Fads We Love To Hate
There’s a point when yesterday’s innovation becomes today’s over-used, highly obnoxious crap. Call it a fad, call it a momentary lapse in development judgment, but sometimes things just get a little out of hand and a neat characteristic of one game (deemed successful), soon reaches out, propagates, and enslaves the entire gaming world.
Everyone’s favourite cranky game blog, Sarcastic Gamer, nominated 5 fads that it felt were the worst offenders over the last decade. I absolutely agree with all of them, and think that post could likely serve as a “what not to do” list for future game developers. We’ve all seen these little tricks, experienced these annoying hang-ups, and we’d like you to move on to creating some truly innovative gameplay if you wouldn’t mind.
The top fad, according to that article?
Quicktime Events:
There are two categories of Quicktime Events: The ones that allow you to do cool moves, and the ones that are essential to survive. I can’t stand either of them. Look, my reflexes are pretty good, from my years of gaming, but having an event pop up out of nowhere, asking me to hit ‘A’ as quickly as possible, then hit both triggers to survive is just irritating.
So very much agree, and it’s not just with games either…movies are equally to blame here, but there’s added annoyance when you’re actually required to perform in one of these time-warped dreamy sequences. One of the first games that I can remember this becoming an evident annoyance in was actually GUN. Great game (save for the fact that I could finish it in less time than it takes me to eat breakfast), but there were a lot of instances were you were forced to pop into slow-time, where the bloody game would then auto-aim for you, removing all skills and interactivity for the sake of looking pretty for a couple of seconds.
Other nominees include: unskippable cutscenes, broken controls, auto-aim (argh!) and invincible enemies/objects. Reading the rationale behind the fads will have you gritting your teeth in agreement, so if you’re up for some gnashing, have a go at the full article at Sarcastic Gamer.
image courtesy of Activision European Publishing
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POSTED IN: Links, Musings, Things That Suck
7 opinions for Fads We Love To Hate
Mike
May 13, 2008 at 12:33 am
Auto-aim sucks. It’s a cop out for sissies. The keyboard and mouse control scheme is the way to go.
GTA IV CHEATS
May 13, 2008 at 2:36 am
I hate auto aim as well. I play Call of Duty 4 alot, and its so stupid, auto aiming newbs.
Aiza
May 13, 2008 at 4:34 pm
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Erin
May 27, 2008 at 2:44 am
By the sounds of things, Auto-aim should be number one…and is certainly at the tops of my list. Perhaps Mike at FPSRantings could put together a list of the worst auto-aiming games?
Mike
May 27, 2008 at 10:32 pm
When you say “worst” auto-aiming games, are you referring to the worst games with auto-aim or the worst auto-aiming in games?
Erin
May 29, 2008 at 1:43 am
Ah, that was very unclear yes. I meant the worst offenders for auto-aim, not the worst auto-aiming in games. Ie games where you must use auto-aim in some spots, games where auto-aim is very common in multiplayer mode, etc.
Mike
May 30, 2008 at 4:58 am
First thing that comes to mind is Halo 2 for the PC. Using a keyboard won’t help you, despite its superior controls. If you plug in a controller, there’s a noticeable auto-aim that’s exclusive to users that use such peripherals.
This bears some more thought. ;)
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