Video game pet peeves.

[Com Fox]

When console game makes you navigate menus by moving cursor with analog stick like a mouse.

Why.

Most of the time. The game is designed with a keyboard and mouse in mind and can't be bothered changing it when a console port comes along where a controller makes it incovient.

The best of both worlds would be a circle menu system which follows either the direction of your stuck or where your mouse curser is at

 

[ElectricNaz]

Iterative full priced updates. See most series sports games for examples. I won't even play Fifa until April each year when it's free or £13. If it was £4/5 a month to play maybe I'd be more keen, they get the same money for a full price game and I'd be more likely to subscribe if they did a good job.

Big games which pad out with fetch quests and stuff. Just make the game smaller, then you won't need to hire and then fire people so regularly. Keep a team and their expertise. And don't make us mess around on a horse for 5 minutes just to get from A to B. Yes it's great scenery but that scenery isn't worth my money if I'm just riding/driving/walking past it.

Any game where you can pay for better (more effective gameplay wise) stuff.

Console exclusives. I'm not buying a second console to play more games as I'm a casual gamer.

That's it I think

 

[Moglet]

When console game makes you navigate menus by moving cursor with analog stick like a mouse.

Why.

This is one of my biggest pet peeves too, I assume it's down to wanting to save time and/or budget but it's a really bad user experience. I can sort of understand it occurring on PC to console ports, but games that are launched on PC and console together really have no excuse IMO.

 

[Sonygamer455]

Being unable to view your current controls in-game.
This is something that has been bothering me with some PC games recently. Both Test Drive 5 and Re-Volt on PC have it where when you go to the controls section, you can't even view your current controls, it just asks you to remap them instead of just telling you what they already are. Okay, having the ability to remap controls is great, but this annoys me so much because I like to avoid changing my controls unless I absolutely have to, and in Re-Volt's case, you can't easily get out of that menu without unintentionally changing some controls. Being unable to see what they already are is a huge inconvenience for me and a pretty dumb oversight on the dev's part. Including a menu allowing people to see them can't be that hard to do.

 

[Moglet]

Being unable to view your current controls in-game.
This is something that has been bothering me with some PC games recently. Both Test Drive 5 and Re-Volt on PC have it where when you go to the controls section, you can't even view your current controls, it just asks you to remap them instead of just telling you what they already are. Okay, having the ability to remap controls is great, but this annoys me so much because I like to avoid changing my controls unless I absolutely have to, and in Re-Volt's case, you can't easily get out of that menu without unintentionally changing some controls. Being unable to see what they already are is a huge inconvenience for me and a pretty dumb oversight on the dev's part. Including a menu allowing people to see them can't be that hard to do.

So what happens after you've re-mapped them, does the re-mapped key not appear in the list? This seems like a hilariously bad way to implement things!

 

[Sonygamer455]

So what happens after you've re-mapped them, does the re-mapped key not appear in the list? This seems like a hilariously bad way to implement things!

With Re-Volt you can't even see the list apart from when you are configuring the controls, but the key will show up after you press it. Once you exit that menu though, you pretty much can't even view what you set afterward. I recently configured my controls for Re-Volt and it took me a lot longer than it should simply because of this. Even worse, our internet was down for a while, so I could not look up the default controls and I didn't have the manual either. If it just had a menu to let me view my current controls, it would have saved me so much time!

Edit: I looked at Test Drive 5 again and it's literally like you described here. When you go to the controls, it does what Re-Volt does and doesn't show you what they already are, instead it just asks you to set yours. What makes it even worse than Re-Volt is when you enter your controls, it doesn't even show what you entered on screen as you do it! You have no way of knowing what you even have in this game unless you just fiddle with all the keys on your keyboard until you find it because it tells you absolutely nothing about it! I don't expect much from Pitbull Syndicate, but this is ridiculous. 👎

 

[Moglet]

With Re-Volt you can't even see the list apart from when you are configuring the controls, but the key will show up after you press it. Once you exit that menu though, you pretty much can't even view what you set afterward. I recently configured my controls for Re-Volt and it took me a lot longer than it should simply because of this. Even worse, our internet was down for a while, so I could not look up the default controls and I didn't have the manual either. If it just had a menu to let me view my current controls, it would have saved me so much time!

Edit: I looked at Test Drive 5 again and it's literally like you described here. When you go to the controls, it does what Re-Volt does and doesn't show you what they already are, instead it just asks you to set yours. What makes it even worse than Re-Volt is when you enter your controls, it doesn't even show what you entered on screen as you do it! You have no way of knowing what you even have in this game unless you just fiddle with all the keys on your keyboard until you find it because it tells you absolutely nothing about it! I don't expect much from Pitbull Syndicate, but this is ridiculous. 👎

This sounds terrible, the re-binding function itself is by far the hardest part of this to implement. If there is a key re-binding section then the only reasons not to implement a screen that shows the currently assigned controls are lack of time or sheer incompetence.

 

[Sonygamer455]

This sounds terrible

Believe me, it IS terrible, especially with Test Drive 5.

If there is a key re-binding section then the only reasons not to implement a screen that shows the currently assigned controls are lack of time or sheer incompetence.

I have a strong feeling it's the latter.

If you need a more vivid idea of how it works, well here is a timestamped video showing how it is for Test Drive 5:

(couldn't find one for Re-Volt)

 

[shadow0460]

Games with no flexible "save" option, OK more challenging but can be so damn harsh unless you juggle your save files or use a manager...Minecraft pioneered this, and Ark: Survival Evolved has picked it up also. In essence you only save when you quit, but these are harsh, harsh games at times and you can lose hours, if not days, of progress, unless you cheat the system. Compromise is all, devs.

I know this post was made eons ago but it made me think of Enemy Zero. At the highest difficulty you had enough battery power in the voice recorder to save twice, maybe three times, and reload only ONCE. That game is extremely difficult even on the easiest settings, yet somehow I have managed to complete the entire 3 hour run on all four difficulty settings multiple times.
Enemy Zero is punishingly difficult but still fun to play.

 

[Sonygamer455]

Always online.
I have talked about features needlessly requiring the internet in the past, but something that bothers me even more is when an entire game is like this. This is something that has bugged me for almost 10 years now and that feeling isn’t getting any better either. While a few have talked about this already, I really want to give my thoughts on this. Some examples I have seen over the years are:

Spoiler

1. Call of Duty Black Ops. While the console versions aren’t like this, the PC version is and if I remember right, you can at least boot into the menus, but trying to actually play the game past that requires you be online. Fortunately, with some mods, I think you can enter console commands allowing you to bypass this, so it’s not the worst, but I’d certainly be happier if it wasn’t like this.
2. Call of Duty Black Ops II. Pretty much the same as the PC version of Black Ops 1 except theirs no easy way around it. This one used to bother me a lot years ago because when I had a lot of time to kill before class at college, I often played this game to keep me occupied and since the wifi at my college was notorious for not working at times, it meant I couldn’t play the game. Fortunately, I think Treyarch realized how stupid this was and gave Black Ops III an offline mode, something that its predecessors should’ve had from the start.
3. Need for Speed (2015). Easily the biggest offender for me. Every version of this game requires you to have an internet connection and be signed in because, without that, you can’t even get past the title screen. And it doesn’t just require you to be signed in on whatever client you use, you also need to have be signed in to your EA account too. On top of that, save games aren’t even local, they’re tied to your EA account instead. Even worse, when in-game it basically treats anything you do as an online session even if you’re alone, which means you cannot pause the game!
   
   This game really got a lot of backlash for being always online and rightfully so. Being unable to pause was a huge problem for me at times and the fact our internet and PSN weren’t always reliable didn’t help either. What annoyed me the most was when I wanted to revisit the game in recent years, I was eager to play it only to be reminded I needed to sign into my EA account, which I hadn’t used since at least 2016. So I had to spend about an hour trying to remember my login to an EA account I forgot I even had and then change my password just to play the darn game! It was all a huge inconvenience for me that I shouldn’t have to deal with.

Okay, in their defense, I understand piracy is a concern and it’s something they want to prevent, so it’s easy to see why they would put this in place. However, for the average person who just wants to play the game, it’s an annoying inconvenience because if you have issues with your internet, the service you’re using has issues or you get banned, you’re pretty much cut off from playing the rest of the game. And what makes it even worse is unless they do what GT Sport did by making an offline patch for it or someone figures out a way around it, that also means once the game goes offline, you'll never get to play it again.

 

[m355y]

I hate always online. Because you don’t actually own the game that way, you’re at the mercy of them turning off the servers when they decide to give up on it. By that I mean completely, 100%, don’t work offline games. Stuff like DIRT Rally 2.0 and even GT Sport you’ll always still be able to load up and play. I mean stuff like The Crew. I feel there should be rules against it really.

 

[Sonygamer455]

you’re at the mercy of them turning off the servers when they decide to give up on it.

You know, that was something I meant to touch on and I forgot to mention it. I'll edit my post.

 

[RandomCarGuy17]

I have to agree that making games always online, including the single player aspect is a huge sin that imo ruins gaming more often than not. Sure, a company could later patch it to work offline later as evident by Polyphony Digital and GT Sport (I imagine GT7 will do this too), but not every company will do this. For instance anything published under Ubisoft.


With that said, I found 2 other things in gaming annoying me.

1. Not being able to do controller configs beyond the default options they give you. Kinda a common thing I'll run into with older games of obvious reasons, but it still annoys me. I could be playing Gran Turismo 2 where I can basically use whatever controls I want, but then pop in another title and no options available. Though the fun kicker is that this still happens with modern games, some giving you a set of control options, but no custom setup available. Which really sucked on The Crew 2 as the devs for some reason made shifting up/down the top shoulder buttons and acceleration/brake being the triggers. Playing that game with manual transmission is awkward.

EDIT: One kicker to this is when it happens within the same franchise and developers. In Test Drive 6 on PS1, I can do a custom controller configuration. In Test Drive: Overdrive for PS2, I can't do it. Both in the same franchise and developed by Pitbull Syndicate.

2. No single race option or hot lap/free run option in some racing games. One example I learned recently was PGR2 having no traditional single race mode for when you just want to drive around with the cars in the game. Kinda a shame if you want to just chill and do a regular race in some cases. Also annoying when other racing games don't bother with a normal free run mode, not considering the fact you might want to test out how some cars drive.

 

[m355y]

The single race thing is a massive thing with racing (particularly rally) games and I've never thought to post it before. Example - every Colin McRae Rally game in the PS2/PS3 era. Nice games, good car list, lots of variety, no way to do a single rally. I think you could in Colin McRae DIRT but not any of the others. Just silly. If you're going to grind through the career mode to unlock cars, you want to be able to play with them outside that mode. The more recent KT WRC games are the same. Loads of classic cars in there, but no option to do anything with them outside of career events or competing against online leaderboards.

 

[BKGlover]

The single race thing is a massive thing with racing (particularly rally) games and I've never thought to post it before. Example - every Colin McRae Rally game in the PS2/PS3 era. Nice games, good car list, lots of variety, no way to do a single rally. I think you could in Colin McRae DIRT but not any of the others. Just silly. If you're going to grind through the career mode to unlock cars, you want to be able to play with them outside that mode. The more recent KT WRC games are the same. Loads of classic cars in there, but no option to do anything with them outside of career events or competing against online leaderboards.

I can confirm that whole rallies aren't really a thing outside of the campaigns, but CMR3 and Dirt 1 do allow for individual stages to be run. It's not much better, but it is something.

I'm gonna take a weird tangent with this subject for a moment.
Aging
Be it well, poorly, or our own humanity, it screws up so much. I love GRID 1, but it's hard to get back into now due to setup and having to reset my brain to race competently again. No matter how good older GTAs are, they're hard to look at now, and having to relearn old mapping is enough for most to give up.

Then there's games that with hindsight, even if fun, had glaring faults that made going back to them a chore. Test Drive comes to mind, as even at the time I remember questioning lots of all the PS1 games. They had their fun, but it was very of-the-moment and now the physics and gameplay...exist.

Then there me evolving into "old" status, as not only do I have little interest in the current situation, but I also seem to have both rose tints and a faulty brain that can't cope with even the old games I did like.

Now if you'll excuse me, I'm late for yelling at clouds and remembering mundane stuff wrong.

 

[m355y]

Colin McRae DiRT does allow a single rally, through the Championship mode, you can do them all individually, seven stages plus one superspecial, just checked. It’s something I wish was in the following two.

 

[Sonygamer455]

I have to agree that making games always online, including the single player aspect is a huge sin that imo ruins gaming more often than not.

Indeed it does.

Sure, a company could later patch it to work offline later as evident by Polyphony Digital and GT Sport (I imagine GT7 will do this too), but not every company will do this. For instance anything published under Ubisoft.

Yeah, and I shudder to see what will become of Need for Speed (2015) when the servers are shut down.

1. Not being able to do controller configs beyond the default options they give you.

This was something that was bugging me recently with Black Ops 1 and 2 on PC with its controller configuration options. I really wanted to set R1 as the fire button and R2 for grenades since it was what I was used to on PS3, but it straight up didn't have that option. Unfortunately trying to change my config with Steam Input to do this led to some unusual side effects, so I had to settle for what the game had. Yet, go figure, Black Ops III had a config like this already, when it was the one game I didn't really need it for.

2. No single race option or hot lap/free run option in some racing games. One example I learned recently was PGR2 having no traditional single race mode for when you just want to drive around with the cars in the game. Kinda a shame if you want to just chill and do a regular race in some cases.

I feel you there. The Dukes of Hazzard Racing for Home is kind of like this, but what's so strange about it is the quick race option is split-screen only, they don't even have it for single player. Which is something I never understood.

Thinking about it now, Need for Speed (2015) is another because it lacks a quick race mode entirely. The only way you can try out certain cars is by buying them in career, which is bad. Not only do you have to spend time getting the money to do it, but you also have the ridiculously small garage space that really discourages you from wanting to do so. It should have just had a quick race mode like many of the ones from the past.

Also annoying when other racing games don't bother with a normal free run mode, not considering the fact you might want to test out how some cars drive.

This too! Something I never understood about NFS is in Underground 2 they took the time to add a free run option in quick race but never did it again afterward. And I feel like they easily could have because I saw a mod for Most Wanted that did just that.

 

[WanganDream]

This may be a criticism of a specific game, but even among games that are always online, I especially dislike games that have forced kicks from the server.

Of course, I can understand why developers would introduce such a system. It is a measure against players who abuse AFK to intentionally disrupt other players' gameplay, and in a game where thousands to tens of thousands of players are constantly accessing the game, it has the advantage of reducing the load on the server by reducing unnecessary access.

But these systems make me feel constantly rushed while playing the game, because I worry I might get kicked off the server even if I'm just taking a quick break to go to the bathroom.

 

[XSquareStickIt]

Giving this thread a quick skim, I think a lot of what's been said are perfectly valid complaints and faults. I just want to complain about something that ought to be really minor (?), but bugs the hell out of me nonetheless.

I put disproportionate stock in how a game feels to play, even if they may be turn–based RPGs or visual novels. As such, I DESPISE when a game and its menus are slow and clunky. What sparked off this rant was me playing through Ace Attorney Investigations Collection and replaying Pokémon Platinum. Why should a VN or RPG take so much processing power, especially ones entirely in 2D? When trying to save the game in AAIC, there's a good half second delay between me pressing the A button to select "Save" and the input registering, and in that half second, I just think my input hasn't registered, so I press A again, only for that second A press to save my game in a new file which I do not want to do because modern games treat save file deletion as though a nuke the world button, sometimes even outright denying players the ability to do it. I HATE clutter. It's a save menu; it's been done since the 90s, surely this can't be so difficult to get right in 2024?!

Ironically, it's another turn–based RPG that set this unreasonable standard in my mind: Like a Dragon 7 and 8. The menus were instantly responsive in the latest LAD games; you pull up a menu, and even before the screen can fully transition, the menu is already active and accepting of inputs. If you knew where exactly everything was, you can input a sequence of button presses without as much letting anything come up on the screen, and the sound effects of menu navigation still play, giving players instant feedback that their inputs have registered; it was THAT good. It's so intuitive and satisfying that it's just one of those things that there's just no going back from once I've had a taste of.

Because of the LAD games, I've developed a pet peeve for games that have the audacity, the bad manners, to show me a menu option before it's ready to accept my input. If I see something presented to me, especially if it's finished/not moving, then I assume it's ready for my input, and that's already me showing extreme patience in that I actually waited for the damn menu to show itself and stop animating. If I press buttons and the menu doesn't respond because it's not ready, I get puh–HISSED, as though I were talking to someone in an important meeting wherein I have more power than them, they show up in a suit and tie, and after I'm done speaking, I find out that they're sleep deprived and didn't catch what I was trying to say, forcing me to repeat myself. And I don't know from which part I'm supposed to repeat myself because I don't know how much they caught. That's what it feels like to save in AAIC, and that's what it feels like playing any of the Gen 4 Pokémon games all the time.

Anyway, this has been me yelling at the clouds for kids to get off my lawn. Thank you for your time.

 

[Sonygamer455]

As such, I DESPISE when a game and its menus are slow and clunky.

Stay away from GT5 then. While I love the game, the menus have a nasty case of input lag and I am far from the only one to notice too. NASCAR Racing is another as well, the menus in that game are about as slow as GT5's and IHRA Drag Racing Sportsman Edition is not only slow in general, but it might be the worst one I know for this sort of thing.

When trying to save the game in AAIC, there's a good half second delay between me pressing the A button to select "Save" and the input registering, and in that half second, I just think my input hasn't registered, so I press A again, only for that second A press to save my game in a new file which I do not want to do because modern games treat save file deletion as though a nuke the world button

While this isn't necessarily input lag, I did have a similar issue recently when saving my championship in NASCAR Thunder 2004 on PS1. I had accidentally saved in the wrong place and had two different championships saved as a result and the game wouldn't let me delete the other. I imagine this can be done on the memory card menu, but I haven't checked to see if it's a separate save or all just part of one big save.

 

[Hollow]

Quick time events during cutscenes.

Over the shoulder third person camera.

No option to enlarge in-game text.