10 Ways to Ruin a Video Game
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We have all played games plagued with tons of issues making us wonder why the developers put it in the game in the first place. From design choices to technical issues, what is it that ruins a game for us gamers?
Most of the games on this list are still good, some even awesome games. However they are being kept away from perfection due to the reasons on this list.
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10) Pacing Issues
Offender: Dragon Age Origins
We have all played games with pacing issues. It might be a minor issue but playing the game at such a wonky pace and going from action to story at wrong times can really take the gamer out of the experience.
9) Lack of Innovation
Offender: Call of Duty/Medal of Honor
I don’t know how many times I’ve played the same variation of shooter under a different title. The shooter genre is so stale that creativity is just not seen in these games. I’m tired off playing the same serious war game with the same serious story with the same boring focus on multiplayer. Games like Bulletstorm have tried to spice it up, but these games are not for everyone.
8- Bad Story/Plot Holes
Offender: Modern Warfare 2
I love games with good stories and hate games with bad stories. Games which that are littered with plot holes or based around the same old cliché story (Resistance anyone?) can barely manage to get past a 7/10 review in my books.
Games such as Modern Warfare 2 are filled with these kinds of issues
7) Bad Level Design
Offender: The Saboteur
Level Design is one of the critical aspects in making sure that we get the best experience possible out of out games. Games like Demon’s Souls excel in this aspect. On the other hand, games such as The Saboteur do terrible. I really don’t want to walk around the same castle looking at the bland colors and the uncluttered area. It makes it feel like the developers left a big gap in developing the game.
6) Ditching the First Game
Offender: Crysis 2
When you create a sequel, typically you want to stay true to the first game, which made the franchise so great. Games such as Crysis 2 are prime examples. I loved Crysis 2 as much as the next guy but Crysis 1 and Crysis Warhead really held a special spot in my heart. So as you can imagine, I was quiet frustrated when Nomad and Psycho didn’t even get a mention in Crytek’s latest game.
5) Repetition
Offender: Assassins Creed
Play a mission, play a different mission and then rinse and repeat the same mission over, and over again. Games like Assassins Creed (The 1st game) which only have 4 different missions and force you to replay these multiple times, really took a hit in the review department. If there is a good variety in mission chose you can expect gamers to be much more happy as they are not repeating the same redundant task over and over.
4) Glitches
Offender: Any Large Scale Sandbox Game/GTA 4
Glitches plague many games across almost every genre and when you get a game that is real polished, its a nice treat. We have all played those games which we can barely make it through because of all the glitches. While it is to be expected in huge sandbox games such as Fallout or The Elder Scrolls it is annoying when smaller, linear games have more issues rendering them unplayable. So this is a message for all developers out there…TEST YOUR GAMES!
3) On Disc-DLC
Offender: Soul Caliber 4/Dragon Age
Something that really annoys us gamers is when developers create content for a game and then remove it at the last second and charge users to play it. A prime example of this is in both Dragon Age games where we are forced to pay for content that was purposely removed from the game. So devs, if you are making a game keep all the content on disc and make sure it’s all unlocked. Its understandable if you wanted to keep few things locked for pre-orders sake (Mortal Kombat) but please don’t make me pay 10$ for something that you should have already included.
2) Bad Servers
Offender: UFC 2010/Killzone 2
Many gamers buy games just to play online with their friends or random people across the world. I do not usually play online but you can feel my frustration when I lag out on the games I want to play online. Many sport games are haunted by this issue just because they are using GameSpy servers (If you ever played UFC online you know what I mean) It is especially annoying when games that do not have lots of traffic lag out while games like Call of Duty with millions of players online at a time do exceptionally fine.
1) Broken Mechanics
Offender: S.T.A.L.K.E.R/Fable 2
Like glitches, Broken Mechanics in games can effectively ruin a game. Game which show that no time went into the QA sessions are simply not worth playing. If you advertise your game as an Epic RPG adventure why does it not play that way?
Broken Mechanics galore! being an RPG is not an excuse
Next Generation Reviews (NGR) 
Good list
Good list…
Number 6 was not thought out. Grand theft auto games are bad because they don’t retain the characters from the first game? It’s the opposite. Sequels that mindlessly rehash the same game (e.g. zelda, mario) and characters and world show a lack of imagination. GTA4 wasn’t particularly glitchy either, certainly not on bethesda’s level, and openworld games are a lot harder to make. The reason valve games don’t have as many (though they do have them) is because they’re shallow, linear and short. For bad servers you can list any console game. Really amateur written article, nothing insightful. You say saboteur has bad level design and demon souls has good, but why? I have no idea. It seems to be just your biased opinion. FFXIII would be a better example. Why is MW2 picked on for bad story when most games are just as bad and MW2 is more of a multiplayer game than story game? Pick on mass effect 2, a game that tries hard at narrative but fails because of nonsensical plot and formulaic narrative choices.
Hey, Thanks for the comment and criticism its really nice when we actually get someone like you who actually has reason behind his criticism, thanks.
Number 2 was… not so great when you mentioned CoD. There are more than enough problems with a lack of dedicated servers on Black Ops, so much so to the point that the game can’t render trajectories live anymore. Fixes to lag cause more lag, and bring more trouble instead of prosperity and enjoyment.
Before you say “that’s your connection” I’m paying for 130 mbps, which is 16MB/s and 1GB/min. The fact that I have lag on Black Ops is ridiculous, and the fact that I’m never hosting is even more ridiculous.
Fair enough but in my opinion the COD servers are much better when compared to Killzone 3 Servers where I can barley get a game through 😦
I mean you can expect lag in basically any game but Killzone is just terrible.
Hmm, not too sure on The Saboteur…it’s a fairly close representation of Paris, so there’s probably other games which would fit that example better.
Never had a huge problem with KZ2, I think the worse problem nowadays is the P2P type of online gaming – all hosted by one player.
And whilst glitches are terrible if they’re game breaking, they can also be amusing as hell 😀
The Saboteur was fantastic. The uniqie graphical style and the views of paris were awesome. I wonder what game KingOfPenguins is mixing it up with. Because there was nothing wrong with the level design.