system was honestly far more interesting and in-depth than any other Final Fantasy game that I have tried, so I'll give it that much. Everything about the level design and characters and story was pretty bland, though, so I lost interest in it but watched my friend play through it anyways (since it distracted me when I was trying to study for exams since he was using my XBOX360 in my room to play it ). Overall, though, I have to be honest: I really don't get the appeal of FF games in general, even the earlier ones when Square was considered a good game development company. Hell, I still don't understand what makes people find most JRPGs worth playing aside from maybe some of the stand-out titles. As far as I'm concerned FF XIII was really no exception, but in terms of being worse than the others I'm pretty indifferent to it regardless, as even though the other FF games have more open worlds they had a million other tedious things that dragged them down, and I honestly got bored of the towns anyways (not to say that FF XIII not having them made it any better than the other FF games, anyways).

Aside from having been into FF IX for a little while (and even that I got bored of my the 3rd disc), I really don't get what makes any of the FF games that I have played all that good. But, like I said, most JRPGs strike me that way in general (and just for the record, I'm not a fan of WRPGs either).

[Spark Of Spirit]

It's a jRPG thing. Mostly the combination of the world, combat, characters, story, and design that come together to form a unique experience. When it works great you get awesomeness like Suikoden or Grandia, but when it fails you get... Well, something that just doesn't work.

Unlike other genres, I think it's actually harder to make a mediocre RPG. For me they're usually good or bad.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I suppose, but I think my problem may actually just be that I feel most of them either succumb to feeling too dragged out for their own good (and let's face it, even good JRPGs have their fair share of obvious padding, like Chrono Trigger which may be the only JRPG that I have at least completed playing), or get too easy in which you don't ever really need to strategize your fights, even for bosses. I'm sure there are some exceptions to the rule which I haven't played (I haven't tried Earthbound or Ys, yet, so IDK, maybe those are much better), but I guess all of the good things about having a big world and lots of characters can get pulled down for me if the pacing doesn't flow really well to me.

That said, you did bring up a point that I wanted to address in terms of an open world vs. linearity in gaming. While I can agree with the concept that linearity is obviously a bad thing for RPGs, I often have problems with so many gamers these days thinking that just about every game needs to have an open world of some sort to be considered worth anything. When it comes to action games and the like, I honestly actually prefer a linear level design on the whole that keeps the pacing feel very fast. Honestly, slow-paced exploration and stuff like that is only a concept that works for RPGs, anyways. When they try to apply it to action games (in which case you get what are called Sandbox games), I just find it boring since the game then loses any real coherent focus and just becomes about doing whatever you want in a large world with poorly designed individual gameplay aspects that can only hold my interest for a short amount of time. I'm honestly pretty tired of the FTA formula. I don't mind the Metroid/Zelda formula where you do have a world or large area to explore but you actually have to earn entry into certain areas, occasionally having to come back to certain places to get to other areas in that place which you previous couldn't get to before, but I honestly want to sort of straight path to follow because I love the feeling of actually progressing towards a main destination as a sort of goal to achieve. I also like it when levels have alternate paths to take in them which can lead to increased replay value. However, even if they are purely linear, I still find that it works if the game is fun enough that you actually want to come back and play through it again and can try out different things in the same area that you went through before. Like, in the case of hack n' slash games you can come back with all of your weapons upgraded in a new game + run and do all sorts of new crazy combos that you couldn't do before on a certain group of enemies which still makes it fun to play through.

So, yeah, when it comes to action games and the like, I'll take having a destination over wandering aimlessly, anytime. I mean, some games can probably pull it off well, but most of them just can't hold my interest for very long. Linearity really isn't inherently a bad thing if the level design is really good or the gameplay makes up for it, IMO.

[Spark Of Spirit]

Actually, I do like linearity in RPGs. Live A Live has a lot of variables that can happen. Characters can die, events can play out differently, but the main plot is still pretty much the same. And the Mega Man style of choosing a storyline to play over starting from a specific point is great.

I'm not a big fan of non-linearity because I hate not knowing where to go or what I'm supposed to do. I like having a goal thrust upon me and telling me a general way to tackle it, then I go do it.

I may like action games first and foremost, but the idea of playing a party of warriors on an epic journey to thwart evil (or whatever) appeals to me almost as much as bashing in heads with a lead pipe or shooting alien cores. So much so if the battle system is awesome (like Grandia or Mother 3) or if the total experience is just great (like Persona 3 or Radiant Historia), but there's something about the RPG formula I've always enjoyed since I first laid eyes upon the genre.

A big part of that to me was Square. As a kid, I grew up with several companies, but Square was THE RPG company. Just like Tradewest was the beat em up company, Konami and Capcom (ironically enough each wielding the Disney and WB licenses) were a lot like the WB and Disney to me in gaming, Nintendo and Sega were the rivals that always tried to outdo each other with every genre you could name, but the only ones who really did RPGs that I knew of was Square.

Unfortunately, Square got a big head and tried making a terrible movie that crippled their fortunes and they lost their CEO (who just made The Last Story for Nintendo), a new guy named Wada came in and made Final Fantasy X and the company went to shit.

[gunswordfist]

Another thing I hate is when sequels are made without the features that made their previous games good. I recently heard that Prey 2 is being made and it won't have any gravity gameplay.....or portals. I completely stopped reading after they said there will be no portals. Gravity, I could live without, I guess, but to take away the portals wouldn't make the game Prey at all.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

Well, I do like the team or heroes aspect of JRPGs, I guess I just kind of get tired of the whole way the combat is usually handled. I don't necessarily mind turn-based fighting but I just dislike it when it becomes very repetitive and I was never into the whole random-battle encounter thing (I think that the Pokemon games are the only games in which I'll sort of tolerate that since it has the element of being able to capture new Pokemon that you find throughout the game). That may be why Chrono Trigger appealed to me when I played it. I did really like how it felt unique to other JRPGs that I had tried in that it had the elements of a good combat system with some strategy coming into play but also got rid or random battles, and it was cool how the positions of enemies actually mattered in combat.

I do like the element of having a world that feels like its really full of living and breathing inhabitants, but I suppose I'm the type of person who finds that all other gaming elements should take a back seat to gameplay. I do like towns and stuff, but I always look for great gameplay on top of that otherwise I might get bored. That goes for any game in general, even WRPGs. In fact, I'll be honest, I got bored of Mass Effect after the first time through because despite how big it is and how many characters you can interact with and such, the gameplay was just really stale and boring, and that's the honest way I feel about it now.

I think the ideal JRPG for me, though, would be one that has enough enemy diversity and challenge to keep me having to come up with new strategies and properly balance out my party, but which also doesn't encourage grinding and also feels focused but also rewards you for completing challenging side-quests and exploring more than you would normally be required to.

[Angus]

Mostly playing those online Facebook games which have a lot of annoying aspects:
Having to spam your wall, your friends, to get anywhere.
Limited play where they want you to spend real money to progress, with lots of sucker points.
Lack of any decent strategy.
Hopeless to master because someone else has spent hundreds more hours and dollars on their character, and they keep adding more crap.

Some of those iPhone games are really cute, but who can call themselves gamers when their most played game is Angry Birds?

Sports games (not Wii-sports or dancing games) have annoyed me for a while:
NHL 20xx has a lot of places where they stop the action every few seconds for some call and cut scene.
NASCAR is totally boring. No kid would play this when they have Mario Kart.
NFL 20xx there's no point in co-op playing this if you don't get to be the QB/Coach.

Some of those near Wii-party games aren't that good. They're cheap (15-20 bucks) though.

[Spark Of Spirit]

I got one. Announcements of announcements.

"We'll be announcing something on next Friday"

Uh, cool? Why didn't you just tell us now or wait until next Friday? I miss surprises.

[gunswordfist]

Fuck that, I need to know when an announcement gets announced. I enjoyed going ballistic over Street Fighter IV.

[talonmalon333]

People always saying "I want a darker version".

That basically sums it up for me.