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I'm not just going to blanket bash all new ideas. I've seen a plenty of new stuff I like. But, there are some that are so incredibly misguided that I think whoever invented them, should be ashamed of themselves. So, let's talk about them here, mechanics you love to hate. Back in the day, there was exactly one "Press Something" message that we saw in just about every game, that being "Press Any Key to Continue". Well, some backwards thinking fool decided to take that to a whole new level of WTF?! and set the whole world ablaze with an idea seemingly tailor-made to create repetitive motion injury. "Press L Repeatedly, Now (0.8 sec) Press E!" - And, just when we've started to fight tunnel-carpal with keyboard and controller designs, someone introduces a whole new future filled with completely unnecessary (as narrative) button presses. Can you imagine Half-Life 2 with this mechanic? If every valve, crank and lever in the game game with "press x,x,x,x,x press e!"? What if every use of the gravity gun had a key pressing pump-up mechanic complete with power meter to send something flying within the game? A horror to be sure. (Breaks out into a terrible rendition of Sarah McLachlan's "I will remember you.") Oh yes... I'm going to call this one: Mission: Remind players that they are too stupid to understand choices, consequences and branching narratives. Thank you Telltale for popularizing this particular brand of "dumbing down". No really, it is catering to simpletons. I don't care what justification anyone has. This is a feature born and bred on play testers that just didn't get the idea that video game plots are not static like those of a novel. I personally find nothing more thought-interrupting than seeing the words "x will remember that" appear on my screen. Each and every iteration of this terrible, terrible idea throws itself as a monkey-wrench into the business of contemplation. Can you imagine the horror of these words: Deekins will remember what you say! Imagine many of your favorites with this, from Knights of the Old Republic to PS: Torment. What a terrible idea. Telltale, to their credit, put in a feature that allows the player to turn these messages off. But, even with that I can distinctly recall a video interview with the designers that explained that they had to go back and put "placebo" messages in the game so that it isn't so obvious to the player where major lines of consequences were rooted. I am also glad to see that some studios are fighting the good fight and have decided against to such nonsense. Sadly, some studios need to be reminded that the thoughtless adaptation of popular trends isn't always a good idea. So, what newfangled mechanics may you display bad-smell-kitty-face??