Topic: Rubbish Trees and other unrealistic gaming things which do your head in.

So last night whilst playing Gran Turismo the trees dont move at all, static like a cardboard cutout. It does my head in, especially when the game looks great elsewhere.

So what things have you noticed in games which do your head in?

Animations!

Especially when walking animations don't line up with the movement speed. Even if it's slightly off, it seems as if the characters are moon walking or ice skating across the floor.

A lot of clipping in game is annoying too. Lip sync that's way off. Characters picking up objects realistically seems a difficult thing as well.

The games that take their time to polish little things like this are often way more immersive. Especially if they're trying to convey a realistic art style, anything that looks a little off is very easy to pick up on. Like CGI in films. If it's good, you don't notice it, but if it's bad, you can tell it right away.

-Lip Syncing. I think that's the big one for me.
-When going up/down stairs and your feet mysteriously disappear.
-You should be able to hurt your AI companion.
-No reflection in mirrors (I check this in every game!)

@Fight_Teza_Fight Even Ocarina of Time had stairs figured out, and your feet would adjust to the terrain: http://i.imgur.com/gVZ62.jpg And that was two decades ago!

Ha ha good subject, the list is possibly endless.

The endless confirmation screens you get in menu screens. 'Are you sure you want to pick this up? ' 'Are you sure you want to open the door?' 'Are you sure you want exit the game?' Well yeah I select the fricken Exit Game option.

I understand its handy if press something by mistake, but that happens less often then actually meaning to do it.

Honestly graphical glitches and hick ups (clipping, weird animation etc) don't bother me in games. Variable frame rates annoy me the most.

I quite like games that are a bit janky though. Stuff like Nier, Evil Within, Deus Ex, Xenoblade Chronicles 2. Gives it some character.

@Octane You haven't truly played Uncharted 4, unless you check out the mirrors haha. That moment is also what pushed Uncharted 4 from a 9 to a 10 for me .

@themcnoisy GT used most of the budget on creating the cars, giving them a really high polygon count that then affected the scenery and things like trees. Its not a bad idea as most of the time you are focused on the cars and track ahead and the trees etc are more peripheral.

For me the things that annoy me the most are more technical issues - things like pop-in (objects, shadows and/or textures), poor clipping (especially if its regularly happening), collision detection (or more lack of) and inconsistencies - like being able to jump up on some boxes but not others that are of equal or even smaller sizes. These things take me out of the game more than anything else and distract me from the game.

I’ve yet to play a game that can animate intricate mouth movements well. Namely kissing and eating. Kissing usually just looks so unrealistic that any emotional build up the game has created is suddenly ruined by portraying the unbelievable lip locking animation that thrusts the whole experience to the depths of the uncanny valley and breaks the immersion most of the time. Eating is typically even worse. Characters mouths don’t move right and the only hope to feel even remotely connected to the action on screen is if the chewing audio is good enough to clue your subconscious in to what the character is doing with their mouth.

Making a fully realistic game is very difficult, so I'm not too hard on games for having small graphical hiccups unless it's blatantly obvious or low effort. Helps I'm not a graphics hound to begin with.

In general, texture pop in, and chugging framerates probably irk me the most. It makes me feel like the game is going to bust if I play for too long. Exceedingly wonky animations (Think ME Andromeda) are also a turn off, especially as tech advances onward and realism is harder to maintain. Poor lip sync I can deal with if the game is Japanese, but a western game shouldn't usually have that problem. If it exists, I can tolerate it if it's minor.

Another one that I just remembered that popped out to me is poorly rendered hands and ears. Ears must be hard to do since many characters are just given long hair to cover them up. Often it’s as if the face is where all the effort has gone and the ears are just drawn in last minute by the B team. Hands are the same way. The game that comes to mind is Uncharted Lost Legacy. The environments are spectacular. The characters are beautiful and realistically animated ...Then when Chloe pulls out her phone you get a close up of her hands and it’s really weird how poorly they look. Lol

background and things like that i really don't give a flying fudge about, they could be cardboard for all i care my main grip is clipping issues

you know when your playing and your character stands next to a wall and his arm is inside it or when your watching a cutscene and he say picks up a sword but he isn't even holding it, it's just floating there like he picked it up with the force

OH and NPC AI when they either just walk right at you and don't move or just stand in your way for no reason plus invisible walls, how many times have you played a game and tried to go over a foot high curb but can't because you hit an invisible wall?

I always hated the fact that you knew a boss was coming up when weapons and ammo was scattered around generously or you knew an encounter was about to happen when there'd be lots of cover all of a sudden (looking at you Mass Effect)

@FullbringIchigo Since you mention that issue of NPCs blocking your way (and I agree that’s super annoying), out of curiosity how do you feel about the way Persona 5 does things in the way you can just go “through” all the pedestrian NPCs when you’re walking around Tokyo? It definitely breaks any sense of realism, but in a game like that it doesn’t seem to detract for me. Although P5 is set in a real world and city, it has so much of a fantasy component that I don’t mind the lack of realistic mechanics of bumping off of NPCs. I actually quite appreciate how running through all the crowds doesn’t slow me down from getting from point A to point B. In other games it might feel cheap, but with Persona’s art style it works.

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And separately, I keep thinking of other things for this topic, but another glitchy minor annoyance at is when your character is wearing an alternate outfit during your gameplay and when you get to a cutscene, immediately they are back in their default outfit. 😆 A few games have the cutscene character animation consistent with the gameplay one, but most do not. Just one other challenge to the suspension of disbelief

@Th3solution I actually prefer the way games like Assassin's Creed handle NPC's. The way they turn to the side and move round people in a more natural and realistic way. Nathan Drake does something similar in busy NPC areas too. In games like these, the NPC's will also adjust their course as well rather than just stop and wait for you or worse, allow you to walk through them. At least if they stop, they appear to have some awareness and as you can't pass through them, substance too. It goes back to the 'clipping' issue - I don't just mean a sword on the back with the cape clipping through it or an arm going through a wall/door but any clipping with NPC's, objects etc, hair/beads with clothing, feet disappearing into the ground...

Was going to do such a topic myself but forgot to get round to it.

I absolutely hate weight limitations in open world RPGs. Skyrim and Witcher are terrible for this. It's ok if your character is allowed to carry over 50 swords, armour and shields as well as a million herbs and potions but as soon as you go over the weight limit it locks you into a walking state so you can't go anywhere quickly. Of course if you could fast travel anywhere then it wouldn't be bad but Witcher 3's bright idea was to restrict you to just signposts to fast travel. So unless you can't summon your horse your rather stuck wondering for awhile.

@Th3solution i haven't actually played Persona 5 yet actually but yeah that can be annoying but i think it depends of the game because if the game has a certain style and it fits with said style then it's something you can ignore like you said

as for you second point yeah that can be immersion breaking but i think with older games you can let it go because a lot of them were CGI and it was done that way because of the limitations of the systems but with modern games it just feels lazy

Wow amazing responses from everyone. I wont reply directly but some of these issues, especially clipping could do with their own thread!

Im surprised crate boxes (not loot boxes thats another topic) havent been mentioned. The stuff that fills out levels predominantly in platform games. Check your house and chances are you wont find a massive wooden crate. Go in any house in 90% of games and boom - theres a crate. Crates on top of crates.

@KratosMD @bamozzy The thing with GT Sport, the best view to drive in game is the default view which doesnt show your car but has all of the dials super imposed at suitable distances and one of GT Sports best modes is track mastery - so theres no other cars to look at. Whats the point in laser scanned tracks if the trees look terrible? They really look awful. Like really bad.

@adf86 Fully with you on the weight limit, it’s pointless unless it’s far more restrictive which would just turn the loot element of a game into unworkable.
Poor animations annoy me a bit, don’t usually mind technical issues unless they’re very very bad