Biggest nonsense you've ever seen from a game.

[Enoch]

I don't know about "biggest nonsense" ("All your base..."), but here are some design decisions in relatively recent games that made me slap my forehead in frustration:

 

 

Arcanum: Ridiculously awful skill/ability balance. Completely dumbassed experience system.

 

Fallout 2: Stupid pop culture references.

 

Rome: Total War: The Egyptians. Ridiculously powerful far beyond what history would suggest.

 

Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri:

. Makes no sense for the game to have a great project that completely shuts down the "probe" (a.k.a. spying) element of the game.

[Pidesco]

The stupid pop culture references in F2 were awesome. Awesome I say!

[Deadly_Nightshade]

I never had that much trouble with the Friendly Arm Inn assassin either, but then again I usually backstapped him and retreated until the guards calmed down.

 

Getting back on topic, the names of some of the Age of Mythology Pharaohs was annoying - for instance I once got the mighty Pharaoh "Bubba Joe," and yes I can post a screenshot of that if needed*.

 

 

 

 

*Although not tonight, I would have to find the right back-up disk first.

[WITHTEETH]

In defense of Oblivion there are many mods to help the leveling process like Fransecos and the OOO Mod. Also mods to control the gates.

[Tigranes]

For about the first year and a half after Oblivion came out, none of the mods were doing enough to balance the game out. Some were incomplete in their implementation as of that time; others' solutions became new problems, such as massive mobs of poorly equipped bandits that really showcased why Oblivion's Radiant AI can't handle more than 5 people in a small place, and so forth. I am sure they are much better now, but that meant that the crucial time period in which I wanted to play the game, I wasn't getting any satisfaction. This isn't to blame the mods, I know how hard it is to make a good mod and how long it takes. The blame has to be laid at the very stupid design decision made by the devs (and one they have never admitted to, either).

 

I liked Pharaoh Bubba Joe in AOM, actually. It was a pretty silly game to begin with.

[Deadly_Nightshade]

I liked Pharaoh Bubba Joe in AOM, actually. It was a pretty silly game to begin with.

 

Yeah, I guess you're right. It was the game with the Canadian Bear-man and the Flying Purple Hippo .

Edited March 25, 2008 by Deadly_Nightshade

[Krookie]

Call of Duty on Veteran with unlimited spawn points for enemies.

 

Seriously, what the f***? I can't even play strategically by picking off the enemy from afar because they won't stop spawning until I cross some damn invisible magic line that must cut off the reserves of Nazis they have locked in the basement.

[samm]

Epic level stuff in BG2, especially TOB. Slightly less ridiculous in NWN2:MOTB, but still strange to fight against Nightwalkers as normal opponents, and all the usual gnolls and bandits being Lvl20+... Also, Shandra dying after always getting up after a fight ended before.

 

About 'Werewolf': The one in Bloodlines was awesome! Kept me running and sweating until the time was over. The one in The Witcher looked horribly bad (Why? They did have a cool looking fur simulation for Yaevinn's clothes, for example), but the sequence was fun. So which one was meant by that?

[Pop]

Epic D&D is always ridiculous, but to tell the sort of stories that require epic content you have to leave your skills as a logician at the door.

 

How about returning frost darts?

[Qwerty the Sir]

I remember playing Mortal Kombat III with my friends! We thought we were such superpimps when we beat Motaro and then Shao Khan. :D

 

As for Tarnesh, I'm on my second go through of the game so I had leveled up and gotten superior weaponry by the time I met Tarnesh, but the first time he was really a hard fight. I ended up using Xzar and Montaron as decoys for the spells and waited till he engaged in hand to hand with me. It was a very hard fight (on par with the Sarevok fight) but it wasn't a gamebreaker for me.

[Tigranes]

Yeah, I guess you're right. It was the game with the Canadian Bear-man and the Flying Purple Hippo .teehee.gif

 

Trivia: The Flying Purple Hippo made it into the game out of a forum joke about the FPH which turned into the first Age of Mythology clan in the world. The FPH Clan exists to this day (Yeah, I'm in it) and the Hippo also made it into AOE3.

 

As for difficult fights that made me pull my hair out, I remember that half-dragon lady in the Ice Caves of IWD2, ah, Sherincal. She had really good AC and BAB from what I recall, hitting my tanks and getting away with it, with decent MR to boot. It's just one of those D&D battles where you neither have the firepower to gung-ho it or sit out the whole thing. I'm sure others have beaten her with ease, but it just seemed to get me.

[H]

VtM: Redemption - making a Diablo clone when you have a WoD license.

[jaguars4ever]

I'll be surprised if any of know what I'm talking about, but in the Freelancer clone "DarkStar One", there's this one mission affectionately known as Flak Mission 2.

 

O M F G - it's teh no. 1 pure ass WTF gaming moment of all time.

 

It's so disproportionately hard, that anyone short of phenomenon hand-eye dexterity will not be able complete it. The stupid thing is that it's one of those crappy turret levels ala KotOR which they thrust upon you, and the gaming is COMPLETELY different from what you would've experienced until then (with the exception of Flak Mission 1 which was easy).

 

Fortunately, I managed to complete it after much frustration at around the 12-15th attempt after watching a video of it being done.

 

It's actually so bad, that the developers opened up a thread at their forum where users would send in their SAVE GAME, so the developers would "beat it" and then send it back after that level.

 

I bet that thread probably still exits.

[Meshugger]

In defense of Oblivion there are many mods to help the leveling process like Fransecos and the OOO Mod. Also mods to control the gates.

 

True, i didn't touch Oblivion again until i heard about the OOO-mod.

[Oerwinde]

One thing that irks me in the Godfather game is how no matter what car you have, enemy cars are always faster and able to run you off the road. Also, having a gang war with a family that you've eliminated, dying, and the non-existent family has bombed 9 of your businesses while you were out.

[mkreku]

Oh yeah, rubber-band AI in racing games!! That's something that can make me throw the controller (I always play racing games on consoles) through the TV!

 

When I make a huge mistake in a racing game, so much so that I get stuck in a fence for like a minute or so, and then return to the track only to find that the other cars have stopped and waited for me.. talk about immersion killer! And not to mention when you've done a completely perfect race, you've beaten the track record by several seconds.. and then you're passed on the finish line by a GROUP of cars rubber-banding behind you.. Everyone beating the old records just because YOU did it.. Holy crap, I get angry just writing about it. :bat:

[SteveThaiBinh]

I'll be surprised if any of know what I'm talking about, but in the Freelancer clone "DarkStar One", there's this one mission affectionately known as Flak Mission 2.

I know the one you mean. That took me ages, well over twenty retries, and there was a lot of luck involved in the one time I managed to scrape through it.

[Mulatdood]

Not having save points before bosses in Ninja Gaiden.

 

Final Fantasy XII's skill sytem. When I was playing FFXII I would buy skills that I couldn't use because

 

1. You have to buy a licence that nobody sells in order to use the skill.

2. You have to buy an Item that nobody sells in order to use the skill.

 

 

So the only things on the skill board thing that you could use were the power ups that were around. I quit shortly after eleven hours in.

 

The Item based skill gains in Final Fantasy Tactics Advance. Your ability to gain new skills was based on if the shop keeper managed to get a new item in since you gained your last skill, which stunted skill growth.

 

When talking about pure nonsense one must suggest the ending of Indigo Prophecy.

[Musopticon?]

Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri:

. Makes no sense for the game to have a great project that completely shuts down the "probe" (a.k.a. spying) element of the game.

IIRC that secret project was introduced fairly late into the development to help with one faction which had a horrible probe value(Gaians?).

 

Not that it was a good design decision, that is.

 

 

Probably the worst design idiocy I've ever encountered has got to be either:

 

a)Oblivion's level scaling, everything scales to your level, except it isn't to your level but some arbitrary power level a developer or a tester has thought sufficient, which means around 80% ALL character builds are gimped and cannot survive after level 10. Fortunately, Shivering Isles didn't suffer so much from this. I pray every day for Fallout 3.

 

b)Save point system past the year 2002, we have hard drives in consoles as of -02 and Xbox, so why the ****ing hell? Why does every darn jrpg force me to track back to save point every time I want to just stop playing for a while? Genre traditions? Eat a ****.

 

c)Defender bonuses in (old)Civ games. I really don't want my battlecruiser to be killed by a smathering of archers and men in lion pelts, just because they happen to have favorable terrain and city walls. Call to Power anyone?

 

d)End bosses and autosaves: Hello FarCry and helicopter battle on a sinking freighter! That game had the most inconsistent difficulty level ever anyway, though.

Edited March 25, 2008 by Musopticon?

[aries101]

If anyone of you can remember the now vey old King's Quest games, I simply hated the slly ways you could die in these games. As Ken?, the head guy for the now closed Sierra Studios, used to be a music teacher, there had to be two-three music puzzles in each King's Qust game. It was really annoying - especially since I'm sort of tonedeaf and I'm also a bit colorblind which meant I really sighed when I saw yet again one toneslider puzzle with colors in another King's Quest game.

 

Then there's the safe puzzle in Shivers 2 - very annoying - and partly responsible for me never finishing that game...

[Zoma]

Doom 3 darkness, flashlight excuse.

 

Stupid design decision ever and the stupidity gets carried over to its expansion pack when they have the chance to redeem themselves.

[Moatilliatta]

Doom 3 darkness, flashlight excuse.

 

Stupid design decision ever and the stupidity gets carried over to its expansion pack when they have the chance to redeem themselves.

Doom 3 is the only game that I have quit in under thirty minutes, I still can't believe how much iD screwed that one up.

[Oerwinde]

I remember in a lot of older RPGs I would always get frustrated at the various castle levels because they were giant mazes. I remember yelling multiple times "WHO WOULD LIVE IN THIS!!?"

[Tigranes]

More to the point, who locks their grapes in the bedside drawers, then traps it with a lethal thingamagick?!

 

Free trapped grape to whoever gets the reference first.

[Shryke]

Making worms 3D, bad move period.

 

i agree wholeheartedly

 

i still have affectionate memories of playing a worms world party "tournament" with a whole bunch of friends, and being crowned the "god of worms"

 

34 games and not a single loss