Topic: Gaming's pet peeves

@KALofKRYPTON i loved that, saved my XB a few times i can tell you, especially when you have a dog

they don't take any notice of cables

@KALofKRYPTON That's a huge pet peeve of mine. I've died a few times in games where it refuses to pause. Very inconsiderate design omission. It also annoys me when pressing the home button doesn't automatically pause.

Speaking of controller wires, Sony really should make the charge cables longer.
The breakaway controllers on the original Xbox were a great idea.

@RogerRoger Sometimes mini-maps are too intrusive, but it depends on the game. I don't think Dishonored had one (might be misremembering), which made the stealth so much tenser. There's an ability you can get that outlines enemies on the screen, which is much better than a map that says "oh, here's the enemies positions: avoid/kill!".

@mookysam I agree on the cable length; I frequently end up playing with my DS4 plugged into my laptop to play while charging.

@mookysam @Thrillho i already had a USB cable extender when i got my PS4 so i have been using that since the system released so for me it was never an issue but your right the cable is FAR to short to be able to plug and play comfortably unless you have an extender like me

@mookysam You're right, many modern games have thrown out the map in favour of Detective Vision / Survival Instincts / X-Ray Specs / whatever each game calls its "hold down this button to see people through walls and highlight interactive objects" mechanic, which became super-prevalent after Batman: Arkham Asylum introduced the idea (I think?).

In fact, thinking about it, it's weird for the new Hitman games to have both a mini-map and an "instincts" button, but I guess they're useful for different things and some may prefer one over the other. Having said that, I tend to spam instincts as well as focus on the mini-map, so maybe my grumblings about all this is simply down to me playing the games wrong!

Looking forward to trying Dishonoured in the New Year.

You know, I kind of wish that games wouldn’t have “detective vision” as much. I miss the days when games were designed for you to look around and be aware, as opposed to just seeing them all. I think it requires tighter game design honestly. It’s a great idea for Batman, but I think it’s too popular to use now.

@Jaz007 detective vision is sloppy and lazy as hell. It's really one of the worst features in modern games. Not fun at all.

@kyleforrester87 Remember the old splinter cell games? I feel like enemy placement and patterns more thought out back then than with detective vision in every stealth game now. I feel like I could go back and they’d still hold up for that simple reason. Also because guns blazing is guaranteed to kill and take a toll on resources.

@Jaz007 thing is older games didn't have as much detail in the environments, so a switch you were meant to pull or an object you were meant to pick up usually stood out a lot. These days environments are packed with objects so it makes it hard to tell what you can and can't interact with. But detective vision still seems like a cop out.

@kyleforrester87 Expect for in one of the earlier Tomb Raider games, on some levels it was almost impossible to see the switches/levers to activate so you could progress.

But I agree it does seem a bit lazy to put in detective vision in something like the recent Tomb Raider games. With Batman it makes total sense, not so much with Lara Croft.

@JohnnyShoulder I think that's why I listed some of the random names its been called in recent years, and will always call it "Detective Vision" even when I'm playing something like Tomb Raider or Hitman. I think it plays into a wider argument about modern games being dumbed down, holding the player's hand with objective markers, trackers, icons and instructions. Even with Batman's contemporaries in the PS3 era, you'd have some kind of button that pointed the way for you (one I recall not-so-fondly was The Force Unleashed II, which sent out a little blue "Force Firefly" from Starkiller's forehead every time you pushed up on the D-Pad, which flew off towards your next objective... despite The Force Unleashed II being one of the most linear action games I've ever played). Once other developers got to see Detective Vision being used in Arkham Asylum, it just became the most obvious answer to making sure players didn't get lost or confused, and so they'd call it anything to make it work.

Yup, I hate those modes too. It was one of the few things I disliked in Witcher 3 and my heart used to sink whenever I realised it was one of those missions which involved me following an imaginary coloured line that was wafting in the air.

RDR2’s mode for hunting serves a purpose but annoyingly slows time down and seems to have a weird thing where it doesn’t activate properly if I’ve just closed it.

I didn’t mind the marker in Dead Space you could use to guide you by hitting down on the d-pad (I think) as it’s always annoying when you just can’t find your way back to an objective marker.

@RogerRoger i would say for the Batman series it makes sense after all he is the "Worlds greatest detective" but your right it's put in far to many games now a days where it's just not needed

although some kind of onscreen trail is handy in large Open World games especially if your driving

@FullbringIchigo Oh, for sure. I can't imagine a Batman game without it now.

Now that its first bit of DLC has been released, I thought I'd dip back into Ni no Kuni II and get the platinum trophy to boot. The last dreamers maze (a randomly generated multi-floor dungeon where you can't save) has driven me up the wall. I died on floor 26, which was irritating, but my fault (dodgy camera notwithstanding). So, I retried the dungeon, figuring it wouldn't take too long. All was going well until on floor 11 it decided to spawn me in the floor. Despite eventually getting out I'm now stuck behind a big wall. As it doesn't save I'd have to start over again and lose my levelling progress.

My point with all this - and it isn't uncommon at all - is that getting stuck in scenery or walls is one of the most annoying glitches to occur in a game. I don't know the technical term for it, but why in 2018 is it still such a problem? Sort it out devs!

@mookysam Not being able to save in certain sections is one of the reasons I stopped playing games like Final Fantasy 15 and Monster Hunter World. I understand it more in MHW, cos of the online elements. But for something like FF15? There is no reason I can relate to why you can't save in areas like dungeons.

@mookysam replying to post #165

I have grown out of Nintendos output. I was a huge fan of the Gameboy, Snes, N64, GB advance and Gamecube. In fact I had a Gamecube as my first console of that generation. Since the wii and a brief love affair with wii tennis other genres, platforms and games have made giant strides on a more personal level. playing through Mario kart or smash just isn't the same as it used to be.

Even playing through Mario Odyssey and Zelda I was just going through the motions and couldn't wait to play on my Ps4 or PC again. They are both clearly great games, extremely polished and extremely playable. But I personally didn't feel satisfied and I was just wasting my time. Which feels like a crazy thing to say as someone who habitually plays awful games and doesn't feel that way.

I think it's a combination of dumbing it's games down difficulty wise and having a ridiculous feeling of de ja vu both aesthetically and mechanically. I even find the games boring, and considering both Zelda botw and odyssey are best in class with great things to see and do is just odd.

Arms, Rabbids battle kingdom and Game dev story are by far my most played games on the switch and looking now, its no coincidence they are miles apart from the more popular franchise games.

@themcnoisy Mario Odyssey's story mode is fairly easy, but a lot of the late-and-post-game moons can be very challenging to find and obtain. It's a game I was initially somewhat disappointed with, but the more I played of it, the more satisfied I became. It's not one of my favorite 3D Marios, but I do think it's an excellent game in its own right.

BotW... late-game the challenge goes down (kind of the opposite of Mario Odyssey in that respect), but it can be pretty brutal early on. Enemies one-shotting you isn't terribly uncommon. You're forced to scrabble for quick-fix measures to survive extreme environments. You basically have to run around unarmed and without any sort of good armor in a thunderstorm. It's a much more challenging experience than something like Skyrim, at least early on.

Neither game is similar to previous entries in their respective series (3D Mario's structure was always much more segmented and focused much less on elements of exploration and discovery), and neither can really be said to have "dumbed down" difficulty. Nintendo's game design probably just doesn't click with you. Which is fine. I haven't enjoyed the majority of Sony's exclusives these last several years, like Bloodborne, Journey (technically last gen, but I played the remaster, so whatever), The Last of Us (ditto), etc. even though they're clearly polished and high-quality experiences. I haven't tried God of War yet, but based on footage I'm willing to bet I'd feel the same way about that.

Different strokes for different folks.

I am dying to play Tetris Effect, though. And Astro Bot. I'm dangerously close to getting a PSVR for these games (I know Tetris CAN be played without, but it seems like kind of a shame not to experience it in the ideal way, y'know?)

@Ralizah Thanks for responding. Odyssey is very similar to Its previous 3d games (sm64 / sunshine), we can argue its not and there's a case for that with changing into different characters, larger environments etc. But the base experience to me is a throwback to the times when I was playing ff7 and Goldeneye. I don't continue to play either of those games although I enjoyed both and both Mario's I mentioned as I have moved on. Its not that I don't click with Nintendos game style, I really did. Odyssey was OK and I gave it a more than fair whack but now looking back I should have parked it sooner. The same with Mario Kart, its really good - but it hasn't moved on. Okay you have the anti grav bits and the floating things that come out of the top of your kart but similar to Odyssey this is fluff around the same experience I was playing in my teens.

This isn't restricted to Nintendo games though. Sonic Mania and Ratchet and Clank immediately spring to mind as games I couldn't wait to stop playing. Which again is mad as Sonic 2 is one of my favourite games ever.

Botw is different. I had played a number of best in class games and unbeknown personal genre favourites building up to it (Yakuza, hzd, pes 18, rocket league, the witness, statik, persona 5) and it was either the wrong time or place but it was such a let down.

I think for the purpose of the thread my pet peeve is that Nintendo games lack a cultural soul. You don't learn anything that will be useful outside of chatting or playing with other gamers.

@Ralizah definitely buy PSVR. It's great.

If you play your Ps4 in the front room it's not so great and looks a mess. Still worth it though.