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13 Worst gaming innovations of all time

From gameplay mechanics to design flaws - these are the most heinous offenders of gaming

Words: Shane Patterson, GamesRadar US

Artificial pets/people

Why developers thought it would rock:
If traditional simulations such as SimCity or Microsoft Flight Simulator let you experience the thrill and challenge of something you wouldn’t normally accomplish (i.e. running a city or flying a plane) then surely you’ll want to play fetch with a fake collie and tell artificial humans when to take a piss, right?

Why it sucks:
Games like The Sims or Nintendogs - while nut-bustingly popular - actually prey on how delusional you become. Caring for other people and pets is more like a digital tea party; you have all the means to do so in real life, but prefer your own mental creation.

After the initial wonder wears off, you realize you’re endlessly playing God for fake creatures. Which brings us to the inevitable question: Why the hell aren’t you doing this in real life? Where’s your Golden Retriever, your family, your new job? When you think about it, this is the worst sort of videogame escapism; compensating for something so normal, you could actually be doing it. This is probably the only case where we’d favor getting your ass outside over playing a game.

Lens flare

Why the developer thought it rocked:
The aim of every game artist circa 1999 was the ability to simulate a lens flare which happens when a bright-ass light source reflects off a camera lens, creating off-color rings and starbursts. That’s pretty awesome when you’re trying to simulate how realistic your game is…

Why it sucks:
…except that it’s a completely useless feature that does nothing but reaffirm that games aren’t photorealistic and you aren’t playing a movie. Lens flare was awesome the first time we saw it crop up. Soon, we couldn’t get away from the damn things. Every game started adding them to “increase” realism.

We do appreciate the irony that technology is being used to "realistically" duplicate something that we'd never see in real life because it only happens when you view the sun through a camera lens. The lens flare does absolutely nothing to gameplay, except when it actually obscures our ability to see what the hell is happening. There’s nothing like playing through a mediocre game with crap controls and stuttering animations only to come upon a glorious sunset with sunbeams streaking across your TV. Thanks for sinking cash into something that matters, developers.


 
42 Comments
Order Comments: Newest First | Oldest First
Nintendophile  - 1 year 2 months ago 
I definitely agree with the swimming part. Though they add "variety" to games, it's usually an unwelcome variation.
pelos_locos  - 1 year 2 months ago 
You forgot escort missions (I'm looking at you Bioshock and RE4!). Next to stealth games, escort missions really piss me off.
Darkdraak21  - 1 year 2 months ago 
Yes escorts suck i play WoW and about most escort missions the retarde npc gets killed or moves at a snail pace.
FancyRat  - 1 year 2 months ago 
Agreed with these escort missions. Who the fuck thought those up?
gaia  - 1 year 2 months ago 
escort missions stink, al least when youre defending a building or something it can take more than one hit and doesnt run right at every enemy you see
katwood92  - 1 year 1 month ago 
I would like to feed whoever thought up escort missions to my turtle (slow and painful, but I would need a bigger tank. Totaly worth it!).
Xplosive59  - 1 year 17 days ago 
im a huge mgs fan i (direct your antention to my avatar/picture) but act 3 (europe) in mgs4
was so boring and almost fell asleep while following the guy thanks to the annoying wistle on loop... and i agree escort missions suck
teapotking  - 1 year 17 days ago 
escort missions definitley do suck. especially getting martin through the imperial city at the end of oblivion! at least in halo cortana's inside your own helmet, so all you need to do is protect yourself. minigames are also rather annoying, but i can't believe you didn't include retarded AI on this list! i don't know how many times i've had an enemy run at me in oblivion when i'm standing on a large rock, and have them run non-stop into the front of the rock below me, instead of walking 3 meters round to the back of it so they can walk up the convinient ramp-shaped peice of the rock behind me!
adrenaguy  - 1 year 17 days ago 
teapotking i know what you mean! and it's when the AI are able to do whatr you can't do when they are intelligent, like they know where you can go and you can't, you don't know that so you hide in a corner and suddenly find them bearing down and unl;oading an entire clip of bullets into your face because they know of a conveniently placed glitch that allows them to do that >:(
and escort missions! don't get even started on those, I think we should slap the person who came up with that shiyat!
oryandymackie  - 1 year 17 days ago 
I hate defence and escort missions and why should I care about Ashley dying or not?

Tip: Buy BioShock, it's great..
S1ightlyParano1d  - 1 year 17 days ago 
The escort part in Dead Rising was always frustrating because they don't know how to defend themselves. How the hell can you protect the survivours without any survival skills?
key0blade  - 1 year 17 days ago 
I like stealth games, even though, like Xplosive59, MGS4's Act 3 was kinda boring.
Ravenbom  - 1 year 16 days ago 
Yeah, escort missions are the worst. It's really the poor AI IMHO. Because in real life, if you were trying to ambush a convoy or pirate the convoy or even assassinate the person you're escorting, you'd either plant a bomb to assassinate the person or snipe that person, both of which you can't defend against.
SO, what do developers do? They send in wave after mindless wave of enemies that ignore you entirely, even while you're cutting them to pieces. In real life, you'd probably want to target the security first, then capture the target. It'd also be nice to have decent AI for the escortee...

But hey, they're busy filling games with bloom lighting, undersaturated color schemes, brown lens filter and making realistically reflecting water. (or doing the complete opposite and making cell shaded games. I mean, come on, it's either cell shaded or brown/bloom games anymore) Who has time for AI with commonsense?
neofile  - 1 year 16 days ago 
I'm not sure I'd entirely agree that 3D itself is a step backwards, but I think that the very considerable moves forward in graphics and game engines don't solve many, if any, inconsistencies and implausibilities in the game world. My personal hates:


Leveling up. The whole deal, bigger guns, end-of-level bosses, tougher NPCs, is *old*, a hangover from when games weren't attempting to be realistic anyway. Actually, a hangover from 2D which requires you to get from one end of the game to the other, literally, moving in just the one direction. Time we moved on. Give me the Damn Big Gun NOW, when I can do serious damage with it, not way down the line when it will be about as useful as a pistol is now. Let's go do serious damage from the start. And PLEASE give me challenges that don't involve dumb-but-dangerous end-of-level bosses, I'm fed up with the obvious contrivances needed to create them and all the running madly around (often backwards) needed to kill them.

Plausible, consistent Interaction with objects, or not. There's never an explanation for why the ammo/medkit/cash should be laying there anyway, nor why the NPCs haven't noticed and taken it for themselves. And WHY, since my character is able to pick up ammo, medkits, tools and whatever else happens to be laying around,why oh why can't I pick up the Bigger Gun Than I've Got from the dead arms of the nearest alien NPC? I mean, the guy had me pinned down with the darn thing for ages till I finally got him, it's a dead useful weapon and apparently has unlimited ammo, too. So now I'm standing here looking at the corpse and wanting its weapon, but suddenly my arms are paralysed. Oh hang on, if I walk on this soldier here, I get to pick up 20 rounds from his machine gun. I don't want the miserable 20 rounds, I want the Big Alien Gun, please.

And speaking of which, I'm already carrying a chainsaw, pistol, machine gun and sniper rifle, but hey that's no big deal, pile 'em on, there's always room. Oh and while I'm at it, what the heck is an Armor Shard? I'm wearing armor made up of these things all glued together somehow? And how come it's hidden in the air conditioning system? We have armored repairmen? Is anyone else wearing this stuff? And if armor shards are bits of armor all broken up, then it must have been crappy armor to start with, right? And if this Damn Big Gun which I got on level 25 is a one-of-a-kind experimental weapon, how come the dangerous, experimental ammo is scattered all over level 26? Some guy went around chucking the ammo for this thing around the rooms at random? Oh please. Still, never mind because I've got heaps of room in my invisible backpack for a bunch of this ammo, I just need to rearrange the machine gun, sniper rifle, energy rifle, pistol and chainsaw to make a bit more space.

There's way less realism in the 3D game world than there seems to be when you're beguiled by graphical glory. Don't get me wrong though, I love beautiful 3D worlds to bits. But it would be fun to know exactly what a MedKit is supposed to do, and why someone left three of them in the restrooms.
drewster23  - 1 year 16 days ago 
bullettime=slow motion in fall out 3 they probably said semi-fuck that :) you can use a watch to stop time and shoot at what ever body part you like :D but you only have so many shots in vats.. cuz well the watch has AP...exactly... and after u accept your shooting it goes in slow motiton tho .. which u still get hit in. You crippled a guys head...he will just laugh at you.. cuz it more than not does nothing.. you cripple a guy/mutant's arm (he had a 2h weapon)he will drop it then pick it right up ... just like he didnt get shot in teh arm over 5 times. :D
jimsondanet  - 1 year 16 days ago 
i think swimming can be fun
like in farcry2(sometimes) when your gettin nailed or doin the sneaky sneaky just go for a swim
stealth some dudes out
its fun

and no, i thought the interactive boss cutscenes in god of war were awesome
especialy after gettin your ass kicked by a camp looking statue

but yea i enjoyed reading this article
lets hope for a sequal
adwerdna  - 1 year 15 days ago 
hey i like stealth games as long as it's not ALL stealth. While as action games with little bits of stealth are gay, stealth games with little bits of action are cool. Take Hitman, for example.
Till  - 1 year 15 days ago 
I agree with this topic and with pelos_locos about escort missions.
theschwartzb  - 1 year 13 days ago 
Hey neofile, maybe if you post a resume along with the 'article' you wrote, GR will hire you to work for them. Your words here are very well thought out, and very well put together. You make some good points about how nonsensical certain aspects of game (loved the part about armor shards). What i hate most is certain bosses (such as Big Daddies, and more recently, Brumaks) that at the beginning were thought of as a challenging fight, but by the end, they were barely more than a gnat in your way that you could swat at your leisure. Escorts in WoW, are the worst escorts ever. The NPCs you are escorting almost never (almost being about 2% of the time) move faster than a slow crawl, and the fact that random monsters appear to kill your escortee piss me off more than dying and finding out your last checkpoint was 20 minutes ago. I especially hate the homing beacon escorts where you have to escort that stupid little chicken, who for some reason cannot fly until he does some "self-repairs" at the end of the mission, and flies off. Why can't the damn chicken just repair itself and fly off on it's own.
foarthelulz  - 11 months 22 days ago 
the things that i hate moe than 11 of the 13 of these combined are swimming and stealthing. i hate swimming because u run out of air really fast. i hate stealthing because its annoying it was almost the reason i stopped playing wind waker because i couln't get past the forsaken fortress
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