The Best Examples of Bad Game Design

[gcrussell1]

I can be an angry gamer. Nothing ticks me off more than being forced to repeat a section of a game over and over again because of the designers' laziness. After nearly breaking my controller and my hand (note to self - my apartment has concrete walls), I decided it would be much safer just to rant about these absurdities of game design.

This thread is therefore dedicated to all of those irritations that render otherwise good games either extremely frustrating or downright unplayable. I cordially invite everyone interested to add to this thread, as I only have a couple examples to offer this time around.

Metal Gear Solid

Spoiler:

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First of all, MGS has quite the laundry list of design flaws, especially in the battle systems (which are counterbalanced by predictable boss AI), but after 30 minutes of cursing, hitting things, and turning red in the face to beat Liquid Snake in the fistfight on top of Rex (that counter attack is absurd, by the way), I finally thought I was home free and ready to enjoy the ending with no further frustration. How wrong I was. I was immediately placed in the most irritating, clunkiest situation in the game - the Jeep escape. After losing all of your items and being given a single ration, you are immediately thrown into a room with three soldiers with FA-MAS AR's on your tail, while you have to wait for Meryl to start the Jeep. After either standing behind the jeep to prevent being shot (the soldiers can't see you standing next to a Jeep, fantastic AI there), or being shot a number of times and losing precious health, you jump onto the worst gun turret in all of video gaming. It moves slowly, takes five separate shots to kill one soldier, and jolts off target every time you are hit. That combined with the inability to change the vertical pitch on your own and the complete lack of perspective for aiming make this a huge pain in the ass, as you're bound to be shot a couple times while trying to locate your target. Once you get past the first couple checkpoints, you proceed to take on Liquid, who, to this point, has been blown up in two separate war machines, and was just thrown 50 feet onto cement with nothing but a pair of baggy pants to break his fall. Liquid proceeds to swerve three times as fast as your turret can turn, and then sits up to fire at you at some point on his swerving. You have to go through 4 increasingly frustrating iterations of this with very little reasonable possibility of giving as well as you get (though you have to do much better than that to win), until you finally win. Basically, you beat the game, and then Hideo Kojima says, "Wait, we're gonna throw the clunkiest possible battle at you with extremely limited mobility and next to no resources before we'll let you see the ending, and by the way, fuck you." Well Hideo, fuck you too.

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My other example isn't nearly as dramatic or specific.

Grim Fandango (and Escape from Monkey Island . . . )

First of all, Grim Fandango would be the best computer adventure game there is, period. So why isn't it? [several people in chorus] "Poor game design!"

Going against the trend of making all obtainable items noticable on the screen, the Grim Fandango team decided to go full 3D and essentially standardize the on-screen noticability of all items, obtainable and unobtainable. That's not too bad, it makes the game a little tougher, but in a legitimate way. The problem with Grim Fandango was the pure keyboard interface, eliminating the mouse and the ability to easily target objects. What followed was Manny stumbling his way through poorly designed and restrictive 3D environments searching for the next item to obtain or manipulate to keep things moving along. At times this wasn't a terrible issue, since some of the environments were open enough to permit relatively free exploration, but some screens, such as Manny's office and the casino, were far too cluttered and unmaneuverable to manage without seriously advancing one's personal Limit (of patience) Break meter. Thus, a game that is even still a beloved classic is rendered frustrating and seriously harmed in its playbility factor simply because of poor execution.

The floor is open, ladies and gentlemen. Choose your favorite game to curse at and throw a ball at the dunk tank . . .

[ID82]

http://www.cinemassacre.com/Movies/Nes_Nerd.html

The angry video game nerd can shine some more on this topic.

[Crono2000]

Beaten to it as always. AVGN speaks God's words. Although I'm still waiting for him to review Shaq Fu.

[Feanor]

Yeah, that jeep bit sure was clunky, but it's not like I every died on that part of the game. I don't think it's that bad.

I'll be unpopular though and unload one of my main grievances towards Valkyrie Profile. This was a game I desperately wanted to like but I can't say it's anything more than "good". I find it extremely frustrating that to unlock the proper A ending you have to do almost the complete opposite of what you're told. I wish you were given more than the tiniest inkling about how to go about getting the A ending instead of a FAQ being a near necessity.

Then there's Vagrant Story. Good god was combat annoying in this game. Was it actually possible to forge / create a half-decent weapon in this game on your first playthrough? That aside, the entire necessity to change weapons so often in this game was a real pain. You might be fighting a group of knights. Never mind that they're all the same "type" you still might require three different types of weapon to inflict any significant damage on them (which makes building decent affinities a further pain). Then there's Risk, which also pissed me off no-end. Surely the point of the game is to do as many links as possible? If so, why does the game penalise you for being good at linking and completely fuck up your accuracy?

Originally Posted by gcrussell1

Nothing ticks me off more than being forced to repeat a section of a game over and over again because of the designers' laziness.

Yeah, an aspect of FF XII angered me in this way. It's the fact that some Marks send you off to totally far out places only to make you have to walk all the way back again. Small complaint I know. But who remembers that late in the game Mark in the Sandsea where you have to go through the caverns to have that Bangaa fight? It was pain walking all that way, because the nearest crystal was miles off, and it was even more annoying to have to walk all the way back... Especially when the guy who gives you your reward turned up at the end of the fight. I would have enjoyed doing Marks much, much more if the game had cleverly just whisked you straight back to the poster once the Mark was defeated. Not a big thing to ask for but it would have been simple, and saved me yet more time just walking around that damn game. I could go on about gameplay annoyances in FF XII but I'll leave it there for the moment.

[Niai]

Silent Hill 4: The Room pissed me off. Saving Eileen from the hospital only to discover that the rest of the game was composed of returning to all of the places I'd already been to was pretty damn annoying.

[Amer]

Vagrant Story. Same reasons as above. Nothing else needs to be said about it.

I never have had any problems with the jeep sequence of metal gear, but meh.

Other than VS, I've not had terrible run ins with any other games, but then again I only buy certain titles and usually only after I've seen the reviews. Maybe I'm just easy to please.

[Vyers]

Starfox adventure.

"Hey Fox congratulations on mostly beating the game, now walk from one side of the earth to the other for no reason."

"Hey Fox, actually walk back to where you just came from."

"Fox, sorry we meant the OTHER side of the world. What? Arwing? No fuck that, you have boots for a reason."

Awful awful game.

[Paradoxed]

GTA missions were always horrible for having to repeat. Especially the long ones where you had to drive all over the country only to fail in the middle of nowhere and then drive back to the where the mission starts.

How hard was it for them to stick in "Would you like to replay?"

Sandbox games that don't have autosave function are also terrible in this day and age. I'd looking at you Saints Row.

Alot of Oblivion quests were the victim of lazy/shitty design. One worthy of note is the Fighters Guild quest where some of your peers are drunk and unruly. Then you have to go find them work, no problem there. Until...

"Sure I'll give them work, but I don't trust you. Bring me five ectoplasms."

"Fuck you."

*Xbox gets turned off.*

Geometry Wars. So addictive, but yet so frustrating. I would've enjoyed the game more than anything if it wasn't for sticking so many fucking enemies on the screen at one time to the point where moving is impossible and in all likeliness you're going to die.

[Goutetsu]

The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker

Spoiler:

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1) Making me pay thousands of Rupees (literally) to some ghey wannabe fairy guy just to advance the damn plot and get the last Triforce piece. 2) Making me fish for the vast majority of said Triforce pieces.

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[Wayne]

Vandal Hearts 2 [an utterly atrocious SRPG] had the brilliant innovation to make combat simultaneous turn-based, meaning that both you and the AI would punch in orders and then both would execute at the same time. Early on, this meant that you could guess where an enemy unit was going to attack, move there first, and attack the blank square where you're expecting them to move, and hit. This works pretty much for the entire game, up until you get to later battles with a lot of enemies who use magic and start cheating [knowing where you're going to move and taking that into account]. Given that the story sucked too, that's basically where I stopped playing. Never, ever play this game.

VH2 is the biggest offender (I've never gotten around to playing Vagrant Story, heh), but any game where you have to "break" it or die horribly qualifies too. The original VP basically worked like that, where you would fight battles with enemies whose attacks and Great Magics would wipe out your entire team unless you used Guts/Angel Curios... but if you did that, you were immortal anyway and couldn't really lose any more battles unless you horribly screwed up. I don't understand why the game is so legendary for its gameplay when that's not really very good.

My brother is a fan of the Shin Megami Torment PS2 games, and I've tried playing a few. No longer. SMT Nocturne... I almost can't fault the game's "design" because it's obvious none was ever really attempted; there's no effort to help pacing, balance ability acquisition, and more. It has the most intolerably boring game structure I've ever played since Monster Rancher 2. It is a monster rancher game, except with bizarre plot revelations every 5-10 hours interspersed with tedious dungeons, broken gameplay (team of Succubi get first turn, Dormina Naoki -> Eternal Rest = instant game over), random teammate acquisition (except for the "bonus" dungeons, where you can't recruit anyone at all), and so on. The Digital Dungeon Saga games are bad too, but I can at least understand why some people like them.

Even moreso than RPGs, 2D fighting games are big offenders. The "classics" (I tried to replay Art of Fighting 3 last year to try out Kasumi) are unplayable due to ancient control styles, and lazy porting ruined a few I actually liked (KOF Neowave is a decent competitive game-- I mean, that's all it is, heh-- but the X-Box port has terribly loose controls). Game balance is all over the board, too, and at tournament levels of play you'll see less than 33% of a roster being used, and frequently less than that (MvC2 has about six usable characters out of around 50, for example). These games still get lots of play, but that ratio of design utility would be intolerable in a genre that actually had meaningful competition like shooters and MMORPGs. About the only one I play anymore is KOF 2002, although 11 being announced for release and that other thread mentioning CPS3 emulation might help out.

If we included games that are still fun, but had major design flaws anyway; I think every single Bioware game would make the list. Say it with me: Force Lightning, Jade Golem, NWN Campaign Mode! Argh.

[Ashilyn]

Originally Posted by Feanor

I'll be unpopular though and unload one of my main grievances towards Valkyrie Profile. This was a game I desperately wanted to like but I can't say it's anything more than "good". I find it extremely frustrating that to unlock the proper A ending you have to do almost the complete opposite of what you're told. I wish you were given more than the tiniest inkling about how to go about getting the A ending instead of a FAQ being a near necessity.

As much as VP has grown on me in the last few months or so (I used to really hate the game, now it rates as "pretty darn good"), I completely agree with you. The handling of acquiring the different endings and the fact that there's nothing in game to tell you how to go about getting them is pretty damn idiotic. The game's broken combat system and really, really poor level design in over half the game's dungeons certainly doesn't help matters, at all. It's the story and character that really ultimately make that game good, because everything about it mechanically is just so poorly done.

Originally Posted by Wayne

The original VP basically worked like that, where you would fight battles with enemies whose attacks and Great Magics would wipe out your entire team unless you used Guts/Angel Curios... but if you did that, you were immortal anyway and couldn't really lose any more battles unless you horribly screwed up. I don't understand why the game is so legendary for its gameplay when that's not really very good.

Jesus, you ahve no idea how much that infuriated me when I went though the game

[Tenshi Kain]

Xenosaga II: Beyond Good and Evil to Just Plain Crap.

What a nightmare.

[Fincher]

The NES had all sorts of games with shitty design, even if Hydlide is the most famous. A Boy and His Blob and Dragon's Lair made me want to cry.

Vagrant Story was a pain in the ass, to be sure. The Resident Evil tank controls were always bad, and I don't understand how a good company like Capcom persisted with them for so long. And Silent Hill 2 was loaded with signs of incompetence. I'm pretty sure the rowboat was an attempt to make me die of boredom.

[Daigohji]

Originally Posted by Niai

Silent Hill 4: The Room pissed me off. Saving Eileen from the hospital only to discover that the rest of the game was composed of returning to all of the places I'd already been to was pretty damn annoying.

Spoiler:

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Definitely one of the most annoying cases of lazy design I can think of. Sure, it's traditional that the final area in a Silent Hill game will be a nightmarish mish-mash of rooms from previous locations, but in The Room you literally had to trawl through the whole game again. With an injured woman in tow. Who gets slower every time she's injured. And after that you'd get the shittiest ending because she was too badly injured. The other annoying thing about The Room was the doll. In a genre based around collecting every item you come across, no matter how bizarre, suddenly there's one random object that does nothing except make the game harder if you pick it up. And then you can't get rid of it.

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Argh, why can't I bring myself to sell that damn game?

[hitandmiss]

I actually enjoy the combat system of VP. VP exhibits all forms of nerdgasm fun when the special attacks are being animated and hearing awesome Pokemon voice actors breathing audio life via: "Divine Assault! Nibelung Velesti!" woohoo! I thought the plot was the mediocre aspect that really benefited from Luna's Heaven Requiem

Also, no trouble or angst here with MGS jeep scene. I believe there was unlimited ammo? It was really easy, since the only goal is to spray bullets on a semi-mobile target to prevent any damage to yourself.

Now, Fahrenheit (Indigo Prophecy in US) is the worst. game. ever. I think the majority of the people here who said only the final last 25% of the game sucked is giving it too much credit. Wow, so I had a sex scene. Big fucking deal. Everything is unresponsive! Press button at the right prompt to evade some flying furniture? Right, that is IF the keyboard command actually gets relayed to the software. This is a crap game that is basic on all counts, since that's what you will be doing in 90% of the game. Press button prompts and HOPES it pulls off. Man if I see David Cage anywhere near anything's credits - books, comics, films - I'm avoiding it like the plague. I heard console verson plays better but despite following all the rules of proper foreshadowing leading to a major plot revelation, this game bored the shit out of me with lame dialogue and shallow plot. That's the other 10%. Talking to a shallow cast who looks like they are asylum inmates, thanks to a low palette count which says "1st generation fugly psx game".

Avoid this game at all costs. Even if you get it as a gift, do yourself a favor and use the disc as a coaster please. There are much better ways to spend 20 hours. Like, flirting in a bar to score real sex.