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The 10 most common game design mistakes

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The 10 most common game design mistakes

Yes, we would like some cheese with our whine – all this bitching has made us hungry

Words: Tyler Wilde, GamesRadar US

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82 Comments

Order Comments: Newest First | Oldest First

crustdbeat - 6 months 6 days ago

Assassins Creed = Unskippable Tedium-Fest

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Technodragonslayer69 - 6 months 6 days ago

great artitcle, it's about time someone complains about that ridic boss fight in res 5. Like seriously i had no idea that what i was doing was how i defeated her and kept restarting and killing her.

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vitoruss - 6 months 6 days ago

For 'withholding information', how about the first chainsaw manjini fight in Resi 5? You keep running back and forth shooting the guy in the face with the sniper and punching him for a half an hour which left me to pause, go on the internet to see what to do, only for it to say to keep on doing what I was doing.

Also, the boulder falling and chasing Leon in Resi 4's first quicktime event was like, "WTF? How was I supposed to know there was quicktime events right now?"

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ranzatsu - 6 months 6 days ago

To hell with unskippable cutscenes. Thanks to that, I memorize the entire script for Crisis Core!! Damn them.

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garnsr - 6 months 6 days ago

How many people actually played Shenmue, the originator of QTEs? Why did so many developers decide to take that from an underappreciated game? ReCaptcha: lechery Friday Woohoo! I'm off for some lechery right now! These ReCaptchas are getting better!

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Selectedpayload - 6 months 6 days ago

If you want unskippable tedium, try splinter cell CT, the opening cut scene was unskippable to a certain point where if you were quick enough with the right timing you could stop it and get to the main menu. If you missed then you'd have to watch the rest, thats like 3 mins of video every time you get that disc spinning, even if you want to play the MP.

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symphonicdeathpop - 6 months 6 days ago

#3 is the worst!

And if you're talking skippable cutscenes, I think besides making them skippable, every game should allow to just PAUSE them! It's so annoying when you're in the middle of a huge cutscene and then something comes up and you can't watch it as it can't be paused.

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RedOutlive10 - 6 months 6 days ago

To be honest these go through the vent moments were awesome to me in HL2, and even nostalgic. They aren't hard to see, heck the game points at the path to you all the times.

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bamit11 - 6 months 6 days ago

one of the far crys is really annoying when ever you start the game or quit a mode you have to watch that stupid unskipable cutscene

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charley235 - 6 months 6 days ago

this article made alot of sense...except for #3. if you beat the game, what if someone dies, or what if the storie continues in the second game right from that point? #3 is bullcrap, otherwise i liked them all...its been 2 hours, where the hell do i go next!!

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dtzulu - 6 months 6 days ago

i would have to say my biggest peave would be the un-necessary side quests/tasks. to have a few in a game is ok, (marvel ultimate alliance, mercenary's, did it right), but THE main reason i really never got into the GTA games is because of too many side quests and or tasks that IMO made the game drift.

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dtzulu - 6 months 6 days ago

and a note about shenmue. i had that game for my dreamcast. the concept, great. the problem? I WAS TOO BUSY LIVING MY OWN LIFE TO LIVE HIS!! ie, go to work, buy this, buy that, be at home by 11:00, man!

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ssj4raditz - 6 months 5 days ago

"You win! Now get out." LOL

As much as I love Eternal Sonata, those damn cut scenes were soooooo long.

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GoKanuks - 6 months 5 days ago

You are right. Wow, I never really thought about that before!

RT
www.real-anonymity.pro.tc

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Hunter2458 - 6 months 5 days ago

The unskippable tedium bit about selling ammo is one of my favorite parts of MGS4, once you have too much of something it's auto sold.

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Genericide - 6 months 5 days ago

Nice article. On reflection, I think #4 could improve MMO's too if done properly. Questing for the merely above average items and getting ones with interesting affects would greatly increase the motivation for getting them as opposed to just another arbitrary stat increase. MMO's do this for epic items that take hundreds of hours to obtain, but it'd be nice if everyone could take part in the aspect of the game that's actually fun and rewarding.

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dacole78 - 6 months 5 days ago

hmm I don't know you can think any game can be good without a story, now I don't play halo but simply because the story is such crap. Half life 2 got that way as well. Mindless shooting doesn't do it for me but then I am a computer person and a rpg player so...

the complication one scares me as well, the LAST thing we need is more games like peggle

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dacole78 - 6 months 5 days ago

Also I disagree with the you have won now get out comment. Games where the game doesn't end when the story does (I'm looking at you moorowind and fallout) only make the main story seem superfluous and usually end up making it not nearly thought out enough. Any bioforce game is immediately superior to any open world game simply because of the strength of the story.

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435 - 6 months 5 days ago

Splendid article, Mr. Wylde. Wonderful to see a question I put to many an editor at a certain wedding in November being taken to the next logical step and put in print.

As a future game designer, I'm keeping this article.

reCAPTCHA: Tyler only (frsrs)

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