Things you hate about modern games...

[tony_good]

Artificial light reflections. It was cool the first time I saw one (I think Sonic Adventure), but Christ what an annoyance! And so many games have them. Why? If I never see another light relfection in a game, it'll be too soon.

What about the reliance upon the analog stick for primary control? Since 1985 (or so) when the NES was first released, the directional cross has proved optimal for character control. Some will no doubt disagree, as analog makes it easier to move fast or slow, but whatever happened to the days when you used the d cross and pushed a button while moving to run/sneak/etc.? Isn't that much easier than not knowing precisely how much pressure to use and accidentally making your character walk when he's supposed to tiptoe past an enemy?

Graphical pop-in. Man, this is getting out of hand. I can't tell you how many times I have been flying my helicopter/airplane in San Andreas, only to crash into a tree that wasn't there a second ago!

The analog stick/buttons are also a nuisance. In the above-mentioned game, I was just about to finish my 11th of 12 Firefighter missions when using the right analog stick to move the water nozzle, I accidentally pushed R3, cancelling the whole God damned mission! L3 and R3 are lousily placed buttons, and the whole concept of pushing down on a stick sucks.

Any others you'd care to mention?

[poloplayr]

3D is vile.

2D is divine.

[lurpak]

they are all the same..

seriously, doom clones, you can pick up any 10 random games for the PC especialy in your local game store and 5 will be a 3d shooting affair 1st person view FFS move on !

[Cryomancer]

Few quality Japanese games coming over, and the ones that do ebing slowed downed, priced up, and rendered unplayable by english voice acting.

[Balusilustalu]

Character's feet slipping all over the place. Somehow this never bothered me in 2D platform games, but in 3D games it just looks so pathetic!
Developers go to great lengths to achieve realism but leave this area completely unchartered. Watching a 3D character slipping and sliding as he/she 'skates' across terrain completely ruins any attempts at believability.

Give me a good 2D game over a 3D one any day.

[towerofsong]

I hate the fact that most modern games have to have stupid tutorial levels before they even let you access the main game. grrrr

[Satac]

Unskipable Cutscenes. RPGs like Golden Sun are really a pain in the ass - they force you to watch a (stupid) 5-10 minute cutscene and put you into a boss battle without saving first. When you lose the battle you have to watch the scene again...

[squidblatt]

Dark, stubbly heroes who inhabit a dark, stubbly world.

And the fear of stats. And automaps. Wasn't part of the fun of Wizardry being able to map out a level on graph paper? There's more interaction there than pressing a button for a partial look of where you've been for the last minute. Exploration used to mean more back when a tablet of graph paper was a necessity.

[Xantan the Foul]

I hate the fact that most modern games have to have stupid tutorial levels before they even let you access the main game. grrrr

I second, third, fourth, and fifth that!

Would it be so hard to just ask "Would you like to actually play the game, or have us bug you about what button to press to swing your sword?"

[Tatsu]

Dark, stubbly heroes who inhabit a dark, stubbly world.

And the fear of stats. And automaps. Wasn't part of the fun of Wizardry being able to map out a level on graph paper? There's more interaction there than pressing a button for a partial look of where you've been for the last minute. Exploration used to mean more back when a tablet of graph paper was a necessity.

I definitely disagree about this one! Outomaping is one of my favourite features in dungeon crawlers. Maybe because I have a bad sense of orientation but I hate games withtout automap.

[fergojisan]

The price.

I'm more of a retrogamer than anything. I have a GBA, and that's it. I just spent 18 bucks on a used copy of Super Mario Advance, and that's the most I've paid for a game in a looooong time.
I like Burnout 3 though.

[EnemyZero]

its all been done, at least when saturn and ps1 even DC came out 3D was new - outside of pc games but now everything is just a rehash of another game, very boring, give me mario 3 over gta anyday of the week

also all the attention to graphics compared to gameplay - how many times have you read a review on a game and it says " this game is truely fun and amazing but the only downside is the graphics are a little outdated so we give this 6 out of 10....stuff like that is annoying

[jdc]

I would like to complain about the entire industry latching onto "the clone of the moment". It seriously hampers the available variety. Not everyone wants to drown in FPS for months on end. The one weakness of the XboX, IMO.

Tutorials are annoying for me as well. I also am getting sick and tired of the overall cheapness of the A.I. in order to make gameplay "last". There are FAR too many modern games that start out with a bang and hook you....but end up sitting unfinished on a shelf due to either tedium or over-the-top difficulty. The games are far too long....I lose interest with SO many games before I finish them. The Bard's Tale is a great example of this. Grand Theft Auto games......a case of a great game giving you TOO much to do....shorten it by a few days and maybe I'll finish it before I head onto something else. It drags on for too long.

[otterpop]

Collection tasks in 3d platformers. In most 2d platformers it was enough just to get to the end of the level, defeat a boss, move on.

Now you must move through the level, collect 100 coins, finish, then play the level all over again, this time accomplishing a different, equally boring goal.

I blame Mario 64 for starting this.

[boatofcar]

Collection tasks in 3d platformers. In most 2d platformers it was enough just to get to the end of the level, defeat a boss, move on.

Now you must move through the level, collect 100 coins, finish, then play the level all over again, this time accomplishing a different, equally boring goal.

I blame Mario 64 for starting this.

I disagree with this-it's done to give games this thing called "replay factor." Most of the time, you can beat the game without completing every objective on every stage. Extra goals are put in to give you a reason to come back to the game after you've beaten it.

I really hate the non-silent protagonist in games, especially RPG's. Back in the 8 and 16 bit days, the character you played was silent, and the NPC's talked, which gave yo uthe feeling f actually "being" the hero. Now, you've got some whiney brat that is supposed to represent you (I'm talking about FFX here), and to me it destroyed any sense of jumping into the game, as it were. Unfortunately, I think this is now the norm, because with the exception of Dragon Warrior 7, every new RPG I've played has the character you play babbling away. Bring back the silent protagonist!

[kainemaxwell]

Collection tasks in 3d platformers. In most 2d platformers it was enough just to get to the end of the level, defeat a boss, move on.

Now you must move through the level, collect 100 coins, finish, then play the level all over again, this time accomplishing a different, equally boring goal.

I blame Mario 64 for starting this.

I'll second that one.

[Ernster]

The thing I hate about modern games is that there 3D..nuff said.

I feel like I gotta force my self to play a modern game, its just too much effort.

[VGfan]

Collection tasks in 3d platformers. In most 2d platformers it was enough just to get to the end of the level, defeat a boss, move on.

Now you must move through the level, collect 100 coins, finish, then play the level all over again, this time accomplishing a different, equally boring goal.

I blame Mario 64 for starting this.

That's stupid considering it was in some of the most popular 2D platformers before Mario 64 came out.
The DKC series and Yoshi's Island for example.

[Lady Jaye]

I have no qualms about modern games. The only thing that still badly needs to be improved upon, IMO, is the camera within the game. Sonic Adventure 2 is infamous for its sometimes spotty camera, but even Katamari Damacy has that problem at times.

[SirDrexl]

3D is vile.

2D is divine.

[Imagines Gordon Gekko (poloplayr's avatar) saying those words]

The graphical pop-in isn't nearly as bad as it used to be. Compare Super Mario Sunshine, with its huge draw distance, to Mario 64, where you had to be a certain distance away from the coins to be able to see them.

Analog stick control isn't just about moving at different speeds, but also being able to move in any direction instead of being limited to 8 directions. It's a good thing IMHO, but I suppose they should allow you to move with the D-pad if you want to (assuming it isn't needed for something else like switching weapons).

About the analog stick buttons-it depends on what it's used for. It works fine for sniping in Halo, but in other cases it's annoying. I use one of the alternate control schemes for Metal Gear Solid: Substance just because the default has you push the left stick in to switch to 1st-person view. I've only played the Xbox versions of the GTA games, which do not use the stick button to cancel missions. I don't know if I would have the patience to keep retrying them without accidentally pushing in the stick.

Aside from the cutscenes you can't skip, one thing that bothers me is when they neglect to include shadows under characters. It just makes them look fake, as if they were cut and pasted onto the screen.