10 Small Features That Made Video Games Worse | Screen Rant
It is hard to get every aspect of a game just right. Especially as games get bigger there is so much that goes into even the most straightforward of games. This is why even the greatest games can get one minor feature wrong.
Almost everyone has played a game that would have been excellent if it weren't for one annoying detail. This doesn't mean that the game is bad, in fact, most of the time they are still pretty great, but are dragged down by one small thing. While these features far from ruin their games, they do detract from them just slightly enough to be noticeable.
DOOM 3 was a huge shift for the franchise, moving away from the bombastic action to more claustrophobic survival horror. There are a few details that keep it from rising to the prestige of the other games, including a laughably short-ranged shotgun, but the most notable is during its reloads.
It is common knowledge that swapping weapons is quicker than reloading, but DOOM 3 takes away this trick by making reload animations completely uninterruptible. Once a gun has started to reload or runs out of ammo, players must sit through the entire animation before firing or even switching weapons. While it may add some tension, it is also an irritating feature for players to get the hang of.
Red Dead Redemption and its sequels are undoubtedly masterpieces and some of the most immersive gaming experiences around. There is one instance where this goes just slightly too far though where some missions are only available at certain times of the day.
While it is understandable that NPCs aren't going to just wait around 24/7 for the player, it can get annoying to reach a distant objective marker only to find that the mission will not be available for a few more in-game hours. There is certainly plenty to do in the game's massive open world and a rest option that can pass time quickly, but it can get tiresome to wait for a specific time when the mission will open up.
For a game targeted at children, Spongebob: Battle For Bikini Bottom was surprisingly difficult in its later stages. One thing that made it even harder was using one of Spongebob's signature abilities. The Bubble Bowl is learned early on and lets Spongebob throw a large bubble bowling ball, destroying enemies and obstacles in its path.
What makes the bubble bowl irritating is that Spongebob tiptoes forward while players are aiming it. Often this can have them creep into a range of an enemy or off of key buttons that they need to stand on to complete puzzles. Overall the game is still a great licensed game worth playing but does have its annoying moments.
Control is a great game that combines awesome telekinetic powers with enigmatic mystery. Over the game, players will come across numerous save points where they can take respite from the many eldritch monstrosities they will encounter. If a player dies, they are returned to the most recent save point.
Unfortunately, they will only start from the most recent save point, which could be anywhere about their current position. This is especially annoying during boss fights, as instead of just restarting the fight, players must wander through the halls to get back to where they were and sit through its introduction again. It is a very minor inconvenience, but an inconvenience nonetheless.
One of the more underrated Star Wars titles, Star Wars Bounty Hunter puts players in the boots of Jango Fett as he pursues the galaxy's most wanted. Players are given a jetpack and a huge array of weapons to complete their objectives, most of which lock on to targets when firing.
Where this falls short is when players try to lock on while using the jetpack. Since enemies can be anywhere about Jango, the camera will automatically turn to face them when locked on, which is used in the air and can completely throw off the flight direction and send Jango in the opposite direction he is trying to go. If players are not careful it is very likely that they will lose a few lives to being launched over a ledge when the controls suddenly reverse.
Cutscenes are integral parts of storytelling in most games, pushing the story forward or giving much-needed exposition. Sometimes though, people just want to be able to skip past them. Maybe they've played the game before or just want to get on with the action. Some games refuse to make that an option though, making players sit through every single minute of a cutscene.
Whether it is an unskippable intro to a difficult boss, a tedious conversation with an NPC, or an uncomfortably long and complex exposition dump, far too many games from Pokemon to Final Fantasy have fallen into this practice. A lot of hard work goes into cutscenes, but sometimes people just want to play the game.
Yes, most weapons and tools indeed wear down as they are used. Blades need to be sharpened to keep their edge and armor needs to be repaired to keep its integrity, but in a video game, this is a level of realism that occasionally goes a little too far.
The phenomenal Witcher 3 is a perfect example of this, with Geralt's weapons wearing down with every swing. Thankfully weapons will not break like in some other games, but they do lose a lot of their effectiveness. Weapon degradation is a love it or hates it mechanic, but one would think in a world full of magic that there would be ways to keep a sword sharp.
In both the film and the original book, Goldfinger's famous henchman Oddjob is a large and imposing foe. This is why it is even stranger that for the legendary N64 game Goldeneye, the developers decided to make Oddjob significantly smaller than any other character in the game.
He is short enough that he cannot be auto-aimed at like every other character, meaning that he has to be manually aimed at to hit. This gave Oddjob so much of an advantage that players even now still consider playing as him to be cheating. Goldeneye was one of the best games to play at a party, as long as nobody picked Oddjob.
One of the first things players will probably do in a great number of games is test out whether or not that game has fall damage. Most often, the answer is yes, and they will end up in a comical heap on the floor. While this is a necessary part of many games, some take it a little too far.
Case in point, Far Cry 3 and even 4. It is understandable in a game going for realism that players will take damage falling from heights, but it seems like Far Cry protagonists have some of the weakest ankles in gaming. Taking massive damage or dying instantly from a fall that would be inconsequential in most games is irritating every time. Thankfully, the games are still a lot of fun.
There is so much to see and do in the Mass Effect series that players will likely spend dozens of hours traipsing around the galaxy or chatting with crewmates. With so much to do and even the smallest choices having a possibly huge consequence, players won't want to lose any progress.
Unfortunately, the checkpoint system in the first game means that they are almost guaranteed to. Checkpoints are few and very far between, meaning that if players have not been manually saving, they are very likely to lose literal hours' worth of progress, from combat encounters to conversations to any items picked up along the way. The horrible checkpoints are a frustrating part of an otherwise phenomenal game.