I've played on my fair share of games over the years and occasionally, I came across a game I really enjoyed only for it to be completely ruined by just one small factor.
The one game that always springs to mind for me that fits into the above category is Warzone: 2100. This was a RTS game on the PC and PS1, set in a post nuclear war world and it was genuinely an excellent game. However, it was ruined by it's level of difficulty. The first 4 or 5 levels were fine and the storyline was just hotting up when you got to one level with a 2 hour time limit. I've played on plenty of difficult games in my time that tested my patience to breaking point but Warzone: 2100 took the biscuit. This level in question was impossible.... completely. I restarted the game on multiple occasions just so that (in the earlier missions) I could build up my army and resources in preparation for this incredibly difficult level but it made no difference. Eventually I cheated and removed the time limit and I was able to complete the level but it took me at least 2 hours longer than the game had given you.
Warzone: 2100 was a fantastic game with a fantastic game engine, graphics (for the time), storyline, soundtrack and gameplay. It was easily one of the best RTSs I have played on but it was utterly ruined by it's difficulty. And this was so disappointed. I love a challenging game, nowadays I feel games are too easy, but the difficulty on Warzone: 2100 took the proverbial!
What games have you played that were totally ruined by just one small aspect of the game?
Brilliant games ruined by [blank]
posted on 3/3/15
comment by Drunken Hobo (U7360)
posted 9 hours, 4 minutes ago
Tomb Raider, Portal, Metroid, Mirror's Edge and Bayonetta, all ruined by having a female protagonist.
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Fack off that was one of the biggest twists in gaming at the end of Metroid.
posted on 4/3/15
I wasn't being serious. Was a petty jibe at the increasingly common belief that all video gamers are pathetic, woman-hating man-children.
I'm only two of those things.
posted on 4/3/15
Comment Deleted by Site Moderator
posted on 4/3/15
Anyway, to make a sensible contribution, Gran Turismo has been ruined by auto-save & microtransactions (or rather, macrotransactions).
First step was in GT4 where they made the game automatically save any time you bought a car. So you could no longer spend all of your money to test a car, then re-load your previous save if you didn't like it. Spend all your cash on a rubbish car? Tough luck.
GT6 took it a few steps further though, and turned the game in to a total grind-fest if you want to earn enough money to buy the hyper-expensive cars. But the generous people at Polyphony put in a way to circumvent their poor game design - by giving over real-world money in order to buy in-game cash, allowing you to buy the hyper-expensive cars. The most expensive car in the game would cost about £130 if you buy it through microtransactions, or something like 30 hours of grinding in-game. It's why GT5 is the last Gran Turismo I'll ever buy.
posted on 4/3/15
I never got in to Tomb Raider. Got Tomb Raider III just as it came out, but kept dying to the spikes right at the start, then kept getting killed by a dinosaur or something daft in the next room.
I was quite bitter towards my mum about it, as she actually made me get it. Was getting a PlayStation for my Christmas, and it came with any 3 games. I wanted things like Gran Turismo & Metal Gear solid, but because they'd been out for a year they were about £30. Tomb Raider III was £45, so I was made to get that instead as it was "better value". Also forced to get Populous: The Beginning, which was utterly unfathomable to my 9-year-old brain. Ended up swapping it for my uncle's copy of World Cup 98, a damned fine football game.
(In the off-chance that anyone cares, the third game was F1 98. I actually chose that one, but it was thoroughly mediocre. Already had a far, far better F1 sim on PC called "Grand Prix 2". I'd still play that today if it would work on Windows 8...)
I did enjoy torturing the butler though.
posted on 4/3/15
@ Drunken Hobo,
I feel a lot of games nowadays have been ruined by the autosave function. I find that it occurs sort of every 5 minutes of gameplay time so no matter what difficulty setting you use, after each individual 'hard bit' in the game, it saves for you. Long gone are the days where you might not save for 30+ minutes which was frustrating if you died, yes, but when you completed said-bit you got way more satisfaction and sense of achievement.
I'm surprised that Gran Turismo doesn't offer the function of saving part way through an endurance race.
posted on 4/3/15
Fair enough DH, Can't stand the GT series at the best of time so that's just cemented my hatred of it.
Auto save can be a pain in the butt, but it has saved me a few times when i've forgotten to save and then the powers gone, games crashed etc.
The AI in the old racing games (RC Buggy) that suddenly decided, screw itIcan go 150 mph. Aaaaaargh
posted on 4/3/15
Mikey - that was one of the problems with GT5 when it first came out. There were 24-hour endurance races that had to be completed in one sitting. Were stories of people cooking their PS3s by having them on for days trying to complete the damned thing. After about a year they eventually realised it'd be a good idea to let you save during a pitstop, allowing you to quit the game.
Think auto-save has its uses, but it can kill the potential fun/mayhem of a game. I never use cheat codes any more as it'll save it to my progress and taint my save file. In games like Assassin's Creed it prevents you from going nuts and just killing a bunch of innocent people for fun, or trying stupid stuff that'll kill your character.
Just Cause 2 had a great auto-save function. It'd auto-save regularly, but you could also save your own game separately. Then when you load up the game, you get to choose to resume from your own save or the auto-save.
posted on 4/3/15
Ah, I'd not heard about people burning up their playstations!! I almost did that when trying to complete Micro Machines on the Megadrive.
I do agree though that the autosave is useful, I probably sounded like I think it's a bad thing, full stop. It's the extent to which it's used nowadays. I'm sure there's the option within games to turn it off though. I think it's more the fact that in older games, it did feel like a proper achievement getting from one save point to another and that feeling seems to have been lost to some extent in a lot of newer games.
At the other extreme, you've got Sonic on the Megadrive. I spent hours and hours getting to the final boss (with no save function / level codes) and then I got killed. That was absolutely devastating
posted on 4/3/15
Have to admit i love autosave, but i think its more important nowdays as games have become more complex. But it does depend on the game, autosave in resi/tlou for example is a very bad thing as it takes away from the game, however in certain games that have long complex sections can take away from a lot of frustration, there is nothing worse than dying after an often grueling affair and sometimes nothing to do with you (AC2 in looking at you). Also segments have become much larger in general with out so many natural save points.