Video Games

[gremcint]

Honestly I find most modern games are either hard for the sake of being hard rather than challenging, the game is a lot shorter than older games and the graphics get way too much attention. I don't like a lot of modern games, I love to play older games more, I can actually see where my character is in the older games. However there are some truely awesome modern games (metroid, twilight princess, arkham asylum)

[Fryk]

Ugh, yes. Escort missions and your suicidal AI team mebers. Fun, fun, fun. In Elder Scrolls: Morrowind, when an NPC would offer to pay me to escort them, I'd just kill them on the spot and loot their corpse. Sorry, but escorting your useless, slow ass would triple my travel time anywhere we're going, but I will take your money. FROM YOUR COLD, DEAD HAND A HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAA!!!

Ahem.

And levelling. Why is it that as you level up in some games, not only does it take more experience to get to the next level, but you get less experience from each enemy you kill? Either one of those would be fair, but put em together and you get a nice, steaming bowl of elephant piss. And while we're on the subject of levelling, why does it seem like it's easier to level at low levels AND at high levels, but at middle levels, it's like pushing an M! Abrams uphill in the freezing rain?

The most fair system I've ever seen is the Elder Scrolls system. It's like you said, DrF (I can't remember how to spell your screen name). You don't gain any experience points for killing things. You gain XP by using your skills. The more your jump, the more levels you gain in your acrobatic skill, for example. Level enough enough of your skills, and you gain a level overall. Also, just like you wanted, you kill someone you get whatever they were wearing and carrying at the time, their armor, their weapons, the whole shebang. If this almost 8-year old game figured it out, why can't anyone else?

[linguist]

Numbers: This one bugged me a lot in diablo, but I'm sure it happens in other games. A 50% chance to hit should mean I hit with every other swing. Not 1 hit, then 15 misses, then another hit.

while i agree with you on every other point, i have to take issue here. frustrating though that might be, that's just not the way probabilities work. all a 50% chance means is that on an infinitely long timeline with an infinite number of iterations, you should achieve your goal roughly half the time. it doesn't mean you can't have hundreds of misses in a row. if you flip a coin 500 times, you come up with 500 heads, but the chance of it coming up tails is still 50%.

[DrFaroohk]

What drives me nuts in Diablo is when the monsters start getting immune to attacks. How the hell is my Druid, who is not designed as a melee character, supposed to kill something that is immune to both fire and cold, when his only elemental spells are fire and cold??? What about my friend the sorceress who can only use elemental spells, and all the enemies are immune to every single element? When you play nightmare and hell mode it is a requirement to play multiplayer...there really isn't any way around it. Other than that, I loooooove Diablo II!

I've grown to hate diablo II. I used to play it all the time, but all it became was a race to get the best set. There was no real game anymore. I found myself making a barbarian, so I could get him to a really high level and go on countless Baal runs, only to get the best gear I could so that I could make a NEW character, give him the awesome gear, and then level him up and go on countless Baal runs, get even better gear, and then start another brand new character, with the even better gear, level him up and go on countless Baal runs....

And its not versatile enough. Unless you're a Frozen Orb/Blizzard sorceress, or a Hammerdin, you suck. You cannot play the game. You will never win. Well, you will eventually if you're persistent enough, cuz you can just keep going back through your town portal until you manage to kill everything. But your other characters, they might start off good, and then they stall. I had a fire sorceress once, was doing great, until I got to Hell difficulty, and guess what, EVERYTHING IS IMMUNE TO FIRE! So all that time you spend leveling that non-ice sorceress and non-Hammerdin is wasted.

Stupid Diablo.

[DesignFox]

That's the whole fun! Kill stuff, get stuff!

I think I have yet to get through Hell mode. Most of the time myself and the people I play with get bored with it by that time. Another year rolls around, we all want to play again and someone has lost character data...so we start allover again. LOL

I'm sorta looking forward to the new Diablo. Wonder what that'll be like...

It's just a fun hack and slash that I keep going back to year after year. I like that it's pretty much mindless. Too many RPGs now adays take too many hours of play to make progress or get you stuck in missions where you can't quit in the middle. Plus, 3-D games make me physically ill. There are very few I can actually play.

That was the problem with Twilight Princess. I was doing great til I got to the Water Dungeon. Then I couldn't play the dungeon for more than 20 mins without feeling like I had to vomit, and you can't stop and go back...you just get hopelessly lost. *sigh* Truly disappointing because I LOVED the Zelda series.

[Flyndaran]

I'm with you on all those, Doc. Your post should be a manifesto.

I would like to add ENDLESS GODDAMN FETCH QUESTS to the list. Seriously, can EVERY problem in an RPG universe be solved by killing x amount of y animal, so you can bring someone back materials from them. And what the hell are animals doing with these materials and weapons, anyway. How are they carrying them? THEY DON'T HAVE OPPOSABLE THUMBS!!!

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go kill some wolves, so I can bring back 30 pieces of cereal and some coffee. Gonna be a long morning.

My favorite aspect of that was after killing a fire elemental the random drop was an ice wand. I created a whole backstory of how he became obsessed with ice and wanted to marry the far away ice elemental, before some hero offed him.

The bit that bugs me is where you defeat the end boss, and he has a far more powerful weapon in a chest for you to loot. Why's the boss not using it?
...

Rapscallion

The comic strip Goblins takes this trope. The leader tell the tribe to screw off as he takes their magic items out of the box and proceeds to hand the "heroes" their asses.

[MaggieTheCat]

Oh, oh, that reminds me. The thing about fetch quests like in WoW that my husband likes the most? The fact that you can be asked to get 10 raptor heads for somebody, but not every raptor you kill will drop a head. Apparently you mutilated them so badly when you killed them that the head is unusable?

[Dreamstalker]

I hate Phantom Hourglass where you have to keep going back through that goddamn maze.

Yup. The early temple dungeon levels aren't too bad as I can usually whiz right through them, but when you get down to the last few floors (after you get the last sea chart)...so damn complex I can never remember exactly what I did in what order to get through it the first time and need to break out the strategy guide.

The final battle against that she-pirate bugs me too. I swear there is no way to win; there MUST be, but damned if I can figure it out.

[SimplyAnother]

YES!!!!!! It remains the only Zelda game I will not replay. And Majora's Mask...the water dungeon.....I got so frustrated at it I threw thegame in my closest and did not touch a single game for a year. ( I've since beaten it)

Sorry.....I'm a Zelda freak, so most of my rants are about that series

I hated Majora's Mask. Still hate it.

I think it beats out the second game as my least favorite Zelda game ever. It frustrated me to have to DO stuff before I could save and continue on (in the beginning). The Phantom Hourglass I didn't hate as much as Windwaker. Though I was really disappointed by Twilight Princess, both the game cube and wii versions. The wii version mostly because I can't get the hang of the damned controller, but I didn't like how dark it was.

I still adore Ocarina of Time, and have replayed it countless times. They should redo it. Cause it'd make me happy.



(Uh, for what it's worth, my now 9 year old son was Link for Halloween when he was four... heh)

I have a passing familiarity with other games,but don't play them enough to really complain about them.

I'd play Diablo and Diablo II if I had my freakin disks. I'm this close to buying that damned Battle Chest thingy...just so I can play it on this computer. Though that game was and still is nightmare fuel.

To the OP, I love your points about the games. Some of the restrictions are just irritating as hell.

Sorry, Zelda was mentioned, I had to post. heh

[AdminAssistant]

Ocarina of Time

Water Temple.

Grrrr....freakin' GRRRRRR.

[Nyoibo]

My one hate from Ocarina of Time.

[Fryk]

Oh! I forgot one.

Padding the game out by making you walk countless miles to go do something. Sometimes, it's justified. Sometimes, it's "Go walk over here and back, so we can add another hour to the gametime we put on the back of the box!"

[Mytical]

That has to be the most annoying part of any rpg. The walking/traveling part. Ok I understand that you have to get places. Yeah, you can't exactly afford to hire transportation at level 1. When you get to level 150 billion (exaggeration I know)..and still have to walk halfway arround the world to do a simple quest? Yeah that is a bit much. If the quest you are on takes you FOUR BLASTED HOURS to walk to and 10 minutes to do...something is WRONG.

Travel time should be no more then twice quest time, IF that.

Skills..oh geesh don't get me started on skills. Lets take WoW for instance and something simple as herbalism. So..I can't see that blasted flower right under my nose unless I am such and such level? Oh my level is 10 over the needed skill to pick this flower (come on a skill to PICK A FLOWER?!), but I just failed 20 times in a row?! How? Did I black out while trying and get possessed by a demon to do a chicken dance while trying to pick the blasted flower?

The experience thing is crazy. Sure I can understand getting less experience from doing something over and over..but wouldn't that be true in the same level also? I mean you kill a 1000 gophers you pretty much have learned most of what you need to know to kill a gopher regardless of what 'level' you are.

Fetch quests..not going to go there, rambled and ranted enough I think..would take 10 pages for the amount of chaotic rambling I would do about THAT.

[Cat]

I LOVE Orcarina of Time.....not sure if it is my favorite Zelda (that is probably Link to the Past)

My bf is playing OoT for the first time, and its fun helping him along....esp since that is what we'll being doing today (until the game) because of the weather.

Ok....enough Zelda posting.....I'll think of other games.

I have been pondering whether to get into WoW, since I can play it on my Mac, but I do have a game-addictive personality, and I know I'd play for hours and hours......not that that is a bad thing....

[lordlundar]

Well, another thing that grates on me is how every game these days has to be a "Testosterone fest". Allow me to explain.

It's games that have no more than 2 colours and one of them has to be brown (what, we went back to the original Game boy in console and PC somehow?), often over bloomed to the point you can't see, usually for no real point, the main character apparently unable to have ANY personality apart from "I'm a tough guy, ROAR!", and how every game lately, regardless of genre, has to have some twitchy, brainless shooter concept in at least part of the game. (my personal genre's of choice are Strategy games and RPGs, mainly because you have to THINK to appreciate the game, only to find it's now no longer the case)

Think about it, they turned Bomberman, BOMBERMAN of all things, into this.