You wake up, switch on your PC or console, and load the latest game you’ve purchased. For a while, things are fabulous; It runs smoothly, the graphics look great, and the soundtrack is to die for. What a relief, that $99 bucks you reluctantly parted with was worth it! But suddenly, a nervous sweat starts taking over your body. Your eyes are tearing, and your fingers are trembling with rage because this is not what you asked for. The Gameranx team has their fare share of games that didn’t quite live up to expectation, but this is a list of the very worst gaming sins known to mankind, which for some strange reason keep appearing in our favourite franchises…
1. Timed segments – Nonsensical at best and anxiety-inducing at worst, there is really no legitimate reason why developers should keep including them. Take Super Mario Brothers for instance. It’s a widely revered classic, but has anybody ever stopped and asked exactly why Mario dies when the time is up? Then we have The Legend of Zelda: Majora’s Mask, where the moon has a serious grudge on Termina and will blow everything up if Link doesn’t defeat Skull Kid in three days. Three days? Are you kidding? Ain’t nobody got time for that.
2. Escort missions – Why can’t they just escort themselves?
3. Farming/Grinding for XP – Total waste of time. The insane amount of hours required for this process is why the dishes and clothes remain unwashed, why homework is left incomplete, why people go on midnight walks in parks, and why some people never leave their houses, period. It’s as if some people weren’t aware of bots!
4. Long Tutorials – Thank you, but no thank you. If we wanted to read an essay, we have Shakespeare’s collected works, The Lord of the Rings, War and Peace, and so on.
5. Unskippable cutscenes/QTEs – Ok. I understand that some cutscenes need to be played out in full to impart their maximal dramatic effect. But after Lara’s been strangled, mauled, stabbed, set on fire, or impaled for the 40th time, I start feeling it too.
6. Obscure Puzzles – Games with mind-bending time travel challenges are acceptable, but once you add classical violin into the mix? I don’t think people could handle it.
7. NPCs that block movement – They always know where to be, at exactly the right place and at the right time to stop you from continuing the game. Uncharted 4 might have won our best action-adventure game award, but that doesn’t excuse the fact that Sam kept getting in the way.
8. (Pop Up) Ads – This is a gaming sin pretty much exclusive to mobile games, but if you thought PC and console games were immune, you were sorely mistaken.
9. Lag – Perhaps the most frustrating thing about playing anything online is not being able to aim or move properly in multiplayer games, and then earning a bad reputation when you could totally own everyone. You just weren’t trying your best, anyway.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dWSxzGuXVeA
Got any other game features that make your blood boil? Let us know in the comments.
