Video game pet peeves.

[Knukel]

When shooters become too spectacular with all the plasma beams, laser weapons, ricocheting bullets, cluster explosives and what not - That it's actually better to Hip-Fire & Spray n' Pray than aiming down the sight or trying to dodge bullets... e.g Borderlands 3 and Ratchet & Clank 2016.

Both games are good, but often i have no idea what's going on... Seizure alerts are now more relevant than ever Especially when playing Co-Op.

 

[Sonygamer455]

Overly long, tedious and repetitive boss fights.
This was something that frustrated me a lot when I was much younger and upon revisiting some of those old games again in recent years, I remember why. While I get bosses are supposed to be a challenge, some boss fights are pretty dang hard and just go on too long without anything interesting happening. Here’s some examples I have come to know:

Spoiler

Crash Bandicoot 2 N-Tranced - N. Tropy, the final boss in the game, is easily a proper example of this. How the fight goes is, he has two attacks, a high and a low attack, that he will constantly launch at you for a period of time. Then he will move across the map and you have to get there and hit him before he gets up and then repeat the process again 3 times. Once his health bar is drained, he teleports to another level and you have to do the same thing again, except this time his attacks are faster and more aggressive than before. So you do it all again and hit him 3 times once more, but does it stop there? Nope! He teleports to yet another level and like earlier, he gets even more difficult than before and then you have to do the very same process again and then that’s where it finally ends.

I really struggled on this one as a kid and even as an adult, I still do. I have only beat it a handful of times. I get he’s the main boss of the game, but the fight just goes on way too long and it gets old having to constantly dodge the same two attacks over and over again with nothing to make it interesting. And of course, it’s tricky. What’s worse is, if you die, you have to start it all over again. Easily the worst boss fight I know in the Crash series and still not one I care much about.

Tarzan - Clayton is the final boss in this game and I do recall having some trouble with him when I was younger and upon replaying the game recently, it was even worse than I remembered. It’s starts out with a chase sequence in which you run from Clayton and you have to avoid falling, getting attacked by animals and him catching up to you. Then once you reach the top, the actual fight begins. He has 3 attacks he will use against you for a while, once he stops, you can hit him and it will knock him back. You literally rinse and repeat at least 7 times until he falls off, with him getting more aggressive each time.

For starters, the jump mechanics are not very good in this game and they certainly don’t help in this scenario. The chase is hard at first, but once you figure it out, it’s not too bad. The fight itself on the other hand is pretty hard and easy to mess up on. Having to dodge his attacks (which increase over time) and hit him 7 times over is just a bit excessive in my opinion and should’ve been cut back a bit. However, the worst part about this is if you die, you have to go back to the 2nd half of the chase sequence, run up the tree again and probably lose half your health along the way and then you can face him again.

Honestly between Clayton and N. Tropy, I am not sure who is worse. They’re both pretty bad and I honestly cannot decide which I hate more.

If they’re going to make a boss fight go on for a while, at least change it up some to keep it interesting instead of just ramping up the same repetitive attacks the whole way through and don't make it too hard. Long boss fights can be fun when done right. Dr. N. Gin in Crash Bandicoot 2 is a good example of this because while it goes on for a while, it’s not too hard and it changes itself up overtime, keeping it interesting and in my opinion, fun. The two I mentioned are anything but that and while I am sure worse examples exist, these are the worst I can think of.

 

[Whitestar]

Motion blur
Just.....no

Treating my in-game "eyes" as if they're a camera
Aka exaggerated eye adaptation aka auto-exposure. Blown out sky when looking at a dark forest? Why? My eyes are perfectly capable of seeing all details in the forest and the sky at the same time, even if a camera isn't.

Tying the physics to the framerate
Flying mammoths everywhere.

Locking in-game framerate to 60
Yeah, about those 144Hz and 240Hz monitors.....they actually exist now you know.

 

[RandomCarGuy17]

Race tracks with the first corner located right after the start/finish line
This could apply to real life, but I have only driven on race tracks in video games. So, here we are.
Iberian Circuit in Forza Motorsport 3 & 4 comes to mind. This annoys me as when I see a start/finish line, the first thing coming to my mind is to get across it fast as possible. Especially in a race where I'm trying to win! It's frustrating to get across that line only to slam on the brakes right after because there's a corner right there waiting.

 

[Sonygamer455]

Underutilized Soundtrack
Over the years I have noticed some games have songs only heard in specific parts of the game that you either won’t be around long enough to properly enjoy them or you generally don’t have enough reason to be there outside of hearing the songs. This is something that’s begun to bug me even more in recent years. It’s most annoying when a game has a great soundtrack, but you generally don’t get to hear it enough due to how it’s utilized. Let me show you what I mean by this:

Spoiler: Examples

Test Drive Offroad 2 - It has at least 4 or 5 full-length songs in the game, but you only hear them at the main menu. Every other menu has no music at all and when racing, all they have are these short, repetitive, low-quality instrumental loops of the songs from the menu. You never hear the full-length songs outside the main menu.

Okay, for starters, unless you just absolutely want to hear them, you’re never going to be in the main menu long enough to listen to them fully because their just isn’t enough to do there. What’s worse is you can’t just sit there and listen to them while doing nothing because then it’ll go into demo mode and you don’t get to hear it all. The only way you really can fully listen to them is to stay there in the main menu and fiddle with the controls constantly to keep it from going into demo mode. While I imagine technical issues may be why they aren’t heard in races, I can’t think of a good reason for why they couldn’t have just had them play in every other menu besides the main menu and it’s sad because I like the game's soundtrack even if it’s only a few tracks and I wish it had been utilized better.

What’s crazy is the game's predecessor I think did a better job at utilizing its soundtrack than this one did.

Test Drive 5 - Although it ain’t quite as bad as Test Drive Offroad 2, it has somethings in common with it. I forget how many full-length songs it had, but like Offroad 2, they’re only heard in the main menu with the exception of one song, however they play throughout the menus until you get to the car selection menu. Both there and in the point to point races, you just hear these short low-quality instrumental loops of songs from the menu much like Offroad 2 did. Circuit races however are different, you get to hear high-quality full-length instrumentals of the songs from the menu, one of which is actually the same as what the menu plays and another is a shorter version of another one. (this isn’t a bad thing though)

While it’s not as bad as how Offroad 2 handled it, you once again won’t be there very much to hear it in full and I still wish they could’ve used it a bit more because its soundtrack is one of my favorites on the PS1. Again, I can imagine why they didn’t use them in point to point races, but circuit races? Come on, they had a least one song from the menu there, they could’ve used the others as well, but it seems they prefer to use songs with little to no lyrics in races.

Spyro Year of the Dragon - This one is a very strange and a very unfortunate one too. The reason I say this is because if you have any other copy of the game besides the NTSC greatest hits version, there are a number of levels where they don’t even play the correct music there. Instead, they will just reuse music from other levels instead of their intended themes, even though their intended themes are in the game files for most releases.

While I firmly believe this a glitch, this is very bad because not only are some of the songs they reused horrifically unfitting for some levels and not what they're supposed to have, but that means people who don’t have the Greatest Hits copy never get to hear them in-game at all, which is a shame because the soundtrack is absolutely amazing. What’s worse is the PAL platinum release of the game is the latest version and rather than fixing the issue like the Greatest Hits version released earlier did, they removed some songs from the game entirely to where they aren’t even in the game files!

Thankfully I grew up with the Greatest Hits copy so I never had this problem and from what I have read, the Reignited Trilogy doesn’t either, but man do I pity those who didn’t get the Greatest Hits copy.

Need for Speed Carbon - Not quite as bad as the others, but it’s not something I can ignore either. The licensed soundtrack only ever plays in free roam and checkpoint races, meanwhile every other race type along with the pursuits and the menus have their own composed music and drift races have no music at all. My issue is the game doesn’t have too many checkpoint races if I remember correctly and with the ability to jump to races instead of driving there in free roam, players aren’t likely to hear the soundtrack much in free roam, apart from when they finish it and are taking the time to select another or if they just feel like free-roaming. What’s worse is, there is evidence it was going to have the ability to disable composed music like the previous game, but it was cut and I think this game would have benefited from it.

However, I think it’s more forgivable than the others because if you want to hear it, it’s not hard. Because you can easily play it through the menu if you go to options and select the song you want and you can free roam pretty much anytime you want and provided you don’t run into cops, you can listen to it while free-roaming. While the composed music is really really good, I still wish the licensed soundtrack was utilized a bit more because it’s in my opinion the 2nd best in NFS and you don’t even hear them all that much unless you do certain things.

Need for Speed 2015 - Theirs at least one song in the game that only plays in the main menu. Like Test Drive Offroad 2 and Test Drive 5, you won’t be on there all that much, so you won’t hear too much of it as a result. Not all that annoying really, it’s just a head-scratcher to me. Why they couldn’t just have it play in the garage and the main menu is beyond me.

To go through the process to get the license to use certain songs in games and/or making your own for it and then never using it all that much seems kind of wasteful if you ask me and it sucks when the soundtrack to a game is really good and you don't hear it nearly enough to properly enjoy it.

 

[Sonygamer455]

Having to constantly respond to menus
I was recently reminded of this and now I am starting to remember how annoying they can be at times. Being prompted to respond to menu’s constantly can get old fast if you have to do it over and over again and sometimes it just feels so unnecessary. Let me show you what I mean by this:

Spoiler: A few examples I can name

Need for Speed Underground 2. Whenever you want to install parts to a car, it will ask you every single time if you want to do that and it’s the most annoying when you're upgrading the performance. If you ever create a bunch of cars early in the game and then unlock more performance parts and want to install them on all of your cars, it quickly gets annoying having to constantly respond to these menus. I think Underground 1 did this too, but it has been so long since I played it again, I don’t know for sure.

Fortunately, I think the developers saw the absurdity in this and fixed it in Most Wanted and Carbon. In both games, selecting a part will add it to the cart and once you have chosen everything you want, you install them at the very end as you leave and it’s much better than having to respond to menus for each and every part you choose. It’s a pity they didn’t do this sooner.

Twisted Metal Head On. Upon revisiting it recently, I was reminded of how endurance mode would bring up a menu asking if you wanted to quit, save, or continue every time you defeat an opponent. I really don’t like this because having to respond to this menu every single time is just intrusive and it breaks the immersion of the game.

I really think they should have just moved the save option to the pause menu and have the next opponent come up automatically after about 5 or 10 seconds from defeating the previous opponent, instead of having to respond to that stupid menu every single time. It would have been so much better.

Gran Turismo 5. Something I have gotten tired of lately is that PSN sign-in menu. It comes up every time you boot the game and every time you go to the main menu as well as when you try to leave it. While the one seen when booting the game can be disabled via the secret menu, theirs no known way to disable the one on the main menu that I am aware of.

I tend to go in and out of the main menu a lot sometimes for various reasons. So I see it a lot and since the servers are shut down now, it doesn’t really serve much of a purpose anymore and it gets pretty annoying having to respond to that useless, naggy message over and over again.

Spongebob Squarepants Legend of the Lost Spatula. While the annoying menus from the other games come up automatically when you do a certain thing, this one is different. You have to bring it up yourself and the game constantly forces you to do it. Spongebob has different items you can use in the game and you have to pause the game and navigate to the items option to equip a certain item. Some enemies require certain items in order to be defeated and if you’re playing a level with a lot of enemies (namely Kelpazoic Jungle), you’re going to be changing items a lot.

Considering how slow it is to come up and navigate through the menus and how often you’re forced to do it, this is easily the single most cumbersome and annoying example of this. I still dread playing the Kelpazoic Jungle to this day simply because it constantly forces me to switch items coupled with the fact it is kind of hard. I don’t expect too much from a Gameboy Color game, but I do feel they could have done something to make this easier on the player.

I feel like I could be missing some, I am sure I have other examples I could list of this, but I think you get the point now. Some games could really do a better job at preventing this.

 

[Wolfe]

@Sonygamer455 -- Are you sure that's a videogame pet peeve?
[Confirm] | [Cancel]

 

[JakeMR2]

Gran Turismo 5. Something I have gotten tired of lately is that PSN sign-in menu. It comes up every time you boot the game and every time you go to the main menu as well as when you try to leave it. While the one seen when booting the game can be disabled via the secret menu, theirs no known way to disable the one on the main menu that I am aware of.

Yeah after recent discoveries this can get annoying, it's not present in 1.0, or early versions, though I do get annoyed much like you did in this instance.

 

[Sonygamer455]

@Sonygamer455 -- Are you sure that's a videogame pet peeve?
[Confirm] | [Cancel]

*2 seconds later*

On a more serious note, this pet peeve is certainly not limited to video games. Without a doubt, their can easily be other instances outside of that.

Yeah after recent discoveries this can get annoying, it's not present in 1.0, or early versions, though I do get annoyed much like you did in this instance.

You obviously know why I posted it then. Granted, I found it annoying long before now, but the most recent discovery made a few days ago is what really triggered me to post about it here since it requires going to the main menu.

 

[RandomCarGuy17]

3rd-Person Motion Cameras in Racing Games:

I just never feel comfortable driving cars in 3rd person when this camera is in place, it just makes driving feel awkward. This especially is a problem in Assetto Corsa since I can't seem to turn it off. I swear this camera is responsible for a lot of the driving mistakes I make in AC.

 

[BKGlover]

3rd-Person Motion Cameras in Racing Games:

I don't think I know a difference in camera types. What is a Motion Camera?

 

[RandomCarGuy17]

I don't think I know a difference in camera types. What is a Motion Camera?

It's a bit hard for me to explain well, but I'll try. It's when the camera is moving around whenever the car moves versus being static. In Assetto Corsa, if I even decide to steer the car a bit on a straight (like if I just want to change my line), then the camera will move in the opposite direction.

A static camera on a car like in Gran Turismo will stick with the car when changing directions.

 

[ULTRAVIOLENZZ]

I think its called Action/Dynamic Camera. It gives you a sense of....power, intensity when moving etc. I don't like it either.

 

[BKGlover]

It's a bit hard for me to explain well, but I'll try. It's when the camera is moving around whenever the car moves versus being static. In Assetto Corsa, if I even decide to steer the car a bit on a straight (like if I just want to change my line), then the camera will move in the opposite direction.

A static camera on a car like in Gran Turismo will stick with the car when changing directions.

I think its called Action/Dynamic Camera. It gives you a sense of....power, intensity when moving etc. I don't like it either.

Ahh...I have seen it once many moons ago, can't recall the game sadly but I definitely agree. The camera being slow to follow the vehicle is bad enough.

 

[Sonygamer455]

Copy protected save games.
This is something I have had a problem with for a long time now, but I only recently remembered it again since I haven't played a game with it in quite some time. I really dislike it when save games are like this because you never know when your save game could be corrupted and you could lose everything and by not being able to back up your save on a USB drive, you can't really do much to keep from losing your save data. (not easily anyhow) Several PS3 games I have use this, but Need for Speed Prostreet is perhaps the biggest offender out of them all.

Prostreet on the PS3 I have found is very prone to save game corruption because I have had mine corrupt at least 2 or 3 times when I used to play the game. It was pretty frustrating for me having spent so much time progressing in the game and customizing cars only to lose it all later and be forced to start again. The fact the save game is copy protected just makes it so much worse because I have no easy means of preserving all my hard work in case this happens and Prostreet I feel is the one game that needs it most out of all the ones I own.

While I have several other games that do this too, Prostreet is about the only one I actually have invested a ton of time in that uses this, while the others I haven't played nearly as much. While it existed back in the PS2 days, I don't have any PS2 games that use this, so my post mostly applies to PS3 games. It's not impossible to back up copy-protected save games though, it can be done with things like PS+, extracting it from a PS3 backup (provided you have your console's IDPS) and copying it with a file browser on CFW/HFW and you can even remove the protection itself once you get it. However, none of these are very convenient and in some cases, aren't accessible to some. Whereas if you could just copy it like normal, it'd be so much easier.

I imagine they do this to prevent people from hacking into their save games and/or cheating, but I really wish games wouldn't do this because it's just an annoying inconvenience to those that just want to keep from losing all their hard work they put into a game.

 

[Aphelion]

Something that peeves me off: Boss fights that are challenging enough, and just about the right length, and then you kill the boss and his health re-generates withiut warning and you have to fight a second phase. I hate that so much. Why not just double his health bar and just make them harder at the halfway point, instead of bait and switching me.

All too often it happens in games with limited supplies, which you ration to last for the first phase because you don’t yet know there is a second phase, so then you are just stuffed and out of items for the difficult part of the boss, usually meaning an unnessescary retry.

This is even more egregious is games with perma-death mechanics. This has happened to me twice in the last month, with both Hades’ final boss and Risk of Rains’ having surprise second, and even third phases. And both games are perma-death where it takes around 40 mins to an hour to get back to that spot. Very frustrating for me

 

[SPhilli911]

"Rubber-banding" or "catch-up", as I've heard it called sometimes, in racing games. There is nothing more frustrating than racing your absolute best but you are still unable to reach the AI in front of you, meanwhile, the AI behind you moves at unnatural speeds to overtake you.

 

[maxi25]

If it hasn't been mentioned, one button for multiple things. Playing through Mafia 3 and the button for stealth takedowns is the same for kicking doors. You can probably see where this is going.

Also from Mafia, why don't you just use the same buttons for the same things that everybody else does? In GTA for example, the buttons to jump/climb or enter vehicles is pretty similar to that of other games. In Mafia, they're reversed, which brings with it interesting and frustrating experiences sometimes.

On another topic, AI racers who can "detect" other obstacles that they really shouldn't. Case in point, when racers can magically avoid traffic around blind corners or jumps. You see this often in games like Midnight Club or even the street race events in Forza. Not going to lie, unless the other drivers are Superman I'm not buying it.

 

[Sonygamer455]

Repetitive Dialogue.
Now this is something that has bugged me for a while now. Hearing the same thing over and over again from someone can get pretty annoying after a while and sometimes I wonder why they let things like this slide. Sometimes it’s so bad, it makes not to play certain parts of a game.

For instance:

Spoiler: Various Examples

Bob the Builder Can We Fix It? In the “Can We Build It?” mini-game, Bob feels the need to say “Good job Lofty” over every other thing he does in there. I get it’s a kids game and I don’t mind a little encouragement, but hearing him say the same thing every few seconds makes the mini-game somewhat annoying to play. And I am sure the other mini-games are like this too, but I got rid of this game a LONG time ago and haven’t played it since who knows when, so I don’t know any other examples.

NASCAR ‘99. Just casually playing the game, the announcers have a nasty habit of repeating themselves constantly sometimes, sometimes only mere seconds later. God forbid if you start driving backwards, they will have a stroke and will do it FAR more than usual. I feel like they didn’t record enough dialogue for this game, otherwise, it may not have been so bad,

Ridge Racer Type 4. The announcer in this game is typically pretty mello and not at all annoying, but he takes on a whole new personality in time trial mode. Every time you drive through a checkpoint, he either says “Sweet! You really ripped through that section!” or “My grandma drives faster than that, get with the program!”. It gets annoying very fast, probably one of the most annoying examples on here, and it’s even worse when you’re driving a fast car on a small track where all the checkpoints are so close together. It makes me not even want to play that game mode simply because of it. I am sure I can turn him down a bit or perhaps turn him off entirely, but it’s been so long since I played the game again, I don’t even remember if that’s an option.

Tigger’s Honey Hunt. 2 examples:
1. Something that bugged me as kid with this game and still bugs me as an adult is at the end of every level, Owl says the same lines of dialogue every single time. Could they not have just recorded a few more lines instead of repeating them in every level? A little more variety would have been nice.

2. When replaying the levels, unless you choose time trial, you are forced to listen to all the characters every single time you play the level and what’s worse is you can’t skip it either. I don’t need to be reminded of the abilities I already have every single time Owl, now please, just stop!

COD Zombies. Oh gosh, where do I begin?
1. In Black Ops 1, I can remember if you run out of ammo, the characters will nag you constantly about not having ammo if you run out of it. Heck, if you so much as cycle over a weapon that has no ammo for even half a second, they’ll make a remark about it. It gets pretty tiring having to hear them comment about it every few seconds and I’d be happier if they spoke a little less. I think this could be said for the other COD zombies games, but BO1 is the only one I remember being really bad about it.

2. In Black Ops 1 and onward, if you go out of bounds on some maps, the announcer will laugh constantly until you either die or return to the map. It gets really annoying when you just want to explore the level with hacks and having to hear that so dang much.

3. In Black Ops II, if you create a crawler on the map Buried, the characters will constantly remind you that The Giant can do something about them and it’s about as bad as the ammo thing I mentioned earlier. I get it’s intended to be helpful, but hearing them talk about it so much gets old fast, especially if you cannot do anything about it.

Toy Story 2. Some of the characters in this game, namely Hamm and Bo Peep will be scattered somewhere in the level and when you encounter them, they repeat the same line of dialogue every few seconds if you’re near them. While this is also intended to be helpful I guess, it can get annoying if you’re trying to do something nearby, keep failing at it, and having to hear them repeat themselves constantly.

Star Wars Battlefront (2004). For some reason, the Gungans will repeatedly say all their dialogue back to back without even stopping. Something is apparently wrong with my copy though because this isn't normal and I don't recall it being a problem in the past. I'd be happier if it wasn't there though.

I am sure I left out some examples, but point is, hearing the same lines of dialogue over and over again gets old after a while.

 

[RandomCarGuy17]

Repetitive Dialogue.
Now this is something that has bugged me for a while now. Hearing the same thing over and over again from someone can get pretty annoying after a while and sometimes I wonder why they let things like this slide. Sometimes it’s so bad, it makes not to play certain parts of a game.

For instance:
examples

The funny part of your pet peeve is that none of the examples you listed included "It's no use!" from Sonic 2006 or "Trouble with the trolley eh?" from Spyro 2: Ripto's Rage.

but yes, I get this for sure. You would think some developers would put more effort into having more voice lines recorded so they can alternate the dialogue better. They don't though and we get situations like these.

 

[Sonygamer455]

The funny part of your pet peeve is that none of the examples you listed included "It's no use!" from Sonic 2006 or "Trouble with the trolley eh?" from Spyro 2: Ripto's Rage.

Never played Sonic '06, so I wouldn't know. While I haven't played Spyro 2 yet, I have heard tell of this before, but until I do play it, I have nothing to say about it other than I imagine it is annoying.

but yes, I get this for sure. You would think some developers would put more effort into having more voice lines recorded so they can alternate the dialogue better. They don't though and we get situations like these.

Indeed! Some games don't even try when it comes to this. I would've thought with them having to spend so much time making these games and possibly having to hear this so dang much, they would've done something about it.

 

[RandomCarGuy17]

Never played Sonic '06 so I wouldn't know. While I haven't played Spyro 2 yet, I have heard tell of this before, but until I do play it, I have nothing to say about it other than I imagine it is annoying.

How is it that you call yourself a Sony Gamer and you never played Spyro 2? hmmmm, okay.


Sure, I haven't played Sonic '06 either, but I watched enough videos mentioning that game to be aware of its dialogue. I honestly don't know how you missed it when that game for a long time became a punching bag on the internet.

 

[Sonygamer455]

How is it that you call yourself a Sony Gamer and you never played Spyro 2? hmmmm, okay.

Oh wow.

Jokes aside, I am mainly a Spryo 3 guy because that's what I grew up with. I didn't have Spyro 1 or 2 growing up and I never had much luck finding them when I went to stores back in the day. Heck, even now I still don't ever see any of them when I go in stores selling PS1 games. I did however buy both games on PSN in recent years and sometimes I wonder why I haven't already played them. 🤔

Despite my username, while I consider the PSP to be a better handheld, I am actually more of GBA guy.

Sure, I haven't played Sonic '06 either, but I watched enough videos mentioning that game to be aware of its dialogue. I honestly don't know how you missed it when that game for a long time became a punching bag on the internet.

It's probably because I simply am not into Sonic as a whole and don't really know much about it.

 

[Com Fox]

The funny part of your pet peeve is that none of the examples you listed included "It's no use!" from Sonic 2006 or "Trouble with the trolley eh?" from Spyro 2: Ripto's Rage.

but yes, I get this for sure. You would think some developers would put more effort into having more voice lines recorded so they can alternate the dialogue better. They don't though and we get situations like these.

There's also Shadow the Hedgehog "You know what they say, the more the merrior"

 

[Sonygamer455]

Something that peeves me off: Boss fights that are challenging enough, and just about the right length, and then you kill the boss and his health re-generates withiut warning and you have to fight a second phase.

You wouldn't like N Tropy or N Trance in Crash Bandicoot 2 N-Tranced then. N Trance isn't too bad, he only has 2 phases and is not too hard to defeat, N Tropy on the other hand is one of the worst examples I know. He has at least 3 phases and he gets harder the longer it goes on. It goes on a bit too long and he's very difficult to defeat. I still loath at the thought of fighting him to this day.

Twisted Metal 2 is another game that does this. Dark Tooth (the final boss) has a 2nd stage where you have to destroy a part of the vehicle running loose around the map. I don't recall it being all that bad, but it seemed kind of pointless.

If it hasn't been mentioned, one button for multiple things.

I feel you there. Star Wars Battlefront II (2005) for PS2 is one I for a long time have had a problem with. You have 4 squad commands and they're on one button instead of each of them being on one separate button like the previous game. The game attempts to predict which squad command you're wanting to use and sometimes it works alright, other times it does the exact opposite. While I think the reason for this change was due to some new functionalities they added, I still wish it wasn't limited to one button, because you can't always depend on it to work right.

WWE Smackdown vs Raw 2009 is another. Chris Jericho has 2 signature moves, one being a stranglehold and the other being something else, and they're both on one button. Although I can be reasonably certain there are ways to choose between the 2 that I haven't figured out yet, I can remember constantly getting the wrong one quite frequently and it annoyed both me and my cousin. Been a long time since I played it again though.

 

[Doomotron]

Repetitive Dialogue.
Now this is something that has bugged me for a while now. Hearing the same thing over and over again from someone can get pretty annoying after a while and sometimes I wonder why they let things like this slide. Sometimes it’s so bad, it makes not to play certain parts of a game.

For instance:

Spoiler: Various Examples

Bob the Builder Can We Fix It? In the “Can We Build It?” mini-game, Bob feels the need to say “Good job Lofty” over every other thing he does in there. I get it’s a kids game and I don’t mind a little encouragement, but hearing him say the same thing every few seconds makes the mini-game somewhat annoying to play. And I am sure the other mini-games are like this too, but I got rid of this game a LONG time ago and haven’t played it since who knows when, so I don’t know any other examples.

NASCAR ‘99. Just casually playing the game, the announcers have a nasty habit of repeating themselves constantly sometimes, sometimes only mere seconds later. God forbid if you start driving backwards, they will have a stroke and will do it FAR more than usual. I feel like they didn’t record enough dialogue for this game, otherwise, it may not have been so bad,

Ridge Racer Type 4. The announcer in this game is typically pretty mello and not at all annoying, but he takes on a whole new personality in time trial mode. Every time you drive through a checkpoint, he either says “Sweet! You really ripped through that section!” or “My grandma drives faster than that, get with the program!”. It gets annoying very fast, probably one of the most annoying examples on here, and it’s even worse when you’re driving a fast car on a small track where all the checkpoints are so close together. It makes me not even want to play that game mode simply because of it. I am sure I can turn him down a bit or perhaps turn him off entirely, but it’s been so long since I played the game again, I don’t even remember if that’s an option.

Tigger’s Honey Hunt. 2 examples:
1. Something that bugged me as kid with this game and still bugs me as an adult is at the end of every level, Owl says the same lines of dialogue every single time. Could they not have just recorded a few more lines instead of repeating them in every level? A little more variety would have been nice.

2. When replaying the levels, unless you choose time trial, you are forced to listen to all the characters every single time you play the level and what’s worse is you can’t skip it either. I don’t need to be reminded of the abilities I already have every single time Owl, now please, just stop!

COD Zombies. Oh gosh, where do I begin?
1. In Black Ops 1, I can remember if you run out of ammo, the characters will nag you constantly about not having ammo if you run out of it. Heck, if you so much as cycle over a weapon that has no ammo for even half a second, they’ll make a remark about it. It gets pretty tiring having to hear them comment about it every few seconds and I’d be happier if they spoke a little less. I think this could be said for the other COD zombies games, but BO1 is the only one I remember being really bad about it.

2. In Black Ops 1 and onward, if you go out of bounds on some maps, the announcer will laugh constantly until you either die or return to the map. It gets really annoying when you just want to explore the level with hacks and having to hear that so dang much.

3. In Black Ops II, if you create a crawler on the map Buried, the characters will constantly remind you that The Giant can do something about them and it’s about as bad as the ammo thing I mentioned earlier. I get it’s intended to be helpful, but hearing them talk about it so much gets old fast, especially if you cannot do anything about it.

Toy Story 2. Some of the characters in this game, namely Hamm and Bo Peep will be scattered somewhere in the level and when you encounter them, they repeat the same line of dialogue every few seconds if you’re near them. While this is also intended to be helpful I guess, it can get annoying if you’re trying to do something nearby, keep failing at it, and having to hear them repeat themselves constantly.

Star Wars Battlefront (2004). For some reason, the Gungans will repeatedly say all their dialogue back to back without even stopping. Something is apparently wrong with my copy though because this isn't normal and I don't recall it being a problem in the past. I'd be happier if it wasn't there though.

I am sure I left out some examples, but point is, hearing the same lines of dialogue over and over again gets old after a while.

As an extension of this, I'd like to add annoying 'reaction' voice acting in video games. Saints Row 4 comes to mind - I always play with the Cockney voice, and whenever I pick up a cluster collectable, I usually have the displeasure of hearing him scream "YEEEEEEEEEAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!" - very annoying.

 

[Sonygamer455]

Cheating AI.
Who can’t relate to this? This is something I think I have had problems with for about as long as I have been a gamer. Sometimes when the AI has an advantage over you they shouldn’t have, but they do, it can be pretty frustrating. Especially when it prevents you from finishing something that shouldn’t be all that hard.

There are FAR too many examples I could name of this if I wanted to include every instance of it I know, so I am just going to mention some of the more notable ones I have seen:

Spoiler: Examples

Test Drive 5.
This game is one of the oldest, most prominent examples of this I can think of. It’s one of those games where no matter what car you choose, the AI always feels like it’s faster than you. Even if your car has far better performance than theirs, they will still keep up with you and even outrun you as if they have 250 more hp than you do. But of course, if you try to drive what they’re driving, you won’t get the same advantage at all.

Not only that but if they rear-end you, you’re likely to spin out. However, if you try that with them, it’s like hitting a bus. You won’t have much luck doing it to them, if anything, you’ll probably be the one that gets wrecked instead.

I love this game, it’s a childhood favorite of mine, but the AI is so frustrating and unfair, it’s always put me off from wanting to play it more often and the game would so much better if the AI wasn’t so insanely fast. I don’t think it’s limited to Test Drive 5 either, I have heard Pitbull is notorious for this sort of thing. I think Test Drive 4, 6, and Offroad 1 and 2 are like this as well, but I haven’t played any of them in a while.

The Need for Speed.
Arguably even worse than Test Drive 5 is the very first Need for Speed title on the PS1. This one also has AI that feels way faster than you when it really shouldn’t be, to an even worse degree than that of Test Drive 5. When you start the race, you can climb up to 4th place pretty easily, but once you do, the others in front will go very far ahead of you and you have to spend nearly the entire race catching up to them. You can have a faster car than theirs and it will happen every single time. Not only that, but you could be driving the same exact car as theirs and it will still happen despite this! What’s worse about is, unlike Test Drive 5, the AI makes no mistakes in this game. You pretty much have to be on your toes the whole time, driving as fast as possible to catch up to them while leaving little room for error. It kind of lives up to its name “Need for Speed”, albeit a bit too much.

And I hate to say that about this game because I really do think the first Need for Speed is a solid game and had it not had such overpowered AI, the whole game would have been so much better.

Gran Turismo 5. Theirs probably a lot that could be said about this game, but I can remember the expert seasonal events were some of the worst I can recall for this game. One of them being a B spec race at Sarthe where I was driving an Audi R10 Race Car and there was another just like mine in there. If I remember correctly, despite having a turbo that gave me an extra 200+ hp, I could not seem to gain any ground on the other car, if anything I think I was losing ground instead. This doesn’t make sense considering his car was the same as mine, but with no turbo installed. Yet he was still outperforming me even on the straightaways when he really shouldn’t have been. I get it’s an expert race that is supposed to be challenging, but that doesn’t mean it has to be obscenely unfair.

Twisted Metal Head On.
This game isn’t bad in this regard I don’t think, but it has one small thing that bothers me a little more than it should. Although I posted about it earlier, one example I can name about this game is when you fight Tower Tooth, you cannot freeze him, and attempting to do so yields nothing. Yet, when you play as Tower Tooth, they can freeze you. Not a huge deal, but I’d be happier if it wasn’t like this.

Gran Turismo 4. I am sure they're a lot to be said here, but it’s been a long time since I have played this again, so I don’t remember much. I do remember however in the supercar event, it only allowed for production cars, yet a Volkswagen Nardo Concept would spawn in the race when it shouldn’t even be in there since it’s a concept car. I can’t remember if it was exceptionally fast or not, but it’s still pretty unfair a car not within the regulations can make it in there.

Gran Turismo 2. Oh man, I think keen players already know where this is going. In the historical car cup, the race at Rome has a hp limit of 295 hp, however, despite this, a Ford GT40, a car with 305 hp, will sometimes show up when it really shouldn’t. I have no recollection of ever facing off with this car here, but I have heard quite a few things about it and I have no doubt it’s difficult.

Of course, it doesn’t stop there, there is a lot more in this game that MattJ155 talks about, which can be seen in this video, but that’s all I care to talk about here.

Twisted Metal 2. Easily the most notorious game for cheating AI that I have ever played. And it gets this title because the AI in this game will spam their special weapons and freeze missiles in an extremely fast manner you could never hope to achieve without cheats. It’s most noticeable in New York for some reason. While the game is not impossible, it is obscenely difficult and very very unfair because of this. As a Twisted Metal fan, I want to like the game a lot more, but the cheating AI just ruins what is otherwise a great game and it is the biggest offender I know for this.

I am sure I forgot a few and I could probably go on forever about this. Sometimes I can tolerate the AI cheating if they aren’t making it too hard to complete but when the game becomes much harder than should because of this, that can easily ruin the whole experience sometimes.

 

[Com Fox]

Cheating AI.
Who can’t relate to this? This is something I think I have had problems with for about as long as I have been a gamer. Sometimes when the AI has an advantage over you they shouldn’t have, but they do, it can be pretty frustrating. Especially when it prevents you from finishing something that shouldn’t be all that hard.

There are FAR too many examples I could name of this if I wanted to include every instance of it I know, so I am just going to mention some of the more notable ones I have seen:

Spoiler: Examples

Test Drive 5.
This game is one of the oldest, most prominent examples of this I can think of. It’s one of those games where no matter what car you choose, the AI always feels like it’s faster than you. Even if your car has far better performance than theirs, they will still keep up with you and even outrun you as if they have 250 more hp than you do. But of course, if you try to drive what they’re driving, you won’t get the same advantage at all.

Not only that but if they rear-end you, you’re likely to spin out. However, if you try that with them, it’s like hitting a bus. You won’t have much luck doing it to them, if anything, you’ll probably be the one that gets wrecked instead.

I love this game, it’s a childhood favorite of mine, but the AI is so frustrating and unfair, it’s always put me off from wanting to play it more often and the game would so much better if the AI wasn’t so insanely fast. I don’t think it’s limited to Test Drive 5 either, I have heard Pitbull is notorious for this sort of thing. I think Test Drive 4, 6, and Offroad 1 and 2 are like this as well, but I haven’t played any of them in a while.

The Need for Speed.
Arguably even worse than Test Drive 5 is the very first Need for Speed title on the PS1. This one also has AI that feels way faster than you when it really shouldn’t be, to an even worse degree than that of Test Drive 5. When you start the race, you can climb up to 4th place pretty easily, but once you do, the others in front will go very far ahead of you and you have to spend nearly the entire race catching up to them. You can have a faster car than theirs and it will happen every single time. Not only that, but you could be driving the same exact car as theirs and it will still happen despite this! What’s worse about is, unlike Test Drive 5, the AI makes no mistakes in this game. You pretty much have to be on your toes the whole time, driving as fast as possible to catch up to them while leaving little room for error. It kind of lives up to its name “Need for Speed”, albeit a bit too much.

And I hate to say that about this game because I really do think the first Need for Speed is a solid game and had it not had such overpowered AI, the whole game would have been so much better.

Gran Turismo 5. Theirs probably a lot that could be said about this game, but I can remember the expert seasonal events were some of the worst I can recall for this game. One of them being a B spec race at Sarthe where I was driving an Audi R10 Race Car and there was another just like mine in there. If I remember correctly, despite having a turbo that gave me an extra 200+ hp, I could not seem to gain any ground on the other car, if anything I think I was losing ground instead. This doesn’t make sense considering his car was the same as mine, but with no turbo installed. Yet he was still outperforming me even on the straightaways when he really shouldn’t have been. I get it’s an expert race that is supposed to be challenging, but that doesn’t mean it has to be obscenely unfair.

Twisted Metal Head On.
This game isn’t bad in this regard I don’t think, but it has one small thing that bothers me a little more than it should. Although I posted about it earlier, one example I can name about this game is when you fight Tower Tooth, you cannot freeze him, and attempting to do so yields nothing. Yet, when you play as Tower Tooth, they can freeze you. Not a huge deal, but I’d be happier if it wasn’t like this.

Gran Turismo 4. I am sure they're a lot to be said here, but it’s been a long time since I have played this again, so I don’t remember much. I do remember however in the supercar event, it only allowed for production cars, yet a Volkswagen Nardo Concept would spawn in the race when it shouldn’t even be in there since it’s a concept car. I can’t remember if it was exceptionally fast or not, but it’s still pretty unfair a car not within the regulations can make it in there.

Gran Turismo 2. Oh man, I think keen players already know where this is going. In the historical car cup, the race at Rome has a hp limit of 295 hp, however despite this, a Ford GT40, a car with 305 hp, will sometimes show up when it really shouldn’t. I have no recollection of ever facing off with this car here, but I have heard quite a few things about it and I have no doubt it’s difficult.

Of course, it doesn’t stop there, there is a lot more in this game that MattJ155 talks about, which can be seen in this video, but that’s all I care to talk about here.

Twisted Metal 2. Easily the notorious game for cheating AI that I have ever played. And it gets this title because the AI in this game will spam their special weapons and freeze missiles in an extremely fast manner you could never hope to achieve without cheats. It’s most noticeable in New York for some reason. While the game is not impossible, it is obscenely difficult and very very unfair because of this. As a Twisted Metal fan, I want to like the game a lot more, but the cheating AI just ruins what is otherwise a great game and it is the biggest offender I know for this.

I am sure I forgot a few and I could probably go on forever about this. Sometimes I can tolerate the AI cheating if they aren’t making it too hard to complete but when the game becomes much harder than should because of this, that can easily ruin the whole experience sometimes.

The cheating A.I in Mario Kart 64 completely killed the game for me. I had no desire to improve my skills as the A.I will never not be up your tail or on 150cc so far ahead you legit can't catch up without hacking.

 

[Sonygamer455]

The cheating A.I in Mario Kart 64 completely killed the game for me. I had no desire to improve my skills as the A.I will never not be up your tail or on 150cc so far ahead you legit can't catch up without hacking.

I know how you feel. I only recently got NFS1 and I want to play that game a lot more, but the cheating AI just made me want to quit early on.

 

[RACECAR]

Cheating AI.
Who can’t relate to this? This is something I think I have had problems with for about as long as I have been a gamer. Sometimes when the AI has an advantage over you they shouldn’t have, but they do, it can be pretty frustrating. Especially when it prevents you from finishing something that shouldn’t be all that hard.

I know that feel. Currently making content using F1 2015 and while yes the Mercs are true to life when it comes to being overpowered, there's something about how they are programmed in the game where they feel less like superior cars and more like they have the classic unrealistic grip hack that only the AI have access to has been turned on when you scale the difficulty up

Also, how on earth are the AI seemingly godlike in the wet on some games? You the player are aquaplaning depending on how much power you put down at once while the AI is on a unmovable rail.