The Video Game Critic

eneuman96 wrote:The reboot of Tomb Raider including the ability to pause during cutscenes has made me wonder why in the hell this isn't standard protocol for games to allow.

THIS. Very much. Very much this. On a side note, the first Kingdom Hearts game got on my nerves for the exact opposite reason. You could pause the cutscenes, but not skip them. It was great at first, but then I would die and have to rewatch the cutscene... and then again... and then again. I can still quote a lot of the pre-boss battle scenes word for word just because of that. Riku and Maleficent's dragon... seriously, screw them!

Robotrek wrote:Unskippable dialogue. I don't give a damned about your story, let me enjoy the game.

I agree with some genres, but with others story is so integral to the experience that not even trying to follow events really affects your enjoyment of the game--Yakuza for example, which has not only excellent storytelling but gameplay experiences that tie directly into the events that are happening. If you skip the dialogue, it will seem like one moment you're fighting, the next you're driving a taxi, and the next you're talking to a hostess at a night club. It won't make any sense and likely won't hold your attention.

Lack of different difficulty levels. I would prefer to see a range from hand-holding easy to near-impossibly hard to cover all possible skill levels.

When playing God of War 2, for example, one second I'm absolutely OBLITERATING crap tons of enemies left and right, having the absolute time of my life, then not even 30 seconds later, BOOM, 3 minutes of unstoppable video. Why is this here? How about you let me CHOOSE to skip? If you are a story lover, then watch it. If not, skip it. The only time stories ever appealed to me was in adventure games, like Grim Fandango. Otherwise, uninterested. And even Grim Fandango lets you SKIP dialogue!

I hate it when you don't know if your progress has been saved, so you're afraid to shut off the game. Some games say "checkpoint reached" but that doesn't necessarily mean it saved. Some games used ambiguous icons. What's wrong with just displaying "saving..."???

Here's another one of mine: sliding tile puzzles. You know, those things where you have a 3x3 grid and the tiles make a picture, but one's missing and you have to slide the tiles around to make the picture right? I freaking hate those. They take me hours to figure out, and they always bring the action to a grinding halt. If there's a strategy to solving them, I've never been able to figure it out. All they're good for is to pad out a game. And I'm about 93% sure that there's nothing more rage inducing than to think you've finally got the puzzle solved, but then realize the last piece you need is on the other side of the board, so you have to screw the whole thing up again to fix it. Best example: Resident Evil 4. Yeah, a horro game about killing zombies and other disgusting mutants sounds like the PERFECT place for something like this, right?

Time limits. You're playing a game, then out of nowhere you have to go from point A to point B in 30 seconds or game over. Or flip a switch to open a door and having to rush over to it before it closes. While jumping over spiked pits, dodging fireballs, guillotines and 50 monsters. Just find it annoying sometimes.

I hate how Pokemon, 20 years on, still has only one save file. It forces people with siblings to get both versions of a game.

DaHeckIzDat wrote:Here's another one of mine: sliding tile puzzles. You know, those things where you have a 3x3 grid and the tiles make a picture, but one's missing and you have to slide the tiles around to make the picture right? I freaking hate those. They take me hours to figure out, and they always bring the action to a grinding halt. If there's a strategy to solving them, I've never been able to figure it out. All they're good for is to pad out a game. And I'm about 93% sure that there's nothing more rage inducing than to think you've finally got the puzzle solved, but then realize the last piece you need is on the other side of the board, so you have to screw the whole thing up again to fix it. Best example: Resident Evil 4. Yeah, a horro game about killing zombies and other disgusting mutants sounds like the PERFECT place for something like this, right?

Hahaha. Yes, completely agree. Actually I ended up learning how to do slide puzzles because of RE4 but I hated it every step of the way (and I don't know I'd remember how anymore).

Monopolies. I was playing ESPN 2K5 tonight, and holy cow, what a game! Not-so-coincidentally, Madden '05 was fantastic. MLB 2K12 was terrible, but MLB 12: The Show was jaw-droppingly amazing. Why? Because of competition. Now that nobody is making a real baseball game anymore, The Show, while not terrible, is starting to get sloppy. And Madden, again, though not terrible, could be a heck of a lot better.

This, of course, is not to be confused with "Monopoly", which, in Herschie's opinion, was best on the NES. Psst! Go for the light-purples and oranges! Boardwalk is basically useless when you consider the cost of improving and the rarity of players landing on it. The oranges and light-purples tend to get landed on quite a bit, are relatively cheap to improve, and can get some good payouts if you have 3 houses or better.

I guess that segways into another thing I hate about video-game "Monopoly": Long-pointless animations. Just show me where I landed and what actions I can take! This tends to be more of a problem in more current versions. That's why I love the NES version, it's nice and streamlined. You can get a game in in like a half hour or less!