Video game Clichés that drive you NUTS!

[captcalhoun]

one shot kills . . . in the foot (I'm lookin' at you Goldeneye)

see also Delta Force: Land Warrior, Delta Force: Task Force Dagger, Delta Force: Xtreme and probably DF1 and 2 as well..

and not just in the foot, but the leg, arm and hand too...

missions where i'm a badass commando and i'm sent to destroy some enemy base or something and in real life they'd just blow the place up with a well-placed air-strike or at the least they'd provide you with some frickin air cover from a chopper.

yes, Delta Force series i'm looking at you. particularly DF:TFD.

oh, and 'i'm a badass commando train in Close-Quarters Battle, but to actually stand a chance of getting through the mission alive I must snipe every enemy from 800m away with my M-4 Carbine.' DF:TFD and DF:LW in particular.

 

[-Brett-]

Not so much video game as sci-fi, although it was one of the things that irritated me about Mass Effect: Interchangeable use of "race" and "species". They're not the same thing. I was at a bookstore a while ago, and overheard a small group talking about Star Trek. Every other sentence was "this race is smart" or "this race is violent" or "this race is greedy". It made me think about how I'd see it if I wasn't a sci-fi geek myself. It'd probably sound like a god damn Klan meeting.

Another one courtesy of ME: Dialogue options that lead to exactly the same thing. KOTOR had this a little too, but at least they usually managed a slight variation. In ME, there are times when your character will say exactly the same thing no matter what option you choose. I almost think ME would have been better if they'd followed the Halo or Gears route and abandoned all pretense at an RPG.

Ridiculously dark environments also irritate me. Maybe it's the 360's emulation, since I've never seen anyone else complaining about this, but I thought Halo 2 was virtually unplayable because I could barely see anything. It was even worse as the Arbiter, since he doesn't even have the 30 second flashlight the OP mentioned. I liked 1 and 3 a lot, but after finishing the campaign once, I never touched 2 again.

 

[Hoser]

Fed Ex quests. Hate them. Nobody spends hours leveling up their warrior, making armour from the remains of their kills, and finding the deadliest fellblade because they have the deepest desire to walk two blocks down to ask Mr. Johnson if he has any juniberries left.

 

[Bob The Skutter]

True, true. Anyone that hasn't already checked out Zero Punctuation needs to click on that link right away, and then spend the next hours of your life going through his archives. Some truly hilarious stuff there.

And I find that even when I like the game, I can't help but agree with what he's saying about it.

 

[rType]

one shot kills . . . in the foot (I'm lookin' at you Goldeneye)

Goldeneye was one of the first FPS games that didn't do this. Rare implemented location specific damage modelling into the game rather than having a shot to the head equal a shot to the chest equal a shot to the shin as was the norm for FPS games at the time. The only way an NPC or Player dies from a single shot to the foot in GE is if you've turned on "License to Kill" in which case everything is a 1-shot kill, or if you're using the Golden Gun. I'm not sure how you've managed to become confused on this point, the whole "shoot them in the foot and they hop around in pain for a while before going for their guns" thing was a big deal at the time.

 

[gh4chiefs]

Same thing (used to) happen in Sports games... where your players suddenly suck even though they've been great for 3/4 of the game.

Oh I remember that with more than one of the incarnations of Madden. The computer would always find a way for your team to lose at then end of the game (fumble, interception, penalty, 60 yard FG ) UNLESS you had completely blown the other team away.

Long cutscenes. Long, unskippable cutscenes just before segments which you'll likely have to replay repeatedly.

Indeed those are awful and when you combine them with some missions design such as in GTA or Saints Row where you have to drive half way across the map just to start the mission, only to get killed and to start the whole damned thing over again.

I really don't know what kind of sadistic mind came up with that crap.

 

[FordSVT]

Long cutscenes. Long, unskippable cutscenes just before segments which you'll likely have to replay repeatedly.

Indeed those are awful and when you combine them with some missions design such as in GTA or Saints Row where you have to drive half way across the map just to start the mission, only to get killed and to start the whole damned thing over again.

I really don't know what kind of sadistic mind came up with that crap.

Yes, unskippable cut scenes are annoying as hell. Force me to watch it once if you must, but I should not have to listen to the same five minutes of dialogue over and over again, especially before a boss battle or a hard part of the game I'm destined to die five times attempting.

And you'll be happy to know that GTA4 will allow you to take an "instant cab" to any mission you've played, and your cell phone will allow you to restart failed missions.

 

[backstept]

rpg games that have huge item inventories . . . no backpacks on player models

hammer space in general makes me ''


the whole main character 'amnesia' in the beginning of the story. you just KNOW that either
A. Your father is the villain.
B. You're a clone of some legendary warrior.
C. You were an experiment.
or
D. You will fulfill some sort of prophecy.

or a whole host of other revelations as you quest to regain your memories

 

[gh4chiefs]

And you'll be happy to know that GTA4 will allow you to take an "instant cab" to any mission you've played, and your cell phone will allow you to restart failed missions.

Finally! Thank God!

 

[Starbreaker]

Same thing (used to) happen in Sports games... where your players suddenly suck even though they've been great for 3/4 of the game.

Do you have fatigue turned off?

 

[Borjis]

someone mentioned switching the airlock in Jedi Knight II and watching the troops get sucked out. That was pretty cool.

another was the level with the ship that loses gravity, that was hella tough
to get through at times, but sometimes you could fly right through if you timed it right.

That was some innovation.