Every week the hosts of TalkRadar present and answer a new "Question of the Week" - a personal inquiry which unearths some of our deepest, and sometimes most sinister, gaming memories. Everyone is encouraged to answer each week's question, so go ahead, tell us your most glorious, nostalgic, or shameful story!

Last week's question:

What overused gameplay element are you terribly sick of?

As usual, thanks for all of your responses! QTEs ("interactive cutscenes"), timed levels,  back-tracking, waggle, collectables, bullet time, and oversimplified morality systems were among the most hated gameplay elements mentioned, and for the most part, we couldn't agree more. We did see a lot of turn-based strategy haters, though, and since yours truly is a big Civilization fan: shuddup!

Below are a few of last week's answers that tickled our collective fancies, but since we can't feature them all here, check out last week's article and forum thread for more...

Lavos wrote...
"wagglewagglewagglewagglewagglewagglewaggle.....I CAN"T TAKE IT ANY MORE......GAHHHHHH "

Above: What could you possibly not like about this?

RageGreen wrote...
"I would have to say those games, where you see your character doing all this cool shit, all this matrix-esque fighting, then when you play he's like Marcus Fenix with a ton of bricks on his back. It's just plain Dumb"

grover117 wrote...
"I absolutely HATE meaningless challenges/time trials in any game...it's hard for me being such an achievement whore. I hate saying "Ok...I'll give this challenge/time trial a try" and then ending up in the fetal position, having hit the retry button 30 billion times and still a point or a second off from getting that fucking gold metal!"

Amnesiac wrote...
"_____ Time. Bullet Time, Assassin Time, Witch Time, Adrenaline Time, Focus Time, Super Dee-Duper Slo-Mo Time, it's all the same goddamn thing. Apparently developers think that if they give it some fancy name, we'll think it's new and fresh. They're wrong.

That and pointless good/bad morality choices. It's bad enough when they're the InFamous brand of obvious black-and-white choices, but putting them in there just for the sake of having an extra features bullet point when they don't even affect the gameplay (aside from two marginally different endings) is even worse."

Above: You forgot Tequila Time!

Zaphers wrote...
"Hidden Collectables. I don't want to shoot 200 pidgeons, or collect flags, or collect the stupid materials in Mass Effect. Does anyone ever collect things without using a guide? If you did I bet you didn't enjoy it one bit. I BET! Even when I find one I sometimes won't pick it up out of fear that it'll cause me to **** up in finding them all later when I use a guide to do it. You all know the paranoid feeling when you turn up to a spot to find something and its not there. Did I get it already? Or am I reading the guide wrong!??!?!?"

zymn wrote...
"i'm going to have to say timed sequences. sure, once you actually play them, it's usually the first time you get through. but the frustration of falling off a ledge or missing a jump can really make the veins in my head pop, because the pressure is so intense on me for some reason. i see "GET OUTTA THERE" and i'm like "AW CRAP I BETTER GET OUTTA HERE" then "WAIT. IS THAT... A TIMER?! NOOO!!"

KillDrone wrote...
"Escort missions; you don't see them too often in top dollar games, but they still exist and they are still a huge pain in the ass. The real problem with them is that you generally have to escort someone who is completely incapable of defending themselves, prefers to stand directly in the line of fire, or continuously ends up dieing through sheer stupidity and bad AI."

Jul 1, 2009

To see the rest of the stories, check out our previous QOTW articles, and for more podcast related discussion, introduce yourself in the TalkRadar forums.

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