In your opinion, what aspect of a video game do you despise most?

[wonderings]

I agree with you @wonderings that RDR2 is an absolute masterpiece and that the ROI that Rockstar got was absolutely worth it, but the money needs to be put upfront for the development and I think that's the problem for many studios. They can't spent a billion dollars on production and develop for 8 years on a game.

Suckerpunch has decently balanced their two Ghost games between budget/development time and the quality and I get @MisterSavage when he says it felt AAA. I absolutely loved those two games. Platinum trophy on both and waiting for the free Legends DLC for Yotei.

And Ubisoft... They've embraced quantity over quality several years ago but I hope their dropping sales these last years are a wake up call. Personal examples: I absolutely loved the first Far Cry games. Got the platinum trophy on those. And I didn't even finish Far Cry 6 with it's bloat content everywhere... Same story for Assassin's Creed. I didn't even buy Shadows, where Odyssey was a no-brainer pre-order for me after the masterpiece that Origins was. I'll get it eventually, when it's at €20 or so.

I have not played the older Far Cry games, first one I ever played was pretty recent I think, it was sit in the US with some cult that had taken over. I enjoyed that game despite it being first person only in view. Definitely kept me engaged and found plenty to do in the small open world.

I feel very differently on Ubisoft, I think all the good ended with Black Flag which was the most fun of all the AC games with the introduction of ship battles. I think it was the British one with the twins after and it felt very limiting on what you could do. Voice acting has been getting worse and worse in the series as well and think Ezio might have been the best of the best throughout that whole characters journey. I did not like Odyssey or Origins, own them both but felt like it was all over the place, at least with Odyssey. Before I knew it I was done the story mode and it felt very anti climatic. I also did not like the leveling in Odyssey, felt like there was never a benefit to leveling up as the baddies did the same. There is something fun with you are a little over powered then your enemies. I had the Ubisoft gamepass for a month to play Shadows. I found it to be the most fun AC game I have played in a while, I liked the variation of fight styles between the 2 characters. It does pale though to. Yoti. Games are both very similar but Yoti is just so much better in every way with story telling and visuals and the fighting styles.

 

[MisterSavage]

I feel very differently on Ubisoft, I think all the good ended with Black Flag which was the most fun of all the AC games with the introduction of ship battles.

I hope they do a remaster of that one. Black Flag was one that I missed.

 

[wonderings]

I hope they do a remaster of that one. Black Flag was one that I missed.

Yeah would love that remastered for the PS5. I was surprised that they did not actually continue on with that character or location. I remember everyone loving it when it came out. Some people did not even like Assassins Creed games but loved the ship battles and all that. Really was/is an amazing game.

 

[MisterSavage]

Yeah would love that remastered for the PS5. I was surprised that they did not actually continue on with that character or location. I remember everyone loving it when it came out. Some people did not even like Assassins Creed games but loved the ship battles and all that. Really was/is an amazing game.

I remember it was during a console transition and I wanted to play it on the newer gen. Then it got lost in the shuffle for me.

 

[delsoul]

Microtransactions and season passes

 

[Nermal]

Games that make you sit through the studio's name, copyright notice, epilepsy warning, partner logos, etc. every single time you start the game. If that nonsense must be there then put it after "new game", not before the main menu.

 

[mattspace]

I’m kind of in the same boat with Ubisoft — Far Cry 5 was fun and kept me busy, but it definitely felt like a one-off rather than something that pulled me into the older games. I also agree about AC peaking around Black Flag and Ezio; the newer RPG-style entries just feel bloated and oddly unsatisfying

ironically FC5 is one half of a two game story - the sequel post-apocalyptic game is pretty good in of itself (and a great example of using the whole buffalo for game assets).

very few games approach the brilliance of Far Cry 2, however.

 

[Taustin Powers]

ironically FC5 is one half of a two game story - the sequel post-apocalyptic game is pretty good in of itself (and a great example of using the whole buffalo for game assets).

very few games approach the brilliance of Far Cry 2, however.

I would love a remaster or remake of Far Cry 2!! Even with its flaws, it was such a great experience!

 

[ScanTheNavian]

For me, it has to be filler.

I was really enjoying TLOU 2, then all of a sudden I’m having to slog through an open world area, to find some gas.

Completely killed the momentum for me.

Related to that I hate needlessly huge open worlds. Tears of the Kingdom was especially egregious in this regard. Just running and running and running. It was a breath of fresh air playing Echoes of Wisdom with its compact world and respect for the player's time. I felt like I got more out of playing it for half an hour than I got from 2 hours of TotK.

 

[delsoul]

Related to that I hate needlessly huge open worlds. Tears of the Kingdom was especially egregious in this regard. Just running and running and running. It was a breath of fresh air playing Echoes of Wisdom with its compact world and respect for the player's time. I felt like I got more out of playing it for half an hour than I got from 2 hours of TotK.

I don’t mind huge open worlds, I just despise when they won’t give you fast travel options. Most games are pretty about it but there’s some that make you hoof it from one side of a world to the other and it’s really just ridiculous. Not everyone has 30+ minutes just to walk somewhere. It’s a big reason I stopped playing death stranding. I got tired of playing errand boy and spending unnecessary time walking everywhere

 

[ScanTheNavian]

I don’t mind huge open worlds, I just despise when they won’t give you fast travel options. Most games are pretty about it but there’s some that make you hoof it from one side of a world to the other and it’s really just ridiculous. Not everyone has 30+ minutes just to walk somewhere. It’s a big reason I stopped playing death stranding. I got tired of playing errand boy and spending unnecessary time walking everywhere

Yeah, that's true, I was happy Tsushima had it. But then there's games like Red Dead Redemption 2 where I didn't use fast travel a single time and honestly wished the world would have been even larger with the same amount of content. No other game has made me ride and walk the whole game and even left me wanting more.

Sure, it's in a league of its own and you can't expect other companies to do that with less than 1/10 of its budget, but it should be possible in a smaller scale too. A purely perfect gameplay loop combined with an atmospheric and living world. I honestly hope Nintendo goes smaller scale and tries to nail that magic with Hyrule. Less scale, more quality.

 

[MisterSavage]

I don’t mind huge open worlds, I just despise when they won’t give you fast travel options.

that's why i've been hesitant to try dragon's dogma.

 

[The Cockney Rebel]

that's why i've been hesitant to try dragon's dogma.

I enjoyed that game, on PS3.

 

[mw360]

I might be in a minority, but this seems like a good place to drop this rant.

Cutscenes. Free speech was a fine experiment but no, cutscenes should be criminalised. I used to work in cutscene animation a long time ago and one thing seems not to have changed, and that's how cutscene writers just love the clackety clack of their own keyboards. They all think they're Tarantino, or more recently Tony Gilroy. While real screenwriters have to fit their scenes into a run-time, game writers seem to be writing just to fill a ten minute void, producing rambling, first-draft cargo-cult monologues that poorly and glacially imitate movie scenes for no good reason, while somebody sits on the edge of the sofa, controller in hand, wanting to play their new game.

I have the Xbox subscription thing which should be great for diving into games to see which ones I like but they all start SO slow now. And not just slow because there's a cutscene, but slow because the cutscene itself also starts slow with some 'cinematic' yawning reveal of something (or often nothing.) We're not a cinema audience, we're not captive and immobile and you don't need to pique our curiosity with some lame directing cliches. We're already extremely curious - curious what the actual game is going to be like.

I'm guilty of all these sins myself because back then I didn't know what I was doing, just blindly copying movies for kudos, but it's still going on. Just the same keyboard diarrhoea, the same cliches, the same pretentiousness and, god help me, those super-annoying end-of-sentence...... pauses. It's not clever, dude, you just made us wait for exactly the word we knew they were going to say.

So yeah, just that. Talk about keyboard diarrhoea, sorry, just had to say it.

 

[The Cockney Rebel]

I might be in a minority, but this seems like a good place to drop this rant.

Cutscenes. Free speech was a fine experiment but no, cutscenes should be criminalised. I used to work in cutscene animation a long time ago and one thing seems not to have changed, and that's how cutscene writers just love the clackety clack of their own keyboards. They all think they're Tarantino, or more recently Tony Gilroy. While real screenwriters have to fit their scenes into a run-time, game writers seem to be writing just to fill a ten minute void, producing rambling, first-draft cargo-cult monologues that poorly and glacially imitate movie scenes for no good reason, while somebody sits on the edge of the sofa, controller in hand, wanting to play their new game.

I have the Xbox subscription thing which should be great for diving into games to see which ones I like but they all start SO slow now. And not just slow because there's a cutscene, but slow because the cutscene itself also starts slow with some 'cinematic' yawning reveal of something (or often nothing.) We're not a cinema audience, we're not captive and immobile and you don't need to pique our curiosity with some lame directing cliches. We're already extremely curious - curious what the actual game is going to be like.

I'm guilty of all these sins myself because back then I didn't know what I was doing, just blindly copying movies for kudos, but it's still going on. Just the same keyboard diarrhoea, the same cliches, the same pretentiousness and, god help me, those super-annoying end-of-sentence...... pauses. It's not clever, dude, you just made us wait for exactly the word we knew they were going to say.

So yeah, just that. Talk about keyboard diarrhoea, sorry, just had to say it.

Wow.

I love your energy!

Personally, I love the story aspect of a game, so cutscenes don't bother me.

Pleased you could get it off of your chest (PS: What you playing at the moment?)

 

[MisterSavage]

I enjoyed that game, on PS3.

A friend of mine practically begged me to play it back then but it never made it to the top of my queue. 😬

 

[mw360]

Wow.

I love your energy!

Personally, I love the story aspect of a game, so cutscenes don't bother me.

Pleased you could get it off of your chest (PS: What you playing at the moment?)

What triggered me was the opening scene in Star Wars Outlaws just last weekend - just devastating pointlessness. Currently I'm playing Pacific Drive which I absolutely love for its atmospheric balance of 95% cosy / 5% abject panic. Also, iirc no cutscenes, all plot is in-game dialogue while you're actually playing.

I share a house with somebody who lives for the cutscenes so I'm sanguine about, y'know... him going to jail too.

Though if I may rant on his behalf, why do so few games have easy play/pause/rewind control for cutscenes? He absolutely loses his mind after slogging through the actual game part, only to get to a monumental cutscene just as someone walks in the room with some loud conversational gambit. The assumption that we're alone and rapt and not under any external pressure for the next unknowable amount of time is pretty weird and annoying.