Things That Bother You About Gaming

[gunswordfist]

Its OK to mark down a game for difficulty if its difficult due to unfair level or enemy design, or other hindrances that lead to cheap deaths, like a terrible camera (and I mean worse than NG's camera, because that isn't nearly as awful as most people make it out to be), bad controls, and other stuff that leads to the difficulty being more frustrating than a fun challenge. That said, if a game is made to be intentionally hard but remains to be fair and has a learning curve which allows the difficulty to be overcome through practice and acquiring skill and using strategy, and it gets marked down for that, then the reviewer clearly doesn't know what they are talking about, or what type of game they THINK its supposed to be.

To be specific, games like Battletoads or Sonic '06 can be marked down for their difficulty, because in one case the game is just made so masochistically hard that it ceases to be any fun to play at all, whereas in the other respective case the game is clearly unfinished and was rushed out the door and is full of abysmal flaws that just lead to many unfair deaths. Those games can be criticized for their difficulty because they are difficult for the wrong reasons or completely unintentional reasons.

On the other hand, games like Ninja Gaiden Black and Devil May Cry 3 should not be marked down for their difficulties. They are both throw-backs to old-school arcade-style action games and have steep learning curves and are meant to be challenging, but they are also completely fair and any skilled player in either game can make it through the hardest difficulty of either game and barely get touched, proving that there is little to no factor of cheapness in their difficulty. Stuff like God Hand falls into this category as well. While I've heard from fans that its not exactly perfectly balanced, anyone who has played it and beat it will testify to it being 99% fair and being mostly about skill and learning how to properly utilize the combat system. If a reviewer gives it a bad review because they don't understand that, then they shouldn't be playing those types of games in the first place.

That reminds me, I love games where you can see noticable progress after failing so many times like Mega Man. I can practically play some parts that used to give me hell with my eyes closed now.

[Foggle]

The reality is that some of the things you're asking about (objective markers/directional aids, limited save/typewriter ribbons) are issues of accessibility. In today's market, the broader market really demands and requires a bit more handholding than the PS1 gamer of yore. These are generally expected user experience aids in this day and age and the lack of them usally results in negative feedback/lower reviews (and subsequently, lower sales).

Goddamn it. I wish this wasn't true, but it is.

[Spark Of Spirit]

I miss actual difficulty levels beyond "make enemies into bullet sponges/kill player faster".

[Rosalinas Spare Wand]

That reminds me, the last Fire Emblem game was casualized to fuck with an option to turn off permanent death, giving you a custom unit, and the ability to switch classes on the fly. Its part of the reason I was glad the game didn't get localized because that is not the kind of stuff that appeals to the Fire Emblem crowd.

Well now the news came out that the next game has all that shit, plus the class switching ability has been expanded to the rest of the cast. Sure, its still optional but its just kind of annoying that its come to the point that the developers have to sacrifice some of the games defining features to justify producing more games in the series (Radiant Dawn had the lowest sales of the series, and Shadow Dragon seems to have had a more limited release as a result).

[Spark Of Spirit]

That reminds me, the last Fire Emblem game was casualized to fuck with an option to turn off permanent death, giving you a custom unit, and the ability to switch classes on the fly. Its part of the reason I was glad the game didn't get localized because that is not the kind of stuff that appeals to the Fire Emblem crowd.

Well now the news came out that the next game has all that shit, plus the class switching ability has been expanded to the rest of the cast. Sure, its still optional but its just kind of annoying that its come to the point that the developers have to sacrifice some of the games defining features to justify producing more games in the series (Radiant Dawn had the lowest sales of the series, and Shadow Dragon seems to have had a more limited release as a result).

Why have all that? All they needed was a "Restart map" option so I don't have to set everybody up AGAIN and skip all that text AGAIN in order to just get back to where I was before. I used to hate the permanent death until I got used to it, but it's having to go through all the annoying crap to get back to where I was that was the real annoyance and it usually is what stops me from playing longer than I would like especially on a hard map. If they could cut that out, I doubt anyone would really notice or complain as much.

Sort of like how people complained about the saving in Dead Rising, when my main issue with it was they never explained how it actually worked so you end up screwing yourself over without knowing it. Instead of fixing the root problem they just scrapped it entirely. That's just a waste, games are already too easy nowadays.

[Daxdiv]

That reminds me, the last Fire Emblem game was casualized to fuck with an option to turn off permanent death, giving you a custom unit, and the ability to switch classes on the fly. Its part of the reason I was glad the game didn't get localized because that is not the kind of stuff that appeals to the Fire Emblem crowd.

Well now the news came out that the next game has all that shit, plus the class switching ability has been expanded to the rest of the cast. Sure, its still optional but its just kind of annoying that its come to the point that the developers have to sacrifice some of the games defining features to justify producing more games in the series (Radiant Dawn had the lowest sales of the series, and Shadow Dragon seems to have had a more limited release as a result).

This is what happened to Fire Emblem? This doesn't sound like the Fire Emblem my friends back in high school sold me for a cheap price and fell in love with on the GCN. I love the permanent death and it was a major influence in my nuzlocke runs.

I do agree that it does feel like that most major developers are hand holding me when I'm playing most recent games or that the difficulty felt forced. The last game I've played that didn't feel like that was holding my hand was Binding of Isaac.

[gunswordfist]

The reality is that some of the things you're asking about (objective markers/directional aids, limited save/typewriter ribbons) are issues of accessibility. In today's market, the broader market really demands and requires a bit more handholding than the PS1 gamer of yore. These are generally expected user experience aids in this day and age and the lack of them usally results in negative feedback/lower reviews (and subsequently, lower sales).

Goddamn it. I wish this wasn't true, but it is.

Ugh, did they have to say handholding? Anyway, if this is about Resident Evil 6, then it makes perfect sense. Post Veronica games are just plain a different genre from the first few entries in the series.

[talonmalon333]

The reality is that some of the things you're asking about (objective markers/directional aids, limited save/typewriter ribbons) are issues of accessibility. In today's market, the broader market really demands and requires a bit more handholding than the PS1 gamer of yore. These are generally expected user experience aids in this day and age and the lack of them usally results in negative feedback/lower reviews (and subsequently, lower sales).

Goddamn it. I wish this wasn't true, but it is.

Ugh, did they have to say handholding? Anyway, if this is about Resident Evil 6, then it makes perfect sense. Post RE0 games are just plain a different genre from the first few entries in the series.

Fixed for you, since you're too dense to remember certain games.

[gunswordfist]

The reality is that some of the things you're asking about (objective markers/directional aids, limited save/typewriter ribbons) are issues of accessibility. In today's market, the broader market really demands and requires a bit more handholding than the PS1 gamer of yore. These are generally expected user experience aids in this day and age and the lack of them usally results in negative feedback/lower reviews (and subsequently, lower sales).

Goddamn it. I wish this wasn't true, but it is.

Ugh, did they have to say handholding? Anyway, if this is about Resident Evil 6, then it makes perfect sense. Post RE0 games are just plain a different genre from the first few entries in the series.

Fixed for you, since you're too dense to remember certain games.

That's because I never played it.

[Foggle]

Gamers, man.

[gunswordfist]

Gamers, man.

Well if there really wasn't that much post game content, then I think that's a valid complaint but lol @ saying 70 hours is not enough.

[Foggle]

This is an actual post on Bioware's own forums:

But I cannot give my full support to a developer that is as lazy as Bioware. Bioware is not a AAA developer, because they always fall short in the same areas every single time, and they don't seem to care about addressing the issues.

And there are many more like this. Bioware "fans" are fucking crazy.

[gunswordfist]

Who doesn't fall short in some areas?  If not being the Holy Perfection means you suck then Bioware sucks ass.

[Dr. Ensatsu-ken]

I hate when gamers complain about REALLY trivial things. I can understand nitpicking to a certain degree, which I do myself, but what I hate is when modern gamers refer to really small things as if they are big problems that absolutely need to be addressed.

Case in point: Recently I was reading a review of Ninja Gaiden Sigma Plus for the PSV, and the reviewer devoted an entire paragraph complaining about the game doesn't auto-save after levels and instead forces you to utilize save points manually to save your progress....is that really even a flaw? I mean, I know auto-saving is a convenience that we are used to from most modern games, but are gamers these days just too fucking lazy to take 2 seconds to manually save their progress? I would like to point out that in NG1/B/S there is a save statue nearby at the start of every level in the game (with the exception of the first level in which case you don't need to save when you just start out the game, obviously). All it takes at most is a few seconds to walk over to the nearest save statue when a level starts and save your progress. Is it really worth noting that as a serious complaint against the game?

Also, I dislike when gamers give negative reception on ports/remakes of old games and call them dated JUST because they are old. I can understand saying that about them if their mechanics really fell ancient, but I hate it when a review says that the game feels dated in comparison to modern competition in the genre, but then offer up next to no explanation of just what hasn't aged well about the game. In that case I have to assume that they are simply just saying something as narrow-minded as "this game is old so its not as good as newer games." That's really all there is to it, half the time, which really pisses me off. I noticed this being said in another NGS+ review, but no real details were offered as to just what aged poorly about the game (all that was said was that it doesn't boast the visual fidelity of games like God of War 3 and Bayonetta....to which I have to say no shit, its an 8 year old game). For the record the new Uncharted game for the PSP has a 7-hour campaign mode and most critics say it has little replay value and no multiplayer to occupy players after the campaign mode, yet NGS+ gets more reserved review scores (they are still positive, though) because its an older game, despite the fact that its jam-packed with content and replay value (which very few reviewers even bothered to mention).

[Spark Of Spirit]

Yes I remember having to argue with someone on TZ because they expected Perfect Dark to be a modern shooter experience. My argument was that it was made a decade ago, that's patently impossible. It's like playing DOOM and expecting CGI cutscenes- you're missing the point expecting games that were made a long time ago to have features we have now.

It's not like these games could see into the future and adapt accordingly, you have to keep your expectations relative to the time period. If you can't do that, it isn't the game's fault.

I also have to be the only person in the world that still pauses the game and instinctively saves (or finds a save point) before I turn my system off regardless of whether autosave exists or not, so that's a silly complaint.